TERE

Tere means hello. It is the only Estonian word I seem to be able to master. Oh yes, and "kunst," which means art, appropriately. Everything else goes in one ear and out the other - I find conversation utterly impenetrable. Matt and I like to read signs out loud to each other in silly voices, all the double vowels and umlauts and words ending in "i" or "ii" make it sound like a song.

We are here.

We are fresh off the boat - having arrived via the beautiful Baltic Sea on a little ocean vessel from Helsinki. The passenger port in Tallinn was empty and disorienting. Since the dinner at Navarre I have been deliberately NOT planning for this next month - I literally packed and got on the plane - because I wanted to undo/erase expectation, allow the experience to unfold itself without my own preconceived ideas.

So far, Estonia is:
Lilacs. Everywhere.
Storks. I kid you not. Have you ever seen a stork? I thought not! There are giant nests on top of electrical poles - and man do I love a bird's nest - and each has a solitary stork, majestic and strange inside it. I love this and I hope to get a picture.
Endless flatness.
Barns, stone buildings, strange Soviet structures, deserted factories, gardens, hothouses with vegetables in everyone's backyard.
Birds chirping at unbelievably loud volumes.
Fucking goddamn mosquitos the size of a quarter eating me alive. I have killed at least twenty so far with my bare hands (the fruit flies at Navarre never instigated even close to the rath I already have for these heathens). We are sandwiched between two lakes and it is unusually hot here, a perfect storm. They did not think to warn us about this, as the Estonians are immune, so I am unprepared, I have no repellant, and already I am bitten like a small child.
Poor Matt and his allergies.
Pink tipped daisy chain crown.
White nights. It is almost eleven at night here and it's starting to get dark. In Helsinki it didn't get dark until midnight and the sun was up again by four, so at least we get a little more dark here. It is a strange adjustment, but also magical.
Tallinn was beautiful, or at least Old Town where we stayed was. I love a medieval city! A little bit of the Trastaveri, a little of the Marais, a little bit of Edinburgh.
Mooste is surprisingly full of children - I had imagined older people for some reason. "Foreign." Yes, we are decidedly foreign, and it is all foreign to us. We are spotted a mile away and nobody is helpful. Unfriendly? I don't know... but there is resistance to us. Can't read signs. Point, gestures... It is going to be very difficult to communicate and to get anyone involved in our project. It may, however, make the inquiry more profound - maybe verbal communication will be beside the point.
We will spend the next five (!!) days as part of KLIMA, artist Mike Hentz' project, which we mentioned in an earlier post. I think it will be a little intense for us, but also a nice segue into our own project.

Please send emails!
And here is the snail mail address if you feel like sending something fancy, like "Off."
MoKS
Mooste 64616
Põlva Maakond
Estonia

With love and squalor.
XX

(PICTURES TO COME SHORTLY)