Poor Knights

A Quaker peace pilgrim walking to the Middle East prays for a traveling companion, and his prayer is answered when he teams up with a countercultural young woman whose presence challenges his own rigid sense of purpose. This memoir recounts the unlikely pair's journey from idyllic, late-summer Slovenia, through the war-scarred but scenic roads of Bosnia, to the snow-covered Balkans of Bulgaria. As the two make their way on foot they find themselves camping by mine-infested woods or in abandoned houses, sharing rakija with the locals or being set upon by villagers, lending each other support or being hard-pressed to cope with each other's emotional baggage. When weather conditions deteriorate they find themselves ill-equipped for the climb into the frozen Balkans, where they are each forced to make difficult decisions.