I could have spent the night there. Pani Anna and Pan Stas live there and they’ll always put me up. But I am getting too old and spoiled to enjoy winter nights without indoor plumbing.

I met them first exactly 35 years ago. I was a student in Warsaw. But I moved to the States a few years later and I didn’t go back to Rynias for many decades. Pani Anna and Pan Stas went from being in their 40s to passing 80. They lost their one son to a motorcycle accident. Pan Stas, as of today, has only one tooth left. He will not smile at the camera, but he’ll smile and smile for me.