Would you like some tea?

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One moment Rich and I were standing in the train station at Iwava in central Poland feeling lost, and only hours later we were sitting down to a three course dinner cooked by a polish Grandma, full of garden-grown ingredients: potatoes with chives, dill and cucumber salad, and homegrown cherry juice to name just a few.

We are currently being lovingly hosted by the family of Ursula, Carolina, and Natalia, with Grandmother and Grandfather Wienska, the unparalleled chef and gardener respectively. We are in a village just west of Iwava, halfway between the Baltic coast and Warsaw, where Ursula and Carolina invited us to come and pitch our tent, when Ursula overheard Rich asking in the train station for directions to a camping site. The train station attendant was being outright rude, ignoring Richard in order to look to Ursula, next in line. But Ursula turned into the crowd and quickly fetched her daughter Carolina, who happens to be an English major at university. Through the translation they understood our search for woods to camp in. They insisted we come with them because

the woods here are dangerous!

and they brought us on the train with them to their countryside home.

Here near the village Rudzienice are lakes, woods, yellow-blooming rapeseed fields expanding for miles, and beautifully tended vegetable gardens everywhere we look.

After giving us tea and fruit cake, Ursula and Carolina took us on a walk to show us these things. Along the way we stopped by the home of Carolina’s aunt, who tends a cherry tree orchard, and her husband, a veterinary professor. Again we were hosted with poppyseed cakes, chocolate creme cake and more tea.

Richard and Paulinka, the little sweetheart (age five) and cousin of the family made fast friends last night upon our arrival. He showed her our collection of crystals, tokens, nuts and stones we carry with us to protect us on our journey: we have adventurine (to inspire adventures), dendritic agate (to keep us safe while traveling), seaside stones from a Devon beach, citrine, a stone from Richard’s mum and the Komati river in Swaziland, quartz, and a kola nut from Liberia. She immediately fell in love with the glowing golden citrine shaped like a drop from the sun itself-- a stone which never has to be recharged, according to Richard: citrine has an unlimited source of energy-- and Richard made a gift of it to her. She was beaming with delight and buzzed around happily for the remainder of the evening as if to demonstrate her intrinsic compatibility with the sunstone.

Today is Sunday, and we awoke to a breakfast of scrambled eggs with bacon and chives, fresh bread and yes, tea. We attended mass in the village church, (a solemn affair with prompt responses to the choreography between standing, sitting and kneeling with a cross traced over the heart) went for a walk in the forest where we were hosted by a pair of pied wagtails, and returned home for another meal of dumplings, potatoes and chives, and beetroot salad. Cake followed, of course, and TEA.

Paulina and I have danced together, playing a follow-the-leader-type game: conductor -with-spoon, and tomorrow Rich and I have been invited to the local school to do an English lesson and dance performance. We also plan to plant a number of oak trees around the village and the family property. It seems a plague caused many maple trees to come down here in recent months, so there are spaces to be filled. Growth to be integrated. : )

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Photos

our polish family
the cherry-orchard folks! Ursula in front with Malaika is the one who whisked Rich and I from our train station to the good life of the village.

Oaks in Hand
New oaks picked in West Germany, planted in East Germany.

Divining Stones
The morning before we found our Polish family, Richard asked the Devon Divining stones for a sign. They said: Forget about the big picture.

Coca Cola Dance
In Gdansk, a dance for a maple tree near the train station.

Lupines
Found on a walk near the lake at the village in Poland.

Baltic Duck
On the north coast of Poland, town of Gdansk.

Sundog
In the village here, one of the chorusers.

Comments

[Mike, mailaika's dad]

thanks for the pics...
great pictures... and the walk and tea make me remember the Tuscan sun in the summer of our bike trip, and good to hear that the trees you are planting will be there to be climbed by others someday. Raining strongly here in Liberia, and the wet season tides are taking some sand from our beach, which we hope the dry season tides will return. I'm trying to think of some creative way to convince the water to deposit sand instead of take it away. All suggestions apprecaited. Dad

[Tom Guy]

Great to see you've got off to a good start. Good luck with the tree planting and school activities. Live Long and Prosper. ~ Tom

[Gretchen]

Meeting People
Sounds like the travels are wonderful, but nothing is so heavenly as "happening upon" beautiful people who willingly open the door when life experiences come knocking. So it was that the station master was rude in order that these amazing relationships could blossom. Wish I could be a little stone in Rich's pocket to participate in your next adventure. --Mama G