You remember a Latvian song. It could be one from your childhood, or one you heard last time you were in Latvia. You’ve found the lyrics somewhere on the Web but now you have no idea what the melody is. What to do?

The answer is YouTube. Latvians worldwide have taken to this latest craze to hit the Web and have put up hundreds of examples of their favorite Latvian music, sports, TV programs and amateur home videos. 

We had a decent look at what’s up there in terms of Latvian-themed videos and potential uses of YouTube for Latvians. To start with, as with the rest of the Web, You Tube is a quagmire that needs to be waded through to reach the gems. But thankfully the gems are there and aren’t too difficult to find.

If you are a folk dancer, folk dance choreographer or a Latvian folk enthusiast, then type in “Latvian folk dancing” and you’ll get a whole range of performances from amateur to professional, from those performed by groups from the diaspora to those from Latvia. The fact is you no longer need to go hunting aimlessly for dances on the Web, they’re all there on one site.

Let’s return to the songs. How about the national and patriotic ones like “Gaismas pils,” the Latvian national anthem “Dievs, svētī Latviju!”, the awe-inspiring “Saule, pērkons, Daugava” and other legendary songs? They’re there. As are a whole host of Raimonds Pauls’ and Imants Kalnins’ compositions performed by a variety of different performers: choirs, pop singers, children’s groups (the strangest one was Dzegūzite performing a Pauls’ song in Russian).

Events from the Latvian center Gaŗezers feature quite often, as do song festival events both from Latvia and the United State. The recent Indianapolis song festival is well represented, particularly individual dances from the dance performance.

YouTube is not restricted to music and dance. Sport is big, too. Feel like watching women’s wrestling in the National Seniors Championship? It’s there. How about the Latvian hockey fans in Torino, Italy, last year? Or Andris Biedriņš’ season highlights in the most recent National Basketball Association season? Or dancesports competitions? All are there.

Also on YouTube are politics, protests, presidential speeches and interviews, and Latvian TV programs on a whole host of current affairs topics. It is great for tourists who are heading to Latvia and feel that the official tourist sites aren’t showing the whole picture. Key in words such as “Turaida” or “Brīvības piemineklis” and you’ll get tourists’ amateur videos showing Latvia from their perspective.

You’re bound to find the topic you’re looking for. Just don’t get too carried away. The site is a void you can get lost in for hours on end if you don’t keep an eye on the time. And don’t let your kids linger too long unsupervised. YouTube, just like the rest of the Internet, is a hotbed of unsavoury videos as well as the decent, wholesome ones.

Aina Segal’s life was scarred, like that of thousands of other refugees the world over, displaced from their homeland by circumstances out of their control, compelled to start their life afresh in a new world with strange customs and little understanding of their plight. Segal was born in Latvia in 1934. After a picture-perfect childhood as an only child in a well-to-do family, World War II shattered her life into a million pieces. They needed to be put back together slowly, her psyche set back on an even keel, through the course of her later adult life in the United States. Hence the title of the book, Battered Heart. Thankfully, a heart that can be battered can also be healed.

War, it seems, affects each individual differently. Some may appear relatively unscarred, others turn to drink. Others internalise their traumas but maintain a brave exterior. Their pain is masked by the need to survive, to work and to feed their families. A sense of guilt for having survived may start to snowball. Faith in a higher being takes on a certain role in the healing process. For others a sense of apathy and clinical depression sets in, making them unable to “snap out of it.” For some, it takes a few years to regain a life and function as normal, if there is such a state. For others it takes a lifetime of soul-searching and therapy.

Segal seems to have reached a state of contentment in her life after a lifetime of anger, guilt and blame for the bad cards that Fate has dealt: dealing with a complex relationship with her mother; surviving the war; living in a Displaced Persons’ camp; starting life afresh on a different continent with no language and a completely different set of values and customs; the tragic loss of her only child, Kim, to cancer, and a string of bad relationship choices. All contributed to Segal viewing herself as a victim of circumstances, never the one who could be the one in charge.

Life took a positive turn when Aina met Norman, who was supportive like no other person had been in her life. The love and commitment of her new partner, coupled with a conversion to Judaism, her education and later career successes, close friends and a good therapist and a realisation that her connection with her horse, Minka, is an essential for her emotional well-being—all provide the stability and healing needed.

Part of Segal’s healing has been the unfolding of her career as a psychotherapist. The soul-searching required during her studies, especially a master’s degree in psychology at Queens College where two years of personal psychoanalysis was compulsory as part of the course, all set Segal on the road to accepting herself for who she is. No doubt writing Battered Heart has also been therapy in itself.

The book clearly shows the triumph of the human spirit. Every person’s life is in a constant state of flux. The onus is then on each of us to take on the challenges that are inevitable in life. The victim will always find someone else to blame and, more often than not, circumstances, fate, God—call them what you will—are responsible for our lot in life. The circumstances may be extreme, as in Aina’s case: war, displacement, loss of loved ones. No matter what the circumstance you face the defining thing is your response. Are you a victim or are you a survivor? How do you cope with the grief of a loss of a loved one, of one’s childhood, one’s homeland? How ready are you to adapt to new situations? Every person has to find their own coping mechanism, work through their own issues, often with the help of others, but ultimately by themselves, for themselves. Only then can we say we are free of the past and ready for the future and the beauty of its uncertainty.