Without the Window, It's Not Worthwhile
Without the window it’s not worthwhile. To think of the
exorbitant rates of plane tickets, how soon the journey is over, clearly the
most valuable item up for grabs is the view. Consequently, it is entirely
unsatisfactory to slum it in the aisle or worse, squashed between unwelcome
strangers in the middle seat, especially when the price is the same. Those
other seats are simply a rip off for people who know no better, who cannot have
enjoyed a window seat previously. Without a window seat it’s not worth flying.
It’s perfectly reasonable not to board the plane.
These are not my words. While I tend to prefer the window I
would not refuse to fly; nor would I expend so many words explaining my
preference. For Iqbal, silence was a negative waiting to be filled. His tips
and stories came like a flash flood, bowled you over with barely time to
recover before the next flood began.
Farsi is a language of exquisite beauty. It’s the language
of great literature, of poets like Hafez and Saadi and simply to hear the
language spoken is like a melody from heaven. The phrases used even for
everyday speech are poetic and enlightening. Of course Iqbal couldn’t
appreciate the entirety of it, but from his Urdu he could glean enough. He was
Pakistani and it was a dreadful loss for my Australian friend Lachlan and me to
be in Iran
surrounded by the sweetest language unable to comprehend a single word.
Farsi is beautiful. I would say we might have told Iqbal we
had Farsi lessons and were more than beginners, but it’s not easy to spit into
a raging torrent. And yet, Iqbal was very likeable.
We were on the same flight from Bandar Abbas to Chah Bahar
in eastern Iran , in Iran ’s
Baluchestan. Flights were very cheap in Iran with one way fares as low as
ten dollars due to the appalling, for the Iranians, exchange rate. I don’t
think we met on the plane, as Iqbal found the window seat in front of mine –
but as we needed transport from the airport into Chah Bahar town, we shared a
taxi.
It’s unacceptable to use somebody else’s bathroom. If one
needs to use the bathroom they should certainly do it before leaving home,
before arriving at another person’s home as a valued guest. Children should be
instructed same. There is nothing worse than visiting another man’s bathroom –
it will leave the host wondering if it was them you came to see or if you only
came to use the plumbing.
No comment from me.
Chah Bahar has its Baluchi ways that were significantly
different to most of Iran .
Baluchis were mostly Sunni and their clothes harked more to the subcontinent
than to the country’s west. The only difficulty, common to all port cities in Iran , hotels
for foreigners were expensive. As Iqbal really was a nice guy, the three of us
agreed to share a room, with two single beds and a mat on the floor for me, in
between.
It was in that small period between the turning off the
light and the sleep arriving, with the very last of the day’s chat winding
down, when I heard one of the strangest sentences ever. We were finally asking
Iqbal why he was in Iran .
Through the darkness I heard him say, “I lost my jeans. I’ve come to find
them.”
Politeness says a small reply is in order, something along
the lines of “oh, that’s nice” or “I hope you find them.” I don’t recall if I
managed to squeeze something out, but I was entirely grateful for the darkness
– nobody could see me biting hard on my lip to prevent laughter from bursting
out. It was helpful that I couldn’t see Lachlan ’s
face at that stage, because I knew he would be having great difficulty holding
his own laughter back. But the silence – it was no longer a negative waiting to
be filled – it was substantial, unbearably heavy and with the force of a category
five cyclone. That silence couldn’t be resisted.
I heard the first busts from Lachlan ’s
closed mouth – and then we roared laughing, both of us – unseemly, rude and for
several minutes, unstoppable. Iqbal didn’t understand what was humorous.
There were some obvious questions – why would a man lose a pair
of jeans in a neighbouring country – had he been there before or were they
somehow smuggled over the border? How regularly is it that people travel abroad
in search of missing trousers?
When the laughter eased and we sought explanation it became
apparent we’d misunderstood. It wasn’t his jeans he’d lost but his jinns. He’d
sent them to Iran
and they’d not returned. Of course, the concept of losing one’s jinns also
raises some obvious questions – but it was better not to ask. It was time to
sleep.
We took the plane on to Zahedan, the capital of Iran ’s Sistan and Baluchestan province and not
very far from the border with Afghanistan .
Iqbal was with us – he was going the same way – and he was still a rather good
and likeable guy. So we stayed at the same hotel.
