Day 20: Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Day 20:    Lancaster Pennsylvania

We were glad to leave the muggy heat of Washington and travel through Pennsylvania to Lancaster county.

As we travelled, Ben, our very well informed Italian-American travel director told us story after story about the history of the area.  His knowledge of the War of Independence and the Civil War is extraordinary – also the war of 1814, of which we knew nothing previously.

By lunch we had travelled through the area with strangely named towns such as Virginville and Bird-in-the-Hand and arrived at Intercourse!

 It is there that we took a local expert on board the coach.  He was as well informed about the Amish as our guide from last week in New Wilmington.

We were anticipating that this might be a very pseudo-Amish experience, but it turned out to be anything but.  We travelled through farmland, seeing first-hand the Amish farmers working their land with teams of horses.  Usually it was a man working alone, but in several places the wife was helping with the farm work.  It was just fascinating to see them using modern mechanical rakes and John Deer hay balers pulled by horses.  Then a diesel driven fork lift came along to pick up and load the heavy bales.

We passed several people mowing their lawns with a hand pushed mower – they were by no means just small patches of lawn either.

The countryside was picture perfect – just what I have always imagined Pennsylvania to be like.  The beautiful spring weather certainly enhanced the beautiful scene.

We were then taken to a house and school house that have been set up as the Amish have them to show tourists. The kitchen had a gas stove and a full sized fridge – obviously running on gas or diesel.  The heating for the house is by coal fired unit. 

We didn’t see a bathroom, but our guide told us that (at least in this area), they have indoor toilets. He also mentioned the telephone and said that they are permitted to have one for business purposes only.  The connection with indoor toilets is that the outhouse is now used to house the telephone. We saw several of these, quite a distance from the house in each case. 

The model schoolhouse was interesting.  We were told that until the mid-twentieth century, the Amish children went to regular government schools, which were no more than about two miles apart so that the children could walk to school.  Once bus travel was possible, the government closed many of these tiny schools and open up larger conglomerate schools.  The Amish did not want to have their children travelling on buses, so they now occupy the former tiny government schools.

The pupils’ desks are of the style used when we were at primary school. The ones at the front are tiny, for the first graders.  As they progress toward the back of the room, they become larger and larger, accommodating the eighth graders at the back.

At one stage, we passed an enclosed metal trailer.  The guide told us that it contains all the benches, hymn books, bibles etc needed for church services.  It is pulled from house to house as each family prepares to host church.  With one hundred or so people needing to be accommodated in the house for the church services, it seems an impossible task.  However apparently, the internal walls are made to be easily moved, opening up a space large enough to accommodate the congregation.

So ended our interaction with the Amish people.  We found them to be friendly, open, fascinating, inspiring and far more 'of the world' than we had expected. And yet, through their diligence and obedience to their faith, they remain fairly much as people would have lived several hundred years ago - with some concessions to the modern world.  I am certainly honoured to have one of their beautiful quilts. 

Leading up to our stay in Amish territory, Ben had often mentioned what a treat we would have staying in ‘authentic’ accommodation. For instance, he made a point of telling us to ‘have a shower’ the day before, inferring that we would not be able to do so in our Amish area accommodation.  Image our delight when our ‘authentic’ accommodation turned out to be a most luxurious conversion of a tobacco farm.  Decorated in Georgian style, our rooms were huge, the furnishings sumptuous.  The property had several buildings, each of them now guest accommodation. 

Our evening meal was, we understand, typical for the area.  The waitresses appeared to be Amish women, but I have yet to be convinced.  The dessert was whoopee pie.  The chef demonstrated the making of this local treat, which is akin to a chocolate yo-yo biscuit with an oily marshmallow centre.