Polish student Miroslawa Goreckameets hero Lech Walesa
I have been thinking about this for a long time. I will meet the former president of Poland, the man who has saved my country, who is well known in the whole world, respected by black and white, by the poor and the highest. Lech Walesa. And I am going to meet him! Could you believe that? Neither could I!
How to behave, what to say? Not every day you are given such a chance to make your dreams come true. And when finally that becomes possible, you cannot enjoy yourself, being afraid you are going to fall over or make a faux pas. Okay, easy, it will not be that bad, will it?
Noon
He has just got out of his limo. Tens of people are trying to squeeze his hand and have a chat with him. The members of Rehab who look after me push me in front of Mr Walesa, his wife, his daughter and all the cameras and microphones.
The first person I talk to is his wife, Danuta. I say that it is a pleasure to meet her. And forgot to say who I am. Good beginning. Someone explains instead of me.
The first question I am being asked is: Do you want to come back? "Yes," I answer. She turns to her husband to tell him that here is that person who admires him and wants to go back.
He laughs and says that I must be disappointed to see a small, fat guy instead of a great politician. And I have just realised that he is a normal man, who is not blind or proud. He jokes with the Poles, pictures are being taken of him. We feel we are talking to an ordinary man, but actually we talk to one of the greatest, the most courageous, the most determined. Thanks to him I was born into a free world in which I had bread, freedom and dignity. There is something then to thank him for.
1.30pm
I am at a lunch with the president. Sitting beside him and having a conversation about the emigration of Polish people.
I ask him what is his personal attitude. He tells me an anecdote about a guy who wanted to leave Poland during communism and go to the USA. He was asked to give him some advice. I would probably have said that it would be running away from a country which needed us to fight, as now it needs us to work and build it.
But he said that staying in Poland would not leave any chance for him to be something. And in the USA he can get much more and then use it at home. And obviously he was perfectly right. And it is sad when people do not appreciate his effort and that they rejected him in 1995 because of lack of education. People have not realised that education does not mean wisdom.
6pm
The banquet. I end up having an interview with him. I ask if he thinks that Poland is able to progress alone. He says we need the help of the European Union and therefore we need the Irish too. We need their ideas, their advice. We already provide thousands of well-educated, hard-working employees. We need to co-operate to create one huge solidarity again, to be successful.
I will always remember his attitude to life - there is no situation that is hopeless.