Back to Paris, but first back to Thailand, and then to Transylvania!

I am ready to embark on my next adventure. ( No, that's not me, but a young woman of one of the Karen hill tribes in northern Thailand, near the border with Burma.)

My bags are literally packed, two days before I leave. My blog revives after a dormant winter. And where am I going? To Paris, once again, and once again on an arts related volunteer mission.

But before I can begin to relate my next adventures, I must catch up on the previous volunteer trips I haven't yet documented.

My first experience with Volunteers for Peace, and with volunteering abroad, was in 2002. I pored endlessly over the 1000's of listings, with not a clue of where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. I knew only that the types of experiences that appealed to me involved working with kids and social services. That ruled out a few thousand! Many projects involved manual work, restoration or maintenance of parks, monuments, etc. Wonderful sounding projects but not for me. ( Little did I know that 6 years later I'd be hacking through stinging nettles overrunning a cemetery! )

Somehow I narrowed it down to a couple of dozen possibilities, then finally to a couple, and than made my choice, to go to a school in Turkey, somewhere on the ocean, for two weeks. I put in my application on a Friday afternoon. Monday, I got the word that the project was full, the last spot having been taken on Friday.

So, plan 2: I applied to go to southern Thailand, to teach at an elementary school. I had considered a different program in Thailand, living and working with hill tribes. But the listing cautioned about the remotemess and rusticity. I chose the school, but by then was intrigued by the hill tribes. And, I could not see going to Thailand for just two weeks. So, I booked my ticket to Bangkok, went north to visit the hill tribes, then south for the project.

Need I say that it was a wonderful experience? I wouldn't be here, ready to embark on my 6th volunteer stint, if it hadn't been.

One thing I learned quickly, and tell everyone who considers this kind of volunteering, is to expect the unexpected. Things don't usually go just as you imagine they would. And that was particularly true of my Thai and Romanian experiences. (Yes Transylvania is in Romania. Did you know that? Not sure I did before I signed up.)

In Thailand, we were supposed to stay at the headquarters of the sponsoring group, Greenway, about an hour from the school. But they had more volunteers than originally planned. They split us into two groups, and one, mine, was brought to the village where we'd be teaching. I don't think I would have had anywhere as wonderful an experience at the headquarters. It was a little too hippy dippy for me, and I much preferred staying in the village with local folks. We were put up in a house that belonged to the brother of one of the teachers. He had recently been widowed. He moved in with his sister, and all of us volunteers slept on the floor in two bedrooms, 6 in each. The house was relatively modern, tv, fine plumbing, etc. The "kitchen", though, was typically Thai, outdoors. Our hosts, the teachers, cooked breakfast and dinner for us. Wonderful Thai food, although nothing I especially recognized from Thai restaurants here! The one thing that gave me pause, and that some of the volunteers politely refused, were the fried frogs. They were whole frogs, and fairly large at that. The teacher/cooks were so proud that they were freshly caught. How could I say no? I still feel badly about the sheep's eye I was offered, and turned down, as the guest of honor, years ago in Morocco.

The trip from the village to the school would have been about a half hour walk. We were taken, though, on the backs of the students' and teachers' motorbikes. Most of the other volunteers were young Japanese and Korean girls, very petite. They rode three on a bike, one student and two volunteers. I, as the oldest by far, had only one bikemate - the principal! As we whizzed down the road, I asked her if there were laws about how old one had to be to ride a motorbike. She grinned and said sixteen, which none of these students was close to, I was sure.

At school each day, we were given a teaching mission, ie. tell them about geography today. Sometimes we had a day's advance warning to devise a curriculum, sometimes we purely winged (wung?!)it. Near the end, we were given the assignment to do an environmental curriculum. We organized teams to collect trash, make environmental posters, etc.

The common language of the program was English. And really, more than anything, the goal was to expose the students to some English. However, only one volunteer and I were native English speakers. And her British accent was so thick that I literally had a harder time understanding her than the Asian volunteers! The Asian young women, and one young man, were earnest and worked hard to teach the students some English. Their accents, though, were so terrible that it made me cringe, hearing the equally earnest Thai kids repeat the volunteers' pronunciation! Yet, how could I correct or criticize? And really, was the point for them to become fluent, or to become enthusiastic learners and communicators? Clearly, I answered myself, it was the latter.

