114/365: Eggs for Easter

114/365: Eggs for Easter, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

April 24th

In Poland, on Easter Sunday, the first thing you eat is a slice of boiled egg. You go from person to person, wishing them a happy Easter...and whatever else you want them to be blessed with.

Then you get to eat everything else.

113/365: Family and assorted friends

113/365: Family and assorted friends, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

April 23rd

From left to right: Marcin, the Porzeziński Family (note Tosia hiding in the background), my dad, my mum, my sister and her boyfriend, imported from Barcelona.

In the photo, they are all standing by the Dominican Order Church, with their Easter Baskets in hand. Every year on Good Saturday, we take baskets filled with samples of the Easter meal to church where a priest blesses them:

They're a symbol of all the food that will be on our table that year. It's like saying grace before a meal, but with a long-term warranty.

Afterwards we go look at the grave in the church (where I don't take photos because people are praying) and then we fill a bottle with holy water from a barrel set out on the church steps:

Oh, and here's a bonus. My sister has a new boyfriend- David from Barcelona. Here they are in real life....

...and in egg form.

I am told he painted her and she painted him.

112/365: Mazurki

112/365: Mazurki, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

April 22nd

Also some babas and wine, and a poppyseed cake. We made less than usual this year, because half the usual guests are over in Finland where my half-brother's daughter's husband relocated with his family to work on building a powerplant. So no great-grand-nephew or great-grand-niece will eat these, alas. Well, more for me!

107/365: Palm Sunday in Lipnica Murowana

107/365: Palm Sunday in Lipnica Murowana, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

Remember how last Saturday I posted really quickly and didn't write much? It was because I was at my grandparents' place, with only cell-phone internet, and the visit was a stop on the way South to a little mountain village called Lipnica Murowana.

What's so great about Lipnica Murowana, you ask?

Well, every year, on Palm Sunday, they make these:

See, we don't have palm trees in Poland, so for Palm Sunday we have to improvise.

The palms are yet another tradition borrowed from pagan culture (and Lipnica even has a church built in the 12th century in a pagan Holy Grove, with the altar set on a pillar carved with a pagan god's likeness...serious history there:

...and of course that means it's colourful, joyful, and very creative.

But the very special thing about Lipnica Murowana is that the village holds a yearly contest for the tallest handmade 'palm'. And it gets VERY competitive.

Above, the second-tallest palm is raised, with great care and caution. Because there are rules that make this contest exciting. No nails or other metal elements can be used in making the palms- only wood, willow, reeds, green branches and paper flowers are allowed.

Wires, ropes and lines from synthetic materials are also forbidden. In order to qualify in the contest, the palm has to stand upright without breaking, it has to be raised with no help from machines (hence the men in the trees guiding the lines, and those on the ground, pushing with special long forks), and the author must be able to wrap his hands around the trunk.

The palm in the photo above is the first prize winner, at 36.4 metres- that's almost 120 feet! I heard someone say the whole thing weighed about 600 lbs. It took about a dozen men half an hour to get it upright.

Here are some of the shorter palms, arranged around the statue of St. Szymon:

And this is me with the palms I bought. They were made by local schoolchildren:

...and Marta who went with me, chasing off a bee:

Here's the whole set on flickr. I took tons of photos. :

Palm Sunday in Lipnica Murowana

80/365: The Marzanna

80/365: The Marzanna, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

March 21st

About to be burned and drowned in the Ner river. Goodbye, Winter!

Marzanna is the ancient pagan Slavic goddess of Winter. On the vernal equinox, we make an effigy of her, set it on fire and then drown it in the river so that Spring will come.

Although Christianity in Poland has worked hard to assimilate and conceal the multitude of wonderful pagan traditions within its Catholic celebrations, the drowning of the Marzanna persists despite many attempts to eradicate it. In fact it's traditional for pre-school children to make the effigy in class and then have a little field trip to drown her. The burning of Judas which was meant to replace it somehow never really caught on...and I am glad. Marzanna must die as the Winter cedes to Spring, but she will return next season to live again. Her burning is a symbol of the natural order, while tormenting a straw effigy of Judas only serves to translate guilt into angry righteousness.

I suppose the Church has to be content with the fact that we no longer greet Jaryła, the god of Spring, with dances and orgies...

So. I haven't done this in a while, for lack of good company, but this year I found two friends who thought it was a great idea. We made our Marzanna from wood, rags and hay, so she should decompose well. The Ner river is pretty dirty already, but there was no need to contribute to the pollution.

42/365: Prisoner Dwarf, or a day in Wrocław

42/365: Prisoner Dwarf, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

February 11th

A while back I wrote about the Orange Alternative. The Wrocław Dwarves are a whimsical monument to that movement's struggle against Communism. They are scattered all over the town, and you have to keep your eyes well peeled if you want to find them all. More information on their official website: www.krasnale.pl/artykuly/4373/Where-did-Wroclaw---s-dwarv...

A lot to see in Wrocław, even on a single rainy day. I spent the night there before hopping on a train to Germany. So, what did I see?

