Day 67: Jam-packed with joy

It was quite a struggle waking up this morning. I think the weekend had caught up on me. But the thought of a hot breakfast soon motivated me to get a move on!

I sat down in the morning lecture and the volunteer staff had an announcement to make. It was my surprise! They handed me an envelope. I didn't want open it straight away just to keep the suspense going a little bit longer. I opened two more birthday cards that had arrived from England. Now it was time to open the remaining envelope. It contained a gift certificate to go on a bungee jumping trampoline or katapulta in a local recreation and sports centre! This way I won't have to travel hours to go to the other bungee jumping place (this centre is only about 20 minutes away) and it's probably safer than hurling yourself from a cable cart hanging over Gauja River. The volunteers want to come along to take photos of me somersaulting and flipping in the air. We will have to go next week because I leave the following Saturday - I can't wait!

On Saturday, I received a text from my boss's boss (the one I went berry picking with a few weeks ago) who wished me a happy birthday and told me to visit her office when I'm next in the university. I went to her office during our lecture break and she presented me with such a lovely gift; a jar of jam she had made from the berries I picked! Yum!

After lunch, I conducted a few interviews with the students, the manager of the summer school and some of the volunteers, asking them about how their assignments were going so far, impressions of Valmiera, communicating with people from other cultures, the social events etc. I was given some great responses about how such broad-ranging cultural diversity made it exciting to learn about cultures other than their own. That's what Erasmus is all about!

Isn't that right, Desiderius Erasmus?

The newspaper article the other intern and I were interviewed for has now been published on the website. Although it is written in Latvian, my laptop automatically translates the text and it reads very well! Here's the link for you to read at your own leisure: http://www.eliesma.lv/skats-no-malas-caur-objektiva-aci 

Photo courtesy of eLiesma.

I'm going to Riga tomorrow to meet with someone visiting from Lithuania. For those of you who don't know, I practise Nichiren Buddhism, a Buddhist practice following the Lotus Sutra based teachings of Nichiren Daishonin, a 13th-century Japanese Buddhist priest. I belong to a lay Buddhist movement called Soka Gakkai International (SGI), an organisation that links and supports more than 12 million Buddhists around the world in 192 countries and territories. As SGI members actively integrate their Buddhist practice into their daily lives, belonging to such an organisation makes it easy to find other people practising in the area you reside in and support each other. I am the only Nichiren Buddhist practising in Latvia - and I have managed to find one of the few people practising in Lithuania, so we will meet and hopefully create a unique and lasting international friendship.

"Make an effort to meet with people. Interaction with others opens up new and exciting possibilities. Meeting people stimulates our minds, gives us energy, leads to more new encounters and infinitely expands our life and our world" - Daisaku Ikeda (President of SGI)