"Former NT mayor teaches solidarity in homeland" by Paul Lane

Former NT mayor teaches solidarity in homeland

BY PAUL LANE
lanep@gnnewspaper.com

    Few people get to visit Europe. Edward Wiater not only gets to go every summer, he returns the favor for a few lucky students.
    The former North Tonawanda mayor travels to Rzeszow (pronounced CHEZ-choff), Poland, annually with Pomost International to teach English to Polish teens. Every time he returns, he brings one or two Poles back for a vacation.
    Wiater, who now lives in Snyder, first went to Poland as a tourist in 1994. He decided to spend some time at a university in Krakow to study politics, particularly the changing political landscape in Poland, which was just coming out from under communism at the time.
    While in a student home there, he ran into some people from Buffalo who taught conversational English in a small city called Rzeszow, which is Buffalo's sister city.
    He tried it and got hooked, as this July will be his 10th trip at his expense to his homeland.
    “I've always felt that I can contribute something,” said Wiater, who worked in the newsrooms of the Tonawanda News, Niagara Gazette and Buffalo Courier-Express. “I do what makes me feel good.”
    Wiater helps students during a two-week concentrated English course aimed at conversational language.  During the class, taught by 15 teachers to about 120 students for 10 or more hours a day, only English is spoken.  “They have the basics,” he said. “Their problem is putting the words together.”
    Wiater can relate. Growing up, he spoke Polish and didn't know any English entering kindergarten. He honed his English skills by reading the dictionary during free periods in school, and didn't read his first serious book, “Red Badge of Courage,” until high school.  “I didn't have the slightest idea what I just read,” he said.
    Wiater is well-traveled, having served during World War II, studied Incan history in South America and worked as editor of the Caribbean News in the Virgin Islands for a decade. He first got a taste for teaching while in the Caribbean, having led several classes there.  “I was wondering whether I missed my calling by teaching,” said Wiater, a North Tonawanda High School and Syracuse University alumnus. “My God, what a wonderful feeling it is to impart something that's so important to that student.”
    James Harlos, president of Pomost, said that good feeling is contagious.  “It's difficult to convey to anyone who hasn't been there,” he said. “After you go, the experience of meeting these people is phenomenal.”
    The trip can be expensive, as the airfare alone costs $800 to $1,000. The lodgings, a former workers' hotel with no air conditioning, aren't luxurious either.
    But none of that matters.
    “What you get out of it is a large amount of satisfaction,” said Harlos, making his third trip this summer. “At graduation, there's tears and everything with the kids; the people bend over backwards.”
    That first year in Poland, Wiater wanted to thank two students who were particularly helpful by bringing them on a tour of Western New York. They declined, saying they couldn't afford it.
    He wouldn't hear of it.
    “I said all right, fine, I'll pay for you.”
    Wiater has brought at least one student back each year since, saving his pension checks year-round to fund it. They stay with him or other Pomost members and get taken on a tour of the area — and get to use those English skills they practiced back home.
    He remains close with former students, receiving numerous letters throughout the year.
    He responds in Polish if they write in their native tongue, and he writes back in English — with corrections to the letter they sent him – if they write in English.
    “I'll never stop teaching,” he said.
    He has a pair of twins lined up to bring back when he returns this August — if they are allowed in. U.S. Customs has been tough in granting visas to Poles since the Sept. 11 attacks, he said.  “We've got 2,500 soldiers in Iraq right now, but we can't get visas, and that hurts,” he said.
    Traveling to Poland has helped Wiater find his roots. He travels during off time there, and has found his parents' place of birth and even tracked down some cousins.
    The mountains have always appealed to Wiater, and he walks trails throughout Poland each trip.
    This, despite hip surgery he needed three years ago.
    “I got sick of beaches,” he said.
    He plans to backpack again this summer, although not to the extent he once did. A recent venture into the mountains helped him realize he no longer can go full speed.  “By the time I got back down to where I was, I was thoroughly exhausted,” he said. “My legs said to my head, ‘You're 78, not 35.'”
    He may go a bit slower, but Wiater won't stop. Wiater, who still works part-time for the weekly Am-Pol Eagle Polish newspaper, isn't ready, to give up his traveling or anything else.
    “If death is going to catch me, it's not going to catch me in my back yard. I'm not going to wait for it.”

Article: Tonawanda News - April 30, 2004