February 5, 2013--Nik's Village

Nik lives on a hill outside of Podgorica.  It is a 15 minute ride up a narrow winding street to his house.  One day he asked, "Do you want to see my village?"

 

From Nik's house, we wound up the rocky mountain on a narrow paved road for one hour.

 

 

On the way he showed us his sheep pen where he will keep his sheep if he gets the opportunity to get some.

 

   Minutes later we stopped to see a church a wealthy villager built.

His home next door.  He is not occupying it at the present.

We traveled on and stopped at a cemetary.  Nik's father and brother (brother died in a car accident in the U.S. when 25 years old) are buried here.

Nik's twin brother (lived a few weeks) and 2 sisters are buried here.

This is the school where Nik and Kristina's children go.  It is a nice school.  It has electricity.  The rooms are heated with wood stoves to save money.  There is one problem.  This village has no water.

Vera's Classroom

 

Paule and Nua are standing with the outhouse in the background.

After taking a picture of the boys, Craig turns and takes a picture of the school to show the distance.  We talked to the school officials to see what we could do for a humanitarian project--computers?  books?  The only thing they are interested in is water.  We are not sure if the village will qualify.  The population is small.  We will try.

We drove higher into the village.  We stopped to look at their grand canyon.

 

The homes are spread out in the hills.  There are no stores.

A cross that another wealthy villager put up in the village.  They move to the U.S. and send back money.

On another day we will go see where Nik grew up.

Back down we went along the rocky hillside on the narrow street.  Look at that rock.  Can you imagine drilling a well?  This story will continue . . .