The last you heard from me we were in Poland, just leaving our steam train adventure from Wolstyn to Poznan. We made our way to Servas hosts outside of Warsaw. On the route we see statues of Buffalo quite often. What does that mean? Buffalo in Poland? The idea seems quite strange to us. We are stopped at a traffic light behind a car with South Dakota license plates. Might not seem out of place to you, but we thought we were the only American license plates on the continent! Our GPS takes us to Michal and Joanna's place, on a treed quiet street...down a long driveway. What will they be like? Michal and Joanna are approaching 60. Their home has been in Michal's family for at least four generations. He grew up there, their daughter Ella grew up there, and now Ella's family is also enjoying this piece of property. I cannot remember if his grandfather or great grandfather built the house. Besides our hosts we are greeted by two dogs, Obie, with pushed in face and drooping jowls....and “Brown Dog” (as we could not remember his name), a chocolate lab. Then daughter Ella's family came out to shake hands...they have two fun young boys. The yard where we park our car has two 400 year old oak trees ...protected by the government and all maintenance is carried out by a department of the government. Then there is lots of lawn, not fussy, but lush and wooded park-like. The home is big and thick walled and European cozy.
Joanna made us a beautiful meal which we ate outside on one of their verandas. Lots to talk about. Joanna is an English teacher (literature) at an American private school. She works just enough hours to satisfy her need to use her brain and really loves her job. She either swims or walks every morning...and she is looking pretty good! Michal works in a building in his back yard, made to house his business, a sales and service company that covers Poland. He does this for a firm in Sweden that makes hand held remote control units for heavy equipment...for example; cranes that the steel industry uses, switching devices for locomotives. He employs two people, one of them being his son-in-law. Michal and Joanna are bright and talkative people with lots of insights and interesting things to say. We had a discussion about some differences in our cultures, and also the commonalities. Then human behavior in general. David: “Sometimes people seem actors on a stage, costuming, dramatics, choreography...trying to be like everyone else. OR they can be so beautifully innocent, unaware, no masks, no promoting. Unencumbered.” It is the latter that stops me in my tracks sometimes. That part of our human race has the answer and they don't even know it! They don't need to! Michal suggests that there are people who still use their brains to solve fix-it problems and others who call someone to fix things for them because they don't know how. In retrospect...after conversation...I think that the need to fix things because you have to, exercises your brain to act and solve. I am afraid that in general terms, if we don’t have to fix something, most of us chose the other route. Of course there are people who are just smart “fixers” and enjoy the process and satisfaction it can bring. Others use their brains to solve other types of problems. Thank goodness we are all so different.
Then we hear stories of occupation. Joanna said that all Jews did not go into the ghettos in Warsaw. Some decided quite quickly that they would not be put into that situation so they assimilated into the rest of society, to the extent of giving up the Jewish faith, becoming Catholic and changing family names, then swearing family members and friends to secrecy. Twenty years ago, she found out that she was a child of this assimilation. Her grandmother had told her mother not to ever tell Joanna about her background, thinking that the ignorance of this could give her a better and safer life. After breakfast the next morning with Michal (It is Friday and Joanna is working), David and I take the bus and metro into Warsaw. We are getting the hang of this and it is beginning to be fun and make a lot of sense. Warsaw was heavily bombed in WW II so it is not the old city that Prague is. But there is an old part that is quite wonderful. Tall buildings of different heights and designs all hanging together and painted in subtle complimentary colors. We walk the Royal Way that the Kings used from outside the town to the summer palace. We take an elevator to the 30th floor of the Science and Culture building (old and original) to a sort of catwalk we can walk around to view the whole city. The National museum is closed so we decide to relax with a late lunch/dinner and then make our way back to the metro station.
That evening, Michal tells us that the next day he will be going kayaking with his buddies on a local river. This is the sport they practice: Beavers gnaw at trees on the sides of the rivers and they fall in different positions across the water, some barely underwater, others at water level or just above, in different directions...sort of helter- skelter. The goal is to stay in your kayak and avoid the logs that are underwater...jump the ones at water level...and go under the ones that are higher! What next! Will it make it into the Olympics? Seriously, it is quite a challenge. They were on a section of a river for nine hours. Needless to say we did not see him that day! After a long breakfast and coffee and good conversation, Joanna led us to the local Saturday market and set us free. We were there to stock up on fresh fruits and vegetables but there were stalls of secondhand everything to pick through, just with our eyes. A large fun market. The Olczaks were so gracious and giving....besides being just our “cup of tea”. My favorite times were just hanging out together, grandchildren and dogs running in and out. We left their home with maps, directions and suggestions of a good route to take to Krakow. And a bag of apples...and a bag of walnuts!
We made our way first to Sandomierz, a town that deserves a visit. Our minds are on Auschwitz. We would visit it this afternoon, but first we drove through OJCOW, a lovely forested National Park, then through rural farm areas and very small villages. This area grows tobacco and some had already been harvested. The big leaves hung upside down to dry under the cover of large sheds. A smokehouse was busy smoking. Small onions lay in the field in lines, ready to be put in sacks. Chickens free-ranging on the road, running from our tires. Women in full aprons, made of quiet print fabrics...over layers of clothing, socks and boots...sometimes a scarf. We noted tall wood towers next to churches, maybe a different take on a bell tower. Several times I saw older men walking their bikes along the road, I think maybe using them as a walker. There is goldenrod growing everywhere. It seems that yellow-gold flowers quite often dominate. And Billy Goat Gruff appears in his long beard. Mounds that look a bit like haystacks are on fire under supervision. We guess that it is cleanup of the tobacco fields. An old man and wife walk carefully across a field with the help of canes. A hen and a horse are alone together in a field looking at each other. Are they relating? The homes along the village roads are old, but strong. Flowers are planted to give some happy color. Rickety tables and chairs are outdoors under trees. Sometimes a bench on the street next to the house, a place to watch the happenings of the day, or to sit with a friend and chat. It all looks good to me. There is hard work and doing without any extras but this is a fine place to call home.
A foggy morning for the kids first day of school. In big towns and the smallest villages they were all scrubbed and shiny and pretty excited. All ages. The older boys in suits and ties...most girls in black and white. The first day of school is really the day to catch up with friends you haven't seen all summer. It is easy to forget that you have to go back day after day and get serious!
