LATVIAN OBSERVATIONS
Latvia.....I could seriously write a book alone on Latvia. I know some of my observations and stories seem far-fetched, but I swear that they only have slight exaggeration. These Latvian observations are ALL true. They are too out of control to be made up by even my creative ability. Also, over half the population of people in the cities of Latvia are Russian. All of the children we came in contact with where Russian except for two. That means 90% of my observations are of Russian children and parents, NOT Latvians. So, with that out of the way, Lat Vee good times roll!
1.) Ok, first observation is not funny or anything, it’s just a fact. My impressions of Latvia before I arrived were of some cold, dingy, ugly former Soviet Republic full of manly looking women dressed in clothes 20 years behind the times. Riga, the capital of Latvia is gorgeous! It has charm, character and a great place to visit during the summer. Truly surprised me it did. I had the best time going out in Riga during my free time. And there is nothing poor about Latvia, it’s currency is stronger than the English Pound. For all you non-traveling people out there, the English pound is worth about $1.82. So the Latvian Lit is almost $2.00. Saw so many nice cars in that city it wasn’t even funny. Was not what I expected at all. Not cold, not dingy, and I have to admit Russian women are incredibly beautiful, but they did dress in clothes that were 20 years behind the time however. So I was right about one thing.
2.) Speaking of Russian women. Yes, they are beautiful, but lord if they don’t dress like pure hoochies!! The streets of Riga are mostly these old, cobblestone streets that are difficult to walk on in sneakers. Women in Riga not only wear 5” heels on the regular, but they wear the ones with those really pointed toes. You know the ones, that look like elf shoes with how pointed they are? Like they can kill spiders hiding in the corners? Those shoes. Have to admit though; they do pretty well in walking in them. But wearing them ALL the time with EVERYTHING? I’m no gay man, but I know a tad bit about fashion. Wearing cut-off jean shorts and a raggedy t-shirt is not the time to wear stiletto pumps. If it wasn’t skin tight, see through, mesh, short or ripped Russian women weren’t wearing it. We met the parents of the children for an info session a few days before the camp started. All the mothers down to the last made me want to break out into, “ U ain’t nothin’ but a hoochie mamma! Hump back hump back hoochie mamma!¨ I love my mother to death and I think she is a beautiful woman. HOWEVER, let my momma show up at a meeting with my teachers wearing a mesh, fluorescent green, shirt with a white SEE-THROUGH lace bra underneath and sheer white pants showing off her black lace thong and we are fightin’. Ain’t know way I’m letting her out the house lookin’ like that! But someone let the mother who wore that out the house. Scary thing is though, she fit right in with the others. Speaking of clothes….The women in general always wore these T-shirts with sexual innuendoes on them. Saw a woman wearing a shirt that said, “If you got the balls, I got the game.” Another said, “Jamaican man’s fantasy”. Jamaican man’s fantasy?? How could a Russian woman living in Latvia be a Jamaican man’s fantasy? How many Jamaican men you know could tell you where Latvia is? How many of you had even HEARD of Latvia until I got sent there? So how could she be a Jamaican man’s fantasy? I’m stilling thinking of that one. And when did Jamaican men start fantasizing about tall, skinny, flat assed, white women? Did I miss that on all my travels?
3.) Yes, Russian women are very attractive, but the men? Oh my lord they were ugly. I kept thinking Mitochondria DNA to myself every time I passed a group of Russian men. If you don’t know what it is, Mitochondria is DNA that is ONLY passed from Mother to Daughter. So the good looks of the mother were passed to the daughters but the sons were S.O.L. One thing Russian men did that warmed me to my heart and reminded me of St. Petersburg, Florida was….they wore socks with sandals. Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!! In the morning, socks with sandals, in the afternoon in the grocery store, socks with sandals, in the bars, socks with sandals. Now if they would just get gold fronts and wear clothes 5 times to big it will be JUST like Stank Pete.
4.) Back to the parents…All the parents who sent their kids to the camp had loot. I mean serious money. Those kids had traveled all over the world when you asked them where they had gone. You name the country they had been. A lot of them had even gone to these countries on their own or with their friends on Tour groups. But the way those parents were acting you’d think the company had hired a bunch of ex-catholic priests to take the kids to Iraq. They were so worried about sending their kids 2 hours away in LATVIA. I know Americans have a reputation for being ignorant, loud, fat and all of that, but I had no idea we were known for eating kids. That’s what the parents were acting like.
