Alcohol and Holidays

I'm currently home in America, enjoying life's little luxuries and being very lazy as I recuperate from having my wisdom teeth removed.  To keep you updated on life in Georgia, I thought I'd share this email my program just sent me.  How many jobs feel the need to warn you about alcohol poisoning "on the job"? Also, the title is from the title of the email.

Dear volunteers,

First of all we wish you happy holidays! 

We hope you all have the chance to attend Georgian New Year "Supras" which really are one of the most exceptional experiences you can have in Georgia.  And of course, what is a Georgian Supra without copious toasts?

As you already know, Georgian alcohol is quite strong and people are quite hospitable, especially when it comes to drinking.  While you celebrate the holiday season, remember that drinking large quantities of alcohol can cause serious problem like alcohol poisoning. Alcohol poisoning is a serious — and sometimes deadly — consequence of drinking large amounts of alcohol in a short period of time.

Do not forget about your health and safety and about representing our project.

We also want to remind you that your TLG-provided Insurance does not cover accidents caused by and/or somehow related to alcohol.

Have safe and fun Holidays and we wish you a prosperous New Year!!!

Thank You for Making a Difference…

Best,

TLG Team

Manglisi Moments

My ninth-grade neighbor just left our house, telling me “good morning”.  While my family got a kick out of this, it still made my heart warm.  This is the same girl who after 4 months, will always tell me “hello” but if I ask “How are you?” she responds in Georgian.  My 1^st graders are already beyond that. I still really like her, but tonight was the first time we really got to communicate, generally with my broken Georgian and help from my host family.

I haven’t gone anywhere since my last blog, but village life seems worthy of its own report this week.  I made burritos for my host family on Tuesday.  I had to substitute a few ingredients, but they were still delicious.  And by I, I mean my host mom, neighbor, and I, with my host mom still doing a lot of the work.  Thanks to a recipe I got from my Peace Corps friend, we made refried beans from scratch.   

Beans in progress...we had a lot

Being Georgia, we didn’t buy ground meat.  Instead, my host mom cut some meat off some part of the bull that we have been storing in our house and gradually eating the last week or two.  She then ground the meat herself before I cooked it. 

Freshly ground meat

 It was pretty awesome.  

That's right, cooking on the pechka.

 Once they were cooked, I got to add them, cheese, tomatoes, and sour cream to lavash, which substituted for tortillas.  They had me be the master burrito maker.  In true Georgian, what’s mine-is-yours fashion, they then cut up the burritos so more than one person could have part of each one. We made enough that everyone got their fill.   

Some of the awesome burritos

Everyone from my host grandma to my host brothers to the neighbors liked them.  Hoping to make chocolate-chip cookies tomorrow.

The next invasion of American culture came in the form of a package from my father.  I came home from school on Wednesday to find another package underneath the TV.  My host mom told me that someone had brought it by.  It had come in 16 days, far sooner than most people even in Tbilisi get their mail, and they usually then have to pay a feel.  My village rocks.  I knew that the package contained gifts for my host family that my father had gotten together for me.  He even individually wrapped each person’s gift.  

Potatoes and American care package

 However, only my host mom and grandma were home when I opened the package.  They appreciated the gum and candy, but my mom was too interested in finding out what everyone got to wait for everyone to get home.  So she unwrapped all the gifts by herself. 

This surprised but did not phase me, while my father was shocked when I told him.  I think this is a symptom of a massive cultural difference. Within the family, very few things register as belonging to only one person.  Personal property doesn’t really exist here.  Even my kids at school are constantly sharing pencil sharpeners (normal), erasers (understandable), colored pencils (also reasonable) but also pens and pencils.  When a kid doesn’t have paper, 2 or 3 other kids tear paper out of their notebooks for their classmate.  You might think communism encouraged this, but I think this is far deeper rooted in Georgian culture than that.

I don’t think they ever wrap gifts either.

My host family appreciated the gifts a lot.  I also stuffed myself with Butterfinger bells and felt a little closer to Christmas.  At 6 days, I am definitely counting.  I can’t wait to be home again, much as I love Georgia.

School has also been an adventure.  Today, I read a dialogue for my 2^nd graders for the first time. I was in a good mood, so I hammed up the characters a bit more than usual.  They kept begging me to read it again.  It was one of those moments that TLGers often get where our kids make us feel like rock stars.

That was a big improvement over my 3^rd grade class on Wednesday.  I was flying solo since my co had gone home to take care of her sick husband.  The kids were rambunctious from the start, so I knew it would be a challenging class.  Then one of my girls got a bloody nose.  Nothing like taking care of a sick kid when you can’t really communicate with them.  In all honestly, it was not that bad.  The other kids offered plenty of tissues.  I don’t know why they also offered her “spirt”, which I take as some form of alcohol used for medicinal purposes.  Usually people rub it on an area that hurts. I have no idea why they thought it would help, but I didn’t use it.  I was also intrigued when the kids put wet tissues on the girls head.  We clearly have different ideas about medicine.  She recovered, and I tried to keep teaching.  I’m pretty sure the lesson only got worse from there. I threw one kid out of class and had another who misbehaved in the hope that I would throw him out.  Of course, I didn’t.  The rest wouldn’t sit still and frequently got up to pick fights with each other.  I was very happy when that bell rang.

Gori, Goodbyes, and Gunpowder

Ten days...and definitely counting.  This also means that I have 10 days before I want my Michigan apps done, so I’m ignoring that fact and trying not to salivate at the thought of Taco Bell, fresh fruit, and Apple Barn toffee.

What is a great way to forget about American food?  By going to see the origins of one of the biggest monsters of the 20^th century, of course.  Stalin was born in Gori, a town about an hour’s drive from Tbilisi.  As the Wikitravel article on Gori explains it, “relatively few people in the world "cherish" the memory of one of the 20th century's greatest mass murderers, Joseph Stalin, but most that do live in Gori.” 

Three guys from my training group and I decided to take a day trip to Gori, mostly to see the Stalin house-museum.  Stalin was born in a one-room apartment his family rented in a small house.  His father, a cobbler, had a shop in the basement of this house.  Since the 1930s, this house, still in its original spot, has been memorialized as part of the museum.  It is surrounded by a nice roof with a glorious Soviet design and surrounded by marble pillars.   

