April 30

​The day has come for our journey up to the summer pastures. In the cabin of the truck, my friend’s husband is the driver, Great Grandmother wedges between him and me and, on my other side, against the door, my friend squeezes in with her youngest on her lap. Safety regulations? Forget it.
 
In the back of the truck there is all that we have selected for the stay in the mountains, and a calf and a foal securely tied down so that they will not jump out in their fright. The other two boys are jammed in the middle. Two shepherd dogs make up the truckload.
 
We start out at dawn. There are other trucks on the same journey. We form a convoy linked by the blue haze of diesel fumes from badly running engines.
 
We have stopped on our long upward grind through forest in the late afternoon. Engines are overheating, drivers tired. We do not make a proper camp. We stop in a field by a flowing river. Women and children divide off in one direction; men in another. We unload some bedding and a few awnings but otherwise we prepare for a night under the stars.
 
In the midst of the bustle, Great Grandmother takes me aside. ‘We are in the way here’ she says, ‘come with me’.