Easter has a combination of rituals in a Slovak village. From the male population of the village chasing the female population with whips made from plaited willow or dowsing them in cold water and being paid for it in return to eating smoked ham with horseradish and drinking copious amounts of very strong homemade plum brandy.
We arrived to take photographs; part of my ongoing reportage about the contrasts between city and village life. I hadn’t been to the village in two years so I was anticipating seeing people I'd met before and being able to converse with them freely as I could hardly say ten words of Slovak two years ago.
The first person I recognised was Ervin in his early seventies looking a lot like Charles Bukowski with a constitution to match the late novelist. Ervin introduced me to all his friends as “Ingleesh” and then turned to me on each occasion and said
“ All ist gut?” Ervin in a pale grey suit with blue shirt would hours later re appear wearing a black t shirt with a silver skull motif in another bar where I would find myself a few drinks down the line playing old sixties classics on a twangy guitar to a bar full of singing locals.
They accepted me in the village with open arms, bottles and kitchens.
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