We went on various excursions with the group, which is a hallmark of all of these volunteer projects. We visited a wonderful set of falls where families picknicked and swam. Also, the principal took us to visit a local monastery. Monasteries there are very much a part of the community, in fact most young Thai men spend a year as monks, and just a minority stay permanently. We brought gifts for the head monk to distribute to families, food, and most memorably, rolls of toilet paper. I did feel a bit odd presenting the toilet paper to the head monk. Then he asked if we would like to see the body of the previous head monk, now deceased. We were taken into another room where, in a glass casket kind of like an aquarium, there was a body lying preserved in liquid. Certainly an impressive sight! It didn't seem like we were supposed to be especially reverential or prayerful. So we all just stood around for a few minutes. As I remember it, the current head monk was smiling all the while.

Weekend in Barcelona

Gaudi, gaudi, more gaudi, Miro, the toilet paper artist, and probably the sexiest dancer I have ever seen. I always assumed the word gaudy comes from the artist, yet it is apparently not so.

I took the overnight train from Paris on Friday, spent Saturday night in Barcelona, took the overnight train back on Sunday to arrive in time for work on Monday. Heaven!

I saw and learned much about Gaudi, visited the Battlo House, Guell Park and La very famous Sagrada Familia, (or, as I like to think of it, our lady of perpetual construction.) Also went to a Miro museum, walked up and down La Rambla, where my hotel was, numerous times, observed the various living statues, some terrific, some mediocre, and stumbled across a fantastic dancer dancing in an arcade off the Rambla on a piece of cardboard, with a man accompanying him on a cardboard box.

The toilet paper guy's sculpture, held up by the air from a grating above the subway, was incredible, but he was an incredible grouch, yelling at me for taking a photo without having given him any money first. I had actually been planning too, but then chose not to.

I recently found out that one of my fellow volunteers on a previous trip, to Romania, had been living in Barcelona and performing as a living statue for quite a while, and during the times I had visited. ( I visited again more recently, with Carolina, in 2007.) Wouldn't it be strange if I had walked past Mina in her guise, and never known it?!

Volunteering in Paris

So, I find myself, summer of 2005, in Paris, ready to go to work. Who would have thought Paris a likely location for a volunteer project? Of course, the moment I saw the listing I was ready to go. The project was to work with an arts association, in a housing development where most of the tenants were immigrants. The building was constructed around a courtyard that had fallen into disrepair, and where some of the young adult tenants would hang out late, to the frustrations of many of the other tenants, some elderly, some with young families.

The project had been described in the listing as to design a garden with a human rights theme. Some of the volunteers had interpreted that as actually constructing the garden, and were frustrated to discover that we were going to theorize and design the garden, which would actually be built later on. I, however, had interpreted it as the arts group, Compagnie Resonances, had intended, which was definitely my preference!

We were housed in a dorm like -building where foreign students rented rooms. It was much more creature comfortable than any of my previous volunteer stints (real beds!) but certainly less luxurious than any of my previous stays in Paris, except perhaps for my "maid's room" during my own student days. (I think all those garret cubbyhole rooms have since become chic studio accomodations.)

Much to my delight, the building we were working in was a few blocks from my favorite flea market, at Clignacourt metro, to which I scooted over during any opportunity.

Many days, we went on excursions to various Paris parks and playgrounds, in small groups of volunteers with kids and adults from the community. Other times, we brainstormed and built models of our conceptions of the courtyard design, again along with community members. One day, we visited the Paris mosque. I had been there before, on a previous trip a few years back. I don't think most of the residents of our building, many of whom were Muslim, had been. We arrived to discover that the mosque was being renovated and wasn't open for tours. But our group leaders apparently convinced them, and we did get a guided tour. Although the mosque is not terribly old, they were stripping all of the mosaic tiles on the floor, walls, and pillars, to be replaced with newer ones. I was sad and elated at the same time. There seemed to be no need to replace the beautiful mosaics, but on the other hand, perhaps we could recycle them? I had one of our group leaders discuss it with the mosque folks, and, next we knew,plans were being made to send a truck to bring some of the blue and white, gold and silver tiles back. The kids also collected a few and put them in their pockets. So did I.

