Donna Druchunas's Blog

Yep, you read this right. I found a cute little post card flaunting a Lithuanian haiku while I was waiting for my latte in a coffee shop yesterday morning. Here is the Lithuanian poem by Tomas Sinickis with my, somewhat free, translation.

***

Pagonys stovi
virš bazilikos mano
Jėzus bus piktas.

***

Pagans are standing
all over my church
Jesus will be pissed.

***

I showed it to some of my fellow students and said, "Uhoh, I'm in trouble." I heard someone mumble, "Me too" behind me.

I use the word pagan as a synonym for apostate, but that's not really what it means outside of a certain American mindset. Haiku is supposed to be about nature, and Lithuanian paganism has very strong ties to nature and the old ways are experiencing a kind of public revival in some parts of the country.

Christianity here is mostly of the Roman Catholic variety, although there are some Protestants and even a few evangelicals. From what I can tell they are nothing like American evangelicals. The Catholic church has too much power here and recently parliament passed a proclamation declaring that a family is a man, a woman, and their children. With a divorce rate above fifty percent and many single mothers, you can imagine that this has pissed off a lot of people, even if it hasn't pissed off Jesus.

The funny side of the story about Lithuanian Christianity is that there is a national holiday celebrating the day that Bruno of Querfurt, a Christian missionary, was bonked on the head and killed by the people in 1009, also the first time that Lithuania was mentioned in writing. Next year the country will be celebrating the 1000 year anniversary of these events.

When Mindaugas, the first and last king of Lithuania finally converted and had the country baptized in the thirteenth century, it was only so he could receive the crown which had to be delivered by the Pope. Although Lithuania has been a Catholic country ever since, and the people consider Catholicism to be part of the national identity and as such, something to be preserved and used to oppose the Soviet occupation, there is still a very strong undercurrent of paganism here and the old stories and myths are as strong in the daily psyche as the teachings of the church. It is quite amusing to me, and gives this poem a slight twist of irony, completely appropriate to haiku, that I believe was fully intended by the author.


Cross posted on Skepchick.

I'll be writing more over the next few days, because classes are over. Even though I'll have a couple of research tasks, I should have some extra time until Dom gets here on Friday afternoon. But we took our exam at class today, we're getting together for beers tonight, and tomorrow we get our diplomas and have our farewell party. I am already sad because I live so far away and I've made a few wonderful few friends here, and have no idea when I will get to see them again. It's easy enough to catch a flight anywhere in the US or Canada for a weekend, but going to another continent requires more time and much more money. I wish I was rich enough to do anything I want at any time, but I am not and I do not expect to be rich at any time in the foreseeable future. The only saving grace is the internet! Without email and Skype it would also be expensive to keep in touch (by phone) or take and incredibly long time to exchange notes (by snail mail). To any of my new friends who have looked me up on the internet, I will miss you!

So this has been a great trip, even though I tend to only blog on my down days when I've been feeling melancholy or just exhausted. I have learned more in 4 weeks than I had in the entire year leading up to my trip studying from books and CDs and a meeting a few times with a private tutor. Now that my skills are at a higher level -- although I am still a beginner -- having a tutor will be much more beneficial I think, because we can just speak to each other in Lithuanian instead of in English.

I do not want to let my Lithuanian language skills, slim though they may be at this point, atrophy when I get home. I am going to write one page a day in Lithuanian in my journal, meet with a tutor at least 3 times a month, attend some gatherings of the Lithuanian community in Colorado, and study an hour every day.

What that means, is that some of my other projects will go more slowly than planned. I'm currently of the frame of mind that says, "That's OK and I don't care what the consequences are." In a perhaps significant way, my priorities are changing on this trip, or perhaps becoming aligned with what they've been in my heart and mind for some time. Often I find that I say "yes" to too many projects that are not in line with my personal goals and desires, or that I think are in line with those goals but that turn out to be distractions.

It's not just that I want to learn the language for working on my book. It's all part of the experiences that I've been having for the past 10 years that I call "turning into myself"... this is something that's not showing up in my memoir and that is a huge problem. I am not sure what to do about that project. I definitely want to write it, but I think I may have rushed into preparing a proposal when an editor from a major publishing house emailed me earlier in the year. I'm not very happy with the depth (or lack thereof!) of the material I've written so far. I don't think it really cuts deep enough into the heart of the issues I want to discuss.