The guys in front of Stalin's encased home

Me in front of Stalin's family's room

 Behind this humble building is the museum.  It cost 10 GEL to get in, which seemed incredibly steep, so the extra 5 GEL for the English tour guide and tour of Stalin’s private railroad car did not seem like much extra, so we opted for the tour.  Our guide was a twenty-something young woman with a decent command of English.  Perhaps because the museum is unheated and was cold enough that you could see your breath, or perhaps because of the inappropriate comments by one of the guys in my group and the others on our tour, our tour guide probably gave us the fastest tour of the museum humanly possible.  It did not help that soon after we started, we were joined by three Polish men who worked in Tbilisi.  As Kelley, one of the guys who was with me put it succinctly, “nobody hates Stalin as much as the Poles”. 

They joined us after learning about the promising poet that young Stalin was.  One of his poems even became a regular part of elementary school curriculum (before he became a revolutionary) and during the Soviet Union, several of his poems were used in school under a pseudonym.  It wouldn’t fit a dictator to write poetry, now would it?

Still, while we got to admire a model of an underground printing press and look at a map of Stalin’s exile and return, the Poles were literally cursing Stalin.  It definitely added another dimension to the trip.  They were so pleased when we saw a copy of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which was when Stalin and Hitler agreed not to invade each other.  While that obviously did not last, the pact also carved up Poland between the two of them, a knife in the back, as the Poles put it. 

Most of the museum was filled with old photos that were blown up like lots of other Soviet museums, but they also had his office furniture, pipe collection, mother’s china, and gifts he had received from people around the world.  Perhaps the best exhibit inside the museum is a gloriously displayed death mask, 6 of 9 created after he died.  After seeing these normal exhibits, we followed our guide downstairs to a locked room which briefly touched on the “repression” during the Soviet Union (they never blame it on Stalin).  It is replete with letters sent home from Siberian exile, a secret police’s interrogation desk, and a recreation of a prisoner’s cell.  At least they acknowledge something terrible happened under Stalin.  That’s something, right?

The best part of the tour came last, when we went outside.  We got to go into the house, which has the original Jugashsvili (Stalin’s family) furnishings, or so they claim.  Then we toured Stalin’s very swank private railroad car.  I took pictures of 2 of my friends on Stalin’s toilet (his personal bathroom had a toilet and a bath!) before a tour guide yelled at me.  

Kelley on Stalin's personal toilet

 

The rest of our trip included walking up to a snowy Gori Castle (it’s a fort that isn’t that special) and warming up in a café, where some drunk Georgians bought us xachapuri and beer because they loved one of the guys I was with.  It was a reminder of how different male-female interactions are in Georgia because the two men wanted their picture with Kelley and wanted the boys to drink with them while they totally ignored me, not even asking my name.  (More Gori pics are on Facebook; the link is on my "Pictures" page.)

The next morning, one of the guys and I played tour guide to a German we met at our hostel.  He was very appreciative and bought us breakfast and tea, which for a German is quite extraordinary.  If you think I’m being mean, he regaled us with stories of German stinginess.  I, however, was playing tour guide simply because it is one of my favorite things to do.  (If this whole grad school business doesn’t pan out and I can’t stand the idea of another year of children shouting “Hannah teacher” ad nauseam, I’m looking into being a tour guide.)  It was also very cool to realize how much I’ve learned about Georgia

This weekend, I was back in Tbilisi to say goodbye to some of my group members and other friends who are not coming back.  Most of my group got together, which was a great time.  We went to dinner at the restaurant next to our training hotel, “where it all began”, which was a lot of fun, especially to think about how much had changed and how much had not.  We still received terrible service but this time it was not due to our linguistic inabilities.  We discussed what we had done, where we still wanted to go, what we missed at home, our plans for break, and our respective school experiences.  In four months, strangers with various reasons for coming to Georgia had become good friends, a sort of “family” for me.  I will miss those who won’t return but look forward to another 6 months with those who will.

The night turned out to be very interesting.  Knowing that there was a new group at the hotel, we went to introduce ourselves and invite them to join us in our night out.  Things worked out that I found myself in charge of getting 10 newbies downtown from the hotel by myself.  I have never taken a bus in the city, but I led all of them fearlessly onto a bus and walked them down the main street in Tbilisi to meet up with the rest of my group.  We soon went to another place, where a few of my friends got themselves and therefore the rest of us invited to a supra (Georgian party) for some stranger’s birthday.  It was so very Georgian, I loved it.  In the States, only drunken college students and twenty-somethings invite perfect strangers to their private parties.  In Georgia, I’m not even surprised anymore.

As far as school is concerned, the most notable event is the addition of firecrackers to daily life.  Last Wednesday, I walked into the school yard for my first class (2^nd hour) to see a gaggle of my 5^th grade boys clearly up to no good.  When I went to investigate, I saw one of them had a lit firecracker in his hand.  As a sign of my cultural assimilation or an affirmation I am not meant to be a teacher, I simply shook my head at him and kept walking.  Now, booms are regular parts of breaks, and the halls smell like gunpowder.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

I have 3 weeks until I leave Manglisi and begin the long journey home.  I have a lot to do in that time.  I have to finish my application to Michigan (lots of work still left to do there), visit Stalin’s birthplace of Gori, say goodbye to friends I will miss very much after they leave Georgia, buy Christmas gifts, get into the Christmas spirit, hopefully finish teaching my 1st graders the alphabet, and spend more time playing in the snow with my host family.

It has snowed a few times this week, so the ground is a mix of crunchy, glistening snow, and icy patches that allow you to skate sans skates.  Thankfully no one makes fun of me every time I eat it on the way to or from school because my boots are slick and my balance is bad, especially with 2 bags.  This is a frequent occurrence.  Tonight I got to enjoy it while slipping and sliding with my host sisters and a few of their friends as we played on the street.  Falling was half the fun, especially when it resulted in a pile-up of casualties.  Moments like that, when I can’t feel my toes but I can see a clear, starry sky, make me so thankful for my village life.

I also love that in my classroom, home, and life here, I am interacting in a mix of English, Georgian, and Russian.  My Georgian is inching along, and I find I am using it more and more at home.  I truly think the hours each night we watch Telemundo telenovellas dubbed into Georgian is helping my listening skills a lot.  That, and watching Misha’s daily appearance on the news.

