Hello Everyone, and Happy New Year.
 
I hope that you all had an enjoyable holiday season.  Ziemasvetki (ziema=winter, svetki=holiday) in Latvia has many similarities to American Christmas, because of the centuries of German landlordship here. There was a lot of excitement in the weeks leading up to the holiday, enhanced by the snow that started falling in early December.  The big celebration occurs on the 24th.  This includes going to the forest to cut a tree, bringing it home to decorate it (with candles and a few ornaments), a big dinner, and gift exchanges.  Both children and adults are required to recite some kind of poem to receive each gift. There are also customs from pre-Christian times, especially in the area of fortune telling about the new year.  One involves melting tin, then pouring it onto a plate and telling from the shapes what the future will be.  The evening meal has several requirements, like eating round foods, especially peas, to insure prosperity and happiness in the coming year. My senior class wrote an article for the Viroqua, Wis., paper, which I will put on the web page (if I ever get it up and published!).  Then you can read more about Ziemasvetki.

For me personally, the week before Christmas was busy with getting end-of-semester grades in and preparing for my trip to Scotland.  The night before I left, I went to the holiday party for school staff.  The party was held in the aktuzale (theater hall), which had been decorated by students the week before, and had a big tree with electric lights.  There were activities for children, including group songs and dances, and Father Christmas gave each one a gift of chocolates.  I was hungry, and was eagerly awaiting dinner. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the traditional Latvian meal of carbonade (breaded, fried meat) and potatoes, and not much else.  Usually meals here also have a lot of vegetables, so I can find plenty to eat.  But this time I was limited to potatoes, and carrot and raisin salad.  No matter, I thought, I'll eat potatoes and drink wine, and have a good time.  Well, unfortunately the Latvian custom is that women cannot pour their own wine.  My experience at parties so far has been that the men bring their own liquor--brandy or vodka--and fill their glasses liberally, while the women sip their wine demurely and wait for refills.  At this gathering, we were all seated at one long table--about 80 people.  Two men, husbands of co-workers, were sitting across and down from me.  My shot-glass-sized glass would be empty after a few swallows, and I would have to wait until they noticed my pleading glances or overt requests for a refill.  (A few times, while the men were out smoking, I did convince one of the women to fill my glass--I wasn't brave enough to fill it myself--which she did with the air of a conspirator.)  There was a combo playing music that reminded me a bit of polkas, and a few people danced, but mostly people just sat at the table and talked and munched.  The women here like to dress up, and I figured the room would be warm to accomodate the thin fabrics of holiday garments and dressed accordingly.  But it was cold, and I was cold.  At one point I went up to the office I share with Agita and Gunta, put on my coat, and sat and drank a cup of hot tea.  Eventually I was able to politely take my leave.  Outside I was treated to the sight of the incredibly bright moon, and the shadows made by small clouds racing across the snow covered fields.  The next day I flew to Scotland and entered another world.

Beginning on Christmas Eve, I spent a wonderful, relaxing couple of weeks with my dad and step-mom, at their house in Dundee.  I got a preview of the kind of culture shock that awaits me when I leave Latvia in 2001.  Everything seemed so new, so nice--cars, bathrooms, clothing, houses.  I kept thinking, "Where do people get the money for this stuff?"  And the grocery store!  Granted, the Tesco in Dundee is a huge supermarket.  But I know that kind of abundance is not unusual in Europe or the U.S.  It was great to be in an English-speaking country again, and to be part of a household routine that included regular meals and drinking lots of cups of tea.  I was able to rest and reflect, and was actually ready to come back to Latvia when the time came.

The return to Mazsalaca was made even easier by the pile of mail and packages waiting for me at the post office.  I really felt loved and cared for as I opened and enjoyed each letter and box.  As most of you know, I had a pretty rough time last fall, and your support has played in big part in giving me the strength to hang on.  The good news is that it seems like the worst is over, and I am finally starting to accept and enjoy my life here.  My routine now includes listening to BBC World, thanks to the gift of a short-wave radio from Dad and Maureen.  This has helped me to keep a larger perspective, and helps me feel connected to the outside world.  My landlord brought me a mattress (okay, so it's from the hospital, and slightly used, but it's a real mattress!), and I now have a sleeping platform rigged up on one of the couch-beds, and am sleeping quite well.  Thanks to care packages and the ever-increasing variety of items at the grocery store, I am eating well too.  New this month at the grocery store in Valmiera: flour tortillas, Italian tomato paste, and canned lentils from France.  I also noticed that one of our markets in Mazsalaca now has peanut butter!  The biggest challenge, of course, is still teaching English.  But that is getting easier as I become more comfortable as a teacher, and my students become more comfortable with me.