Auschwitz. I am getting a little nervous. All of you know much about this place, seen documentaries or movies, read stories, maybe even heard some from a survivor. So I will not go into detail, only give some of my impressions. The gate to Auschwitz 1 says Work Will Make You Free... in an arch above, that must be walked under to enter. Such a lie. Always I was seeing as a Jew. A Jew coming to this place...though there were others. Gypsies, Poles, British, anyone who was a threat to the Germans. I looked hard at the fencing, topped with electric wires, two sets with a sort of runway in between. I imagined looking at them every day...trying to find an idea, a way to get through them. // I walked so slowly past the window of womens shoes thrown in a heap. All the different shoes they chose to be “relocated” in. Some so fancy, some so sturdy, some like slippers not made to last, some with heels too high for work. I looked and looked and imagined. What would I take with me? What would I wear? And how would I dress my child and what would I put in his suitcase? We looked at stacks of suitcases, stacks of childrens and mens shoes, piles of clothes, a gathering of kitchen utensils and dishes. Everything sorted...by prisoners of course. // In the quiet and on grassy green lawns, this place does not look so bad. What a nightmare. Rule: Only use the toilet twice a day and for just a few minutes. Wouldn't work for me. Sleep five across on a three tiered bunk on straw. Maybe the body heat from others would give some satisfaction ...straw would not work for me. Live each day without your children and wonder where they were and how they were... wouldn't work for me. Live without any dignity. Wouldn't work for me. BUT, I think some of these people put DIGNITY on the very top of their list. “You will not take my dignity from me no matter what you do to me.” There were photos taken of the “workers” in striped pajama uniforms when they first arrived, telling the date they came and the date they were gassed. Some of the men held their heads high with no fear. One woman was smiling. I smiled back and wrote her name down. Helena Biskup. Came in 1943 and was gassed in '44. // We followed our tour leader to the gas room and then to the crematorium...to the ovens. When I was in this place I took a picture of a part of the wall. My first photo and only photo. Nothing special, just a reminder that I had been there in that room. I looked at what I had taken and the image was blurry but it looked like bones, a spine. Shocking. // If you somehow did something wrong you were punished. I tried to imagine being in a cubical with a tiny window of air, with five or six other wrong-doers for up to 10 days...standing room only! There is the fear that I would be weak, that I would not last long in this environment. I don't think I would fight. I think I would give up (Unless someone needed me). // Then we went to Auschwitz 2. Much bigger and better! More intentional. Designed to make things easy. The train took the folks through the gate and there they were, already in camp... (Schindler’s List) The question remains always. What kind of death camp prisoner would I be? Could I stand beside those who were there and make the little life I had left worth something?
This ordeal complete, we drove to Krakow. The plan...spend the next day in the old city and have dinner with Servas hosts, Jan (John) and Barbara, in the evening. When going to a big city we always have a problem to solve. Where do we park (preferably free) outside the city where there is access to bus, tram or train? So we put our hosts address in the GPS and drove close to their home. As it happened, there was a tram line right there and tram number 4 was only four stops away from Old Town Krakow. We would be ready in the evening to walk to Jan and Barbara's.
Krakow's old center was never bombed. So, like Prague, it is in its original form to be enjoyed by all of us who want to see and feel the magic of the past. The square is very large. A large statue in the middle exhibits figures representing freedom. They are touching. Father and child etc. The usual restaurants circle the area so you can stop for lunch or a drink and watch the action. There is a bit of music but school has started and it is mid-week so I think we are experiencing a toned-down version of activity. First we decide to find the English second-hand book store. The map feels confusing so we take along the GPS in our hands and follow the moving ball. And here we are! We are able to pick up travel books for Austria and Switzerland and one for all the Scandinavian countries. We are still missing a Germany book. The book store is also a hostel and a cozy little cafe. Here we talk with Jan and Asia (Asha). She is behind the counter. She is young and dying to travel. Sometimes I think that we leave behind a little hope, a new idea for the future. We walk back to the town center through the park that used to be the wall and moat that protected the town. Called Planty, it is a lovely way to exit the old to the “new” or vice versa. This is John Paul II's home town. Everywhere there are reminders of him. We come across a very interesting photo exhibit, large prints hanging outside. These were photos of the Bialowieza Primeval Forest which borders on the watershed of the Baltic and Black Seas...to be specific, the Narew rivers left hand tributary, the river Lutownia. Here we find pictures of bison...they really do live here! And wolves, otters, deer, badgers, hedgehogs, wild bores, birds, owls, snakes and insects and much more that I have already forgotten. Wild garlic blooms white on the floor of a lowland hornbeam forest. Alder swamps. Growth that is familiar and some that is not. One photo depicts a robin (different and smaller bird than ours) feeding a much bigger baby bird, the nestling of a cuckoo who lays her eggs in any nest she finds...and lets other parents take care of her young! The exhibit was a good one and taught us much about another part of Poland. By now it is nearly the top of the hour, I think two pm, and time for the bugler to play his hourly tune from the town square watch tower. Many people come here because they have heard the legend that long ago, during a Tartar invasion, a watchman ran to the tower window with his bugle to warn the town. Before he had finished the warning tune, an arrow pierced his throat and there was an abrupt stop in the music. Today, the unfinished tune is still played in his memory. Usually the bugler will get applause from onlookers below. We walk through the Middle Age Cloth Hall which was where the sellers of cloth would set up their displays. Today it is set up for tourists. Jewelry (mostly made with amber), wood carved figures, hats, fabrics, scarves, traditional nick knacks. Upstairs is the newly renovated Gallery of 19th Century Polish Art. Two of the large rooms were particularly good. These artist's names and works are fresh and new to us. Good work. Especially that of Jan Matejoko. His style was looser, almost headed toward impressionism. Huge panels that tell the stories of Polish history. The renovation of the gallery is beautiful. I especially liked the foyer with elegant couches and tables. A place to sit awhile before going back to the gallery walls. This is only one of many museums with different themes. One gallery is enough for us. We are slow, taking our time in front of each painting. A short walk further and we are at the St. Francis' Basilica, John Paul's home church. The amazing Art Neuveau painted decoration of the church interior cannot be imagined. Done by two friends, Jan Matejko their mentor and teacher, they competed with their designs. It is a spectacle not to be missed. This city of Krackow's old section is a lazy place. We feel its easiness and wander the streets slowly. When it is time we board the number 4 tram back to “our neighborhood” and hunt for the apartment of our hosts. A tall building with no elevator, we are let in the main door and climb the stairs to the top floor. This would surely keep you in shape! Right away we are drawn to these people. Their home is like a loft...open, with the roof beams exposed. A row of windows near the peak to let the light in. Interesting art objects from travels. A large table to visit at. The kitchen... I did not even get a close look! Jan is a professor. He is 82 and still works at the Film School teaching acting. Barbara is a very successful theater set and costume designer and teacher. This home was once her studio. It feels like a studio still. We are being served a traditional Polish meal. First, along with our wine, we have a dish of appetizers. Some new tastes to us are sauerkraut stuffed into red pepper and then sliced...so you eat the pretty rings. And the other surprise...small pickle-like cucumbers, lightly pickled, just enough to make them really crispy. You take a piece of brown bread, using as a drip-shield, and dip your cucumber into honey! Our main meal was perogies, two types. Delicious! And also beet soup, with yogurt or cream in it. Small chunks of beets and the greens. Also delicious. Homemade plum cake.
