Stužková

Last year around this time I posted a video and said that I’d talk about stužková in the near future. It wasn’t near, but the future is now.

Stužková is a ceremony that has no parallel in American culture. It’s held for and by the fifth year students late in the fall. It’s not a graduation ceremony, although it’s similar in some ways, and it’s not a prom, though dancing is a big part of stužková. On our school calendars,stužková is translated as a “ribbon ceremony,” and the word for ribbon is stuha. One major part of stužková is the giving of green ribbons to all of the students. The ribbons symbolize their hopes for the future (including that they will pass all of their exams), and the students wear their ribbons until the end of the year. Anywhere you go in Slovakia you’ll now see kids with green ribbons on their jackets and bags, so you know they’re in their final year of high school. The ceremony is also a coming-of-age type ritual; they’re now adults. (Remember, fifth years are superseniors, and students start “high school” when they’re anywhere from 14 to 16; so some of my oldest students are already 19 and 20 years old.) Stužková requires several costume changes, but the students begin in formal dress, and the majority of the guests, especially parents, also dress formally.

Our stužkovás* start at 6 p.m. When guests arrive, they’re escorted to their seats at long tables. The headmistress and her husband, and the class teacher and her husband are usually at a head table. When everyone is seated, the students process in, and bow or curtsey to the headmistress and their class teacher. Then the students acting as emcees welcome everyone to the stužková. One of the students gives an address, then the headmistress does the same. The students are introduced and their class teacher pins on their ribbons. The school chaplain prays, and a parent makes a short speech and proposes a toast. The students sing “Gaudeamus Igitur.” Then there is a receiving line where all of the teachers shake their students’ hands and offer them some kind of bon mot. Mostly I just told them congratulations, and commented if they looked especially nice.

After the welcomes and speeches and formal toasts and appetizers, the dancing starts. Students first dance with a member of their family, most often their mother or father. Unlike at home, dancing is something that everyone learns here, so it’s incredible to see goofy kids dancing really well. After the family dance, there is the teacher-student dance. This is the subject of speculation among the teachers during the days leading up to stužková. Sometimes students will let slip which teachers they’re dancing with, but usually they don’t tell, so I always wonder who I’ll dance with. So far I’ve been fortunate to dance with really pleasant young men, who have excused my complete inability to dance. Once those dances have been completed, there is open dancing. The kids may dance with their parents again, or with a boyfriend or girlfriend, or a sibling, or a favorite teacher. Parents and teachers also dance.

Dinner is served next. At three of the four stužkovás I’ve attended, it’s been chicken cordon bleu, rice, fries, corn, and cabbage; at the other it was chicken topped with ham, a half a Georgia state fruit,^† and cheese, then rice, fries, and some fruit. The tables also have rolls, cakes, and a selection of beverages, including wine, water, Kofola, orange juice, and fruit brandy, on them. It is acceptable for parents to BYOB.

More dancing after dinner. At this point the DJ usually throws on some waltzes, tangos, and Slovak folk music. Around 9:30ish (I never wear a watch nor have my phone at stužková) the students’ program will start. The program usually includes singing, dancing, and skits. At 5A’s stužková, one of the students did a brilliant impression of the Slovak philosophy teacher, which included calling Francis Bacon “Slaninou,” which is bacon in Slovak. Both stužkovás last year included a skit about the Slovak folk hero Jánošík.

When the program is over, there is…more dancing! Many of us use this opportunity to go outside and cool off, because it gets quite warm in the room, and to talk to former students who have come back to see their friends. This goes on until midnight. At midnight the students light candles, read short poems about each other, and get a special piece of cake. Then they often play the stužková song^‡ and the kids jump around and dance to that.

This year, the 5Bs had a really cool extra part after the midnight program. They all got dressed in the folk costume from their home region and came out and danced and sang. They also had a folk band come in and play so that they could dance all the better. In the video, not only can you see the ridiculously omnipresent photographers, but hopefully you can tell that everyone around us was singing along to the song. That kind of thing always makes me want to be able to sing along, too.

After the midnight program they bring out more snacks (the infamous meat plate, potato and/or pasta salad, more rolls) and coffee. There’s more dancing, and the headmistress usually leaves around 1 a.m. The other teachers must stay until she leaves, so once she’s gone home, we’re free to either head out or get crazy on the dance floor. The DJ starts to play dance music, and the kids disco it up until morning. The latest I’ve stayed was until around 3:15 this past week, but some teachers literally stay all night. Nine hours was enough for me.

If you’re lucky, you get to sleep in the morning after stužková; but if you’re up and around, you’ll see kids heading home from the party, or getting on buses. And hopefully by Monday morning everyone is recovered enough to be back at school and functioning normally.