5.) Now, the parents were worried about their kids…Hell, they should have been worried about us. Russian girls are great I have to admit. A few thought they were princesses, but what do you expect when your dad owns a fleet of oil tankers? The Russian girls were always quick to play sports and run around, can’t say that about the French females. The Russian boys….Lord have mercy! The most violent kids I have EVER worked with in my life. I grew up in South St. Pete, it’s no Compton or Spanish Harlem by any means, but I went to Campbell’s Park and Jordan Park, I worked in Lower Roxbury in Boston and East Palo Alto. Those kids were dreams compared to these Russian boys. It was like they didn’t have the part of the brain that has impulse control. Didn’t matter if an adult was around, or not. Someone said something to one, the other punched him straight in the mouth. No wrestling on the ground at all with these kids. In the classes, at meals, during activities, fighting, fighting, fighting. You would separate the kids, explain to them why you yelled at them (most of the kids spoke very good English) then before you even turned away they would be going at it again. The other teachers would try and use punishment like, no free time, or no candy to get the kids to behave. Me? I have Negro tendencies and always will. Kid got on my nerves or wouldn’t listen? “You betta stop before I kick you in the throat.” They understood that and left me the hell alone. Not only were the boys violent, but they could NOT pee in a straight line. We would go into the toilets after them, and there would be piss not just on the seat…but BEHIND the toilet, on the sides of the toilet, on the WALLS, everywhere! I am not joking. We got to the point where we had to escort the boys to the toilets and wait outside them until they came out to make sure they didn’t piss everywhere. I decided the boys would go into the bathroom, pull down their pants all the way to their ankles, raise up their arms over their heads and just go WEEEEEEEEEE WEEEEEEE WEEEEE swinging from side to side. How else could pee get BEHIND the toilet?
6.) Because none of the teachers spoke Russian, we had an interpreter of course to communicate with those kids that didn’t speak English well. Well, we needed an interpreter for the interpreter. She was a 46 year old teacher who’s father was a Captain in the Soviet Navy and always spoke about how she longed for the Soviet Union to return. The first session kids we had spoke English almost as well as the teachers. One girl was born in New Jersey and had a U.S. Passport. For some reason, Russian women speak at least an octave lower than the average woman. And Petra, the interpreter, had an accent like Russians do in movies from the states. She sounded EXACTLY like that. She would say the most random things, or say things in a way that all of us would look at each other and say….”What the hell!?” Before the kids arrived at the site, we were having our last meal with just the teachers before the session started. There are all these different types of teas on the table. One of the teachers doesn’t like flavoured teas. So Petra says to him, and I am quoting, get the thick, Russian accent in your heads ready, ”Maybe you should try black, it goes deeper and is good for you.” Boy let me tell you…Everybody just fell out laughing. I am getting that on a T-shirt as soon as I can. Then, in the middle of the day she would come back and tell me that she had just been swimming in the lake, “With no cloth-dez.” I would be thinking….Now why in the hell would she tell me that? Why would I want to know she had just been swimming butt naked in the middle of the day. And the lake we had? It was only right down the path to the entrance to the site of the camp. What if I had gone jogging, or taken the kids out for an activity? Not like there where trees surrounding the lake blocking the view. Anyone and everyone could have seen. One night…I was going to my room and she passed me and said “Supafly (my camp name if you don’t know) Maybe you would like something tasty this evening?” I was like HUH!? The way she was looking at me when she said that scared me. Then she tried to play it off by saying, Vodka or Whiskey. Yeah bitch, I knew what you meant you freak! She was always saying little things like that to me. One time…The director was telling her that since it was hot we were going to take the kids swimming instead of the planned activity. She said, and again another quote…”No.” “Why not Petra?” “Cause we have no potatoes.” What does not having any potatoes do with taking the kids swimming? Will someone PLEASE tell me? We are all still trying to figure that one out. I could write observations just on Petra. That woman was a TRIP.
