Coming Back Up

Rain before breakfast, sun by mid-morning, mud the whole day through. The mountain does not pick one.

Nothing comes up here the easy way. The road gives out before the houses do, and what arrives at the top arrives slowly — by cart, on a back, in pieces.

Timber houses, grass to the treeline. And under all of it, the noise of a house with children in it.

The kitchen going from early. Boots by the door in no order at all, none of them dry. Somebody singing something I did not know, and everybody else knowing it.

English on the bench outside. Words traded back and forth — mine for theirs, theirs better than mine will ever be in their language. My accent got the worse of it, and they were not quiet about that.

More than one part of the country in the voices. The vowels give it away before anything else does.

Then up the track, all of us, boots going where boots go here.

The rest of it was carrying what needed carrying. You do not arrive up here with a plan. You wait to be asked, and then you pick up the end of the thing.

Two days down in the city after that. Screen time. Networking. Our International English Club is now official. A connection that holds. Coffee not made on a wood stove.

When I came back up, the children were different.

Not louder. Steadier. Something had settled in the days I was away, and none of it was mine to have done.

This valley did that. People who live here did that — in their own mountains, in their own language, on their own terms.

The voices were happy and sad at the same time. Both at once, on their way once again.

Rain again in the evening. The track will be mud tomorrow too.

Now the cow bells again.

Day 23–26 — Kompostieren — Soil and Peace
Verkhovyna, Carpathian Mountains, Ukraine
© 2026 Michel Garand | Soil and Peace | CC BY-SA 4.0
stewardship@ubec.network