This past weekend (Aug. 1-3, 2014) I attended 4-2 Weekend at the Latvian center Gaŗezers in Three Rivers, Michigan. This volleyball-centered celebration is one of the largest and most popular annual Latvian events in North America. But explaining it to those who have not attended is often difficult. “It’s a volleyball tournament, but it’s, like, a really big-deal crazy tournament with a huge party and tons of spectators” just doesn’t seem to capture the weekend’s nuance and vibrancy. Below is a checklist of activities you are likely to experience if you make your way to Gaŗezers in early August:

1. Meet at least a dozen Latvians before even reaching Gaŗezers

With Latvians across the continent streaming to the same location at the same time using the same main routes, it’s only natural that you will spot several SVEIKS stickers along the Ohio Turnpike, or find yourself in line for the rest-area bathroom behind old camp friends. But if a chance meeting hasn’t yet happened by the time you roll into Three Rivers, don’t fret. When you make the mandatory stop at local superstore Meijer for supplies, half the people in the beer aisle or checkout line will be speaking Latvian.

2. Attend Strādnieku Balle

The employees of Gaŗezers usually get together every Thursday night to let off steam and wear hilarious costumes based on weekly themes. On 4-2 Weekend, the party is moved to Friday to accommodate the surge of early-arriving volleyball enthusiasts. This year’s theme, “Bringing it Back,” was vague enough to accommodate any absurd outfit, while allowing less adventurous attendees to make up a reason why their normal attire still followed the rules. Among the jeans and sundress-wearing normals were various Mario Kart characters, a suspiciously muscular Marilyn Monroe, and the Mad Hatter. Even the bare-bones, dome-shaped venue itself, Jautrais Ods (“The Merry Mosquito,” also affectionately nicknamed Club O.D.S.), had been transformed to resemble a giant TARDIS. The most exuberant of the weekend’s parties, Strādnieku Balle is an effective introduction to the strange world of 4-2.

3. Camp in a lakefront tent shantytown

While many Latvians are lucky enough to own lake houses, trailers, or other property in the area, many of us find ourselves slumming it in a tent. Dzintari, the recreational area of Gaŗezers, features a beautiful stretch of shady sand along Long Lake to accommodate every camping need. On 4-2 Weekend, the space is packed stake-to-stake with colorful domes; natural alleyways form between them and wind into an elaborate maze. One friend asked me, “How do any of you find your way back into your own tent late at night?” The answer is: I have no idea.

4. Hand your empties to a roaming band of children

Scurrying through these shantytown passageways and up the dusty lanes, moving from picnic table to picnic table, are small, elusive creatures carrying bulky objects twice their size. The creatures are children of families attending 4-2, and the bulky objects are trash bags filled with empty bottles and cans, which they return to recycling centers for serious cash. This sight can be a little jarring to the first-time visitor, but returnees don’t even blink an eye, knowing full well that these kids are having fun and just trying to earn some extra pocket money. After all, they’re doing their part to help the environment and to keep Gaŗezers clean, and the containers are empty.

5. Enjoy the luxuries of trailer life

Tent Shantytown is great and all, but lakefront life in Gaŗezers mainly revolves around the dozens of trailers, big and small, scattered throughout its hills and shorelines. One of the longest-running jokes about Dzintari is that it is literally a trailer park, but a “vacation” trailer park. Each trailer is owned by a Latvian family and has its own charms, from the two-story-high wood-paneled cabin on the edge of “town” to the simple one-bedroom, half-bath in the center of everything, to the posh, newly renovated condo on the hill.

6. Play golf

I admit I did not participate in this one, nor do I have any clue where people play, why, or who organizes it. But roughly a fifth of all 4-2 attendees disappear somewhere on Saturday morning, claiming that they are going golfing.

7. Wade out to Burka World

If there’s anything more relaxing than sitting by the lake with good friends, it’s sitting IN the lake with good friends. On a beach at the edge of Tent Shantytown stands an extra-long picnic table engraved with Latvian symbols and surrounded by various pool noodles and flotation devices. At the beginning of the day, the first visitors to Burka World (“burka” being the Latvian word for “jar” or “container” and referencing a shared cocktail, not to be confused with “burqa”) move the table about 20 feet into the lake, sit down, and stay there, sometimes for several hours at a time, while overflow visitors float around in pool toys. Merriment ensues.

