Read day 6 here

I spent a week completing a cultural exchange programme facilitated by the company Angloville, where I provided conversation practice to Polish adults near Bialystok.

I woke up at 2am last night, but otherwise I think my sleeping has slowly improved throughout the week. After breakfast, as I had some free time I went for a walk.

I loved the nature there. The trees were so magnificently tall. And it was just so quiet. The air is so clean. it was chilly this morning, but very pleasant. I went as as far as a Jewish gravestone before heading back.

At half ten, it was back to work where Kat and I helped Darek put the finishing touches on his presentation. He showed us how he was going to talk about his last holiday to Madeira. I’m sure he would go well. We also got some cute photos together.

(From left to right, Ricky, Jess, Elisabeta, Kal. I am at the back)

At 11.20, it was time for my next conversation session with Elisabeta. She made me laugh. Our conversation was supposed to be about entrepreneurship which involved teaching her the word entrepreneur, but she quickly dismissed it as a stupid word.

For the next session, I was with my chess-playing friend Voytek, but, of course, we just played some chess games. Although we also did some of the conversation practice too. We were doing a role play where we pretended that Voytek’s son was getting in trouble at school. I pretended that his son had been caught cheating at a chess competition. A following roleplay saw him booking a table at a fancy restaurant.

Then it was lunchtime. Today, we had the Polish equivalent of Hunter’s chicken.

Lunch was a good laugh where Kal was teasing Bridget. The two of them were flirting in their weird way. After lunch, Kat, Lydia and I went for walk, where I re-tread the route I went earlier. It was just as quiet and as crisp as earlier. But we turned back when we saw a sign for wild animals. Well, the sign was in Polish, but Kat, being Bulgarian, can read some Polish and she recognised the word for animal.

At 3.20pm, it was time for the presentations. This was what the week had been building up to. Kat and I have been mentoring Darek to give a presentation in English. He did well. As did everybody else. Two of the standouts were the two Voyteks. The non-chess playing one is a man of few words, but he used this to his advantage. His presentation was about his life where he would display a photo of his family and simply say “father, mother, son.” The other Voytek spoke about one of his favourite hobbies – boxing, complete with actions. The others, like Darek, spoke about their favourite holidays.

Once we had finished, I had the bright idea of asking Tyler if I could photograph the conversation topic cards, as they would be a great resource for my own lessons. He was only too happy to oblige. I have since used these cards in my lessons. They have been helpful.

At five, it was another conversation session where I spoke with Magda about gender roles and how they’ve changed over time. Both of us agreed that modern-day gender roles are a lot more fluid. it’s fine for women to be the bread-winner and for the man to do the domestic duties. Do what makes you happy.

Out final session at six was just a bit of fun. I was grouped with Adele, Piotr and Elvira. We were allowed to drink as well, so Piotr kindly bought us a round – although maybe I took the piss by ordering a Manhattan cocktail.

Our final task was a photo treasure hunt where we had to take some silly photos of things like “an animal, something beautiful, something big, something beginning with E,” etc etc. You can see our group picture where we crossed off six or seven of the criteria. Otherwise, we just took silly pics and had good fun.

(Left to right: Me, Adele, Piotr, Elvia, with Bebe, and Tyler)

(Kat and I)

(Adele, Ricky and I)

At seven, it was time for our final ceremony, where we had a little party. Everybody was awarded certificates for their hard work. It was good craic.

(Kat, Darek and I)

Tyler (being hugged by me) Kat and Darek

Front row from left to right: Lydia, Adele and Jess

Behind Lydia is Kat and from left to right: me, Kal, Piotr, Rick and Elvira

Then it was time for our last supper. After a week of waiting, we finally had our pierogi.

Plus some vodka that Ricardo bought. And of course he was flirting heavily with Elvira and Adele. After we finished, it was time for Kat to spend one last evening in the sauna. And, of course, we had a little gossip about our fellow participants.

Kat also tried slavatising me by showing me the Bulgarian national anthem and other famous Balkan songs. But then shit started going down. Lydia came up to us going off on one about Ricardo before leaving. We had missed some drama, so we dried off and went to find everybody, but all we found was Ricky and the Polish participants. Ricky was pretty drunk on vodka now and he was becoming a loud and obnoxious drunk.

Piotr and I played some table tennis, but then Ricky took over. I beat him and he wasn’t happy about it. Yes, he shook his hand and was sporting, but he still was not happy. I could tell that this was a man who didn’t like losing.

Afterwards, Kat and I got all the gossip from Lydia and Jess. Sufficed to say that in Ricky’s drunken state, he made some nasty comments that really upset the latter too. He also pissed off Kal by getting in his face. Kat and I stayed with Lydia and Jess until midnight which was when it was time to go to bed. It was a shit end to a great day, especially when everybody was so happy earlier. Anyway, that’s the end of my final day on the programme: a day of presentations, funny photos and unnecessary drama.