Stužková is one of those things that's so important that people can't explain why it's important. It just is. I hope I've been able to describe it well enough to show some of that. Despite whether or not I return to teach here next year, this won't be my last stužková; I'm already making plans to come back in 2012 for the current 2B's stužková.

*Improper Slovak alert. It’s fun putting the English plural ending on Slovak words, though, and easier than memorizing the Slovak plural endings.
^†“Peach” sounds like a very vulgar word in Slovak, so we try not to go around saying it a lot.
^‡I hope it gets stuck in your head as much as it's stuck in mine right now. Also, that video is quite amusing.

How to Press Cabbage

Ingredients:
-30 kilos of shredded cabbage
-about 8 small to medium onions, sliced
-a hefty chunk of fresh horseradish, cut into 1” chunks
-a bowl of salt
-a bunch of bay leaves
-whole black peppercorns
-caraway seed
-dill
-the heel of a loaf of brown bread
-a medium (about two and a half feet tall) ceramic jar with a hole big enough for your arm
-two or three pieces of oak wood, soaked in dill water
-a rock big enough to fit in the mouth of the jar

1. Put the piece of bread and the dill in the bottom of the jar, for fermentation.
2. Start layering the ingredients, beginning with about four big handfuls of cabbage, spreading it in an even layer around the bottom of the jar.
3. Add the spices: a big handful of salt, a handful of caraway, four or five crushed bay leaves, a handful of pepper, and some onions and horseradish. Sprinkle them evenly on top of the cabbage.
4. Put more cabbage on top.
5. Begin to press the cabbage. Use your fist and press down evenly on the surface area. Make sure to press the cabbage on the sides as well.
6. When the cabbage starts to get juicy, repeat. Add more cabbage, onions, horseradish, and spices.
7. About halfway through, taste some of the juice. Adjust the amount of spices accordingly.
8. Press until your arms fall off, and until all the ingredients have been used, following the previous directions.
9. Place whole cabbage leaves on top of the pressed cabbage. Top those with the pieces of wood, and put the rock on top of the wood.10. Leave the cabbage in the kitchen or another warm place for a week, then get a strong Slovak man to move it to a cooler place. Leave it there for another two or three weeks.
11. When it’s ready, make kapustnica (winter cabbage soup)* and cabbage salad!

If you can’t get a big cabbage-pressing jar and 30 kilos of cabbage, it’s possible to scale it down. Helena suggested using a five-gallon glass jar. It all depends on how many people are in your family and how much you like sour cabbage. You will need more cabbage than you think; remember, you’re squishing it, so it will compress.

*This is the next recipe I need to get.

Thanksgiving

This year, I am thankful for

my family;
getting to see my friends this summer, and having friends where years and miles apart make no difference, because the more things change, the more they stay the same;
the internet;
"Brownie," my Tisovec dog;
my new bathroom, even without its door;
my kids, who, against all reason, can make me smile just by saying hello in the halls;
my Slovak colleagues;
Kofola, forever and always;
learning new things, like about Britain after the Middle Ages;
having a(n American) football and getting kids to play with us;
the opportunities to travel and see and do new things;
our plans for Christmas (wait for it...it's gonna be legendary);

ruská zmrzlina;

health and safety;
this amazing, strange, beautiful country that I get to live in and love and be "from";
los otros gringos aquí, whom I adore;
knowing that no matter how long and hard the road, no matter how fun the trip, at the end of it I will walk down the middle of the street surrounded by my hills and, even if I can't see them, my sheep and my stars, and sleep well in my own bed at night.

And now I am proud to present the new T-town song. The students had a coffeehouse last night and we were asked to present something, so we created and sang this song, to the tune of "Part of Your World" from Disney's "The Little Mermaid." "Ako sa povie?" means "How do you say?" in Slovak. The more I watch the video, the more I seem to be just shouting rather than singing, but it was the most fun.

Look at this place, isn't it neat?
I get around on just my two feet!
Wouldn't you think it's the town,
The town that has everything?
Look at this view, treasures untold
How many wonders can one valley hold?
Lookin' around you'd think sure, it's got everything.
We've got Kofola and gul aplenty
We've got bryndza and haluky galore
Want potraviny? We've got twenty!
Yeah T-town! But that's not all...it's got more.

You can be where the ovce are
You can see, you can see 'em grazing
Strolling around on those--ako sa povie?--hills
Taking the bus you don't go too fast
But there's no rush and no reason to leave
Strolling along down those--ako sa povie?--streets
Down where they bike, down where they hike,
Down where they play all day on the courts
Not getting tan
But glad that I am
Part of this world

What did I give to be able to live next to this potok?
What did I pay to spend my days looking at rocks?
People might say let's get away, let's head to Praha for the weekend
See new face, go new places, ready to leave

But we want to be where the two street are
In our small town where we can't get lost
When does a town become--ako sa povie?--home
I'm here to stay, laugh, learn and play
And give my heart to friends in this place
At EGT
Glad I can be
Part of this world

Happy Thanksgiving!

