The last leafs hadn’t fall still. The late berries were still colouring the crown of the trees, almost naked. The grass was still remaining on the gardens, and the flowers that still brightened up the centre of the city, and the hedge in front of our house, and the ivy in the courtyard, all full of leafs, covering the shack for the skip.

All this life, that was still beating in the city, was surprised by the first snow. Now there are very few blades of grass that, frozen, achieve to stand out of the white layer. There are very few flowers that still remember us when they were beautiful. The city become white and black, and it will be like that during several months.

Welcome the winter.

Poland is one of the poorest countries in the European Union. For this reason, the Polish government pays for renting the Sun only during the half of the year. They switch it off exactly on November the 2nd. After Halloween’s party, the country is covered with a dense hood of clouds that will be opened again in April

The first week without the sun wasn’t easy for anybody. Many of my pupils got everything wrong, other got ill, other were tired, almost all sad. I saw on the street a man. With his head leant on a lamppost, and his face covered with the hands, he was crying with so deep sobs that it was easy for me to distinguish the movement of his shoulders from the other side of the street. “Calm down, it’s not so bad” I wanted to say to comfort him. But I couldn’t because, as you know, I’m not good enough in Polish even for that. All I’ve done was looking at him from the distance trying to hide my own sadness. Problems look disproportionately huge in this semi-darkness, like maybe they also look disproportionately small under the dazzling winter sun of Sevilla.

Some weeks passed through, and everyone of us seem to have recover the normality. It’s probable that it raised the sale of vodka, but the situation is already under control and the people don’t look so sad in spite of everything had become grey, wet, lightless, the colours less brilliant, the buildings uglier, we more pale…

Sun will work again in spring and, when we will see the green gardens all full of flowers, we would realize again that paying this price worth.

When I’m waiting for an important phone call, I look at the phone 30 times per minute. If I’m going out, I turn up the volume, and turn on the vibration, and I don’t put it in my bag, but I hold it in my coat’s pocket.

When I’m waiting for an important phone call I think I hear it ringing, even if I’m in a crowded disco with the music full blast. If I have it in the pocket, I constantly think that it vibrates, raises it’s temperature, burns my skin.

When I’m waiting for an important phone call, I don’t drive, I’m co-driver. I don’t take the metro, I don’t stay in places where I’m out of range, I avoid the places too noisy to talk, I don’t switch it off during the lessons, I hold it in the hand when I’m moving to other room or going to eat or to the toilet. I fill the battery every night.

When I’m waiting for an important phone call, I give a start when it rings, and my heart speeds up when I pick it up, and I’m disappointed if it’s not the expecting call and try to finish it as soon as possible. I check the answerphone just after hanging up.

When I’m waiting for an important phone call, and it’s delayed, I check from other phones that mine is not broken, I send myself SMSs from Internet.

When I’m waiting for an important phone call, and it takes place, I breath deeply before answering and pretend surprise when the speaker says who is, I make stops of some seconds before answering his questions (generally to make order in my mind), and I don’t say fast that the time they propose for a meeting fits me perfectly and that any other time (of the day or the night) would fit me anyway.

When I hung up, after the important phone call, I don’t cheer up: I rest.

I’m furious! I don’t know what shall I do to avoid being fooled. Probably they think that I’m not strong enough to complain, I’m weak!!

What has happened this time?

I use anti-age cream. I started using it long time ago, and I used up several containers. Obviously it doesn’t work: It doesn’t stop the time and I couldn’t escape from being one year older than when I used it the first time…. buaaa!!

Somebody knows in which office I can complain for this?

[Rafa]

Por un lado no me acuerdo de los tiempos del comunismo, toda mi vida vivo en el capitalismo, pero ¡me cuesta muchísimo aprender a vivir en el mundo consumista! Hoy las calles de Varsovia ya están decoradas con árboles de navidades. ¡¡Al principio de noviembre!! Es decir que ya nos obligan a comprar los regalos. ¡Un mes y medio antes de las Navidades! Y sólo no sé si es porque somos tan pobres que ya tenemos que ahorrar dinero o si porque somos tan ricos que podremos gastárnoslo durante tanto tiempo.
En el supermercado la cosa fue aún más dura. Aunque creo que no por las Navidades. De los megáfonos la misma voz repetía todo el tiempo la misma tonta publicidad/oferta. Y en cada esquina teníamos que probar yogures, chocolatinas y no sé que más cosas. Realmente me sentí muy perdido.
Pero lo mejor o quizá lo peor es lo que nos llamó la atención en la calle. De cada otra publicidad me miran tetas muy grandes. Da igual si anuncian un coche nuevo o un salón de muebles. ¡La tía tiene que tenerlas grandes y bonitas!