If you ever happen to get shot in the leg, it’s certainly no
excuse for interrupting a dinner party. Particularly if it’s a family birthday
party and others are in high spirits in the hope of an entertaining night over
a meal, then it’s better not to mention the shooting. As for the blood that’s
dripping on the floor under the table, a fistful of napkins can help, and if
it’s done discretely nobody need know. Then, once the meal is completed, it
will possible to drive the wife and children home before quietly continuing on
to check into a hospital.
It was the first moments in Zahedan that I started to
consider that Iqbal might indeed have some kind of superpower. Lachlan and I had gone to buy water and I was discussing
Iqbal’s flourishing communicativeness. I said, “He can talk on any topic. He
could talk for an hour about his socks!” Socks was random; yet minutes later,
back at the hotel when we went to find Iqbal to go sightseeing, he was just
putting on his socks.
The best socks are made with thicker wool by Afghans. You
can buy them at the Afghan market and other socks simply won’t compete – Afghan
socks are warmer and more comfortable and never get holes in them because they
are hand knitted. Once you’ve worn Afghan socks you’ll never wear others. If
it’s not Afghan the socks aren’t worth buying.
Zahedan is picturesque with its backdrop of jet black hills.
We took to the city’s photogenic suburbs with their mud brick houses. It was
inevitable that in the mix of buildings we’d end up standing on somebody’s
roof. What was unexpected was that the householder came rushing out and asked
us not to stand there because it might collapse. Instead, he invited us to come
in for tea.
We chatted with the Zahedani and he was rather impressed by
our Farsi. For some reason, maybe his accent, we could understand him well
while Iqbal struggled. “These two have come from the other side of the world,”
said the Zahedani, “and their Farsi is good, but you come from a neighbouring
country and you can’t understand.”
Yet he really was nice guy, Iqbal. So what did it matter if
he’d lost his jinns? It could happen to anybody.
The story of apparel cannot be told by jeans and socks alone... There'd need to be...
Saying Goodbye
At 2 pm I glanced down the hall to the room they call the new big,
in which I taught the teenagers of an evening. The language centre in Donetsk , eastern Ukraine
Thinking of my camera, two blocks away at home, I slipped into hat
and coat. All eyes were upon me as I exited the cloak room. I wasn’t supposed
to know about the party. “I’ll be back for my lesson at 6 pm,” I said casually.
Mouths dropped – I would miss my party – Marina
But it was Lena who donated her weekend to my first days in Donetsk
I remember Lena at the airport – she
had a 1960s hairdo and behind-the-iron-curtain clothes – feminine, becoming and
quite different to western styles. I remember as we’d driven past the White
House, the seat of city government, how Peter the driver said, “That’s where
the thieves live.”
At lunch on the following afternoon, in a café by the Karlmeus,
when I asked what Lena’s ex-husband did, she replied, embarrassed, in her
suave, winter-coat-thick accent, “We don’t ask what people do in Ukraine.” It
was my first lesson. “There are many Ukrainians,” she said, “who have money but
are technically unemployed.”
She’s a mother of two but can never remember their ages. She started
to explain how it was, life in and after the Soviet Union .
“People should only create and not destroy,” she said, “This is our history.”
She was worried about her children’s futures in an uncertain, capitalist Ukraine
Lena was most insistent I phoned Australia
One day she came to work in a cardigan that fashionably featured a
single button, where there might normally be two or three. I pulled her aside
and said, straight-faced, “Don’t worry. I know teachers’ salaries aren’t much.
I will ask the other teachers to donate a few kopeks and we’ll buy you a couple
of extra buttons.” She was outraged! I was laughing.
She coined my nickname: the difficult Australian. When we returned
from summer holidays Lena said to Marina Marina
Yet sometimes we’d sneak away to eat flatbread-rolled kebab-like
zapykankas in the park or deluxe hot dogs, Donetsk-style. Such hours were
precious.
Classes would end late evening but if I found energy it was a
simple matter to phone Svetlana. “Shall I stop by?” I’d ask. “Sure,” she said,
most often, “and why not bring a bottle of red?” We used to talk into the wee
hours, and dance and sing. It’s a good thing Ukrainian neighbours don’t bother
about noise.
Svetlana explained how living in Ukraine Ukraine
Once I was buying a bottle of wine at a kiosk by the marshrutka taxi stand, and the woman
behind the counter asked in Russian, “Sweet or dry?” I asked for dry and the
woman looked me up and down before saying, “Is it for a girl?” On the way to
Svetlana’s there was only one response: “Da”.
“You’ll need a nice bottle then,” she said, before scouring her selection to
find the best. She checked the chocolate situation too.
