English class

The USA Information Center at Daugavpil's cultural center Unity House holds any number of English classes at all levels. Here I joined a group of Russian Latvians who are learning English. The fact that I could say "Good morning" in Russian with a passable accent earned me points.

More Observations about Latvia

Latvia and Eastern/Baltic Europe is the world capital of floral-patterned sheer curtains. Not only do you see them in everybody’s windows, but there are more stores selling them than anywhere I have ever seen. I am sure that there is some deep meaning here about privacy for people who live in very, very close proximity to each other, but I don’t normally equate privacy with floral sheer curtains. Just saying.

It is also the world capital of pastries. The supermarkets, all of them, are loaded with pastries and cookies and baked sweets. The croissants are only okay; I suspect that if you want really good croissants, you should get a Fulbright in France. But the apple-filled pastries, whatever the heck they are, are wonderful. And that’s just for starters. There are four or five kind of prune-filled pastries, cinnamon pastries, little 4-inch pizzas (my advice: don’t bother), strudels, you name it. In the U.S., bulk items include things like laundry detergent. In Latvia, it includes primarily cookies.

Men’s footwear tends toward the practical – heavy brogues, hikers, anything that will get through the slush and ice. Women’s footwear tends toward the stylish – leather boots, often with heels (often with teetering high heels) that obviously get through the slush and ice too, but don’t make any concession to gravity, dull fashion, or common sense.

Generally, it’s a little hard to talk about fashion in such blustery, wintry weather, where everybody is bundled up. I have noticed, though, that I stand out with my bright red L.L. Bean jacket; men here wear a range of colors in their jackets, running the gamut from dark navy blue to jet black. I think I should just have “I am a foreigner” printed on the back of my jacket, but it’s probably not necessary. The one thing that I have noticed is that little children are so bundled up against the cold that they waddle like tiny penguins, sometimes bundled to the point that they are as wide as they are tall. As you probably guessed, children here are adorable, just like they are everywhere.

Little girls must have a warm hat with poms-poms on it. It is Key. Little boys must have Adidas warm-up pants. I’m so glad that I brought my pair so I will fit in. 

Latvian cats are just as self-possessed and aloof as American cats. There are a number of them wandering about my apartment complex all day, and they sit on top of snowbanks as if they are awaiting the next troika to take them to the Winter Palace so that they may dine on mackerel.

There has been only one day with sunshine since I have been here, and I was sick with a very sore throat so I couldn’t go out and enjoy it. Every day has been completely overcast with gray skies and low-hanging clouds. It’s like February in Maine, except a month early. The films of Ingmar Bergman and the symphonies of Jean Sibelius are making far more sense to me now.

Narvesen is the Latvian equivalent of 7-11. They are everywhere and have everything you could possibly want in a rush. If you need a coffee fix and don’t want to sit down for one and relax – a situation I understand but do not entirely approve of – Narvesen’s coffee is surprisingly good, given that it comes out a machine. But it’s a very sleek machine that lets you customize your coffee to a tee. You have something like twelve options. It’s like a complete Starbucks sitting on a counter.

Using the basic courtesies (“good day,” “thank you,” and so on) is harder in Daugavpils than I thought it would be because people speak mostly Russian, not Latvian. (Though a great number of them certainly do speak Latvian, it’s not their mother tongue.) So I’ve had to learn everything twice, and I keep getting my languages all mixed up. Latvian is the official language, of course. All signage must be in Latvian, so there’s this endless disconnect between what I’m reading on the signs in the supermarket and what I am hearing people speak all around me. That is, if I am hearing it right because I’m still not always sure if I’m hearing Latvian or Russian. (Or Polish, the language of my landlord.) I’ll have more to say about the complicated language politics here, but I can say that I’m starting to pick out the differences.

I bought myself an FM radio so my apartment wouldn’t be so quiet, without a TV or anything. Radio Latvija Klassika is the classical music channel on the government-funded radio network. It’s sort of fun to listen to music, have no idea what the piece is, hear it announced when it’s over, and still have no idea what it is. That said, the programming is diverse, sometimes to the point of weird. I would have never thought to follow a Schubert symphony with a jazz vocal ensemble singing songs from the early Disney animated movies, but someone at Radio Latvija sure did. When you listen, you just never know. I mean literally.  

