Colleagues

I haven't written a lot about my colleagues here in Latvia. Mostly it's because the term here has been a very trying one, and we have had literally no time for any socializing. My first connection to the department, Sandra Meškova, was on sabbatical this term, so that we didn't see much of her while she worked on a book, and that's exactly as it should be -- this is what sabbaticals are for. The faculty member that I was working closely with, Irina Presņakova, took ill the first week of term, and I eventually took over most of her classes when she was unable to return to teaching at all for the whole term. Two other faculty members were out on maternity leave this term as well, and that left the department operating a full roster of courses with only 50% of its usual teaching faculty. How my colleagues got through it all is beyond me, though they did. It's worth noting that the requirements of the Latvian Ministry of Education stipulate that my Latvian colleagues have more than double the contact hours with students per week that I have with my students in my home institution. Latvian faculty are seriously overworked.

They kept apologizing throughout the term that they simply didn't have time to sit down and socialize with me, and I understood completely. Add the factors mentioned above with those connected to their own personal lives involving parents, children, and spouses, and you can imagine how overwhelmed they must have been. However, when the exams we over and graduation celebrations done, I got a note from Ilze to meet her in the department office if I were available. When I got there, there was a pleasant surprise party in place in anticipation of my departure, and we all got to sit down -- finally -- and actually chat about the term and ourselves. Of course, we've been chatting in the English Philology department offices all term, but this time we could actually relax and not end conversations in mid-sentence so that we could rush off to a class.

As is usual, the food and drink was ample. In particular, there was a great deal of blood orange juice and two bottles of champagne, so we could drink the champagne straight up or make mimosas. I was presented with a small present, and a very cool one at that: a set of handmade and hand-fired dominoes that are inscribed with traditional Latvian patterns. And then we ate chocolate and assorted nibbles and drank toasts to a successful term.

I could not have asked for better colleagues. Mostly they got out of my way, which was a great virtue this term. Taking over Irina's classes meant that I needed the space to do whatever I do to make the courses mine, and they were more than happy to give me that space. In fact, I was praised for my flexibility this term. It cannot have been easy for them to integrate an American into the Latvian system when they were so harried with their own work, so giving me plenty of leeway to do my work in my way was the best situation for all concerned. We left the party with that pleasant glow that one gets after drinking a lot of mimosas in the middle of the afternoon and with promises to set up some kind of exchange program so that we can continue our professional and personal relationships. Here they are. Left to right, Inesa Antonova, Jeļena Semeneca, me, Ilze Oļehnoviča, and Solveiga Liepa. What a wonderful group of educators. And, as goes without saying, what a wonderful group of Latvians.

Church Hill

One of the major points of interest in Daugavpils is Church Hill, a rise in elevation where Daugavpilians, in their wisdom, put their cathedrals. And there are three of them all in spitting distance from each other: a Catholic one because this part of Latvia is very Catholic, a Lutheran one because the Protestants got to the Baltics early on, and a Russian Orthodox one because it's a Russian city. This mix of denominations is another example of the diversity that you take for granted in Daugavpils. Lee took a couple of very nice shots of the Cathedral of Saints Boris and Gleb, and you can probably guess which denomination this one is. Does anybody know: who is Saint Gleb, exactly?

These golden domes are especially wonderful in the late afternoon when the sun hits them just so. The interior of this cathedral is pretty over the top, though I don't have photos of it; when I stopped in, there was a funeral going on, and it seemed highly rude to snap some pictures, though I wanted to. The chanting was sublime; even the smallest Russian Orthodox churches have sublime choirs.

In addition to these three cathedrals, there is also an Old Believers church nearby, a little pink confection that looks as if it is made of marzipan. The Old Believers were an offshoot of the Orthodox. They broke away in the 17th century over a number of theological issues, one of them (so I'm told) being whether or not you were supposed to cross yourselves with one finger or two fingers. I'm not kidding here -- entire churches get founded on such minutiae as this. Lest we Americans judge too quickly on this matter, we might remind ourselves how many different kinds of Baptists there are in the United States and recall those words of Jesus Christ about judging and not judging.

I would love to go into the Old Believers church, but it's closed to all except Old Believers. All the others are of course open to all passers-by, and  there is something really delightful about being able to just wander into a church and take a breather from your busy day. And of course, this is exactly what these spaces were made for: that liminal space between your regular self and your higher self.

Ligo

Last night all of Latvia celebrated Līgo ("LEE-go"), or midsummer festival. As I understand it, the proper name for the holiday itself is Jāņi ("YON-yee," sort of like the New Age instrumentalist). This comes from from Jānis, the Latvian form of the name John, because midsummer falls on 23 June, which is St. John's Day. The celebration for Jāņi is Līgo.