And we talked and talked. Some of the comments... In Poland they are feeling their individuality and the capitalist style competition for the first time...The government supports the theater...People here are formed by their University education...Is there a chance that money might come to be the measure of success with the erosion of other values. Trust, respect, family?...Poland is Catholic and this held them together through the communist occupation and it holds them together now....USA, people are living in a hurry...USA, seems such a colorful place...Has the USA gone beyond need into want?...Poland is enjoying their new freedom. Since joining the EU they feel really free...Western countries may be getting their satisfaction from outside information, not from inside happiness and the feeling of being content...Americans always stood by Poland and it has not been forgotten...”I would prefer a King to democracy”...No listeners left, only talkers......Jan – I would like to declare that I love the USA!...There is more than the “me generation” in the states. No other country has the high level of volunteers. Another great Servas connection. So often we find that members are quite like-minded and a bond exists before we meet.
On to our trek to Romania. Some Krakow observations on our way out of town:. A woman dressed for work, a blond with streaks of orange and brown. Her black dress has an uneven scarf-like hem line. Heels. Upper middle-age women are showing off their breasts, in bras that push them high and in your face. It is hard for even me not to stare! Shocking orange hair is in, though most ladies prefer a henna color. Women are slim. Not an obesity problem here. Men are casually dressed in a US style. Except for old men who sport hats and sport coats or suits. Lots of male purses.
So before we leave Poland we take more small roads southeast. Unable to follow directions from Jan because of highway and road closures we plot our own route and set the GPS. Sights along the way: A man standing in his dirt field. He is staring at it. Beside him are four huge bags of onions. Is he thinking, “Was it worth it?” //Beans are drying on the vine so will be harvested when they are dried. //A Greek Catholic Church...all wood, with metal onion top. A group of parishioners arrive with brooms and buckets and clippers to work in the graveyard. //Every rural home has its own cement mixer and often it is in use. //Old fashioned hay stacks in the fields. No room in the barns so the farmers jam a tall sturdy stick in the ground and work the hay around it to keep it together from wind. //Boys are given men's jobs here. They are trusted and relied on. //More goats of all colors...white, and mixes of white, brown and black. We arrive in Cisna in the evening. It is a hill/mountain town of hikers and holidayers. A lovely green place. We have dinner on a restaurant veranda, Polish meat and potato type with beer. On the way out of town we sneak a look at the trains. There is supposed to be a good steam train ride from here, but we haven't time. We are hoping to make it close to the Slovakian border. Twilight haziness in the fields. Clean-up fires have been burning.
The Slovakian border. We stop for gas just before crossing as we want to get rid of all our Polish money. Maybe we can get through Slovakia and Hungary without getting new money until Romania. The border is Communist scary, big and bulky but no longer used. We drive through the Carpathian mountains and hills. Wooden churches mark the villages now. There are some pointed mountain tops that look like they might be volcano formed. A large castle is perched high, no roads appear to lead there. Old military planes and helicopters are put in place of statues at the edge of towns. Lots and lots of communist-built apartments. We enter a town and slow as usual (if we remember!) and encounter a policeman with a radar gun upon us. We slow more. It is not a real person. Only 2 inches thick. Fooled us! We drive through Hungary too. Just making a quick diagonal slice. The border through to Romania is in action! I had forgotten. We are leaving the Schengen area and it is Hungary's duty to watch the borders, checking for undesirables into the EU. We have to show our passports and also the registration/ownership papers of our car. They seem unconcerned that our license plates are American. No one seems to care...in fact they always seem happy to see that people from the USA might be interested enough to see their country, their town. This place is Oradea. We are in the midst of the ugliest town yet. Grey and dirty. Bad road. Industrial. Maybe I am being unfair, maybe it is nice in another area. We kept going. Gypsies on the road selling metal funnels...some selling large metal pots. Colorful and pretty fabric on their skirts and headscarves. The next town is different. Nice houses, painted and neat with garden yards. Vegetable and fruit stands are along the road in front of the homes. Just small ones, family ones. A few cars stop...a lady knocks on a watermelon. This is flat land but foothills run along both sides of us. Herds of sheep again, with shepherds I love the houses in the villages we drive through. They are nothing like ours. Their have a variety of traditional shapes and innovative decoration. Fences and gates are decorated also. The colors that are used are also different than we would choose, more gutsy, even their use of pastel color combinations. I like the difference. I like that we are not all the same. I love to peek through the fences and gates to see the yards. Always tables and chairs outdoors. Out buildings surround their “courtyard”. A place of privacy. A place for family and friends to gather. Grass and flowers and chickens and farm equipment. Most of these homes have a long slim section out in the back for cultivating.
Painted chef cut-out boards welcome those driving by to come on in! Different stances, different smiling faces. People gather in twos and threes by town shops or on benches in front of their houses...laughing and talking. Poor, but they have what they need? Happy with their lot in life? Many fruit and vegetable stands. We really are in a time lost to us. Two women in their farm work skirts, bring in a cart of corn. An old farm tractor, still in good working order, slowly makes it down the road with a trailer full of corn. The cars carefully go around...always giving the horses and farm equipment the right of way. A grandma gypsy with more metal pots for sale. Little children with her. Barefoot. Long flowered child's dress. Short “high-water” pants and baseball cap.
