Our family just attended our first 3×3 camp in Latvia. We had already had a great introduction to the way 3×3 works back in January 2000 when we braved the Australian summer heat and headed off to the camp in Falls Creek, Victoria, for what proved to be an exhilarating experience that we wanted to repeat in the near future.

At the time we were rather exhausted as we had ventured to the camp with an active four-year-old and a (barely) one-year-old toddler. Our children are now slightly older and as we have already started to forget our “trials” in 2000, we felt ready for something on a grander scale.

The 3×3 camp in Rucava was to take place July 15-22 in the southwestern Latvian town close to the Lithuanian border. We had been informed that we would be transported to the camp from Rīga by bus on the morning of the 15th. So we headed off to Dailes teātris at 10 a.m. The first bus drove off without a hitch. But tragedy had struck the second bus—the one we were waiting for—on its way from Rucava to Rīga. We were deeply shocked to learn the driver and his young son died when the bus collided with a train at the Kalvene railway crossing and rolled over. Even more astounding was the news that the Rucava 3×3 camp leader, Dace Jurka, had originally planned to be on the bus but had changed her mind at the last minute.

Such an eerie introduction to the camp left many wondering about fate, God and the powers that be.

This was the 22nd Latvian 3×3 camp held in Latvia. Many of the people in charge looked like they already knew each other well and greeted each other with warm hugs and smiling faces. Seeing as we were true newcomers (as were most of the other camp participants), we entered the Rucava school grounds with a touch of apprehension but a strong feeling that we would very soon feel at home here.

We had chosen to board with one of the locals. We were immediately whisked away to the other side of Rucava (a two-minute drive away!) and introduced to our “landlady” for the week: a homely, smiling rucavniece who showed us to our quarters. We had stayed with friends and relatives in the countryside before so we were not surprised at all by our accommodations. Our main criteria for a pleasant stay is hospitality and a smiling face from the host. We immediately felt this warmth from our host, so we were certain we had been put together with the right person.

The walk back to the camp at a brisk pace would take 20 minutes. But with our two dawdlers in tow—who had to inspect every cow, dog, chicken and cat on the way—the walk took a bit longer. Our motto: the more fresh country air we breathe, the better!

We knew a few people—all “Westerners”—but in no time at all we had chatted to strangers with smiling faces and warm hearts, keen to meet this Latvian family from “down under.” It did not take too long to feel like part of a big family. A great way to meet people was at mealtimes. I don’t think we ever ended up sitting next to the same camp participant twice. I hope the reason for this was not our active children who scared mealtime “neighbors” away! Every mealtime proved to be an introduction to another soul, some keen to chat, others more reserved. The 3×3 organizers actively promoted this by encouraging everyone to greet each other using the personal pronoun “tu” instead of “Jus” in conversation, to wear our name tags at all times and to deliberately find a new person to sit next to each mealtime.

Some statistics may be worth mentioning at this point. There were 426 people in the Rucava 3×3 camp, including all the participants, organizers, cooks, cleaners and local rucavnieki who attended. Of these, 102 participants were locals while the remainder came from all four corners of the earth, some from the United States, Canada, Magadan (in far eastern Russia) and Australia, but most from within Latvian borders.

The first evening was spent in the Rucava open-air amphitheater, enjoying the talents of the locals, both young and old. Particularly impressive were the elderly Rucava ladies (our host was among them) singing ancient local songs in their national costumes. The festivities came to a premature halt when nature took over. A freak storm—a sudden wind followed by a full thunder and lightning extravaganza—put on a grand show that was later described by camp organizers as consistent with the theme of the camp, which was “fire.” We all later marvelled at the pine trees that had been struck by lightning only a couple of metres from the camp buildings.

The next six days of this camp raced by like a whirlwind. All I remember is that at a constantly hurried pace I was forever either handing my children over to the camp kindergarten (for three- to six-year-olds), racing to an ievirze (as the camp activities are called), being transported somewhere by one of the camp’s buses, eating yet another delicious meal or falling exhausted into bed after a full day’s activities (after killing an army of vicious mosquitoes that had taken us hostage in our bedroom).