However, the confidence I had in my language skills was shaken a bit this weekend when I went to visit my Peace Corps friend Chris.  He lives in Ninotsminda, a “regional center” in Samtskhe-Javakheti, which is inhabited primarily by Armenians.  So, most people speak Armenian or Russian rather than Georgian.  The Georgian they do speak is a bit different than the Georgian I’m used to.  In addition, many conversations are a mix of multiple languages, so whenever someone on the street would stop and talk to Chris, I would pick up a few words and generally feel confused.  He would then assure me that plenty of the conversation was in Armenian, which I don’t know a word of.  His host mother is Georgian and speaks Russian well.  He also has a Georgian living with him who is doing a different version of my program.  This year the government started sending Georgians, most fresh out of college, to minority communities to teach Georgian there.  His Russian is imperfect, so between him and Chris’s host mom, who spoke rapidly, I found myself slightly confused during the Russian conversations and totally lost in the Georgian ones.  It made me realize how much I had gotten used to hearing my family, colleagues, and kids speak Georgian.  Imagine going from the Midwest to the New York City if you didn’t know English well but had been mostly exposed to a Missouri accent.  Even though I generally use Russian for most conversations, I say things like “thank you” in Georgian, since I can say such simple words with confidence.  While in Samtskhe-Javakheti, we went to visit some other Peace Corps volunteers in a nearby city.  I kept saying my little words in Georgian and then realizing that Georgian was not the right language to use.  The experience made me far more aware of what language I was using and the patterns of speech I had gotten into at home in Manglisi.

The visit also made me ready to come to America.  Since both of us miss Mexican food and dream about Taco Bell, we made burritos for ourselves and Chris’s host mom/Georgian.  I have not made a real meal since July, so it was an interesting experience.  It was also delicious, and I stuffed myself.  Through hours spent watching TV because it really was far too cold to venture outside, I remembered what American TV was like.  As much as I love my new friends and the conversations we have, it was nice to be able to talk about my life pre-Georgia and have someone actually know what I was talking about.  Of course, I’m sure instead of appreciating this when I am home, I will bore all of you with stories of Georgia that, no matter how hard I try, I can’t make you understand.  Then I’ll go back to savoring all the food I miss and catching up on TV shows that I haven’t seen.  Still, it reminded me of how much I miss all of you.

I had a great time visiting Chris.  It was really cool to see two other homestays, and while I would like having things like an indoor toilet or a warmer room, I was quite happy to come home as well.  Manglisi looks rather pretty in the snow, and I’ll put up pics that (kind of) prove it eventually.  While my students drove me crazy with shouts of “Miss Hannah” when I had to teach a few classes alone this week, I do generally like my students.  I liked how shocked some of my 6^th graders were when I whipped out the Georgian words for “fast” and “slow” in class.  “Does she know Georgian?” they asked my co immediately.  They, and all my other students, were in awe of my new American mechanical pencil.  I was in need of a pencil to correct their workbooks, so Chris gave me one from his collection.  I don’t think they have mechanical pencils here, at least not in the village, so the kids first thought it was a pen, and were a bit distraught about me writing in their workbooks with a pen.  When I told them that it was a pencil, they were shocked.  Some of my 6^th graders asked to hold it.  Who knew pencils could be so cool?

My favorite class this week was with my teachers.  I started an intro English class for my colleagues 2 weeks ago.  Last week a loss of power and general cold canceled the class, but I had about 7 teachers show up this week.  It’s at the end of the school day, so I don’t really know when to end it.  I ended up teaching well beyond a regular class period.  It was so much fun with enthusiastic students.  They don’t all get it easily but they actively try, and they ask questions when they don’t understand. It’s also nice because I get to completely mash up English, Russian, and Georgian when I’m teaching them.  I really like getting to explain things in Russian and was quite pleased when I remembered the Russian word for “vowel”.  I always have a tentative idea of what I want to teach them each week, but they then tell me what they want to learn, which is great.  A lot of them learned German in school, so it is fun when they compare the German to the English.  I’m not sure that I convinced them that “danke” and “thanks” are related, but they were more convinced of the similarities between the days of the week. 

Thankful for this adventure, not so much for winter

As winter sets in, I find I am becoming more and more of a hermit.  I sit for hours with my laptop in the kitchen, yet I’m not sure what I accomplish except for reading up on the news, finding myself drawn into Spanish language soap operas, and keeping the cold at bay for another day.  Ostensibly I am working on grad school applications, but I find I get done less and less each day, as I start to worry more and more.  I’m hoping to have all of them finished by the time I come home in 4(!) weeks, so the panicking will likely increase.  While I am very excited to come home, Georgia also feels like home.  I’m pretty sure my host family convinced me this week to stay and celebrate my birthday here (July 17), if I reasonably can.  While sometimes they frustrate me, I really do like them a whole lot.  This is good, because we spend 10 hours or so in pretty much the same room every day.

 

I did not realize how much winter would impact the little aspects of life.  Our pipes now freeze at some point each night.  They don’t burst, but the water stops running and the toilet stops flushing.  They are fully prepared for this.  When I shower, I shower next to (not in) a bathtub full of water.  Now I appreciate this fact, as I can use the bathtub full of water to wash my face and brush my teeth at night and in the morning.  The TV has been moved to the kitchen, so I now am getting my fill of Georgian news and dubbed Telemundo soap operas.  Today they showed Obama pardoning the turkey and talked a little about Thanksgiving, so I felt like the holiday was not totally overlooked in my household.  We also heat our house by a wooden stove located in the kitchen, hence the fact that I spend so much time there.  The great thing about it is that we can put the kettle on the stove, and I can easily make myself tea whenever I want.  We also have clothes constantly hanging around the kitchen to dry, which I think saves us from all having incredibly dry, sore throats.  On that note, the cold that has plagued me since the beginning of the month won’t go away, but now my host mom and at least one sibling are sick. Granted, so are several of the kids in my school.  I think it is that time of year, but I still feel a bit guilty.

Another result of the cold is that we had a pile of logs deposited outside our house.  Several men chopped them up and then had a supra (Georgian dinner/party/drinking) with my host dad.  It was only the second time I had seen any of our homemade wine.  Since I was keeping warm in the kitchen, my host dad invited me to join.  I agreed, despite not being hungry.  What else could I say?  The tamada, the person who is in charge of toasting, quickly realized how much fun the game “try to get the foreigner drunk” is.  Thankfully, I have not had to play very much.  Still, even as a girl, I got called out for not drinking enough.  Interestingly enough, whenever he would finish his glass, he would roll it to show that it was empty.  I have not heard of others doing this, but I thought it was a pretty cool flourish.  I survived this supra, and my neighbor’s birthday, without making a complete fool of myself,  3 supras in a little over a week did satisfy my need for that cultural experience, so now I am happy to go back to my regular village experience of drinking copious amounts of tea and eating my bodyweight in sunflower seeds, potatoes, and bread.  At the neighbor’s supra, I could tell I missed eating lots of veggies when a dish with cauliflower in it got me excited.  I don’t really like cauliflower.  Of course, I have come to like pickled tomatoes because I know they have nutritional value.  (Mom, you’d be so proud, Georgia has gotten me to wear socks 24/7 and willingly eat tomatoes!)

