Polish idioms - rural people

Cześć,

I am writing my thesis about agricultural environmental movements in Poland (mostly about anti-GMO and agricultural biodiversity movements). I had a really great month in Poland and one of the men I interviewed told me this PERFECT idiom that I want to use. However, the meaning was translated for me and my Polish is quite bad and I cannot figure out what it is. I would love to have the exact idiom - in Polish and with English translation. The translation I got was something like this:

"Rural people (peasants?) are good at gymnastics."

It was meant to say that rural people will always find a way, some way, to survive :)

If anyone could help me, or has any other good idioms about Polish rural life or farming I would really appreciate it!

Dzięki!

Nona

As to the first question - I have no idea. It could be anything starting with "Chłop potrafi ...", as in "chłop potrafi kombinować".

As to the second one: you are lucky. Just search "przysłowia ludowe" (folk proverbs) and you will find thousands of web pages on the subject. For example, you might try: "Calendar of Proverbs - Proverbs, sayings and folk wisdom for every day of the year" for a start, [litewiak.w.interia.pl]. This is in Polish only though.

"na chłopski rozum" springs to my mind.

Thanks. It's a start. I wish I could find this idiom so much! So many idioms in Polish!