What to expect on the Mission

Typical(?) bath in Slovakia.

Intro This section contains things that I encountered on my mission – culture, language, food, etc. I thought I would pass along some of my “wisdom” to prospective missionaries. (If any byvali misionári have anything to add, email me) Lesson #1 – the Bath… If you will turn your attention to the picture at your left, you will see what I dealt with for 2 years. Whether or not all the baths in Slovakia are like this, I don’t know. All I know is that it was like this in all the apartments that I was ever in (even in the Č.R.). You sit down and rinse yourself off (normally without clothes) and then hold the hose between your toes to shampoo your head. Like I said, this was my experience at least. Lesson 1A – the washing machine If you look in the picture again in the lower left-hand corner, you will see our washing machine. Only once did I have a washing machine on my mission that worked differently than this one. There are better washers, but most of the apartments didn’t have them. We had to put the washer in the bathtub and fill it up and drain it with each load. I don’t think that the clothes actually got clean. I think that the machine just spun them around really fast and tried to scare the dirt off. Oh, unless you’re rich, you’ll probably just hang your clothes up to dry. Lesson #2 – Food (including Bryndzové Halušky) If there was one thing I absolutely loved in Slovakia (which there was), it was the food. Here are some of the foods I ran into. Bryndzové Halušky – we have no equivalent to it in the states (Škoda!). It is a potato dumpling meal (the dumplings are strained through large holes into boiling water) with sheep cheese (bryndza) on it. Often, it’s topped with bacon bits and grease. Vypražený Syr – fried cheese. Pretty self-explanatory – it’s cheese that’s fried. Often eaten with tatarská omačka (tarter sauce). One of my companions and I would judge the quality of a restaurant by the quality of their syr. Rožok – a missionary favorite. A soft breadstick about the size of a straightened croissant. An easy lunch included about 3 rožky and a yogurt. Dip in the yogurt, bite, repeat. Kapor – carp. Thought of by most Americans as a “trash fish,” carp are specially bread there to be eaten at Christmas. No Christmas feast is complete without one. Gulaš – there are several types of goulash to be found throughout Slovakia. Many recipes have been borrowed or adapted from their neighbors (this goes for more than just goulash). Čaj – tea. There are also many different types of tea and people will generally offer you some if they invite you into their home. Ovocný is ok for missionaries. If the name of the tea has a color attached to the beginning (ie, černý, zelený, atď), then you probably shouldn’t be drinking it. You will also more than likely be offered open-faced sandwiches. These could have any number of things on them: tomatoes, bell peppers, eggs, cheese. Usually with butter to make everything stick to the bread. There are lots of other things that I could mention here, but because of space, that will have to wait for another time. If you have questions, email me. I’ll do my best to expound my “expertise” on the subject.