Right now I work here just odd jobs, like helping people move and sometimes I get 6 mounts contracts at construction companies. I am presently doing my driver’s license courses.

I am a little bored of this instability and my wife is also concerned because we are now expecting a child of our own. So I think I want to step on the same path my dad took, as a driver. Maybe not as a truck driver, I would prefer a bus driver so I can provide stability for my family. My wife is working as a cook in a kindergarden. She is finding it a little difficult with the language, because of our Slav oriented mother tongue. If we are fortunate, maybe we can finish paying for that mortgage credit in few years, so I am relative optimistic about the future. I am also thinking of something to do on the side of my normal job. I lately developed a passion for fishing and for football. I play at a local team, nothing serious but at least it relaxes me taking my mind of my worries.

I will say this though: the life here in the Netherlands is very different from my past in Poland. Things are much more settled here and the political stability and lack of corruption is making it a favorite option for me when I think of the future. I believe it is giving me many opportunities, the people are very nice and most of them are educated so I don’t expect any unpleasant surprises for my life in the near future. I wish that I had a more stable job because I don’t really like working a few months here and a month in another place.

Even though the situation in my country has improved a lot over the years it is still not good enough for me. But I don’t think my country has problems like this alone. I think there is a whole generation of people who left their homes to pay their credits. I mean this globalization of the markets and the “freedom of the market” has made life for us ordinary citizens more hard. In todays world the companies matter. The people don’t matter as they did before. In some countries taxes favor the rich and the normal John Doe like me pay through the nose because of corrupt politicians who are “in bed” with the rich, to our disadvantage.

Fortunately it is really not the case here in the Netherlands where although the taxes are very high, the system also protects it’s inhabitants very much. When I am without a job for a mounts I know I will be taken care of, until I find a new job and so on.

I can’t say I have everything I want but at least I am happy with my present situation and where it s going. I have made a lot of friends since I am here and although there is sometimes a sharp difference in opinions between my Dutch friends and me I guess you can put it on the rather different culture backgrounds from which we came. Even if I speak Dutch very well I can still clearly the differences in culture.
One of the most sharpest contrasts is how the individual is viewed and the overall view on society. Because my country was under the Iron Curtain for so long, the communists managed unfortunately to brainwash a whole generation of some of it’s values so I think it will be a rather long time, like 50 years, before we can fully recover from this trauma. But I consider my people as being hardworking people and really peaceful because of our catholic way of life back home, so we are very fortunate to have had it.

I was born in Poland in the city of Poznań in 1978. I was an adopted child because my biologic mother gave me birth and because she couldn’t have an abortion, not even in secrecy because of the state policy at that time, so she gave me away for adoption. Fortunately she was a medical student and my biological father (who I don’t know details at all) was also a student so finding parents for me was not so hard. But to be honest I never think about these details of my past because I was 3 months of age when I was adopted so I never felt like I didn’t belong to my family which adopted me. Fortunately, I had a loving and caring family, so I had from this point of view a normal family life.

My father worked as a truck driver and my mother with him at the same company for a long time, a very big meat company in the area. My childhood was still deep rooted in the communist way of upbringing. We lived in an apartment provided by the government belonging in a way to the company at which my mom and dad worked  by the way, it was a very good deal, getting a free home to stay, which after a few years when communism fell became property of my parents. They earned it too, working 30 years for that company. Almost all the neighbors worked either at the same company or at similar factories in the area so all the people in the area I grew, had a socialist worker mentality. I can’t say it was the best life a kid can have compared to the western world at that time because of the nature of communism and the lack of education for many factory workers which often spawned violence either in the family or with people around.So you can imagine that this lack of education and violence lead to some nasty aspects when living surrounded by people like this.

My father was no exception by any standards. He grew up in a disturbed family setting, his father was a drunk, his mother passed away when he was a kid so I understood his condition. He drank, not a lot, but enough for it to be a problem in our family, especially with my mother. Fortunately for me my mother had a far better upbringing in a very fervent crescent family so she was always a moral wall where I often leaned upon when I had doubts about decisions. She was and is always supportive, personally I haven’t seen many women like her. She inspired me very much because she gave me a lot of attention and brought me up in a strong catholic value system. She had also done over the years a lot of sacrifices in order for me to have a good life and that was a particularly nice thing about her, her commitment to that family and to family values.

My dad also loved me very much. Unfortunately when I was just 13 my father had a stroke, and so I didn’t really have a chance to have the full kid – dad experience but I know I was as I quote him: “the light of his eyes”.

I studied in an average school and had average mates. We would always get into trouble and missed some of our classes while playing football or doing other stuff so school was never my thing. I was very happy when I finished with it. Because of our financial problems during school my mother had to leave to work in another country so I stayed at home with my father. Not long after I finished school he passed away so I had to find a job to sustain myself.

Around that time I had met my present wife, and after a relatively short time we decided to get married. When you are young like that and in love we often make decisions not thinking of the future but I don’t know if that is a bad thing. We decided together to get an apartment so we contracted a credit at the bank. After a while the factory that I worked at was bankrupt so I couldn’t pay my mortgage anymore so you can imagine my situation back then. So I decided to go in another country, just like my mom did, in order to work so I can pay for that credit. So this is how I ended up with my family in the Netherlands.

I think I am a normal working person living in the Netherlands. I am also an immigrant coming from Poland. I ended up in the Netherlands because of circumstances and I like it here.

Back in my own country you could say I was a sort of John Doe. A guy working at a factory with family and day to day problems. I think we are the workhorse of society, the guys on the work floor. We didn’t like school or studying that much or it’s also possible that we did not have the opportunity financially speaking to follow higher education.

We are also the bulk of the citizens, the guys and women that are the target of political promises, taxes, influence and so on. We hold the whole system into place and also the most abused class of people sometimes. The people above this line like the rich people don’t have the problems we have which are often related to existence like putting good food on the table, education and so on, and the people bellow this line have too little too have worries of any sort. I think people like me are more stressed often than others.

Being an immigrant is often not so easy especially at the beginning of you stay in any other country other than your own. People look at you different because you don’t speak the same language or look different. It is also very difficult to find a job when you are an immigrant and with no high education there is a lot of competition. We often sit around for days waiting for someone to ask for our services especially since owners of businesses like doing limited term contracts so I consider myself in a disadvantage from others. I think nowadays people don’t have the stability that they use to have. Now it is all business…everything is privatized.

I know I may sound like a communist but that’s just how I see things. Too few people have everything and too many don’t have enough.  We settle with the necessary so I think we are very right in what we want. We don’t want 10 houses and 10 cars and millions. We just want a house and nice family so we can be happy. I think these are wishes which most people have so I feel very comfortable with what I want.

The whole society is built …or so people say… to serve the normal person. the John Does like me, people who pay their taxes and do not disturb anyone, and don’t steal from anyone and do an honest living. But sadly I think today’s society has forgotten it’s values in favor of things like technology and capitalism driven to an extent that it is no longer producing wellness for most of the people but rather stress and depression. In an age of speed where the normal person is rushed in every direction by others and everybody wants something from you, our freedom and I mean here the valuable one has been taken away. When the cellphone arrived they said it will make our lives easier but it actually made it more stressful, we are no longer free anywhere.

And this was just an example to show what I think of my subculture especially when you are also an immigrant in a modern world in a modern country like the Netherlands.