Not Your Average Teddy Bears on Parade

Yesterday I went up to Julie's site to see a unique Romanian tradition, the bear dance.  Her site holds a dance competition and troupes from all the local villages come into town to perform their dance.  Bear dances are done to bring good luck and happiness in the new year.  

Long ago the dances were done by actual bears that were conditioned to dance to the beat of the drum.  They were trained to "dance" from the time they were cubs.  The cubs were put on hot coals while drums were played, "dancing" as they tried to keep their paws from burning.  This was done until they were conditioned to lift their paws when they heard drums beating.  As you can imagine, this practice is now banned, but the tradition has morphed into people donning bear skins and dancing. 

Julie lives on the road from one of the villages to the center of her town which meant that we were able to get a great view of one of the troupes parading into town.

 

 

 

We then walked into town to watch some more performances on the town stage.  We arrived to see some sort of historical reenactment performed by some older men, but we couldn't ever figure out what exactly what they were reenacting.

We then watched another bear dance performed by a different village.  I was amazed by the young kids dancing while wearing heavy bear skins and by the man who was hosted up standing on a board to dance above the other bears. 

After a few hours, the temperature began to drop so we headed back to Julie's apartment to warm up.  There were still other troupes queuing to dance on stage.

There were also a fair number of tired little teddy bears.

Christmas

Last year I spent Christmas in Romania with fellow volunteers, Julie and Vicki. This year Julie and I decided to try another Eastern European destination for the holiday, Budapest.  Julie and I have been wanting to go since we discovered that we can get there with just one train transfer from our sites.  However, we weren't able to find time to go this summer so we decided to go for Christmas.  The train journey took a little over 15 hours and two trains.

Arriving in Keleti Station

We arrived in Keleti station in Budapest on a very chilly morning, but were able to warm up as we strolled to our hotel.  Our hotel was very conveniently located, just one block from the Great Hall Market where were were able to look at lots of local produce, spices (lots of paprika!) and handmade crafts.

Great Hall Market

We also were able to take a short stroll from our hotel down a pedestrian boulevards to one of the main Christmas markets in Budapest.  During the month of December local squares are filled with vendors selling holiday crafts, food and drinks.  We enjoyed drinking mulled wine and checking out local crafts.

Christmas cookies

On Christmas Eve we visited one of traditional thermal bath houses, Szechenyi and enjoyed soaking in the thermal baths and sitting in the saunas.  The steam made it difficult to photograph, but the bath house was built in 1881 and was as gorgeous as it was relaxing.

Szechenyi Baths

 After the baths, we walked back to our hotel through Pest taking in many sites along the way.

Vajdahunyad Castle

The Christmas Tree at the Opera House

That evening we found Christmas Eve service in English at St. Columba’s Scottish Presbyterian Church.  It made it feel a little more like Christmas to get to sing a few hymns and carols in English.

Christmas day we woke up to gorgeous weather and took the opportunity to walk around the city more and cross the river to Buda.

A square in Pest next to our hotel

Matthias Church in Buda

Fisherman's Bastion in Buda

The view of the Hungarian Parliament from Buda

Christmas Dinner

We had nice day, including what we agreed was our most unusual Christmas dinner thus far, sushi.  It was difficult to be away from home and family for the second Christmas, but I feel very blessed to have such a good friend to spend the holiday with.  Thank you Julie!

As for next year, I can't wait to celebrate Christmas stateside, but I look forward to calls with Julie to reminiscence about our Eastern European Christmases.

Snow and School Celebrations

Snow finally started falling in Romania during our last week of school before winter break.   It was nice to get a little bit of white before the holidays set in.  Although, most afternoons it warmed up so that most of the snow melted away.  I did have a good view on my walk back from visiting the Catholic kindergarten last week. I cut through the park which was quite deserted.

snow in the park

During the final week of school, my school held their traditional carol (collinde) singing.  A few teachers get groups of students to perform.  This year's event was smaller than last year, we had just two groups sing and one group perform traditional dances.  As it was explained to me, carol sings are a traditional way for students to celebrate the start of the holiday season and to thank the teachers.

Group #1 - from 13th grade

Group #2

Four of the five boys in the dancing group are in one of my tenth grade classes and one of the girls in one of my eleventh grade classes. 

It was great to see some of my students performing traditional dances. I took a couple videos, but unfortunately I can only get one to upload to this post.  Here is a short clip of the goat dance.

My school has challenges when it comes to having events; we do not have anything close to an auditorium. We have a space that can maybe fit 1/5 of the school which has over 1,200 students and 100 staff members. Thus when events are held late in the afternoon; most students choose to leave rather than stay for events; some teachers also choose to leave.

 

the audience

To me, it's always depressing because very few people get to see our students perform; especially their peers.  I see so few opportunities to showcase their talents or passions.  I think of all the high school assemblies, concerts and events I attended growing up.  I loved seeing my peers perform and was always instilled with such pride with what my classmates could do.  I wish my students here could experience some of that.  This being said, I believe some Romanian schools do have lots of events, but industrial schools like mine do not.

