Easter in Romania! Quite an experience. Easter preparations continued throughout the day Friday and Saturday. I helped by going on an expedition with Gagi for Romanian Easter cake (called "cozonac"), during which I learned how bad my broken Romanian can be. I tried to ask whether the store carried fresh cozonac, but accidentally asked whether they had any cozonac made from towels. Good work! We're done here.
The Easter traditions actually started at midnight on Saturday, with a mass and a sermon (which we didn't go to) and a ceremony that I think was called The Traveling of the Light.
Everyone -- and I mean, everyone -- gathers around the church at midnight. Even for Io's small neighborhood church, the churchyard and the surrounding streets were full of people. The church bells ring, and the priests come out carrying ritual candles. Everyone in the crowd is carrying an unlit candle, and the priest lights the candles of the nearest people, who then use their candles to light those of the people around them, and so on. In that way, the light travels through the crowd until it's a sea of candles, symbolizing (I assume) spreading the faith. Then everyone walks home with their candle, which they place in a special holder on the wall. I'm not sure whether the photos are really visible on the blog (they're fairly low quality -- my camera has a low-light setting, but it's not like it's a professional's camera), but you can see them in the high-res versions on the Picasa site. Which, by the way, is now linked over on the right.
Io, Aunt Reli, and Tania
If you get your candle all the way home and it's still lit, you're supposed to have good luck all year. Because of that, most people use wide candles that have a religious-themed wind-breaker at the top. Io sniffed and looked down her nose at those candles, telling me that when she was a child in the village, you had to get home using a taper, in the wind, uphill both ways, etc. These city folk! They have it so easy.
The whole thing is a pretty cool sight. After that, we all came home for a bunch of food, despite the fact that it was one in the morning at this point. I didn't really eat much, especially since many of the dishes involved either vegetables or goat organs. If those were the two last food groups left on Earth, I would probably eat my own arm. The next day, it was time for guests and Easter dinner.
We had great-grandpa and great-grandma Negru over, along with great-grandma Gomoiou and Ioana's aunt Reli. Just the close family, but even with just them the house was pretty packed -- nine people and one bathroom. Fortunately, one of the nine isn't toilet-trained yet.
There was a big meal, the centerpiece of which was the cooked goat. I've never eaten goat before. First time for everything!* It was actually pretty tasty. There were also many other dishes, including cozonac and lots and lots of hard-boiled eggs.
The best Romanian Easter tradition is the egg-knocking duel. Two people each hold a painted, hard-boiled egg in their fist, with the end sticking out. Then one person bangs his egg into the other person's until one of the eggs cracks. If your egg cracks, you're the loser and the other guy gets to take your egg. Io tells me that back before the revolution, the egg-knocking contest was serious business, because eggs (like everything else during Communism) were hard to come by. Some people would try to cheat by using stronger-shelled eggs (like duck's eggs) or even painted wooden "eggs." Grandpa Negru was apparently a champion egg-knocker in his day.
Vanquished by an old woman
Nobody says "Hello" or "Good morning" on Easter. Instead, when you see someone they say "Christ is risen," and you're supposed to respond "Truly, He is risen." To an atheist from a nominally secular country where saying "Merry Christmas" can cause a stir, this is pretty creepy and cultish. I told Gabe that the second someone comes through the door in a hooded robe carrying a wavy dagger, we are out of here.
Joking aside, it really is a little weird. I've been trying to establish some boundaries with Romanians about the fact that I'm an atheist and don't believe in any of this hocus-pocus, but it causes friction every time I refuse to participate in a religious ritual. I stood firm on saying "Hello" to people, but then I found out the ritual phrase is a key part of the egg-knocking contest -- you can't knock eggs without saying it. So I contented myself with muttering "Whatever" afterwards. I mean, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten to knock eggs. There is only so far I am willing to go to defend my principles, and that line lies somewhere between pissing off my wife's entire family (no problem!) and being excluded from egg-knocking night (nooooooo!).
EDIT: My dad pointed out that Jesus and I are mirror-images of each other in the two pictures above. Hilarious.
As if the Resurrection wasn't reason enough to celebrate, today (well, actually tomorrow, but since most of you reading this are on the other side of the International Date Line what's the difference?) is great-grandma Negru's birthday. So after a giant Easter meal and more cozonac, we had cake!
Here is the totally awesome picture I snapped after accidentally missing the moment when great-grandma blew out the candles, and Io realized that I had missed it:
We finished up the afternoon by all watching a photo-slideshow of family pictures that Gagi had put together. It was pretty nice, and I got to see lots of older pictures showing everyone when they were younger.
So there you go. Goat was eaten, eggs were knocked, and thus Christ's excruciating death was celebrated. Everyone had a good time. Even Gabriel only screamed through about half of it. All in all, a fine Easter.
Moment of Zen:
* Except vegetables or goat organs.
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