The volunteers each designed our own visions of what the garden should be. Mine included, of course, mosaic tiles, along with words of peace and understanding. On the last evening we all presented our proposals to the community at a wonderful pot-luck prepared by the residents. After supper, we had an amazing dance presentation but a small group of Sri Lankan children. A couple of the girls had danced for us the first night, at a welcome party, and we had been so enthralled that we had asked them to dance for us again. This time they wore intricate costumes, and make up that it took their parents about an hour to apply. In the audience, in addition to us volunteers, were a variety of people from the community. One elderly white woman, who had appeared at several events during our stay, and seemed to perhaps suffer from dementia ( I imagined that she had lived in the building for many decades, before the population had become largely immigrants) sat watching, a small boy from an African family sitting on her lap. It is an image that stays with me strongly.

I don't know, and continue to wonder, if the garden actually was created and if so, what it is like and how it is used. And if it never did materialize, does that negate the whole experience for the volunteers and for the residents? I think not, although I certainly hope there is a garden there, and that it, and most of all, the people who live there, are thriving.

Continuing on, backwards in time. Amalfi, Pompeii, and more

Well, the year has ended, but my journey continues, as all of ours do. We are at the cusp of potential great change. I am as expectant and hopeful as anyone, and hope we will not be disappointed.



Although we have moved on from 2008, I will at least temporarily keep my blog named so. And now, let me continue back in time, to one of my previous volunteer experiences, to Paris. Odd place for a volunteer experience, you might think. And it was, but was also one of the most amazing times I have ever spent in Paris, giving me a far different perspective on the city and its culture than I had ever had. Paris, where I have probably spent more time than anyplace except New York, where I grew up, Albuquerque, and Somerville and Beverly Massachusetts, my home now for over 30 years. My first trip to Paris was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, my second was for two years, in 1969 to 1971. I have been back various times for short visits. Is there anyone who doesn't like Paris? I suppose there must be.



My trip began as a family trip to Italy, where we stayed in a village called Atrani on the Amalfi coast, literally around the corner (or curve in the hairpin curve road) from the town Amalfi. We could and did walk to Amalfi (Loring actually swam, and I walked, carrying his glasses) most every day. Atrani is charming and much less touristed than Amalfi, and I highly recommend it. It had a bakery and a small food store, and even its own beach. No hotel. We stayed in a rented apt. called Casa Marco, which I would also recommend. It had stunning views over the village and the ocean. Marco, the owner, welcomed us with a freshly made Caprese salad.



Pompeii was a day trip. We had not rented a car, and were glad of it, given the narrowness and tortuous curves of the road. I had been to Pompeii in 1970, and had always wanted to go back. The kids, when we'd proposed the idea several years earlier, were worried that the volcano might explode. We reassured them, to no avail. So we went elsewhere that year. And, amazingly, Vesuvius did erupt that year.



But they were older now. I enticed them with the film of Pink Floyd playing live at Pompei. That seemed to do the trick. And they were, at least for the first hour, intrigued. The lava encased bodies stored casually in one of the first rooms were compelling. I was as amazed by the place as when I'd been there 30 years before. But the heat was brutal that day, and everyone else's attention span lasted last long than mine. I still was marvelling over ancient bath houses and mosaic walls when we left.



Capri (emphasis on the first syllable) was another day trip, by boat from Amalfi. I knew it would be overtouristed, and so was partly prepared, but not entirely. The island was crawling with tourists, many in large groups fronted by sign carrying guides. A babel of languages encased the place. Whatever charm had ever been there was drowned, at least from our perspective, by too many visitors. It isn't a place I'd choose to go back to. And yet, not so far away on the coast, was little Atrani, so close and yet so different from the overpopulated places nearby.

We went to Ravenna as well, up the hills from Atrani. One could climb the hills to the town. Loring and Max did, Carolina and I took the bus. Ravenna is beautiful, and famous for its opera performances, but also overtouristed. There were a few too many chic cafes for me, but also small lanes with vines wrapped around their gates, and absolutely stunning vistas. We all walked back down, not seeing many people at all along the way.

