FACTS ABOUT MWESEE

     Archeologists believe that the village of Mwesee is extremely old -- the first people arriving 13-15 centuries ago. The settlement was built on the highest point of the broad Vyatka River, from which the eventual village of Mwesee (meaning promontory) took its name. (Today its location enables you to have the best cellular phone connection in the region as well as Internet access.)  The villagers told us that their ancient ancestors were hunters and fishers, settling at the point where the Vyatka River joins the Baisee River because here could be found an abundance of fish. Armed with bows and arrows, spears and instruments of stone, they hunted an abundance of large and small animals in the nearby woods. In 2004 on the banks of the river below the village, archeologists found the skull of a rare young cave bear that lived in the region 50-100 thousand years ago.
    The center of the village is where three hills meet. Each of the hills holds up its share of the nearly thirty homes that constitute the whole of the village. At one time, the homes numbered nearly 300. It, like many villages, has suffered greatly during the prolonged period of perestroika or "time of change" which continues to keep most Russians in a state of economic and political uncertainty.
     The road by which you reach Mwesee is two strips of grass lightly flattened. As a result, you arrive in the village much like a sheep, roaming freely about. It is hard to imagine that such a non-road has a name. Yet, it does. It is called Bolshoi Pa`cheenok which roughly translates as "The Big Beginning". The American Home lies at the end of Bolshoi Pa`cheenok. The small "lane" that runs along the eastern side of the house (two even fainter, flattened strips of grass) has recently been named "Atlantic Avenue" in honor of the American Home.

 

MAY 2005:  THE ROAD "HOME"