Since the school is such a big part of my life, I thought I would tell you about it in this letter.  It was built during Soviet times, and is a three-story, white brick building.  It is shaped like a T, with one long wing and one short one.  Most of the classrooms are in the long wing, and the gym, theater hall, library, and cafeteria are in the shorter wing.  The building is in moderately good repair.  Some rooms have been redone recently.  Others, like the two that I teach in, have peeling paint and old wooden tables with metal legs for the students to use as desks.  The floors are the ubiquitous Soviet brown, the same as the floors in my apartment, and the hallways are green on the bottom half and white on the top half.  Repainting is gradually being done, as money allows, but most of the rooms are gray, drab yellow, or white.  The hallways are bare-no lockers, cabinets, or benches.  Students keep their coats and boots in the basement cloakroom.  This is a hallway with a locked cage for each class, monitored by an attendant.  The best thing about the school is the almost constant aroma of cooking or baking.  All the food for the cafeteria is made here, most of it using food grown in the school's gardens.  In the morning when I come in I'm usually greeted by the aroma of some kind of pastry baking. Later it smells like soup or some kind of main dish cooking.

I don't know what school schedules are like in the U.S. these days, but the schedule here seems a bit harsh to me.  Students can have up to 9, 40-minute lessons in one day, the first one starting at 8:10 and the last one ending at 3:40.  There is a10-minute break between lessons, except for one 15-minute and one 20-minute break in the middle of the day, when students are expected to eat lunch (there is no lunch hour).  When I asked why there was no lunch hour, my students told me that there has been talk of starting one, but they don't know what to do with the students who don't have the money to eat.  (I don't know yet why bringing a lunch is not a common option.  It may be that there is not enough food at home either, or that it is difficult to bring potatoes or soup.)  I often wonder how it makes hungry children feel to be walking the corridors smelling the aromas of food cooking.

During the breaks, the halls are noisy and chaotic, with students crashing into one another and, sometimes, into teachers.  This isn't helped by the fact that some of the hallways are quite dark.  There are ceiling lights, but they aren't always turned on.  (I always carry a flashlight with me, so I can find my way out if I stay past 4:00.)   One of the students' big complaints is that there is no place for them to go when they are not in class.  They are forced to loiter in the halls or outside, or sit on the stairs.  Some go to the library to read, but it is quite small, and the tables fill up quickly.  I often take work home, since it's difficult for me to find a quiet place to sit.  There is a teachers' room, but it's mainly a place for posting notices and isn't set up as a place to work.  We do have some computers in the school, and I have been pushing for better access to the lab for myself and for other teachers, with some success.  One big improvement is that the ancient photocopier finally gave out in December, and was replaced by a new machine. And we have one TV and VCR, although we don't have a movie library.  But I can occasionally get a movie from the resource center in Riga, which my students really enjoy.

The school's pride and joy is a race track for small cars.  This takes up a big, lovely room that would make a great study hall, but it also provides much-needed recreation opportunities.  If I remember correctly, it was the largest such track in the former Soviet Union, and children come from all over for competitions.

I am still learning about how things work here--the grading system, matriculation, teacher responsibilities, competitions and ceremonies--but everyone is patient and helpful, and I feel welcome and appreciated.  The hardest thing for me is to see the problems and wants, and not be able to fix it all.  One issue I would like to work on, maybe with a summer project, is the lack of any kind of information about careers and higher education opportunities.  I think student motivation would be much higher if they had some ideas about the kinds of things they could do once they leave school.  And some of my students are very motivated, bright and capable, but their opportunities are very limited because of lack of information.  If any of you have any leads/ideas/URLS/resources to share on this topic, I would love to hear from you.

Even with all the problems, there is still some optimism and vision at the school, especially on the part of our director.  She is very motivated, and has lots of plans for the school (including building a fourth floor with an observatory!), if only we could find more money.  Unfortunately, the government budget for schools  is shrinking rather than growing, so we need to apply for funding from other sources to make these dreams come true.

It's already February, and I think the rest of the year is going to go quickly.   The days are getting noticeably longer, and now there is still a bit of light in the southwestern sky when I walk home at night.  I am not in a hurry for spring.  Mazsalaca is so pretty in its snowy blanket, and the darkness makes for great stargazing.  It is kind of funny to be walking along and pass a shadowy figure in the dark, not knowing who it is.  One night, a man caught up with me near the school and walked beside me to my apartment building.  We chatted amiably, but I couldn't see him, and had no idea who he was!  Usually there is some kind of moon, though, and visibility with the snow on the ground is pretty good.  Oh, and an update: we do have snow plows here. I saw one in the center of town, although it didn't come out to the school.  It was an old orange plow with a sand spreader on the back.  But I still have yet to see a snowblower--just the flat shovel and branch-broom for cleaning off the sidewalks.

This winter has been mild by Wisconsin standards.  The temperature rarely gets below 10 degrees F, and every week or so we have a thaw.  But we always get more snow.  In fact, we get some kind of precipitation almost every day.  They say we could have snow well into March. I am thinking ahead to summer in terms of gardening, and plan to start some seeds at the end of the month.  I brought herb seeds back from Scotland, since I hadn't seen anything here besides parsley and dill.  But when I got back, true to form, there in the flower shop were all the new seeds, including three kinds of basil!  No rosemary, or coriander, though so I don't feel too bad about paying more and carrying them all that way.  Another example of how things are always changing here, and new products are appearing in the stores all the time.

Well, I guess that's all the news for now.  Thank you all for keeping me in your thoughts, and for staying in touch.  It means a lot!

Visu Labu,

Sarah