Welcome to November, and welcome to Lena! Because yes, I finally have a new flatmate! But first, let me fill you in on the last few weeks.

So, the week after Riga was an interesting week, for it was the week before autumn break. Instead of the normal school lessons, the school kids had project week instead. Aija asked me to fill in for her, since she had to go to Athens, so I was in charge of 5th and 6th grade. Or rather, they were in charge of me. One thing I know for sure, teenagers are not really my type of people. After only 30 minutes in on Monday morning, I wanted to go home and cry. Que in the song by My Chemical Romance and you will know enough. Jokes aside, they are really nice, but since I wasn’t their ‘real teacher’, they decided to not listen to anyone..

Dace is the 1st and 2nd grade teacher, and luckily for me, her classroom is next to 5 and 6. Although they didn’t really listen to her either, it was nice to not be alone.

The theme of the week was Halloween, and for the project they needed to do their research about the differences and similarities between Halloween and the Latvian version Veļi, which was a folklore thing way back. When they finally started on their research, it was already almost time to go home.

The next day, all the school kids were in the forest, to get in the spooky mood by telling ghost stories whilst surrounded by spiky trees, make their own herbal tea over the bonfire and creating their own candles. Well, we created their candles.

The following days were used to make a movie. It was something they wanted to do for a little while, so this was the perfect moment for it. To explain what they had just learned, the kids used clay to make their very own stop motion picture animation, which turned out pretty good, considering all the arguments and discussions it took. But when they looked back on it, the realisation of how they could have done it better was definitely on point. Now they could enjoy there holidays.

So then, after this exhausting week, I was sitting on the sofa on Friday evening, waiting for Lena to arrive. She will stay here for the next 10 months, spending as much as we possibly can at school. When she finally arrived a little after midnight, we basically went straight to bed, for both of us had a big need of some sleep.

During the weekend, I showed her around town, together with Axels, one of Rasa’s friends, who loves to meet new people. And since it is his hometown, we had the perfect guide. Rasa herself came over in the evening, to watch a movie with us and interrogate Lena about herself. What she found out was, Lena just turned 19, comes from Germany, is having her second gap year and is really looking forward to start working at school. Lena and I get along very well, and together with Rasa, we will have some fun this year.

Lena had to wait a few days to start at school though, because her on-arrival training started right away on Monday, making her staying at the flat for 3 days. With good hopes and energy, we went to school together on Thursday, only to be stuck at home again on Friday. Because guess what, some of the kids were contact persons to somebody with COVID. Which meant we had to quarantine, for at least a week. On top of that, the Latvian government also decided we were going into a lockdown, since the numbers were rising pretty fast. Good thing we were prepared, because Aija had made sure we had enough food in the flat for months. So with a full fridge and freezer, we installed ourselves in the living room with some unwatched series and movies, and enough to talk about and get to know each other. Of course we went on daily walks to get some fresh air and to show Lena how pretty Preiļi is. And I mean, we were bored. Like, no energy to do anything bored. But we’ve managed, by doing jigsaw puzzles, well, Lena did most of it, listening to music, watch some sports games and loads of Netflix and chocolate. And while we still have some sun hours left, the orange sunsets we get are a treat for the eyes after the screen time.

After 10 days of sitting at home, we are back out there, Lena’s helping out at pre-school, me with the kids in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade. Let’s see how long we will last this time. Fingers crossed!