So here I am trying to figure out what I am going to spend my time on when I get home. Lithuanian language study is one of those things. I am not going to let anything else get in the way of my continued studies. I didn't finish the writing on two knitting books that I had wanted to complete before I left, so this may mean that I end up pissing some people off or getting into some kind of trouble because things take longer than I'd hoped. We'll see what happens. I'm not abandoning any of my projects, just reprioritizing them and making them fit together more comfortably. In the end, I think this means the end products will be better written and, I hope, more successful. (Hi Deb & Janet.)

OK, that's all I have time to write now. I have to do some bookkeeping because sales tax reports are due tomorrow in Colorado. TTYL.

In the last 24 hours, three people have told me, in so many words, that they didn't think I was really an American.

I wonder if that means I actually am quite unusual for an American or that they had been holding unwarranted stereotypes of Americans. I was born in America, and this is only the third time I have been out of the US in my entire life, and the first time was only a three-hour excursion to Tijuana. I must be an American.

I've never really tried to be normal, so it would not surprise me if I am substantially different that most Americans in many ways; but on the other hand, I do know quite a large number of Americans with whom I have very much in common, so I don't think I'm really a white crow.

I actually found someone else who likes strawberries in sour cream. Two people actually, one from Belarus and one from Ukraine. I really like the people from the countries all around here. And not just because they like the same weird foods that I do. Everyone is friendly, curious about people from other places, and just pleasant in general. I've invited all the students from other countries to come and stay with me if they want to visit the US. I hope at least a few take me up on the offer!

Sadly, the only crabby people I've seen around town and in the language classes are other Americans (only a few, most are very nice). One group at a restaurant was hassling the waitress so much, I think she started to cry. I left her a huge tip, even though I only ate a dish of ice cream.

Even the drunk people here are friendly. It's strange, because last year it seemed like no one wanted to talk to strangers, but this year it seems like everyone is very outgoing. Maybe it is because of the sunshine. Or maybe things are changing here. Or maybe the people from countries surrounding Lithuania are friendlier than Lithuanians and I can't tell the difference. I don't think I'll find out on this trip, but I do plan to keep coming back in the future.

I can't believe how quickly the time is going here, which is both good and bad. Only one more full week of school, and I haven't learned nearly enough. I do miss Dom a lot, so I'm glad he will be getting here soon. I miss my cats too, but they'll have to wait until I get back home. It's strange to be away from home by myself. I would like it better, I think, if I had an apartment so I could make it a little more homey. I do spend some time here -- I can't spend all of my time sitting at cafes and such, plus it's easier to have one set spot for getting online and answering email and doing work. The cafes here don't usually have any power for you to plug in your computer, which makes the free wifi pretty much useless unless you have a Mac with 4 hours of battery life!

Here are a few photos from Rumšiskes, an open air museum that shows what it was like to live in Lithuania in the 18th and 19th centuries. I'm just showing the spinning wheels and such. These are shown with flax set up to spin linen thread for weaving. Sorry these are a little dark. They came out better without a flash and I haven't done any correction to brighten them up on the computer yet.



I had a very quiet weekend. I went to cafes and parks and wrote and read and knitted. I bought two books. One is poetry in Lithuanian by an author we heard about in one of our culture lectures and the other book is historical stories and legends for children. I can read some parts of the children's book. I can recognize words in the poetry, but because syntax in poetry rarely follows what is used in colloquial speech, I may never really be able to understand that book. The author, Jurga Ivanauskaitė, has had some works translated in to English, so I will try to find those when I get home. I've only seen the Lithuanian versions in bookstores here. I was really fascinated with her story when we heard about her in the class. The instructor knew her (sadly, she died last year from cancer in her mid-forties).

So, sorry this is so rambly but I have to study so I'm just writing off the top of my head. Lots going on in my mind when I am here and I have thought about making some changes in the direction of my work and writing but we'll see how I feel after it all settles back down this fall and the trip is part of my past.