Dancing the Nights Away!

Last Sunday afternoon we went to a wonderful baroque chamber music concert with Saška and her family at their church in Bobrovec. 

Saška picked us up, as well as our Basic School colleague, Kveta, and her daughter, Katka, who is a student at our school.  They also live in our block of flats.

This is the beautiful and very old Catholic church in Bobrovec.  The acoustics in the sanctuary were amazing for the concert!

The chamber music group was from Trenčin, a city of about 70,000.  From what we understand, it is a community ensemble that specializes in playing Baroque chamber music.  They were extremely accomplished musicians, and we thoroughly enjoyed their performance of Telemann, Corelli, and Bach.  It was an awesome concert!  

Last week at school was normal.  And that equals BUSY!!  It seems like we stayed late at school fairly often to get things done.  Blog readers have heard our schedule before --- church choir rehearsal, volleyball two nights, adult lessons --- nothing out of the ordinary.  Wednesday after school, we did have a special treat, as one of our Slovak daughters, Katarina Joy, came over for tea and conversation before she was meeting with another friend.  It seems like everyone is always on the go at school this year, so it was nice to relax and catch up with her for a while at our flat.  

Monday most of the Oktava class dressed up in formal attire and visited each of the teacher offices, bringing treats left over from their stužkova party Friday night.  We enjoyed visiting with these classy senior students!  

I borrowed Zuzka's stužkova green ribbon for a picture.  This is the ribbon that was presented in the opening ceremony of the evening, and it will be worn all year long until after the Maturita examinations in the spring.  

Tim has also started teaching four lessons a week of Mathematics in English, as a permanent sub for a colleague who will be gone on medical leave for the rest of the school year.  It's a perfect fit, needless to say, and something that Tim will enjoy very much, though it does add more to his schedule.  

On Tuesday, we were thrilled to receive a package from Fairbank, Iowa!!  Lute mailed us our very own Wapsie Valley Cross Country T-shirts, so we were really excited to get them!    Go Warriors!!  It's been a while since we've worn any WV attire!!    :-)   (For those who may not know, Wapsie Valley is Lute's first teaching job, and it was also the first teaching job for both Tim and me, and where we first met!!)  

Fast forward to Friday night, and we attended our second stužkova of the year, with our wonderful 5.AP class.  

The 'welcoming committee' of beauties as we arrived.  Miro, our colleague at left, brought us to the stužkova by car, along with another teacher, Daša, in the 'little black dress'.  

Stanka and Goya are two of my favorite 5.A's - fun gals!!  We have so many
'favorite students' here at EGJT!!  

The teacher table - with Katka, the 5.AP Class Teacher at left, and Janka, our deputy headmistress at right.  

The other end of the teacher table, with several of our colleagues who shared our former large teacher office.  We miss seeing these gals many times a day!!  

After Janka finished with her speech and the presentation of the students' green stužkova ribbons, Sisa, (another of our favorite students) came to escort Tim to the stage.  Since our school pastor wasn't able to attend until later, and a man is needed to give the official toast for the evening, Tim was asked to perform this duty for the 5.AP stužkova.   :-)  

Tim giving his stužkova toast, in English, with Katka (the Class Teacher) translating for the parents.  Of course our students could understand!  He ended with the Irish blessing:  

May the road rise to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

And the rain fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

The program presented by this group was amazing!!  it included drama, dancing and singing, and every aspect was terrific.  This is Juraj playing the Slovak national hero, Janošik, at home with some of the women in his life.  

The girls dancing in part of the medley of songs from musicals.  Very cute!!  

This is Sisa again, on the dance floor with other students and teachers.   The kids  planned the program so that in between parts of their show, they got everyone out on the dance floor.  We all enjoyed dancing together over and over again!!  

The four boys in the class danced to "Greased Lightning", and they were super!  The other Juraj, on the right, choreographed the routine, since he is a world-class competitive ballroom dancer.  He and his competition partner performed several styles of dances.  I've never seen anything like it except on TV before!!  In fact, Juraj is in Tim's section, and I didn't know him, so I thought they had hired professional dancers for the program, not realizing he is at our school.  Wow!!  He's awesome!!  

Katka, (class teacher), presented the kids with Lanterns of Happiness, so they all went outside to light them and send them floating into the night sky!  

Some of the Lanterns of Happiness floating up, up, and away!  

They also had some sparklers to light up outside.  It was a special ending for the evening's program, seeing the lanterns floating away!

