Estonia 1998: The End of Winter
From the archives: It turns out that I was blogging long before anyone had ever heard the term “blog.” Twenty years ago I was an exchange student in Estonia. While studying at the University of Tartu, I created an online travelogue to keep my family and friends apprised of my experiences. Both my life and the nation of Estonia have changed a lot the two decades since. This reprise is providing me with a glimpse at who I was back then and the excuse to learn more about more recent developments in my temporary home, even if some of the opinions that I expressed back then may make me a little bit uncomfortable today. It is interesting to see how people grow and change.
March 9-22, 1998
The most notable part about these two weeks has been the end of the longest winter of my life. Beginning around the middle of March the sun began to shine bluer than it has ever shone and the world slowly began a transformation from cold, dark, muddy and snowy to simply cool and muddy. We’re not up to a real spring yet, but this is a great start.
It’s something I’ve always heard northerners talk about is how glorious spring is when (if) it comes. The contrast is just so extreme. I’m here to tell you, they’re right. However, I really don’t feel a need to live through another Estonian winter just to get this sensation again. Slightly less contrast in exchange for much warmer weather is a small price to pay!
9 March 1998
Monday
Our first day of classes after a great weekend in Rakvere. I am slowly getting back into the studying routine. We had our Estonian class followed by Neil’s class in international human rights. What a fascinating subject.
We had our standard X-Files party at Silke’s followed by the movie Gorillas in the Mist. I had never seen it before. It was a touching story and showed the value of what one person can do with their life. The impact of one dedicated individual is simply extraordinary. If we just put our minds to it…
I think that what surprised or touched me the most was watching Diana Fossey’s change from an idealist to a hardened cynic against all that humanity stood for. She had retreated into the world of the animals and lost track of the place of humans in the world until she was called back by her lifelong assistant. This is not to depreciate her work, she was an incredible individual and in my mind her faults make her all the more incredible. To show that a normal person, problems and all, can have that kind of effect is much more encouraging than if she had been a superhuman miracle worker with abilities and powers beyond the scope of mere mortals.
11 March 1998
Wednesday
What an incredible day. I started off with my second to last Estonian Introduction class. We finish up on Friday and will take the exam sometime after that. I can’t believe that one of my classes is already finishing up. Time has flown by so fast.
In the afternoon I set about getting things set for next year. I sent my resume and defacto application to three international offices at the University of Iowa. I have already received one very promising reply. I am hoping that the others turn out so well. I just have to wait and see.
For some reason our teacher did not show up for our Russian class, so instead I came home and had a great evening in before I went to Illegaard for our weekly ritual.
12 March 1998
Thursday
After my morning theology class I had to take off from school and go to the Tartu Psychological Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation for my residence permit. This is perhaps the strangest hour and a bit that I have spent here in Tartu. I went out there and had convince the cashiers that I really wanted a test and that, no, I wasn’t really sick. Once I finally got past all of the paperwork I got to go speak with the psychiatrist who had a short conversation with me and declared me fit. There weren’t really any truly psychological questions, just a bureaucratic formality, one that wasted 25 of my crowns, but gave me some great memories.
In the evening I went to my British film course where we saw A Lion in Winter a movie about the royal succession struggle of Henry II. Everyone was trying to kill everyone else, what a crazy way to govern a country. I’m just happy I am living in an era of somewhat representative democracy. It’s not perfect but it’s much better than what it replaced.
13 March 1998
Friday
Why do I keep running from the life that I know I am to live? Why do I keep looking over the horizon for something else, something better? Why can’t I just be happy with the things that the good Lord has seen fit to give me?
When I stop and think about it, I have everything that I need, as long as I have the Lord. Recently I have been losing that, I have been forgetting how important my connection to the church is in my life. I have eliminated that part from my personality in a subconscious desire to appeal to something that I do not truly want.
Today was our last Estonian introduction class. I will be taking the exam sometime at the end of the month. I’m not sure how much I will retain from this course, but it was quite interesting nonetheless. For some reason our Russian class did not happen again, Ludmilla never showed up so instead I came home a little bit early and tried to get some things caught up. In the evening I got a telephone call and tomorrow am going to meet Inma for lunch and a little bit of Spanish practice. It’s been way too long and I really need it.
14 March 1998
Saturday
In the afternoon I went to Pronto Pizza to meet with Inma for a bit of Spanish practice. It started a bit painfully for us both, but after an hour or so I got to the point where I could actually form a complete sentence and express myself a little bit. It is incredible, as the conversation went on I began to remember word after word and was somewhat credible when we parted a few hours later. I’m not up to where I once was, but at least I’m better than I was twenty four hours before.
