Ewa Sipos

"We were ahead of the time. You are already with your husband and you have not yet said how you met him. Well, I graduated. I graduated in Poland and then went to a language school in London to get my certificates. At the time, it was such that wow. My dream was to know english, to go to England. It wasn't like that then, as normal as now, that all the kids actually know english. My dream was that I wanted to go there and go there, go to school there, learn a language and I don't know what to experience a little differentness. So I left the hometown at eighteen. It was such a very turbulent period, I experienced everything possible there, but I stayed there for the last three years, I made all the certificates and I met there among others, including my husband, who was from Slovakia. But… Did he do the same there? He finished university in Slovakia and went to a language school, where he wanted to know english and something else. And then we did some computer courses, I don't know what else. You know, it was because of a visa, we wanted to stay as a student on a student visa. This was even more complicated than it is now, because it was not the European Union. Well, there we met, but at the language college, but I had no idea that there was a Slovakia, so we spoke english, well. But then it was like that, right away, you went right away, went with him, or. Not. No, we lived there for another three years and, not like a married couple, but like partners. Well and then he was trying to work, he already finished school there in England, and he needed a work permit you know. He was also accepted into, into a job, a computer company, but he did not receive, did not receive… Hallo. He can't see you. Somehow he can't see me. But he didn't get a work permit, so in the meantime I went to Poland for about three or four months. I used to go to work normally, to work in the office somewhere, with the fact that we also said that there was a pause in the relationship, that I didn't know what it would be like because we would see. And he didn't get the job in England because they didn't give him a permit, so he returned to Slovakia, to Dunajská Lužná and went… Is he from here? Yes. And he went looking for a job in Slovakia, you know, but he found a job in Slovakia, and when he found it, he called me to come here to Slovakia, to live with him. So we went to live with his parents and. To Dunajská Lužná? Yes there, you know in a block of flats, in a two-room apartment. But it was such a shock because we used to live for three years, and then I'm in Poland too, I don't know how much, it took about three or four months, separately, and then we went to that block of flats again. And there I have already infiltrated, you know, into the slovak surrounding and I actually said to myself that my goal is to learn slovak and become one of them. Even so they don't know, not to see that I'm not, that I'm not theirs, you know. That was my goal, that I once… Hallo. Hallo. Can I ask for it again? The same? This too? And can you bring me one more yes. Well, then. And how long did it take to learn slovak language? You know what, it was very fast because in England I actually had czech friends and when you were surrounded by foreigners, there was also my goal to learn English. It worked quite well for me, that I was quite fast and I think it's also a musical ear, you know you hear it and you can then imitate the sound, actually, the sound is the whole song. Sure. And so, I had czech friends there and I talked to them so you know czech polish. And I've heard some such that ouh, some accent, some words and such. And since I grew up with Russian because my grandparents on my mother's side, they spoke in such a way as to do everything. Both in polish and in russian. So I also knew russian very well, I also learned it in my school. So I combined russian, polish, czech, which I somehow already understood in England. I came to Slovakia and suddenly some other door opened in me and actually ouh, that speech sounds so familiar to me and I don't really know, so I picked up some books that I actually wanted to know how to spell. You know, and so on. Then I went and practiced that “de te ne le”, because in polish it is “de te ne ly or lý”, and it's different you know than “le”, that completely it's different, almost the same, but different. And I'm saying it doesn't sound any different, so I went, you know. Sure. From that. But I think the first three months were so shocking that it was still audible, but then it started up very quickly and I was taking such a course, such a quick course. I worked in a slovak kindergarten and there was a need to do as a nostrification of graduation so that it would not be. So I went to a slovak course for another three months and I also took a language exam and it was so that you understand that I can teach slovak children as a Polish woman. And I don't know, I can influence them. "

"My father used to go and I think, like home for a week, that sometimes when he didn't even come, and maybe he stayed there because he was locked up, I don't know, so I don't even know he wasn't home, you know? Somehow that, somehow I don't remember this specifically. They closed...like that normally? Yes. They were kind of interned, it was so called that it was just ... but for that matter, I have it, I didn't experience it as a child, because it didn't limit me in anything. Basically just because you couldn't go anywhere, I don't know for example to England, but I didn't care, you know ... I was only ten years old. So, kids don't take it that way. As soon as I remember, my father was on such a business trip, that is, a trip, it was called a contract, in the Czech Republic, in… I was only about twelve years old then, and it was nearby Mělník, somehow. And I didn't know, he was there for half a year and we went with my mother and brother there. I have a year and a half younger brother… to father for two weeks. And it seemed to me that it was a different world, the Czech Republic. You know that it was four levels higher, if not more, for me. Suddenly it was there, there were the candies, and the ones, and the chocolates, and everything. And that's when I realized that “wau”, we probably didn't have it that much, you know. I didn't recognize those nice colored bonbons, so I didn't have that. Or oranges, they were just for Christmas, you know. There was one for me that was comparable to... a meta, and it was just the Czech Republic, you know. So. How long you were, how long. You were with your father. My father was there, he worked there and I went there with my mother and brother. And that was for a while. Well. There, he normally had some job that he welded. He was a welder, you know. So they probably made him out of the shipyards, they gave him a job somewhere in the Czech Republic, you know. It was just, some contract called it, business you know, a business trip for three months. Of course. Have you been there with him the whole time? No no. For two weeks. Yeah, two weeks. You know, only for the holidays, so we went through the school holidays in the summer. Well. And what kind of city was it? Mělník, by Mělník. It was called Obříství, some village. And I know that there was the river Vltava. Well, it was also that wow. I also liked the shops, that I liked the Czechs to have such a good time in the pubs as well. Because Poles just get drunk and then ... And they make a mess. Yes. They just scream, they fight, they drink just strong alcohol, they just drink vodka. And there that beer, they sang well, and I actually found out that ouh, that it doesn't have to be a mess as soon as they get drunk, you know. So it was so nice, very nice. Well, it stopped me that in the church, we went to church there. Beautiful church, it was so tiny and wooden and there were only old grandmothers. And in Poland, it's so national that churches are full because it was also connected to that political movement, you know. Of course, of course. All simply, there everyone went to fight. There the church was underground. Yes. And in the Czech Republic, it was like that oops, so that four grandmas. And I think that's what, why, you know. So… Were the parents believers? Yes, yes, of course. This is a cultural issue in Poland. "