On the weekends Svetlana and I would sometimes find a café to
watch the afternoon pass, by tradition first meeting at our regular place:
beside the left shoe of the Lenin statue in Lenin Square.
When it comes to Val – well, her kitchen is where I learnt much of
what I came to know about Ukraine
It was through her I picked up additional classes with the
three-year-old Senya. His mother wanted him to be bilingual. His classes were not
stressful or rigid. The instruction was, “just play in English.” And we did.
Senya was obsessed with Spiderman.
At the end he had tears in his eyes. “When are you leaving?” he
asked. “After eight days,” I said, accurately.
“No,” he replied firmly, “After three days!” He had the concept of
bargaining but lost the concept of numbers at crucial moments. He hoped to lengthen
my stay.
I mention Senya because he discovered a new term I came to
embrace. From confusing English pronouns with his country, he once told Val he
lived in “Mykraine.” And that’s the thing of it – it became Mykraine.
The language connected: they enjoyed when I invented words, in the
way that happens in any living language, what you can’t get in books. There was
the Soviet washing machine I had, plastic, semi-manual, the size of a
television set. You had to load the water by bucket before plugging it in. Lena chuckled when I called it the “electric bucket.” And
in the park after rain, when I pointed to a small flow into a drain and called
it a waterfall, and was rebuked because it wasn’t a waterfall, well, the
English teachers took amusement when I said it was at least “waterfallish.”
With grammar: they knew the rules and I knew the answers. Team
work: they could explain the former, which native speakers are not taught; while
I helped apply the rules correctly.
The decoration and food in the new big: I’m not sure I wanted it.
It represented such an enormous loss, about to come. On the other hand, as an
Australian had once described my moving there as “throwing myself into a
transcontinental abyss”, well it hadn’t been at all bad. Surely I could do it again?
I’d been dreading that there might be cake restrictions, as there were
on Teacher’s Day when each teacher had a single slice ration. I remembered
those cucumber and parsley sandwiches with the bread cut so thinly they must’ve
split grains of wheat in the process. The institute liked to save. But these
things did not recur.
Instead
both Lena and Marina gave speeches so full of
praise I was convinced they were talking about somebody else; and Marina
norwaybarbadosmontserrattrinidadandtobagostluciastvincentandthegrenadinesargentinachileuruguaynicaraguacostaricapanamaboliviaestonialatvialithuaniaindiabangladesh
This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: Saying Goodbye
Ukrainian Bethlehem
O little town of Bethlehem how still we see Thee lie,
Above Thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.
- a familiar Christmas carol.
All the driver had to do was open the doors. Enter five
thousand grandmothers, Russian-speaking and locally called babushkas, with their
babushka trolleys, boxes and bags and grandchildren – three to a seat with
barely room to exhale. The last Saturday evening bus to Pochayiv was vacuum
packed.
It would have been alright except my foot got jammed in the
rear door every time it opened to take on board yet another babushka, just when
one might have guessed the bus was full. The foot-jamming and the likelihood of
the bus tipping over each time we negotiated a bend to the left were of
concern. All of the weightier individuals, it seemed, had chosen to sit on that
side and the bus was about as level as a seesaw with nobody on it. I’d rather
not say which side I sat on.
I kept trying to picture the map in my mind, hoping to see
unfaltering bends to the right. Looking at the map in actuality was unfeasible
on account of needing some arm movement, impossible in that space.
The countryside was unusually hilly and it was just as it
was getting dark that my foot got jammed for the last time. When the doors
opened there began a babushka flood of great proportions – with babushka
trolleys, boxes and bags and grandchildren – spilling out of the bus onto the
road shoulder. I guess we’d arrived.
It is said the Holy Dormition Pochayiv Lavra, the second
largest monastery in Ukraine ,
was founded by several runaway monks during the thirteenth century Mongol
invasion. Legend says Theotokos, which is the Greek title meaning God-bearer
that refers to Mary, mother of God, appeared to the monks in a column of fire,
that she left her footprint in the rock she stood upon which has since been
revered for its curative powers. Pochayiv itself is a small West Ukrainian town
of 8,000 people.
Noble lady Anna Hojska is said to have donated her lands to
the monastery in the sixteenth century, from when the current buildings date.
She also gave a sacred icon of Theotokos which is believed to work miracles,
and cured her brother’s blindness.
But I was slightly disoriented from the bus ride – where was
the monastery?
In true medieval fashion, it was a matter of tilting my head
upwards – you know, to see the church in all its glory. Perched on a hill in
the twilight like a fantastic city of gold, the monastery looked its best.
