A Slovak Easter

Here we go ----  the rest of our Easter holiday/break  ---  starting with Easter morning!    

The view of our church early on Easter Sunday, on our way to rehearse with the choir.  We started our morning playing YouTube renditions of "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" on our computer at home!!  :-)  

After our ham dinner, we took off on a walk following the Vah River until we reached Liptovská Mara.  We've tried biking there before, but never found the lake until now!  

Then, we followed the other walkers in the area back towards town, to discover the normal path to the Mara, since it wasn't an easy walk along the river bank!!  We had to go up and over the railroad bed, but oh, what a nice view from there!    :-)

And this is looking the other direction down the tracks.  Wow!

We even had a view of Kriváñ in the distance.  

We saw gardens and flowers in some previously unexplored neighborhoods in Paludzka on the way back.  

Luba (our wonderful landlady) and Lenka (her beautiful daughter) stopped up to our flat on Easter evening for tea.  We had such fun talking with them!!  :-)  

The gals couldn't decide which photo was better, so I used them both!!   

This brings us to Easter Monday, which is another national holiday, just like Good Friday was.  Well, Tim had been invited by Michal (from basketball) to come to their flat at 8:30 in the morning.  And Lenka asked him to come over to their flat around 9:30 a.m.  What for???  To participate in the Slovak custom of splashing the women/girls  with cold water, then whipping them (very gently) with willow branches, all to ensure that the females will be healthy and beautiful in the coming year.  And what do the women do in response to this treatment???  They give the men chocolates, shots of alcohol, snacks and hot tea, and the young boys are given chocolate eggs and money!!  

MIchal's wife and daughter, Biba and Kristina, waiting for the splashing and whipping!  

Those of you who know my husband are, no doubt, shocked at his behavior!!  But this Easter Monday tradition is just one of those cultural things that isn't at all what it seems.  

It's all in great fun, and there's obviously no harm at all for anyone.  Tim's students had  told him the phrase that must be spoken, so he had it written on a little piece of paper to recite during the action!  

Then Tim and Michal went next door to his parents' flat, so that his mom could get splashed too.  Other relatives were there too, including this little guy who had the whole 'splashing' poem memorized!  

Michal and Tim doing some splashing and whipping.  Tim said they really did throw a lot of water on all the gals - he was surprised how wet they got!  

The little guy doing his whipping.   :-)  

The sticks are willows that are often woven or braided, and the boys collect colorful ribbons from the ladies/girls they visit.  

Here's Tim again, whipping one of our church choir members (Michal's mom) - you can see that her shirt is all wet already.  And then to be 'nice', the guys sometimes also spray perfume on the gals afterwards, so they are sweet all year long.  Notice the perfume bottle in Tim's other hand!  

Here's Tim in action again, spraying the perfume and holding the "whip".  

We asked people and did some research online about the origins of this custom, and it has pagan roots - driving away evil spirits after the winter with the 'whipping' - ensuring health and beauty for the women with the 'splashing' - and of course the giving of chocolate eggs originally symbolized fertility.  Evidently in some smaller villages, things can get a lot crazier, with women being dragged out of their houses and drenched with buckets of water, by men all dressed up in traditional folk costumes.  But most places it's just kind of a sweet custom for the little boys as well as their elders to come and visit all their female relatives, who enjoy the fun and attention.  In each place Tim visited, the ladies were all ready with sandwiches, cakes, and beverages to serve the hoped-for visitors.  

Next Tim visited Lenka and Luba downstairs from us.  Lenka had asked Tim to come and surprise her Mom.  This little relative came with his 'super soaker' squirt gun, which really got the gals wet!!  

Lenka getting soaked (notice the puddle of water on the floor in the reflection at left!)

I missed all the craziness, since I didn't want to risk being out in public during the designated "open season" before noon on Easter Monday!!  So I stayed home!  (And dry!) 

More of the antics --- but you can see that it's a lot of fun, even for the gals getting soaked with water.  We can't help thinking this wouldn't fly in the U.S., but it was fun for Tim to get a first-hand glimpse of this unique Slovak tradition.  

Tim's students and friends all insisted that he MUST splash me and whip me so that I would be healthy in the coming year, so as a good American husband living in Slovakia, he did just that ---- while I was in the shower!!   :-)   We thought this was a great compromise!  And of course, as a good American wife living in Slovakia, and a believer in equal rights, I took the opportunity to ensure Tim's good health by splashing  him (in the shower) on Tuesday morning!!   :-)  

Some of the gifts Tim received from the women he splashed with water on Easter Monday --- chocolate eggs and a bunny, a ceramic lamb, two hand-decorated eggs, and some delicious decorated gingerbread cookies!  

All morning while Tim was gone 'splashing', I saw boys down on the street, walking into other blocks of flats, and enjoying their Easter Monday visiting the special females in their lives!  

We decided to ride our bikes to the Mara on Monday afternoon to get some exercise and fresh air.  This little guy was walking down the street in Paludzka, almost looking like a trick-or-treater with his bag of goodies after his morning of splashing!  It's also a good view of the woven whip he was using.  

(At school later in the week, when I had my after-school English class at the basic school, I asked the boys how much money the had gotten for the splashing, and many had gotten between 25 and 50 Euros!!  Not to mention lots of chocolate eggs.  Their Grandmas and aunts were quite generous!!)

Our bike ride took us across this scenic stream with blossoming trees all along the left bank, and mountains in the distance.  

Selfie at Liptovská Mara.  My arms aren't long enough.  'Nuf said!!   LOL!!  

I had packed a picnic lunch, and we ate ham sandwiches in lovely kaiser rolls from our Easter dinner leftovers, on the banks of the Vah River.  I couldn't get a good picture of the terns that were swooping and diving over the surface of the water - they were much too quick.  But we were entertained by their acrobatic flight as we enjoyed our lunch.  

What a beautiful spot for a picnic lunch!!  We headed home and got back to our flat just before an afternoon rain shower.  Some Yahtzee and Greed games were played in between Skype calls with family later in the day.  Our six-day Easter break was relaxing, restful, and quiet, other than all of Tim's escapades with dousing women with water!!  LOL!!