On the top of a cliff, nearly 600 feet above the ocean, lies Ustrine whose history reaches back to the Ancient Romans.

When you picture a small village as depicted in the movies – homes built over 200 years ago, locals who are wary of outsiders and gossipy about their own – Ustrine is it. One market and small restaurant that are only open during the summer months; walking through their graveyards you only find a handful of surnames.

This is where Manfriend’s family lives for the majority of the year. The 97 year old woman Maria who lives next door is a treasure; everyone in town knows her. We hang our laundry on a clothesline to dry in the warm summer night air as we sleep. Local cats come by for scraps of turkey leg, but only Mama Mika gets the blessing from Branka to approach.

The ground is made of crushed stone – the path crawling down the cliff to Sadic (the beach), the yard of a local woman with the best fig and olive trees, and the Ancient Roman walls and remnants of Roman buildings and churches.

We eat dinner on the terrace, covered by draping fig trees, and then when the southern winds pick up, we move to the Konoba for a drink. Branka reminds me of my grandmother, offering food and drink even when we’re not hungry, but insisting we’ll need the energy for our hike to the Ancient Roman ruins.

The table is meant only for community – our hats and phones can never be placed on it since these objects do not benefit the whole. But when we eat, we feast on full spreads of homemade meals with beer or wine.

We take long, leisurely walks, chasing telephone wires and wild sheep. The world feels different from these cliffs, slower, easier. We’re finding that we forget what “normal” feels like from back home – noise, congestion, check lists, and the such.