8. Support youth volleyball

Up the hill and across the street from Dzintari is Gaŗezera Vasaras Vidusskola (GVV), a residential summer school for Latvian teenagers. In addition to its primary duty of passing on knowledge and culture to the next generation of Latvians, it is also the unofficial training ground of future volleyball superstars, with three different levels of instruction available in the afternoons. The culmination of this effort is the youth tournament held on the Saturday of 4-2 Weekend. While it doesn’t draw the crowds that Sunday’s adult tourney does, the youth tournament is no joke, and supporters sit all day cheering on their favorite players. Particularly impressive this year was the Sagskola boys’ team, a collection of younger teens who were half the height of their post-pubescent opponents but had better fundamentals and basic skills than most adult players. Someday, these kids will kick all our butts.

9. Attend a GVV class reunion

GVV classes reunite on 4-2 Weekend every five years after graduation. For people like me, who attended GVV but do not get to return often, meeting up with old classmates serves as a decent impetus to make the trip. This year the 5- and 10-year reunions (class of ’09 and ’04, respectively) were both well attended, with the younger class challenging the older to drinking games at a family’s lake house. It was by all accounts a vibrant and rowdy affair, with dozens of alumni having a grand old time catching up. Across the lake on the patio of another lake house, we old-timers of the 15-year reunion sat peacefully sipping cognac and discussing babies and real-estate investments, and the 20-year reunion folks enjoyed wine and memories at a trailer in Dzintari.

10. Eat at Applebee’s and/or Happy Landing. Twice.

Perhaps you need a meal that does not consist entirely of chips and beer. Or perhaps you need to carbo-load before your big game. A trip into town for Applebee’s is the answer. Your alternate meal destination is Happy Landing, a local establishment on the other side of the lake that serves breakfast and lunch and is accustomed to being overrun with bleary-eyed Latvians in need of stomach-coating.

11. Take a boat ride

Pontoon racing, kayaking, booze cruising, waterskiing–take your pick. But at some point, you are required to get out on the water.

12. Accumulate countless wristbands, stickers, and pins

Prepare to wear some flair. First, you need a green wristband to enter Gaŗezers territory during 4-2 Weekend. Your car needs a parking sticker. Your tent needs a tag. You need more wristbands if you want to attend any of the evening parties. And you need a pin to get food on the final night. You also need to pay an entrance fee to play in the tournament, though thankfully no additional accessories are (currently) needed for that one.

13. Attend Sirds Līksmo

Located in Dziesmu Leja, an outdoor amphitheater about five minutes’ walk from the rest of Gaŗezers, Sirds Līksmo is an annual concert put on by the American Latvian Youth Association (ALJA) on the Saturday night of every 4-2. This year’s show, featuring Toronto band Penzionāri and DJ Velkro, was a smash success, with a later-than-usual start time that allowed for a respectable crowd to gather before the opening song. Throw in a state-of-the-art sound system and light display and a sizable open-air dance floor, and you have a legit party. More serious volleyball players often take it easy on this evening, either leaving once the band stops playing at 1 am or not bothering to show up at all, but those more focused on dancing stick around for the DJ, who this year was scheduled to end at 3 am but continued playing for eager crowds until 5.

14. Stake out your space for volleyball spectating

As the last of the Sirds Līksmo night owls make their way back to Dzintari in the wee hours of the morning, they may encounter birds of a different feather: volleyball enthusiasts setting up their lawn chairs around the main court to claim a decent viewing spot. They get up extra early, set up their chairs, leave, and return several hours later once the action is under way. By 9 am, more than 100 empty chairs are lined up two-deep around the edge of the court, hinting toward the event to come.

