Scenes along the Mississippi River

At the language camps in Poland each of us is asked to do a presentation, preferably a Power Point presentation with lots of pictures, for our audience is usually 50-60 campers. One can't hold up a postcard, for example, and expect the kids to see it.

I got tired of talking about Minnesota and in some of the previous years I've done a presentation about other things such as Disney World and my 2014 trip to Bolivia. This year I decided to go back to Minnesota and will hope there is not another volunteer on the same team from Minnesota. Often there is more than one person from Minnesota and that is another reason I've started to do other subjects.

I can't talk about Minnesota and St. Paul without making reference to the Mississippi River. The river forms both the west and south border of St. Paul. And if you are surprised about south, this is one of few or perhaps the only place where the Mississippi flows for a bit from west to east rather than north to south.

I lived along the Mississippi when I lived in Winona and have lived within 1-4 blocks of the river during most of the time I have lived in Saint Paul. I thought the pictures library on my computer would have lots of pictures or that I could copy some off my blog -- my blog has photos that are held on two different computers. Well, I didn't find much that I wanted so early in Friday evening -- yesterday -- I enjoyed an early supper with my older daughter and then we took off to take some pictures. I thought I would share the photos here too.

But first, I wondered how the river got its name. I did a Google search and learned it comes from the Europeans' efforts to pronounce the Chippewa Indian words --Misi Zibi, which means Great River. How did a name from this northern area prevail? Probably because the Mississippi River begins in what is now northern Minnesota. The head waters are in a protected area, the Itasca State Park.

The water flows from a small lake across the rocks becoming a small stream. I think this may the only major river where it is possible to walk across the headwaters.

And this view explains a bit about the word Itasca. I've lived in Minnesota most of my adult life and never before wondered about it -- or thought like Mississippi that it came from an American Indian language. It turns out Itasca is made from two Latin words. The itas comes from the last four letters of the word, veritas. The ca comes from the word, caput. Put veritas caput together and one gets True or Great River.

From the head waters area the river first flows east and then turns in a southerly direction. When it  reaches Saint Paul it becomes both the western and southern boundaries of the city. Along Saint Paul is the longest distance in which the river flows from west to east rather than north to south.

For many, many years the Ford Motor Company had a factory right next to the river. It was sited here because the complex had a power plant that generated electricity by water power. That led to the dam being locally called the Ford dam, the bridge across the river being the Ford Bridge, and the street on the Saint Paul side being named Ford Parkway.

Across the river on the Minneapolis side is Lock# 1.

We drove a bit further south along Mississippi River Road and went downhill into a park.

This park area obviously a place for putting it and taking out a personal boat. It was also filled with people having picnics on this summer night. The picture of the dam above shows that I was high above the river, this one beside it. In this area the river flows through a huge gorge.

Somebody in the park must have been having an event associated with a wedding -- at least I thought this is why these balloons were attached to the park sign.

Down the river more, we came to the place where the Minnesota River joins the Mississippi River.

Again I was up on the bluff above the river. The Mississippi is flowing in the horizontal manner along the bottom and the Minnesota River is coming in from the right.

Across the river from here is historic Fort Snelling. This fort was established in the 1820s. It is right above the merging of the rivers. The location was obviously strategic. From this viewpoint one could observe any traffic going into the Minnesota River and then hence across Minnesota to the west, and observe any traffic attempting to go further north via the Mississippi. This part of the fort area is now operated as a museum. Other buildings in the fort area where active through World War II. The fort was deactivate many years ago, but there is still no agreement on what to do with these buildings.

Next we went to the area along the river where I lived between 2009-2013. This area is called Upper Landing. There we found barges tied along the shore.

Across the river here is Harriett Island.

Along the island shore are tour boats.

Also in this area is the University of Minnesota Showboat. This boat is actually a barge and doesn't move from this site.

Harriett Island also holds an area often used for festivals during the summer.

I couldn't figure out what this event was until I saw the sight below.

Ah, a gondola. It must be the Italian Festival.

Our last stop was at Lower Landing.

From here down the river for 4-5 miles are many, many barges tied along the side. They are being collected to soon begin transporting the agricultural harvest that will soon begin.

Hope you enjoyed these scenes along the river.

A Mano a Mano Day

It is often said that when one volunteers one receives more than what one gives. That proved to be true yesterday. The first event of the day was to act as a co-host for a prairie style garden along the fence at the Mano a Mano office site that was part of the Frogtown (a neighborhood in St. Paul) Garden tour.

