The
calendar says it’s June, it is has stopped getting dark outside, and my granny
sent out her famous yearly email saying I can take out my white pants and shoes
so I guess it’s time to say happy summer! Other than those minor clues the only
other way I could tell it was “summer” was that all the programs ended and the
kids started to tell me that when they were hanging around the community in the
middle of the day it’s not because they’re skipping school but because they
don’t actually have school. Otherwise, everything in Riga has pretty much
stayed the same. I still need long sleeves and a jacket when I go outside and
the sun’s cycle is still tied to the times of 4:30 and 11 but this time the
AM’s and PM’s are switched. So now instead of being confused about why I’m
waking up when it’s not light outside and why I’m ready for bed at 4 PM I’m
confused about why I’m waking up at 4 AM and ready for bed when it’s too light
outside. I guess I should just get used to being confused and enjoy the fact
that I can finally get my babushka self to go out after 10 PM because I never
know what time it is anyway and I know I’ll be able to walk home in daylight. Maybe
the long days are good for Latvians because they can act like bears and store
enough from the summer to get them through the winter. I, however, am just
about ready to go back to thinking a 14 and a half hour solstice is long
instead of the 18 hour nonsense we’re about to celebrate over here. Fun fact: the
solstice celebrations here are the famous holidays Ligo and Janis, on the 23rd
and 24th of June. They’re national holidays, which everyone
celebrates in their summer houses drinking beer, making crowns out of flowers,
grilling cheese, jumping over fires, and going with a cute member of the
opposite sex into the woods to find a “blooming fern” (R rated note: ferns
don’t bloom. So if you hear someone use this excuse it’s because they want
adult playtime. Except for this one guy I met who actually took a girl to find
a blooming fern. The girl was very surprised and very displeased.) So I haven’t
even gotten to the interesting fact yet. I was a little confused by their
celebration because I thought the solstice was on the 21st but
everyone here keeps telling me it’s on the 23rd. I decided not to
ask because most people here don’t like explaining holidays or traditions in
English and choose instead to wave their hand and say “because because.” Well,
just like most holiday and traditional celebrations someone decided to change
the day of celebration for religious reasons so now it doesn’t fully make sense
any more. I know every country does silly things like that but I officially
don’t trust the science here. That’s also because, in addition to the “not
being able to have babies” nonsense I recently learned of a few other wonderful
Russian “scientific facts:” “girls, if you want to get taller, play basketball”
and “the perfect time to go swimming is in the rain and in a lightening storm
because it’ll make the water feel warmer.” Why we compete with the Russian
scientists is beyond me.
Back
to the important things and what brought me to this cold, sunny part of the
world: the community programs. They’re over.
But
before ending they all had nice closings, so I guess I can tell you about
those. I missed the kids’ club’s official closing because it was at the same
time as the teenagers’ closing party but I did get to go to one of their last
and best programs: at the zoo.
There were the typical lions and tigers and bears but, even
more importantly, there were lynxes, a cow statue that all Latvians take
pictures with
and a Baskin Robbins!
The lynx was particularly
exciting because I’ve loved the animal’s name since I realized it was the
perfect word for hangman (no vowels!) but other than that I never really saw
one or knew much about them. That is, until I came to Latvia and found out
they’re common enough to this part of the world to be part of a kindergarten
game of charades. So, after capitalizing on their name and acting them out all
year I finally had my chance to see one! To be honest, I don’t think we ever actually
did see a lynx because kids that age tend to get a little distracted (and
apparently so do I) but I did learn a lot of Russian names for animals (of
course I’m not sure what the names meant in English) and I also learned that
kids like to complain about being hungry before, during, and after eating. So
quite an educational trip as well as a perfect poka poka (bye bye) to one of my
favorite play groups around.
The
following week was the goodbye party for the youth movement and we had the only
type of event that they seem to know how to plan other than seminars: a
barbecue. We barbecue rain or shine, snow or just freezing cold weather. I
understand why we have a lot of barbecues because they do combine their
favorite things, food and smoke(ing), but I don’t understand why we always eat
the same things: barbecued chicken or sausages, eggplant, zucchini, lavash, and
raw cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. When I’m part of the shopping we usually
get fish too just to spice things up a little but what I wouldn't give for grilled corn and watermelon. When I
finally requested those classic delights everyone around me looked like they’d
been struck by lightening while swimming in the middle of a lake. And then they
said they couldn’t find corn and we barbecued on. So, we barbecue on. And on,
and on and on (spoiler alert: pretty sure the rest of my blog posts will feature
barbecue recaps. Stay tuned).
