The Foreign Service Journal, May 2019

82 MAY 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL LOCAL LENS BY CAITLIN B. HARTFORD n MARAMURES, ROMANIA Please submit your favorite, recent photograph to be considered for Local Lens. Imagesmust be high resolution (at least 300 dpi at 8” x 10”, or 1MB or larger) andmust not be in print elsewhere. Include a short description of the scene/event, as well as your name, brief biodata and the type of camera used. Send to locallens@afsa.org. T win church spires rise above a small town in the county of Maramures, located in north- ern Romania along the border with Ukraine. Maramures is renowned for proudly maintaining its rural traditions. These are seen in the towering wooden churches (including the tallest in the world), the colorful folk-art Merry Cem- etery at Sapanta and the winter festival held the day after Christmas in Sighetu Marmatiei. Any time of year is a good time to visit Maramures and immerse yourself in a life that has changed very little over the generations. Farm families still use hand scythes and wooden rakes to harvest pasture grass, piling it onto center posts to form haystacks that feature prominently in this winter landscape. n Caitlin Hartford is a consular-coned FSO who is passionate about photographing and writing about rural life and land- scapes. Accompanied by her husband, Tim, and their cats, her Foreign Service life has supplied amazing opportunities to dis- cover—and photograph—countless small towns during assignments in Romania, Mexico and Colombia. She took this photo in December 2016 with a Nikon Coolpix S9400.