GB No. 9, autumn 1992
It is pushing 10p.m. The animated conversation outside the window sounds a bit like Russian so I curiously lean out to investigate. Down in the street a young couple is striving to explain something to a man with a huge backpack. After a while he knocks at the door, introducing himself as an American - with another five mates of his waiting round the corner - wishing to visit the WORKSHOP. Apparently he got the address from one of the Polish green activists. "He can spare only four days", he explains ruefully...
As we turn up for work at the WORKSHOP one morning we see two people waiting for us at the gate. They have just come down from Belgium. The place had been recommended to them back home and they were visibly pleased they could make it. They would be quite happy to stay for a week to see for themselves how things are down here. Might do some hiking in the mountains, compare notes with us, that sort of thing...
The first snow this year has just lightly powdered the countryside. M. is tied up lecturing somewhere up north, S. has gone to Warsaw to attend some sort of meeting on forestry, J. is leaving for Hungary in a few hours and is now busily sorting out the pertinent materials, before he rushes out to catch his train. M. is back home for the weekend, the first one in weeks. It is a freezing Saturday evening down at the Wapienica branch of the WORKSHOP. The heating has been turned off to make economies while we can. In a few days time there will be another busy period and everyone there will have plenty on his plate.
An urgent sound of the doorbell. A taxi driver outside accompanied by a foreigner is quite desperate to locate M. He has just been to Wapienica but no luck there either. It soon turns out that our Western eco-friends have just sent over another enthusiast that "would not mind spending a few free days in Poland", staying down at the WORKSHOP...
Practically, there is no end to reports like these, all of them very much in the same vein.
It might be, that foreign eco-movements regard this particular form of social exchange as an equally important factor in their mainstream activities. Down at the WORKSHOP the modus vivendi is quite different though, and for that reason the Management of the Station for the Eco-Education "WORKSHOP FOR ALL CREATURES" would appreciate it very much if all centres of eco-information abroad refrained from including the STATION in their current tourist offers.
We are very happy indeed down here to receive the participants for the eco-workshops, or the people coming over to work on a specific assignment.
We can ill afford, however,to have the normal work of the STATION disrupted by a non-stop stream of un-announced visitors. People sending them over, especially the foreigners, are putting us all in an extremely awkward position, let alone complicating matters for the visitors themselves. It also delays important work at the STATION.
We shall be very happy to help out in every way we can, provided all arrangements are made well in advance. We welcome both telephone and mail inquiries on the addresses listed below:
WORKSHOP FOR ALL BEINGS
Modrzewskiego 29/3
43-300 Bielsko-Biała
tel. enq. 48/30/73-153
Private contact telephones:
Ms Sabina Nowak, tel. 48/30/77241
Ms Marta Lelek, tel. 48/30/29496
transl. by Sigillum Ltd.