A Czech Easter

Happy Easter!

Today the Czechs celebrate the Easter. They really have a flair for having their own days of celebrating holidays, like Christmas is on the 24th of December. Easter, to the rest of the Catholic world, was celebrated yesterday. To the Czechs, the big day is today. Another irony is that most of them are atheists. There might be a biblical reason why this holiday exists here but I'm not sure if they care what it's for. Well, religion is not an issue for me. I respect other people's belief or the lack of it, but I do expect to be shown the same courtesy.

A peek at the Czechs' Easter tradition:

1. Giving sweets and/or money to the men while the women get nothing except being beaten by a stick. The beating is for the women to stay healthy but nobody could explain to me why the men get the treats. How chauvinistic, I must say.

2. Baking, baking, and baking. They traditionally bake a cake in a shape of a lamb. A "Beránek" is what it's called. The women in A's family spent the whole Saturday afternoon baking two lambs and arguing how to put minimal icing on them as wool. It's a complicated process of measuring, mixing, baking, melting and decorating, something I wont have the patience to do on my own.

Don't they look yummy? I just think they are too nice and calorific to eat.

3. Easter bunnies, eggs, and chocolates galore - In P.I. I know sometimes people do an Easter egg hunt but we are not really into bunnies. A click on Wikipedia explained this difference in tradition. The Easter symbols are choco-fied here and these are what they give to friends and families. (Didn't I say only men get these treats tradionally?) Calories, here we go to gobble you.

These chocolate bunnies are running wild everywhere here on Easter. These were two of our bunnies last Easter given by A's family and some of my pupils, who either thought I was a man or didn't care about tradition. I gave all our bunnies up for someone else to devour. I'm one of the few who is not a fan of chocolates. They give me a headache. Seriously.

Amidst all these, I miss how Holy Week is celebrated in P.I. But it doesn't really matter how you celebrate it. What matters is how you take its meaning and use it in the way you live your life.