Aug. 7
9:00 a.m. We head out of Krakow sharp on the hour. Projected bus time – 4 hours. I help Smike lose a game of Rook to Heather and Titus, and we finally break into the hoard of snack mixes for our first official Snak Mix Time!
2:20 p.m. Arrival in the beautiful mountain village of Wola Piotrowa. Rehearsal after dinner goes as well as can be expected for those of us who are directionally impaired. I slap my right leg hard a few times in hopes that physical pain will make some kind of brain connection for later. I don’t like to be the one choir member wobbling out of sync in the right-left, right-left “Alleluia” march.
6:52 p.m. There are approximately 15 people sitting in the auditorium built for 200. Oh well, if we’re double the size of our audience, it’s no matter.
6:55 p.m. People stream in and pack the church to the balcony. I remember that in Poland it’s considered rude to be early.
7:00 p.m. I think nobody notices that I switch stride from left-right to right-left 4 steps into “Alleluia”.
8:40 p.m. The audience is warm in the applause and I feel a oneness in Spirit with these brothers and sisters and am glad I am here.
9:30 p.m. I eat 6 slices of bread topped with ham and cheese and hardboiled egg.
10:15 p.m. Dervin enjoys effectively shorting his fellow choir members’ circuits as they get on the bus by asking them, “Can you count?” and watching gleefully as they struggle to find the hidden point behind this dark riddle. There is none, we discover later. Perhaps someone slipped something in his water bottle.
10:45 p.m. We get to our hostel and find our rooms through a black haze of fatigue. Unless it’s just our black-uniformed fellows.
11:15 p.m. Projected waking time – 5:20
~Maria Wadel