The ievirzes at this 3×3 camp, about 30 in all, were many and varied: floristry, jewelry making, felt toy making, the art of ancient Latvian weaponmaking, theatre, discussions about Latvian politics, the Latvian oral history project (mutvārdu vēsture), a seminar focusing on family issues led by Māra Tupese and Līga Ruperte, Latvian cooking, literature, various folklore topics and many, many more activities. It would have been a hard task not to find at least one activity that sounded interesting!

In addition to all these ievirzes, on offer were excursions to a list of interesting sights in the Rucava region: the Latvian brumbies (savvaļas zirgi), the local “holy spring” (svētavots), Pape beach for regular swims, and a half-day excursion to Lithuania, including the dolphin show near Klaipeda and the amber museum in Palanga. However, the most interesting of these excursions was the trip to Nida beach where the organizers had planned such a varied program that it was impossible for anyone to complain about boredom: a sports carnival, a folkloric performance by Liepaja theatre actors, the opportunity to join local fishermen when they hauled in their day’s catch, and a feast of fish soup and rye bread. The most moving of this afternoon’s activities was a theatrical yet deeply symbolic “uguns daudzinājums”—fire worship—as a climax to the theme of this year’s 3×3 camp.

Most of all I enjoyed the chance to exchange ideas about any topic under the sun with other participants young and old. Our children had a great time as well, playing with Latvian kids in Latvian, not English, as they are used to doing in their home country of Australia. It was also interesting to chat to Latvian teenagers (there were about 50 of them at the camp) and catch a glimpse of their world view.

Overall the whole family found this week to be a hectic yet extremely positive experience, one we would certainly want to repeat sometime in the near future!

Why jump on the Latvian school merry-go-round? In a some parts of the United States, Canada and Australia, as well as a few cities in the United Kingdom and Sweden, kids of Latvian descent—several hundred, maybe, in total—still attend Latvian Saturday or Sunday schools to learn the language and culture of their parents and grandparents.

Why? Their parents—who were, for the most part, born outside Latvia in the 1950s to the 1970s—still consider this a priority and are prepared to make the commitment of devoting their childrens’ (and their own) days off to this cause.

But why? Each parent has an individual answer to this question. The collective reason, however, is no longer a united one. Latvia is now a free country. Anyone of Latvian descent is now free to move to Latvia and raise their children there. No one will stop you. But many of us still remain in the countries where we were born, yet we want to raise our kids with the language and culture of our forefathers.

Gone are the days when stepping on the "Latvian carousel" was carried out as a duty to the homeland that was oppressed by the Soviets, when learning the language and culture was a "natural" thing: most of your friends and relatives were Latvian, and teaching the kids about their parents’ homeland seemed logical and important.

This present generation of parents now sending their children to Latvian school was born in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdoom, Germany or Sweden. For many, their Latvian identity was a small part of their whole persona. They were raised with the values of their country of birth. They, on the whole, spent most of their time with friends from their local school and, later on, their work community. They have married either local non-Latvians or have spouses of Latvian descent but who also were not born in Latvia.

Yet, some of these devoted 30- and 40-something Latvians around the world still wish to continue to devote part of their weekends to Latvian activities. The strange sense of "duty" is still there, but in varying degrees, of course. What is this duty to? Sometimes to their parents. They feel they would have let their kids’ grandparents down if they don’t make some sort of attempt at sending them to school. Some hope the school will teach them something because it’s difficult at home. Often, if their spouse does not speak the language, their children feel more comfortable and find it much easier speaking the language of the country of their birth. Others want to pass on the language and culture of their forefathers to their children. And still others can’t imagine not sending them to Latvian school because that’s what they had to do, so that’s what their kids are going to have to do, too!

After all, Latvian is not a language that parents would naturally choose as one that could be beneficial to their child and come in handy when travelling or for doing business in their future career. Nor is it considered as one of the classical languages, like Latin or ancient Greek.

What, then, should these children be learning at Latvian school, bearing in mind that we’re talking about a few (at the most four) hours per week?

The old school of teaching says we should teach Latvian grammar, literature, geography, history, and a smattering of folklore (songs, dancing, traditions).

Is this sort of a curriculum still relevant to second- and third-generation Latvian children born and living outside Latvia? Is the same style of teaching that we were brought up with on Saturday or Sunday mornings still an effective way of teaching the language and culture?

I would argue that the curriculum should reflect the changed perception of Latvia held by the parents, pupils and those teaching the language.