The class picture, with the teachers in attendance.  Love these kids!!  

Thankfully we had no agenda for Saturday, at least not for the daytime, so we got to sleep late after being out until nearly 2:00 a.m. at stužkova!!  I got some laundry done, we biked into town to do some errands, and we checked emails and news online too.  Then we had to get ready for our next event; we left the flat at 4:00 to catch a train to Liptovský Hrádok.

We were invited to attend our first ever Venček -- a type of ball.  Many of our students in II.A5, II.A4, and Sexta classes have been taking a ballroom dancing class all fall.  As a culminating event, they participate in this special ball, and they met us at the door with our tickets.  

After all the guests were seated, all the couples processed into the ballroom.  The boys all had flowers for the girls, and the girls brought white handkerchiefs for the boys.  

After they all entered and formed a circle, they exchanged gifts with their partners before starting the first dance.  

The flowers were actually used as part of the first dance, and I think it was a mazurka.  The students all looked so elegant, and they had learned many dances to perform in the 'recital' part of their program.  

It was so neat seeing our younger students all dressed up and doing such a nice job at ballroom dancing.  They were all quite nervous about it, but they did great!  After the 'recital' part, a nice dinner was served to everyone.  

After dinner, each student chose a dance partner from the guest tables.  I'm dancing with Roman, another of our favorite students, who is also our head mistress's son.  I was honored to dance with him!  

LIke I said --- so many 'favorites'!  Miška, in orange, is the volleyball player we went to watch in tournaments last year, and Dominika (at right) is a beautiful singer we've heard perform at concerts.  

Handsome men all in suits!!  Martin (at right) was our host for the weekend with his family in NE Slovakia this fall.  

I was presented with two white venček (wreaths), one from Roman, and one from this young man, Jakub.  They were both excellent dance partners!  

About the wreaths which give the ball its name --- each boy makes 10 white wreaths, (the two boys who gave me one had each made an extra!), and the girls make 10 colored wreaths.  There is one set of dances during which they switch partners and pin a wreath on each dancer that they think is a good partner.  

Then at the end, when all the wreaths have been pinned, the boy and girl with the most wreaths are the king and queen of the ball!  Here are Miška and Roman, the winners!  

The next part of the program, (organized by the dance class instructors), involved six judges from the audience, and I was selected as a judge.  It was kind of an impromptu talent competition involving various activities - singing, dancing, etc.  

Oh yes, another of our favorites, Anna, who has also played volleyball with us on Monday nights.  She's a wonderful dancer as well as volleyball player, and she gave Tim a venček wreath!  I think we'll turn our wreaths into Christmas ornaments someday, to keep forever as memories of Slovakia!    

Another favorite, Lucy, translated for us on the church bus tour a year ago!  

I'm not sure if I mentioned this yet, but of course we got to do a lot of dancing throughout the evening as well.  So it was two nights in a row of being on the dance floor!  Fun times!  We sat at a table with Roman's parents, Janka (the II.A4 Class Teacher), and Miro, our colleague - all good friends and wonderful people.   It was a fun ball, and so neat to experience the traditions of a venček for the first time!  

Sunday morning at church, there was a special service honoring those who have died in accidents during the past year - car accidents, train accidents, hiking accidents, etc. - as well as all rescue workers such as police officers, firefighters, EMT's, and mountain rescue teams.  (After church, kids were allowed to get inside ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks!!)  

There was also a military band at church, and they played 6 or 8 selections during the service.  They were really outstanding performers!  We are so impressed with the musicianship, training, and level of expertise of musical ensembles here in Slovakia.  

It was really cold in church today, so that cup of hot chai afterwards tasted wonderful while watching our online sermon.  After that I actually cooked a big Sunday dinner, for the first time in a while, because of our crazy schedule and travels.  Then soon we headed back to church for an ecumenical service this afternoon (Lutheran, Catholic, and Baptist), because of today's Slovak national holiday - Day of the Fight for Freedom and Democracy.  Our choir sang two of the anthems we've already done before, our two pastors did the liturgical part of the service, the Baptist pastor did some prayers, and the Catholic priest gave the sermon.      There was also a dramatic reading, complete with patriotic-sounding music in the background.  They served cakes to everyone as we walked out of the church.  

And now we are looking forward to skype and FaceTime chats with family at home this evening!  We miss everyone, and really look forward to talking face-to-face each week!!