Yes and yes. Jah ja ja. Juo ja juo.

In inadvertently semi-false responses often lies a sort of truth more interesting to defend.

That said, it's invariably more difficult to understand someone when they speak in straight-off-the-isles, rapid-speed Estonian and are at the same time pricking blood vessels and constricting various parts of your body. Mind you, this was one of the nicest tädi's at the blood donation center (and they are all ten times sweeter than any grandmother); yet easy to mistake what they say.

"Asakjask shssaass hsaahaa," is how it sounded. Often faced with this when living in a language I've been speaking for a few years, I'm used to such a sentence. I asked again (variating proficiency makes me feel like an elderly person with a malfunctioning hearing aid sometimes). Her repetition of the question was disappointingly similar.

Another part of living in another language and culture is learning to be decisive and not give away your level of perception of the surroundings. Doing so means that there often will be no disruption in the scene and allows you to pick up much more from the flow instead of the particularities of situations. I was hoping this question was a particularity, a "Does that hurt?" or "Do you want your blood sample to go to starving orphans?" and not something upon which the conversation would hinge. In most cases, you can get away with a positive/negative response, and given your 50-50 choice, you'll hit the right one and things will go on as planned. Feeling like I hadn't shot out a "no" in a while (again - surrounded by a late-middle-aged crowd with sharp things), I went with that reply.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yeah." Confidently. Decisively.

To my surprise, this launched her onto an entirely fresh burst of the conversation filled with stories, illustrations and heartfelt enthusiasm. Again - not understanding a question doesn't mean you can't answer it.

I derived after a few sentences the fact that I answered "no" to a question I would often answer "yes" to - partly out of habit, partly out of genuine attitude. Nurse Enthusiasm (not a word you use often in Estonia) asked whether I had full-out fallen in love with the country.

No point in backtracking - it's much more engaging to go with it and at least give yourself a challenge that departs from the usual pre-approved phrases and conversational swings. So I went with it.

Nurse Put-Down-Her-Pen-Now-Enthusiasm went on to tell me about her daughter who moved to the States to study, ended up marrying a Yank and lives out there now. The daughter would like to someday move back to Estonia, however her husband works for NASA and jobs of a similar caliber are rare in Estonia, not to mention the fact that most of the information he has is probably state secrets (i.e. which vending machine will often shoot out two bottles if you put in an odd number of coins). The woman likes living in the States and has no problem carrying on there, yet still yearns a bit for Eestimaa.

"Home is home," said the nurse with a nod and an extra-firm slap of a bar code sticker on one of the forms.

I'm not one-hundred-percent staunchly behind her statements and (being incoherent and indecisive) would pad it up with a heap of qualifiers, yet it wasn't enough for me to turn around and refute. 'Home' is definitely something that develops through various periods of time, that ends up choosing you as much as you choose it. I think a person can have multiple homes and, although they can have different associations and depths of connection with the person, these may all be on a comparable level.

How would this go? A 'primary' home followed by some 'secondary' ones? This seems a bit cheap; at least enough to question using the term 'home' for anything less than all-out extraordinary. Here's where that shifty yesandno comes about.. Minneapolis is, for me, home, and Estonia is home as well, though with different associations and basis for being so.

I can't say it's just language, though the Finno-Ugricness definitely has its part. This can also be taken in a wider sense, such as how I can generally envision myself a

lso living and being contentin Suomi and Sámpi. The thing is that my draw to Estonia and my ethnic identity does not at all clash with all that encompasses Minneapolis and Minnesota - it seems rather like it accentuates and enhances that identity. At the same time, Minneapolis is a massive part of my identity itself, and has its part in defining my life here and how I express being Finno-Ugric. Ehhhhh..

I just need to build a lavvu and have some source of revenue that enables me to be nomadic between the Cities and northern Europe. No problem there - just execution. The separation of an multifaceted identity and a precise location is a tricky one indeed..

Edasi, вперёд..