And now, onto gayParis!

And now, back in time, to Peru! Another volunteer adventure

Two years before my Czernowitz trip, I had gone to Ayacucho, Peru, also on a volunteer trip. And while this trip didn't have quite the emotional impact of the trip to Ukraine, there were also family ties involved.

Max and Carolina, my two children, were both born in Peru, where Loring and I adopted them as infants; Max in 1988, Carolina in 1991.

When we'd decided to adopt, we needed to choose the country we wanted to adopt from. How does one decide from where you want your child to be? For us, actually, the choice was an easy one. We'd travelled to Peru a couple of years earlier, and had fallen in love with the country, its physical beauty, warm people, and rich culture. When the director of the large Boston adoption agency ran down the list of 20 or so countries, I held my breath. Each program had its own restrictions, only a certain religion, no single parents, no one over a certain age, etc. When she got to Peru, she indicated that both parents had to go, and one had to stay for the duration of the process, two to three months. I was elated! Not only did we qualify, but I would get to spend time in the country of my child's birth. What better way to start our lives as parents! And it was wonderful. But that's another story.

After the two adoptions, I'd made several trips back, some with the family, some to buy handcrafts. And now, in 2006, I saw the volunteer trip to Peru that I knew I wanted to take.

It was to Ayacucho, a city in the mountains that had long been off limits to tourists because of terrorist activity. Ayacucho had always intrigued me, because in addition to being the place where Sendero Luminoso, the Shining Path, had been born, it was also where many of the incredible craftspeople of Peru hailed from. I knew of the Sullca weaving family and also the retablo makers, especially the Jimenez family. They had largely relocated to Lima during the years of violence. This, in addition to my volunteer job working with children, would be my opportunity to meet some of the artisan families, and also, hopefully, to understand the roots and effects of the violence that had plagued Peru for so many years.

My job in Ayacucho involved working with children, as had the other volunteer stints I'd previously done. This was with a social service agency that provided activities, music, crafts, homework help, etc. in the afternoons after school. In the mornings we also worked with kids, some of the same ones and some others, in four different groups. Two groups worked with kids in the markets, the preschool aged children who hung out there while their parents worked in the market stands. Another part of our group worked with children who literally sang for their supper in a fancy outdoor restaurant on a hill overlooking town. The last group, which I chose to be in, worked in the cemetery with children who worked there. In retrospect, it's very interesting that I have actually worked in cemeteries in two of my volunteer projects!

The kids, all boys, who worked in the cemetery, went to school too. Half worked an early shift in the cemetery, half a later shift, around their school schedules. Urchins would be the word to describe them, like something out of Dickens, except they were anything but devious, rather honest and sweet. I was amazed at the lack of competition between them for the few jobs that came their way. Each had a bucket and a rag. When someone entered the cemetery, one boy would approach and ask if the person wanted help to clean his or her relative's grave. In Peru, the graves are built in layers, stacked quite high. You can glimpse a bit of one in the picture above. I will try to find a clearer one to post later. If one's relative's grave is high, you might or might not want to climb the ladder to reach it. This is where the nimble boys come in. They dash up the ladders, replace the flowers in the empty soda bottles, for that is what most people use, and wash the grave with a wet rag.

During the week, business was pretty slow. I am not exactly sure what our role was supposed to be, aside from helping them learn a little English, but it was certainly interesting to be there. We brought games(we are playing dominoes in the picture) but Twister was the big hit. It was incongruous, to say the least, to be playing Twister in a cemetery! The agency with whom we were working had the idea to encourage the children to create microenterprises, for which they had small amounts of money to lend the children. A noble, but far from practical idea. But I did try to pursue it, collecting all our empty plastic bottles and buying crepe paper, sequins, etc. My thought was for the kids to decorate the bottles and sell them for a small amount to the visitors, to be used for flowers rather than the plain soda bottles, which didn't seem particularly aesthetic. I watered down glue and brought paint brushes for them to adhere the materials to the bottles. We spent an afternoon decorating bottles, which the boys then gave to us and to each other. Very sweet, but not much progress toward any microenterprise.

