Talgud

I had a chance to take part in something especially Estonian, a Talgud or collective work day. An Estonian friend who lives out in the countryside near Tartu invited friends, students, and family for a day of work at his rural home. The idea is that the more hands, the quicker and more fun the work to follow. Our group of eight worked to pull down three trees, strip them down, move them, and clean the area by burning the extra wood. (Estonia is in no danger of running out of firewood and forest fires are of little concern in this area of bogs and wetlands.) Not too much work with so many to help out. We enjoyed a crisp day of team work and fresh wintry air followed by time in the sauna, beer, and plenty of feasting in the evening.



In tandem with this festivity of work was the celebration of St. Martin's Day or Madripäev in Estonian. Marking the end of fall and beginnings of darker wintry times ahead, Madripäev is preceded by St. Martin's Eve when children dress up in dark costumes and go door-to-door to perform a song or dance and ask for treats or money. The day of Madripäev is a feast day that happened to fall on our Talgud. Together with a few families and our Talgud workgroup, we enjoyed a special beet-based salad and tasty hani, cooked geese filled with cabbage, apples, and prunes. I was so distracted by the delicacy that I lost interest in pictoral documentation after the salad... you can imagine how mouth-watering it must have been.



All together, it was a fantastic day demonstrating the incredibly warm collaborative and celebratory faces of Estonians and Estonia. In the face of the country's grayest month with days diminishing quickly to an almost constant enveloping darkness, I felt surprisingly warm and bright. It's a tradition that I may have to keep once I leave this place. A talgud and feast should perhaps be a part of my own collected fall traditions.