He who labors, let him labor singing

Photos (bottom to top):
1. Roasting (what else) sausages. Pictured: Maira (a translator), Ieva (behind smoke), Alexi (in trench coat), Rudis (down low)
2. Green Thursday delivery (taken from my window)
3. Poplar zagari, pupoli, pine, juniper, in my room

9 April 2009, Green Thursday (what the Latvians call the Catholic’s Holy Thursday)

A gray, brooding day. The sun rose into an rosy egg-wash sky, and then the clouds felted together, and thunder and lightening are expected later. This is not a good sign. The Latvians say if the first thunderstorm comes before the leaves “nav lielak ka pelites auses,” (aren’t bigger than a mouse’s ears), things won’t grow well during the summer. And last summer, like ours in Alaska, was cold and gray. Because of the forecast, I walked to the tirgs first thing. I’d promised to make yellow split pea soup (my idea was lentil, but they were nowhere to be found in Ventspils). The tirgs is gearing up for Easter, with more stalls, more people jockeying for space at the popular ones (like the milk cart and the fresh bread and homemade candy stand, and the dry fish vendor, who's sadly, not here yet). I realize that Latvians, and probably many other Europeans, don’t shop for food the way we in the States do. People buy fresh food nearly every day, in small amounts. They decide what’s for dinner, and then get what they need. At least that’s how it works at the writers’ house, where the tirgs is a block away. And it’s what I gather from the constant foot traffic heading that way. I was proud of myself today for braving the crush of old ladies and gents lined up in front of that bread vendor. I had to have a half a loaf of authentic black bread with raisins, so I stood there until I made eye-contact with the vendor (and of course waited until the tantes (aunties) made their purchases). Latvians can be pushy and even rude in these situations. Maybe it’s a throw-back to waiting in long lines during the Soviet occupation, when food was scarce. But I’ve learned to be more assertive than normal in the line for the bread or for the bus, or I’ll become a victim of shameless budging. I’m glad I got that bread … It’s fabulous, a black rind, the bread itself moist, dense, dark brown, studded with raisins. Beigi forsh. (This means something like totally awesome).

Walking back, I was approached by a dark-eyed woman, asking for a few santimes. I’ve seen her working the bus station. She’s slight, middle-aged, with a sharp weathered face, long black ponytail, a black leather trench coat cinched at the waist, and black boots. She walks with force when no one's looking, obsequiously when approaching a mark (I know because I've seen her from my window ... I'm a village spy).

Back at the house, Ieva made challah, we tossed together a salad, and I served the soup with a dollop of sour cream (with dill, grated cucumber, crushed garlic), and some black olives. To my immense relief it was pronounced good by the ladies, and I knew they were telling the truth when they took second helpings. I feel like an absolute novice cook around them. Zeltite had started a fire, perfect for this gray day. Wieland, the German poet (we saved him from yet another frozen pizza for lunch) mentioned going to the “amatu maja” (craft center, interior pictured in one of the photos, where the women sit at the looms). Ieva explained that the building once housed the first elementary school in Ventspils. A side room off the foyer is still set up like a children’s classroom, with antique desks, and the original schoolbooks. She told Wieland that the most famous person in Latvia went to school there, Krisjanis Barons. He’s the person who, in the late 19th century, helped to archive over 200,000 Latvian folk songs/poems, known as dainas. Being quatrains, he printed their texts on small slips of paper, index-card sized, and then designed a special set of wooden drawers to hold the texts. This cabinet is in the Archives of Latvian Folklore, and was inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2001. Many of these songs, passed on through an oral tradition, were already being lost, when this massive preservation effort began.

I’ve always found the Latvian folklore tradition mind-boggling. Through centuries of foreign occupation, living as an illiterate peasant society in a harsh climate, nonetheless Latvians kept alive an ancient, pre-Christian oral tradition: songs, dances, poems, riddles, designs, myths and stories. People are impressed with technology, but for me, oral traditions like this are more astounding. A whole culture developed, and held in common, and passed on for who-knows-how-many generations, without pen, paper, library, museum, archive, database, certainly not blog. I imagine it like a fungal mycelium (that huge invisible form under the ground, from which mushrooms sprout). It’s there, under the soil, while above the ground, tiny people in worn homespun clothing push wheelbarrows, plod behind plows, bake bread, herd cows, yell at their neighbors, make love. They look like simple, uneducated country people, but they’re much more than that. So every time I hear one of those “stasti”, like Iveta saying a thunderstorm means bad luck, I want to pass it on. I feel like I’m part of something very old, something as enduring (and life-sustaining) as black bread.

I found the electronic version of the dainas, and read through some of the work songs. “I sang out a loaf of bread,” one proclaims. “Singing, I thresh, I grind” states a woman in another, explaining (in four short lines) that she does this so a strange woman passing her window won’t think she’s sad on account of work. “Climbing a mountain, I’d sing,” says yet another. Each daina reads, to me, in the voice of a particular person. I see clearly, in my mind's eye, that woman in her kitchen, kneading dough for bread, singing in a loud voice, her song carrying through the open window. She doesn’t begrudge the labor she has to do (or she certain wouldn’t want a passing stranger, another woman, to think she did). And as I walk by that window, I don’t. I want to rush home and make my own loaf of bread, and sing my own song. You get the picture. The rhythm of physical work is the rhythm of the dainas. And so is the rhythm of dancing.

Many dainas use words not in a modern dictionary, so they were impossible to easily translate for me. But here’s one that worked. The rhyme scheme even came through (though the rhythm's a little off in the second and fourth lines:

624.
Kas gul miegu, lai gul miegu, He who slumbers, let him slumber
Lai gul miegu raudadams; Let him slumber crying;
Kas dar' darbu, lai dar' darbu, He who labors, let him labor,
Lai dar' darbu dziedadams. Let him labor singing.

A poet is a person who works, both singing and crying.

I look out my window. It’s raining. A kaja (seagull) is the only one walking down the sidewalk. No thunder yet, though.