School #12, part 2

In the event that you were wondering what I look like in Latvia. This is the advanced English class in Daugavpils School #12. A very smart group of students.

Housing

My flat (“apartment” for you Americans) is a studio – not big by any means, but all the room that I could need for the next six months. The head of Daugavpils University’s international student office, Jeļena Tamane, found it by asking around, sent me photos, and asked me if I were interested. Of course I said yes; it was a great relief to know before I left for Latvia that a place would be waiting for me in the city.

I met her and my landlord Jans Rimvids, who is Polish, at the flat on my arrival. I signed the lease – surely the first time I have signed a legal document in Latvian – after they had translated all of it, and there it was! I had an address!

The building itself is not much to look at. Like so many Baltic cities, the charming part of the town is the Old Town, the part that wasn’t destroyed in a war, and in most cities it’s not very big. Typically, the Old Town is surrounded by the real city, where people actually live. I’m lucky in that regard; my building sits on one of the city’s parks, the Old Town is right on the other side. In Daugavpils, Old Town means 19^th-century buildings built to a human scale, three or four stories tall at most, vest-pocket parks filled with trees, and the occasional old wooden building in the Russian style, with beautifully carved shutters.

My neighborhood is a set of narrow high rises of about five stories that housed lots of people when there was a huge influx of immigrants from Russia during the “Soviet times” who came – maybe voluntarily, possibly involuntarily as well, so that the Soviet Union could make over Latvia into its own Soviet image by flooding it with its own Russian citizens. (“Soviet times” is a ubiquitous phrase here. I am hearing it a lot.) The flats are smallish, which I expected, though I think it may be more accurate to say that American houses are far, far too large.

Natalija at the USA Info Center here in town called my building a “Krushko.” I’m not sure of the exact spelling of that, but it refers to the fact that it was built during a building boom while Nikita Khrushchev was Soviet premier. Older buildings in town are “Stalkos,” built under Stalin. Given that it was built by the Soviets, and the Soviet Union was not kind to the Baltic states in general, one wants to dislike this housing on general principle. But I can’t; it’s perfectly adequate, generally built sturdily though looking its age, and not unpleasant sitting as it does among very tall trees.

And appearances are deceiving. From the outside, these buildings don’t look like much, and some of them are in fact downright ugly: crumbling concrete, peeling paint, cheap finishes. On the inside, however, their occupants turn them into very cozy, very comfortable homes. I remember walking up the concrete steps to my flat once I was inside the building, the stairwell stale with the sour smell of winter air that hadn’t circulated for far too long, and dark paint peeling off the walls. And then I got in the apartment, all new and bright and decked out with cheery, simple IKEA furniture. The contrast was startling.

And one has to give the Soviets credit. For all their hypocrisy, their insistence that the Baltic states didn’t really exist until they were “liberated” by the USSR, and that they existed to feed and provide for Moscow, you have to give them one thing: they sure knew how to house large masses of people.

School #12

I went with Natalija Osheverova this morning to Daugavpils School #12 to visit an English language class at the fourth form -- I am guessing about the 11th grade in American terms -- to talk about Martin Luther King, Jr., given that his holiday was earlier this week. Natalija is the director of the USA Information Center at the Latgales Regional Library, which has a collection of English and American books and lots of programming about American culture. Part of my job here is to this kind of work, and I have some free time; my colleagues are conducting final oral exams for the previous term, and the new term doesn't start for a few weeks. Plus, this is a good use of your tax dollars and mine, which funds the USA Info Center.

The classroom was bright and cheery -- a little smaller than an American high school, but otherwise it all looked very familiar. And I have been told that Latvian students are reticent, but this wasn't the case. I cracked a joke, which is apparently what I do without thinking about it, and we were off and running. Natalija had a nice PowerPoint presentation about Dr. King that hit the big points such as the freedom riders, the Montgomery bus boycott, and a YouTube video of the "I Have a Dream" speech. My goal was to give them a bigger picture of the current diversity of the United States, in short why Dr. King's work matters. So I got U.S. census data from its website that broke down the ethnic and racial demographics as estimated in 2015. There were surprises on my part: one girl accurately guessed almost every demographic correctly (the white, that is, European American population is 61.3% of the nation, and she guessed 60%); everybody knew what Hispanic and Latino meant, which I did not expect, and they all got the idea that Hispanic is an ethnic and not necessarily a racial designation; and they totally got the fact that in about 30 to 40 years, there will be no racial majority.