15. Watch volejs

By the time Sunday rolls around, it’s time to get to the heart of the matter: volejs (the shortened/slang version of the Latvian word for “volleyball”). Though Saturday’s youth tournament draws its fair share of spectators, the real numbers turn out for Sunday’s adult co-ed tournament, named 4-2 because each team must consist of four men and two women. Spectators who have not put out their camping chairs early in the morning find spots wherever they can: on bleachers, logs, rocks, and trailer balconies. Past tournaments have featured unmissable heckling sections, but that negativity seemed to be absent this year. Instead, the most enthusiasm came from the bleachers, where GVV students cheered, “Kur ir Markus?” (“Where is Markus?”) whenever their classmate Markus Melbārdis sat on the bench for his top-level team; whenever he appeared on the court or touched the ball, they erupted into crazy applause.

16. Eat wings

A full day of spectating in the hot sun will leave one feeling peckish, and that’s where wings come in. For years the 4-2 concession stand was ruled by “Lielais Volejs” and “Mazais Volejs,” two delicious sausage dishes, but these have been joined in recent years by platters of yummy, addictive chicken wings. Volunteers work tirelessly all Saturday and Sunday, providing ravished customers with more meat than an Upton Sinclair novel.

17. Play volejs in Vecais Sporta Laukums

Oddly enough, the majority of the volleyball action on 4-2 Weekend doesn’t happen anywhere near the central party area in Dzintari. The twenty-three participating teams (consisting of somewhere between 150 and 200 total players) are divided into four brackets based on level, with each bracket playing on its own court, and only teams in the top level, or power bracket, play in Dzintari. The remaining three brackets trek up a dusty road to Vecais Sporta Laukums, a grassy field with no bleachers, stadium lights, or chicken wings. While plenty of people wander over to watch the games and support friends on various teams, the crowds still seem scarce compared to the big draw of the central Dzintari court. Play in Vecais Sporta Laukums varies greatly, with the C bracket (affectionately nicknamed the “beer bracket”) consisting of beginners and just-for-fun teams, the A bracket consisting largely of top GVV players and former power-bracket players, and the B bracket catching everyone in the middle. Yet every single one of these teams has the opportunity to win the entire tournament, since the top teams from each of these brackets advance to the quarterfinal to face off against the top four power-bracket teams.

18. Play volejs in Dzintari

This is where the people are. It’s where the food is. It’s where the bathrooms are. And, in recent years, it’s where the stadium lighting has been, which allows the finals to be played after nightfall. A sizable crowd watches this court all day Sunday, but the numbers grow even larger as the playoffs begin in the evening. At the end of pool play, the quarterfinals begin, giving two lucky lower-bracket teams the opportunity to play center stage. As the playoffs progress and more teams are eliminated, transforming their players into spectators, and as Burka World closes up shop and excitement builds, more and more attention is focused on this court, until it seems that every single person in Gaŗezers has squeezed in to watch the final match and marvel at the best that Latvian volleyball has to offer. To give an idea of the caliber of play on display at 4-2, this year’s first place team, Banķieri, consists of four players who have recently won NCAA championships (three as players and one as a coach). Eyeing a group of excited young children who had wormed their way into (potentially dangerous) front-row seats, a longtime power-bracket player awaiting his next game said to me, “How could any kid see all of this and NOT want to play volleyball?” I tend to agree with him.

19. Attend Cūku Bēres

Once the excitement of volleyball settles down and the players get cleaned up, yet another party begins. Cūku Bēres (which, like Sirds Līksmo, is organized by ALJA) is especially enticing because it features a large amount of food, and exhausted players need a lot of calories. Volunteers begin serving vittles during the tail end of the tournament, allowing the crowd to munch on delicious pig meat while watching the games. Once play is over and the food runs out, the party moves to Jautrais Ods to spark yet another evening of dancing and celebrating.

20. Reminisce with friends

In the end, 4-2 Weekend is really about meeting friends – new and old. Whether the highlight was the big game, eating an ungodly amount of Applebee’s mozzarella sticks, or staying up all night to greet the sunrise with a platter of Cūku Bēres leftovers, the memories formed this weekend will last a lifetime, or at least until next year’s 4-2.