In other news, I do actually teach sometimes.  Here are a few anecdotes from teaching:

• On Monday, I had to teach the 6^th graders alone since my co-teacher had to fill in for someone else.  They normally are pretty good, but they kept running out of class, causing problems, and, in my opinion, showing m no respect whatsoever.  I eventually got tired of it and told them in Russian I was not coming to class the next day.  Since I was pretty sure they preferred me as their teacher, this seemed like the best punishment I could give them.  I did not know if I actually had the power to do this, but I had no intention of letting that be an empty threat (then they would really run wild).  My co-teacher accepted my tales of their horrible behavior and did not make me go to class on Tuesday.  She told me today that they were very upset I was not in class and were actually good, so I think they will be better for me.

• On Tuesday, I had to teach alone because my other co-teacher had some family obligations.  When I told my 4^th graders this, they cheered.  I realized this was probably not a compliment but a warning.

• It takes me roughly 6 minutes to get to school, but I usually get there right on time or about a minute early or late.  Lately, my 5^th graders have been yelling “Hello” out their window to me when I walk into the schoolyard.  The great thing about this is I know that I’m not late then!

• Before I arrived at school, the kids were told to call me “Mrs. Hannah”.  As I cringe every time I hear it, I have been on a crusade to correct them to call me “Miss Hannah”.  I have pretty much succeeded, which is awesome, except I now hear “Miss Hannah” all the time, especially if my co-teacher is gone.

• Last week, some of my 6^th graders gave me drawings they had made for me.  At least one is supposed to be of me, although I have long, braided hair in the picture.  I felt flattered, even though I am 90% sure they made these drawings in class.

Outside of class, I do sometimes get out of my house.  Last weekend, some friends and I went to Davit Gareja, a cave monastery dating from the 6^th century.  It was about 2 hours outside of Tbilisi, on the border (literally on the border) with Azerbaijan.  We were a bit worried about how it would be going in November but it was a great time to go.  The weather was relatively warm, and we did not have to worry about vipers like you do in the summer.  There is basically nothing anywhere close to the monastery, which was actually wonderful.  Apparently the area was wooded until one of the various invading armies razed the area, so now it is barren wasteland.  It is beautiful barren wasteland, with some caves in the cliffs.   

Hiking to see them was good exercise, and the hidden frescoes were worth it.  Climbing to the top and getting a 360 view of the area was my favorite part.  The area had a calm about it that made all of us agree it was a good place to contemplate.  Had I not been starving, I probably would have sat and soaked in the atmosphere.

            Davit Gareja has somewhat of a sad history, though. A cave monastery was founded there by Davit (David) Gareja and some of his followers in the 6^th century. He is one of the 13 “Syrian fathers” that came at that time to encourage Christianity in Georgia.  Georgia had been officially Christian for quite some time, but there were still lots of pagan elements in Georgia, so these men came.  The monastery continued for centuries, with 14 others being built nearby.  However, the monasteries suffered through scores of invading armies.  The Soviets used the area, which was no longer a functioning monastery, as target practice since the landscape was similar to Afghanistan.  During perestroika, Georgians protested this, although strangely the Georgian army also used the area for exercises until protestors got in their way.  Now only one of the monasteries is working, but the area seems holy and peaceful nonetheless.

            Yesterday was Giorgoba, the celebration of St. George, Georgia’s patron saint.  In case you were wondering, people think that Georgia comes from the Greek word for farmer, not for St. George.  This is a big holiday in Georgia, so we did not have school.  My host dad is gone for a few days for work, so my family won’t celebrate in style until this weekend when he’s home.  Still, my host sisters and I went to the small church in Manglisi, since it is dedicated to St. George.  We lit a few candles, which my host grandma had made the night before, and left after a few minutes.  It was quick, but I liked the experience.  The church was small but full of glittering candles, the smell of beeswax, and a silent reverence.  We sat at home for the rest of the day, but we had sweets and homemade pirozhki.  A few neighbors came over as well, although that is a fairly regular occurrence.  Between sleeping in and taking it easy, I enjoyed my holiday and actually was ready for my alarm to go off today!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!  Georgia has made me very thankful for things I used to take for granted in America like constant hot water, heat, good roads, fruit and veggies available even out of season, regular power and water, gender equality, Mexican food, the independence afforded me as a 25-year old living on my own, being able to understand the news, peanut butter, high standards of personal hygiene, good bathrooms, classroom discipline, and being able to understand what is going on around me.  That said, being in Georgia has given me so much to be thankful for: a wonderful host family who has taken me in, colleagues who make me smile, kids shouting “hello” to me in the hallways, knowing in some way I’m making a difference, getting to spend my weekends trekking around one of the most beautiful countries in the world, great expat friends to go adventuring with, good Georgian food, a chance to experience how the other half of the world live, hot showers (absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?), any time I actually understand the Georgian around me, the hospitality and generosity of the Georgian people, the wonderful way not planning rewards you here, my Magtifix modem that keeps me connected to the outside world, and having a “job” that requires so little of me but gives me so many opportunities.

I am finally traveling to the arctic tundra of Ninotsminda this weekend to visit my Peace Corps friend, so more on that next time.  Hopefully I won’t have any horrible marshrutka stories to tell, but that’s probably not a wish that will come true.

Armeniaaaaaaaaaaaa

Last week I found it hard to concentrate on school.  On Thursday, I woke up in a great mood. No doubt the warmth from my space heater helped, but I knew the day was special.  At first I thought I had no school.  Sadly, that wasn’t it.  I remembered then that I was headed to Tbilisi that day and to Armenia the following morning.  After school, I went to Tbilisi, where I met a friend and her friend who was also going with us to Armenia.  Since my friend wanted some Western food, we went to Texas Chicken, the international version of Church’s Chicken.  There we met 2 Americans who had just graduated and come over to play basketball for Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (which includes the police, as well as other departments).  It was interesting to hear about their very different Georgian experiences (well-paid, living alone in Tbilisi apartments, basically no cultural training).  The world became even smaller as I realized one of them had graduated from Loyola, where my cousin works as an athletic trainer.  He, of course, knew her and had great things to say about her.