What is these kids’ perception of Latvia? They don’t have parents (or even grandparents) who can share with them their experiences of life in "Ulmaņa Latvija" (Latvia when it was led by Kārlis Ulmanis in the 1930s) and in their minds be able to conjure up the romantic or sentimental longing for a "fatherland." The parents and grandparents of this generation of children have a more objective view of Latvia based on either personal trips to Latvia in the past 10 years or news about life in Latvia today gleaned from printed and online media, as well as other travellers. And if there is a small group of grandparents who were children in Latvia before they emigrated during the Second World War and who still remember the Latvia of the 1930s, then more often than not, they have visited Latvia in the past decade and have a realistic view of Latvia today.

This current generation going through Latvian schools outside Latvia is:

• vastly different to previous generations in terms of upbringing, expectations, knowledge about their Latvian heritage and the Latvian language, and blood nationality (many of these children are born into families where one parent is not Latvian). This means that merely using the textbooks used by Latvian children 20 or 30 years ago would not be the most effective way of teaching this subject.
• vastly different to the generation of schoolchildren currently going through the education system in Latvia. This means that the educational methods employed in Latvia today cannot be simply transferred to the schools that are teaching the language and culture outside Latvia. And merely buying textbooks used in Latvia and presuming that these by themselves will solve all teaching problems would not suffice.

What to do?

First, teach the language (ideally, where resources permit, at two separate levels: to those who already speak Latvian in a home environment and to those who do not), incorporating the wide variety of resources available from Latvia today: books, magazines, newspapers, audio tapes, CDs, videos and anything else that teachers can utilise to make their lessons more interesting. A wealth of resources is available. It only takes a bit of organising to get them sent to your city. The literary classics should be taught to the children, bearing in mind their understanding of the language. If their understanding is limited it would be much more beneficial to create an interest in the written word by introducing other, more easily digestible literature, rather than forcing them to read works that will only create resentment within the children.

Second, teach the culture. This is an integral part of the process of learning to identify oneself as a Latvian. Give the children an understanding about the rich cultural traditions that they have inherited from their ancestors—folksongs, folkdances, festivals, traditions—and teach them to admire the uniqueness of this culture. This part of their education should be a particularly "fun" part. Most of the folklore can be taught in a hands-on way to really bring home the concepts and understand that the folklore was all tied in with the lifestyle and world view of their ancestors.

Third, teach the history. An important part of being Latvian is understanding what Latvians have gone through in the past, knowledge that can help one understand Latvia’s current trials and tribulations. The history should be taught, if possible, not through textbooks, but through literature, art, videos, personal documents and oral history.

Fourth, create opportunities for children to participate in activities where the whole school takes part. By feeling that they are part of a whole community, not just a single class or just their family, they hopefully will grow to enjoy the experiences they have had with "the Latvians," not just base their judgment on the classroom experience. Latvian summer camps play a major role in this process.

And, fifth, create opportunities for children to visit Latvia, if only for short periods of time. This will consolidate all they have learnt, and meeting with Latvians from Latvia (particularly children) would make the "Latvian experience" much more tangible and give a greater sense of purpose to the learning process.

Emphasis should be placed on learning everything in a fun way. Don’t forget that at their weekday schools children are taught subjects with a wide variety of audiovisual materials. Why not make use of every possible Latvian resource you can lay your hands on to make the learning process memorable and fun? Unfortunately, it’s not possible to use Latvian computer games as resources as they are hard to come by. However, teachers could alert their pupils to the fact that the Internet opens the door to hundreds of Latvian Web sites, some of which would be quite interesting to the children. Why not make use of the Internet as the basis for a research project? The kids would be surprised and delighted with what they can find!

I must stress that this is my personal opinion, based on my experiences within the Latvian community in Australia. I have attended Latvian Saturday school from age four to matriculation level. And I now have a five-year-old daughter who has just started attending Latvian school on a weekly basis on Saturday afternoons.

What is your view? Do you agree with this? Or do you have any other suggestions? What was your experience in the Latvian language schools of the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and even 1990s? Are you currently teaching in a Latvian school outside Latvia? Do you have any teaching tips or successful methods you would like to share with others? By pooling our ideas together and learning from each other we can find better solutions to age-old problems and make our trip on the merry-go-round a bit smoother.