We got up around O-Dark 30 (5:30am) to go to church and have the Easter baskets blessed as well as each person.
On the way to church
Host father, mother and son
Host father, mother and son
The church we went to
Priest blessing baskets and people
Holy water sprinkled on all
My host family
Waiting to enter the church
Once at the church we formed a circle with the priest in the center with a bucket of holy water, he then moves around the circle splashing holy water on baskets and everyone in the circle. If you are in the front you will get very wet!
Inside the baskets are praska (traditional Ukrainian Easter bread), butter, oil, cheese, eggs and meat. Once the food is blessed we go into the church to light a candle and offer a prayer. Then, it's home to eat everything in the basket along with several shots of горілка (vodka). Then, it is time for a nap!
Praska
One of the more fun parts of Easter is the banging together hard boiled, colored eggs. The object is for each person to select an egg, which is a lengthy process to try and figure out which egg will not crack, and then you select an end and each person hits the other person't egg. You then rotate the eggs and try the other end. The one whose egg breaks loses and the winner goes on to the next person. The object is to keep your egg from cracking.
When we got up from nap we packed a HUGE picnic and went off to the forest to meet friends. This is a traditional way to spend the day. Fires are built and chicken, pork and beef are cooked. In addition there is lots of other food to eat. In addition to горілка.
The fire pit
Food
More Praska
Yum Yum
Cooked chicken
The fire warden!
Want a radish?
Of course there were four other volunteers and their families at the picnic, I had no idea they all knew each other (the families that is). So, it gave me a chance to practice my English...
Having a beverage
Three volunteers and Ana
The party responsible for горілка
Well I am sure you have assumed I enjoyed beverages more than I should have, and your assumption would be correct. However you will be pleased to know I upheld the highest standards of Americans and made it home in one piece.
So, that was my Easter. We did not have class on Monday, which was a great thing because I think all of us are overflowing with Ukrainian and Russian language.
Until next time. Oh yeah, only 20-days till the finish line. It will be a couple of weeks before I know where I will be for the next two years. When I know you will know. Until...Take care
до побачення
Hi Harry,
ReplyDeleteSorry to bother you. My name is Ray Blakney and I am an RPCV from Mexico (2006-2008). Great photos!. I am working on a 3rd goal project with the PC regional offices and the main office in DC to try to create an online archive to keep the language training material made all over the world from getting lost. I have created a sub-section on the website my wife and I run Live Lingua with all the information I have been able to get to date (from over the web and sent to me directly by PC staff and PCV's). I currently have close to 100 languages with ebooks, audios, and even some videos.
The next step for this project is that I am trying to get the word out about this resource so that it can not only be used by PCV's or those accepted into the Peace Corps, but also so that when people run across material that is not on the site they can send it to me and I can get it up for everybody to use. I was hoping that you could help getting the word out by putting a link on this on your site here, so that people know it is there. There should be something there for almost everybody. It is all 100% free to use and share. Here is the specific page to what we call the Live Lingua Project:
http://www.livelingua.com/project/
Thanks for any help you can provide in making this 3rd goal project a success. And if anybody in your group has some old material they can scan or already have in digital form, and want to add to the archive, please don't hesitate to pass them my email. Thanks and have a great day.