The other excitement of the night was changing my Georgian laris into Armenian dram.  There are 220 dram in 1 lari, so I felt loaded with 22,000 dram in my wallet.  The next morning we met up with 13 other TLGers, mostly from my wonderful training group, and one American who works in Riga but was visiting Georgia/Armenia and happened to be on our tour.  We took a tour down through northern Armenia on our way from Tbilisi to Yerevan.  The border is about an hour away from Tbilisi.  Once there, we had to get out, get our passports stamped by the Georgians, walk over to window on the Armenian side, hand the man 3000 dram, our passport, and a form, and then wait for our visa.  Since I have no clean pages left, the man hassled me for a minute before putting a beautiful new visa in the back, where visas aren’t supposed to go.  Then I got to walk to another window to get that visa stamped.  They let me in!

Our first stop in Armenia was at Akhtala.  In about the 10^th century, some Armenians grew rich from the copper and silver mines in the mountains, so they built a fortress and…a church!  Both are somewhat in ruins now.  The church actually looks pretty good except the fresco at the front of the church is of the Virgin Mary and Jesus.  A giant cannon (or some other weapon) was used by the gentle Mongols to blast a hole in Mary’s face in the 14^th century.

 Not sure if that or the fact that no one has repaired it since is more bothersome.  Now, the hole seems fitting.  The Mongols blew away Mary’s face in punishment.  They had come to conquer the area but could not find anyone, even in the church.  Then they heard a child’s cry.  They townspeople had hid in secret rooms in the walls of the church (brilliant idea), but the child gave them away.  The Mongols blasted them out of the church and forced the survivors over the edge of nearby cliffs.  Yeah, they were that nice.

After that pleasant thought, we turned to a happier part of Armenian culture: food.  We stopped at a BBQ stand on the side of the road.  They were roasting the meat when we arrived.  I was afraid it would not feed all of us when I was ushered into a boxcar-turned-restaurant.  The table was laden with vegetables (vegetables!!!) and other food fit for a proper supra.  We feasted on food that was very similar to Georgian food (just don’t tell anyone).  It clearly was not Georgian since there was no alcohol, but it was one of the best meals I had had in a long time.  I especially appreciated the fresh veggies.

We also stopped at 2 old monasteries that faced each other.  They were great, and both Haghpat and Sanahin are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.  But, how much can I really say about 10^th century Armenian monasteries? (Yes, this is a sign that I’ve spent too much time in churches in this part of the world.)

We had a several hour drive from the monasteries to Yerevan, stopping only at a great bakery.  We got some “Armenian pastries”, which were basically baklava, but some of the best baklava I’ve ever had.  The bakery also had a huge tone, or kiln, for bread.  One of the guys basically dove into the tone to stick bread on the walls, which was a sight to behold.  (Ok, so tone is the Georgian word, but I didn’t ask for the Armenian.)

We had 2 tour guides because we had 2 vans.  My van was smaller, and we had some great conversations with our tour guide.  She was pretty young and had phenomenal English.  I later learned that her family had hosted a Peace Corps volunteer, and she and had participated in the FLEX program, meaning she had spent a year in a Pennsylvania high school, which explained a lot.  She was a great resource, telling us several jokes about Armenia and Georgia, like “People say Armenians have big noses.  They don’t.  Everyone else just has small noses.” 

She also pointed out that Georgians hate admitting an Armenian invented their alphabet, so they just say “an Armenian invented it”.  The Armenians are incredibly proud that Meshrop Mestots (again, hoping I spelled that right) invented both alphabets.  The legend (according to Armenians) goes that Meshrop had a vision from God and quickly created the Armenian alphabet.  That night he was very tired and wanted to eat his dinner in peace, but the Georgians came to his door, asking for their own alphabet.  He refused but they kept begging.  He finally threw his dinner (spaghetti or soup, depending on the storyteller) on the wall and said “there is your alphabet”, meaning either the shape of the spaghetti on the wall or the dripping soup on the wall created Georgian letters. 

She talked a little about the Armenian government (corrupt), the horrible situation Armenia was in during the collapse of the Soviet Union (a 1988 earthquake devastated the country and the early nineties were filled with a terrible war with Azerbaijan), and the generally confusing political situation of the Caucasus.  Armenia doesn’t like Azerbaijan or Turkey, but it gets along with Georgia (which it better, since the only other border for the small land-locked country is about 35 miles with Iran) and with Russia.  Of course, Georgia doesn’t get along with Russia, but gets along well with Turkey, etc, etc.  This caused one of my friends to remark that it was like Melrose Place.

The next morning, we took a walking tour around Yerevan.  Yerevan is quite pretty, and I learned a lot.  The part that was the most fascinating to me (as always) was when our tour guide talked about the early nineties.  As I mentioned above, Armenia had a rough start.  Even before the Soviet Union collapsed, a part of Azerbaijan that was full of ethnic Armenians called Nagorno-Karabakh started making noise about independence.  It tried to declare independence after the fall of the Soviet Union.  Armenia fully supported this effort, and Azerbaijan refused to allow the area to secede.  A war between Armenia and Azerbaijan ensued.  According to our tour guide, that time was terrible but all of Armenia was behind Karabakh.  Even in 1988, when the earthquake devastated the country, people cared about Karabakh’s freedom.  A senior party official at the time (I can’t currently remember who, but he was Armenian) flew to Yerevan  after the earthquake happened to inspect the damage.  He helped pull an old man out of the rubble a few days after the earthquake.  The man’s first question was “Is Karabakh free?”  Finding out the answer was “no”, he said, “then put me back in the rubble”.  (That is at least the story as told by my tour guide, to the best of my memory.)  Our tour guide, who was probably late twenties or early thirties, remembered working as a child to help support his family during the early nineties.  For years even Yerevan had no gas or power or had them for only an hour a day.  Years.  The country suffered incredibly, but our tour guide said the country did not care, it cared about Karabakh’s freedom.  The war never ended, but they reached a cease fire that has led to an uneasy peace ever since.

Armenia is a country that has been fought over and conquered for centuries.  It claims to be the oldest Christian kingdom.  It did adopt Christianity before Georgia, but Georgia also claims to be the oldest Christian kingdom, I think because Georgia actually was a continuous country while Armenia was often ruled by others.  Someone pointed out, as a result of all the wars fought in this country, Yerevan lacks an “old town”, probably because the city has been destroyed and rebuilt too many times.  That afternoon, some friends and I climbed around the Erebuni fortress, which dates from 782 BC.  Or at least, on that spot, there was a fortress built in 782 BC.  The fortress we climbed on looked like ruins from the 1950s, when they excavated the site.  Still, it was fun, and 782 BC was a long time ago.  This is considered the founding of Yerevan, even though the city has gone through many reincarnations since then.  It has been a continuous settlement since that time, but it is actually Armenia’s 14^th capital. 

