PAP28 [Our Polish friends]

Jarec and Woitech "at home"
(home being Seder Village in Riyadh).

Jarec up close.

Jarec, Gary, Woitech, Blogger and Dennis
at Zee Noodles (in Jeddah).

Dennis, Chris, Blogger and Jarec drinking the night away
at Baher Villas.

Woitech, Dennis, Jarec and Blogger infront of
Baher Villas (in Al Khobar).

Woitech, Blogger, Chris, Dennis and Jarec
at Chili's (in Al Khobar).

Woitech, Blogger and Jarec at a breakfast table
in Al Khobar.

Jarec, Dennis and Woitech clowning infront of a
sculptural monument (or is it a monumental sculpture?) in Jeddah.

Woitech, Jarec and Dennis along the beach in the middle of the
King Fahd Causeway linking Al Khobar and Manama.

Dennis, Jarec and Blogger along the beach in the middle of the
King Fahd Causeway linking Al Khobar and Manama.

Woitech, Dennis and Jarec infront of a
popular coffeeshop in Al Khobar.

Woitech, Dennis and Jarec atop the dunes at Red Sand.

Dennis and Jarec infront of a lovely-looking mosque
along the corniche in Al Khobar.

Woitech and Jarec at Diriyah
(I have always spelled their names this way,
I'm not about to change them now, or else,
I would have to go back to many entries to make corrections.)

This is going to be a tribute of sorts to Wojciech Binerowski and Jaroslaw 'Jarek' Kubicki - our friends from Poland.

They are experienced program managers from Lucent in Poland recruited to provide support to certain projects in Saudi Arabia. They came to Riyadh in August and meant to stay only for a month or two but it's been almost four months now and they're still here! Either they're really good or Lucent Saudi is that desperate!

But whichever way you look at it, their being here in Riyadh has been a blessing for myself and my Bebe, for in Wojciech and Jarek, we gained excellent friends. Notably, they have also become friends of our other close friends such as Rene, Chris and Rommel.

It's so rare for Filipinos to get quite close or attached to people from other countries. If we do, most of the time, it would be to so-called Westerners. And maybe for some, to Arabs. But to Polish people? Quite far-fetched. But it happened to us and we're the richer for it.

We've traveled with them, dined with them, drank with them, swam with them, gallivanted with them, shopped with them, joked with them, cooked for them (and they in turn, cooked for us), played hosts and tourist guides for them -- in short, we've been having good times with them. And it is such an interesting, learning, fun, joyful, fulfilling and enjoyable experience!

Being with them accords us the chance to find out more about the usual Polish factoids, and more importantly, about a real Polish person - his attitude, his idiosyncracies, his eccentricities, his mannerisms, his personal likes and tastes and his dislikes. Nothing seems to be sacred with them as we ask them a lot of questions about being Polish (although we also stop short of asking too personal questions or avoid pursuing questions that they appear not comfortable to answering some more).

In turn, they too have learned to be curious about us being Filipinos. And how they have began to love listening to Asia's Songbird and to Annie Batungbakal (at least to Toni Gonzaga's cover in 'Hotsilog'), eating Filipino dishes (but they still won't try balut though) and laughing at Filipino words (yugyugan and bonggang-bongga come to mind; they can't easily pronounce Filipino words and phrases due to the huge differences between our and their sounds)!

In a way, we've made our own small contributions to world peace via understanding of each other's cultures. We're both foreigners in Saudi Arabia and yet we were able to forge friendships not only out of necessity but more importantly, borne out of genuine and sincere desires to be simply friends.

In fact, that our Polish friends readily took to us like ducks to water, is the most heart-warming aspect of this friendship. So thanks for the friendship and a lot of other things besides!

They're going to leave Riyadh soon and for sure, it's not going to be an easy goodbye. But hey, we can always visit Warsaw in the future, can't we? Or they can always make a side trip to Boracay, can't they?

That would be the day! Bongga!

Photographs by Blogger, Woitech and Jarec.