Tomorrow Finally Came. Experiences as an Agricultural Advisor in Post-Communist Poland

188 Pages·2003·1.11 MB·English

by  Darwin G. Braund

Tomorrow Finally Came!
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Tomorrow Finally Came!
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Tomorrow Finally Came!
Published by Boson Books
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Raleigh, NC 27606
ISBN 1-886420-33-5
An imprint of C&M Online Media Inc.
„ Copyright 1999 Darwin G. Braund
All rights reserved
Secoond Edition
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Tomorrow Finally Came!
_____________________________________________
TOMORROW FINALLY CAME!
Experiences as an Agricultural Advisor
in Post-Communist Poland
Second Edition
by
Darwin G. Braund, Ph.D., P.A.S.
______________________________________
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Tomorrow Finally Came!
To Pam
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Tomorrow Finally Came!
Chapter 1
Tomorrow
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty place from day to day...
- Shakespeare
“Tomorrow! Your office will be ready tomorrow!” Director Kobylinski was
saying. Dr. Roman Kobylinski, Director of the Szczecin voivodship (province) Extension
Center in Barzkowice, Poland, was explaining a delay in preparations for our arrival. Of
course, today was yesterday's tomorrow when he had said the same words. His use of
“tomorrow” (jutro in Polish) was my first exposure to the widespread use of this word in
the Polish language.
I had arrived in Warsaw June 13, 1995, twenty-four hours later than planned, to
begin six months as an Agricultural Advisor with the Polish/American Extension Project
(PAEP). My scheduled departure had been delayed near take-off until “tomorrow”
because of severe wind and rain storms in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The Polish/American Extension Project (PAEP) was a joint effort of the Polish
Ministry of Agriculture and Food Economy (MAFE) and the Extension Service of the
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). It was conceived in late 1989, soon
after U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Yuetter, at the direction of President Bush, led a high
level delegation of government and industry leaders to Poland. The purpose was to
identify opportunities for U.S. cooperation with Polish counterparts to improve the state
of Polish agriculture.
I'd been assigned to the Szczecin province in the northwest corner of Poland. The
Baltic Sea forms the northern border while Germany borders on the West. The city of
Szczecin is the capital of the province, and I was located 60 km east at the Agricultural
Advisory Center (Osrodek Doradztwa Rolniczego-ODR) in Barzkowice. The ODRs are
located in each of the forty-nine provinces in Poland with up to eleven regional offices in
some provinces. The Barzkowice ODR had ten regional offices. Since the Project began
in June 1991 and until it ended in December 1995, over one hundred American Advisors
worked in forty-two of Poland's forty-nine provinces. Each stayed for six months or
longer.
The purpose of agricultural extension is to develop and foster bi-directional
linkages of communications and knowledge transfer between agricultural producers and
agricultural scientists. Extension is a unique form of non-formal education. Various
models around the world place heavy emphasis on the role of the trained itinerant teacher
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(extension agent or advisor) to carry the results of scientific investigation to rural
communities and to encourage adoption of technology through demonstration (U.S.
Congress, 1913). The demonstration model has been used successfully by extension
services worldwide because of its grassroots appeal and a high degree of acceptability
due to its focus on problem solving.
During training sessions at Washington, DC, in mid-May and upon arrival in
Warsaw, the teams were urged to work on what was needed in the provinces, as
determined by local needs assessments, and NOT on what the Poles or the Americans in
Warsaw thought important. The overall goal of the Project was to improve the living
standards of Polish farmers and consumers by helping the emergence of a strong,
effective, and economically successful private sector in Poland's agriculture. The
objective was not to impose a U.S. extension model in Poland, but to share ideas that
worked for us in our various states and shape them to fit Polish needs.
Following four days of orientation and training in Warsaw, I'd arrived June 17 in
the small village of Barzkowice after an all-day trek by bus and van. A hotel operated by
the ODR was next door to the Extension Center and made a convenient but very modest
“home” until permanent housing could be arranged. That would also be “tomorrow,” as I
was to learn many times.