Practicalities Issue 2: Nemocnica

Because I just took my second trip there in 10 days, today's "Practicalities" is about going to the hospital. Please don't fret; I'm fine, though stupid and clumsy, and I will certainly live through this particular injury.

For that story, let's journey back in time to the Sunday before last. A group of us went to the salaš at Zbojská on Sunday afternoon, and, due to events conspiring against us, had to walk back to Tisovec. It was light when we started, and we were expecting about a 45-minute walk. About two and a half hours later I stumbled into a ditch in the dark and turned my left ankle rather badly. (I could feel it start swelling right away. By the time we got home it was huge. I'd include a picture, but my feet looked pretty manky.) Luckily, I was with a wilderness guide, an Eagle Scout, someone with athletic training instruction, and a kid who dresses really well,* so they got me home in once piece and wrapped my ankle up.

On Monday morning it was less swollen, but it hurt pretty badly; and while we knew it wasn't broken, I still felt it best to see a doctor. The school called the hospital, arranged the car, and rounded up a student to translate for me. We only went to the small hospital in Hnúšťa, so the drive wasn't long. I'd like to note that when I describe the hospital and my experiences there, I'm not trying to be condescending and all "This would never happen in the U.S." I'm just telling you what happened.

The horror-movie-waiting-to-happen theme from our long walk in the dark continued at the hospital. At best, the outside of the hospital looks uninviting and in need of work; at worst, it looks like there are homicidal maniacs lurking inside. There are uneven steps leading up to the front door, and the overall architecture is Communist-Gothic. Inside, there are yet more steps. Once you've made it into the hospital, there is a sign directing you where to go: radiology, the emergency surgery, and some other places that I can't remember. The emergency surgery is, you guessed it, up a short flight of stairs. There is an elevator inside the building, but I don't know how much it's for patients and how much it's just for moving things. The interior is decorated in classic green and white.

We went to radiology first to x-ray my ankle. Natália, my translator, gave someone there my insurance card (yes, I have Slovak insurance, so I didn't have to pay to visit the hospital) and some other information, and then we waited. After maybe seven minutes they called me in. I hesitate to estimate as to the x-ray machine's age, but it wasn't new. Once the x-rays were taken, we went upstairs to wait outside the emergency surgery. This is what you do: You go up to the door and knock, and then you wait. Then the radiology tech will come up and hand you your x-ray, and you'll peer at it and determine that all of the bones in your foot are indeed sound and unbroken, in your expert medical opinion. Some people will go in and out of the door without asking you what you need or if you've been helped. More people will show up and sit on the benches in the hall, some of them definitely looking worse off than you. After some period of time someone will open the door and take whatever information you have for them, and then go back in. And then you wait some more, and finally they call you in.

We probably waited twenty minutes or half an hour before they called me (and I was the first one). I went into the examining room, which was part examining room and part office. A doctor, two nurses, and an orderly were in there. I sat on the table and took off my shoe and sock and the wrapping, and displayed my swollen, discolored foot to the room. They looked at my foot for about two seconds before proclaiming that I had torn a ligament, and promptly got me a brace out of a cabinet. They told me to elevate it, rest, wear the brace, use some topical analgesic cream, and come back in 10 days. I for one doubt that I actually tore the ligament, just for the record.

When I went back this afternoon we only waited outside the closed door for about five minutes before the nurses came back from lunch and checked me out. Again, once I was actually inside it was a very short visit. The nurse asked me a few questions, looked at my foot (which is more or less back to the proper colors now), and told me to keep elevating it and wearing the brace. I'm supposed to go back again in two weeks, but we'll see if that's necessary.

Perhaps part of this is the fact that I don't understand the language, but I found it very odd going to the hospital. It seems to be almost deliberately obtuse, like they don't really want you to find out where you should go and who can help you. Even Natália said today that she wouldn't want to have to go to the hospital in a real emergency, and that "even if you were dying, they would make you wait." Of course, not all hospitals in Slovakia can be like this. And I have no real reason to complain, since, as I said earlier, I wasn't paying for any of it, and my complaint was nothing life-threatening. But I also feel that I don't really want to risk having a big-time medical problem while I'm here. In that way it's just like rush hour in the Bronx.

*It should go without saying that I have absolutely no skills that would help in this kind of situation, except for my long hours getting iced and taped and whatnot in the training room.

Hallowe'en

As you may recall from last year, on October 31st Slovaks celebrate All Hallow's Eve by going to the cemetery and decorating their families' graves. Although I don't have any kin here in Tisovec, there is at least one family with my last name; so last night, when we trudged up to the cemetery to see the lights, I took a small candle and some matches and added another light. The experience only increased my desire to go to my great-grandfather's village and look for my own dead.