Midsummer celebrations are standard all over Scandinavia and the Baltics. Because this part of the world is so far north, 20 to 21 hours of sunlight at the summer solstice is pretty normal, if a little weird if you come from parts further south like I do; the endless light has wreaked havoc on my sleep patterns. But Līgo is a reason to stay up and ignore sleep because there is an all-night party to attend, and when dusk is 23:30, or 11:30 pm, and sunrise is 3:30 am, you might as well stay up and join the fun.

Different countries do midsummer differently, but the standard practice is to get out into the countryside. Midsummer is definitely pagan in origin; St. John came later. And because there are fertility rituals connected to the celebration -- no surprise there -- getting close to nature matters. When I returned to Daugavpils on the train on 23 June, the city was deserted because everybody had already headed out to the country. As it happens, Daugavpils has its own local celebration of Līgo for all the unfortunate souls who have no friends with summer homes with a pirts, or Latvian sauna. So my local peeps Allen and Natalija, who's a native Daugavpilian, were joined by Margarita, and we headed out to a wooded area of town called Strōpa named for the nearby lake. You get there by walking through an old cemetery in the woods, and then the pine trees begin to clear, you come up on the crest of a hill, and there you are in the big clearing.

There's a stage here, and this is where Daugavpils hosts its local song festivals as part of the national network of song festivals. (Latvian song festivals are major events unto themselves. The national one is held every few years, and I regret that it's not until next year.) The stage had a whole line-up of performers: first a Latvian folk group, naturally, and then a country-western band. Country music sung in Latvian does not sound like a mash-up that is really going to work, but for some odd reason it did. But you don't really listen to the music. You dance to it, and the stage is big enough to accommodate a lot of dancers. Which of course is what we became after a beer. My student Jolanta found me in the crowd and insisted on some dancing so that my Līgo experience would be truly authentic. And then Allen, Natalija, Rita, and I took to the stage because, well, it's Līgo. Rita is a very good dancer; I feel bad that she got partnered with not quite so talented me, but there you have it. Here's the stage from the audience seating.

This photo really doesn't give a sense of how big this space is. There is seating for maybe 1000 people, and there were certainly 2000 people there.

Līgo celebrations require specific kinds of foods for eating, and I assume they are symbolic. First, bread with caraway, a special kind of Latvian cheese, and the inevitable beer. I don't know what the symbolism is, and who cares? These three foods are among those that Latvians do better than anybody, so just fill up! And there are many vendors at the festival to help you do just that, though plenty of folks brought their own picnic dinners too. By the way, rye bread fried in garlic butter is the best accompaniment for beer that can be imagined. This is what we ate instead of the special caraway bread. If anybody is going to come up with really good bar food, it would be Latvians. If anybody tells us that we did not follow tradition exactly, we can point out that we certainly drank beer, which I think counts for something.

About 23:00 (11:00 pm), the bonfire is lit. In a small gathering, it's traditional to jump over the bonfire; this is some kind of fertility ritual. Here, the bonfire flames were about 30 feet tall, so I felt it was prudent to not attempt any jumping. Here's the bonfire at our Līgo celebration. I think that with all these trees around, a fire of this size was slightly dangerous, but the fire department was close by because we hadn't actually left the city. You can see that it's just dusk at this point, but it is indeed 23:00.

Finally, it is worth noting the importance of women wearing flower garland crowns on their heads. You can buy them at any flower shop the week before the celebrations, and Latvia abounds in flowers shops. Men might wear crowns of oak leaves on their heads, but these are less common. I found out that this is because in theory only a man whose name is Jānis is supposed to wear an oak-leaf crown, though I suppose that this rule is ignored by lots of men (and some women). I mean, how often do you get to wear oak leaves on your head? Regrettably, I did not have a crown and I sort of wanted one, if only for the photo op possibilities. However, Allen assured me that it was not in fact required, and I would guess that what seems to be a charming tradition at first would become an annoyance once you started dancing.

Līgo is easily the biggest Latvian bash of the year, and this in a country that celebrates at the drop of a hat. I'm really grateful that I got to be here for it, and I am already planning how I am going to bring a little Latvia home with me and celebrate it next year in Maine.

Last class

As promised, here are some photos of my last class with my adult English class. Zane Vaļule, a grad student at Daugavpils University, taught the grammar portion of the class; I, as a native English speaker, taught the conversation portion. Here we are on the front steps of the university's Humanities Building. Note the flowers that were presented to Zane and me, which is standard Latvian (maybe even legally required) practice. Left to right: Jolanta, me, Zane, Vilmars, Marija, and Pavels.