7.) Home remedies. Actually, this should be Petra’s home remedies. When you have a communal setting like a camp, one person gets sick, everyone eventually gets sick. So colds get passed from one person to another. Maaaan, when Petra heard you coughing you were in trouble. She would take the kids up to her room, and you would year this weird sound coming from her room. We could never figure out what the hell it was. It was like some high pitched wining sound. Finally, I got sick from the kids and we found out what the high pitched whining sound was. It was this….some sort of….this device I guess. It had miniature paddles like a heart defibulator that you put to your throat. Then you turn it on and all these really high pitched sounds would come out of the paddles. She said it was to increase the blood flow to your throat. All it made me was deaf. After using that, she would put this greasy stuff that smelled like straight budissy on a kid’s throat, wrap it up in this HUGE scarf and make them sleep in it. I got out of having one of those things. But she started giving me these teas to drink. I finally asked her what was in it….”Grass.” Grass? “Yes, grass from the forest I picked.” Stopped drinking those teas. I got all congested one day and couldn’t breathe through my nose at all. Petra came up to the boys side where I was with this cup. She says, “Supafly, I am alive, the children are alive, maybe you will be alive after taking this.” It’s a lot of things you say to someone to get them to try your home remedy, THAT ain’t one of them. MAYBE I will be alive?? What are you trying to give me? She finally explained it was only carrots, onions and some kind of oil. I figured it would be like taking a spoonful of soup so I said ok. She pulled out an eye dropper type thing and sucked up some of the….concoction in that. I thought why not just use a spoon….. Anyway, she comes toward me and I open my mouth and she says, no through your nose. THROUGH MY NOSE!!!! Oh hell no! I am not letting you squirt soup up my nose! I thought the bitch had gone crazy. She would not leave me alone with that stuff. Finally I relented, I was miserable at that point cause of how congested I was. I hadn’t slept for 2 days and was a walking zombie. So my defenses were low and I couldn’t say no forever. Anyway, held my head back and she squirted that mess up my nose. I thought I was going to die! It burned like someone stuck a lit match up my nose. I started gagging and coughing. She told me to come near her so she could see if I was alright…Came by her and she jammed the bottle up my nose again and squirted the other nostril! You bitch! The other teachers were laughing their asses off at me while I’m rollin’ around on the ground drowning on soup. Didn’t sleep at all the entire night cause I kept on smelling onion on my breath. After that, if my ass had to hiccup I made sure Petra wasn’t around to hear me. She asked me how I was doing I told her fantastic even if I felt like warm dudu. I was not going to try any more of her home remedies.
Latvia.....I could seriously write a book alone on Latvia. I know some of my observations and stories seem far-fetched, but I swear that they only have slight exaggeration. These Latvian observations are ALL true. They are too out of control to be made up by even my creative ability. Also, over half the population of people in the cities of Latvia are Russian. All of the children we came in contact with where Russian except for two. That means 90% of my observations are of Russian children and parents, NOT Latvians. So, with that out of the way, Lat Vee good times roll!
1.) Ok, first observation is not funny or anything, it’s just a fact. My impressions of Latvia before I arrived were of some cold, dingy, ugly former Soviet Republic full of manly looking women dressed in clothes 20 years behind the times. Riga, the capital of Latvia is gorgeous! It has charm, character and a great place to visit during the summer. Truly surprised me it did. I had the best time going out in Riga during my free time. And there is nothing poor about Latvia, it’s currency is stronger than the English Pound. For all you non-traveling people out there, the English pound is worth about $1.82. So the Latvian Lit is almost $2.00. Saw so many nice cars in that city it wasn’t even funny. Was not what I expected at all. Not cold, not dingy, and I have to admit Russian women are incredibly beautiful, but they did dress in clothes that were 20 years behind the time however. So I was right about one thing.
2.) Speaking of Russian women. Yes, they are beautiful, but lord if they don’t dress like pure hoochies!! The streets of Riga are mostly these old, cobblestone streets that are difficult to walk on in sneakers. Women in Riga not only wear 5” heels on the regular, but they wear the ones with those really pointed toes. You know the ones, that look like elf shoes with how pointed they are? Like they can kill spiders hiding in the corners? Those shoes. Have to admit though; they do pretty well in walking in them. But wearing them ALL the time with EVERYTHING? I’m no gay man, but I know a tad bit about fashion. Wearing cut-off jean shorts and a raggedy t-shirt is not the time to wear stiletto pumps. If it wasn’t skin tight, see through, mesh, short or ripped Russian women weren’t wearing it. We met the parents of the children for an info session a few days before the camp started. All the mothers down to the last made me want to break out into, “ U ain’t nothin’ but a hoochie mamma! Hump back hump back hoochie mamma!¨ I love my mother to death and I think she is a beautiful woman. HOWEVER, let my momma show up at a meeting with my teachers wearing a mesh, fluorescent green, shirt with a white SEE-THROUGH lace bra underneath and sheer white pants showing off her black lace thong and we are fightin’. Ain’t know way I’m letting her out the house lookin’ like that! But someone let the mother who wore that out the house. Scary thing is though, she fit right in with the others. Speaking of clothes….The women in general always wore these T-shirts with sexual innuendoes on them. Saw a woman wearing a shirt that said, “If you got the balls, I got the game.” Another said, “Jamaican man’s fantasy”. Jamaican man’s fantasy?? How could a Russian woman living in Latvia be a Jamaican man’s fantasy? How many Jamaican men you know could tell you where Latvia is? How many of you had even HEARD of Latvia until I got sent there? So how could she be a Jamaican man’s fantasy? I’m stilling thinking of that one. And when did Jamaican men start fantasizing about tall, skinny, flat assed, white women? Did I miss that on all my travels?