With a high five and an exclamation of Šī ir vislabākā balle jebkad! (this is the best party ever!), two graduates of the Garezers Latvian Summer High School expressed their appreciation of the Saturday evening festivities which helped mark the school’s 50th academic summer.

The heart and soul of the Latvian Center Garezers is its six-week long summer school program (“Garezera vasaras vidusskola” or GVV). While the center itself will celebrate its 50th anniversary with four days of events next summer from July 2 through July 5, the high school celebrated its 50th summer this year from July 25 through July 27.

GVV opened its doors in 1965 within the newly purchased Latvian Center Garezers in the southwestern corner of Michigan. There was a certain amount of skepticism in the Latvian community whether teenagers would agree to spend their summers studying subjects such as Latvian language and history in rather primitive conditions in the woods. Such concern turned out to be unfounded, as the school proved to be popular and much loved by those who attended it.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the number of students at GVV grew to around 200, while today the number has steadily held around 100 for quite a few years. Approximately 1,500 individuals have graduated from the school, and the number who attended for one or several summers but did not graduate is at least twice that. Many teenagers who are students at GVV today have at least one parent who themselves attended the school.

The idea of a Latvian summer high school proved to be so popular that it inspired counterparts: Kursa in the state of Washington, now-defunct Beverīna in Pennsylvania, and later “Eiropas vasaras skola” in Western Europe and even later “Saulgriežu vasaras vidusskola” in Latvia.

This summer the celebratory weekend kicked off with a traditional Friday night bonfire, in which the children’s camp and middle school program students also participated. As is customary at these campfires, a number of humorous skits – prepared by both youth and staff – were performed. The skit which people were still discussing the following day featured current GVV principal Sandra Kronīte-Sīpola, and two former principals, Elisa Freimane and Ēriks Kore, both of whom are also GVV graduates. The action took place in a retirement community to which all three had retired after many exhausting years of working at GVV. Their nostalgic conversations made it clear that they were unable to leave their work at Garezers in the past.

Among the events on Saturday was the unveiling of the new patio of the school’s largest building, Kronvalda zāle. The patio had suffered unexpected environmental damage earlier this year, and was rebuilt thanks to donations made in memory of Ilmārs Dumpis, a long-time Garezers volunteer and neighbor.

Saturday also featured the opening of an art exhibit featuring a wide variety of artwork by GVV graduates and current and former teachers. Twenty-one professional and amateur artists were represented, and their works ranged from oil painting to sculpture, from pottery to photography.

The weekend’s highlight was the anniversary dinner, concert and party. Dziesmu leja, the outdoor amphitheatre, has been the location of many Midsummer’s Eve celebrations, Garezers song festivals, GVV graduation concerts, and basketball games, but it had never looked as formal as for this celebratory golden anniversary dinner. A sea of tables covered by white tablecloths seated 450 people, which included the current high school students and staff and many guests. Among the guests were many GVV graduates and former students, teachers and counselors who had traveled from around the United States and even Europe to be in attendance.

One of the reoccurring themes that GVV graduates speak about is life-long friendships, and this theme was particularly evident during dinner and throughout the weekend. A graduate from the class of 1987, Larisa Ozols explained that she met several of her closest friends at GVV, and that they are still friends today, over twenty-five years later. Larisa also pointed out: “GVV exposed me to Latvian art, literature, songs, furthering an appreciation for the vibrancy and uniqueness of Latvian culture.” Kaija Petrovskis graduated in 1977, and agreed that GVV had provided her with lasting relationships and a deep sense of pride in being Latvian. As is the case for a number of Latvian-American couples, Kaija first met the man who would later become her husband at Garezers. Their son will graduate from GVV this summer.

Māra Pelēcis, class of 1988, is a filmmaker, and has interviewed many individuals at Garezers this summer in preparation for a documentary which will be screened at the center’s 50th anniversary next year. She noted that in her interviews with GVV graduates and employees, the two themes that reoccurred most often were the rich cultural environment (“latviskā vide”) and the relationships. Māra is also grateful for the people she met while attending GVV – including her husband.

