St. Luke Slava

On Oct. 31, my new husband and I went to my Kum's house to celebrate his Patron Saint St. Luke's slava.

The slava is a Serbian Orthodox tradition. The family celebrates their Patron Saint every year. Each family has their own Patron Saint, taken from the father. A married woman will take the slava of her husband. This tradition has been called the heart of Serbia - it is specific to the country.

Everyone brings a gift. Usually, it is wine or liquor for the host and flowers for his wife. Flowers here are truly beautiful...huge blooms and wonderfully scented.

The family will invite their closest friends and relatives to this party and they feast on traditional dishes. The ceremony begins with the lighting of the slava candle and a prayer. The most important of the foods served are "slavski kolač"-"the slava cake" a yeasty bread that is served by bringing it to the table whole and then tearing it into pieces by hand and Koljivo (also called žito) which is made of boiled wheat flavored with ground walnuts, nutmeg and honey. The Koljivo is served in a bowl which is taken around to the guests on a tray with a small spoon for each guest. You make the sign of the cross and take one little spoonful of the Koljivo. You put your used spoon in a glass of water on the tray. Each guest is approached one at a time. Red wine and rakija (homemade brandy) are served to drink. Red wine symbolizing the blood of Christ.

At this particular slava, we ate sarma (minced meat, rice and spices in cabbage rolls) and a freshly roasted pig. The host's Kum was presented with the pigs head as a token of the respect he has for her:


The pigs head is considered a delicacy and is reserved for the guest of highest honor.

My Kum is not a particularly religious man, so there was no priest at this gathering. From what I understand, many people do have a priest conduct the service at their slava. My Kum's daughter lead the prayers and read from the Bible.

After these ceremonies were completed, it was time to eat, drink and be merry. Music is an important part of the Serbian culture. People here love to laugh and sing. There was even dancing in this small room with 12 guests!

When I was watching all of the goings on, I couldn't help but think of how similar it was to celebrations I've been to in Louisiana...particularly South Louisiana. When I lived in Shreveport, I often visited friends in Abbeville, New Orleans, etc. and good food, laughter, music and dancing are an integral part of those celebrations as well.
Of course, in Louisiana, we feast on crawfish and beer and dance to the Zydeco music of Clifton Chenier!

And the closeness of the family unit is also a part of both of these cultures. My Kum's son lives in Austria, but he made sure to call during the celebration to wish his father well and to send his regards to the guests.

All Souls/All Saints

This past Saturday we went to a large cemetery here in Novi Sad to visit my husband's parent's graves. This was in the midst of the All Souls/All Saints days celebrated by the Catholic and Orthodox communities.

I've never seen so many people at a cemetery in my life. There were cars parked on both sides of the main road as well as the side roads all around the cemetery. People made their own parking lots in the nearby fields.

Police were there to help with traffic flow around all of this.

In front of the cemetery gates, there are always people selling fresh flowers and candles. The flowers are gorgeous and the blooms are huge. This must be the best time of the year for the vendors....EVERYONE was handing over dinars.

We've been to the cemetery before. My husband regularly visits his parent's graves. From what I gather this is common here. I think it is very nice that the dead are not forgotten. In America, my deceased family members were buried far from where I was living, so visiting graves wasn't possible.

Inside the gates, there were people everywhere. On this particular holiday, people come and bring some food and drink to leave at the gravesites. I saw apples, loaves of bread, small cakes, etc. Some graves had only one or two mourners, others had large groups of people - whole families, I suppose.

We did what many people were doing: cleaning the gravestone, discarding dead flowers and replacing them with new ones, lighting candles and paying our respects.

There were some Roma kids in the cemetery, begging for money at the gates and riding their bikes among the gravesites. People here tell me that on this day, after people leave, they take the food that is left at the graves. If so, I guess it doesn't go to waste.

When people told me this, they weren't angry. It was more in the way of an accepted fact.

Visit to Čelarevo in Vojvodina, Serbia

On Friday we went to visit my love's sister and brother in Čelarevo. They each have a little house on the Danube there. These little houses are compact, but very comfortable. His brother bought his and fixed it up as nice as any home in town.

