The love-hate relationship with being Latvian continues...
Ever since I can remember I have been battling with my ethnic identity, struggling to understand whether I fit into the Latvian mold and whether I should continually be returning to Latvia. My first language was Latvian, but I stopped speaking Latvian around 2nd grade for a variety of reasons. One of them being living in areas in Australia where there were no Latvians. The only time I had a connection to Latvian was when I would return to Perth where I would spend time with my grandmother who pretended not to be able to speak English so that we would speak Latvian with her. It worked. While there I would regain my Latvian. Although often I would pretend not to understand Latvian so that I could have an easier time in larger Latvian community gatherings - I wouldn't have to communicate with all the strange people. But she also made it clear to me that she believed that she would return to Latvia some day, and therefore I should learn Latvian. My grandmother and mother instilled this connection to Latvia within me over the years that somehow sneaked up on me in my late teens.
My mother organized for us to go to Latvian school in Perth when we moved there. Ohhh, the arguments we had about that one... hiding to not be found on Saturday mornings, refusing to do the homework. Eventually we found that the kids there were OK, and we began to fit in. My Latvian was pretty bad, but I could make myself understood. Then we moved to Alaska. I celebrated that we would no longer have to go to Latvian school. Sadly my mother had our Latvian teachers send us homework...ugh. Then she had us attend a Latvian summer camp. The camp was great socially, but every day was a challenge because of the Latvian language, literature, and history lessons we had. The homework I completed with extra help, but every summer I barely passed the work - a shock for someone who found work in regular school easy and had never had to put much effort into it. Do you see the development of the love-hate relationship?
Looking through pictures that I have been scanning recently,I was reminded of how much fun I had at these camps. The people I met finally got it - they knew what it meant to be Latvian and live these two strange separate lives, and speak another language. None of us had to explain our names, or where we were from, and we could get right down to getting to know each other - quickly and really pretty intimately. Yet sometimes that intimacy burned, and the strange aspects of Latvian society with the meanness and insincerity of some people. The insular aspect of Latvians makes it difficult to be fully accepted.
This would continue for me in Germany at the Latvian high school, and then at the Latvian Studies Center. My degrees in school even reflected a connection to this whole Latvian thing. Why else would I have studied History and Eastern and Central European Studies when I really should have become a teacher right away??
Then I also lived in Latvia in 1990, 1993, and moved here permanently in 2001. The first times here I was living a bit of a fantasy with the opportunity to be the different one. The one who stood out because of my western experience. Later that was no longer the case. I wanted to work in Latvia as a teacher, but the reality was that I wouldn't be able to afford to do so. This became even clearer when the inflation in Latvia and the difficulty of my own personal life increased. I just couldn't afford to live here anymore. The financial system continues to make that the case.
But in reality the reason I don't continue to live here is the problem that I still chafe at some of the problems here in Latvia. Latvians are rude, customer service doesn't exist, and it takes forever to be fully accepted by local Latvians. I find myself still stumped by the fact that I can work for so many hours and never quite get ahead. The prices here are ridiculously high for everything. The politics...well the less said about the corruption here, the better. Then worst of all, the education system, which is just not changing. It is the place where the problems in society are taught, and consistently grown.
But then I have days like yesterday. I took a yacht trip with some friends into the Bay of Riga. Several hours on the water, the beauty of the location, and the wonderful fresh sea air. Where else could I have the company I had and this experience?
Latvia is beautiful. The country, the people, and the culture consistently pull at my heart strings. I really wonder if all of that will be enough to be able to continue this relationship.
My mother organized for us to go to Latvian school in Perth when we moved there. Ohhh, the arguments we had about that one... hiding to not be found on Saturday mornings, refusing to do the homework. Eventually we found that the kids there were OK, and we began to fit in. My Latvian was pretty bad, but I could make myself understood. Then we moved to Alaska. I celebrated that we would no longer have to go to Latvian school. Sadly my mother had our Latvian teachers send us homework...ugh. Then she had us attend a Latvian summer camp. The camp was great socially, but every day was a challenge because of the Latvian language, literature, and history lessons we had. The homework I completed with extra help, but every summer I barely passed the work - a shock for someone who found work in regular school easy and had never had to put much effort into it. Do you see the development of the love-hate relationship?
Looking through pictures that I have been scanning recently,I was reminded of how much fun I had at these camps. The people I met finally got it - they knew what it meant to be Latvian and live these two strange separate lives, and speak another language. None of us had to explain our names, or where we were from, and we could get right down to getting to know each other - quickly and really pretty intimately. Yet sometimes that intimacy burned, and the strange aspects of Latvian society with the meanness and insincerity of some people. The insular aspect of Latvians makes it difficult to be fully accepted.
This would continue for me in Germany at the Latvian high school, and then at the Latvian Studies Center. My degrees in school even reflected a connection to this whole Latvian thing. Why else would I have studied History and Eastern and Central European Studies when I really should have become a teacher right away??
Then I also lived in Latvia in 1990, 1993, and moved here permanently in 2001. The first times here I was living a bit of a fantasy with the opportunity to be the different one. The one who stood out because of my western experience. Later that was no longer the case. I wanted to work in Latvia as a teacher, but the reality was that I wouldn't be able to afford to do so. This became even clearer when the inflation in Latvia and the difficulty of my own personal life increased. I just couldn't afford to live here anymore. The financial system continues to make that the case.
But in reality the reason I don't continue to live here is the problem that I still chafe at some of the problems here in Latvia. Latvians are rude, customer service doesn't exist, and it takes forever to be fully accepted by local Latvians. I find myself still stumped by the fact that I can work for so many hours and never quite get ahead. The prices here are ridiculously high for everything. The politics...well the less said about the corruption here, the better. Then worst of all, the education system, which is just not changing. It is the place where the problems in society are taught, and consistently grown.
But then I have days like yesterday. I took a yacht trip with some friends into the Bay of Riga. Several hours on the water, the beauty of the location, and the wonderful fresh sea air. Where else could I have the company I had and this experience?
Latvia is beautiful. The country, the people, and the culture consistently pull at my heart strings. I really wonder if all of that will be enough to be able to continue this relationship.
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