Three women seated at one table had attended GVV together in the 1960s. Another table was the location of a reunion between four graduates from the class of 1974. Yet another table was full of twenty-somethings who had graduated in 2002 and 2003. The class of 1979 was celebrating its 35th reunion, and to help support GVV, two graduates from that class, Katrīna Pipaste and Žubīte Streipa, had organized a unique and entertaining raffle which featured many Latvian and Garezers-themed items donated by various GVV grads.

After a delicious dinner prepared by chefs and GVV graduates Andris Antons and Dāvids Indriksons, students from GVV and the Garezers middle school program performed a moving and diverse concert featuring choral music, several instrumental pieces, as well as folk music. While it is clear that many of the students have a good deal of natural talent, kudos must be given to their teachers and accompanying musicians for helping prepare such a wide-ranging concert in four short weeks.

After the concert, tables and chairs were quickly cleared to make room for dancing. Earlier in the summer GVV graduates Mārtiņš Daiga and Mikus Kīns had asked other graduates to nominate songs they remembered from the GVV Saturday evening dances that have taken place weekly for many summers. From that list they created a lengthy survey, in which graduates voted for their fifty favorite songs. The resulting list – ranging from pieces by the Latvian groups Akacis and Prāta Vētra to those by the Rolling Stones, the B52s, Led Zeppelin, and R.E.M. – made for an extremely well-liked soundtrack which represented several decades of music. As at any Latvian party, there was much chatting and catching up to do, but often – particularly as the night wore on – the dance floor was full of enthusiastic dancers. At times there were close to 200 happy Latvians energetically dancing to the soundtrack of their youth. After the fifty songs were played, many people wanted to continue celebrating, and the DJ provided additional dance music by playing nominated songs which had not made the top fifty. Dancing continued into the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday’s church service was held in the beautiful outdoor church, and was led by Dean Lauma Zuševics and Bishop Gunārs Lazdiņš, both of whom have taught at GVV many years, and have officiated at numerous Sunday morning and Thursday evening candlelight services, and even christenings, confirmations and weddings at Garezers. Their familiarity with GVV and its students was evident in their fitting homily and words of prayer. The service was enriched by readings from three students, and by two musical performances by GVV ensembles.

When asked about the significance of GVV in his life, Roberts Inveiss who graduated from the school in 1978, said, “I don’t think you can really appreciate the impact that GVV had on you until much later in your life. Being Latvian is a critical part of my personal identity, and in hindsight I now know that GVV had a huge impact on deepening my love of that identity and that of my Latvian friends with whom I shared the GVV experience.” His eldest daughter graduated from GVV in 2012, and his youngest daughter will graduate this summer. In terms of what the school has meant to them, he explained, “GVV is the only constant in the lives of Latvian youth today; the one place they can count on to be there and to which they aspire to attend and view as the natural progression in their developing appreciation of their heritage. We absolutely need that if we hope to maintain the Latvian language and culture here in the US. I cannot imagine what our communities would look like if we did not have GVV to be the glue that binds our youth to their Latvian heritage. It’s indispensable.”

Another graduate, Laila Mednis of the class of 1975, whose daughter and son have also graduated from GVV, noted that the school has done a good job in recent years in introducing students to modern-day Latvian culture, thus creating a bridge between the United States and Latvia itself. She said that beyond creating friendships, the GVV experience had opened her children’s eyes to the possibility that they themselves could study or work in Latvia.

Quite a few GVV graduates now call Latvia home. Diāna Briedis, class of 1996, explained the school’s significance in her life: “I have now been living in Latvia for the last eight years, and GVV certainly helped to solidify my Latvian identity as the first place where I could “be Latvian” 24 hours a day.” As to what the program’s future is, Diāna says, “I see GVV’s purpose as continuing to help young Latvians connect with their heritage, discover and better understand this part of their identity and sow the seeds for participation as active citizens of Latvia whether that be here or from abroad.”

The weekend was a joyful and appropriate celebration of the Garezers high school and its significance in the Latvian community. It will be interesting to see what the coming years bring to this program which has been instrumental to the lives of so many North American Latvian youth.