Meet the Family!

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Marilyn had a much better night’s sleep on her air mattress;  and I have to admit that having the entire sleeper sofa to myself was pretty great, too.  She is feeling a bit better but still has to carry around a packet of tissues.

Anna has made open-faced breakfast sandwiches with ham, pickles, olives, tomatoes and melted cheese.  She is such a great cook!  It is so hard not to just keep going back for fourths and fifths!!

Today will be completely devoted to the extended family.  We leave around ten o’clock and we don’t know it now;  but we’ll be gone twelve hours!

Our first stop is one of the cemeteries in which a relative is buried.  Let me admit right now that I got confused pretty early on.  I’m not going to even try to keep all the branches of the family tree straight!  Marilyn is getting the hang of it and Swavek has it down pat!  Today is Saturday and that is the traditional day for maintaining the graves.  We see many people washing the stones and re-arranging the flowers or adding new ones.  All the graves also have lanterns which are lit on special days in the Catholic calendar.

I'm sure the cemetery's name is there somewhere!

Anna tells us that this is a gypsy grave;  "they always have to be big and showy."

All the flowers!

There is a bit of controversy because not all the names
of the people in the grave are listed.

We see that tree with the wet-looking leaves and Anna says it is called a lipa tree; her translator app says that’s a lime tree but it sure doesn’t look like ours!  She says that the honey and tea made from the flowers and seeds are medicinal.  It sure does have some bees!

 The next stop is the first farm of the day.  It is operated by one of Swavek and Marilyn’s cousins and two of the family elders are in residence, along with the cousin’s wife and children.  We are offered coffee and cake and everyone begins pouring over the two books filled with the family’s history.

Marilyn is shown a photo album of yet more relatives.
She is loving it!

The orange portion is actually textures!  So cool!

The family paid to have this statue of the Virgin erected
here at the entrance to their farm.

The oldest man holds forth and finally offers to sell Marilyn a piece of farm land!  He also says it’s too bad I’m not part of the family because I smile all the time!  All the kids have cameras and seem to be vying for the most unusual angle from which to shoot!

Our next stop is the farm which is run by Swavek’s brother and where their mother lives.  Here we are treated to a full-sized meal! There is roasted chicken, chicken cutlets, “biscuits” with  sauce/gravy, yellow potatoes, cole slaw, and cabbage salad for eleven people! There is black currant compote to drink! Swavek’s sister-in-law is beautifully dressed in a dress and jewelry and her make-up is perfect.  Her home looks like something out of House Beautiful.  It is hard to remember that this is a farm house!

Rape seeds which produce rape or cannola oil.

They raise bulls for sale for meat and chickens and there are dogs and lots of room for the kids to run and play.  The puppy is everyone’s favorite.

Next stop is the house in which the family patriarch lived as a child.

Then it is on to another cemetery to see more of the ancestors and more people showing devotion to their ancestors.

Look at all those lanterns!

Onward to the farm third farm in the family.  The previous owner and his sister live here with her grandson and his wife.  The grandson is now running the farm;  but his benefactor, who is 92, and his sister, who is 94 are just as sharp as anyone could wish for!  He holds forth on his experiences during WWII at great length and doesn’t let anyone interrupt him!  Amazing man!  And she is willing to correct him and add her two-cents’ worth!  What makes this even more surprising is that he has just gotten home from a stay in the hospital!  He says that being able to share his stories with family gives him energy!

I need to mention that Anna and Swavek have been translating all day and how they aren’t exhausted is beyond me!  What an excellent job they are doing!

Please don’t think that we didn’t have yet more coffee and baked goods!

Back, now, to Swavek’s brother and mother’s farm for coffee!!  While we have been sitting in the gazebo with water and homemade, especially-for-us, black-current crumble cake, Swavek has been harvesting produce from their garden patch.  They come to the farm weekly to gather vegetables, but his mother does the weeding during the week.

 Believe it or not, after taking a walk through the garden patch, we are called inside for supper!!  It’s impossible to turn down homemade sausage and salad with creamy feta with dill pickle slices and fresh bread and butter!  I don’t think I’ll be able to eat for another week!

 Tummies full and heads bursting with new facts, we have to go home to recoup!  Tomorrow we will go to nine-thirty mass, so it’s definitely time to get ready for bed!

I just found out that I've been misspelling Aina's name! It's pronounced "Anya" if you are good friends, otherwise the name is Anna.