We are in high country. Maybe a pass through some of the lower Carpathians. It reminds me of the Basque region. It is exciting. I am in a place I have been before, an area that is all booths filled with “stuff” for tourists. All bright and shiny and enticing. Many crafts but also junk...beach balls and kids toys. Blankets, clothing, jewelry, lace, pottery and trinkets. We don't stop, knowing there is nothing there for us. The next town has many spectacular Gypsy Palaces along both sides of the road. They are huge gaudy ornate structures, not many finished. Metal pagoda tops, onion tops. None of them are the same but they are all “over-the-top”. The gypsies don't really live in them. They just keep building them. Show pieces. Wonderful to look at and wonder about for us. In Romania, because the economy is so bad, many houses are unfinished. Little by little as money is available they work on their home. In time, they are finished and paid for. The family can finally move in.
More sights along the road. A very old woman pulls a cart with a big container of propane in it. Women never seem to decide to stop taking care of themselves, they just keep going. They shuffle along at a slow pace bringing home a few groceries. Limping, bent over. Wiry and strong. Wood piles are full ready for winter fires. Hay is wrapped around a pole into stacks that will be more stable from wind and weather. An old couple harvesting and cleaning up their garden. Something they have done every year together, and their parents before them. It is sweet to see. Always the clothing is interesting, colorful and layered. Ornate Catholic churches made of wood are in every settlement. Valleys and rivers and red roofs peek through the clumps of deciduous trees. Children and grandma on porch steps preparing something...shelling peas? A job for all to do. Gypsy horses are tethered in places where there is plenty of grass. Near railway tracks...places that will not bother the rest of society. The sun is going down. Rain clouds hover. That would be welcomed by us and the locals. Gypsies in carts near the road, but in a grassy place, settle for the night. Women and babies are in the carts. The men are seeing to the sheep and horses, readying them for the night. They have hats of all shapes,some black with brim that remind me of some Mexican hats. They wear vests and pants tucked into boots to the knee. I wonder if the young men and girls would not trade their lifestyle or do they look to the “outside” and yearn for a different life. Now we are on a really good and fairly new freeway. Fast and smooth. The terrain is familiar, so much like eastern Washington's farming country. We decide to get off the highway and find a place for the night so we set and follow the GPS. What is wrong with this thing!? It has gone haywire! All we want to do is get off to a city, a very easy thing. There is nothing else here. But the off ramp is like a double figure eight but not so uniformed. It takes about 10 minutes to work through it. Later, we talk to Edith about it. Her theory: Whoever was in charge of that off ramp had friends who owned that land and in order to satisfy all of them he had to loop it around to touch all their lands...either the state was buying up the surrounding land or paying for the use of it. Very corrupt government. Also, the freeway stopped there. No more EU money to finish it. But, that is because the government squandered it privately on themselves. Edith says it only gets better for awhile when there is an election. They start doing what they should have been so the people will vote for them.
We spend the night in a town square. Lots of activity around us until late in the evening. A pleasant place to live I think. But we are off again early because we are to meet our friend Edith at 1:00 pm today and we don't want to be late!
THOUGHTS and OBSERVATIONS:
>Some things are universal, like blinking your lights to on-coming traffic to let them know there are cops in wait down the road.
>I actually feared going to the WC in Auschwitz as I had to walk through the gate (Schindler’s List) and over the railway tracks to get to it...and I had to hunt for it. I had this gnawing feeling that I was being tricked.
>Are gypsies ever religious?
September 7 thru 9
At one pm we are knocking on Edith's office door in the Cultural Palace, the symphony hall. The city; Marosvasarhely. So good to hug and laugh and just be with her again. Her job is a big one, looking after the needs of the musicians in the symphony...organizing, scheduling events, festivals, creating advertising materials etc. Her office is in one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever been in. Outside it is grand but inside it is painted, every wall and stairway. It hints at Art Neuveau but to me it looks like some of the Bilibin book illustrations...pages framed in decoration, for there are historic illustrations on the walls...big illustrations of stories. Painted strips like fabric decorative ribbon-tape along the ceilings, down pillars and around windows. And look up, the ceiling is magnificent. Every color, every motif. Such a delicious sight. It is the best example of painted decorating that I have seen. There are other buildings that compliment the Cultural Palace. I love this city. We take Edith a few blocks to her city apartment to pick up some things she has packed for the weekend. And then we are off to follow her, in her cute little lime green Opel. We are on our way to a village about 45 minutes away where Edith and her mother have a village house. The village is Hungarian speaking. Their customs are Hungarian. This part of Romania, Transylvania, was Hungarian before given to Romania in the spoils of war but it is still Hungarian to the people. They have remained very much in the past which is a delight to anyone who has the opportunity to experience it. This village is called Jobbagytelke (Yoh-badj-tell-keh). It is a surprise as we drive there, to see that it is in beautiful treed and pastured rolling hills. Gorgeous. And soon we are there, Aniko coming to the gate to welcome us. Edith and Aniko stayed with us a few days in Spokane so we have already formed a friendship with Aniko, her mother. We take both cars into the drive and close the gate. Everyone has a gate for car and farm equipment and one for people. First we see Aniko's garden, every inch planted with flowers and vegetables. What a happy sunny place! And we are going to eat from that garden, fresh picked in the moment! The house is original, the outside left as is except for some green paint on the porch. Inside they have made it a wonderful home. Much of the walls are white or very light colored to make it light and airy. They have put down new floors. Curtains are a white lacy valence and colorful flower patterns on the full curtains. Edith has enjoyed decorating. It is definitely a summery place to spend lazy time. There are two bedrooms on each end, one each. (We take Edith's and she sleeps in her mother's room). The center room is the gathering place, the kitchen and eating place, the talking place. There is even a bathroom! Most houses are still using outdoor toilets. We walk through the village and say good day as we pass folks in the street. “Jo napot!” I watch the old lady across the street take an armload of wood to her house...and later I watch her gathering eggs. Open the hen house doors...like little windows...grab the hen and drop her to the ground...and pick up her eggs. Next little window the same thing. Aniko calls us to the window to see into the neighbors yard. Their horse is receiving a new shoe. We are called to enjoy a meal. Aniko feeds us traditional foods which she puts together without recipes. Soups: potato, vegetable, and a rice /green leafy soup that I do not recognize, all of them delicious. Polenta, meat stews, potatoes done different ways...fresh beef from a neighbor which has been pounded and lightly breaded and fried. Lots of peppers, red and green. Lots of tomatoes off the garden vines. So sweet. Bread that has been baked by some of the neighbors who get together once a week to bake. Aniko supplies the flour. Bread so amazingly alive it bounces back in your mouth! We have coffee every morning made cowboy style. Boil the water and throw in the grounds. I am not sure when the village began, but the houses are so very old. Thick walled. Or some are wood. And of course there is a church in the center. This is a Catholic church. Most of the villagers attend. Over a carved wooden gate to someone's home, there is a saying which Edith translates for us. “Wanderer, if you are walking nearby, come in, and if you have good intentions you will be received with love.”
