" The U.S. Department of State’s NSLI-Y is a scholarship program for U.S. high school students to study critical languages necessary to strengthen the United States’ national security and economic competitiveness."

This summer, I was accepted into the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y, described above) to learn Russian for 6 weeks over the summer in Daugavpils, Latvia. The program began with pre-departure orientation in Washington D.C. for two days, where the other participants and I learned about program rules and expectations.

After pre-departure orientation, we began the long flight series to Daugavpils. About 48% of the Daugavpils population is ethnically Russian, and about 90% of people speak Russian. Thus, Daugavpils earns the title of being the city with the largest Russian-speaking population in the European Union.

We arrived in Daugavpils at around 8 pm, and the bus began dropping off students at their assigned host families. I was placed deep in the Northern woods of Daugavpils, in a forest suburb called Mežciems, meaning "village" when translated from Latvian to English. My host family consisted of a host mom, host dad, host older sister, host younger brother, and host dog (however, not everyone in my cohort had a family as large as mine, with some people living with a mom and kids, or maybe a mom and dad, or sometimes even just a grandma). Although it was originally difficult adjusting from living in a big city to living deep in the forest (30 minutes away from the city center and no stores anywhere nearby), I soon grew to love it.

After the weekend passed, we began our first day of Russian classes at our host institution called Learn Russian in the European Union. As someone who knew very little Russian at the start, I was very nervous walking into the first day of classes. My cohort was divided into two groups, beginner and intermediate. Although I was placed in the beginner group, the teacher spoke completely in Russian during classes (although she did know a decent amount of English and could help us when we were confused. The more advanced teacher spoke no English).

Russian classes were held five days a week, for (usually) four hours in the morning (8 am to 12 pm, sometimes with peer tutoring taking up an hour). At 12 we ate at a restaurant called Yoggi Bear, and then went to Daugavpils University to do peer activities after school with the peer tutors until around 3-4 pm. After peer activities ended, we were free to roam the city, but had to be back with our host families by 10 pm. Ultimately, my first week in Daugavpils was absolutely fantastic. I had a great host family who lived in a beautiful house and cooked great food, and loved exploring all the unique antique and thrift shops that the city has to offer.