[Raquel]

Mi impresión es que es dificilísimo escaparse de las redes del consumismo. Desde la televisión y la radio, desde carteles inmensos en la calle (donde, tiene razón Rafa: TODO es enorme), incluso en conversaciones inocentes con nuestros amigos se nos incita a comprar. En fechas señaladas: Navidad, día del padre o de la madre, San Valentín… las personas que no manifiestan su afecto hacia los demás por medio de regalos, son consideradas “raras”.
Se han inventado métodos infalibles para modificar los hábitos de compra de la gente, para crearnos necesidades que de otra manera no sabríamos que teníamos, para de algún modo meternos en el gusanillo de la infelicidad por carecer de algo que, en otras circunstancias ni siquiera sabríamos que existe ni para qué usarlo…
Pero pensando de forma práctica, tengo la impresión de que es así como tiene que funcionar el mundo tal y como lo hemos montado: más necesidades implicarían mayor consumo, lo que significaría más producción, lo que está relacionado con la creación de nuevas empresas y nuevos puestos de trabajo, lo que hace mejorar la economía del país y de los propios consumidores… así que quizá se cierre un círculo del tipo: “consumir ahora para tener un futuro más fácil después”.
Alguien que conozco sacaría esta conclusión: en todo este círculo hay un gran perdedor, el medio ambiente.

[Raquel]
My impression is that is very difficult to escape from the trap of the consumerism. From TV and radio, from big bills on the street, and even in normal conversations, we are incited to buy. In very special dates, like Christmas, the father’s or mother’s day, St. Valentine’s day… if you don’t express your love by buying presents you are considered “not normal”.
They invented foolproof methods to modify the buying habits of the people, to create new needs that in other situation we would never know we have. They try to make us feel unhappy if we don’t have something that in other circumstances we even didn’t know that it exists and for what it is used…
But thinking in a more practical way, I have the feeling that the world, in its actual concept, can only to work like this. More needs may involve more buying, what may produce an increase in production, what is related with the creation of new companies and new jobs, what improves the economical status of the country and also of the consumers themselves… so maybe this is a kind of vicious circle of the kind: “we have to consume now in order to have a easier future for ourselves”.
Someone I know will have this conclusion: in this circle there is a main loser: the environment.

We used to do it with my family, on Sunday mornings, when my siblings and I were children, maybe since before my brother was born. We used to wear the tracksuit and go to the forest with our father, or with both parents, just to walk on the dead leaves. I even think that, if I try it carefully, I can reproduce in my mind the image of my feet (of different sizes as I was growing up), partially or totally immerse in that strange sea of dry leaves that flooded the park near my parent’s house, in Burgos.

For this reason, probably I loved the sound of the leaves rustling under my feet since my very first steps. But something I’ve always found fascinating was the process. I mean the change from those leafy, green trees, all full of life that singed with the wind, to that others that first had brown, red or yellow leaves, and after were naked and sad.

They told me that autumn in Poland has a special colour, and unique beauty. We wanted to know it on the last weekend, and for that reason we went to the forest with a friend.

The walk was great, beautiful; it fulfilled one of the objectives. We enjoyed the colours of the autumn and we walked on the leaves on the ground, like every year, but on other leaves and other ground this time. The pity was that we didn’t found that trees with a strong red colour that I liked the best, moreover when they make contrast with the evergreen leaves of the conifers, and the yellow ones of other trees. Here you can find some of the photos. One of them wasn’t ours, I stole it from Internet.

I couldn’t obtain enough information about the traditions and customs of the Poles on “The day of the death”, even when I asked to some of my students to write several compositions about that subject as a homework. Once one told me that they wait for the souls of the people dead on their families to visit them in the night, but I still couldn’t confirm that data.

One thing that I could confirm is that here the people eat one thing called “the skin of god” which is one of the most sticky home-made candies I’ve ever tried. It tastes like strawberry and you can buy it for form 0,5 to 2 zlotis.

We visited the cemetery in the night with the family of Rafal. This can look as a very outlandish idea in Spain, but here it worth. In Poland they have the custom of lighting candles on the tombs. I still don’t know from where it comes that tradition and either what does it mean. But walking on the cemetery in the dark but between the lights of those candles is a very unforgettable walk.