Have you ever been greeted by a big applause upon arrival at the workcamp?
This is how the community of Monar welcomed our little group of
volunteers to their summer camp in Bachotek. Dancing around the
campfire to the sounds of Disco Polo, we celebrated the start of this
special fortnight. The following days went by swiftly with swimming
in the lake, kayaking, and enjoying Polish summer. Soon it was time
to go back to the community center in Wyszków, around 60 km from
Warsaw. Here we got to join in the everyday life of the community,
with its strict schedule: going for a run in the morning, breakfast,
morning meeting, work, second breakfast, work, lunch, integration
time, dinner, evening meeting. Especially important are the meetings
in the morning and evening: in the morning, the Monar philosophy is
recited together, the schedule for the day and the plan for work are
presented, the news and a quote for the day are read, and everybody
shares how they are feeling today. The meeting ends with wishing each
other a nice day and giving hugs. In the evening it’s time to say
thanks. Everybody says how their day was, and say thanks to the
people they had a special moment with, or to the kitchen team for the
delicious meal. The afternoon programme activity „integration”
means time spent together with a special topic or activity, like the
volunteers presenting their countries. For example we looked at
Catalonian christmas traditions or learned to dance traditional
Turkish dances, and learnt about SCI and its history.
Over all these activities, one could easily forget that Monar is not some kind of
summer camp for young people, but a rehabilitation centre for people
with drug addiction trying to learn how to live a drug-free live. And
then again, in other moments, reality became apparent again. When a
new person came to join the community, everybody introduced
themselves: „My name is …, I am addicted to …, I have been here
for 3 months”.
Another,
more light-hearted kind of urgent meeting took place on a birthday,
when everybody was collected under the pretence of discussing an
incident and collecting ideas for how to solve this problem –
serving the birthday cake and singing „sto lat”.
My
initial worry, as Polish has a reputation of being a difficult
language, that communication would be difficult and hinder our
integration into the community, was quickly dispelled. As I learnt in
this workcamp, communication is often possible without words, and if
not, there was always somebody helping to translate. Despite the
language barrier, friendships have grown.
Too
soon it was already the last day, time to say „do widzenia”, and
the last meeting to say thanks to everybody in this community for
welcoming us and letting us be part of the community life.
A
few days after, as I am writing this, I am still deeply impressed by
the hospitableness and the atmosphere in Wyszków. After all, the
philosophy of the therapeutic community of Monar and the SCI
philosophy are very similar in a multitude of ways: We live together
in the group and solve upcoming problems without regressing to
violence. The role of the community is important, it is a place where
everybody’s voice is heard and respected. We don’t have to
pretend to be someone else, neither the giant of our dreams nor the
dwarf of our fears, we don’t need to hide ourselves behind a
masquerade. We support each other in difficult moments and enjoy the
beautiful moments together. Together, we can find the path to inner
peace and to a new way of living.
I
would like to end this article in the same fashion as in the last
evening meeting: Thank you to all the people in the Wyszków
community for your hospitality, for your openness and for everything
we could learn from you, thank you Marysia, our coordinator, for
everything you did for us, and thank you to our volunteer group for
this good time, and I hope we will all meet again!
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