Common Ground

There are different kinds of journeys that people take - different kinds of trips. We as people decide to go out and find something. Maybe for some it's to find something new, maybe it's to come to peace with something, maybe it's to say good-bye. But, often I think we journey in order to know, in order to understand something that we don't quite get. It was for this reason that Becky and I found ourselves traveling over 1 400 km in a car that shared the size and safety that a gnat would afford its passengers.Since being in Lithuania we have glimpsed at what we felt was Lithuania. Having nothing to chalk these decided differences up to other than the sole fact that they weren't American, made us start to wonder, "What is Lithuania? Who are Lithuanians?" This is clearly an enormous question that to do it any sort of justice would require an in-depth, unbiased research methodand highly sophisticated minds that are capable of crunching the data that would be presented. Lacking the resources for both the former and the latter, we were faced to make a series of decisions. The only thing thatwasn't Americanabout our decision to have us two uncultured, inexperienced individuals take a road-trip was the Deawoo we affectionately called the Tao, we drove.

The Road Trip

It was a good start. And for that statement to be true you must know that I am speaking comparatively. It was, after all, monday evening around 5 30 pm, and we had planned on leaving Sunday bright and early. What's 36 hours, right? Did it bother us that the car we wereborrowing had managed to brake down before we got it? That the bakes literally fell off of the car while it was getting driven to us? Nope. Way better that it happened ahead of time than if it had happened after one of us got that rubber-band motor spinning full-speed going into a roundabout.

We did eventually get the car from its wonderfully gracious owner, Emas, and then got a pep-talk from the expat who we were copying in doing the road trip. She informed us of how wonderful Lithuania was when you get out there and see it all first hand. She incouraged us to go and see whatever we wanted, there is plenty of time and it's a small enough country. We happily took her advice since we had not planned anything yet and we would be leaving in

under two hours. We grabbed her map, Lithuanian travel books and GPS and threw them in the pile of clothes, shelters, food, and camping gear we had assembled. Saying goodbye to Klaipeda, we rolled the windows down and opened our eyes for what was ahead.

Our days were filled with camping, exploring, walking in new cities and towns. We got to see Lithuania and Lithuanians outside of our school and our immediate community. It seemed like the aspects that were consistent from our city to the rest of Lithuania shone through. We went through enough villages and towns to see what village life looks like compared to city life here. Lithuania has 5 different regions, with their corresponding stereotypes, and we pretended that we could tell the difference. We could see the difference between the types of land, and consequently the farming, fishing, and general living.

What we did discover is that a small Lithuanian town will most likely have:

a large outdoor crucifix at the entry and exit of the village and they are usually wooden, beautifully landscaped gardens, little stands with people selling vegetables, mushrooms and fruits from their garden or the forest, a bus stop with two things - a bench which has no back and at least one vacant, empty beer bottle. The towns also have a statue or bust of someone, a church - located at the very highest or best place in town, a gas station, a village drunk walking through the streets, at least one babushka (elderly grumpy grandma who somehow owns and runs everybody's everything) who is walking or biking, either way she has a loaded basket of goods (possibly stolen, ha), a village name sign announcing entry and a sign with the village name on it with an X through it to signify your departure, lots of huts, dilapidated buildings, at least one Soviet relic - some cement building/structure/form left from the old days, colorful homes with decorative tree limb bridges, fences, arbors, flower boxes, and all towns have many, many people walking the streets.

One of the places we stopped was at a museum of sorts. It is a man's property that has many of the old Soviet statues from during the occupation. He purchased them after independence, and set them up in his yard. There are two huge loops that have all sorts of statues along with the propaganda that people were told. Most of the statues were of Stalin and Lenin, but some were of other heroes. I loved this statue.

As I said we camped the whole time. The forests are beautiful, and for the most part free. They have completely different philosophies when it comes to property and land. Most of the space is Lithuania is Lithuanians. Not the governments, but just the peoples. It can be used as wanted by the people, but no one owns it individually. They are just forests and fields left to the care and use of the people. Which leads to free use of the space, for the better and worse. We loved though. The lakes that we would camp next to were some of the most clear lakes I have ever seen.

We got to meet new people on our way. One of our favorite was Ryma from the south western corner of Lithuania. We camped in her campsite for night. It was actually just her yard, but her and her husband turned it into a great little campground. They live in the National Forest because their house was built before the country even had national parks. She was a terrific hostess and treated us graciously. I love how the Lithuanians we get to know always want to hear our impression of Lithuania. We always tell them how we love it here, and what shocks me is that our answer always surprises them. They want to know why we love it, and then a number of them tell us what's wrong with it. It seems similar to how people back home think about America in a very different way than the rest of the world. It's interesting how outsiders can often see the brighter spots in our own situations than we can. We'll be headed back to see her soon.

One other thing that really stuck out to us was the depth of history. Its so crazy to live in a place that has been lived in for thousands of years by people who are still carrying the stories along. A bit different than the story of Europeans in America. One thing that Lithuanians have deep in their traditions is how they deal with death. I don't claim to be an expert by any means, but you can clearly see it through their maintenance of graveyards. They have many graveyards that are hundreds and hundreds of years old that are still meticulously kept up. Every village and every church have them, and they often seem to be a central part of the community, being decorated with flowers and light up with candles. This graveyard was from the German settlers from the 1800's. I think it wasn't as well cared for because of the tension between Lithuanians and Germans. Nevertheless, it was impressive to stumble upon driving down a tiny road in between farms.

Overall we loved our trip. Our favorite times were with the people we got to meet and the half understood conversations. The last night of our trip we met up with a Lithuanian friend of ours, Vaida, with her Mom, sister, daughter and nephew in a town 75 Km north of Klaipeda named Plateliai. There is a huge lake there which is about two hundred feet deep where people learn how to scuba dive. There is also quite a bit of sailing there. We spent that night hanging out with Vaida, her family, and her friends' family (the scuba diving instructors) with our first experience of Lithuanian Vodka. We enjoyed ourselves and had a great night chatting with new friends about the same old things: family, children, politics and what we all love to do in life. It's beautiful to see how much we all have in common, and how it comforts us to be around people who among all our differences we can find good, honest, common ground.

The trip put us in a good place to start this next year, and more experiences that will help us understand more completely, but never wholly, the people who we are trying to serve here at LCC.