Advertisement
Grandfather Tadeusz of the Tulips
The homestead of the Wienscy family who adopted us.Luck has landed us into the middle of a handsome spring quilt: green wheat fields, blooming yellow acres of rapeseed, clean lakes and the neat gardens of Rugzenice, our home for the week.
The Wienscy family knows about radishes, family, and real food. Grandma piles the plates high with potatoes and fresh chopped dill, and insists you have second helpings of dumplings. And with the imminence of a summer storm, Grandfather insisted we bring our tent in from the yard and into the woodfire-heated house, where Rich and I spent the next night before our whirlwind celebrity tour.
Coming to Poland five days earlier than necessary landed us in the middle of a great opportunity: to bring our tree-planting passions to schoolchildren. Monday the headmaster of Rugzenice invited us to the elementary school as guests in the English classes, and after a morning of dancing and singing with the kids we were giving our first impromptu elementary school performance. The whole school (about 100 students) gathered ‘round in the schoolyard as Malaika danced with the ash tree that Richard was poised to plant in the schoolyard.
This was just the beginning of our botanical celebrity tour of rural
Natalia and Tadeusz
our Polish grandparents and their lovely garden polish towns. Eva, the English teacher at Rugzenice, invited us to stay with her during the week as we traveled to other area schools. So we were whisked away from our beloved country family and into the town of Iwava, where Eva, Chris and Snowy the cat entertained us during our celebrity tour. On Tuesday we visited kids at Gromotte village school, and Wednesday we hit the big time, with a performance at the larger city school in Iwava.
At each instance we performed as the introduction or culmination of our conversation about ecology. We talked about trees and why they are important: they make oxygen for us to breathe, give homes to birds, insects, fungus and mammals, provide shade and shelter, and can be responsibly farmed for food, clothing, medicine and raw materials as well. We talked about our reasons for making this trip: traveling from England to China without burning extra fossil fuels and planting trees in order to contribute to the atmosphere’s quota of oxygen. And we spoke about how important it is for people to plant trees-- especially native, deciduous species which contribute to helpful forest compost and photosynthesize more carbon into oxygen than the
decorative fir trees often chosen for landscaping.
We know not whether it was the handstands that Rich kept pulling to keep the kids’ attention in class, or whether it was Malaika’s hedgehog head of hair atop bumblebee-yellow fashion, but we were, we admit it, a smash hit. After each performance hordes of bright-eyed ruddy-cheeked youngsters swarmed round us for autographs.
The mornings were packed with action, but on Tuesday afternoon we came hurrying back to Grandparents’ place to make good on a promise: to say thank you for all their terrific hosting we pledged to plant their new lot full of trees. So in four hours we sourced and planted four larch trees, a very snazzy beech sapling, three oaks, two elder, three maple, two horse chestnuts and two ash trees. A good start to a woodland of native species and a good addition to the blister collection: this time on Malaika’s hand. (Richard’s gardener’s hands remain brilliant, of course.)
Now we are being generously hosted by friends in Warsaw, and the venerable kittycat Gidget. Shufflings on the balcony indicate the latest planting activity: a new herb garden for our hosts’ tenth-story apartment. Vive la photosynthesis!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.08s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 8; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0376s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