The Tumski Bridge, for instance, built in 1889, which has apparently always been the place for lovers and those seeking love to go- old stories speak about chance meetings, special prayers (there are two churches close by) to find the one and only, and mistletoe hung from the beam. But in recent years a new tradition has grown. If you have found your true love, you must walk across the bridge, snap a padlock shut on the railing and throw the key into the river. This will guarantee you 'til death do us part'.

Wrocław also has a gas lamp district, on an island in the middle of the Odra river. The above-mentioned bridge is one of those leading onto it.

I was lucky enough to catch the lamplighter at his task.

And on that same island, my favourite part of the walk:

In the Blind and Deaf chapel at the Blessed Virgin Mary church, there is a mechanical nativity which is lit up from Christmas until Lent. Although we have a similar one in Warsaw (which I even got to turn on and off as a kid, since my parents knew the priest in charge), it's not nearly as insane as this one. The lights flash in time to the music, and there are countless figurines, toys and souvenirs all rigged up to the mechanism. They move, dance, twirl, sway, ride around and pop out of peep-holes.

This Nativity was built in 1967, and features toys and trinkets from all the years since. I found quite a few Disney characters hiding between the Christmas trees, next to wooden folk toys and soviet-era tchotchkes.

And of course, Evil Android Papa Smurf:

A big thank you to my former flatmates Marta and  Maciek for showing me around

9/365: Christmas Charity

9/365: Christmas Charity, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

January 9th

For the 19th time, the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity played to save children's lives. Nineteen years ago, it was very small, just another charity event, but now the whole country takes part in the fun. It's amazing.

It works like this: for just one day every year, hundreds of thousands of volunteers head out to collect money for the organisation.This money goes to a different medical cause every year- they buy ambulances, incubators... all sorts of expensive medical equipment needed in pediatric care. This year the theme was urology and nephrology.

To get people out on the streets donating, there are concerts and events all over the country which all end in fireworks at eight pm, and the whole thing has non-stop live coverage on TVP2, one of our national TV channels. Many, many companies donate their time and equipment so that people can have fun and drop a few coins into the boxes.

When you donate, you get a heart sticker. On that day you will see people walking around covered in hearts- some donate once, some put a little into several collection boxes. Little kids save their pennies and drop them in one by one. People give jewellery, auction off valuable mementoes.

Every year, the amount collected is higher. It always takes them a week or two to count all of the cash donations, proceeds from auctions, bank transfers. In 1998, when I was one of the volunteers, we raised 3.5 million dollars total, and we thought that was pretty swell.

Yesterday's amount, as of right now, is 12.2 million dollars.

In one day.

I absolutely LOVE this charity.

6/365:Crowds at Three Kings procession

6/365:Crowds at Three Kings procession, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

January 6th

For the first time in fifty years the Epiphany (Three Kings Day, or the famous Twelfth Day of Christmas) is a holiday in Poland. Three years ago, a foundation dedicated itself to organising a procession, and as you can see from the photo, it's a popular event despite the bitter cold. If you look closely you can see many people in the crowd wearing paper crowns; those were distributed by volunteers along with song books. In Poland, by old tradition carols are sung after Christmas, not before.

The whole thing is like a play with hundreds of actors. Three men on horseback are the Kings Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. Their courts are color-coded: children in red capes and silver helmets for Caspar, who represents the continent of Europe, green capes and rice hats for Melchior who represents Asia, and blue capes and headscarves for Balthasar and Africa.

The courts gather by Sigismund's Column in the Old Town Square in Warsaw at noon for the Angelus prayer, then set out to walk to Pilsudski Square where a family acts in a live creche. Before they and the thousands of ordinary people following them can take their crowns off to pay respect to Jesus (who in Catholic tradition is the King of Kings), they first have to visit king Herod, then fight hordes of devils and be tempted to stray from the path.

Never fear: they are guided by the Star of Bethlehem.

Behind it walk hosts of angels (this year played by a school for the blind) and shepherds with a flock of sheep come straight from the mountains in the South.

Among them walked the Cardinal Archbishop and clergy, then mountain lifeguards, then a choir, then at last the hosts of the kings.

This year there was a bit of excitement with Balthasar, because a black man had volunteered to play the part. Poland is a very pale-skinned country; though it is not exactly uncommon to see black people anymore, their presence in media, politics and other public events still causes interest. When you see someone who is not white in Poland, your first thought is 'a foreigner'; but this year's Balthasar, a native Sudanese, has been living here since 1996. Maybe next year a man of Asian roots will step up to play Melchior?

358/365: Christmas Eve table

358/365: Christmas Eve table, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

December 24th

My mother takes particular pride in setting the table for Christmas Eve Dinner, and rightly so. Every year it's something different, but there is always lots of shininess and warmth. She has boxes full of little sparkly stars and angels and fairy dust.

Worth a mention: the tradition in Poland is to put hay on the table or under the cloth- hay, of course, because Jesus was born in a manger.

Bonus: family photos, first one taken by me, second by my sister so I could be in it. Merry Christmas!