A
Short Baltic Story from Riga
It
was just over two years ago. Monika
Erb and her husband Ernest had just come back from Riga. And, there
they saw something quite interesting. A long chain
of people passing books!
It turned out that
the new building of the Lithuanian National Library had just been
completed and the best way of moving the very many books from the old
building to the new one was by means of a human chain.
And this was the chain that Ernest and Monica saw.
And, because of the long distance
between the two buildings, many people had been needed, and, despite
the very cold weather, enough people had turned out to be part of
this great book moving chain.
And,
everyone was happy. There was a visible
feeling of togetherness
and fun. And, this impressed
Ernest and Monika. The books being carefully passed were everyone's
books and everyone cared.
And this is what Ernest and Monika
saw. The Baltic tradition of doing it together. The
Latvian way of moving a library.
Could this happen where you live?
Vocabulary
chain – Kette
despite – trotzdem
distance - Entfernung
it turned out – es hat
sich herausgestellt
impressed - beeindruckt
means - Mittel
togetherness - Zusammenhalt
together – zusammen
turned out – sind
gekommen
visible
– sichtbar
Questions
Where had Monika and Ernest just
come back from?
What did Monika and Ernest see in
Riga?
What were the people passing?
From where to where were the
people passing the books?
How were the books being passed?
What was the weather like?
What impressed Ernest and Monika?
