it was the famous english rockband The Who that once had a song called My Generation.with grandma Mika on the left and my wife Nives on the right (and one of our "wild" cats, called Sporky crossing) two generations are having a chat on the steps to our terrace.
grandma must be in her eigthies now, but still takes care of a million things in the household of our best friends Anjelco and Susana.
taking care of the house, feeding chickens, picking eggs, than going to the land to water the plants when needed, and later in autumn, when a couple of pigs are behind the house, she prepares their food, all homegrown on their own fields.
and than, when time has come for those pigs to become the famous prsút (salted, smoked, dried and matured ham, famous in Dalmatia) she daily takes care that those hams, panceta, sausages and more, hanging in the "black" kitchen, get their daily amount of smoke to conserve the meat and make it to the very best you'll ever know or eat.
grandma's in Croatian families are MOST important and highly respected, as they keep the "wheels turning" while kids are in school and parents are working.
and when anybody comes home for lunch or supper, it's their, as she cooked it already for each and all.
still life is not always easy here, but life of grandma and her late husband (named "Truman" after that famous American president, worked like hell to keep the family fed, and did it all by hand, with no motormachines, no electricity, water from the well and long walks up and down the mountain to Omis and back, as there simply were no roads, no cars, just legs and pure character.
her knowledge , and that of all Croatian grandma's, their experience and endurance are the best examples of how to live and survive in this marvelous country beheind the coast.
for that reason it's nice to see that my wife gets some experiences handed over in a friendly chat between two generations.
still life is not always easy here, but life of grandma and her late husband (named "Truman" after that famous American president, worked like hell to keep the family fed, and did it all by hand, with no motormachines, no electricity, water from the well and long walks up and down the mountain to Omis and back, as there simply were no roads, no cars, just legs and pure character.
her knowledge , and that of all Croatian grandma's, their experience and endurance are the best examples of how to live and survive in this marvelous country beheind the coast.
for that reason it's nice to see that my wife gets some experiences handed over in a friendly chat between two generations.
and for all of it, grandma Mika (and her generation) deserves all respect you can give to her (and all grandma's), living under rough conditions we do not even know of and never will.
about that little cat crossing, well, she owns a place between them on the picture, as she gave bearth to at least three kittens a couple of weeks ago.
and for cats times never changes, they will never know about the "benefits" of cars, airco's, tv's and washingmachines, they just pass their skills on to their kittens, century after century, from the days of Cleopatra till somewhere far into the future.
generation after generation.
and we just talk about it, as this is my and my wifes generation, from overorganised and crowded Holland, happy to be living in Croatia today.
