Happy Name's Day to Me!

Today is my name's day (varda diena), which means that today is the day when Latvians celebrate all people with the name Mara, Marita and Marite (and some boys names too). Tomorrow it will be completely different names. I'm not sure how the names get assigned to days, but, rest assured nearly all Latvian names have a day on the calendar. And if they don't, I believe there is a day that actually says "the day for all names not otherwise appearing on the calendar." And yes, nearly every calendar you buy in Latvia (well, all the ones that are printed in Latvia for sure) comes with all the names on it for every day. Anyway...

The funny thing is, I forgot about today. Here in Angola, I don't have much need for calendars in my daily life. Every once in a while I make an appointment or have to confirm something, but generally speaking, even on those occasions, it's easier for me to think in terms of days of the week (this Friday, next Tuesday, etc) than to think of the date. Today, it wasn't until I logged into draugiem.lv on my lunch hour and saw a happy name's day message that I remembered. The funny thing is that shortly thereafter emails and messsages on facebook, etc came rolling in from all over the world...so it wouldn't have been long til I remembered/realized either way.

Now, when you're in Latvia, it's fair game to make a pretty big deal out of your name's day- people do it for you even. I had at least one party while I was there, which had a pretty good turn out if I don't say so myself. Even when I lived in China I made everyone go out to a bar and drink with me. People were down. And the one Latvian friend I had in China brought me flowers, so it was good.

Now, Angola here is another story all together. Obviously, first of all, I wasn't in the least bit reminded that it was my name's day- not by any calendars, not by other people, not by nothing. Then, even when I did remember, it was like, hmm, well, so? What can I do here, especially on a Wednesday night? There is no local bar, there is no local restaurant. It would take hours and at least $100 to go out to dinner in town (not worth it). Joel can't buy me flowers, as there is no place to buy flowers. Pretty much, there isn't much to do.

So, I made myself a special dinner.


Joel doesn't like sushi, so I made him some chicken nguggets and fries. We were both happy. The good thing about the sushi is that I had a whole jar of ginger to eat with it. Yummmm drool. The bad thing was, the only really appropriate sushi filling I had was a cucumber. So I improvised with some zucchini sautteed in sesame oil and some boiled carrot. I couldn't eat it all, and the carrot ones were the ones that got left- really not that good. I had an avocado only two days ago, but alas, we had Mexican that night, and it got eaten. And all my red peppers/capsicums got eaten the night before that. So, cucumber, zucchini and carrot it was.

I'm also having a cocktail to celebrate. Just me. I'm having a vanilla coke, and Joel is having a coke. Happy name's day to me!