There are also gypsies that live here, or visit here. I love to see them! The horses pulling the carts have red tassels hanging on each side of their head. Folks sit up high on top of a load of wood or onions or potatoes. Men, women and children. The clip clop of hooves is magic. How can the horses keep that up? And pull a full cart. They are beautiful to watch. Sometimes the gypsies wave, but often they do not look at you. And taking pictures is not appreciated. Some of the villagers also have horses and carts. At this time they have to recruit whole families to harvest in the fields all day. We take more walks. Once we go to the cemetery...up the hill as usual. Another time we walk to the highest point to see the view, along a dirt road in the woods and out on to an open space. We eat plums along the way. The trees are loaded with them and they are sweet. There are apples, too. And wild flowers which Aniko picks for the porch table. We are told that Aniko receives wild flowers from the children. She gives them money for ice cream! She adores the children and they respond to her. A cat from across the way comes to visit. Aniko gives her some milk....but wait, she leaves and comes back with her baby, a tiny kitten. This has become a habit...for both the cats and Aniko. There is a well in the back yard. There has not been much rain so the garden has to be hand-watered. Bucket by bucket is brought up using the turn of a wheel. It takes her a few hours. We crack open walnuts while we chat on the porch. A grape arbor overhead lets in filtered sunlight. It is warm. I sit on a long white bench on pillows at a table with a flowered cloth. Walnut shells fly. Later I spend time on the computer in our van. It is my office. As I type there is noise next door. Beyond the fence live old style Hungarians, puttering about in the yard and out buildings. A chain saw won't start. An old new piece of equipment.
A special religious celebration is to be held Saturday. I am still not sure what it is but everyone attends church. They are wearing their Sunday best, as we would say. Men have dress hats, white shirts and suits on...older women in black and white with headscarves. Children are adorable. Such respect for the church. The whole town is there, not enough room inside the church so they are standing outside also. A loud-speaker keeps them part of the very long service. Everyone has invited guests so after church is over there are big meals with family and friends. In the afternoon there is to be a parade of young people in traditional dress. Three horses carry handsome young men in the lead. Then two horses pull the cart that is loaded with pretty girls, all alike in their costumes and also costumed boys. Two more horses and riders behind. We hear them singing down the road. Everyone is out in front of their houses to watch them pass by. It takes awhile for them to reach us as they go up and down every road inviting the villagers to the evening ball...which lasts most of the night. The young people will start it off with a dance performance. This small village is acting out a ritual passed down by their elders. They are excited to be part of it. Children watch and wait to be old enough to take their turn. We feel so blessed to be here. One evening our friends John and Csilla Dale stopped by. They have also bought a house in this village. A quick trip up the hill to see this wonderful wood house. They too have work to do. The bathroom is complete and looks like New York City! The rest of the house they will try to keep original and traditional. The time in Jobbagytelke goes too quickly. We love it here. We say goodbye to dear Aniko, who has packed soups and fresh vegetables for the city, and follow Edith back to her apartment. We will stay with her a few days.
September 10 and 11
Edith's apartment is on the top/4th floor. Stairs. It was a haven for us. A washer and wifi! It is light and bright. Her living room is the yummiest. Coral walls with couches and chair of dark yellow. And pillows of all colors. Very fun. We spent three evenings watching movies! A treat to sit back and watch some pretty light stuff except for Woody Allen's Match Point. Edith had to work during the day of course so we took it easy. Tons of laundry had to be done and hung on the balcony. Dry in no time. And time emailing and blog writing. And time for walks. Tuesday evening Edith took us on a walk to her favorite haunts: the citadel, two great coffee shops, the bakery, the really cool gift store, the beer garden hidden away under the trees behind the main street. This was our last day together. In the early morning we would leave.
September 12 thru 16
Down the stairs and out the door at about 8:15. On our own again after being so spoiled. We are so grateful for that time. Now we are heading north to see wooden churches, monasteries, painted churches and an outdoor village museum. We will be “in the sticks”. Over the Carpathian mountains to a time in the past. We plan to spend five days covering the suggestions that John Dale has given David. John and Csilla own a tour company. They know the best places so we will follow their lead. It takes us almost a day to get to our first stop, Surdesti. The sights are plenty enough to occupy our eyes and minds along the way. Always the gypsies. The intensity of color in their clothing and the hats that some of the men wear remind me of some of the Mexican hats. Black, wide brimmed. We see a three domed building with unique domes, that look exactly like three wine bottle tops from the shoulder and neck..up. The harvesting of dried corn is often done by hand. It seems that only the livestock eat corn, not the people. The villages we see now are very poor. Roofs sagging, almost falling in. Nothing fixed properly. Fences patches with anything that will work to keep the cows in, or out. The homes must have been beautiful once, there is still fine decoration showing through the grime. Children playing with no shoes...but still, they are laughing and having a good time. People take care of each other. They trade skills or goods. They pay with cash. Watch each others backs. A hen walks by a reclining dog, his eyes half open watching for trouble. He is a rich dog. He actually has a dog house. Many dogs don't have homes. They run wild, sometimes in groups. When one starts barking it starts a racket of barking, at all levels of the musical scale. Behind the dog house owner, in the yard, a woman is weeding or harvesting, bent over, straight legs, wearing black skirt, black scarf, brown pants and tall rubber boots. Her house is white but painted blue around the windows...looks like eyes with the brown door, a mouth. A friendly home. Another home, a gypsy's, is built of sticks, patterns made by putting the sticks in different directions, horizontal, diagonal. I love it. Very creative. But I am told it is cold in winter. Gypsy carts are everywhere. Up long hard hills, the horses are working hard. The cargo is a load of logs to sell. Maybe someone has already ordered them. Men are fishing, casting from the side of the river. Probably not fly casting, but fishing in earnest. A family is picking up stones to sell or for building their own house. The fields look like quilts made with long rectangle pieces, the shape of each plot works for shop rotation. Ladies are coming home with full baskets on their backs. Maybe mushrooms? Something small. More hills and valleys, sometimes heavily forested, sometimes deciduous mixed with pasture. More villages. There are beautiful homes sprinkled in with the old. I think many people stay in a village for almost a lifetime. There does not seem to be a need for suburbs of homes all the same. Homes are often handed down. Old parents live with their children's families. There is money somewhere though, to pay for the big beautiful houses. Edith tells us that the money is obtained illegally, or someone has a business that is successful, but most often it is because someone in the family is abroad with a good job, sending money home. We pass a slow tractor with apples in bags, ready for market.