The American Extension Advisors on this Project were assigned in two-person
teams to the various ODR Centers around Poland. Each team consisted of an agricultural
economist and someone with both administrative and other subject matter experience
who worked collaboratively with ODR specialists, region advisors, farmers, and allied
industry personnel. My teammate was Dr. Kent Fleming, a native of Massachusetts and
Agricultural Economist at the University of Hawaii. He stood 6'6” with a full head of
fluffy, gray hair and probably weighed at least 280 pounds. Thus, he was an imposing
physical specimen for the Poles unaccustomed to such large stature and dimensions. Our
host's number one concern, we were to learn later, was where to find a bed large enough
for Kent. Each American Advisor eventually had their own full-time translator. However,
Kent and I were initially assigned only one translator, Maciek Markiewicz, a twenty-
seven year old young man with no prior experience with either the Project or agriculture.
Arrangements for a second translator would be worked out “tomorrow.”
June 19 was our first day at the office, so to speak. The Director and two Vice
Directors apologized repeatedly for not learning earlier that we were arriving this
weekend. They were expecting us one week later. In fairness to them, we learned
eventually this confusion extended to the other four teams selected for the Project during
the six-month period. I was to learn many times how easy it was for communications to
be garbled in the multi-step process of English to Polish to English to Polish and reverse.
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Thus, our work offices were not ready, our cars were not available, computers had
not arrived, and our living arrangements were not finalized. Other than that things were in
fine shape. We would expect to report to the office at the normal starting time of half past
seven for a get-acquainted meeting with the Director at eight o'clock. However, we
learned that because the Director and the two Vice Directors were having their usual
Monday morning meeting, they did not wish to see us until eleven o'clock.
With unscheduled time available, Kent, Maciek, and I decided to take a hike to
the nearest village about a mile away. Being a friendly sort of chap, I like to wave at
people, but found such a greeting to be the wrong signal this morning. As a man driving a
truck carrying cans of gasoline passed by, I waved. He immediately came to a stop
thinking I was flagging him down as a customer. He passed us later on a different road
with a warning horn sounding something like “Yankee Doodle Dandy” to alert potential
customers of his presence. I certainly did not wave to him again.
Finally at eleven o'clock we went to the office building to meet with the Director.
He was still meeting with the Vice Directors. We waited for them as they seemed to be in
no hurry for adjournment. About a quarter past eleven he called us in to his spacious and
pleasant office with a sizable conference table. From then until about half past one we
seemed to have a continuing stream of different people joining and leaving the
discussions. There was no written background information provided on anyone. Usually
there was some kind of verbal introduction, but the translator was having difficulty
keeping up with the Director's machine-gun rate of speaking and I could never quite
figure out where the many visitors came from or what their responsibilities were.
Later that afternoon we toured the Center's computer facilities. Adam Boltryk,
Manager, took substantial pains to explain, with considerable pride, their computer
equipment and training facilities. Certainly modest by U.S. standards, we were to learn
later that the Center was plagued with a poor telephone system internally and externally.
Adam was the only Pole in the forty-member office staff who spoke any English. He
provided much needed assistance to me many times when a translator was not available
and became a good friend.
The next several days proved eventful. First, I got an office. It was small, but
quite functional, about 10 by 15 feet with a storage closet in one corner. My “desk” was a
plywood table about 30 by 48 inches with a side table 18 by 24 inches attached two
inches lower on the left side to form an “L.” This arrangement did not have any drawers.
A separate, small three-drawer cabinet on casters fit under the side table.
I sat on a straight-back chair with four legs and no casters. All the furniture was
made of plywood and painted black. The white stucco walls were newly painted. A
patterned carpet covered the floor. One end was taken up by windows facing directly
west. The two lowest windows were hinged at the bottom, tipping in at the top. Two
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larger windows above these were hinged on the side. They swung in, but required
climbing up on the window sill to activate. A new sliding, adjustable, vertical blind added
a nice touch. It helped keep out the hot summer afternoon sun. Both wind and rain moved
rather freely through and around the window frames. We soon learned not to place papers
of any importance on the window sill.
The second major event was the installation of a new computer. It had a 486
processor with 16 MB of RAM and was superior in capacity and programs to the one I'd
inherited at my North Carolina State University office just before departing for Poland. It
was two generations beyond the 286 processors in the Center. Adam Boltryk, the
Computer Center Manager, attempted to teach me how to use it in his very limited
English. My low level of computer skills and his relatively poor understanding of English
made for a very interesting challenge. He was exceedingly patient and understanding and
I did learn a fair amount.