The class was an interesting mix of both native Latvian and Russian speakers, and as the conversations developed, we learned fascinating things about each other: Pavels ran for city councillor of his hometown Krāslavas in the recent Latvian elections. Vilmars works as a forester for the Latgale provincial government, and Jolanta is a lawyer who helps monitor illegal forest cutting in the province. And so on and so on. Here's another one of us.

Many thanks to Gunnars, Jolanta's main squeeze, who came to class and took the photos. He too was delightful, and thanks to him and my students I now have the words to one of the songs that is sung for the festival of Jāņi (St. John's Day, or midsummer -- the biggest bash of the Latvian year). Stay posted for more on it because it all starts tomorrow!

Wistfulness

A few weeks ago, I wrote about homesickness and wanting to be back in my own bed and cook with my own pots and pans and eat my own strawberries from my backyard. I still want all those things, but now those feelings are very mixed with the realization that my time really is almost over. In a little less than two weeks, I will leave Daugavpils and Latvia, only to return home to a large pile of mail and projects that will get my ready for the fall term. I keep forgetting that I have this other life that I also have to deal with, but the book order forms from the university bookstore were a good reminder.

Wistful is how I would describe my feelings at this point. As wonderful as being in Latvia has been, I actually am excited about taking on my medieval literature course in the fall, which I haven't taught for a while, and reinvigorating the Honors Program at my university with the able help of my colleague Sarah Hentges. We co-direct the program at present and have been working on revamping it entirely, from curriculum to policies to scholarships and everything in between. I'm also ready to return to the ripening of the raspberries in my backyard so that I can eat them (of course) and make jam for the winter. I hope that Trudy, who has been staying in my house in my absence, has enjoyed the strawberries all June, and if she should read this, perhaps she will put a few in the freezer for me. Just a suggestion.

And having a date at which this all ends is very helpful. Once you have that date in place and the work of the term is done, as it is now, you can really start focusing on all the things that need to happen so that you can get home. I am now packing up materials, giving away some books that I don't need and leaving them in the English Philology Department's library, figuring out how to pack clothing in a sensible way to expedite traveling over the Atlantic with as little as possible. I have found out that the postal service, Latvijas Pasts, will ship a box home up to 20 kilos (about 44 pounds) for a little over 100 euros (roughly $120). While that seems like a lot of money, it compares very favorably to taking it home on the plane, where checking it as a second bag will cost exactly 100 euros (about $107). The slightly higher cost seems worth it to me to not have to lug a rolling duffle and a large suitcase around Riga, Boston, and environs. (I think that in general I packed very lightly for six months and managed to get four seasons' worth of clothing over here. Still, it looks like a lot when it's spread all over my flat, the way it is now.)

Having this leaving date has been actually pretty refreshing. I look at the calendar and think, OK, that's it. I will be done. And with great cleansing of spirit, I get rid of more stuff, not that I collected all that much, for once on my life. It's time to get on with my own life, and slowly returning to it via email and such has been liberating. As good as it is to be jolted out of your routines -- and in the past six months I have been jolted out of all of them -- the reason it is so good is that you eventually return to them, and you return to them in light of what you learned in your post-jolt phase. I've already spoken about some of the pedagogical changes and issues that I want to explore further, and I am planning how my new colleagues Ilze, Sandra, Solveiga, Jeļena, and Irina will continue our own collaborations.

Despite all that, wistfulness is the predominant feeling. Case in point is my final class with my adult English speaking class that I have co-taught with a graduate student here, Zane Vaļule. Zane taught grammar, and I taught conversation, and for our last class we decided that a party was in order. And so it was: I brought a cake (naturally), and everybody rose to the occasion in terms of bringing things to eat. (And everybody learned a new English word: "potluck.") We had homemade sausage from Vilmars, who is a hunter; if you have never had venison-elk sausage, you have not yet lived. We had little meat-filled pastries, delicious bread from Jolanta, cucumbers and tomatoes, assorted fruits, soft drinks, cream-filled pastries, Laima chocolates. And to drink for the requisite toasts? Two bottles of Latvian champagne and homemade šmākovkas ("SHMOCK -- of -- kuss"), introduced to me as the Latgalian moonshine that everybody makes at home. (It's 50 proof, arguably the strongest alcoholic beverage that I have ever drunk.) Zane and I were presented with small gifts of appreciation and, even in more typically Latvian fashion, flowers. Following that, students composed and delivered a short speech to each of us. Mine started with, "Robert. You are a great man," which made me well up a bit. Then we sat down, and the party started and continued for two hours, long after the class period normally ends.

So if you were still wondering why people would go overseas to teach in a foreign environment and deal with all the hassles that go with it, now you know why. Like I said: wistful.

