We Say Farewell to Estonia

It's time to leave, after five months. When Barbara arrived in mid-January (and I a few weeks later), the snows were falling, the ice on sidewalks deep, the days very short, the maze of streets confusing, the language impossible. Now, near mid-summer, twilight stretches far into the evening, and the pastel walls of the Old Town have a warm glow. We know the short-cuts as we walk, feel affection (and some familiarity) with a language we still can't speak.

And we've come to know a number of welcoming people, who've been more open and friendly than we at first had expected they might be. Reticent with strangers, avoiding eye contact on the street, local people have proven to be warm once they have some sense of who you are. (Once, on the tram, a little girl who was sitting far ahead of where I was standing turned and looked directly at me, and gave me a huge smile--a most unusual thing--and I imagined her saying words only I could hear: "don't worry if the grown-ups don't say hi...a lot of them are still afraid to come out and play." Fortunately, many we've gotten to know have in fact reached out to us, generously, often even playfully. And that's been the best thing of all--even more than the long, warmer days.

But this has also meant that this has been a time not only of packing up, eating at our favorite cafes one more time, and wandering through the curving streets of the old medieval area again, but also bidding farewell to people whom we do not know when we may see again. This has been sad but also gratifying, such as when one of Barbara's classes organized a farewell picnic for her (I was included too) next to the old city walls. Each brought a treat to share, and a poem or story or drawing, and we sat for several hours on the lawn, played some traditional children's circle games, and had a long group hug (whatever happened to those shy, reserved, Estonians we were told (warned?) about)?! And it was also a treat for me, to hear them talk about some of the things they value about Barbara and what they learned from her.

Earlier this week Barbara's department had an end of the year picnic as well, partly to bid farewell to the three Fulbright Scholars teaching in the Department of Applied Creativity (as I've noted before, this is the actual name). A little bus took us out to a lovely park on Estonia's northwest coast, with the Baltic Sea on one side of us and forests filled with small lakes and bogs on the other, through which one of Barbara's colleagues (in the photo below) led us on a hike.

This, too, was a moment for last conversations and farewells.

If someone were to ask me what our time has been about, I think one key part has been the opportunity Barbara has had to teach about the things she most cares about, and to find affirmation for that from her students and colleagues. Another has been the chance for both of us to experience "The Post-Soviet Baltics, Part II"--we had spent time in 1997 in Lithuania, a few years after independence, and now have been in Estonia half a generation later; we've had the chance to see how much has changed, yet how complex the legacy of several generations of Soviet occupation has been (while walking home from Old Town after the department picnic, we found that an old train boxcar had been set up in Freedom Square, commemorating the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the political deportations to Siberia, from which tens of thousands of Estonians never returned). And a third is the ways in which some Estonians are working on issues of social justice and human rights, even in a time of economic challenges and continuing debates over what Estonia will become in this next generation--people working for equality between women and men, and inclusion and respect for sexual and ethnic minorities.

I don't know how to capture our experience in a final paragraph from Estonia. It's been challenging, enjoyable, confusing, interesting, enlightening, expanding, educational, affirming, frustrating, sometimes lonely, sometimes full of whimsey--and often a beautiful place.

And sometimes, just sometimes, we've found ourselves like the children at a clown and pantomime show--who turn to look at each other, smiles wide, as if to ask, amazed: "wow! did you see that? did you see it?"

So we bid farewell to Estonia. But our blog, for those of you who are still traveling with us, won't end here. We'll be in western Europe for several more weeks, and hope to write something of what we find in Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere.

But for now, we bid you "Paikest" (sunshine)

Bruce