Today was the big celebration at the Gushovski monastery ruins. I caught a ride up the mountain with, an older British man who retired to Chiprovtsi three years ago. According to what I’ve heard around town, he prefers his solitude and is quite the loner. However, during the short drive, which took a bit longer due to the vehicles and pedestrians loaded up for picnicking on the one lane road, he was fairly open. Born in Africa, he grew up in Rhodesia (now Zambia), but moved to England, the home of his parents, in the 1960s when he felt things in the country were not going in a direction good for him. I’m not sure what he did in England or if he has any family. But he had some very interesting stories about Africa.
The weather was perfect and the celebration was set up beautifully. On the top of the mountain, the single stone cross, which has signaled the presence of the monastery for hundreds of years, was adorned with flowers and beeswax candles. From the cross to the old monastery below, large Chiprovtsi carpets suspended from wood frames 5meters high created an outside hallway of sorts. It’s difficult to describe the effect this created upon arrival. It was beautiful, impressive, and unreal. Below, hundreds of people were setting up picnics and visiting with friends and family, stands were selling kebabs, orthodox priests were mingling and giving blessings. On top, it was quiet and reverent, all around mountains, no towns visible, only the giant carpets and stone cross. It was an interesting mix. 
Now, on to the food, ceremony, and party. Shortly after I arrived, Simona, one of my favorite kids from town, appointed herself my guide. She had just managed to gracefully rescue me from a confusing conversation I had somehow become engaged in with an elderly woman about Kazakhstan and must have determined I was in need of assistance.
We walked around the grounds, saying hello to all of my colleagues, friends, and their families (she knew where everyone was) and exclaiming how lovely everything was. At the stairs to the old church ruins, I bought beeswax candles for us to light by the two stone crosses. A stone cross, nearly identical to the one on top of the mountain, stands in the bottom of the old church and was likewise decorated. Eight other crosses, from the same time and design are located in different spots around Chiprovtsi.
Between the church ruins and the monastery stand a line of 20 or so stone hearths in which giant pots of lamb intestine soup were being prepared-the centerpiece of the celebratory meal. We took a quick look, they smelled okay. After the hellos and photo ops, Simona showed me where Yolka and her family were set up. Yolka had invited me to celebrate with her family earlier in the week and I’d brought a bag of apples, tomatoes, and semi-melted Hershey kisses to contribute.
After drinking some very strong coffee from the small fire next to the table and helping Yolka prepare the salads I was given one of the large metal bowls to carry with me to the ceremony. The large pots of soup had been brought out of the overhang that protects the hearths and placed in a line on the ground. Around them, families were placing empty bowls. I placed the one in my hands next to the nearest pot of soup. Forming a large oval around the line of pots and bowls, each family placed one or two loaves of similar looking homemade bread with a beeswax candle in the middle.
The actual ceremony was brief. A very old, important priest presided. Flanked by two younger priests, he said a few prayers in the church ruins, then walked up the stairs to bless the oval of bread and lamb chorba. The other priests carried incencse and holy water and walked among the people. The bowls were filled, two large ones for our table of seven. I’m not sure how Yolka could tell the loaves of bread apart-they really looked identical-but she sent me to take the soup to the table while she searched. When I returned, she had found the bread, and placed a loaf into my hands. I brought the bread for Yolka’s table to a priest who blessed it and broke the first piece. Another very somber looking priest, carried a bundle of some type of green plant/herb. He dipped it in a bucket of holy water and hit me on the head with the dripping plant while saying another blessing. With a bit of plant fiber irritating one contact, I brought the bread back to Yolka’s table, where an extra large portion of the intestine soup, salad, meats, banitsa, and rakia were already laid out.
Oh the soup! Wanting to show how my gratitude and participatory attitude, and forgetting a similar story my dad had shared with me as a child, I finished my soup quickly and with lots of smiling. I was given seconds. For someone who rarely eats meat, eating a second portion of a dish with obvious hunks of soft intestines in it that has started to cool and coagulate from the grease, was a bit much. I ate that second bowl MUCH slower using lots of bread and leaving a bit on the bottom. After we were all uncomfortably full and the rakia toasts were getting a bit too frequent we piled into a large flat bed truck and headed back to town. The meal had been fantastic (the soup was an experience), as was the accompanying conversation. Even though I had felt awkward not knowing what to do or what was happening, I felt honored to have participated in the celebration with Yolka’s family. It was a really incredible day.
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