ottservations

  An interview with Samuel Chu, a community organizer for human rights and democracy. OTTILIE TABBERER: You are an internationally wanted fugitive. How does it feel to have such a label? SAMUEL CHU: I've had a lot of opportunities to reflect on my status. It's been almost four years and I think it reflects the fact that fighting and organizing for democracy works. It threatens across borders the regimes that are being targeted. I didn't set out to be a wanted fugitive. It was never my career goal. But what I have always been, looking back on my career, is a serial offender when it comes to making democracy work in places where it hasn't. And that's true particularly in the United States, where I've spent most of my adult life. Does this give you a boost, a cause for hope? I am always in this tension, I don't necessarily consider myself an optimist or idealist, I think a lot of people think that I sound like an idealist because I constantly see opportu...

The Lithuanian Song Festival: 100 years of tradition Lithuania’s song festival, Dainų šventė , celebrated its 100 th anniversary in July. It stands as Lithuania’s paramount cultural phenomenon, involving tens of thousands of Lithuanians and several diaspora choirs from the US, Canda, Mexico, Brazil and Scotland. Yet despite sharing similar festivals, the presence of choirs from the other Baltic countries is a rare sight to see. An old woman blows kisses onto the procession from her flat window. She's dressed in national costume and an array of amber beads. Among the crowds lining the streets, other elderly ladies in similar dress sit on benches, too old to march the three kilometres from Vilnius’ Cathedral Square to Vingis Park, the festival grounds, but keen to be part of the Lithuanian Song Festival parade.     I am with my Latvian choir, Ziemelu Balsis, whom I met in Estonia, and we process in strict formation through the streets with the flags of Estonia and Latvia ...

Aug - Oct some essential facts: all lithuanian boys are stupendously good-looking while latvian and lithuanian are mildly related, estonian is related to finnish. all languages are not slavic, so not related to russian in any shape or form tinned bear is a thing this region is classed as northern europe, anywhere east of germany is not necessarily 'eastern europe' estonia was the first country to consider internet access as a human right squirty cream is available in most petrol stations' coffee machines 'water', 'bear', 'beer' are problematic words with a british accent in europe there are 50 types of peat moss, 37 of which grow in estonia Apples I'm turning down what I now call the 'Apple District', an area where the air smells of apples and the ground is covered in their brown crushed mush. Plastic bags on fences, bowls on doorsteps, baskets on bikes, wooden crates on stools: all are full of apples. Women on bikes also stood here durin...

'Come and rest,' they called to me and into their hut I went, planning to stay for an hour or so. Light from the window lit up a cheese on an aluminum plate that dripped into a bucket. Cloud flowed in through the door like smoke. An edge was sliced off the cheese and put on the table. Out came another fresh cheese, salted, and piles of lavash wraps. I sat on one of the carpet-covered beds while flies buzzed in cow-y air. Two hours and then two nights passed, cocooned in this smokey hut in the Armenian mountains. Sergo, 64, green-blue-brown speckled eyes, and Aram, 11, big ears and beautiful skin, work together during the summer in the herby mountainscape. Both speak good Russian. Their herds of cows and horses are protected by terrifying dogs, whose ears have been clipped from birth to make them hear the wolves and bears better.  Herding cows We run with sticks to gather the cows while thunder claps us and ice pelts our cheeks. Wild strawberries, pink daisies and orange star fl...

Metro A solid wall of people trudges at snail's pace, tightly packed in, herded by old men in high viz and women in red hair and shocking lipstick. I try in vain to connect to the free city wifi, 'Tbilisi Loves You'. Beggars line the sides, some selling cacti in margarine pots, one has a spotty enamel mug, others display signs or grotesque stumps of limbs. Someone is singing. A man ahead has an Oxford university backpack. On we shuffle, so close our numerous legs merge into a conveyor belt of flesh.  On the metro, there is a family of three munching doritos. The children stare ahead, legs open wide, wedging these triangles based-end first into their mouths. There are a lot of tattooed necks today, one man has T H U G L I F E on his knuckles. VW keys are strapped to a belt. A woman's cross necklace looks alarmingly like the Nazi insignia (in fact it's the Georgian Orthodox cross...) and a long stringy teen in a completely green tracksuit resembles a human runner bean...

The language journey is a spiney one. It's colourful and challenging, but painful. And then there's this question 'how many languages do you speak?' From where this hangs is dependent on so many tiers of the sprawling vine of language knowledge, and a short interchange about tomato types in a market to chatting with a friend's family over tea to handling customer problems on the phone in Italian can bring about completely different outcomes. I've had 'you speak like a native' to 'there is a language barrier, is it better to speak in English?' With Russian it's the same. People are surprised when they hear I speak Russian, and often say 'and where did you learn such good Russian?' but I also got from a baker in a dusty bread booth 'you speak Russian badly, don't you', so matter-of-factly, I just laughed.  The job I have currently involves solving problems with printers. 'I'm so jealous you get to practice your Itali...

The Sulphur Baths The marinating process has begun. I am cocooned in layers of shlopping and pattering sounds that reach me at different intensities, the ceaseless and formless sounds of water. It is a dank and foggy cocoon. I am melting in an eggy fug. The walls are like mud. The ceiling is domed like a church with a cylindrical crown on top where one would expect to see frescos. Instead, a grimy glow comes from a window that hasn't been cleaned for decades. I'm in a blue-tiled pot. Simmering, stagnating, steeping in sulphur steam. Flesh is all around. We turn into dough. Russian and Georgian echoes from the naked masseuses. I have deeply seeped into oblivion. "Girl, come." I am laid on a concrete slab. I'm kneaded and crushed, slapped and stretched. I am scrubbed in coffee grounds. I feel like I'm in a burrow, condemned to damp gloom. No shame here. Legs wide open, women shaving pubes. Folds are lifted to access various crevices. The water splatters down. Th...