In the afternoons, we worked with the children who came to the center on a drop in basis. Some came sporadically, many came regularly. Among the regulars were a family of boys who were among the singers at the restaurant. Every afternoon, several of the adults played music, mostly guitars, and some of the children sang. There was a girl of about 12, Rosa, who sang very intensely and dramatically, pretending to hold a microphone in her hand. I thought it a bit much. But, after the first week, I found out that there was a singing competition coming up, and that several of the kids from the center were going to participate. The day before the competition, Rosa and the other performers donned traditional costumes for a dress rehearsal, and suddenly the theatrics became understandable.

At the competition, the children participated by age group. There were many children, and it seemed that they were all accompanied by their parents and/or music teachers, except for ours. Yet we had the largest cheering section, with most of the volunteer group and staff from the center. And, incredibly, some of our kids won, including Rosa, and a little boy named Pedro who was one of the restaurant singers.

As Rosa practiced, I had begun to catch some of the words of her song, and realized it was about the times of violence. One line talked about blood running from 5 corners in the streets of a village not far away.When the children in her category performed, they all sang in the same stylized, over dramatic manner that Rosa did, and I realized that this was the traditional style of this ballad type song.

The volunteers later went on a field trip to several towns, including the one Rosa had sung about. Knowing of my interest, our guide took us to the five corners, an actual place, not just a poetic image. It was peaceful, with a nice plaza and several teenagers riding skateboards. How hard to imagine the massacres that had occurred there. Later we drove over a bridge, and our guide told us of mass murders at the river just a decade earlier.

The horror of the violence was that the common people were caught between the terrorists and the military police who were determined to wipe the terrorists out. Many were killed, and many disappeared.I heard several stories from people in town who remembered rampages of either terrorists or military or both, and people being shot or taken away. There is a small museum in Ayacucho dedicated to the memory of those who died. There is a group of mostly women, mothers and wives, like in several other Latin American countries, who continue to push for information about the fate of their loved ones. There was a woman who spearheaded the movement. She was now quite elderly. I spoke to a man at the museum, who told me the woman would be there shortly, and then introduced me to her when she arrived. She was quiet but intense, and seemed to draw other people to her. I felt privileged to meet her. A few weeks later, when I was in Lima with Loring and the kids, there was an exhibit about the years of terrorism at a museum. There, I saw references to, and then photos of, the woman I'd met, and her missing son.

The man I'd met at the museum was a retable maker. Retablos are boxes, sometimes small, sometimes quite large, that are made out of a potato dough whch is painted. They contain a scene, or sometimes several scenes, that are sometimes religious, sometimes secular. Many depict harvest scenes, or sometimes shops like a hatmaker's, for instance. I had discovered them years before in the Lima crafts markets and purchased several then. I'd also met a master retablo maker, Nicario Jimenez, who had a studio in his house in Lima. He made the most incredible retablos, including some that depicted scenes of violence, with bloody details, helicopters hovering overhead, etc. All made out of potato dough. I had hoped to visit him this trip in Lima, but discovered that he had moved to Miami. He'd also been "discovered" and now sold his retablos for large amounts of money, which I'm sure he deserves, but means I couldn't afford them anymore anyway. So I will just treasure the few small ones I have.

But here, in this museum in Ayacucho, was another man who made political retablos. And I hadn't been able to find any other retablo makers in town at all, and the few retablos I saw in the market weren't of very good quality. I don't know if most of the retablists(I think I just made that word up) had moved away from Ayacucho like Nicario Jimenez, or if the craft has mostly died out, or if I just wasn't able to track anyone down. Except for this man, who was flattered at my interest. But he didn't have any retablos available to sell at the time.

There was a crafts museum in Ayacucho, too, but, sadly, it was closed for setting up a new exhibit. The last exhibit had been about Nicario Jimenez!

