Or at least Bogota! I thought you all might be amused to hear the effect my children’s obsession with all things Latvian/Baltic has had on the local student population of their school. Most of these kids are very upper class, very wealthy families. They travel...but rarely beyond Miami or somewhere in the Caribbean where they may own 2nd homes. So...knowledge of the world at large is just not there.
My two are both equally obsessed with Latvia. Like most International Schools, this school holds an annual Parade of Nations-type day in which the kids dress up to represent their “home.” My children have worn their folk costumes on all occasions. Big Halloween festivities here, and my son always dresses up as something related to Latvia...usually a big stretch of the imagination for his pals who have no idea what he’s talking about or why he thinks it’s so cool. :-) And I bet I have baked piragi 4-5 times in the last 3 years for special events at the school or for class projects (always on the request of my kids). And very popular they are every time.
But my husband and I just had to stop, look at each other, and laugh a few days ago, when a classmate of my son called him to ask for a piragi recipe and for help in finding a certain website (turns out to be Museum of the Occupation’s communism unit online) that my son had told him about. The reason...he’s doing his end of year big inter-disciplinary project (art, literature, history, etc.) about Latvia. And we are definitely the only source of bibliographic/research information on the baltics here! The library at the school (likely the largest English library in the city) has no current books on the subject. My son was outraged two years ago to find that the most current book still lists Latvia as a Soviet Republic.
Anyway, just thought you might find it amusing! :-)
