Have Fun, Even If It's Not The Same Fun Everyone Else Is Having

Have Fun, Even If It's Not The Same Fun Everyone Else Is Having

- C.S. Lewis

I was thinking about home quite a bit during Easter. What where you guys doing back home? I know my church had a Sunday morning breakfast that I love so much. I know my little brother played trombone in church. I know tables were adorned with beautiful meals and there must have been several Easter egg hunts. I caught myself sulking a little and thought I better buck because Easter is here too and I can enjoy it in a new way! The Easter season in Hungary is peculiar. When asked if they were excited for Easter, most Hungarian girls would look at you with a horror stricken face. Boys, on the other hand, love the season. At first, I was filled with confusion. Easter is my favorite time of the year. Jesus rose from the dead, for heaven’s sake (rather, for my sake)! When asked for an explanation, I was told that I may want to shut myself up in the house, close the shutters, shut off the lights. Was this the zombie apocalypse?

Not quite. It all started as a well-intentioned tradition, believe it or not. Young men visiting the homes of “all the single ladies” would bring these poor unfortunates into the streets to drench them with buckets of cold water, dressed in their Sunday best. How rude. This is SUPPOSED to represent the rebirth of spring. It sounded like a dirty trick. No way was I participating. But, I found that it was all too true. It is a long-standing tradition for girls to be drenched and sprinkled with perfume. In villages, buckets still fly, but in Nyiregyhaza, you are sprayed on the head with a perfume (that is most likely 50 years old, so it reminds you of those ladies you sat by in church on Sunday mornings) after a short little Hungarian poem about spring is recited.

The boys spend the whole of their Easter Monday visiting houses, eating their share of extremely salty ham and boiled eggs at each stop. To top it off, when the boys have finished their Easter duty, the girls must give them chocolate and money! I’ve never heard of such a thing! Seems a bit backwards to me. A bit of a double-edged sword, though. If a boy comes to water a lady, the lady hates him for it. If the boy decides not to water her, she hates him still more for denying her feminine identity. What to do? Is he to stand by and watch her wilt through the spring? Certainly not!

So here I was, standing in a household with six men, perfume in hand and a rhyme on his mind. I was glad they had the good sense to keep the stuff out of my eyes. The room smelled horrid, but thanks to my sniffly nose, I didn’t suffer horribly. It is also a tradition to eat fresh horseradish with the ham and eggs. So, I was given the task of grating the stuff, being told that it would clear my nose right up. What was I thinking? I did as I was told, and yes, my nose was clear, but now I was crying and my head sort of hurt from the weird mixture of perfume and horseradish. It wasn’t my brightest moment. In fact, everyone around the table would begin to get teary eyed at one point or another. Each person tried to prove to the rest how strong he or she was, taking copious amounts of horseradish and forking it into their mouths, suppressing in vain the inevitable gushing tears.

I did other fun stuff during Easter too. On Easter Sunday, the youth group sang two beautiful songs. One was in English, and one in Hungarian. The video of us singing went viral, as I was told, with 26 views. I dyed eggs, played soccer (and won, mind you), played Dixit (a board game that should be in America but I don’t know if it is) and enjoyed the fresh spring air. I’ve Skyped my family to my heart’s desire and slept too much. Now I am, once again, back in school. The trees and flowers are blooming beautifully and everyone is riding their bikes. I am no exception. I feel so freeeeee! Talk to y’all in a couple of weeks!