Inevitably, the conversation that followed turned to Donald Trump, as I expected it would. It was heartening to realize that these Latvian students were as shocked as I was that Trump won the election, and in a previous visit, Natalija explained the complicated business of the Electoral College, so I didn't have to wade into that morass. They had great questions about immigration policy under Trump, which is an issue in Europe, with refugees flooding north from the Middle East into places that are not ready, culturally or economically, to deal with the flood. I said that I didn't think a wall was going to be built, and followed up with the basic fact: immigrants are already here and they continue to come. Policies will not change that. It was nice to find some common ground there.

We also discussed Dr. King's policy of non-violent protest, which really resonates in the Baltics. This is of course how the Baltic nations challenged and eventually threw off Soviet rule with the "Singing Revolution," citizens singing patriotic songs with their arms linked around each other across all three Baltic states. That's my kind of revolution and my kind of country.

The two teachers could not have been more delightful, impressed as they were that I had already managed a presentation after only four days in Latvia. (In all honesty, it is pretty darn impressive.) And my parting gift was -- of course -- a box of Laima buttercream chocolates. Natalija and I are making plans to return.

Photos of the class will be found on the USA Info Center's Facebook page shortly: http://www.facebook.com/InfoUSADaugavpils. I know you've been asking about photos, but I can't take them until I have a cell phone, and I have tried to make my needs known to a salesclerk in the local telecom stores. This I cannot do without a translator; give me something simple, like buying pickles (gurki) at the local Mego supermarket.

Latvia: First Impressions

I have arrived without a hitch. So little in the way of hitches, in fact, that I am feeling very lucky.

The arrival in Amsterdam from Boston was smooth sailing, as was the flight to Riga on AirBaltic. Entering the European Union in Amsterdam was a breeze, too, despite the fact that I didn't have a work visa -- it will be arranged in Latvia proper. And the minute I left the airport in Riga after picking up my bags, there was a taxi waiting that took me immediately to my hotel for about 10 euros.

I met fellow Fulbrighter, musicologist Justine Koontz, for dinner that evening (chicken in mustard sauce; cream cake and coffee following). She's been in Riga for four months and has an impressive command of the language already. We walked around Riga a bit that night, and it's clear that I will need to spend more time there; it's a lovely city.

The next morning, the U.S. Embassy representative Ingrida Bodniece introduced me to my driver who then took me to Daugavpils, about 225 kilometers away. There I met my new landlord, Jans from Poland, at my flat, and he and Jeļena Tamane from the University's international office translated the lease for me. So in the course of three days, I settled into a flat, met my new colleagues, went to the American Center at the Latgale Regional Library, secured a speaking engagement on this Friday, have gotten an invitation to an international conference next week in Daugavpils, and have explored the many grocery shopping options in my new 'hood. It's been a whirlwind. (Until I secure a cell phone and internet service at the flat, I won't have photos, though, so you'll just have to wait. But not for long.)

So far, I am very kindly disposed to Latvia. And why not? It is a modest and lovely place, very flat, very forested, and very friendly. A few observations:

1) It looks a lot like where I grew up in the broad Saginaw Valley of Michigan -- flat farm fields edged with woods and pine groves. The snow and weather are almost exactly the same as that of Maine, so when my new colleagues ask me how I am dealing with the winter, I assure them that I am on very familiar territory.

2) Everybody offers you coffee, which is always accompanied with chocolates. This seems to be an eminently sensible system to me, and I can't imagine why America has not adopted such a reasonable practice.

3) The language is really cool to hear -- Russian but not really, Nordic but not really -- in a word, Baltic. I have been asked if I'd like to take a Latvian language course. There are only about 2 million speakers, so I feel that I should just to up the numbers a bit. Plus it's fun to say stuff in Latvian. I am reading lots of signs just to get the sound of it in my head and on my tongue.

