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.