April 24, 2011 – Spirit of Easter
It’s 2:30 in the morning. I must have slept about 3 hours before having to wake up to get ready to go to church. It’s still dark out. I might be awake but my mind is still sleeping. I open my door and the family is ready to take the walk to church. We gather the basket of food that is going to get blessed. It’s filled with Pasko bread (Easter bread), homemade sausage, salo (raw pig fat), the painted eggs, salt, homemade cheese, and a couple of candles. We step outside and it’s pitch black. In the village there are no street lights so I follow closely to my family. As we start our hike through the darkness of the village I can’t see in front of me. All I can see is the silhouettes of the houses that the moon has created. I walk carefully hoping not to trip or fall in a ditch or pot hole in the dirt streets. It’s about a 10 minute walk to the church so I try and practice the Easter greeting we say to each other in my head. cristos boskres - pronounced Christos Vockrec (Christ has risen) and the response boisthu boskres - Voistny Vockrec (Indeed he has risen). As we turn the corner I can see a crowd already at the church. Villagers have already started lining up outside of the church to wait for the blessings. Early that Saturday we learned a little bit about the traditions of Easter in Ukraine. Like many cultures Easter is the celebration of the Risen Christ and also the coming of spring. And that is why there is an Easter bunny and eggs because they are symbols of fertility. Easter is named after a Roman (or Greek) goddess Ester who’s symbol is a rabbit, hence the bunny. So for those of you that were wondering about the connection between the resurrection of Jesus and bunnies and eggs that is the reason. The celebration of the resurrection of Jesus coincides with the pagan tradition of the celebration of spring which is always the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. And that is why the date of Easter always changes because it is based on the lunar calendar. Or you can believe that Jesus had pet bunnies that laid eggs. Sorry I digress. Back to my story of my first Ukrainian Easter.
We enter the outside of the church so we can line up. From the outside of the church you can see that inside is filled with people. They must have gotten there at 2 in the morning. You can hear the chants from the outside. We line up outside the church and it seems to form a line facing the church. My host dad, brother and I go inside the church. Having been inside a church before I thought I had an idea of what the church would look like. And it was nothing that I expected. There were no chairs, it was small, the chandeliers were gold with candles, and from wall to wall it was old paintings of Jesus, mama Mary, and Patriarchs. We bought candles to put it in the front and to do a prayer. I see a couple of the other volunteers as I walk to the front to place my candle. We go to the back of the church to listen to the chanting of the Priest. I say a prayer of thanks in my head. And we head back out. It now seems that the people outside the church have doubled. There is a complete circle around the church of families standing together waiting for the priest. The kids of the village are running around and having fun, the teenagers talking and gossiping, and the adults are doing the same. It’s still dark and the only light we have is from all the candles that are lit up from the baskets. I walk around the church to see how many people are here. It must be the whole village standing at the church. Everybody is outside except for the few that fit inside the church. I stand there tired and sleepy and by this time the cold is getting to my feet. I look at the time at it’s 4 am. I look at my host dad and he said that the priest should be coming out soon to bless the food. An hour past and I think my feet are going to fall off from the cold. From my guess it’s probably about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. You can see dawn arising in the distance. It’s now a little after 5 and the dark sky is starting to light up as you can see the blue skies over the church. The church bell starts ringing and the priest with his posse come around chanting along with the ringing of the bell. Just like in a Catholic church the priest blesses the people with holy water. We all respond with Christ has risen. After the priest had blessed us we leave the church to go back home.
As we get home I change my clothes into my pajamas. The only thing I’m thinking about is going to sleep. I’m tired, sleepy, exhausted, and all the other synonyms of tired. My host mom in the kitchen preparing our Easter meal tells me in Ukraine that I can’t sleep yet. We have a guest over and prepare to eat. On the table we have the Pasko bread, the eggs that we decorated, a variety of meats, and potatoes. We do a Ukrainian tradition in which we all get a hard-boiled egg and hit each other’s egg at the tip. And whomevers egg cracks are the loser. My egg of course loses so I get another egg till I win. Another tradition of Easter is to drink. So at this breakfast I take a couple shots of Vodka. This has definitely wakened me up for the time being. My host family asks what I do in America as far as tradition and I tell them that we do the same thing in America, church, eggs, and eat. After this very fulfilling breakfast I sneak away and go to my room. At this time it’s about 7:30. I lay in my bed and just fall asleep.