We reach Surdesti. Here there is a remarkable wooden church. It is a stair climb to the door, which is locked, so we visit the Priest's wife and she comes with us to open the door and sits and waits while we look at everything. It is painted on all walls, stories like Jacob's ladder, and decoration, probably with meaningful symbols also. This is a small Orthodox church, with a very tall steeple, the tallest in Romania. Elegant fabrics at the alter. Jam packed with colored (lots of red) or gold symbols and icons. Its essence is like a gypsy room, so filled with beauty... and a bit gaudy. But the exterior is not that way at all. It is simple, the shingles being a paddle shape, laying on top of the one next to it. Creating almost a delicate basket weave look. This covers the walls, roof and the spire, including an onion shape on the spire. A crafted work of art. It is a UNESCO supported site. On our way again. We pass a cart pulled by oxen, another tethered behind, minded by a mama with a switch. More wood churches, bells ringing, their music tumbling down on us. We drive through a mountain pass, past Hotel Super Ski. There are some pretty good ski runs with chairs going to the top. We are almost to the Ukrainian border. We start to descend, winding switchbacks and so much beauty. Mountain villages appear. The Sekely gates to the homes are beautifully carved. Mostly in strong rope patterns, meaning eternity. The older women wear short skirts...to the knee. And boots. Always sweaters and vests. Cows are being herded home. It will soon be dark. Some of the old old wooden houses are still lived in, built with flat-sided logs. We reach Sighetu Marmatiei where there is an outdoor museum of a village. It is dark. We will see it in the morning. We find a place to stay next to a steep hill of headstones which keep us safe for the night.
This museum village is not an old village. It is an intentional attempt to show how people lived in villages. The best examples of wooden houses and barns, chicken and pig houses, a church, wells, corn cribs and equipment have been brought to this site and placed on the winding dirt roads. It certainly feels like a real village, though all are not of the same year, sometimes not even the same century. The individual farmyards have been completely adapted to fit into their new environment...stone stairs made to the porches, they belong. And inside you will find much of it furnished with implements of their day. Most of the houses are of the same format, though some may be bigger or longer or higher, they all have three rooms: The living area, the “mud room” where you enter, and the food storage room. The mud room held all the tools they might use like a scythe, horse equipment, boots, broom, anything that would not be in the room they actually lived in. In the living area there was kitchen, dining room and bedroom all in one...sometimes there could be eight children and parents living in there. We could see where that was possible. Always, standing in the mud room looking into the living area, there was a table in the left far corner. Along the two walls to the left and straight ahead were long benches. Seating during the day, sleeping beds at night. The parents bed, at the far right (very narrow), also had a trundle under it that would be pulled out at night. And there may be a cradle/crib and a hanging small baby cradle. There was room for a cabinet to the left of the door and a big oven for baking and warmth to the right. Shelves or plate rails. From that point, there was decoration. Usually around their Christian beliefs. There must always be a picture of Christ in the corner by the table, and one of Mary. There may be others if there was room or if the family could afford it. These pictures were hung with wire on the back, as we do, but leaned forward on the wall a bit and embroidered cloths where hung around them like a curtain. So this side of the room was used for family rituals. Marriages etc. When a man married, he brought something meaningful to him into the house and put it on the table. It stayed there his lifetime and when he died it went to the grave with him. The other half of the space was called the “facts of life” or family tree area. There were plates and urns and pitchers of decorated pottery. High on the wall above the bed was a wood round bar where woven blankets were put in layers and pillows placed on top. It seemed like just a lovely decoration but it was probably storage during the day of everyone's bed blankets and pillows. Sometimes an extra item, like a potato press or a spinning wheel was in the room. Outside there might be an oil press right next to an oven that would lightly roast sunflower seeds before being pressed into oil to obtain a desirable flavor. (Oil, in any primitive society, including our own, seems important. For food, for machinery etc.) Old carts were under shelter. A contraption with a hopper on top...apple juice? Plum brandy? This village seems another fine way to live. I came away thinking that there is not a best way to live materially...only spiritually, only how you choose to live and work, play and share among people. An exceptionally fine museum, also UNESCO supported. From here we headed northwest to the Merry (or Cheerful) Cemetery. This cemetery certainly was cheerful. A wood carver in the village decided at one point to make wood headstones for those of his village who died. He knew everyone of them well. He carved and painted likenesses of the people as they were known. There were weavers, spinners, butchers, hunters, teachers, good cooks, bakers, drunks, ministers, embroiderers, seamstresses, farmers, even a women in red underwear who had two men looking lustfully at her...all the occupations it takes to make a village! Unfortunately for us, we could not read Romanian. He had also written his own rendition of their life stories, some of them quite funny we were told. His apprentice continues the tradition today. I could not help taking many photos of such wonderful folk art.
Our path now takes us southeast. We are heading to Barsana where we will see a very special Orthodox Monastery, still in the Maramures region. It is a big commune. The beginnings of this place, 16th century, was a school for priests of the villages and supplied religious books and icons, probably painted in its own workshops. However, for a while it did not exist...but was later built into what we see today. Many buildings made of wood, a tradition, built only by Barsana masters, supervised by an architect. It is an extremely beautiful compound with its well built fine structures and gardens. We arrived during an outdoor service, mostly sung by priests and nuns. Crowds continued to accumulate. Those who followed this religion were crossing themselves, standing and kneeling (even on hard ground for a long time). The spectacle was very nice to be part of as an outsider. Today the monastery is run by a prioress, eleven nuns and two sisters. One more stop today...Iued-On the Hill. 1364.
This is the oldest wooden church. Its mission is to celebrate “The Birth of the Mother of God”. Whew! That is a concept that is a bit large and mysterious for me to take in. The inside walls are painted themes. To me, they are primitive folk art and so capture my attention. But, the themes to the Christian followers concern “The Life and the Suffers of our Savior Jesus Christ”.