3.) Yes, Russian women are very attractive, but the men? Oh my lord they were ugly. I kept thinking Mitochondria DNA to myself every time I passed a group of Russian men. If you don’t know what it is, Mitochondria is DNA that is ONLY passed from Mother to Daughter. So the good looks of the mother were passed to the daughters but the sons were S.O.L. One thing Russian men did that warmed me to my heart and reminded me of St. Petersburg, Florida was….they wore socks with sandals. Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!! In the morning, socks with sandals, in the afternoon in the grocery store, socks with sandals, in the bars, socks with sandals. Now if they would just get gold fronts and wear clothes 5 times to big it will be JUST like Stank Pete.
4.) Back to the parents…All the parents who sent their kids to the camp had loot. I mean serious money. Those kids had traveled all over the world when you asked them where they had gone. You name the country they had been. A lot of them had even gone to these countries on their own or with their friends on Tour groups. But the way those parents were acting you’d think the company had hired a bunch of ex-catholic priests to take the kids to Iraq. They were so worried about sending their kids 2 hours away in LATVIA. I know Americans have a reputation for being ignorant, loud, fat and all of that, but I had no idea we were known for eating kids. That’s what the parents were acting like.
5.) Now, the parents were worried about their kids…Hell, they should have been worried about us. Russian girls are great I have to admit. A few thought they were princesses, but what do you expect when your dad owns a fleet of oil tankers? The Russian girls were always quick to play sports and run around, can’t say that about the French females. The Russian boys….Lord have mercy! The most violent kids I have EVER worked with in my life. I grew up in South St. Pete, it’s no Compton or Spanish Harlem by any means, but I went to Campbell’s Park and Jordan Park, I worked in Lower Roxbury in Boston and East Palo Alto. Those kids were dreams compared to these Russian boys. It was like they didn’t have the part of the brain that has impulse control. Didn’t matter if an adult was around, or not. Someone said something to one, the other punched him straight in the mouth. No wrestling on the ground at all with these kids. In the classes, at meals, during activities, fighting, fighting, fighting. You would separate the kids, explain to them why you yelled at them (most of the kids spoke very good English) then before you even turned away they would be going at it again. The other teachers would try and use punishment like, no free time, or no candy to get the kids to behave. Me? I have Negro tendencies and always will. Kid got on my nerves or wouldn’t listen? “You betta stop before I kick you in the throat.” They understood that and left me the hell alone. Not only were the boys violent, but they could NOT pee in a straight line. We would go into the toilets after them, and there would be piss not just on the seat…but BEHIND the toilet, on the sides of the toilet, on the WALLS, everywhere! I am not joking. We got to the point where we had to escort the boys to the toilets and wait outside them until they came out to make sure they didn’t piss everywhere. I decided the boys would go into the bathroom, pull down their pants all the way to their ankles, raise up their arms over their heads and just go WEEEEEEEEEE WEEEEEEE WEEEEE swinging from side to side. How else could pee get BEHIND the toilet?