I wake up around 3 and my host mom and dad aren’t here. I eat lunch with my host brother and we just talk for a little bit. We play the egg game with the remainder of the eggs. I go back to my room and start watching a movie. “Everything is Illuminated” with Elijah Wood. At this moment it was a fitting movie for me. For those of you that haven’t seen the movie it’s about Elijah Wood’s character going to Ukraine to find a small village that his grandfather was from. His grandmother who passed away early in the movie gave Elijah Wood a picture of his grandfather when he was younger in the Ukraine. So he wanted to go to Ukraine and thank the person that helped his grandfather who was Jewish escape Ukraine during World War II from the Nazis. Elijah Wood hires a Jewish tour guide (who thinks he’s blind) to take him to this small village. So in the car is the tour guide, his grandson (who is somewhat like Da Ali G), and the tour guides all seeing eye bitch (who they named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr.) and Elijah Wood. The interesting thing to me was seeing the cultural differences between Elijah Wood’s character who is American to those of the Ukrainians. And the movie had it dead on. There have been a lot of times when I felt a little bit of culture shock or when I’ve talked to a Ukrainian and they had some pre-conceived notion of how America is. And so I was really able to relate to some of the situations in the movie.
After the movie was dinner with more food from earlier. My host parents just came home and we had dinner. They had a neighbor over and he joined us for dinner. We tried to communicate with each other but I hardly knew what he was saying. And somehow he invited me to his house and I went. This was the first time I had gone to somebody’s house that wasn’t another trainees house or my language facilitators and I had gone by myself. So I really didn’t know what to expect. We walked into his house which was a bout a 3 minute walk from my house. He introduced me to his brother, his niece, two daughters and his wife. The girls spoke good English and tried to speak to me as much in English as possible. We had some tea and a couple of shots of Vodka. And from the other room you can hear somebody playing an instrument. I couldn’t figure out what the instrument was and as I turned I saw his brother playing an accordion. He played amazing. He played Ukrainian songs as the kids were singing the songs on top of their lungs. We had more tea and Pasko bread and my host dad came to get me. We said our goodbyes and I went home.
Now it’s about 10 at night and it’s pitch black. The only lights were of the cars that were driving down the main highway. When I say highway I meant two lane street. I started the day walking in the dark and ended the night walking in the dark. I’m just glad I didn’t walk home alone. I get home and receive a call from my family in the states. And as I just finished my Easter celebration they just started theirs. It was good to hear the voices of the familiar. I told them about my Easter celebration as they just started theirs. They had it at gma’s house or the house that I used to live at. I felt as though I was with them. I can just imagine where everybody was. The mom’s in the kitchen area, the dad’s watching basketball in the living room next to the kitchen, and the youngins watching something on either the Food Network or some other reality show, and Manny running around everywhere. It’s actually kind of weird knowing that all my stuff is still there as if I was going home soon. My clothes still in the closet, my 50’ TV still hanging on the wall, my dog still in the backyard, and all my other stuff throughout the house. It’s as though I haven’t really left but in reality I won’t be back for the next two years. And as I talk to each family member from my mom, to my dad, to each of the sisters, and then Manny, and Juan, and then each of the cousins, gma and gpa it feels as though I’m celebrating this Easter with them. Having a really close family as I do can do two things to a person in my situation. It can make them miss the family like crazy but it can also make the person stronger because of the great support system they have at home. And so I find myself lucky to have this relationship with my family. And although I may not be there physically I always feel that I’m there in spirit.
Hey buddy! Sounds like you had a good Easter over there! Thanks for eduamacating me on how bunnies and eggs were related to Easter - I was actually curious about that.
ReplyDeleteOh and the pasko break looks good!