The last colours were draining from the sky as I followed a
line of lamps along the pathway to the western gate. Behind me a sea of
babushkas overburdened with their goods and offspring’s offspring followed like
the tide of an ancient sea coming in. They like to sleep over at the monastery
hotel to attend the 5:30 a.m. Sunday mass.
Sense would have led me directly to the hotel since I too
needed a place to sleep, but the atmosphere of the place beckoned: the mosaics,
the huge bell tower, the worshippers coming and going, with women wearing
headscarves as they do upon entering a church or monastery in the Orthodox
tradition, the gardens and rows of crops on the lower hillside, the black-robed
long-bearded monks sitting under trees chatting to attractive, younger
headscarf wearing women, the golden domes, the smell of incense, the light of
the candles and most of all the twilight. I was drawn not to the hotel but,
ultimately, to an empty bench beside the bishop’s house where there was time to
imbibe the whole mesmerising scene.
A little too much time… Ten o’clock passed and I forced
myself towards the hotel. People sat there in the long hallway with all their
belongings on babushka trolleys, waiting for a bed to be found. Some were
taking shelter on the floor of the hallway.
The smallest and possibly oldest babushka, covered in black,
was the one to see, one of the pilgrims seemed to say. “Follow her,” I was sure
she must’ve said, in Russian.
I did tail the smallest babushka for a while, up the hallway
and back again, in one room, pausing at the doorway of another. I followed her,
about two feet behind and I heard her saying to others, over and over, ‘Nyet,
nyet, nyet!’ She was trying to sound authoritative and final but in her face
was kindness and I knew she took no pleasure from the shortage of beds. I
guessed if I’d really pressed the issue she would’ve eventually found somewhere
for me.
But there were all the babushkas and babushka trolleys and
boxes and bags and grandchildren. The idea of taking a bed from an old woman
was not very appealing; and it was like a sauna inside in any case. Better to
be outside – how long could a Ukrainian night possibly last? It was warm and delightfully
summery.
So I left the smallest babushka and gave up on my
one-dollar-dormitory-bed-food-included dream. I returned instead to the viewing
bench beside the Bishop’s house.
With practicalities left in the hotel hallway my mind
wandered as stars appeared, the buildings floodlight and fine. I couldn’t help
but think the whole experience was slightly Joseph coming to Bethlehem to be counted in the census. The
bus that evening was surely the equivalent of a small grey donkey and like
Joseph I had been effectively turned away by the innkeeper. Admittedly there
weren’t any barns to sleep in, there were no nasty Roman soldiers about and most
importantly, I did not have with me the responsibility of a heavily pregnant
mother of God.
Yet in thy dark
streets shineth, the everlasting light,
The hopes and fears of
all the years are met in Thee tonight.
Tired and hungry: these took turns as the hours passed. It
was the pull of the latter that took me out through the eastern gate and down
into the little dark town. I splurged on a four dollar three course meal in a
café that was empty apart from a couple of old Ukrainian men polishing off a
bottle of vodka. Outside local kids loitered and it seemed as though they hoped
to find some alcohol of their own.
As I wandered back up through the narrow streets, dogs
howling, towards the golden domes of the monastery, the image was once more
medieval, of a troubled, evil little town versus a peaceful quiet church.
Perhaps as punishment for my random thoughts when I reached
it the gate was closed. There remained a gap underneath through which I could
have scrambled but it seemed a bit undignified. As I considered what to do a
car drove up to the gate, a black Mercedes. It was perhaps the Bishop himself.
All it took then was a word or two in English to the gateman who had appeared
to let the Mercedes pass, and I was in.
Hours passed. I could tell that from the bell at the top of
the bell tower that periodically rang. I must’ve dosed a bit but mostly I
continued to absorb the atmosphere and admire the stars – through the night
until the dawn.
Romania: Dracula's Jumpers
Moldova: The Dance of Lilliput
Belarus: In Search of the Zoobr
The Baltics: Articles in Amber
This article also published in Star Magazine, here: Ukrainian Bethlehem
Romania: Dracula's Jumpers
Moldova: The Dance of Lilliput
Belarus: In Search of the Zoobr
The Baltics: Articles in Amber
This article also published in Star Magazine, here: Ukrainian Bethlehem
Was There Any Chance of Wolves?
