Last week, I was able to visit the Polish Embassy and learn some more about the current state of my family's home land. You may be asking yourself, "How can a kid with the last name Moximchalk claim to be Polish?" Rightfully so. But, I can answer that question.
My maternal great-grandmother was born in Poland and came to the United States in the early 1900s. Her last name was Burdalski which is obviously of Polish origin. I never had the opportunity to meet my great-grandmother, but my grandmother has kept the Polish tradition alive in my family.
Today, at basically every family function my family will devour traditional Polish cuisine. Kielbasa, golabki, haluski, and pierogi just to name a few examples. In addition to that, my family still uses some basic Polish language. My grandmother is called babcia (bah-chee) by all of the grandchildren and my grandfather is called dziadek (zha-zhou). This has always been a neat aspect to my family and it gave me the desire to get in contact with the Polish Embassy and set up a meeting.
I got into contact with a woman named Sofia (a traditional Polish name, it was the first name of my great-grandmother and the middle name of my goddaughter). She was more than willing to set up a meeting with me to show me the embassy and give me some things to take home to my family. I was looking forward to talking about the most important issues currently in Poland but, unfortunately, that did not happen. However, everyone in the embassy was very generous and they all talked about their homes in Poland. It was very interesting to hear from people who actually live in the country that has played such an important role in my life.
When my tour had ended, the embassy gave me a huge bag of gifts to take home to my family which will make some great, cheap Christmas gifts. I would encourage everybody to visit an embassy like I did. It was definitely one of my highlights in D.C.
-MM
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