Back from the Carpathians

Our trip to Poland and Slovakia was a great success, and we are already planning a return trip for next July during the next big Lemko festival. We started and ended in Krakow, a beautiful old city with a fabulous square and one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen. We took a day trip to Auschwitz and Birkenau during our stay in Krakow. We visited the Tatra and Pieniny mountain ranges and rafted down the Dujanec river before settling into our B&B in Gorlice in Lemko country. The highlight of the trip was visiting Mrs Vache Folle's wonderful family in the village of Gladyszow (pronounced Gwa-di-shuv). It turns out that the family there is much more closely related than we had believed, featuring a great aunt and several first cousins and their progeny.

Mrs VF's Lemko kin appeared to view us as quite affluent, which I guess we are by many measures, and they asked how they could be as comfortable as Americans. I replied that they would have to live on borrowed money and give up their family lives. I told them that I viewed them with admiration and outright envy. They have little money and cannot afford to visit foreign countries or go out to restaurants, but they own their own homes free and clear and enjoy much more independence than we do. The families build homes, quite good ones with all the modern conveniences, with their own labor over a 4-7 year period. Almost every family we met had a substantial garden and fruit trees. Mrs VF's family had a farm and kept bees, rabbits, and cows. The food in the area was by far the tastiest and most wholesome I have ever enjoyed, and I attribute this to the proliferation of small farms using natural and organic practices (they can't afford fertilizers and poisons). Folks were surrounded by family and friends and, most importantly, had the time to spend with them. The people were hospitable and generous with their time and resources. As Garrison Keillor says about Lake Wobegone, "all the women were good looking and all the children above average". If I could figure out how to make a living there, I would move to southern Poland in a heartbeat.

I fear that integration into the EU will hasten the end of the lifestyle that I envy.

I hope to be able to blog about some of my impressionsn over the next week or so at the risk of being more tedious than usual.