My co-host, Ellen, is a major volunteer for this garden. She calls it prairie style because all the plants in the garden were donated from gardens by other volunteer and so not every plant is truly a native American plant. But is has turned out to be a beautiful garden.

The garden tour ended at 2:00 and I came home for a bite to eat and a nap. Then about 4:30 I headed off for a picnic for those of us from my church who do activities to support Mano a Mano. The hosts for this event live along Turtle Lake in Shoreview.

Last year I had missed this event because I was in Poland. Thus, I was searching for a place new to me. When I finally got there I found one had to drive down a lane away from the street. The house is built at the edge of hillside that leads down to Turtle Lake. The drive in was beautiful with wild flowers in the fields along the lane.

It was an evening of good food, great conversation, and thankfully few mosquitoes.

When I was leaving, and driving down that lane again, a deer ran across the lane in front of me. That causes me to wonder how on earth our hosts manage to have such nice flowers and also a vegetable garden.  Deers are usually all over those things.

All and all a very good day. And surely with all the good fellowship during the garden tour and then the evening event, I got more than I gave.

A very quiet July 4

This July 4th holiday was the first time I have in the United States since 2006! From 2007 - 2014 I have been in Poland teaching English. However, the American volunteers from Global Volunteers always celebrate this holiday in Poland. I remember one year when we decorated the columns at Reymontowka with banners and bunting in red, white, and blue. Then they stayed there for the next camp because this camp had students from France and Germany in areas that sister counties for the County (powiat) Siedlce. The French students used the same decorative colors to celebrate July 14 which in English we called Bastille Day.

However, this year due to my sore leg I had to stay home from the Zakopane language camp because there was no way I could handle the stairs at the hotel used for this camp. Also in April I encountered a troublesome tooth as well. On June 30 and July 6 I am working with a specialist dentist for this with another appointment on July 20 which wrecked my participation for another language camp.

Also this was not to going to be a family event. My older daughter, the one with disabilities, was getting ready to go to a camp for a week so she needed to stay at her home to pack and then get a good night's sleep. My younger daughter had a plan to first have me join them for a barbecue at a nearby lake. But then her husband got offered the chance to work on July 4 and I'm sure he earned double if not triple overtime pay. Too much to pass by. My daughter is taking a summer course for her graduate degree and decided it would then be a good day to do homework for her class.

In Saint Paul this is always a quiet day. Other cities and towns often have parades and other events, but this doesn't happen in the Twin Cities. I think is because so many people leave the Cities to go "up north" to lake homes.

The day started with very a hazy sky.

This is smoke coming to Minnesota from wild fires in Canada.

I turned out to disappointed with the TV program of the music in Washington D.C. It was too much pop music rather than traditional music for the July 4 holiday.

About the time darkness came to Minnesota, a few minutes after 9:00 PM, I started out hearing fireworks. I went to my balcony and noticed I could see fireworks from about 4 or 5 locations at one time. My view is from the what Americans would call the 7th floor, floor 6 in this building, since this building numbers the floors in the European manner with ground floor being Floor 0.

The official Saint Paul fireworks were to come from the nearby new baseball field. This is because the Capitol building in under renovation so it could not a site for fireworks this year. I have seen fireworks from there now on several Friday nights at the end of the baseball game, so I knew all I had to do was stand on the balcony. The fireworks were expected about 10 PM.

While standing there waiting I saw a helicopter fly into the area and land at the nearby Regions Hospital. This happens about 3-4 times a week -- maybe oftener, but that is how many times I see this. Regions Hospital is designated as a high level trauma hospital and also serves as a burn center for several Midwest states.

Finally the fireworks started about 11: 00 PM. I learned today the fireworks were so very late because the baseball game went to 11 innings rather than the usual expected 9 innings.

Here's a bit of video for this:

Unless miracles happen during the coming year I will probably also have to skip the Zakopane language camp. Perhaps I will do something different next year for July 4.

Adventures with Arthritis

My blog has been quiet because primarily I've been quiet. As I wrote while in Poland, my right leg became very painful. When I got home I saw the orthopedics office again and was told the first diagnosis of hip flexor strain was out the window, and I have arthritis, instead, to live with forever.

That wasn't good news. The doctor wanted me to try a new med regime for control and told me it might take 2 month to know if it was working. I couldn't imagine living with that much pain for 2 months. So that very day a cortisone injection was put into my right knee. That plus a new med regime for dealing with pain has been helpful, but I'm a long way from normal.