Anonymity is a blessing in the short term. It’s true that it
means you’re far from family and friends, but it also means never having to be
anywhere at a particular time and doing exactly what you wish without
consultation; it’s a bit like growing up and no longer being answerable to
parents. Anonymity is a key component to the traveller’s freedom, the treasure
of the road.
It was the first trip to Latvia , one week, and the day arrived
for that fateful tour to Bauska. I’d taken up residence with newly met locals
Dzintra and her daughters, Antra and Anta. Bauska was the plan for while they
were busy with school, university and work.
The largely flat Latvian countryside has something in common
with Bangladesh : there are a
good number of palaces from the lord-and-peasant past, what in Bangladesh
would be called a rajbari. Near
Bauska is one such place, Rundales Pils, a baroque palace built for the Dukes
of Courland from 1736. It was the goal.
Indeed the journey was completed easily and the palace was
impressive. It was on the way home again to Riga when things went wrong.
With the blessing of anonymity there was nobody to ask
whether it was a good idea to take a little walk in the countryside in the
belief it would not be difficult to find a different way back to Bauska town
for the bus. Besides, there was a footbridge over a small river made of oil
drums tied together, floating and with planks on top, which really needed to be
crossed.
Entirely without care I found myself of a picturesque
stretch of dirt road, entirely straight, walking merrily. But it was a strange
phenomenon for the road seemed to lengthen with each step. An hour passed, then
two, and all the while there were open fields without a single house in sight.
Could such a scene exist in a country as small as Latvia ? More disturbingly, not a
single car had passed by.
 |
| There are Latvian rivers with fishermen. I just didn't find any. |
There comes that point when you wonder if turning back
wouldn’t be more sensible, but the oil drum bridge already seemed distant and
surely it wasn’t really possible to be lost in Latvia .
The road continued and so did I.
The road continued and so did I.
Early evening arrived and with the sun my confidence in
direction gradually set. That point comes: ‘what’s the worst that could
happen?’ I started to contemplate sleeping in a field and waiting for morning.
Was it dangerous to sleep in a Latvian field? It’s true the country was called
the wild east back then, but surely that meant human society, in the cities.
Was there any chance of wolves?
Okay: worst scenario, Latvian field, one night. I kept
walking.
At about the stage where my legs felt they might refuse to
go on, something exciting happened. I came to a road junction. There was no
house or car, and only more fields, but for the first time in several hours I
had a choice: left, right or straight ahead? On my first day in Latvia I’d made
a choice for the left; this time I chose right. And I walked.
 |
| There are houses in Latvian villages. I just didn't see any. |
A few minutes later something more exciting happened. It was a sound: the oil and metal rumble of a car. Sure enough, it came along kicking up dust: a kind of red sports car. Normally it’d be courteous to stand to the side and politely flag down the vehicle, with acknowledgement it was a favour if they stopped. But the situation was not normal.
I stood road centre, hands out in a kind of ‘halt’, like a
dacoit or a police officer. The car had no choice.
Inside was a couple. It was strange because when he decided
to stop rather than run me down, she was rather angry about it. I’m not sure
which language it was they spoke, but it sounded like Russian and there was
clearly some kind of domestic dispute going on. ‘What are you stopping for you
idiot!’ I imagined her yelling. She really was screaming at him.
‘What do you expect me to do, leave him here?’ I imagined
him replying, marginally more calmly.
‘You never spend enough time with me! You are always with
your wife!’ Or perhaps she was the wife. Whatever the specifics I was sure of
one thing: I was getting in that car, whether the lady liked it or not. It’s
not that I’m in the habit of interfering in other people’s domestic upheavals.
It’s just that, at a minimum they could take me to a main road, wherever that
might be, hopefully still in Latvia . I could only say ‘Riga ’.
Laugh if you will but after all that walking and after all
her screaming the main road was but a few hundred yards further. It was a very short ride indeed. She was pleased I got out; the guy was nice
about it. ‘Paldies,’ I said, Dzintra-taught, ‘Thanks.’
It was dark when I stood on the side of the highway. There were cars but nobody was stopping; who
could blame them? So I walked a bit, and
I’d been sure to get the sports car driver to indicate the Riga-direction of
the road when he’d dropped me off. After
some time there was a bus shelter and I thought, ‘Would it be safe to stay one
night in a Latvian bus shelter?’ It seemed unlikely anybody would stop before
morning. Personally I would’ve favoured
the field with whatever risk of wolves there was.
