Sunday, April 04, 2010

Easter in Bulgaria

Честит Великден - Happy Easter!

This year in Bulgaria, Easter coincides with Spring Break so many of my TEFL friends are out on their awesome vacations. They deserve it - no doubt! Over here there are (unfortunately) no rabbits or Cadbury cream eggs lining the shop walls.  But there are plenty of eggs! A tradition here is to dye the eggs and today (Easter Sunday) you get with a friend and hit your boiled eggs together.  Whoever has the stronger egg that doesn't break should keep it til the next year for luck.  (Pretty sure I won't be doing that if my egg is a winner.)  

There's also a traditional bread called "Kozunak" that's a sweet bread.  My peeps I live with didn't make it because they said it takes too long so they just bought it at the store.  Another tradition is on Friday and Saturday night to circle the church three times.  This will bring health and prosperity for the year.  As far as I know, there's still on traditional church service like we'd have in the States.  (I'm only speaking for my village, of course.)  But luckily I've got a live stream from Prestoncrest so I can still "participate" this year!  I'm pretty sure this is the first time in 25 years (because I'm 25 now!) that I won't be at church on Easter Sunday. Sad.

Dying eggs

 
 They also have something that's like a sticker to make fancy eggs

 Me and the eggs after the dye party

This past Friday there was a festival in our "obshtina" that had performances from the local villages including kids singing, dance groups and folklore groups.  Our village had a group of kids performing and they did a great job! 




There's another festival tomorrow that the Men's Folklore Group is performing in... which is my favorite part of my job!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Looks like yall are in for some serious egg salad for the next few days! It all look so pretty and festive. Who is that with Maria dying the eggs? Did you get to see the PC service? We waved at you!

Unknown said...

I love all the eggs and I think it's great that you were just able to be a part of Easter Sunday church @ PCC. LOVE YOU!!