Regarding the rain, I forgot to mention that Riga is particularly pretty in grey, rainy weather - its age and beauty somehow become more pronounced, it develops more character, and it reminds me a lot (in a good way) of Siena, a very old city in Italy.
But I realized today that I have been writing about my experiences in a very soggy, wishy-washy, flowery way - about its prettiness and people's kindness - which is all true, but then I am ignoring Riga's other stark realities. So to begin, Laura (another Fulbright student) is studying sex trafficking and forced prostitution, which is widespread in Riga, like in all of Eastern Europe. Sex tourism is common here, apparently. Actually I do not yet know very much about Latvia's social problems, which, granted, are not as dire as in some other countries, but which definitely still exist. But I am certain that as my TB research progresses, I will become much more aware of them. (My research is right now somewhat on hiatus, by the way - aside from upcoming meetings with TB doctors and nurses tomorrow and Thursday - as I have heard nothing from the Ethics Committee, and as for the moment I am focusing on reading the books my mom will take back to the US and on acquainting myself with Riga. Oh - tomorrow, for instance, I am hopefully going to an old fortress, which was in a closed-off zone during Soviet times and which recently reopened. It is supposed to be very interesting and pretty.)
Also, more on the fact that Riga interests and pleases me: every day as I walk around to the internet cafe or to class or to run errands, I feel that I am sponging up more of the city's essence - which means that there is lots and lots to see, everywhere, and this is a really good sign. And today after going to the library and buying a sandwich for dinner (a vegetarian panini, like in the Campus Center at Tufts, perhaps out of subconscious Tufts nostalgia?), and as I walked down the cobblestones eating, it started to rain, and I hid under the overhang of some governmental building, and every building around me was intricate and old and beautiful (except one with broken windows which is being reconstructed). This is very good and after it I think it will be hard to go back to where there are not even many but very few beautiful buildings...
I went to the Latvian National Library today, and thereby, I hope, greatly improved my chances of academic productivity here, because I think I will be able to work well there. The reading room looks over Vecriga's (Old Riga's) rooftops and onto Jekabs Church, and it is conveniently next to my Latvian class (which, by the way, is in Dome Square), the part of the US Embassy that is in charge of Fulbright, the tasty sandwich place, and my internet cafe with the schoolboys playing computer games. To enter I had to give an elderly lady in a booth my ID and she gave me a registration card, and the building is strange to me for a library - like any other building, with a large staircase and rooms off of each landing, but not one big space, like US libraries. Also the reading room has desks all facing the front, like in a classroom, rather than cubicles, which feels unfamiliar, but it was very quiet and warm and productivity-inducing. I have heard, though, that the library system in Latvia is a disaster and almost non-existant, and there is a huge grant from either Bill Gates or George Soros to build a new national library, but it is yet to happen.
Also! Latvia has the best "syrki," and especially with hazelnuts, that I have ever tried - sort of like sweet cheese (or a little bit like the stuff in a connolli) covered by a thin layer of really good dark chocolate, and, in this case, bits of hazelnut. Mmmm...
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Sex tourism/prostitution is a big problem in Europe, but if I were studying that, I'd look in WESTERN Europe first because that's where it's manifested most, it seems, in its "international form". I used to live about 2 minutes from Calle Montera in Madrid, which was the "prostitution" street. The street was divided by nationality: on your right, you had the Africans and Caribbeans; on your left, you had the Eastern Europeans. Besides a LOT of Romanians and gypsies, I also saw many really young girls who could have been Latvian or Lithuanian. Ukrainian, too. It's pretty nuts -- many of them are lured from their home countries with promises of work as babysitters or cleaners, but then their passports get taken away and they get stuck in places like Spain, France, Germany, etc., without the right to leave despite being "Europeans". It's a very interesting but very sad topic.
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