Well fortunately there’s this little thing called public
transport, and fortunately the international express services between Riga and Lithuania
used that route. They don’t officially
stop except in major towns, except that, fortunately and like in Bangladesh ,
they do. They will pick up the odd stray like me for a small fee. A bus stopped
and I was saved. I was so relieved that
I’d be making it back to the city that from my pocket I pulled out a few coins
at random and proudly presented them to the driver.
 |
| This would have been a better road to get lost on, on account of the passerby and the house. |
The bus driver was a good fellow, for I hadn’t even counted
what I’d dumped into his hand, so grateful I was at having been saved. There’d
been a few too many tiny brown coins involved; he gave some back.
 |
| If the moss grows on the north side, Lithuania is to the south. |
It was funny, that first week in Latvia . It was odd to be far from
home, where I should have enjoyed the full benefit of anonymity, to have had
that plaguing thought the whole time: Dzintra would be worried. By the time I reached the apartment it was approaching
midnight. I rang the bell.
Well, the door swung open and there was an enormous hug. ‘I
was so worried about you!’ she said, ‘If something happened… I don’t even know
your surname! What would I tell your family and how would I find them?’ After
that, I wrote my full name and address on a piece of paper. Needed. Multiple Lives. Latvia gets one.
Post Latvian apartment, you can take accommodation in a construction site, an Arctic cupboard or alternatively, set up your own guest house...
For the start of the Latvian story, you'll need to visit The Latvian National Academy of Science
Or follow the Baltic Way, along the sea on a trail of amber...
This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: Was There Any Chance of Wolves?
Potato and Toothpaste Travel
Amber is fossilised tree resin, a yellowish, pellucid gem washed ashore by the waves of the eastern
I’d nearly not stayed there but fate granted a second
chance. As I’d walked away north on that day I’d randomly met Dzintra at the doors
of the Science Academy
Yet there was a sliver of hope: I was due to meet her
daughter Antra on the following morning. Dzintra had said there was a castle
not too far from Riga ,
that it was worth seeing and I could take the train there. Without any
alternative plan it certainly sounded like a plan. She had to work, she said,
but if her daughter was not busy with university she could meet me at the
entrance to Riga
station at 9 a.m. because her daughter would enjoy the trip too. Maybe.
‘How will she recognise me?’ I asked. It wasn’t as if I
stood out in the Latvian crowd.
‘She can find you,’ Dzintra assured.
It wasn’t a meeting arrangement to inspire any confidence
but there was only to wait and see. What did my intuition say? Unfortunately,
it said nothing.
Anyway, there was a more immediate and pressing concern: would
I really find the private apartment I’d left that morning, without really
taking in properly where it was?
Eventually I did happen to happen upon the right street.
At 9 a.m. on the following day, at the busy Riga station, I thought it quite impossible
anybody could find me in the crowd. But sure enough, as I stood waiting, a
young woman approached, saying cautiously, ‘Excuse me, you are Andrew?’ It was
Antra.
‘How did you recognise me?’ I asked, quite shocked.
‘You look like a foreigner,’ she said, ‘a bit lost.’
The day at the castle was like a meandering flute melody, made
easier by Antra’s English skills. The offer to stay was repeated by the
daughter. This time I accepted. I fetched my luggage from somewhere North Riga and returned the house keys to the apartment’s
owner. By evening I’d been whisked over the Daugava River
Events in the Stalin-era apartment were amusing. There was
quite a bit of fussing that went on, unexpectedly, over Dzintra’s dinner.
‘Did you eat?’ I heard her school-going younger daughter
Anta, ask.
‘I had my dinner,’ Dzintra replied.
‘What did you eat?’ the daughter pressed.
‘Oh, you know…’ the mother said.
‘What about your dinner?’ her older daughter Antra also asked,
upon coming home again later.
‘Yes, I ate.’
‘It wasn’t only potatoes, was it?’
‘No,’ Dzintra said, calling me as a witness.
It brought a smile to see the two daughters questioning
their mother in the way a mother might normally question a busy daughter. It
wasn’t that Dzintra suffered any horrible malady; hers was rather a wonderful
disorder: she was a nomad at heart, a jajabor
and it was this affliction that encouraged her to save.
About the potatoes: they were cheap and plentiful, a ready
match for the generally modest public salaries of Latvia . Well back into the Soviet
era potatoes had allowed Dzintra to put a few roubles aside, as she could, as a
travel fund. And what did it matter if dinner meant potatoes, now and then, if
one could dream of a pending destination? That was the pay-off.
‘Latvians eat much
potatoes,’ she told me once.