After the fortress, we walked around the city to Cascade, a contemporary art museum.  The outside is a work of art as well, and we enjoyed climbing the steps.

Cascade

 Going a bit farther, we hit the “Mother Armenia” statue.  Tbilisi has a “Mother Georgia” statue with a sword for enemies and glass of wine for friends.  “Mother Armenia” just has a half-sheathed sword, which apparently Georgians say is because Armenians have no friends, just enemies. 

Mother Georgia, in Tbilisi

Mother Armenia

At the base of the statue (before “Mother Armenia” was erected, this had been a Soviet statue of Lenin or Stalin), there was a tank other military items that my friends and I had fun investigating.  That find was actually my favorite part of the trip.

This makes 3 countries where I've climbed on Soviet tanks.  I doubt Georgia has any to plan on, though.

Having heard that there was a “street of BBQ”, a big group of us went that night in search of it.  We found a few shops but were expecting more.  We eventually realized that there were only a few places and went into one of them.  The place could not fit all 11 of us at one table, so the woman ushered us downstairs (we were basically her only customers), where there was an empty room with 2 tables.  She and the other workers brought down several chairs (which weighed a ton), put a tablecloth on the tables, and told us to sit.  Since there was no written menu, I got to translate for the group our order, which basically amounted to a feast.  We had pork kebabs, “kebabi” which are kind of like a special type of sausage, chicken, cheese, assorted greens, lots of bread, tomatoes, and other veggies.  It was a lot like the night before and every bit as delicious, made even better by our hunger.  Having expected little when I walked into the restaurant, I was very pleasantly surprised by how delicious the feast was, and how much fun it was in our impromptu (again alcohol-free) supra.  We had very little idea of what the bill would be, but it amounted to about 3000 dram a person (~$8.50).  It was amazing.  We then bought some pomegranate wine to enjoy at the hostel, since that is one of Armenia’s signature drinks.  I liked it, but then again, I love pomegranates.

Some of us were worried about catching our marshrutkas home from Tbilisi so got up for the 8:30 marshrutka (mini bus) to Tbilisi.  As usual with a group of us, they stuck most of us in the back.  This is the worst place to ride because 1)you are a bit higher and can’t really see out the windows, and 2)you feel the lack of suspension on the twisting, bumpy roads a lot.  We suffered through it.  At our one stop, we all got tea or coffee.  Some of our traveling companions had a big water bottle full of a clear liquid.  When I saw that they were grabbing shot glasses, I figured it must be chacha (homemade alcohol) or the Armenian equivalent.  I first declined their offer of a shot.  Then one of the guys poured a shot onto the tablecloth and set it on fire.  I had heard of this being done to show the quality of the chacha, but I had never witnessed it before.  It burned for a while, since, according to my new friend, it was 80% alcohol.  One of the guys in my group accepted, then another, and then the third and I decided we might as well.  It was only my 2^nd shot of chacha (they have all been forced to drink plenty of it in the last 3 months), and it makes vodka look easy.  Still, it felt very Georgian (turns out our new friends were Georgians), and it did make the rest of the ride a bit easier.  They let us across the border again, hoorah! 

I had a great time in Armenia and will go back if I get the chance.  It was especially interesting coming from Georgia since the two countries have a long, intertwined history, which I think you’ve had enough of for now.

Winter has come to the Village

Too much has gone on to fit life and Armenia in one post, so I’m aiming for 2.  At school, I vacillate between just showing up to do what I have to do to fulfill my obligations for living in this country and really trying to improve things in my own small way.  I brought a cold with me back from Armenia (I think we all did), so most of this week has been the former, but I am making small steps toward the latter. 

This week I set up a weekly time to meet with my co-teachers to work on their English and maybe actually plan lessons.  Only one teacher was able to make it this week and I did not make us talk about the schedule, but just having a class period to talk was nice.  It let me get to know her as a person a bit better and to work on her English.  When my co-teachers make mistakes in class (point to the yellow, It is boat, etc), I cringe inwardly and repeat the correct phrase, but this will be a time where there are no students listening where I can correct them more openly.  In a country where saving face is so important, I really am trying to correct the teachers and students without the teachers looking ignorant in front of their kids.  To help the other teachers, next week I will start teaching a basic English class for them.  I have tried for weeks to pin down a time, and this week one of my teacher friends took me to the director (who I hardly ever see) and arranged a time, so off we go!  We’re starting with the alphabet, so I’m hoping several of them show, since a lot have expressed interest. 

I also am trying to integrate creative teaching methods.  Today I asked my 6^th graders to create a dialogue with a partner, which would require them to have original ideas instead of rote memorization skills.  They did not balk at this as much as whined for about 5 minutes about the partners I chose for them.  I had to physically move some of them for them to get the hint that they were not going to be allowed to work with their friends.  Some of them actually did an okay job.  If nothing else, I won the battle of wills with my 6^th grade class, a victory I will take, no matter how petty.

On a more cultural note, we have heat in school now!  Since the temperature is now hovering around freezing, this is a much welcome addition to the school day.  Before we had heat, we had shortened classes from 45 minutes to 40, and then, sometimes, 35 minutes.  The radiators kick out enough heat so that I’m not cold with my jacket on, but I still am trying to include at least one exercise per class that gets the kids moving a little to keep them warm.

Like most of Europe, Georgia learns British English.  The much-hailed books we now use are also British.  I hear they are a huge improvement over what the schools had last year.  Especially since I am still teaching incredibly basic English, there are few problems, although I smile when my students say “z” instead of “zed” or pronounce “zebra” like an American.  I have made myself use “full stop” for “period” because getting the kids to learn one punctuation term is hard enough.  If they use it, I will be happy, even if I have to call it by a funny name.  Incidentally, the Brits use “full stop” like we use “period” even in other ways, like “Khashi is the worst Georgian dish, full stop”.  Khashi is a soup made of parts of a cow that I never want to eat (I think their innards, but I’ve also heard it is made from cows’ feet.  Regardless, I tried it once and am hoping to avoid it this time since it is currently simmering on the stove.)  There are other British words that I find it a bit harder to adapt to.  I will call a teddy bear a “teddy” for the class, but my in my head laugh a little, since teddy bears and lingerie should not be confused.  Also, “a rubber” is apparently an eraser… another difference I don’t feel like explaining to 6^th graders.

