Let's do the time warp again

So the best part about working with kids and teens is that I get to be one. In the past week I basically relived the best parts of every age I've been so far. Even going back to high school wasn't so bad. Every day seems to be a surprise here.

I started in Kindergarten by helping prepare for the opening of the first public Jewish Kindergarten in Riga. I decorated the room with homemade art projects and ran errands with the teachers. Of course, running errands meant driving around the city, asking for our order, and then being told "what order?" When I said to the principal, "bad luck today," she simply replied, "no, that's just Latvia." Ha.

 

Then came elementary school, as the "degesh group" (5-8 year olds) and I ran around an indoor playground/maze/slide/wonderland. I actually played tag. And loved it. It was a little hard to keep up with the little rascals since I'm not sure I even had the energy of an elementary schooler when I was one plus the toys were not made for giants my size, but gosh darn I chased after those kids like it was my job (get it, because it is my job. maybe my sense of humor went back a few years too...) 

That night and the next day came a little bit of high school, mostly in that I was around high schoolers. We did what high schoolers do best: ate and watched movies. I showed some of the kids' madrichim about sweet potatoes, smitten kitchen, and "Clueless." I thought "Clueless" would be a wonderful way for Russian high schoolers to learn about American high school stereotypes (and realities) but I totally forgot how pretentious the language is in that movie. While the script might have been hard for them to understand, the clothes definitely were not. So at least they got the most important parts of the movie. The next day I hung out with more teenagers when I hosted the school of madrichim for another food marathon and afternoon of getting to know each other. I mostly got to know that they speak Russian very quickly. Just to remind you (because the programs and system still confuse me), the school of madrichim teaches 15-17 year olds about Judaism and program planning so that they can take over planning events and activities for the bamba (babies) and degesh (kids). There's a ton of overlap between the school of madrichim and the youth movement, which makes the whole thing even more confusing, but means I have fewer people to meet and more opportunities to meet them. Anyway, to reward them for a hard day of "school" we made french toast, cheese straws, and hot pretzels. Not that they knew what most of the things were, but, in typical teenage fashion, they ate all of it anyway.

Oh, I also saw "Gravity" with the teenage youth movement on Friday when I convinced (aka begged mercilessly) the teen programmers to turn the "night at the cinema" teen program into "let's all go see Gravity because I've been waiting to see it for months and I have the chance to see it for free!" What was particularly confusing about this night is that as we were leaving the theater,  I saw this: 

Free samples of alcohol... Yes, in a place filled with little kids, families, and teens, an alcohol company decided to advertise with actual alcohol. Oh Europe...

After all that time with high schoolers I had to spend time with people around my own age, so i entered the recent past by joining the university student's group, Chai+, in a billiards tournament. As it was only my second time playing, I didn't make it too far in the actual tournament, but I got to see the Latvian Billiards championship, I progressed from horrifically bad at pool to really bad, and I got to introduce my long lost cousin to the Jewish Community. Oh yeah, I found family in Latvia! Shocking.

I also took some much needed adult time, which landed me with free wine! I've gotten really good at the whole being overly friendly and meeting anyone who will meet me thing. It's gotten me some nice new friends and some really nice free things. First, a friend's friend was visiting from Manchester and I got to show him around the way so many others have shown me around. It was a great chance for me to realize how much I've explored Riga and how much I have left to explore. Plus, it was nice having a new travel buddy for a few hours. I also went to a wine bar with a friend and managed to befriend the waiter enough to get free snacks, drinks, and a pretty empty wine bottle that will make for a pretty decoration in my apartment. I like this place and I think it likes me too.
The only thing that would have made the lifecycle more complete was if I had knit with the babushka. Not so unsurprisingly, because this seems to happen a lot here, the teacher just kind of didn't show so I was left confused with the non-English speaking grannys. Eh, there's always next week. And what an interesting week it will be.