Day 12 – Living in the Past

Day 12 began innocently enough, with breakfast at our hotel. We had to wait a while for our breakfast and during that wait we commented on the hotel and its “staff.” No one ever seems to be smiling. It seems a bit odd. They were polite enough and competent enough. Yet we never really felt welcomed or appreciated. I’m sure they appreciated our money enough, but no one who worked there seemed very happy. At first we thought it might be because they don’t like Polish people, but then we noticed that they just didn’t seem to smile for anyone. Interesting.

Our breakfast was a repeat of the previous day, quite simple. Macaroni with a tiny but of sauce (tasty though) and a few pieces of chicken, one slice of tomato and two pieces of cucumber. I will say this, the tomatoes and cucumbers were much better than most (maybe all) American restaurants. I think in the US we have bred the taste out of some of our produce in favor of looks. I’d rather eat a tasty tomato than a pretty one, and here in Ukraine I’ve had some of the most tasty tomatoes ever–since Dad’s garden that is. And we had tea with our meal. Oh, one of the meals was two fried eggs with two pieces of something like Canadian bacon. And the vegetables. And bread with the meal, but no butter.

After breakfast we headed out for a short walk to the castle. Wojtek and I’d been in it the day before, but Alicia had not seen it. She only wanted to see it, so we didn’t go in. But the sun was now in a good place and I got some better pictures than the day before. After that, we headed back to our hotel and took off, headed to Fashchivka, the home of our common ancestors.

We drove through some beautiful countryside. Many wide fields on the large, rolling hills. A few small cities here and there. After about two hours, we came to the town of Sataniv, right on the Zbruch River, the former border between Poland and Russia. There we saw a Polish church in the distance and decided to stop and visit. We stopped first at the cemetery and looked around. Then as we went up to the church we heard singing–in Polish. Mass was going on and was getting towards the end, communion time. We watched a bit, but it was indeed a Polish church full of Polish people in Ukraine. After mass, the had a procession with the monstrance out the church and around it. We went back to the cemetery to look around some more.

The experience at the church was quite moving as it reminded me of the many church services I’d attended as a child at St. Hedwig’s in Thorp, WI. One of the hymns yesterday even sounded somewhat familiar. But it sure brought back good memories, and a strong remembrance to the past.

Eventually we headed towards Fashchivka. We stopped a few times for directions and ended up in the town of Mala Luka, significant to me because it is the town where my great-grandmother was born. Not much is known about her and her family, and no one in the family likes to talk much about it, but it appears that long, long ago, the father of my great-grandmother sold the farm, leaving the wife and kids in deep poverty. They say he took the money and headed to America, never to return or be heard from again. What happened? Was he a scoundrel who turned his back on his family? Did he make it to America? Did he meet with some mishap? Did he just abandon them and start a new life? No one seems to know and no one really talks about it either, just in whispers, I think!

We found an old woman on the roadside milking a cow, and asked her for directions. She gave us directions to Fashchivka, but it turned out to be down what was more of a cow or tractor path, and turned out to be somewhat treacherous–good thing it is dry and has not rained recently. It was a somewhat scary drive, down a few steep hills with deeply rutted roads, but somehow we eventually found ourselves in the middle of a village. We stopped one time for directions, then a second, and the second house turned out to be the home of our relatives! We were quickly and warmly greeted.

The relatives here consist of Aunt Hania, her son Michail with his wife Luba, and their daughters Marienka and Hanienka (I’m sure I have the spelling all messed up). Aunt Hania is getting up there in years, I am not sure how many. Her father was Jan, a brother to my great-grandfather Alex and brother to Alicja’s great-grandfather Antoni. I think I have that all right now.

After a bit, dinner (obiad, or lunch) appeared. It was very good. The centerpiece was a fish that had been caught in the nearby Zbruch river, then it had the meat and bones removed leaving only the head and skin and tail, and that was stuffed and cooked, then refrigerated. Well, in this case it had been frozen. It seems that Alicja’s brother, Marek, had called here when we left Gdańsk last week and told them we were arriving a week earlier than we had planned, so they were ready for our arrival a week ago–and we never showed up! Oh well, it all ended up OK. So we had the fish which was very good, and a plate of meats and cheese, and bread, and a plate full of the world’s most delicious tomatoes that had just a bit of mayo and onion on them. And a plate of red and green grapes. Dinner started with a simple but tasty vegetable soup with some potatoes and carrots in it–the flavor was excellent. And with dinner we had a bit of vodka, too. And some beer. It was a very good dinner and we had a lot of fun.

Later, in the early evening, Aunt Hania took us to the cemetery. There we visited the graves of Alicja’s great-grandfather, Antoni, and the grave of our great-great grandmother, Rozalia. Here grave is a large area, but only one headstone and it only mentions here. Yet the family believes it is the grave of Rozalia, Jan, and maybe some of their children. It was a solemn and somber moment to visit these people who I never met, and yet who are part of the reason I am here today. We placed some flower and removed a bit of brush, though Wojtek has plans for us to go back today and spruce them up a bit.

