Name Days

Name days are the biggest jip. I guess for some people they are a good deal. In Latvījan Name Days are like a second birthday where you get presents or flowers or something. My Name Day is on Christmas Day so I get nothing. I have to give out many presents all year round for everyone else, but oh no not on my name day. They are kind when they say it was part of your Christmas present, but that is just real life for I did not get you anything because your parents did not think about it when they named you.

No, I am not bitter. The first name day I ran into was Diana. This was on my first long trip to Latvīja. As a matter of fact it was on the last day and I found out about it in the car on the way to the airport, so it kind of surprised me. Rīga in February should not be referred to as a warm place, quite the contrary freaking cold comes to mind. Waiting outside of a panelak for my ride to the airport in 5F (-13C) weather is not my most favorite activity, but besides being late the girls had never let me down. I had my bags on the bench and I was kind of ready to get back to Prague after a week in Rīga. Life here is not bad, but it is certainly not a place to kill time waiting for other people without much vacation.

The black 626 came around the corner and Ginta hopped out and raised the trunk for me to put my stuff inside. She told me that it was Diana’s “Namen Tag.” I always spoke with Ginta in German, because my Russian was not good enough and she spoke no English. In the back of my head I think of the translation of what she said. My Latvījan family has three languages and a munchkin. Imagine my surprise when Diana always asks me if I am Latvījan. I guess to a four year old there are only two kinds of people. Little did she know that it took her mom and Natasha 30 years to meet an American and it would be common place to Diana, soon enough. By the time I got in the car behind Natasha, which was my traditional seat. I figured out what Ginta was talking about.

Natasha looks back at me and in her way of speaking to me “Aa-daam, Aa-daam, wake up!” I do not think she thought I was asleep, I think she heard this in a movie and it just stuck. On our way to RIX the girls told me it was Diana’s Name Day. In Latvīja  it was like a second birthday, but smaller. I remembered that Diana had wanted a bicycle for her birthday, “fat chance.” I tried to speak directly to Diana, “Eto pravda?”, “Is it true?” Diana is a cute four year old, and she curled up in the corner of the backseat and shook her head yes.

I asked Natasha if she had been a good girl today, and Natasha replied, “I don’t know, so, so. Maybe.” I take that as Diana had been a pain in the butt, and that Natasha was more than a little bit upset with her. Natasha takes a lot of translation some times. I told her that I understood Name Days but if she had been misbehaving that I did not want to give her a present. I looked at Natasha and said “Natasha is on the 26^th of August, or very close to my birthday.”

She smiled as she did when I touched her heart, and said “Yes, yes very close to your birthday.” I looked at Diana and said since she had been a “so-so” girl that I had something for her. I gave her two coins from the Czech Republic a 20kč and a 10kč coin. It was not much, but it was something for her to keep until she was old. I hope she realizes that the world for her will change so much and that by the time she is my age that she will not be able to find those coins anywhere but a museum. Probably will not be able to find the country that I lived in anywhere but a museum after the white wash of the European Union takes hold.