4) The language is also phonetic, so once you get the diacritical marks, things are actually easy to pronounce. And when you pronounce them, you can often guess what they might mean. Šokoladņa, for example, is pronounced "shaw - koh - LOD -nyuh": chocolate. (It's the name of the local chocolatier.)

5) Speaking of, Laima chocolate is the Hershey's of Latvia, or maybe the Godiva. Laima chocolates are everywhere you look in the grocery stores, and you are apparently expected to buy lots of them. Which is OK by me.

6) I was told that Latvians are relatively reserved. This seems to be the case on the street, where people generally do not make eye contact, smile, or acknowledge you. On the one hand, this might be off-putting to the average American, while on the other hand, six months of nobody saying "Have a nice day" at the drop of a hat will come as a relief.

7) Latvian pizza is recognizable but somehow a little off, though I suspect a Latvian in the United States would say the same thing about American pizza. I have never seen pickles on a pizza before. That said, the pickles here are supposed to be terrific.

8) Dill comes with or on everything -- salads, eggs, pizza, you name it. Given that I love dill, bring it on, I say.

9) Daugavpils is basically trilingual, as is much of the country. Latvian is the official language, Russian a very important secondary language, English an international relations language. This trifecta is complicated even further by the very ancient language of the province Latgale (LOT - guh - luh), Latgalian, which is also spoken, though not widely. There's also a Belorussian and Polish presence here as well. Linguistically, it's a very interesting stew, none of which I currently comprehend.

10) So far, it's been great.

The Network

One of the great pleasures of traveling is putting together the network of people who make your travels seamless. Whether you intentionally work on putting this network together or not -- and I seem to be gifted at putting it together without trying very hard -- it's doubtless a very useful thing to have.

Case in point is my first night in Riga. I met Justine Koontz, a musicologist graduate student at Butler University in Indianapolis, at the Fulbright pre-departure orientation in Washington, DC this summer. Justine is studying Latvian choral music (Latvia is a world capital of choral music, FYI), is a composer as well, and is currently studying at the Riga Conservatory. How cool is that? I received an email from her via Facebook inviting me to dinner on Monday, my first night in Latvia. It turns out that she is staying 10 minutes from my hotel. How easy could that be?

Justine is my Facebook friend because I sang in an early music ensemble in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the early 2000s. Seriously. The director, Chris Wolverton, is now on the faculty at Northwestern University in metro Chicago; he's a theoretical physicist and, obviously, an early music geek. He is friends with Chris Walsh, a choral conductor from Miami University in Ohio, who now lives in Riga, having married a Latvian woman, and conducts a well respected choir there. Chris W(ol.) connected me to Chris W(al.) via Facebook, and I connected Chris W(al.) to Justine. I figured that we should all know each other.

The moral to this story is, first, that Facebook Makes All Things Possible. (Even if you don't like Facebook, there is no denying that it makes this kind of networking really easy.) And second, these connections will help pave your way into a new culture. Chris asked me what part I sing when I contacted him, and though I am not sure I'll be able to sing under his direction, much as I would like to, he is very well connected chorally in the country -- as I expect Justine is becoming as well. So I think that I may be able to explore choral music in a much deeper way than I expected to, and it's in large part because I have these "in"s.

Then there is Uldis, who is a Latvian living somewhere in the American west (California, I think), and who happens to have been very good childhood friends with my niece Amy when they were growing up in Glendale, Arizona. Amy put us together, and Uldis is a linguist who just finished his Ph.D. in linguistics at the University of California-Santa Barbara. He is sending me all kinds of interesting stuff about Latvian, Russian, and English as the languages in Daugavpils, and I'm learning a lot about the complicated language politics of Latvia. He's also recommending places to go visit in the country when I'm there. I had no idea Amy knew any Latvians until five days ago, when she contacted me, and then when Uldis followed suit.

And the nice thing is that Chris, Justine, and Uldis are just part of my now Latvian network. My soon-to-be colleagues Irina, Sandra, and Jelena are also now drawn into my Daugavpils/Latvia network, not to mention the folks at the American Embassy there, among others. So, if you are traveling somewhere off the beaten path, tell people where you are going. Jump at any opportunity to meet anybody who might have a connection to that place because, well, you just never know. I certainly didn't.