FIRST DRAFT!!! PLEASE COME BACK LATER!
Sunday was the day of the Torysky village celebration to mark the 740th anniversary of the founding of the village. We planned to start the day at church services and then attend the various festivities.
Unfortunately, the day began with a bit of a hassle. The earliest we could schedule breakfast on Sunday was 9 am (because the staff actually went shopping each morning to get the fresh ingredients for breakfast, and the store didn't open as early on Sunday). So we knew we'd be in a little bit of a rush anyway to finish breakfast and drive the 12 miles to Torysky in time for the 10 am church service. And, of course, it would not do to show up late for church.
So just as we're getting ready to leave the penzion, the weekend desk clerk, who also doesn't speak English, draws Paula aside with some sort of urgent query. It turns out that we need to change our rooms immediately, or at least today. She said that the night clerk had given us the wrong rooms, and there was a reservation for today that had to be accommodated. This was a bit upsetting. We didn't so much mind changing our rooms (although I had unpacked and settled in because I thought we'd be there for over a week). The problem was the time involved. We really couldn't do it then or we'd be late for church, so we promised to come back after the church service to do it.
Finally getting away, we got into the car and Dick sped up the winding hilly road to get us to the village just barely in time for church. The pews looked packed, but someone moved aside and made room for us, right next to the priest's family who we had met last night. This was great, because there was a little girl who needed to be kept amused, and I enjoyed watching her.
Because of the celebration, people had turned out in their finery. Many of the women, especially the young girls and the old ladies, wore the traditional village costume. The girls had these interesting sparkly headdresses that made them look like colorful little birds. Some of the men also wore traditional costume, which included a light-colored sheepskin vest and a dark hat.
Some sort of early summer holiday was being celebrated that involved birch trees. Earlier, we'd noticed that small birch trees had been cut down and nailed up to fenceposts, some decorated with colored ribbons. In the church, also, there were birch trees decorating the ends of the pews. There was also a special ceremony where the congregation lined up to go around the back of the altar and were given pieces of bread that had been blessed by the priest.
After church, a gaggle of people surrounded my father wanting to talk to him, and I was enjoying looking at all the young girls in their brightly-colored costumes, so we were sorry to have to pull away to go back to the penzion for the big move.
As it turned out the new rooms were just as nice as the old ones, and I got a better view from the front of the building. (And we found out later that the whole thing was totally unnecessary. The guy who had registered us on Friday night had been confused by the middle names on our passports. Apparently middle names aren't used in Slovakia. And also, apparently we'd arrived earlier than the date the thought we would be there. So he'd put our names down as "Leslie Jean", "Walter Peter" and "Richard Walter", rather than as "Turek". So, in fact, we were moving to make room for our own arrival! But we didn't know that at the time.)
As we arrived back at the village center, which consists of a store, tavern, post office, and a municipal building with the mayor's office and the village hall (where we'd had our family gathering yesterday), a procession was just leaving to walk through the village. I snapped a few quick pictures, but missed the beginning. I believe they were carrying a religious banner at the start.
My brother went dashing off down the road with his video camera, to try to get ahead of the procession so he could film it. As he ran, he tripped, and in trying to protect his camera, landed heavily on his shoulder. I didn't actually see this happen, but when he came back he mentioned it, and said his shoulder was pretty sore.
Meanwhile, my father had gone back to the mayor's office, and came to call us to follow him in. It turns out that when the mayor, yesterday, had asked us to attend the celebration, he didn't just mean as any ordinary person, but he was including us in the group of special guests that would eat lunch upstairs in the municipal building. And because of the penzion hassle, we were already late - the others had almost finished eating. Oh dear, we really didn't mean to be uncivil. The rest of the group included other special guests, including 4 priests and a stylish lady who turned out to be one of the invited performers at the celebration.
They seemed to forgive us though, and served us a lovely lunch. The mayor also showed off a beautiful set of wood carvings of horse-drawn carts that illustrated the various traditional farming activites. A group of the costumed men, also came in to admire the wood carvings, so I got the impression they had been recently made.
After lunch, people were starting to gather downstairs. There were picnic tables set out in the courtyard, with food and drink being served, and the main hall had been set up with rows of chairs facing the stage at one end. In mid-afternoon, the show started, and the place was packed, so we ended up separated a bit. My father got invited to a good seat near the front with Paula, I sat further back, and my brother stood up at the side and took video pictures.
The entertainment consisted of various different folk groups processing onto the stage and singing and dancing. Some were extrememly good, and all were enjoyable. I'm looking forward to seeing my brother's tapes. (My pictures weren't too good because I was so far back.) Birch trees were again featured; with small cut birch sprouts being carried in some of the processions.
The only off note was the woman commedian. Of course we couldn't understand any of the jokes, but the crowd really enjoyed her. I found out later from Paula that she was dressed as a gypsy and telling jokes that portrayed gypsies in a very unflattering light. I guess political correctness has not reached Eastern Slovakia.
After the stage show, we all went back outside again, and now the dancing began in earnest. A gentleman who had played the accordian in a musical group we'd heard earlier (and who was also the brother of the husband of one of my cousins), invited me to dance, and I had an amazing time. I'm not really much of a dancer, but he was extremely good, and very good at leading, so by the end, I almost learned how to do the chardaash. He was whirling me around and dipping me backward to the extent that my father was afraid I was going to fall down, but the guy managed to keep me on my feet. (Unfortunately, my brother has the whole thing caught on tape.) Here's a picture of me and my dance partner.
After a while, we were invited back upstairs for yet another meal. I must say, we were treated very royally.
We left the celebration, which was still going on in high style, to visit a family of cousins, the daughter of the lady we'd visited this morning. These were also in the Maria branch of the family and we'd only met them on our last visit, so we didn't know them quite as well as some of the others. But we had a very nice visit with them.
The highlight of the visit, for me, was when the lady offered to dress me up in the traditional village costume. This was an elaborate production, involving a white blouse, a pleated skirt in a particular blue and white print pattern, an apron with ties that dangled down in back, an embroidered vest that laced in the front with ribbons over hooks, and black boots. The finishing touch was a babushka, and one with a special meaning. The lady explained that the babushka had been given to her by my own grandfather when he visited the village in the 1970's, and she had kept it as a keepsake all that time.
So here's what I looked like. My father and Paula were quite gleeful over the transformation; they said I looked like a real "Toryshanka". And, in fact, if my grandfather had not chosen to come to America, this might have been my typical garb.