6.) Because none of the teachers spoke Russian, we had an interpreter of course to communicate with those kids that didn’t speak English well. Well, we needed an interpreter for the interpreter. She was a 46 year old teacher who’s father was a Captain in the Soviet Navy and always spoke about how she longed for the Soviet Union to return. The first session kids we had spoke English almost as well as the teachers. One girl was born in New Jersey and had a U.S. Passport. For some reason, Russian women speak at least an octave lower than the average woman. And Petra, the interpreter, had an accent like Russians do in movies from the states. She sounded EXACTLY like that. She would say the most random things, or say things in a way that all of us would look at each other and say….”What the hell!?” Before the kids arrived at the site, we were having our last meal with just the teachers before the session started. There are all these different types of teas on the table. One of the teachers doesn’t like flavoured teas. So Petra says to him, and I am quoting, get the thick, Russian accent in your heads ready, ”Maybe you should try black, it goes deeper and is good for you.” Boy let me tell you…Everybody just fell out laughing. I am getting that on a T-shirt as soon as I can. Then, in the middle of the day she would come back and tell me that she had just been swimming in the lake, “With no cloth-dez.” I would be thinking….Now why in the hell would she tell me that? Why would I want to know she had just been swimming butt naked in the middle of the day. And the lake we had? It was only right down the path to the entrance to the site of the camp. What if I had gone jogging, or taken the kids out for an activity? Not like there where trees surrounding the lake blocking the view. Anyone and everyone could have seen. One night…I was going to my room and she passed me and said “Supafly (my camp name if you don’t know) Maybe you would like something tasty this evening?” I was like HUH!? The way she was looking at me when she said that scared me. Then she tried to play it off by saying, Vodka or Whiskey. Yeah bitch, I knew what you meant you freak! She was always saying little things like that to me. One time…The director was telling her that since it was hot we were going to take the kids swimming instead of the planned activity. She said, and again another quote…”No.” “Why not Petra?” “Cause we have no potatoes.” What does not having any potatoes do with taking the kids swimming? Will someone PLEASE tell me? We are all still trying to figure that one out. I could write observations just on Petra. That woman was a TRIP.
7.) Home remedies. Actually, this should be Petra’s home remedies. When you have a communal setting like a camp, one person gets sick, everyone eventually gets sick. So colds get passed from one person to another. Maaaan, when Petra heard you coughing you were in trouble. She would take the kids up to her room, and you would year this weird sound coming from her room. We could never figure out what the hell it was. It was like some high pitched wining sound. Finally, I got sick from the kids and we found out what the high pitched whining sound was. It was this….some sort of….this device I guess. It had miniature paddles like a heart defibulator that you put to your throat. Then you turn it on and all these really high pitched sounds would come out of the paddles. She said it was to increase the blood flow to your throat. All it made me was deaf. After using that, she would put this greasy stuff that smelled like straight budissy on a kid’s throat, wrap it up in this HUGE scarf and make them sleep in it. I got out of having one of those things. But she started giving me these teas to drink. I finally asked her what was in it….”Grass.” Grass? “Yes, grass from the forest I picked.” Stopped drinking those teas. I got all congested one day and couldn’t breathe through my nose at all. Petra came up to the boys side where I was with this cup. She says, “Supafly, I am alive, the children are alive, maybe you will be alive after taking this.” It’s a lot of things you say to someone to get them to try your home remedy, THAT ain’t one of them. MAYBE I will be alive?? What are you trying to give me? She finally explained it was only carrots, onions and some kind of oil. I figured it would be like taking a spoonful of soup so I said ok. She pulled out an eye dropper type thing and sucked up some of the….concoction in that. I thought why not just use a spoon….. Anyway, she comes toward me and I open my mouth and she says, no through your nose. THROUGH MY NOSE!!!! Oh hell no! I am not letting you squirt soup up my nose! I thought the bitch had gone crazy. She would not leave me alone with that stuff. Finally I relented, I was miserable at that point cause of how congested I was. I hadn’t slept for 2 days and was a walking zombie. So my defenses were low and I couldn’t say no forever. Anyway, held my head back and she squirted that mess up my nose. I thought I was going to die! It burned like someone stuck a lit match up my nose. I started gagging and coughing. She told me to come near her so she could see if I was alright…Came by her and she jammed the bottle up my nose again and squirted the other nostril! You bitch! The other teachers were laughing their asses off at me while I’m rollin’ around on the ground drowning on soup. Didn’t sleep at all the entire night cause I kept on smelling onion on my breath. After that, if my ass had to hiccup I made sure Petra wasn’t around to hear me. She asked me how I was doing I told her fantastic even if I felt like warm dudu. I was not going to try any more of her home remedies.
Oh My Goodness ! lol I ain't reading your blogs in public anymore! I swear the people in the airport are going to put me in a straitjacket form the combination of laughing and crying I'm doing!
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