The bottom floor of most of these houses has a large kitchen with a table for eating indoors and a bathroom. There is a large front porch where they usually have another table so they can eat outside, which is what they do during the nice weather.

There are stairs leading up to the second floor where there is a nice sleeping area, with a television and in some cases, another bathroom. They also have terraces up on this floor.

Here's a picture of his brother's house on the River:


In the kitchens of most of these homes is a wood burning stove like this one:


I am amazed and impressed at what they are able to cook on these stoves. They also do a lot of cooking outside. Some have grills, others use the tripod with a cooking pot method. When we were there, his brother-in-law made fish soup (regional specialty) outside on a tripod cooker.

When lunch was served, we had 2 courses. The first was the soup served with egg noodles. You put the noodles in your bowl and pour the rich fish stock over them. You add some Pavlaka if you like and stir it up. (Pavlaka is like sour cream...yummy, but fattening of course!) When you have your fill of that, you put some of the fish in your bowl and eat it with your fingers. The fish is basically the whole gutted fish sans the head. So, you pull off the fins and stuff and try not to eat any bones! His sister also made some delicious paprika on the side. And no meal is complete without bread - hleb.

Here is that course:


After I was stuffed with that, they brought out the fried fish. They fry with fat. They are quick to tell you that oil is "not natural" and gums up your blood. Fat, they say is "natural" and flows right on through. Anyway, I just ate a little. It was delicious. Here's the fried fish:



Before eating, we all had a little "Stomaklija"..a rakija (brandy) with herbs that is supposed to be good for your stomach. This is another example of the cultural-medical wisdom here. Very interesting. The drink was good and it stimulated the appetite not a problem for me, unfortunately :^( Here's a picture of the bottle...note the obligatory ashtray.


During the meal, though we did not have any drink. It's one of those things here. Most of the time, no drink is served at a meal, not even water. After you eat, beer, vino, rakija, everything is offered to you. My love says this is common.

The water on the river was up, but it crested on Sunday and will begin to go down. I took some pictures of a beautiful pair of swans that swam right up to where we were...very comfortable with the people. My love's sister says she gives them some bread and they like that. Here they are:

Birthday Celebration Details

As I mentioned in my last post, my love recently celebrated his birthday. Birthdays in Novi Sad are an affair for family and friends just as they were in my home state of Louisiana. The difference? Here birthdays are also for adults.

Back in Louisiana, birthdays were mainly for kids. We take them to McDonald's, or the skating rink, or whatever business caters to kids birthdays with a bunch of their friends. Or, we'd have a party at home with their friends and cake and ice cream. When the kids were small grandparents would come, too.

For adults, usually the husband and wife go out to dinner at a nice restaurant and maybe a movie. If you are dating someone, same thing. If you are a young adult, usually you do have a party with friends.

Here in Novi Sad, my love invited his closest friends and his daughter and her family over and we ate, drank, talked, joked and listened to music. He tends to like the traditional music of Vojvodina and US music from the 50's and 60's. We also listened to some of my CD's. I like all kinds of music, so for his guests we listened to some Trisha Yearwood, Lionel Ritchie, Fleetwood Mac...easy listening. They like their music a little louder than I do, but they speak loudly so they can still hear each other over it!

I have posted before about how when people here are speaking they can get rather loud. If you didn't know better, you would think they were mad at each other. My love told me a story of one time one of his neighbors visited with a mutual friend and after several rakija's they got pretty loud. His son-in-law (who lives in the building) came to the door concerned that they were fighting! He said they all laughed and invited him in to join them.

To me, this is just another example of the zest for life that these people have. It's like everything they do, they do with vigor. It can be overwhelming sometimes, but it is also endearing.

The guests seemed to like my music. I know they are familiar with American music. The whole world is. There are many radio stations here in Novi Sad and I can always find several playing American music, but I like the traditional music as well.

The little roasted pig was a hit. They eat everything here. Nothing is wasted. The pig's tail, ears, etc. were all consumed. The meat was very good, roasted perfectly.

The one major disappointment was my camera. It has been acting up lately and did not cooperate for me to take pictures. I think I had some bad batteries, because it is working now that I have replaced them.

Srećan Rođendan! (Happy Birthday!)

This is a busy weekend for us.