‘Many,’ I corrected. ‘Many potatoes. Potatoes are
countable.’
‘Not in Latvia !’
she said.
If I’d been more observant I could have seen that jajabor sparkle
in her eyes when we’d first met, but it was the potato-talk that confirmed her
status. Travel hadn’t been easy in the Soviet era but she’d managed to join
tours to various places across the Soviet Union
and the eastern bloc. Later, she’d visited a relative in Melbourne and her apartment featured
Australian souvenirs as evidence. The extended trip was also there in Anta’s
English accent: it seemed so out of place in Riga to be hearing the Australian sounding
English she’d been young enough to absorb.
‘Most Australians had never heard of Latvia ,’ she
said, ‘So I would explain where it was.’
But it was her tour to Poland that took my fancy.
‘Toothpaste was always more expensive in Poland,’ Dzintra said, so she’d
stocked up and seen Warsaw and Krakow on a finance of Soviet toothpaste,
stopping off at a Polish market between sites to pay for the trip.
Passion for anything is rare in this world and I admired
hers. It was clear we were predestined to get along. It’s perhaps the reason why
every minute we’d spent together felt as a month.
She spoke of the other family member, the cat called Puncis
which in Latvian means stomach; an accurate name for the robust feline that
lounged about.
We spoke of Australia
and many other things besides, as the hours meant years.
And of course more than anything we spoke of travel. It’s a
well-known fact that the next best thing for any traveller is to receive
another traveller in their home city. It brings with it as close as can be the
feeling of travelling, without going anywhere.
‘You can’t leave Latvia without seeing a Latvian
forest,’ Dzintra said and I could hardly disagree. I had no experience with Latvian forests.
‘I have a small car,’ she said, ‘It has some mechanical
problems, so if I take a day off work, and it might not get us all the way
there and back again without breaking down, but would you like to take the
chance?’
We left in the little grey Ford that whistled along to every
gear change for the length of the chat and laughter that was the way to the
Latvian forest and back again. I’d say
the whistling Ford enjoyed the day out too; it didn’t break down. And there was another trip to Jurmala and the
Baltic Sea , so I could see a Latvian beach.
The days of my planned week in Latvia passed quickly in the way
only enjoyable days can. Everything went well, more than well and without
complaint until... Well I wasn’t to know how it would be, taking myself off for
a day, independently, on that fateful tour to Bauska… It seemed such a simple
idea.
The story continues here: Was There Any Chance of Wolves?
The first part of the Latvian story is here: The Latvian National Academy of Science.
Follow the Baltic Way, along the sea on a trail of amber...
Or something different? Head for Bangladesh!
This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: Potato and Toothpaste Travel
The Latvian National Academy of Science
Be free. Align yourself with the rhythm of the world to go
far. Be as the jajabor, the nomad.
Arrive somewhere from the soul, due to the appealing curl of its name or
because it feels right or because we know nothing. Go because the time has
arrived, sense it.
The Baltic States beckoned
in such a way. I went because the idea surfaced. I went because it was there. Other
than that, the reason for the journey was left to present itself as a
revelation of yes – that must be why I came. Intuition would make the
arrangements.
Due to the circumstances that had led to the meeting of a
Latvian folk musician on an Estonian road, I had a private apartment in Riga , the Latvian
capital, from the first evening. My pocket had keys. It gave perhaps a stronger
sense that the brand new city
was mine to explore; but it wasn’t the being somewhere new that brought meaning
– it was a basic decision between old and older.
On that first morning, I’d locked the door of the apartment
I was unexpectedly borrowing. I set off on foot down the busy street that
judging by the traffic must lead somewhere; and it wasn’t long until the distinctive
roofs and church towers caught sight of me. The famed old town was away to the mercantile
right. Yet to the left a different type of building caught my eye: a stark, stalwart
tower in brown, which seemed the very essence of the Soviet
Union days. It was intriguing.
I knew I would see both pasts. I had the time. The question
was which to go to first and on the thought that at the top of the tower I
could take photographs over the old town I was inclined towards the left. In
this way the communists won the moment. Yet, as it turned out, it was a
decision that would bring me right to my sentimental Latvia .
I heaved those enormous doors, of the heavy wooden kind, and
inside was an enormous Spartan lobby with proletariat looking lifts to the front,
and to the left was a functional-looking booth with a sign that read ‘Enquiries
Counter.’ In it was an equally functional-looking Russian woman, elderly and overweight.
