New post!

Hello! I have reappeared in the world of blogging - apologies that I have been away for so long, hiding in diary-writing and being busy, procrastinating and travelling, feeling self-conscious about my writing skills and being unsure how to put into words what I want to say. But now I will try again!

In these past three months, I have been at times meandering and at times rushing through holiday present-buying, celebrating Old New Year (by the Russian Orthodox calendar) and New New Year, escaping to a village near Cesis (to a guesthouse with a sauna and spring-water pool, next to the forest and the river Gauja), presenting at work on my findings so far, visiting the U.S. for birthdays and silver weddings, rethinking my project (not big changes, just in terms of gathering more comparative and quantitative data, as well as a realization that I won't make any real difference, but can only write a good research paper), executing a very active cultural program in Riga while my grandfather visited, going to operas and concerts and plays, writing stories based on some of the interviews I did, going through the Ethics Committee review process again (successfully), preparing to go to Ireland...

Now it is Easter and Spring Solstice in Latvia, and I was invited to celebrate with the folklore music group I have been singing with, Saviesi, at the directors' family friend's country house near Ogre, southeast of Riga. In Latvia there are very many Latvian song and dance choirs, but there are also some folklore choirs, which, arguably, stick to more authentic, more grassroots, village-y folk music. Saviesi, I think, is the most relaxed of the groups - they (we) meet on Wednesday's at the Occupation Museum (dedicated to documenting Latvia's history under the Soviet Union) and sing folk songs from different parts of Latvia. It is just voices, throaty, unpolished, and sometimes (especially with my participation) a little bit dissonant, with no musical accompaniment. In fact, half the time is spent talking, rather than singing - mostly about how to sing the songs correctly, but also planning for various events and festivities, traditions and rituals. The people are artistic, intellectual, lively, friendly, calm, and love tradition and folklore. I got involved because one of the other Fulbright students, Whit, is studying Latvian folk music and he heard about it from Aija (below), and I was tempted by the promise of unpolished folk singing - which it is. And so this Spring Solstice celebration was very much in line with what tempted me in the beginning. We went to a house by the woods, in the fields - a wooden house, beautiful and light and fresh, with a sauna inside, where we steamed ourselves in waves - got in, got very hot, ran out, either to the pond outside or to the main room with the food and the singing and the talk. Sang, ate, cooled off, came back into the smell of birch-leaf brooms and the candlelit heat of the sauna. There was powerful, folky, fun, gentle music with accordion, violin, guitar and kokle (a traditional Latvian instrument, a little bit like a harp held on the knees) - all played by women. There were a lot of Latvian-Americans and Latvian-Canadians, and many of the other people there knew English, so it was easier to communicate and socialize than it usually is for me in a group of Latvians. And with those who didn't speak English I (self-consciously - though there's no need for that) spoke Russian. There were three German sheperds - one mom, one son, and an old lady, all incredibly quiet and friendly. The dog-mom, Dika, loves to play so much that when there are a lot of guests, she exhausts herself entertaining everyone who wants to play with her. There were fields and woods and ponds, first sunny and even green yesterday evening, and then covered with white, snowy and misty, this morning. We slept about fifteen people on the floor and beds of two rooms, and woke up to watch the (sunless) sunrise, wash our faces with running water for luck in this year, swung in a wooden swing overlooking the pond, with individualized verses sung for each of us, threw eggs over the swing (trying to catch them on the other side), and had egg wars to see how lucky we would be this year. It was fantastic. Here are the photo illustrations...


Preparations: dying eggs (the last one) with onion skins, parsley and daffodil leaves at Aija and Eriks' (Canadian-American-Latvians) apartment the day before, with Whit and his girlfriend Iben, visiting from the US.


The bench and steps to the pond in which we dunked ourselves, partially and screamingly, after the sauna. (I took the picture already this morning, when we awoke to celebrate the spring solstice, the first day when daylight is as long as the night, and found a white winter.)


Two of the hosts' very friendly (really!) German sheperds.


After the sauna, around the dinner table, singing Latvian folk songs (notice the violin being played on the other side of the table!).


This morning, having breakfast, with lots and lots of colored eggs.

Laimigus Lieldienas!