On the home front, life at home is back to normal.  I spend a lot of time in the kitchen keeping warm.  Since that means I overhear far more conversations, I am really starting to wish I knew more Georgian.  I learned the word for “tell her/him” recently, since it was often used when I could tell my family wanted to use my modem.  Now I self-consciously assume it always applies to me.  Thankfully, it doesn’t, because I hear it a lot.  This is still a good impetus to step up my Georgian studies.

Monday was a big day for me and my family.  It was the first day of snow, and it snowed a lot.  The snow is beautiful.  My host brothers also turned 14, so despite the snow, friends and family came to celebrate. This was my first supra, which means “tablecloth” in Georgian.  It also means a party, but Georgian style, requiring lots of food, even more alcohol, and tons of toasts.  When I came home on Sunday, my family was cooking up a storm.  That continued all day on Monday.  About 4:30, neighborhood kids and classmates of the boys came over.  Although my host parents only came in to refill the food or cook some meat on the fire, I sat with the kids.  We ate and had homemade wine.  Culturally, kids this age drinking wine is no big deal.  You can only drink when there is a toast, and the kids actually only drank when they made a toast (or, for my host brothers, were the recipient of a toast) so few of the kids had much of anything to drink. Of course, the boys were encouraged to drink their whole glass of wine…I was fine until we started doing “vakhtangoris” (which is probably spelled wrong), a Georgian drinking move (of course Georgia has a signature drinking move) where you link arms and drink (bad explanation, see pic below). 

 Then there was a toast with special chalices to my host mom.  Then the kids left and the adults came.  In the interim, I had a blast having an impromptu snowball fight with my host sister and neighbor.  Then I was ushered back to the adult table.  The tamada (toastmaster-the person who leads most toasts and designates who toasts next) quickly caught on to the great Georgian game of “get the foreigner drunk”, a game I have not previously been forced to play.  Since he found out I knew Russian, he spoke several toasts in Russian to include me (since you can ignore a toast if you’re not part of it and therefore not be forced to drink).  I tried to take a sip, but then he asked how old I was.  He informed me his daughter was 27 and she could down her glass.  So, as if I was his daughter, he ordered me to down my glass during toasts.  Thankfully, after drinking and eating more after being stuffed, the women called me away, since they had segregated themselves to the fireplace by this point.  I sat and ate more cake with them before I escaped to the computer room and just hung out with neighbors and my host siblings.  It was actually a very fun night and a great cultural experience.  While they don’t all match, I’m now convinced my host family has more dishes than my family back home, as they only had to do a bit of washing after serving probably around 15 kids and then serving at least 10 more adults.  Each person also used a few glasses and plates.  The whole thing was quite a production.  While my host father could sit, eat, and drink with the men after the kids were gone, my host mother and grandmother never sat down (except in the kitchen).  They were constantly serving more and more food.  It was also absolutely delicious, probably the best meal I’ve had at my host family (ok, well, it ties with homemade khinkali).  While no one mentioned it during the supra, the boys got a host of presents from the guests, including a few highly decorated drinking horns (that I had previously thought only tourists bought), drinking glasses (like regular drinking glasses) and cups, and other practical items.  I gave them M&Ms from America (thanks, Mom), since I have no idea what to boy for teenage boys. 

My neighbor is having a birthday tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see if things are different or the same.

Cultural Clashes, or More Anecdotes from my Life

Um, where to start?  How about with the humorous goings on of today?  To do that, I should back up a little and explain where my 6^th grade class is.  This is the one where half the kids know English and half don’t.  I had split them up, but a week or two ago my co-teacher said the other half of the kids ask when I will teach them, so I had to combine the two groups.  At the time I was too tired to argue and just have not felt up to fighting for kids who didn’t seem to appreciate what I was trying to do for them.  So, now I have one group.  On Friday, since we were essentially done with chapter one, I gave them a quiz, not for a grade, but just to see where they were.  As usual, they “helped” each other, but I tried to keep that to a minimum.  The results were better than I expected.  Some of the kids who had never learned English before were clearly learning something, and the ones that were totally lost were so mostly because they misbehaved in class and put forth no effort to learn.  Yesterday, my co-teacher had to sub for another class, so I had to teach alone.  The kids were incredibly noisy, and I confiscated a few notes, balls of paper, and pen parts (used for spit wads).  Today the teacher was back, and I gave my test.  First, I made all the kids get out a fresh piece of paper (I have yet to see the copier at our school, and teachers don’t really copy stuff like they do in the States).  Then I moved them around the room to make it harder to look at eachother’s papers.  One of my better students even asked me in Russian if he could sit next to a friend and work together with him since the friend didn’t know English very well.  (Their ideas on academic integrity are very different from America’s.)  I then told them NO TALKING.  After the first question, another teacher came in for a few minutes for something.  I saw a few kids peeking in books or notebooks, so I proceeded to collect all the kids’ books.  At least one kid looked upset.  She just didn’t know the answer so needed to look it up.  How could I take away her notebook?  Again, they have different ideas.

The quiz proceeded fairly well.  About half the kids would ask me or my co-teacher if an answer was correct, but I ignored them.  A few kids tried to cheat, but it was obvious.  I would have gotten more upset with them but they did not find out much, mostly because their knowledge of who to cheat off of is of the same quality as their English.  After the quiz, I tried to teach them basic commands in English so that I can yell at them in English (Sit down!  Read! Turn around! Be quiet! Write!).  In the process of my lesson (which most of the kids seemed to like), I collected a few notes, as usual.  Today, just out of curiosity to see what nonsense they write during English class, I asked my host family to translate.  My host mom started talking about Google and websites and then asked where I got the notes and what they were.  Apparently some of the boys have been looking up internet porn.  Of course this is the note I ask to get translated…awkward.

In addition to that delightful bit of teaching, I came home today to see smoke billowing from our yard.  My host dad was making homemade vodka.  That is actually awesome.   

Being female, I was not asked to try any.  My host mom also made borscht today.  It might be one of my favorite foods now, especially on a cold winter day.

Speaking of food (which I love to do), last Thursday was an excellent Georgian day for me.  One of my 2^nd graders turned 7, so she had a birthday party in class.  I got invited, score!  Her aunt (because her parents live in Spain) made a huge cake that reminded me of Cinderella. 