Holiday Beginnings

Recently, I spoke with a former volunteer who said that she feels that the spirit of Christmas really comes from the heart so that one can feel the spirit no matter where they are.  I both agree and disagree with this.  While I believe you can feel the spirit of the season radiating from within, for me Christmas doesn't really begin until I get to spend time with family and friends.  The joy of the Christmas season is gathering with those I love. While I don't get to see my real family this year for the holidays I have been able to start the holiday season with some friends and students here in Romania. 

My holiday season started last week in school when I started doing carols with my students.  I see half of each class once a week so it takes me a full week to see all nine of my classes once.  Last year I learned the lesson that although we have class until the end of the week before break classes pretty much stop on Wednesday therefore, I knew that if I wanted to get all my classes to be able to sing carols I needed to start early.  I did carols with my 10th and 11th grade students (the 12th graders were giving final presentations).  I chose "Jingle Bell Rock," "Silent Night," and "Little Drummer Boy."  Some classes were more into it that others, but it was fun to share some new carols with them.  I also told the story of the little drummer boy which doesn't exist in Romanian (at least not that any of my students knew) and was my favorite carol when I was little.  I should note that although I teach at a public school there is a state religion (Romanian Orthodox) and all students take religion as a class unless they get a waiver.  I do have one student who is Adventist, but all my other students are Romanian Orthodox or Catholic.

For over a year now I have also been teaching an English class for some of the mothers that use the services at "Together in Life's Path" (the foundation I work with).  Angela, whose home I visited last week, runs the foundation with Saskia, a volunteer from Holland.  This summer I also started teaching an English class for kids there which I have continued into the school year.  Angela and Saskia have been my biggest cheerleaders in Romania.  They have been advocates and friends; they helped create the sports camp which was one the highlights of my summer.  Being able to go to the foundation twice a week has been a blessing.  Thus I was thrilled to be able to celebrate with them at their annual holiday party (last year my school schedule conflicted with the party).

Some of the mothers from English class

Mothers and children came to part.  As is a Romanian tradition, each child who was old enough had to recite a Christmas poem or sing a song to get Mos Crăciun (which literally translates to old man Christmas or Santa) to come.  Below is a video of a student, Danuț, who was very nervous reciting his poem.

Maia and Miruna, two students in my kids class

waiting for Santa

Santa was accompanied by a choir from a local high school who performed for everyone gathers.  Then each child got a present from Santa.  Who unfortunately terrified a few of the kids.

Maia and Mos Crăciun

It was a lovely was to start my holiday season.  My students also bought me a lovely sweater which I will be wearing for Christmas.

Pork

Last Saturday I got the chance to experience a unique part of Romanian holiday festivities.  It's something that people talk about a lot, but one that I thought I might not get to see as I live in a large city without any livestock in it.  Luckily, my dear friend Angela invited me to her home in a village so that I could experience it before my time in Romania comes to an end.

At this time, I would like to put a disclaimer that if you do not like the sight of blood, this blog post isn't for you.

Julie also joined me on this expedition which started early in the morning as we trekked out to the village which is about a 45 minute walk outside of Onesti.  We were headed to see a traditional pig slaughter.  Families in Romania usually have one pig that they kill a little before Christmas.  The meat is used for the holidays and smoked to last through out the winter.

The pig in question on Saturday was raised by Angela's mother-in-law.  It was actually one of a pair that she raised.  The first pig was killed last year so this pig was two years old and weighed in over 200 kilograms (440 pounds).

We started the morning by visiting the pig which was resting in its stall.  The men then brought the pig out of the stall and bound its feet.  Angela explained that if you have compassion for the pig that it makes it harder for the pig to die so it was best if we went inside.  She and her husband, let her father-in-law and some neighbors deal with the killing. We went inside to the sound of pig screams (which were terrifying) to wait until the pig was deal.  Inside, we found Maia, Angela's youngest daughter, crying on her dad's shoulder about the death of the piggy.

After staying inside for a bit we went back outside to see the butchering process.

First, the hair and top layer of skin are torched. 

Torching

Next, the burned skin is scraped off with a knife.  After the whole pig is scraped it is washed and scrubbed with hot water. 

Scraping

Maia recovered from her initial grief and joined Julie and her older sister, Anda, outside to watch the butchering.

Maia, Julie and Anda

Removing the limbs

After the pig was cleaned, the girls took part in another tradition.  They sat on the pig to bring them luck in the new year.

Sampling pig skin

The pig was then cut along the spine and the fat was separated from the meat.  The fat will be smoked to make slanina which is a traditional Romanian delicacy.

After getting to the meat, a few samples were taken out to be brought to the domestic animal vet in town.  The meat is tested to make sure it is safe to eat.  We got the all clear and Angela then started working on lunch.

butchering

the family cat was very happy

Angela making lunch

lunch

For lunch we ate sauteed fat and meat with garlic sauce and mamaliga (polenta with a course-grain cornmeal). It was delicious, but better than that was getting to share the day with a wonderful and open Romanian family experiencing their traditions.

P.S. Maia decided that she wanted to model her Christmas outfit for us.  Here is a photo of us from the day!