Pra-Baba's Woven Willow Basket

n.kryschuk

The ancient willow, it is said, grows with wet feet. To harvest the soft spring grown willow, you have to get your feet wet, and learn to bend. Then you weave.

Little Foxes Village, Лисичники is located in Beyond the Woods County, Заліщики, near the southern border of Halychyna Галичина where it meets Bukovina Буковина. The chutora (хутір farmstead) is a climb up a steep rocky hill, higher up the valley where Little Foxes begins. Steep, rolling hills climb up the river valley. The road? No more than the width of a car, it is lined with picket and willow fences - near enough to touch through a car window.

Old log homes built in the late 1800's still stand, repeatedly repaired and whitewashed over the years. Here and there the beautiful, old painted designs of rozpys розпис are hidden under the eaves and over windows.

On that beautiful May evening in 1887, Dmetro and Kateryna were so pleased to welcome their first born little girl, Anna. She would be the first of their five children who survived into adulthood. Times were hard, but Anna and Paraska, Maksym, Onufrey and John (who would be the 5th child) grew up loving the farm life.  

The villagers knew each other well, and worked together on the fields for the landlord. They worked for the 17th sheaf! That is, after stooking 17 sheaves of wheat for the landlord, he granted them permission to take one sheaf home for their growing family needs. Poverty was everywhere.

Sad news came from the neighboring village of Kashpertsi Кашперці. Yurij and his lovely wife had also had a little girl whom they called Anna. Tragically, his wife and next baby died during childbirth. Widowed and sorrowing, Yurij was blessed to have the neighborhood ladies care for his baby daughter Anna, but it was clear he needed a more permanent arrangement. Little Anna needed a mother, and poor Yurij needed a wife to take care of his child and make a home for his family.

Kateryna and Dmetro knew of Yurij's plight but they had problems of their own. Their children, Anna and younger siblings Paraska, Maksym and two year old Onufrij were soon going to be joined with another baby, and poverty was knocking at their door. Anna needed to be settled into her own home life very soon.

Barely 14, Anna married the widower Yurij. Wife and new mother to Yurij's daughter Anna, they made a family. By age 17, Yurij and Anna had a son, at 21 a daughter, and with three little children they realized the family plot wouldn't feed their growing family needs. Really, the term "farm" hardly encapsulates the size, they were small plots of land, not even acreages, about the width of a city lot and running perhaps a quarter mile in length!  Emigrating to the "free lands" of  Canada, they sold all their belonging in 1900 to pay for the steamship voyage from Hamburg to Halifax.

Not knowing what to anticipate ahead, Anna packed her hand-woven basket full of important necessities, eating utensils, seeds, a kerchief, sewing needs - all tools for the various roles she would play in the life ahead - doctor, veterinarian, tailor, carpenter, midwife and hunter. Oh, and dreams!

 
Time has not been very gentle with this basket. Anna was my pra-baba. The basket was woven in her little village before she left home. It served as her Paska Basket but at one point it was in danger of being discarded. Unable to burn the family heirloom, my dido's supple fingers strengthened the broken weave with willow. When that wouldn't serve, he lovingly wove wires through the broken places to preserve this beloved family treasure. 

On Easter Sunday the basket will cradle my family's hopes and dreams again, as it has for 113 years here on Canadian soil. Paska - the Resurrection, babka - the ancestors, kovbasa - the sacrifice of blood, cheese - the first fruits of the soil, eggs - the symbol of eternity, red beets horseradish khrin- both bitter and sweet, and the beautiful pysanky - the universe unfolding as it should. Happy Easter! Христос Воскрес!

Kenney Interview on KONTAKT

Privet! or Dobrijden'!
These are greetings of welcome among Ukrainian and Western Canadians. And they are open opportunities to conversation about (among other realities) one's experiences with language, culture, religion, community values, volunteerism, services, employment, new social circumstances - all because of a life decision to make a change. Establishing oneself economically, socially, culturally, sometimes a person is glad to tap into the experiences of the Ukrainian Canadian community. There is much to learn, on both sides of the equation.

The Ukrainian Canadian television show KONTAKT recently aired an interview with Jason Kenney, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. The program contains some very valuable information about our Canadian government's role in making the world a better place for everyone.

Canadian democracy is a participation sport, it is the citizen's responsibility to be the change we hope to see in the world - speaking truth to issues. I hope you will take a moment to view the interview, and take an active role in Canada's future.

Immigration Issues in Canada  -  Super Visas and family sponsorship  -  Canada’s position on democracy in Ukraine  -  Asylum of former KGB operative Mikhail Lennikov  -    http://www.ukrcdn.com/2012/08/24/jason-kenney-on-canadian-immigration-ukrainian-documentary-and-kgb-op-lennikov/

See you for discussion and companionship in Calgary's Ukrainian community!

Hope Springs Eternal





My embroidery

Our daughter just moved away from the comforts of our home in Calgary, and into a new life far away from the embrace of the familiar - her community, friends and family. As parents, we know the human journey involves change, and her place isn't really that far from home. But if you look at it as another emigration from the "homeland" it takes on a hugely different significance.

The ancestral homeland of Ukraine sits at the crossroads of many important travel, economic and political influences.  It has been so, since forever, it seems.  So, with international opportunities beaconing from every corner of the globe, Ukrainians, like every other people, have chased, emigrated, resettled, re-acclimatized, and re-assessed their "cultural inheritance".  I mean that quite broadly, though.  " Pobutove zhittya" is probably a better descriptor than "culture", but even that needs explaining.

In this particular context I am defining culture as "everything people can pass on to ensure their progeny thrive in the future".  So when helping pack some of her things, we had to anticipate her needs, in the short term, and perhaps longer.  Then to look at all of our collected stuff, and consider what would be hers to inherit. Besides the coffee maker and towels, what could we give her to sustain her, comfort her, and prepare her for life - for it happens without our invitation.  Change happens, but somebody recently told me, it is the small stuff that reveals what a person is made of.  If so, what truly authentic messages will her "stuff" reveal about her ancestral inheritance?  About us, her parents, grandparents, great grandparents?

I was speaking with a cousin in Winnipeg, and she suggested that every child of hers would have a newly embroidered pillow, for the living room sofa.  Taking a traditional pattern, going monochromatic with the color scheme, graphic and modernly finished.......

One of her grandparents gave her a painting referring to home-ie. Ukraine. A montage of events around church, the sights, smells, and spirituality a thousand years or two in the making.  Memories of blessing baskets, eating kutia, that kind of thing.

Another family member wanted to send jars of borsch.  Food, they say, is the most tenacious of the cultural elements, because it hangs around in the memories of home, comfort and love.  Actually, my daughter makes better varenyky than I do, but nobody makes better jam than baba.

And, knowing how much fun it can be to move big bulky stuff, I sent pysanky which can sit in a bowl on the counter to remind her of the many hours we sat together dreaming of what the future would bring. The "masterpiece in the hand", the "ikon of the universe" may prove to be a conversation piece, perhaps someday someone will ask what the whirls, crosses, circles, deer, wheat, and flowers signify?

What does a family give their child who is leaving, not just an airplane trip away, but a world away, like my great grandparents did over a century ago?  What "stuff" sustained them to the degree that many generations later, we still identify with their journey? Many Ukrainian immigrations ago it was said that a person could survive with two books in hand, the Bible and Taras Shevchenko's Kobzar!   How about your family and the travails that have brought them to their Ukrainian Calgary adventure?  What really important message is hidden in the gifts you will leave in your packing trunk?