Holiday's

There were two holidays in November which I haven't mentioned. The first was November 1, All Saints Day. Instead of taking the American version of Halloween and focus on the undead vampires, ghosts and goblins, here in Europe people celebrate the actual dead; their families. The markets, for weeks before the event, are full of live flowers and wreaths, which are bought and used to decorate their family’s graves. On the first, or before, if they have numerous graves around the country, the families go to the cemeteries, clean off the fallen leaves and weeds, and decorate the site with flowers and candles. It’s a quiet, though happy affair, and by evening, the cemetery here in Trencin was glowing from all of the candles.

The second holiday was November 17, which is the Day of Fight for Freedom and Democracy. On this day in 1989, massive protests swept the then Czechoslovakia and within days led to the peaceful fall of communism. Vaclav Havel, poet and playwright, then became the countries first democratic president. Now, the day is mostly celebrated by students who were some of the leaders of the protests.

It wasn’t long after the fall of communism that I was a student protesting Bush and the first Iraq war… at least some protests make a difference.