Every Monday my host family would gather around the kitchen table to talk about sex. My host parents told me they hadn’t had sex for the last 17 years because they were devoting their lives to God. They also wanted to know whether I drank alcohol. When I admitted that I liked beer and wine, they told me I had the devil in my heart.
It turned out that
'They wanted me to help them set up a Fundamentalist Baptist church in my home country... They had already started construction work in Krakow'.
When Gromek (a Roman Catholic) declined to get involved in this baptist church activity, the atmosphere turned distinctly frosty. Eventually he was reassigned to a new family.
I'm not making any point with this story - except it made me laugh in a rather uncomfortable way. I imagine the young man looking all fresh-faced and aghast as these two middle aged people tell him 'we haven't had sex for seventeen years'... 'we have begun construction in Krakow'.