Evaluation

As I think all educators do at the end of a term, I'm now going through the "what I could have done better" phase of reflection. I don't think a lot of us really think as much about what we did well (and I will leave that to my students to judge), but I know that I always end the term thinking, "Well, it was a good class, but . . ."

Generally, I think that I would have done more to acclimatize my students to the kind of connections that American-style education does very well: that of taking the personal and connecting it to the materials at hand. Added to that, I would have stressed more strategies for owning the course material rather than just parroting it back on an essay.

My students were initially puzzled, I think, about spending some time in class discussing their own complex language histories in their families, but we used this as a way to understand how the French and English must dealt with each other in medieval England when both languages were operating side by side (with Latin thrown in for good measure), separated largely by social class and status. Once we had that personal discussion out of the way, they seemed to be very savvy about why someone might choose to learn English or French or Latin in the complicated language stew that was medieval England. Though, in reality, it wasn't as complicated as the current language stew in Daugavpils, Latvia . . . Once they got the sense that their own personal experience as linguists was relevant to the class material, they were willing to go with me. But it was something that they were not used to.

Furthermore, students in Latvia are not really as used to class discussion as American students are, and my courses in the States are all about class discussion. This makes it hard for them to take notes -- they are not always sure what exactly they should be taking notes on -- and I could have a better job of separating lecture and discussion of lecture material. Latvia does this very well, actually, dividing courses into "lectures" and "seminars," where seminars means specifically discussion of material. I'm not sure that I would use that artificial construct myself, but I do think that helping students know what to take notes on and doing more work of summarizing discussions would have helped them, and probably would have clarified more for me what I thought was important about a class.

I would definitely have discussed strategies for note-taking. My own strategy is to write everything I can down, and then pare them down to essentials later, recopying them into a more organized format. Time-consuming, yes, but I can recall the content of lectures I listened to thirty years ago with clarity because of this. And I would definitely have discussed the importance of paraphrasing: that is, not simply cribbing materials from sources but putting them in your own words so that you understand and own the material. This was a big problem in my final essays, and I am guessing that Latvian students are so used to going to sources as The Authorities that they don't fully realize that they bear some resposibility for making sure that they only use sources but also synthesize them into their own knowledge banks.

All of these things I would do point up two things. 1) Working in a different educational system is eye-opening because you are never sure what your students know and what they don't know. This is not a bad thing; you get a Fulbright, after all, to learn how a different educational system works and how to integrate yourself into it. 2) This one applies to Latvian and American students: educators need to remember that teaching is not just about teaching content but also teaching how to learn: that is, what practical skills you need in order to succeed in the class and beyond. This means teaching how to listen to a lecture, how to take notes, how to study, how to write and format a paper -- in short, how to own material and then show others that you've owned it.

But enough beating myself up. I can always do things better, and I go through this same process every term. But under some trying circumstances -- basically, substituting for and eventually replacing a faculty member when it was obvious the tenth week of term that for health reasons she would not be able to return to the class -- it did not go badly. Students did learn some basics of the history of the English language, as their final essays showed me. Several of them wrote lovely things about having me as an instructor at the end of their essays. They liked having a native English speaker and hearing my American accent. I find this amusing because nobody has ever told me that he or she likes my accent. I'll take it. 

Latvian National Library

I posted a while ago about running a reading group at the Latvian National Library in Rīga for the U.S. Embassy, a program under the direction of Nils Students. Here are some photos of that event that have appeared on the U.S. Embassy's Facebook page. You can see that Nils bought some nibblies to eat, and these are all things that were mentioned in the book: Russian chocolates, Georgian mineral water, and clementines, which were a once-a-year treat in the Soviet Union -- if even that often. The woman to me left in the second photo is a Latvian lawyer who loves to read. It's really gratifying that this program has a set of regulars who will read any recommendation that is put out there. And, again, I make the plug: Anya von Bremzen's Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking is the best memoir that I have read in recent memory. (Actually, that is not quite true. Equal to it is Richard Blanco's The Prince of Los Cocuyos, his growing up gay and Cuban memoir set in post-Castro Miami. Read them both!) 

For those of you who are interested in the interior of the Latvian National Library, here are couple of shots taken by Lee. The building is spectacular, made to resemble a mountain of crystal that appears in Latvian folk tales. And as cool as it is from the outside, it's really cool from the inside -- a gorgeous interior space. I would have written my dissertation a lot faster if I could have worked in such an inspiring space as this. (More likely, I would have wasted even more time gawking at and poking around all the books.) The visible stacks are in particular wonderful, as is all the sleek, blond wood. I understand that the Library has a project calling for all Latvian citizens to send it a favorite book which they may inscribe if they like about why it's a favorite. The Library will then create a collection of favorite Latvian books, as chosen by its own citizens. What a wonderful idea!