It was as though I had walked into one of those Hollywood films designed to
promote a view of life in the Soviet Union
that made one pleased to live in the ‘free world’. It was behind-the-iron-curtain
in a clichéd way and I was excited.
I imagined Soviet citizens in the film, stooping to speak
through the slot at the window of the booth, to make enquiries that ended in an
inevitably firm ‘Nyet!’ I thought to try it out.
‘Excuse me, what is this building?’ I asked as prelude to my
planned request to reach the roof.
‘Sprechen Zie Deutsch?’ she said, do you speak German?
‘Nein,’ I replied, in German, and for some unknown reason
tried again in English.
‘Sprechen Zie Deutsch?’
‘Still Nein.’
We stood smiling at each other, at a loss, and she certainly
seemed too friendly to play the role of Soviet receptionist in the movie. She would
have been very helpful to a German.
With a dash of disappointment I headed back across the lobby
to those gargantuan doors. I heaved one of them open again, wondering if the
inevitable door-people in the Soviet era had developed shoulder injuries from
the task. I was thinking I might never know what that building was, when a
woman came in the door I’d just opened. On the off chance…
‘Excuse me, do you speak English?’
‘A little,’ she said in an accent delightful enough to
flavour ice cream. ‘Where are you from?’ she asked.
‘Australia .’
‘It’s my favourite country,’ she said, ‘I lived in Melbourne for six months!’
We stood chatting in the doorway for a minute or two. The
building was the Latvian National Academy of Science, her name was Dzintra and
she worked there as secretary to a senior official.
I didn’t know then about the strength of her intuition. Nor
was it clear I had met a Latvian jajabor;
and yet the initial connection seemed unusually strong.
‘I finish work at seven,’ she said, ‘I want to show you some
nice buildings in Riga
that you won’t find on your own. Come back then.’
We must have spoken seven sentences but it felt as though
we’d known each other for seven months. Latvian time was speedy, I was learning,
Dzintra was teaching me. She continued into the building and I went out; and as
I walked up the street I felt certain it was for that moment in the doorway
that life’s course had brought me to the Baltic. I’d come to meet her.
On the Daugava River not long before it reaches the sea, the Latvian
capital is the big city of the Baltic States .
Of course its old town is well-endowed with cobblestone squares, churches and
secret laneways; with faces, with golden roosters four floors up watching the
sky; and a black cat, back arched in protest at being left out there on the
peak of a roof. Of course there are streams through parks and on the railings
of the little bridges are the permanent padlocks the Russians affix as a symbol
of binding love; there’s a small castle and crowds on the streets, hopping on
and off the sky blue trams that cross the Daugava bridge like scuttling
insects.
After a few hours with the usual trappings of Rigan life,
wandering around, I made my way back towards the Academy. I was early by two
hours and thought it’d be a bit boring to wait, although there was the
Soviet-style market to look through, on the left side of things, where they
still sold milk scooped up by apron wearing women, with ladles from big
metallic urns. Nor was I entirely sure where my apartment was, so to go and
wait there would have been a gamble. I only hoped I’d find it later. I had the
keys.
I met Dzintra before I got to the Academy, under the railway
bridge. ‘I left work early,’ she said. I suppose she’d felt I was on my way, I
can say now. It was our second chance meeting.
True to her word she showed me beautiful streets of grand
old buildings that I wouldn’t have found, up around Elizabetes iela to the
north of the old town.
Now, when she tells people how we met they say, ‘You
shouldn’t have done that! It might be dangerous!’ I’ve told her I agree and she
shouldn’t do it again. But what people don’t properly imagine is how well we
knew each other by then. If the first seven sentences were seven months, by the
time we’d seen the best of the buildings at least three years had passed in
speedy Latvian time. We were not strangers when she issued the invitation to
stay at her house, as long as I didn’t mind if it was small and Soviet and
featured a marginally malfunctioning bathroom.
It was a tempting offer but I had keys in my pocket and it’s
not every day a private apartment for ‘whenever you are in Riga ’ finds you. It was not something I
wanted to quit, so I said ‘No’.
But of course, if you let it the world has ways to correct
the decisions you get wrong. Wilful interference of the human-brain kind can
only destroy the far better plans. Especially in Latvia, let the season take
you by the hand.
This story continues here: Potato and Toothpaste Travel
The meeting at the Latvian National Academy of Science can be a nice precursor to finding memories in a waterfall, sort of eating dog due to a lack of fishing net casting skills, or meeting the Chittagonian whistler.
This article also published in Star Magazine, here: The Latvian National Academy of Science
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