What
was new for this barbecue was the locale. We went to a really nice park where
other people barbecue and they have free bikram on Sundays (well it’s still
only about 50 degrees F so it’s more like bikram poses, but one of my favorite
forms of exercise for free, nonetheless). So, we gave the teens food, shirts, and a bunch of random gifts that say “Jew Beyahad” and all the teens tore through everything and wandered off before I even looked up from the grill to say, “who wants to eat?” I can’t keep up with teenagers.
Our
madrichim closing party was the perfect summation of my time with them because
it was pretty much everything we always do together: we stayed overnight an
hour outside of Riga, played some strange games I didn’t understand, and
barbecued. While this outing sounds exactly the same as any seminar it was at
least on a lake, the strange games were basically soccer and volleyball (but
still versions I barely understood), and it was only one night instead of 5. So,
all in all, the most fun seminar yet!
Next
came the end of my time in the Kindergarten, which was my hardest goodbye to
date. While the Kindergarten is technically open until the end of June, the
older boys who have been there the longest and provide the most entertainment
had their last day together so we celebrated with our last challah making and a
lot of gummi bears. It was very important to me that we got to braid challah
together one last time so I decided it was worth it to walk the mile from my apartment
to the kindergarten with a bag of rising dough and za’atar, my favorite Israeli
spice. The kiddies were very confused by the green stuff that I was making them
smell (it was za’atar, I swear), but they’ve learned to trust me enough to know
that, when it comes to food, I know what I’m doing. We also made nice Shabbat
kits for them to take home. We started the kits the week before when one of the
teachers was sick and I was suddenly the substitute teacher for a few hours
despite my lack of useful linguistic skills (thank goodness for the class nanny
or I would have been totally useless). We made candle holders the first class
and Challah covers this time so that now their families can share the Shabbat
love as well. I’m pretty sure that once I give them my mom’s perfect challah
recipe they will actually start to celebrate just for the sake of that tasty
perfection. Shabbat shalom my favorite playmates!
And
my closing for the closing parties was the University Students Party. I was a
little horrified to learn that this party meant 3 hours stuck on a boat in 50
degree weather and rain but, like all of the University Students parties, it
was much more fun than I thought it would be. Especially because I was in
charge of the fruit and bartending.
This is me as BARTENDER. NOT avid drinker. Just because I found out we have Latvian/Eastern European family does not mean I started to drink like a Latvian/Eastern European (note: my family here doesn't do that either. they really are family.)
 |
| Once again (for all you wonderful, concerned parents out there): This is NOT the amount of alcohol I had available to consume but the amount I had available to serve. For the whole year. So, my dear father, you can stop worrying. |
It also helped that the people there were
fun and there was a scientific magic show (yes I know that doesn’t make sense)
where I saw things explode, change color, and smoke. So I got to prepare food
and eat and the community got alcohol, food, and smoke.
Yep, sounds just like a
community party to me.
In
addition to the community goodbye parties I had one of my own goodbyes with
Latvia. Ulla, who has been the best combination of friend, chauffeur,
adventurer, and tour guide took my cousin Dina and I on yet another wild ride.
We started the day with one of my favorite things: free Bikram in the park
before
heading off to a favorite tourist destination in Latvia: Rundale Palace. As
with pretty much everywhere I go, Rundale palace is about an hour outside of Riga,
in Pilsrundale (which actually translates to Rundale Palace. 10 points for creativity).
Rundale is a baroque palace built
as the summer house for the Dukes of Courland and, also famous for it’s use by
Catherine the Great’s lover’s youngest brother. I absolutely love a good palace
with a picnic in a purty garden so we walked through the various extravagant
rooms, munched on a sophisticated royal snack of fruit and cheese, and had a
much needed photo shoot.
I finally crossed off one of the last things on my
bucket list. Now all I have left to do is go mushrooming and I will be able to
leave this country feeling accomplished and a little bit Latvian.
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