The third highlight was to get a brand-new car. It was a Polonez, a Polish-made,
four-door sedan, equipped with four cylinders and a five-speed manual shift on the floor.
Because car thievery was so prevalent, it also had a gear-shift lock and an automatic
alarm device.
Fourth, I received mail from the U.S.! My own letter mailed “Dear Self” the day I
left to check mail delivery time was postmarked June 12 and arrived June 21. A North
Carolina Cooperative Extension Service (NCCES) envelope marked “Official Business”
from Dr. Pete Bromley in Zoology was mailed June 14 and also arrived on the 21st. From
this first experience with transoceanic mail, I concluded official business envelopes
commanded more attention—either by the U.S. Postal Service or in Poland. Subsequent
experience with mail showed an erratic and unpredictable delivery schedule ranging from
seven to fifteen days for personal, first-class air mail.
Fifth, I talked by phone with my wife, Sharon, and daughters Michele and Wendy,
at Michele's farm in Pennsylvania. I arose at four in the morning to call since it was ten in
the evening at the farm. Two attempts were unsuccessful and I left a recorded message
for them to call me about one o'clock my time the following day. About half-past one, a
call came through from them. I talked with Wendy and Michele, but was cut off in mid-
conversation. After about an hour of trying at their end, they got through a second time
and I talked with Sharon. It was great to hear their voices after almost ten days away from
the U.S.
Thursday, we left the office about ten o'clock for a meeting starting at eleven in
Szczecin. As usual, we had no information on who the attendees would be or even the
approximate number attending. Due to a late start and complications getting lost in the
city, we arrived at the meeting about thirty minutes late. It was on the fifth floor (no
elevators, of course) in a very pleasant conference room.
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One of the distractions about which we had been warned during our training was
the almost incessant side conversations going on while someone had the floor speaking.
At times, there was almost a constant buzz of conversations. At one point we counted six
different side conversations going on while one man was addressing the group.
I finally learned that this meeting was composed of ODR Directors from the
surrounding regions and faculty members from the Agricultural University of Szczecin.
The Rector and President of the Academic Senate of the Agricultural University of
Szczecin was Professor Dr. Marian Piech. He was a delightful, older balding gentleman
who spoke rather good English. He welcomed us in English and both Kent and I were
asked to introduce ourselves and give a brief background, which we did. Maciek
translated.
Of course, I did not understand any of the rather animated discussion which went
on during the meeting. When the meeting broke up about half past one, we had a private
meeting with the Rector in his office before going to a delightful lunch, which he hosted
for us. The lunch ended about half past two. We were on our own for the rest of the
afternoon because Director Kobylinski had surprised us by saying his schedule had
changed and he would not be taking us to some other scheduled meeting. This continued
the rather frustrating experience of having what we thought were firm schedule
commitments changed almost on an hourly basis.
On Friday we were to have a meeting with Director Kobylinski at half past eight,
but of course, that didn't occur on schedule. We were beginning to learn that prior time
commitments and schedules were rather meaningless. We finally gathered at half past
ten.
Saturday morning I puttered around the room and read in my “hotel home” while
we waited for Piotr Szysz, one of the two Vice Directors, who was scheduled to arrive at
10:00 a.m. He eventually showed up at noon and drove us to the Lake Insko area about
40 km away to look for potential permanent housing. What we'd failed to realize was that
Friday was the longest day of the year. In Poland and apparently in many places in
Europe, people have an all-night celebration. The Vice Director was two hours late
arriving Saturday since he had participated in the all-night celebration Friday night.
After returning from the trip to the Lake Insko area, I went for a long walk
through the village of Golina and followed a farm lane out into the fields. There were
many small fields divided by both wire and wooden rail fences with various numbers of
black and white cattle in them. Hay had been mowed in some of the fields. On my return
to the village, I met two farmers driving a tractor with a small wagon going out, I guessed
to gather hay for the cows. A small boy of six or seven was in the tractor cab with them.
Running along beside was a huge German Shepherd dog. When he spied me, he came
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