Klara's Birthday

Sunday morning woke up, weather was nice. On the table in the room I'm staying in, I found fresh flowers, fresh picked cherries, and a bowl of walnuts Ivan had just shelled with his "malotok".

And I got to see some newly hatched peeps.

 I finally found a way to stop Klara from giving me food: I told her that I couldn't eat breakfast before going to church and communion. Now I just have to try and find a way to convince her that I'm going to church every day.

I found out that my digital camera will also record voice and video. With the SD card I have in, I can record about 2 hours of decent quality video. The audio isn't that great, though. I took the camera to church to try to record some of the singing; I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. This Sunday there was no choir singing, only the congregation.

Klara was celebrating her 60th birthday today, so about 4PM we went back to the church for a special service for her birthday. Then we went to the "Mlin" (windmill) restaurant in Dravtsi for her birthday party.

I can't even begin to describe the party.  There were maybe 25 to 30 people at the party.  Certain ethnic weddings are famous for having lots of food and drink, but I have NEVER seen a wedding that compared to this party. There must have been 6 different types of chicken, 6 kinds of pork, 6 kinds of cold cuts, 6 kinds of potatoes, vegetables,  soups, salads, breads, champagne, wine, beer, vodka. Just when I thought dinner was over, the waitresses would bring out another entree.

Then there was the singing. The younger girls and women sang songs to honor Klara, then everyone at the table started singing Rusyn folk songs. I tried to record as best I could, but I usually missed the beginning of every song, because I didn't know when they would start singing again.  And then afterwards dancing. But NO POLKA'S. Polka's are NOT a Rusyn tradition. I think it's an American invention. I don't know if I can post video on my "Blog", but I have plenty of video of the party to bring home.

I expected to be hung over Monday morning, but woke up fine. Ate breakfast, then as soon as breakfast was over, Klara and I went to Marta's for lunch. Marta's granddaughter, Marta, was making "Kneadlich" for Julius' birthday party, and so we had some, along with borsch that Marta made. "Kneadlich" are a kind of pastry, like a dumpling filled with walnuts and lekvar, then steam cooked, and served with a chocolate syrup. VERY, VERY good!!

Klara's son Misha picked me up, he showed me more of the fruit trees in Dravtsi. I never knew there could be so many different kinds of plums, cherries, apples, pear, peach, berry trees, and other fruit trees. Several different kinds of walnuts. One tree I never expected to see was apricot trees. I always thought apricots were only in Mediterranean. We picked cherries at Misha's house; cherries were so ripe and juicy that they pulled away from the trees without pits. And I have never seen cherry trees so abundant with fruit!

I went with Misha to pick up his daughter Katya at her school in Uzhgorod. The school looked very modern, similar to an American school, yet inside it was different. The best way to describe it is that it had a much more comfortable, warm, inviting  and relaxing feel than an American school. It had a more domestic look, with sitting rooms with sofa's and chairs in among the classrooms.
Went back to Misha's; his neighbor Vasya Fedorich came over, we built a fire, roasted potatoes, cooked salo over the fire to drip onto dark bread, and Miraslav prepared a feast for us. If an American doctor saw what we were eating, he would faint. Green onions dipped in salt, and big chunks of pork fat! Vasya called Ukrainian food "the slow death!"

One of the foods Miroslava prepared was the national dish of Hungary - perkoltz. It was made with slices of cow stomach. I forced myself to try it, and I have to admit that it actually didn't taste bad, but I could not quite get over the strange way it looked, and the idea of eating cow stomach. Everyone else loved it!

One thing I noticed at Misha's house was the sky. The air is so much clearer than in America. The sky looked bluer than blue, the clouds looked whiter than white. Looking at the sky was like looking at a painting. And you can see forever.  At home, we don't realize what an industrial haze we are living in, and breathing. Anyone who thinks living in America is the best on earth needs to spend some time living somewhere else, like the native people do. I think Ukrainians live much better than we do. At least the ones I've seen.

I knew that there was a tradition of raising sheep among our people, and I always wondered why eating lamb wasn't part of our traditional food in America, like with other ethnic groups. But today I learned from Misha and Vasya that among Rusyns in Ukraine, lamb and goat are one of their favorite foods.