Tonight we celebrate my love's birthday. We have invited friends over to our apartment and we have a half of a roasted pig cooking at the corner pekara to eat with them.
Must run now and go buy mineral water and pivo which we will serve in addition to beli vino.

Tomorrow we go to Čelarevo to visit family and celebrate the 15th anniversary of my love's brother and his girlfriend. This will be another big party with lots of food and laughter.

I will have pictures of these events and tell about how they celebrate birthdays (birzdays..haha) in my next post.

Problems Back Home

I called my Dad for Father's Day and got some upsetting news. My Mom had another "mini-stroke" last week. These are times when she goes totally blank. Can't remember where she has been, what she has been doing. She had gone to the Gynecologist with my daughter and evidently "woke up" not knowing what had happened. She told me she had her doctor's new RX's in her purse and everything, but couldn't remember anything.

I wrote my daughter an email asking for more information. She was there, she could help me to understand what goes on when this happens. Since Mom doesn't want to worry me, she gives only the minimum of info, but I have received no answer, no acknowledgment of my email...nothing. The "freeze" continues.

My brother, having heard that I spoke to Mom and Dad DID send me an email telling me that he thinks this is Mom's reaction to stress. He says my Mom's regular doctor told her to get some psychiatric counseling. My Dad has had some health problems the last few years and she worries about that and one of her sisters with whom she had reconnected after many years died of breast cancer. And, of course....last but NOT LEAST - STRESS caused by ME. Great.

Everything bad that happens in my family from now on will, I suppose, be my fault.

I am very worried. I don't have the money to just fly home and visit and then return. Even if I did, it will mess up my proof of residency that I am establishing so that I can marry my fiance here and then return to America. I want to be closer to my family, things like this just reinforce that desire. I don't think it will matter to my kids, but I know it will to my parents.

So, I worry, feel guilty, and bask in the glow of the hate coming my way from my kids. And how is your day?

Easter Celebrations

This year both Catholic and Orthodox celebrated Easter on the same day. The way that my love and his family and friends celebrated Easter was very lovely:

We prepared the traditional Easter breakfast meal this year to be eaten at the home of his daughter and her family who live in the same building that we do. Because the shops are closed on Sunday...all of them, evidently..we had to buy everything we would need until Monday. That meant extra bread and bottled water (which we usually buy daily)and anything we would need for the breakfast and lunch on Sunday. This is kind of hard to do when you usually just run out and get things as you need them.

On Saturday night, we cooked (boiled) a beautifully lean smoked ham with some sausages and also some boiled eggs in with this (for added flavor - the eggs that is). I made some American style deviled eggs for them to taste as well. We also boiled some eggs to dye and decorate for his grandchildren...just as we do in America. There was alot of activity that night...many cooking pots going at once, his daughter coming by to bring us some vinegar for the egg dyeing and to look at what my love had bought for the children's Easter...it was fun.

Sunday morning we called friends and family to wish them a Happy Easter and to proclaim "Christ is Risen!". Then, we took all of the food downstairs to his daughter's apartment and ate with them. Bread, salad, the meat, eggs, vino, pivo...food was plentiful and very good. His daughter provided two delicious cakes for desert.

The children had lots of chocolate and candy in their baskets, just like in America. It is now almost a week later and they still have chocolate..hahahha.

The eldest grandson made me a little egg holder at school and presented me with a very pretty egg to save until next year. As long as the egg does not get damaged, it is kept out in the home for "good luck".

After breakfast and a very nice visit (both his daughter and son-in-law speak English), we came back to our apartment to rest and prepare lunch. Our plan was to go back downstairs and eat with them. However, the doorbell began to ring and eventually we had 6 guests arrive! All were family and friends and we sat and laughed and joked and drank a little vino. I didn't think that many people could fit in our little attic apartment space, but they did and it was very nice.

One thing they do here is everyone gets a boiled egg and you tap your egg (top or bottom) against another person's egg (top or bottom)...if yours cracks, you lose and the other person taps the next person's egg...and on it goes. So, here we were, all adults doing this...it was funny.

Everyone left after a few hours and we went on downstairs and ate what we had prepared for lunch and visited a little while. Then we came home and watched a little TV before calling it a day.

Overall, a very relaxing, family oriented day.