Antoni, Alicja’s great-grandfather, was actually murdered by the UPA-Ukrainian nationalists–in 1943 or 1944, simply because he was Polish. A sad bit of history and to some only a statistic, events rarely mentioned. Yet very real and they impacted people and their lives. We saw a few other graves that were some relatives of Alicja’s from Antoni’s wife’s side of the family, too.

After that, Aunt Hani took us on more of a walk where eventually we came to the former home of Jan Cymbal, our common great-great-grandfather. It is the home where my great-grandfather Alex grew up. Now it is just ruins and unoccupied. But the buildings are there, the house, a separate root cellar, a barn or stable or something, all in ruins and overgrown by weeds, abandoned long ago. Yet it was a very moving moment to see this. Yes, I did take lots of pictures.

Fashchivka is a very poor town. It makes the poor of America look downright rich. Michail told us of a local man who has gotten very rich and has bought and owns a lot of the large fields around here. But he hires people for 60 or 80 hrvinia a day–and that’s a minimum 10 to 12 hour day. Now if you look up the exchange rate, you’ll find that to be around $6 a day. And a long day. Michail grows sugar beets, but the factory does not have money to give him, so he gets sugar, that’s all. Take it or leave it I guess. They are indeed quite poor here. They have three cows and a few calves. Some pigs. A bunch of chickens and some ducks. He grows some grain, sugar beets, and corn. It is quite a hard life. It sure makes me glad for what my great-grandparents did, in coming to America, an America which was at that time a great country and a land of opportunity and promise, but now a land which was of late lost some of that as well. Here you can also see the big failure of communism of a system where the government provides everything, a lesson for us in America where we at times seem to want government to do more and more for us–that does not work! It absolutely does not work.

Later on we took a walk with Marienka, down to the Zbruch river, the river that was, at one time, the border between Poland and the Soviet Union (between the world wars) and the border between Galacian Poland and Russian Poland during the partition. It’s a very small river at this time, but give to flooding when there is lots of rain. But right now, it’s really tiny, a few dozen feet wide, at least where we saw it.

Later in the evening, we had a bit of a snack, the bread, meats, cheese, fruits and tomatoes from earlier. And some tea. And we sat and talked with Marienka for a long time. She is currently in school studying medicine, three years down and three more to go. She goes to school in Ternopil, a large town maybe 50 of so kilometers away. It was very interesting hear from here what it is like, and also considering the state of things in the Ukraine with few job, lots of poverty, and a low standard of living. Like in Poland, many young people are going to other areas of Europe or beyond in search of jobs that pay some money, as there are few here, as evidenced by Michail’s story above.

Marienka is a bright, young, intelligent, and good looking girl of 19. She must be pretty smart to be in medical school. Anyhow, she has my email address and actually speaks a bit of English. I’ve offered to help her via Skype. I hope she takes me up on it. Wojtek too wants to help her out however they can. And the other daughter, Hanienka, is studying to be a nurse. There certainly seems to be no money in farming in a tiny, very poor village.

As we were walking around yesterday, we found many homes that have been abandoned, simply abandoned. The people have just up and moved away because there is nothing here for them. Very sad. Very sad.

I should also comment and the home and living conditions of Michail and his family, as it is a story of contrasts. It appears to be an old brick home. In the front, to the side, there is a somewhat new and recent addition. It contains a small dining room with a nicely tiled floor, new and fancy doors, a larger room that is a living room–it has a large area rug, sofa and chairs, and desk with a computer on it (laptop) but there is no Internet connection available here. In the back there area a few rooms that they are working on and even last night were tiling–one is a new kitchen, the other a bathroom. There is a well in the back yard from where they get all their water, but from the digging (and the connections in the new rooms), I’d say they are getting ready to put in a pump. There is also a room between the two that will house a water heater, maybe washer/dryer, I am not sure. There is a satellite dish on the side of the house, and a TV in the room in which I’m sleeping, maybe a living room or possible was a living room and now a bedroom. Aunt Hania lives in some attached rooms as well. There are a number of rooms somehow connected, like a house that’s grown and been added on to over the years. Some of it quite modern, some of it now. But all very neat and well taken care of. You can tell these are at heart very good, kind, loving, and caring people, people who work hard, and are doing the best they can in difficult circumstances. They have beer and wine and vodka, but probably don’t eat like that all the time. Even candy, tea, sugar, etc. The milk and butter are from their own cow. It must be a hard life, but they also enjoy some modern conveniences, and are soon looking forward to others, I’m sure. They get by, they definitely get buy. It is very interesting, very, very interesting, for sure, and so different from what I am used to.

So my day was very interesting, making connections to the past, learning of the hard times of the present, and hearing of some of the hopes for a future by the young people. How will it all turn out? I have no idea. But I do hope that we can stay in touch. After all, we are family.