Miss Gienia

Reading
time 8 minutes

a researcher specialising in modern and contemporary art. She lives in London.

None of us knew her, but we all knew her name: Gienia. I don’t think I ever said anything to Pani (‘Miss’) Gienia beyond bez ziemniaków (no potato) or bez mięsa (no meat), depending on how I felt about the set meal that day. And yet, over the years, she has remained with me in spirit.

I went to school in an idyllic location – so idyllic that the building is now an old people’s home. Surrounded by a quiet, dense forest, the school mainly served the adjacent housing estate, where I lived, and the sister estate on the other side of the National Park. Children from the 23rd of March Street (so named after the day in 1945 that the resort of Sopot was freed from Nazi occupation by the Red Army) were brought over on a local bus, its schedule synchronized with the beginning and end of the school day. Herding rowdy pupils on board, the teachers would shout Kto na Marca? (“Anyone for March?”), and the recurring joke was that their cries would eventually begin to sound like Kto na Marsa? (“Anyone for Mars?”). Perhaps to the kids on my estate, so attached to our own community, life across the forest did indeed feel as distant as Mars.

Allegedly, Pani Gienia lived in the small detached house right beside my school – a

Information

You’ve reached your free article’s limit this month. You can get unlimited access to all our articles and audio content with our digital subscription. If you have an active subscription, please log in.

Subscribe

Marta Zboralska:

a researcher specialising in modern and contemporary art. She lives in London.

Publish date: 07.06.2020

Also read:

Łukasz Modelski:

writes historical reportages for TV and radio as well as books about the history of cooking.

Throughout history, shared meals and sacred celebrations have been integral to our social fabric. They are part of what makes us human, providing a timeless link to that which is sacred.

In 2008, the initial findings of archaeological research in the Galilean cave of Hilazon Tachtit, which had begun three years prior, were published by Dr. Natalie Munro in the esteemed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The highlight was the discovery of a “shaman’s grave”: the burial of a relatively short, ill woman who had died around the age of forty-five. In this and later publications, Dr. Munro—an archaeozoologist and anthropologist—employed ethnological methodologies which garnered significant media attention. The grave, dating back to roughly 10,000 BCE, is linked to the Middle Stone Age Natufian culture, which spanned from about 12,000 to 7,500 BCE in the Middle East. This culture is particularly intriguing for researchers as it provides evidence of the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and from nomadism to settled living, all within a confined geographical area.

Also read:

A Celebration of the Feast

Login

Register