More observations along the drive to see more painted monasteries and churches... One town was freshly painted, its houses in colors that we in North America would probably not choose, but here it is a refreshing treat. Combinations of: purple and red, orange and green, purple and yellow, brown and peach, pink and mint green, orchid, yellow and orange. All other buildings are grey stucco. / Smoke lays white above fields where cleanup is going on. / A Gypsy talking on a cell phone with one hand and the horses reins in the other. It seems a religious holiday. / People coming and going to church. Mostly the older generation, all dressed in black and white. Men in dress hats, women in scarves. All have wooly black vests on. They cross themselves before they start the long flight of stairs to the church door. / The mode of travel for most is walking or bicycling. Even the oldest are on bikes. A basket of perky sunflowers rides on a woman's back, as she peddles a fairly new bike. / Plastic sheeting, built around a box frame, fir branches lying across the roof seems to work for a semi-permanent gypsy camp. / A day market is in full swing but we still have a good supply of Aniko's garden vegetables. / We were parked while David took a photo. A woman came to talk to me because I was knitting. We could not say a word of each others languages but handwork!...it will immediately connect women all over the world, from every culture. What a sweet face was exclaiming at my simple knitting project. / On the other hand a swarthy man came to beg at my window. I had to roll the window up. David came back to the car after having a woman beg for food for her baby. One's heart and mind goes in so many different directions when confronted with this. / The roads get very bad. / We spot someone milking his cow out in his field.
We stop in Campulung for the night beside the police station. A happening town. It is Friday night and everyone is out in the town square. Kids skating, balloons, badminton, basketball and bike riding. Policemen notice us. They walk by often. I think they are checking to see that we are okay! Too many vocal dog packs roaming at night. In the morning folks are up early. A little girl scurries by with two heavy market bags and a big smile on her face. A man across the street makes his wheel chair move by pushing and pulling on sticks in a motion not too unlike rowing backwards. Today we will move on to another area of special things to see. We get lost. That darn GPS! I ask a lady who is standing at her gate...”Do you speak English?” She gives us directions but tells us that we have stopped at a painted egg museum. Her mother is the artist and is very well known for her work. Amazing tiny details. The best I have seen. She has also invented a lace pattern. Most of her techniques are batik and traditional, but I fall in love with the animal eggs. Wonderful, colorful renditions along with all the intricate decoration. Too expensive and too fragile for our current situation. I am thankful I stopped. On to Moldovita, Sucevita and Agapia, three painted Orthodox monasteries. These are all off by themselves and require one to travel bad roads in the toolies! But even the pathway is an adventure. Villages and inhabitants...all the same, all different. No matter where, there is always a gaggle of women talking and laughing and / or telling a serious story or gossiping. The men, too. On benches along the town roads, they smoke their cigarettes or pipes and maybe have some libation hidden behind them. The first Monastery is somewhat run down. We pay at the arched gateway. Maybe 7 lei. ($1 = 3.5 lei...I think) The outside is painted but the weather has done much damage and fading of the paint. Inside we are not allowed to photograph. There is a big sign. The interior is pretty but gaudy and loud and by now I am getting very tired of this type of heavy worship. Nobody smiles in these wall paintings. There are always battles depicted, or killings. Or saints and martyrs holding a book, or a staff, or whatever they are famous for. Too much silver and gold paint. It is getting to me. Dark and depressing. So dark that much of the mostly amateur (but a folk style) work is not shown well. And I am so baffled by the crossings and kissings in the nun's and other follower's rituals. Part of the procedure is reaching to the floor, up and down, over and over and over. I watch in amazement. A very large priest comes in. He lays his chubby hand upon their heads...they kiss his hand. Ugh, he is bearded (long, uneven, thin and curly tight!). He wears the black robes I always pictured as holy. (David tells me that spirituality comes in many forms) He has come to do some work in the secret area behind the alters. We hear his voice, and a nun's keeping a running conversation. Each nun we have talked to is grumpy and aloof. The outside gardens are okay. They have not had rain so I excuse them. There is still a museum to look at. I sneak in two photos while the nun is not looking. She must have heard the camera. She accosts me. Really. She wants my camera. My precious hundreds of pictures are in that camera. I tell her to leave me alone and I walk outside. She follows me. She even hits me! Very unnun-like I think! She has telephoned someone...Yikes! But by now I am pretty mad. I leave her, as her job is to take care of the museum so she can't really follow. But I wonder who she telephoned and who will show up to take me to jail. I find David and we wander a bit more. Then, just before we leave, I take a picture...outside wall. She is there! She comes after me! It appears that we should have paid a 10 lei photo tax! She is not letting me out until I pay. Well, all is fair in love and war. I delete the indoor photos which helps to balance her demands in my mind but I refuse to pay the tax. No sign, nobody told us or offered us the choice when we entered. So just before I leave, I point my finger at her and tell her, “You are a nasty nun!” The people standing around us are amazed at what they see going on between us...but they all have big smiles on their faces. I think her need to pull in money for the monastery might have clouded her vows. Next, Sucevita Monastery. This time we pay our photo tax. There is a noticeable sign. But inside it is more disappointing than the first. These last two are so similar. Weathered outside, gaudy inside. (I hope I am not hurting anybody's feelings by my evaluation. After all, it is only myevaluation and opinion and I tell it only as that.) This time there is not much to photograph. Okay. We have many more monasteries headlined on our map but choose to do one more that John has told us is really good. This is Agapia Monastery, nestled in the hills along with its surrounding village. And yes it is beautiful. Everything about it is calm and serene and filled with beauty. The outside walls are painted white, freshly painted. There are massive amounts of flowers in pots on the upstairs walkways of all the buildings. All colors, but mostly red geraniums. A gorgeous garden to walk in and contemplate. The inside walls and ceiling oil paintings are so well done, painted by one man, Nicolae Grigorescu, over the period 1859 - 1861. This time the interior of the church glows. Right up to the top...the inside of the dome. Every corner and pillar and rounded wall is filled with beautiful art. A different experience altogether. We ask the nuns questions and they smile and answer because they care about this home of theirs, they want us to know about it. There are 400 nuns here. We go into the museum. Such good stuff to look at. Icons, paintings, embroideries and rugs made in the monastery work room studios. Carved wooden crosses, silver, pottery, a feast for the eyes, displayed perfectly. The filmy curtains on the windows have been lightly embroidered this year. Though Agapia is an example of heaven on earth, I can't help thinking that I would love to enter a monastery that celebrates the gifts of God...fill the walls with running rabbits and deer, slow turtles, scary alligators, wild horses, lady bugs, thrushes and magpies and storks...wooly farm sheep and spotted cows. Hens and peacocks. Gardens of flowers: cosmos, buttercups, yarrow and Queen Ann's lace, roses, iris, foxglove and marigolds. And fruit trees of pears, apples, plums, peaches, figs and cherries. Walnuts, acorns, pecans. Gardens of vegetables: cabbage, artichokes, beans and peas, cauliflower and broccoli, tomatoes and peppers. Potatoes, carrots. Can you imagine it?! A church packed with wall paintings of all this abundance! Well, I don't really believe that I will have another life on this earth, but if I did, I could be a nun who paints church murals! Rule, directly from God...”Only paint murals of celebration and abundance. Give the people some goodness to strive for.”
