Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Cynthia's Lithuania trip in 2001 17th July, 2001


 I am sharing a couple fun emails we got from our daughter Cynthia on a trip to Lithuania in 2001.   The two e-mails posted are all I have left of that trip but I found it fun and decided to share it.   I have no pictures to share unfortunately.
Mom did clean up some of the spelling.

Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 15:51:14 -0400

In good faith I have kept a rather detailed account of my journey from the States to Lithuania. I fear that what I lack of verbal communication has loosed my pen and so, should anyone become bored with reading this, please feel free to put it down. I not only will understand, but I will never know.

Where to begin? Perhaps on the flight from Pittsburgh to Frankfort. I sat beside a gentleman from Germany, and he next to his friend, also from Germany. Of course the question arose and I replied, "Lithuania".

"What?" They exclaimed, " What is there? It is poor and barren. It is the worst place in the world to visit."

I explained about the job and they nodded in understanding. After all, equestrian sport ranks as highly in Germany as Football does in America.

They warned me of the perils of Polish roads and the misery of travel through East Germany. Once that was settled they promptly fell asleep, leaving me wide awake with trepidation and excitement. After three Vodkas though... just kidding mom......

In all honesty though, I simply could not sleep. I watched movies and TV sitcoms offered, and listened to music, til finally about an hour out of Frankfurt I decided to make myself presentable. Customs did not even look at me. So much for my painstaking care. I walked out of customs practically into the arms of a slender lady with close cut salt and pepper hair. She actually embraced me and so I didn't feel as left out in the crowd of people kissing and hugging around us. To make it even better, Sibylle dumped a six week old Jack Russell into my lap when we reached the car. It was part of a payment for some horses that she'd sold. My first impression of Germany was that it was not unlike Ohio. The six lane "Autobahn" was lined with forests of pine trees and the exits lead to gas stations and restaurants.

Because neither of us had slept much in the last twenty four hours, Sibylle and I stopped and just slept for an hour or so. It was beneath a windmill, which I later discovered, seemed to be a by product of German soil or something. They are metal, wide at the base and tapering up to a the top some fifteen or so feet high. Three blades resembling those of an airplane completes the effect. Nothing like the Windmills Quixote battled no doubt.

The further east that we pushed the more I became aware that I truly was in a different country. In spite of the familiar highway, the scenery began to take on a distinctly different taste. The smell of "naturally" fertilized fields, filtered through the window and the sloping green hillocks were dotted with clusters of village houses one could find in any picture book on Europe. The journey wore on, with views of quaint Villages and modern erections vying for attention along the way.

The driving was horrendous. Everyone travelling at an amazing speed and stopping quite abruptly for backed up traffic. They had little regard for lanes, passing where ever their car fit, unconcerned by the mere inches spared. In fact, often they did not even wait for you to completely change lanes before scraping by. And stopping on the side the road, or even not quite there, seemed to be a National Pastime.
As evening drew in and we close to the Polish border w began to look for a place to spend the night. The village of Nieder Seifsdorf presented herself, only twenty kilometers from the border. We approached a woman, walking her dog, about accommodation. A brief exchange ensued in German. Sibylle told me that the woman professed that there was no place in the village to spend the night, and she had no idea what lay in the villages beyond, having never ventured that far in her life. The nearby village was only fifteen km away. In her ten years of freedom the old lady had never explored that world that had been forbidden to her her whole life. The only change really was that now she could walk her dog after seven at night. Sibylle said that was quite common in East Germany. The people simply did not know what to do with their new found freedom.

A tourist board however boasted a small farm house which took nightly visitors. Let me clarify, tourists who often spent only one night. Windemere. I was struck atthe entrance by the, for lack of a better description, a corruption of a totem pole. A single log about ten foot high had been carved into the flowing face of some guardian, with eyes that curled into flames in the corners and a mouth that seemed ready to speak some damnation at any moment. The sign "Windmere" was set across the body at an angle as though the front was simply to heavy for the bolts to hold. Again the odd combination of modern and quaint facilities struck me.

While the buildings, a house and two barns winging it left and right, were constructed of brick and plastered with a mud like finish, the drive way was adorned with three very shiny, very expensive new cars. Our room was furnished and decorated and well cared for remains from the second world war. The room also had a television and stereo. The view overlooked a well shaded garden, where geese dotted the vegetable rows. Beyond, a church, built in the same fashion as the farmhouse, thrust boldly its spire, to be seen from almost anywhere in the village. Sibylle told me that the churches were not necessarily destroyed, rather they were kept as monuments and historical points, but certainly not as places of worship.

After a good sleep, I awoke to the smell of coffee and fresh bread baking I'm serious. We breakfasted on a delightful fare of cheese, cold meats, boiled eggs and the very best coffee and bread I have ever had in my short life. Though I did not speak the same language as our hostess, her concern for our pleasure was touchingly apparent, and I clumsily tried to express my gratitude and delight in her sweet home.

Well, this is part one my mom asked me to write. I have decided it is too long to write in one night, and rather than kill you in one sitting, I'll drag it out a little. Next time we shall explore the wonders of POLAND.

Incidentally some of you may have noticed the poor spelling and gross lack of punctuation. The spelling is a combination of my inability to spell, not to mention my rather careless typing skills, while the punctuation, which I truly do hate, is due to the German Keyboard on which I am typing. Everything is all wrong, sorry.



24th July 2001, Trip to Lithuania

Lost the e-mail about being in Poland.  This is the last one  GBW

Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 21:57:53 +0200

Dear mother... Sorry about the delay in writing, technical difficulties. But let me continue my story...

It was around half past ten that morning that we finally we cleared to enter Lithuania. The 350 km drive to Plunge was spent half asleep for I still was very tired. But the countryside is quite interesting. It is so different from Poland, one could almost taste it.