To finish up the night we went to a birthday party hosted by Rogier. It was a good time and there were a lot of new Germans around who had been here in Tartu visiting for a couple of days.
In the morning I went with Diemo to the University Congregation. It was our first time there, and it was actually a larger percentage of students than anywhere else I have ever been. However, considering the fact that there were only twenty people there it really wasn’t saying all that much. The service was comfortable and the best job that I have ever seen working with this liturgy in the Estonian Lutheran Church.
17 March 1998
Tuesday
St. Patrick’s Day
I was talking with Kairit about whether Americans celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. She asked how people who have never seen a place and cannot speak a word of the language can claim connection to a country. I fumbled the answer badly then, perhaps this is a better response:
It is very difficult for an American to explain to a European our feelings of attachment to our family’s ancestral home. Europeans tend to look at nationality as being a fixed thing, something that you are born with and something that stays with you, unchanged, your entire life. Americans tend to have a much freer idea of nationality. We believe one is what one feels oneself to be. We accept all people who call themselves American to be American at face value, no matter where they were born or how long their family has been in the United States. We know that all of us at one time or another came from somewhere else, Native Americans included, their ancestors simply migrating a few thousand years earlier than the rest of us. Nationality to an American is not something carried in the blood or in a passport, it is a state of mind.
This concept is why we have such an easy time saying with absolutely no contradiction felt, “I am Italian” or “I am Cuban” or whatever, while at the same taking it for granted that we are still purely Americans. It doesn’t matter if one’s parents or great, great, great grandparents came over on the boat, the heritage that they brought with them has in some form or another passed down to us today. Even if one has never visited the country they claim, to an American the legacy handed down to children from generation to generation is enough to make us different and unique. For example, a Cuban family is going to hand down to their children certain Cuban traditions, albeit in a slightly modified or distilled form. Despite these changes, it is still Cuban in origin, hence the formation of a Cuban American who has never been to Cuba and quite possibly couldn’t speak a word of Spanish if their life depended on it.
As all of the different immigrants came together in the United States, so far from home and in a completely foreign land, they naturally clung together with people who spoke the same language or came from the same place as them. As time went on, these groups carried on and remained different from other Americans, yet also different from the country that first emanated them, making them a bridge between two worlds. American, yet something else as well. In many ways the culture, language and heritage preserved by these groups is a time capsule of an age gone by. While the home country evolved and changed, the American immigrant groups strived to remember the past that was in their collective cultural memory, rather than a present which they had no connection with. For example, in New York there is an old dialect of Italian which is still spoken today that died out in Italy itself years ago.
This saga was, and still is, carried out all over the United States by families of innumerable ethnic and national origins, each group contributing their own small piece to the great Diaspora that is the United States. One of the things that has made America the unique country that it is today.
This is why Americans celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. For those of Irish background this is an opportunity to retain a little of their heritage. For the rest of us whose only connection to Ireland is the occasional Guiness it is an opportunity to come together and enjoy the fact that despite our differing backgrounds (or perhaps because of) we have been able to build a unified society where the daily cultural give and take is the mortar that holds us together.
Perfect my country is not, completely unified it is not. Yet, despite all of the things that tear us apart, there is one thing that makes us all Americans, and that is the concept and acceptance of an American spirit. To qualify as an American is really a simple thing. No language tests are required, no background or beliefs are barred, you simply have to believe in America and that you are, in fact, an American. A pox on anyone that would try to change that.
21 March 1998
Saturday
This morning I met Silke and we went to Annalinn market. It was the first time for me in a long while and her first experience ever. It was interesting. I liked a lot of what I saw there, markets such as that will always be an interesting experience. I really wish that we had this kind of thing back home. Our occasional flea markets on special days really just do not cut it. I got to see Natasha and Sasha for the first time in a while and enjoyed catching up and even took the opportunity to purchase a couple pairs of jeans from them to replace the old worn pairs I have that are slowly falling apart
After the market, the weather suddenly turned really cold and Silke and I made a beeline for the cafe and sat for a couple hours eating while I taught her how to play chess. It went fairly well, she learns really fast and will be quite good with just a little bit of practice. I’m going to have to be careful.
In the evening we took a sauna and I stayed here and relaxed. With so may days of traveling and going somewhere every night I’ve begun to get a little down. Every now and then it is good to just sit and enjoy oneself doing nothing. Tomorrow I am going to the University Congregation again on Toome Mägi with Liisa and Meelis. In the afternoon we are going to try and meet for lunch with Arno and Nuri to see if maybe we can get some trip planning taken care of. We may have to change some of the plans that we had for Otepää next weekend because a party was just announced over the UTInternational mailing list for Saturday. First one advertised should, by rights take precedent. We’ll have to see what happens.