If you go to see the painted churches and monasteries of Northern Romania, which is really quite a remarkable experience, go to Agapia and Barsana. See the Merry Cemetery and the outdoor Village Museum. And, along the way, pop into small quiet painted churches where communities still worship. There are many.
September 16 thru 22
It is time to start for the village of Felsorakos to see our dear friends that live there. Jozsef and Reka and family, Attila and Reka, Csaba and Zsuzsa. We have been there many times, beginning with a clean water project spearheaded by Westminster UCC in Spokane. Now we are fast friends. We adore them and we adore their village and its people. It should take us about a day to get there. We plan to stop somewhere for the night and in the morning we will go the rest of the way. We come through the most remarkable canyon, Bekes-Szoros Natural Park. Neither of us has experienced anything like it. We follow a winding creek through a very narrow stone canyon that reaches high above us. Some plain vertical faces, some seemingly flowing round about us. It is truly a sight I will not forget. And for a long ways after, we drive through an enchanting mountain road. All this a treat we did not expect. Then we go through village after village never finding a place for the night that suits us, so...we end up just 5 miles from Felsorakos in Barot. It feels too late to disturb our hosts so we stay in a small parking lot in the center of town. In the morning we meet Jozsef on the road...He knows we have been in Barot. A policeman has seen us there...”Yes, a white van with Washington license plates.” We are being watched...everywhere we go! Mostlly out of curiosity. Felsorakos. Familiar ground, familiar faces. It is wonderful to be back. We choose to stay in the guest house. We stay in the room with our name on the door! David and Lou. There are 3 other bedrooms and two baths. Talk about spoiled. Two stuffed chairs for reading. All this for the two of us. Downstairs there is a dining and kitchen area that looks like a wine cave...arched brick ceilings. This is an old house, redone to house their many guests. We pull our van into the yard and find a “summer something” under construction. It is an outdoor pavilion with room for celebrations complete with an outdoor kitchen and barbecue. Jozsef and three others (Elemir, Janos and Janos) have seen this project through. Elemir is doing the final touches, Hungarian decoration on the railing slats.
Jozsef is the minister at the Unitarian Church (the only church in the village). This place called Transylvania is the birthplace of this denomination. Jozsef is a person of warmth and integrity. He grew up in a small village just over the hill. He is part villager and part sophisticated leader. He is a good man with a handsome face of understanding and humor. He likes to party and sing traditional songs with his buddies...who play violin, accordion, guitar (there is a grand piano in his living room but I have never heard Jozsef play it!). He likes to fish. He likes to build things. He teaches religion and English at local schools. He likes to offer Palinka (plum brandy) at his table. Or wine he makes in his cellar. Reka is waiting for us at home. She is a small, very pretty woman who is an expert in her organization of events and cooking meals for 6 or 36. A hostess with a huge heart. She is a seamstress of beautiful clothing. Their family consists of Attila married to Reka (who gave me a really great haircut) ....and Csaba and girlfriend Zsuzsa. Ottilia, the daughter, is a nanny in the USA. She just finished her degree in Psychology and is now moving to New York to look for a job and work on her masters. Her mother misses her! We all spend a lot of time together, even though both boys have jobs. A barbecue in the garden. Meals around the dining table. Lots of discussion and laughter. One afternoon we go for a picnic to a campground and fish hatchery...and trout pond. Jozsef, David and Zsuzsa catch fish for each of us and Csaba cooks them over the coals by our table. Oh, and I forgot to tell you about little Marzsolo (raisin) the 2 month old puppy. He brought sunshine to everybody. One big eye and one small, inheriting each from a parent! White coat with brown spots including his little ears. What a family. We toast ourselves in their warmth and love. Too soon it is time to say our farewells. Reka gives us a bag of a traditional tomato spread and cherry jam (she has noticed that I like it!) Photos and hugs at the camper-van. When Zsuzsa says, “I will miss you” ...I know we must come back.
THOUGHTS and OBSERVATIONS:
>On September 20 and 21 it finally rained in this part of Romania, the first since June 10. Heavy pouring rain. Docile rivers raged. New streams made new paths over roads. Wet roads were slippery. A semi truck and a logging truck on their sides (logs still tightly secured) and one car...all skidding off the road.
>Gypsy horses running wild, about 10 of them, and
pigs, left in someone's alfalfa field.
>Sometimes things get translated wrongly...on the back of a car window, a banner read...LIVE FAST, DIE FUNNY (maybe HAPPY?)
>A quick glimpse of two men playing chess in a garage.
>People might speak different languages but I have noticed that we still have the same expressions on our faces, or emphasis on phrases and even the same body language.
>For those of you who know Felsorakos and its people...Last year was Arpod's first day of school and he did not want to leave his mother. I asked Yolanka how it went this year. She said....”The same.”//We visited the Kisses....Anna and Csaba. Anna was very envolved the first time we were in Felsorakos, driving us etc. Her daughter Ildiko is a teacher in Barot and we got to know her well. We visited this time in their outdoor kitchen/dining. Had some peach palinka. Pretty yummy. Anna is going through some pain shots for some foot pain she is having. Csaba had a fall and broke ankle and a wrist. He decided to give up his business but is still the same energetic guy. We found him painting the kitchen with his son.//The village roads are still dirt and bumpy.// I heard the church bells ringing and knew it was Ibola pulling on the ropes so I ran to greet her. I did not see the other ladies though I ran into Margit Molnar on the street.//The cows still go up and down the village roads morning and evening.
>Subservience of women is hard for me to take coming from the culture I do. What makes a man think that it is okay for women to bow and kiss his hand?
