I woke up early today. I wanted to see morning forest for a while now, so I was motivated to get up early. We had some breakfast and went on the road fairly early. Once we got to the forest, I remembered that I forgot to put on contact lenses, so we had to comeback. I’m really glad we did though.
I’ve also got to photograph a lot more cats this morning.
Julia the cat
Zhuchka the cat
Murchik the son of Zhuchka the cat
Rosa the bad-sighted cat
Pupsik the camera hating cat
3 cats cleaning
We’ve visited the places from the previous time, while looking for blueberries. All blueberry bushes are empty this year. It’s actually tragic. We went through all these places and decided to go to the other village where some of our relatives live. While going through the road we finally found some actual berries and started harvesting them.
It wasn’t the most pleasurable experience. There was so. many. mosquitoes. The second you stopped to get a berry, you got surrounded with 10 mosquitoes all trying to bite you. We’ve decided to postpone this for a bit and first visit the village and buy anti-mosquito spray.
We went through the forest, meadow and crossed the █████████████ river, and ended up in █████████████. We then met an elderly lady that I’ve never seen before, but she was one of my relatives. On this trip we took our old and… kinda dying aunt, and she very happy to be with us, since she knew this lady very well. It looked like they didn’t see each other for a long time.
We got invited for a tea party. My aunt and the lady talked how they want to live more and that they might not see each other again. This made me die inside and reinforced my fear of aging once more.
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We then visited a cemetary, where my great-grandfather was buried. I also learned that apparently my great-great-grandfather was Polish. My aunt fixed the writing on his grave, since it was already starting to fade.
We then exited the █████████████ into the fields. Endless, endless fields until you get to a khutir (aka hamlet) of █████████████ with a bunch of houses. Most of them are abandoned now, but there were still a few people living there. We met some of our distant relatives in the house that was on the opposite from our great-great-grandfathers one. The people in there welcomed us in there and toured us around.
It was visible that barely ever checks this place anymore. Unfortunately our great-great-grandfathers house was destroyed a long time ago, so we couldn’t see how it was.
It was still nice to visit this place, knowing that my ancestors lived in here, so long ago. The place itself was really peaceful. I walked through there and imagined how life was here back then, when it was more lively.
We came back to the same blueberry spot, this time with anti-mosquito spray. It was a much more nicer now. All mosquitoes didn’t bother me anymore, and I could get a little bit of my beloved blueberries. There still wasn’t that many, and I mostly just enjoyed being in that forest instead of actively picking them up.
We came back home and had a long rest and a dinner. The aunt invited us to visit them, so we did in the late night.
The house was full of hyperactive kids. In this village, life is so different from what I’m used to. I’m constantly reminded of cycle of life. Everyone keeps gathering with full families: the children, the young couples, the elderly. All having loud chats and topics to talk about. As always, I was mostly silent. I never really have anything to talk about.
It was finally time to rest.