I did, however, find the workshops of the weavers. Up at the edge of the city was a small square with a couple of crafts shops and several studios of various members of the Sullca family and several other weaver families. All of their rugs were beautiful. I had had a request from a crafts store at home to bring back woven placemats. I gave the order, with details of colors and types of designs, to Norma Sullca, the one woman weaver among the Sullcas. Several days later, she had them ready for me. I purchase several small rugs from her, and several from one of her uncles as well. Another uncle was one of the most renowned Sullca family, and had exhibited various places internationally. One place, in fact, was at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, just 15 minutes from where I live, where he had been artist in residence several years back. His is an amazing three dimensional quality, like waterwalls, or tumbling blocks, almost reminiscent of some Escher works.

I had, I guess, to some extent fulfilled my desire to meet some of the artisans of Ayacucho. And I did also buy several small items from vendors in the marketplace. I sold several, but could only bear to part with one or two of the wallhangings. One was a wedding gift for my friends Sadie and Will.

Well, back again to the actual volunteer project. In the afternoons we planned activities for the kids at the center, much like what I did in Romania two years previous (which adventure I will describe next.) We helped with homework, organized activities to help them learn a bit of English and a bit of geography, and formed a belly dancing club( yes, bellydancing!) One of the volunteers was a young woman originally from Cyprus, who'd been living in London. She bellydanced and decided to teach the kids. She had a Shakira CD with her (this was my introduction to Shakira, the other volunteers were shocked that I didn't know and love her music) and also went hunting in the market for bellydancing music. I was sure there wouldn't be any available in a mountain town in Peru, but I was wrong. So, armed with Shakira and authentic bellydance music, she gathered whichever kids were interested, which was practically everyone, girls and boys alike. I will never forget the sight of 12 and 14 year old boys shimmying and laughing, their school backpacks on their backs. And I will never grow tired of Shakira singing "Hips Don't Lie" which has become one of my favorites.

After the three week project, I met Loring, Max, and Carolina back in Lima. Our friend Marielena, daughter of our adoption lawyer, told us she was getting married, something we did not know before we left home. I gather they had decided suddenly. Falk, who is German, had to leave Peru because his visa was about to expire. So we shifted around our plans in order to be there for the wedding. It was a secular ceremony at a hotel overlooking the city, with sushi, Mari's favorite, as part of the menu. Mari wore a beautiful bright blue dress, which made me wonder if white was as traditional there as in the US. I imagine it is. When Carolina admired her dress,Mari said she could have it for her wedding!

We spent a week in northern Peru, came back to Lima for the wedding, then a week south of Lima in the Ica desert. We stayed in the oasis town of Huacachina. The big event there was riding dune buggies in the desert. Since there is no vegetation at all, it doesn't seem as though it is detrimental to the environment. It was quite a thrill going up and then down these incredible inclines, not usually my cup of tea. But I'll admit I'm glad I did it, and the stark landscape was incredible. We also went to Paracas where there is an enormous bird bird and marine population including penguins, seals, and many kinds of birds. It is apparently one of the most diverse bird environments in the world. A few months afterwards there was a terrible earthquake whose epicenter was right where we had been. I wondered about the car mechanic, the boat operator, the waiters, all the people we'd met, and hoped they'd survived.

In the north we visited various ruins, some of which were still being excavated. Everyone thinks of Machu Picchu, but in fact the country is covered with ruins of various cultures, and more are being discovered all the time. We also visited the city of Cajamarca, famous for being the place where Atahualpa surrendered to Pizarro. (and then was killed by him.)

Peru is so varied, with mountains, desert, jungle, ocean, cities. I've lost track of how many times I have been there, I think it is six. I've seen so much, and yet there is so much I haven't seen. Have never been to the jungle, to the Amazon, where Carolina's birth mother is from. The last we heard, she had been bitten by a snake and was paralysed. We sent some money, haven't heard anything since. It seems hard to conceive of what Olinda's life is like, even before this injury, and especially now. Carolina says she wants to travel there, next summer, and visit her. That would be quite a journey, in every sense. More intense, I would imagine, than my trip to Czernowitz.

