Work and play in Latvia

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone is spending it warmly and deliciously!

It feels festive here, too, though of course Latvians don't celebrate Thanksgiving. But tomorrow I am going to one of the Fulbright professors' house for Thanksgiving dinner; I have been talking to people at home and hearing of turkeys and family gatherings; and today I haven't done much, so it feels like vacation in contrast to the rest of this week, full of work and cultural activities.

Last week I finally received approval for my project from the Ethics Committee! On Tuesday I asked patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis to participate in my interviews, and on Wednesday and Thursday I already had three interviews. So finally I am working. I am really enjoying talking to the patients (as well as one person who has already completed treatment); they are interesting and talkative and complicated and optimistic. The work is going smoothly, because by now I am familiar with the TB clinic and a lot of the staff, and I feel comfortable and they know about me, because the doctors and nurses are being extremely helpful - in part, I think, because they seem to be really interested themselves in what they patients will say - and because the patients are miraculously almost all agreeing to talk to me. Actually maybe most important is that a lot of preparation has gone into this and because, over the course of these two months, I understand much more clearly what I want to find out and what I expect I might find, as well as what it might be possible to ultimately change within TB control.

The interviews happen like this: ahead of time, in person or by phone, I invite the patient (or past patient) to participate in the study and arrange a time convenient for them to come to the clinic and be interviewed (sometimes at 7am!), and then set the table in Cabinet 10, the "Education Room," with tea and coffee and cookies and tangerines. The interviewee comes and I explain the project and have them sign the informed consent form, attach a lapel microphone to them, turn on the (extremely easy and high-quality!) digital recorder, and have a conversation loosely based on the questions that the EC approved. We talk for about 2 hours and so far everyone leaves happily. I already have heard a lot of suggestions about what to do to improve patient care and treatment, although I am no closer to putting a finger on what medical workers could do to improve patient compliance with treatment. It seems that if people value their health (their life) and if they have something, and especially someone, to live for, then they are much more likely to adhere to treatment. But this isn't a factor that can be ingrained into the TB control system...

As for play, last weekend (Nov. 18) was Latvian Independence Day, and there was a very official multi-faith service in the Dome Cathedral (President Zatlers walked by me as I stood by the exit), an equally official flower-laying at the Freedom Monument (which is a giant grey statue of a very long-legged lady named Milda holding three stars up to the sky), a very quiet and tiny military parade, various classical music concerts (which I ended up skipping), and, after a very very fun Independence Day party with a group of fantastic Latvians that my fellow Fulbright students brought me to, a short but pretty fireworks over the Daugava River. And after the fireworks, back to the party for hot blackcurrent juice and Riga balsam, American music, traditional Latvian karaoke (that is, traditional Latvian songs, not traditional karaoke), lots of desserts, games, red and white (the colors of the Latvian flag) candles and cranberries (the white ones were coated with powdered sugar)...It was great!

During the week there was a further explosion of cultural activities in my life: on Tuesday I went Latvian folk dancing with Markus, an erudite British aquaintance who teaches English in Riga and travels the world and is packed with knowledge and inquisitiveness. There was circle dancing and lots of skipping and twirling and even butt-clapping! And a live band! On Wednesday was Tanya's birthday (the woman who I lived with in Imanta) and we, a group of variously-aged women, feasted on a whole table of salads, and then I helped clean up and slept over. (I was less sad and nostalgic than I expected to stay again in my old room, but it did recharge me with calm and a little bit of magic.) And yesterday, on Thursday, Yuliya Leonidovna and I went to the dress rehearsal of a modern ballet of Anna Karenina. It was phenomenal! I realized that the tragedy of Anna Karenina, the heroine, is mitigated in the book by the aliveness and joy of Kitty and Levin, but here is was pure tragedy, stripped of Tolstoy's beautiful nature and faith in goodness. The music and dancing was heartbreaking, and especially the dancing was fantastic. I haven't cried at ballets before.

Speaking of movement, I started swimming again (a little bit - there has already been a four-day break!) at Sporta Centra Daugava, which is 10 minutes walking from Yuliya Leonidovna's apartment. To my huge surprise, it has one of the best pools I have ever been to - clean, big, very bright. It is very organized and so it feels quite Soviet. First, you must leave your coat and shoes in the garderobe (coatroom? in English), then once a month go to the doctor's cabinet (within the sports center) and have your feet checked for warts, pass through the corridor flanking the side of the pool (there are windows from the corridor directly into the water, so that you can see the swimmers), leave your clothes locked in a locker, go upstairs to the pool, take a shower, and then swim for exactly 45 minutes under the supervision of a swim "trainer" - generally very nice jolly men who nicely talk to me in Russian. Swimming feels great and I regret that I ate too late today and so ended up not going...

Tomorrow I am going to a conference on Baltic Futures, organized by the Social Science Dept. of Latvia University (in English), and then to one of the Fulbright professor's house for Thanksgiving dinner. And on Sunday I have an interview and then more cultural activities: the movie Elizabeth (with Cate Blanchett) opened here today and on Sunday I plan to see it. Sunday is All Soul's Day, also called Candle's Eve because people leave candles on loved one's graves and on soldier's graves at the Military Cemetery. It will be very beautiful, and so I plan to go to one of the cemeteries in Riga when it gets dark.

The end!