If you arrive in Mwesee late morning, you will most certainly see the footpath carrying some elderly woman home with two water buckets swinging rhythmically from a yoke around her bent shoulders.  The path winds its way to a rushing stream where you not only wash your clothes, but fetch drinking water.
      When we arrived in Mwesee we were met by Raiisa Ivanovna -- and three geese.  Raiisa Ivanovna was just returning from the stream where she'd finished washing two baskets of laundry that hung resolutely from her sturdy shoulders.  Her white kerchief, tied tightly around her head, appeared above the crown of the hill just as we turned our gaze in that direction.  Her left hand worked a large walking stick that helped her up the steep grade of the path.
      This was the second hill she was climbing with her laundry baskets, thus she had no reason to feel embarrassed by using her walking stick, though she was.  To make her way home with her laundry and geese, she had come from the foot of the three adjoining hills where a grove of birch trees was bursting with new tender leaves.  The path leads you along to a footbridge that then carries you across a ravine and over to the third hill, the first house of which is the "American Home".  It was given to our organization by the villagers in November 2004.
      We offered to carry Raiisa Ivanova's laundry -- and thus we met our first neighbor and gained a new friend.  The geese, we learned, were not hers.  They belonged to her sister who turned out to be our next door neighbor.  We shooed the geese into their own garden before heading further down the road.  As soon as the gate swung closed, Raiisa's grandniece, Luba, swung open the front window to let out the cat.  Seeing us, she smiled and waved.
      Later that afternoon we met Raiisa's third sister, Para`skovaiya Ivanova, and her talented husband Nikolai Yegorovich, about whom this story is being told.
      Mwesee is the village Nikolai Yegorovich all his life called home.  It was also home to his aunts and uncles, as well as his grandparents.  He was raised with many ideals:  respect for others (especially elders), love for one's motherland, and the honor of hard, self-sacrificing labor.  He survived revolution and war, and then rushed to build up the communist dream.  He married a village girl, raised an honest family, and eventually became the most respected builder in Mwesee.  He would look back on his full life and be able to take credit for building the new post office and school, the dry goods store, and the Hall of Culture, which included a library, a meeting room, and a small theater.  The school and Hall of Culture looked out on a garden with a large World War II monument.  Each year graduating students planted a birch tree as an enduring symbol of all the life, education, and well-being that had taken root in Mwesee.
      Whatever else communism was, to many Russians like Nikolai Yegorovich, it was represented by the new school, the bustling post office and store, a library full of books, and a theater where his children could see wholesome movies, or plays by Shakespeare and Chekhov.  There were talent shows and puppet shows, Sunday ensembles, and rooms in which to take private music lessons.  When we met him, Nikolai Yegorovich had already been left with a beautiful full head of silvery white hair for many years.  His smile was warm and winning, and his face unweathered, more like the softness of a child's.
    Nikolai Yegorovich could also take credit for several of the newer village homes in Mwesee, including ours.   In a childlike way, the villagers had given the American Home to "all the people of America" -- at least to those who had made the library project in Vetoshkino possible.  It was then that we learned that the children in Mwesee, no longer having a school of their own, walked the six miles to Vetoshkino three times a week to go to school.  (You can visit the village of Vetoshkino by going to: Vetoshkino
      The intent of the home was to give the people who had made the library possible a chance to see not only the fruits of their labors, but the warmth of the Russian people.  And so, on our way from the Urals back to Moscow we went to Mwesee to accept the villagers' gift and assess the realities of turning it into a global home, without upsetting the fragile environment of village life.  Nikolai Yegorovich came by that first day to see what it would take to restore it.  He was immediately likeable.  He was not inclined to draw attention to himself and so, only slowly, we learned his story, imagining much of it by the works his small hands had so amazingly wrought.  He had truly accomplished enough to make many men proud.
     We had been working all morning on tearing down a center wall to make the main room of the house larger when Nikolai Yegorovich arrived.   He entered as politely as if the house were all in order and he had come for dinner.   By the quiet, knowing look on his face he took in the situation at a glance.  If he was too kind to say what he understood (that the house needed a lot of work), we as yet did not understand what cast the shadow over his gentle face.
      Nikolai Yegorovich came to the river bank that afternoon with several of the neighbors who organized a hasty "shashlik" (barbeque) to celebrate the fact that smoke could once again be seen coming from the chimney of the widows' house.   (The house had been shared by two widows up until recently when it was left vacant.)  The early spring day turned cool and so we all drew closer to the fire where skewers of lamb, onion, and lemon cooked away.  A rowboat had been turned over and now held bowls of tomatoes, cucumbers and potatoes.  The other rowboat, under a nearby group of young beech trees, held a small pile of extra picnic blankets and a thick, brown sweater between which four-year-old Sashenka lay taking a nap.  Two of the women started to sing softly.  It was a melancholy melody which left everyone temporarily with their own thoughts.
      When the song was finished, someone suggested that we gather at the house and that Nikolai Yegorovich bring his accordion.  The idea immediately appealed to everyone.  Already we understood that the smoke rising from the chimney was kindling the hope that the village itself could be brought back to life.  If neither of us wanted to say it aloud, we nonetheless knew that it would have been better never to have rekindled such hope, than to let it go out again.  In short, we had to return with Americans in tow.  We had to turn the gift into a reason for this village to live.
      Two neighbors arrived with a hot pot of tea, a sugar bowl, two cups, and a spoon.  Another followed with an armful of fragrant flowering branches.  On the top of a small wall cabinet, which now wore a pleasing shade of muted blue, yet another neighbor found a tall glass jar and headed off with it to the stream.  Everywhere you looked you found something, no matter how dusty, that spoke of all the life and love that had been once poured into this house.
     Someone thought to bring a light bulb which was now hanging from a cord in the middle of the ceiling.  Its golden light barely reached the corners of the room, as if it had chosen, instead, to concentrate all its energy on giving light to Nikolai Yegorovich.  As he played, he rocked and swayed from side to side, the wooden chair beneath him keeping time with the music that filled his beautiful, old accordion.  Soon, Raiya began to dance while the others clapped and sang.  On and on the music played while the light outside grew soft and sleepy -- slipping behind a grove of trees.  And in those few happy moments, we all forgot that the day before the house had been abandoned.
     Now the home, almost a year later, again awaits our return.  We will spend nearly two months getting it in order so that the villagers' dream -- to make neighbors out of nations -- can soon become a reality.  The next step will be for you to arrive.