There were small signs everywhere of attempts at self sufficiency. Small squares of vegetable gardens and grains struggling for life. Only as much land as a man could till by hand or horse. And for the first time since I touched down in Europe, I saw horses!! Fat, draft animals, chained or hobbled out to pasture. No fences held them. Cows staked out in the middle of tall grass, goats tied in the town squares or back yards. All very fat and content to just stand.

The landscape itself was fairly flat. Small rises here and there, but even the distant mountains seemed like mere hillocks. The land itself was lush and thickly green.The pasture grass as tall as my shoulder in some places.The houses were much like those of Poland, but I noticed the very high acutely angled roofs The eves dropped again almost half way down the sides. The towns we passed through were small and close. Narrow winding roads that had the trodden-dirt-like feel to it that is so typical of poor countries.

There are people everywhere, walking mostly. Very few smiles or laughter. No really animated conversations either. Yet they did not have that distracted look that one might find in, Chicago say. Just people content to remain in their own world.
We reached the farm and I was delighted to find it to quite novelish, (my own word here) The main house was constructed ENTIRELY from wood. It seemed to spring from the very heart of a cool grassy hollow in the earth. Scented by a hundred different flowers, it looked over a grassy area, not a lawn but more, I suppose, a natural garden, ungroomed, except to keep the grass short. This was broken only by a few ancient trees, a large rock and a statue. On the rock were engraved the names of the people who'd lived on the farm and the years they had been there. The statue was of Sibylle's grandfather. He'd been quite something of a hero in his day. A military man and leader, he'd been the highest commander of the Lithuanian Cavalry before his capture and subsequent death in Siberia. From what I understand it is His name that the local workers respect so deeply and why they clamor to work for Sibylle's mother.

Beyond the house, four buildings formed a yard. A house, where I live, opposite a very large barn, and ended by two buildings which I am not sure what they do. I know that the workers take their breaks in the one building, but otherwise it is a mystery. Behind the large barn stands the Indoor arena. On the West end of the arena is Sibylle house and the "Lodge". Both actually are directly attached to and over look the arena.

In the early mornings when I start, and my horse, Lelija, is screaming for her friends, I see a head or two pop into the window, and then disappear. I am sure to return to sleep. And behind the arena, end to end, is the "Mare" barn.

The land spreads in every direction, and ends each time in a forest. It is a very large farm, and I have not seen the half of it. Only the pastures and immediate fields.

There is a constant hum of activitiy here. From around eight in the morning til six at night, there are farm hands putting up hay, or cleaning stalls or village boys mowing the grass. Alina is always surrounded by an army of women and children picking berries of every sort, and collecting vegetables. But other wise they all seem very withdrawn, even with each other. A distrust almost. One of the farm hands, Kazimirius, would not look me in the eye, and I mentioned it to Sibylle in passing, how odd it seemed, since then he makes a point to nod at me, and I've even coaxed a smile or two out of him. Now this is not to say that they don't talk at all, or that there is an uneasy air about the place. It is merely to say, they are completely different from the Africans of my youth who loved to work in large groups. They held yelled conversations over whatever they were doing at the time. Teeth flashing in laughter, someone, if not two or three, always shattering the quiet with loud voices. And if there was nothing to talk about, someone was humming or singing. The difference is all I am commenting on.

Darius, the young man that works with me as a trainer,of course doesn't speak English. We have however begun to have...well, not conversations, communication maybe. He is extremely handsome, in a gypsy way. Shy eyes that are very gray. He is married with twin boys who are three. Our conversations have been about everything imaginable, but mostly about horses. He loves to jump, as do I, so we've compared favorites.His wife is angry because he made a lot more money as a panel-beater, but he said that whenever he was working on the cars, his mind was going crazy for horses. He is twenty nine and has been riding since he was nineteen. Not long by European standards. But he is actually very good. Like any of us needs a little help, but defiantly has a love and feel for the horses. I feel bad that he works so hard to receive his one lesson a day. And often the work is not even with the horses themselves. If he's not helping me, He bucks hay, or helps with other heavy labour, odd jobs, then is allowed to ride at the end of the day when I'm sure that his limbs are like lead for weariness. Long after I have cleaned up and am writing at the door to our house,Darius is finishing up this or that, or checking that the other workers have finished their jobs right. It's after that that he comes and we sit on the front step, watching the last light leak from the clouds. That's when we get to talk. In Lithuanian the answer to "thank you" is "please". The Lithuanian words sound like this " Achoo Preshu." If you say it fast it sounds like a sneeze and blessing. I have picked up a few words. Mostly to do with the horses, and I am still trying to get a working knowledge of the language at least, but it is not going to be easy!!!It is unlike any other language in the world, I'm told. And the rules of grammar are entirely whacked out. Learning the root word is not enough often. There is a different affix for different tenses according to the ending consonant. Also it depends on the ending of the word before it. I can't even explain how in depth this all gets. One example maybe. The names of men, first and last, change depending on the form of address, and the last letter in the name. Darius' name is Darius, but when you address him directly it is Darou, and to write to him, say, it would be Darie. I can't even pronounce his last name so I won't continue with the illustration. But perhaps you see the complexity. And that is just on the males names. On all nouns, though, the affix changes. I have to stop, I am just further confusing myself thinking about it. For now, I'm able to use one word along with gestures to get my point across. Well, I believe that is about all that I can write for now. You are up to date I hope, and no longer think I am still in Poland:>

I love you mum ma, and hope that you are having a blast!!!! Let me know when Ouma is coming so I can write her a special e-mail. Give grandma my love, and a big kiss. Dad and Squashtoo. Keep me posted on Squash's Football thing...


LOVE - ME!!!