Tonight I did a three block walk, starting to work on walking 30 minutes every day. It took me 19 minutes from the time I walked out of the apartment door until I returned. Before this I could walk a 5k in about one hour depending on how many photos I had to take during the walk. Now it is nearly 20 minutes just for 3 blocks!  I sure would like to get the leg rehabbed enough to get back to doing a 5 k walk!

So basically the blog has been silent because I've not been doing much.

Catching Up on Teaching English

The last week we were in Poland teaching English was a week with "no down time" as one of my fellow volunteers said.

While others spent the final weekend away in Krakow, I knew my leg was no up to such a trip. Just getting up and down the steps at Reymontowka was a challenge. Instead I stayed at Reymontowka and did more work in the teachers' resource room.

There was one set of shelves way back in the corner. This one contained workbooks we used when I was there in 2004 and 2006, but we don't use those anymore so they went into the trash. I find a lot of textbooks from a school district in Wisconsin that were dated in the 1970s. Since the first volunteers stayed at Reymontowka in 1991, these would have been at least 20 years old when they arrived. But the most useless thing I found were math books from the "California series" with a copyright of 1959. How anyone in their wildest dream thought bringing such books to Poland to teach English would help escapes my imagination.

On Monday we were now down to 5 volunteers. Life got exciting on the Tuesday of this week. First May 26 is Mothers' Day in Poland so those of us at Cisie School taught only one class. Then we went to the auditorium in the school for the program. First I took this picture.

Then I discovered my camera battery was dead. I am still not used to how my new camera works. Apparently even when I don't use it, the battery somehow is powering some feature and running down. I used my camera to take a couple of pictures.

The students did dancing and singing. Their performances are always excellent.

Notice the 6th graders are wearing letter jackets for the dance they did. There is a huge misconception that the only dances done in Poland are folk dances. Nothing could be further than the truth. These are 21st century kids!

We really enjoyed seeing this. When the program was over the students all returned to their classrooms and then met their mothers there to give them the cards they had made for them.

Back at Reymontowka a group of professors from many places in Europe arrived for a conference. When we returned from our morning teaching we joined them for a luncheon. Then we all went into the what I called the Great Room and all were introduced, including the 5 of us. In reviewing the program which included my name

I found there were professors from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Czech Republic, and obviously Poland. The program listed research with professors from Romania and Latvia, but I don't think they were there. And the professor from Hungary was unable to attend at the last moment.

When we could excuse ourselves I went upstairs to plan my afternoon classes for the after-school program.

Then back at Reymontowka we changed clothing to dress up for a formal dinner held in the lavishly decorated tent. When I went down for the evening meal I didn't notice any of my fellow volunteers and thought I was first. I sat along side the wall waiting for others. Then one of the conference organizers came over to me and lead me to table where my fellow volunteers were present. Dorota explained this professor said to her, "This one (meaning me) is mine."

It was quite an evening meal with fancy food and drinks. The vodka was on the table along with soft drinks. Since I was taking ibuprofen I didn't drink any vodka. Once I put a picture on Facebook of a table ready for a formal dinner and people argued what was the red soda, thinking it was compote in the bottle. They recognized orange soda along with Sprint and Coke. So for this dinner I tried the red soda and found it was sparkling water with a little taste of strawberries. Very good.

Here I am at the dinner. Another volunteer took my picture but it is nice to have some proof I was actually in Poland.

The professor who said "She is mine" then arranged for me to dance with another professor and she told him to dance slow because my leg was a problem. That is exactly what it did. Another volunteer later said he was worrying about me dancing for a bit because of my leg problem. Another person took a picture of this and sent it to me via e-mail, but I've searched and searched and can't find it.

Both of us stayed at the party and watched the dancing, although later he was gathered up by Russian women who wanted him to dance with him. We enjoyed listening to the band that was playing. My fellow volunteer, who is 100% Polish background but coming to Poland for the first time,, was surprised that I could sing one of the most favorite folk songs in Poland which is as common in Poland as "this land is your land" is in the United States.

We had fun at the party. And it was amazing to see people from countries from Russia, Ukraine, and the United States all together because our governments do not agree with each other.

And a final note. In the United States many Polish-American communities spend a great deal of time teaching the Polka and doing Polka events, but I know the Polka is not a dance in Poland! It actually is a dance that started in Bavaria, which in now present day Czech Republic.  I saw proof. When the band played a polka the only person who knew how to do the Polka was a professor from the Czech Republic. All the people from the other countries danced, but did it differently than the polka steps.