Time is truly racing by. I meant to write after Easter and it seems like someone cut out a couple weeks in the middle of April and it's May already. Many interesting things have happened, including turning yet another year older. Oh, and I even found "spiedies" at an ice cream shop in Debrecen (I liked to think so anyway).
Easter was definitely an interesting experience. I decorated eggs with my host mother and some of her friends the week before using different ways to color the eggs. The first way was to use egg white and a small paint brush to stick different small leaves on the eggshell. After, we carefully wrapped them in pieces of leggings and tied each of the ends and placed them in a pot of water and a heap of the outer skin of onions. The pot was placed to boil for an hour or so. Then the shell was a deep red color when taken out. The second set of eggs we decorated by gluing small glass glitter on in different designs and the third was to use white paint on red, hollowed out eggs in traditional designs.
After the egg decorating, I went with a couple friends to an American football game on the other side of the city to watch a classmate play. It was pretty interesting. Everyone played it up so much my friend from Alaska and I thought it was a little overdone with all of the American things. They sold hot dogs and chocolate chip cookies, everyone wore a football jersey or any sort of American sport clothing if they had it and the team even came in on a school bus (which is seen here as being stereotypically American as well). Unfortunately the Debrecen team lost, but it was fun to get to see their version just the same.
There was no celebration on Easter Sunday besides attending church services and maybe having a late brunch with some family. Most of Sunday was spent with the women preparing all sorts of different dishes and getting the house decorated and tidy for the guests which would arrive the following day. I tried to find something I could help with on Sunday so I wouldn't feel so useless, but I was told that I could help the following morning at 7 (not exactly my first choice).
On Monday morning I received a personal wake up call from my host father. At just about 7 I heard a brief knock on my door. I barely picked my head up and opened my eyes when I had a face full of water. Apparently, he has incredible aim with a water gun. I couldn't see anything with the water in my eyes and barely had time to attempt to retreat under the blankets. He laughed and wished me a happy Easter then proceeded to go to my host sister's room. Of course, slightly confused and wet, I couldn't get back to sleep anyway so I went downstairs to help prepare some sandwiches and set the table.
Guests started arriving at about 8:30. The tradition is that the men dress up and travel to the homes or all their friends and relatives, recite a poem and then sprinkle the women. In return, the women treat them to some food, painted eggs, and candy. This went on for about 5 hours and I believe we accumulated about 40 guests in all. The little boys were most adorable when trying to recite a small poem their fathers taught them and then trying to hide behind their legs or needing to be picked up to be able to spray us. Of course, everyone aims for your hair and that night I had to wash it 3 times to get the smell out. Each time a new visitor would arrive, we would line up as the men would greet us and after give each candy and a flower then ask if they would like anything to eat.
Traditionally, this holiday was celebrated by the women wearing traditional Hungarian dress and the men lining up and dumping buckets of water on them or dragging them to a river or lake. Each time a woman was "sprinkled", she would then change her dress to a dry one. Most of the poems are traditional poems and talk about a man finding a wilting flower and asking permission to water it. The holiday is traditionally pagan and is a celebration of fertility. Now they have more of a modern and Christian outlook on the holiday. It's also said that the more visitors a woman has, the better and it has sort of become a competition to see who can get sprinkled the most. It's also become common for the women to travel on the following Tuesday to retaliate against the men with some perfume of their own.
The following weekend I went to Krakow on a trip with Rotary. The mountains between Slovakia and Poland were absolutely gorgeous (I imagine even more so for those of us who have been living in the plains in Hungary for the past 8 months) and the houses in Poland were so cool! We stayed for two nights, really only getting to see the city for a night. Krakow was really beautiful, especially the city center and the castle along the river. The first night we mostly stayed in the hostel and got to speak with people from all over the world and hear about their travels as well in the common area.
The second day we went to visit Auschwitz I and II with a guided tour. I don't have any pictures of this experience. The places where it was allowed to take pictures, I along with many others, decided not to because we didn't feel comfortable doing so. It's also not something that one would need pictures to remember it by. We went to Auschwitz one first, which was where the prisoners lived and the new arrivals were sorted after getting off the train. For me, this one was much worse than the second one. There were still the remains of all the wooden bunks and, looking at it from the observation tower, it was simply massive. The guide would then point out how far away they had to go in order to get where they worked. The rooms where they slept and the rooms where they bathed were just awful and the train stop was haunting. I think a lot of people thought it would have an artificial or redone feel like many historical places or museums, but this didn't. There was something you could feel the entire time we were there. The crematorium and gas chambers at this site had been destroyed, but near it was the International Monument with plaques in all languages of those who had died there and another in English so all could read it.
Auschwitz two was more like a town, having houses and streets.The arch over the electric fence gate said in German "Hard work will set you Free", though we were told that those who were sent to this camp usually did not survive. We toured some of the halls with pictures of those who were registered and saw the way they were arranged to sleep as well. Then we were taken to large rooms in other buildings which displayed the recovered possessions of the prisoners and told that each object represented a person who had died there. There were heaps of eyeglasses, huge rooms just packed with suitcases and baskets piled on one another, shoes stacked to the ceilings, combs and brushes filling the floors of others, pots and dishes filling a giant pit, different child and baby clothes, and a room with 2 or 3 tons of hair that had yet to be sold when the war had ended. There was much more as well along the same lines and when we left, most people didn't have much to say to each other. It was something that would have been hard to imagine if I hadn't seen it. Trying to explain just how large of a space each mound of possessions took up is impossible.
The last place we visited there was the gas chamber and crematorium. Most people walked through this and didn't stay long. It was small, dark, and just the quick view of the ovens with the carts on tracks to take the ashes out was enough. Of course, everyone has learned about the Holocaust and just how completely terrible it was. However, I don't think one can begin to really understand what was taught until being there and seeing some of it. It's hard to even begin to imagine what it must have been like.
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