One more anecdote: Fifteen years earlier, when wwe were adoptin Carolina, I had met a family of artisans in the marketplace. They were gourd carvers, an intricate art that involves etching designs and then rubbing the gourd with ash to blacken the grooves. The designs done by the young people in the family, who learn the craft from their parents, is often in the form of animals and has a charming naive quality. Those are usually the ones that are available in the US. The ones done by the older people are incredibly detailed and really of museum quality, yet are sold for a pittance in the market. The Garcias, from whom I bought many gourds to bring back to the States, were dirt poor but always smiling. They lived in the market, behind a plastic tarp that separated their living quarters from their stall. There were the parents and three daughters and a son. I always showed their picture when I did programs at schools and had many handicrafts for kids to explore, including the Garcia childrens' animal gourds.

So, fifteen years later, in the same marketplace I suddenly had the urge to locate the Garcias. The market was so different. It had been spiffed up, the ground paved, the stalls more like little shops. I didn't like it nearly as much. The people that worked there were more like shopkeepers, and had a variety of items. I doubted that many of them were the artisans that made the crafts . I didn't see many gourds at all. But then I came across one shop that featured them. And so I asked if they knew the Garcia family. Astonishly, they did, and led me to them.

One of the daughters had her own stall, selling a variety of crafts but no gourds. They don't make them anymore. She remembered me, told me they had an apartment now, and that her mother still had my picture, with baby Carolina and toddler Max! And so, the next day, her mother came, photo in hand. And when Loring and the kids arrived three weeks later, we all took photos together all over again. I promised to send them pictures, now realize I never did. It was an incredible experience to find them 15 years later, and find them thriving. But I feel sad that the skill will now be lost, at least in their family. I wonder how many gourd carvers there are left, and if any young people are learning the craft.

Onto Krakow

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I visited Krakow twice, on my way to Czernowitz, and then, two weeks later, I met Loring, Max, and Carolina there. This was the view from my bed(!) at the Hotel Klezmer Hois, where I spent one night. Very funky and fun, Klezmer music every night, and great Jewish food.

On the left, a Klezmer band, playing in front of a church, which I found amusing. On the right, a form of advertising I haven't seen before. She looked extremely bored, despite the Ipod. Yes, Subway has made it to Poland.

And back to the cemetery

For these photos, I would like to thank Marilena. Although I took them, it was on her camera, after mine no longer worked. Marilena is from Italy, but had been living in Warsaw and studying Polish. She met Marcus there, who is Swiss and was also studying Polish, and they came to the volunteer project together. Marilena said Marcus made her come, but I don't really believe that! They made a very nice couple, yet were apparently going their separate ways after the project.

The first photo gives you an idea of the density of the foliage. The second shows some of the brush accumulated, which was then burned. This was several days worth. When we left there were still large piles, which I hope and trust have also been burned by now.

And this is just one of the many spots I walked past every day, neglected, yes, but also hauntingly beautiful.

I don't have photos of myself at my great grandparents' graves, although Pedro should have them on his camera. I will hopefully get them and post them here. Photos do exist, though, and I had brought them with me. A group from Canada had apparently photo documented the entire cemetery some years ago. Given the size and overgrown state, I find this remarkable. But, as Mimi pointed out, they were here in the fall when the foliage was gone, and they spent a month here. It was actually due to those photos that we were able to locate my family graves. Jasmin, group leader and detective par excellance, noticed that the two were flat topped, where many others were curved. Serveral volunteers were then able to find both Sure and Mortche Glaubach.

I am going to leave Czernowitz now, and take you to Krakow and then Prague. But before I do, I want to make sure I have mentioned all the volunteers: first, Basia, from Poland, and Jasmin from Germany, the two co-leaders, who made a great team. Then Ola, also Polish, Marilena from Italy, Marcus from Switzerland, Shannon from the U.S., Clare from Australia, Pedro from Sweden/Portugal, Sofie from France, who I don't think I have mentioned before now, but one of the sweetest people I've ever met, Katia from Germany, very bright and politically aware (and nice!) and me. That was the official group, to which I have to add Marina, who has offered to maintain my family's graves, Costa, who joined us many days, and Lukash, Ola's high school friend from Poland who decided to come join us the 2nd week. What a great group of people.

I will hopefully post the photos of my great grandparents' graves, once I get them from Pedro! (Pedro?!)