...Masopust and Motorest

So I will try to summarize my week in Debolin as briefly as possible. I already talked a little bit about the village and Romana (the owner of the ceramics studio), so I will mainly talk about the 2 main things we did while we were there…Masopust and Motorest.

The closest equivalent to Masopust in America is Mardi Gras. “Masopust” literally means “meat before Lent,” and is a celebration right before the start of Lent. In the Czech Republic Masopust is an ancient Czech tradition with traditional characters. The tradition was completely obliterated twice—under the German occupation, and under Communism. It was a means towards nationalism under the Germans, and it was tied to religion under Communism…so it was banned. The festival itself has many traditional characters…I’ve shown a few below, but I will put up more pics soon. The bear is absolutely insane…he is a symbol of fertility, so he always has to be led by someone (fertility can’t run rampant), and pushes women into the snow.


The other great character was the chimney sweep. He brings good luck, and to do so he smears soot and ash all over people’s faces. The procession was lead by the 2 musicians, and we went to EVERY house in the village. Even if someone didn’t open the door, we played at least one song at each house.

The chimney sweep would also be towards the front, because he would smear the people’s faces with soot right away. There were many elderly people that were so excited to see us, and it is tradition for the owners of the houses we stopped at to provide food and drink to the paraders. The food of choice was doughnuts, and the drink of choice was shots of “spirits.” Apparently, much of the alcohol was homemade…with alcohol content up to 50-60%. So you can imagine the state of many people present. In fact, this old man kept trying to give me his cigarette and a shot at practically every house. The words “ne (no)” and “anglitsky (I only speak English)” didn’t ward him off. I was the designated walker that evening, but I will give a p.s.a. to everyone reading, to NEVER try Plum Vodka…it is absolutely disgusting!

At every house we would dance to a song and sing. They made us sing an American song…and all we could think of was “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt” …so sorry about that one folks! Not quite the best depiction of American culture. They also made the Slovaks sing a folk song, and the 2 Germans kept singing a song “Babicka.” It is also a tradition to steal something from every house (mainly alcohol), and it would be put into a baby carriage. So people would run up to the baby carriage and rock it jokingly…since it was full of hard liquor. We literally were going from house-to-house for 8 hours. We started at 10 am and went until 6 pm. It was absolutely insane! People would stop cars going down the street to smear them in ash and sing them a song…we even stopped a mack truck!!!

And like all other events in the town, we ended up at Motorest for an after party. It basically entailed more dancing, singing, and alcohol.

I will definitely always remember this experience…and how welcoming everyone in the community was. I’m sure they’ve never had 5 Americans in their small town ever! And they made us a part of their lives within a few hours. It makes you think about the things that transcend language…one being shared experiences. I could have sat at a table with the exact same people, and it would have probably been the most uninteresting experience of my life—because we wouldn’t have been able to communicate. But we were all doing the same thing that day…bringing joy to people and singing and dancing. It also makes me realize how important the fine arts are in crossing the language barrier. Things like theatre and dance and music and visual art don’t have to be in a language to understand them…they communicate without words. So yea…I got all analytical towards the end of this…but it’s great stuff to know…especially those out there who don’t support the arts :D

And a final word about my time in Debolin…would be Motorest—YUM!!! We act practically every meal there (besides the time we hiked to the larger town for pizza which was 3 miles away…in like 5 feet of snow…without a trail…but it was a great bonding experience!). I definitely had my share of traditional Czech food though. Dumplings and cabbage and meat. But it was definitely YUM!