Paşte Fericit!

Happy Easter! Although I celebrated my Easter last week in the big city of Suceava with a gourmet dinner at McDonald's and a trip to the “pet store”…

It slightly reminded me of the Easter my family was on the road back from The Ranch AKA my grandparents’ retirement community on the Rio Grande, where the Border Patrol flowed like margaritas and the Bingo blotters never went dry. Yes, we would drive round trip from Minnesota to the very southern tip of Texas and the nights we spent in nicer areas we could sleep with the car windows open! Thinking of all those endless family road trips…no wonder traveling in Romania with Current threats is such a breeze – no pun intended. Any hooters, we stopped at some fancy fast food joint and climaxed with an Easter egg hunt in the conversion van, which you can be sure we 3 girls did not do with any sort of grace. Oh how family vacation memories can make me giggle…

…we are now on the third and final day of the Romanian Orthodox Easter. School was supposed to resume today but when I showed up everyone was gone. Only 50 out the 200 students showed up so the Director sent everyone home! Can you imagine that happening back in the States?! So, apparently last week’s Easter vacation is unofficially extended. Yet another reason it will be difficult to return home. Everyone spent this past week spring cleaning and cooking more food than one ever thought possible. I got in the mood as well and brought my giant floor rug out for a good beating. Never having done this before, I was going to have to mimic the Bunică method I’ve observed so many times before. So I rolled the ole girl up (my rug…not Bunică) and brought her out back to sling over the tree log apparatus my landlord uses for such an occasion. However, the horizontal log was a bit high so here I was jumping or more so flailing around in attempt to get the rug unrolled and hung. Success. Now...with what shall I beat it Dear Liza? Since I didn’t have the adequate rug beating instrument, I resorted to using my broom shaft. Forty-five minutes and two blistered hands later, it finally occurred to me why the bunicas are always able to push their way in front of me in line at the post office. Nevertheless, I must have some decent cleaning abilities because when I cleaned the organization club room with 2 other ladies they said I was definitely ready for marriage. Thank God! I thought the day would never come!

Thursday was the day to decorate eggs, which are typically died red. However, in the Bucovina area you can rarely go anywhere without seeing the traditional intricately painted eggs. The red eggs are the ones we used to play the egg cracking game on Sunday before eating. Before knocking your egg with a partner the first person states “Hristos a înviat!” and the second person responds “Adevărat a înviat!” (Christ has risen! He truly has risen!); and whoever’s egg does not break will have good luck the following year and/or a whole other slew of superstitions.

On Friday and Saturday I was invited to my counterpart’s house to learn how to make all the traditional food. As pork was the featured guest at Christmas, lamb is the “in meat” for Easter. Luckily I didn’t get to see one of those dead fellas in the flesh – word on the street is that it looks like a skinned cat. So I was thankful that just the back bone was present, from which we made a borş and friptură (kind of a roast). We did not make drob de miel, basically a meatloaf made from lamb organs, but we did have some with our meal on Sunday. It had an uncanny resemblance to banana bread, which apparently does not exist here, so you can only imagine that first disenchanting bite. When making cozonac (sweet/sponge cake), I asked the time requirement for kneading the dough and I was told until one sweats between the breasts…fair enough. Additionally we made răcituri (jellied meat – think chicken soup jello) and of course sarmale but instead of cabbage, we used grape leaves this time, which is more common to the Moldova region.

Saturday night I went to Easter service with my counterpart’s family at the small chapel in the psychiatric hospital. The true die hards are typically there from midnight to 4am. When I left my Bouse at 11:30pm, it was fun to see so many people out and about (the streets are generally deserted after the sun sets.) What tickled my fancy most were all the old ladies carrying their baskets of food that they had been slaving over all day to the church to be blessed before eating on Easter day. Approximately a half hour into the slujbă (service), the priest makes a call for light and lights a few individuals’ candles in front, who in turn light their neighbors and so on. Eventually each person is holding their own lit candle – quite honestly I’m amazed there aren’t more fire incidents. Shortly there after, the trickle of people leaving begins, which is when I also bid my adieus. Everyone carries their lit candle home and leaves it burning until morning. Of course mine blew out five feet out the door, so I took advantage of my lack of obligation and walked around town past some of the bigger churches. I wish I had taken a picture but the mental image of everyone walking home with their candles will forever bring me a sense of peace.