She also made khachapuri and brought in chocolate, persimmons, grapes, soda, and homemade liqueur.  I watched with interest as she set things up.  Each kid got some khachapuri, fruit, and cake.  (Interesting side note: Georgians cut big round cakes like this in an ingenious fashion.  They cut out a circle in the center and then make the usual slices, so you don’t have that awkward super narrow part that makes plating the cake so difficult.)  You have to toast when you drink alcohol here. Thankfully, they gave the kids soda instead.  Still, watching 2^nd graders toast to each other is adorable.  After the kids left for the day (at the end of that period), the teachers and aunt set up a table for themselves.  We feasted on the food and drank the homemade liqueur.  I have no idea what it was, but it was good.  We also toasted the girl (and ourselves, among other things).  The 2^nd grade teacher translated most of her toast for me.  She toasted the girl, talking about how good of girl she was, how she was a big girl (it’s been too long since that was viewed as a positive in my world, so that threw me for a loop at first), and wishing her long life, health, and especially marriage to a Georgian husband.  They start these kids early on these ideas.

Khachapuri-sour cheese and bread, also known as the delicious reason I first started to love Georgia

After stuffing myself, I went home, fended off lunch, and then watched with interest as my host mom started making dough and meat.  I was in luck!  My host family made khinkali-the most Georgian of Georgian dishes. I had tried them out before, but this was my first time eating homemade khinkali.  They even let me try to make a few sorry looking khinkalis.  I again stuffed myself.  It was a banner day for me in Georgia.

Khinkali in progress

Saturday was also a great day.  The weather here has been hovering in the 40s.  We have a stove in the kitchen that keeps that room toasty now, so I spend most of my days there.  Nighttime in my unheated room had gotten unbearable.  Thus, I went on Saturday to Tbilisi to buy a space heater.  I spent a wonderful day wandering around the market, checking off things on my shopping list.  When I was headed to a mall to buy an English book for my sister, I ran into one of the guys from my training group.  This is what I love about Georgia.  I was not anywhere touristy or even prominent.  He was as shocked to meet me as I was him.  I took him with me to the mall to show him there was more than just clothing stores out of our price range there.  He informed me of the wonderful news that the CARDS WON!  Or, as Grandpa Sam would say, the good guys won.  I don’t care about many sports, but it would be impossible for me not to be a Cards fan.  Would have loved to be in St. Louis on Friday night.  Regardless, I am in Georgia and soaking that up.  We ended up meeting up with more friends at the market, and I had a delightful time in addition to getting some shopping done.  I then came home to the best part of the day.

While I was shopping in Tbilisi, my host mom called me to say that a package had arrived for me at the police station.  I was shocked, for I had no idea who could have sent it.  I knew my mom had sent a package, but that had been barely 2 weeks ago and had been in New Jersey the last time we had checked.  I was also thrilled that a package had arrived.  Georgia’s postal system recently was privatized, but in general, they don’t have one like we do.  Most people, when they need to send things across the country, put it on a marshrutka (mini bus) that’s headed in that direction and tell the recipient to be there for that marshrutka.  It costs a few lari and seems to be fairly efficient.  So, things like addresses are sometimes hard to uncover, since no one knows them.  There is no mailman who brings your mail each day.  I’ve heard lots of stories about how packages from the US get delivered eventually, so I was curious to see how my mom’s package would appear, if at all.  I asked her to put my host dad’s name on it.  Since he’s a cop, they sent the package to the police station.  It got from Springfield to Manglisi in 15 days.  I was floored and rather excited.  I was expecting it to take at least a month and maybe only make it as far as Tbilisi.  Instead, it was waiting for me when I got home, so I opened it in front of my family and neighbor.  It felt like the best Christmas ever.  We all oohed and ahhed over the Reeese’s (they were gone quickly), perfume (my host family was so excited about samples of perfume), nail polish, a sweater, other American food, stickers, and other things my mom had thought to put in the package.  From practical things like batteries and face wash to fun things like play-doh, my mom did an awesome job, and America felt a little closer. That plus the space heater made for a good night.

The next day, thinking that there were still Reese’s left and craving one, I looked in my box.  I did not find any, so I looked around my room.  I still found none, even though I was sure there were still some left from the night before.  I freaked out a little, thinking my host family had taken the candy from my room, to the extent that I went into the kitchen to ask them if anyone had eaten them.  I got negative responses.  I could have just miscalculated, but I went through and could not find a few other snacks.  At this point, I was frustrated and angry and realizing how limited I was by my lack of Georgian.  They could have merely been confused by me being upset over candy we had eaten the night before or they could have been talking about how one of them had eaten the rest of the candy.  I have no idea.  I was disappointed about the Reese’s, but more so, I was upset about the idea of my family taking my stuff.  I share with my family a lot-I frequently let them use my internet, camera, and DVDs.  They generally ask about these things, and I am usually happy to share.  I still have this American sense that my stuff is my property.  Georgians don’t have such individualistic ideas about property, especially within a family.  My sisters and mom share clothes, even though they are different sizes.  I’m not 100% sure that my host family even took stuff from my room, but just in case, I decided to start locking up my stuff.  Of course, I don’t lock up the valuable stuff like my camera, but rather the stuff I don’t want to share, like M&Ms and peanut butter.  Priorities.  I think this is a cultural issue rather than a moral one (while in America we would see this as stealing, in Georgia, since I am part of the family, this is normal), and during our cultural training, we discussed similar situations. 

It bothered me for about a day.  I also knew I was spending all day on the computer so that they would not ask to borrow my modem because I did not feel like sharing.  Then I got over my craving for Reese’s and rationality set in.  I will be able to eat Reese’s for the rest of my life, but they won’t.  I also started feeling convicted about being a “cheerful giver”.  Normally I am, but lately I had started feeling slightly bitter about it. I think a lot of volunteers struggle with similar issues in a host family.  Yes, the family has opened its home to us and feeds us.  They treat us well, often serving us (since Georgians are so hospitable) and taking good care of us.  Most boys don’t do laundry, clean a dish, or maybe even know where their food comes from for the length of their homestay.  We also pay them each month to offset costs.  So, when host families without internet or a computer want to use the volunteer’s, they volunteer has a choice.  They can share or they can make sure their lifeline to the outside world does not get broken or a virus, etc.  I generally share with my family, but definitely needed that reminder that 1)I’m an American who will enjoy a lifetime of luxuries and 2)I’m a Christian who has been incredibly blessed and have no room to begrudge people what they ask of me (especially a wonderful host family).  So, I’m trying to be better about that.  I still have a lock on my suitcase because I think it is a good preventative measure for avoiding issues in the future, but I am more open to sharing what they ask to use.  My neurosis about MBs has to give way to letting them use my modem.  It also forces me to unplug for a while and talk to my host family, work on a horrible attempt at a scarf, actually work on my lessons, or study a bit. 

I’m off to Armenia on Friday, so I’m sure I will have more adventures to tell then.