Tuesday, December 14, 2010

V is for Village

The common dictionary definition of a village is:

1.a small community or group of houses in a rural area, larger than a hamlet and usually smaller than a town, and sometimes (as in parts of the U.S.) incorporated as a municipality. 

2.the inhabitants of such a community collectively.

Our visit to the Northwest Highlands of Scotland this summer brought us to Torridon Village.

 We stayed int he village of Kinlochewe, and hiked through the village of Gairloch.
This leads one to wonder what constitutes a hamlet and what a town. Those definitions are suitably vague, though it appears that a hamlet, at least in Great Britain, does not have its own church and a village does.

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 If you've read my blog on any kind of regular basis, you probably have figured out that I am blessed (or cursed) with wanderlust. So, though I've featured sites and sights from our trip to the UK for this round of ABCs, I've had some previous experiences with villages by all definitions.

In India ten years ago, we made several evening visits to nearby villages. We visited in the evening because we were busy working during the day  on the roof of the boys' home where we were volunteering. We met with them to learn about their life

 and the projects through which they were improving conditions for themselves and their families.

The question we were asked at each village we visited was "How are your marriages arranged?"



We visited some villages in Siberia when we were there. On this Sunday afternoon we traveled with the priest for Mass in the village of Krasny Pochara. This is the little church there and some of the congregation. Most of the village (definition 2) were out harvesting wild mushrooms, an important part of their diet.





Rural would be the part of the definition that applied to the village of Kargasok, because it was much larger than any other place I have heard called a village. It was one of a number of villages on the Ob River traveling north from Novosibirsk--maybe the largest. The trip by boat was fifteen hours, and we spent two days visiting with internet friends.


Maybe isolated is a better word than rural. But since the cows greeted us in the yard of the hotel in the morning, I guess "rural" works, too.

After we were home from Siberia that year, I compared photos with my friend who had spent her summer in some Alaskan villages. The scenes were remarkably similar.

So these are some of my village memories for ABC Wednesday, round 7.




11 comments:

photowannabe said...

I love how you weave your travels together so we get the feel for the countries. Loved the pictures of Siberia. My son lived in Kraznyarsk for 6 weeks. A fascinating place.

mrsnesbitt said...

Yes - I have just remarked on another bog about the vast differences between our locations - us being part of a rural village and she from a large city. I love the rural community spirit and have spent 20 years here now, married for 22 years I think it has been one of the reasons why we are so happy and content!Thanks so much for your contributions - informative as ever xx
Denise
ABC Team

Roger Owen Green said...

Charming - I like little villages; quite ciVilized.
ROG, ABC Wednesday team

imac said...

Great shots from your restless feet and fingers on the button.

giorno26 ¸¸.•*¨*•. said...

Posti senza ombra di dubbio, meravigliosi !
Buona serata :)
Myriam

Paulie said...

You are blessed to have been able to travel in this way. Thanks for sharing part of your traveling world with me!

Tumblewords: said...

Thank you for sharing these beautiful views and the fascinating information about wonderful places you've visited!

Nanka said...

Pretty neat villages and each one so charming
and distinct but the people would have been happy and content, the most common feature in every village :)

Martha Z said...

That's quite a diverse group of villiages.

Rune Eide said...

A "V" that is known to all, but then again, not. Excellent.

Liz Hinds said...

What a wonderful way of showing us villages. May you get to see many more!