Kazbegi and the start of School (for real this time)

So, I should correct something I said in my last blog.  Kazbegi is the highest point in Eastern Georgia, there are 2 higher points in Western Georgia.  Regardless, it is something that every guidebook says is a must-see for Georgia. 

So, I love planning trips and have taken it upon myself to do most of the organizing for my friends and I when we travel.  The thing about Georgia is that the culture works really well with not planning.  Advance reservations and the like are possible, but usually are more expensive than the opportunities that just crop up.  So, my planning amounts more to researching options and going with whatever comes.  Thus, when a marshrutka driver told us that for an extra 5 lari, he would drive us from Tbilisi to Kazbegi and stop along the way at interesting sights, we agreed.  There was at least one site I had wanted to see but did not know a good way of getting to otherwise.  Our first stop was Ananuri, where I had wanted to go. It is basically an old fort, ruins.  

 There are 2 churches, one of which looks totally abandoned on the inside.  You can see the steeples of both in the pics above.  The site has a nice view of the Aragvi river (also shown), was built centuries ago, and provided a nice opportunity for some light climbing.  More pictures to come when I have high-speed internet or gain a lot of patience.   

After that, we stopped at a cool mural that was dedicated to the friendship of Russian and Georgian people (obviously a bit old).  The mural is cool, but the awesome part about it is that railings underneath that allow you to take in the spectacular mountain views. 

My group in front of gorgeous mountains

We also stopped at a point where the mountain turned orange due to some special mineral in the water.  Water still softly flows down the mountain, and the rock has ridges due to the continual flow.  Watching the water flow down was mesmerizing and calming.  We also got to climb on the mountain a bit, because the surface is not slippery, despite the look of it.  The water was not too bad, either.  Of course I tried it, as my standards for cleanliness have declined across the board since arriving in Georgia.

Doesn't this look like you'd slip and fall easily?  You won't!

After that, we finally made it to Stepantsminda, which is the village by Kazbegi.  It used to be called Kazbegi as well, but Georgia changed the name a while ago, so people will call it either name (a frequent occurrence in post-Soviet society).  A friend of our marshrutka driver had a guest house, so we decided to stay there since it was cheap enough.  Since the weather was cooperating, we headed up to the church on a nearby hill/mountain.   

I climbed to the church on top of this hill.  Not sure I could ever do it again, but it was awesome.

The church was beautiful and what I expect out of good Orthodox churches-dark, quiet, and smelling of beeswax candles.  They even enforced a dress code.  The real beauty of the church, however, is the view of Kazbegi.  

Kazbegi-where Prometheus is allegedly chained for giving fire to mankind

The peak is finally visible in the clouds.

 It was gorgeous; pics don’t do it justice.  Having hiked up the hill/mountain to get to the church to see the view made it that much sweeter.  The next day we scrambled around some 13^th century towers (or at least that is how old the friendly old villager told me they were) before heading back to Tbilisi to make sure we got our marshrutki home.  On the way, we met some sheep.  There were a few goats, but sorry Julie, I couldn't get out my camera fast enough to snap a pic of them.

Yesterday I finally started teaching!  I have 2 co-teachers, and I should never have to teach classes by myself.  After TLG teachers last year complained about the poor quality of the English textbooks, the Georgian government instituted a new reform that bought new textbooks (from a Western publisher!) for grades 1-6.  As these are the grades that have the Macmillan books, these are the grades that TLG teachers are assigned to.  Thus, I currently only have about 13 hours of work a week, since that covers all grades 1-6 in my small school.  5 of the grades are with one teacher and grade 6 is with another.  Yesterday I got my schedule (thank goodness, as a schedule was promised by TLG but seemed doubtful on the ground).  I am hoping to add some older classes and extracurricular clubs to this schedule, but for now, I’m just wading through the status quo.  Yesterday I tagged along for 4 classes.  My first class, full of adorable 4^th graders, almost all had books.  The situation went downhill from there.  In one class, only a handful of kids had books.  In others, about half.  One of my co-teachers has a teacher’s edition, the other co-teacher has basically no access to the books, and I am supposed to get a book somehow.

As most of the grades have never had English before, we are starting out very basic, on the alphabet.  Yesterday I mostly observed and tried to stay awake.  Today I got to be more involved, even teaching my 6^th grade class, totally on the fly of course, but how hard is it to introduce the alphabet?  I really like this class despite the difficulties it presents.  Apparently, the 6^th grade was previously split up into 2 groups, with one having all their classes in Russian and the other all in Georgian.  I have no idea why they did that or why this year they decided to combine the 2 classes into 1, but they did.  To add to the fun of that, the Russian group has already had a year of English while the Georgian students don’t know the alphabet yet.  So, the half of my class I could communicate with easily already knew the lesson, and the other half was struggling through.  This kind of disorganization and slightly chaotic learning environment isn’t all that atypical.  One of my friends still does not have a schedule (nor do any teachers in his school), despite the fact that he started almost 2 weeks ago. 

My teachers seem to be pretty good teachers (have yet to see the rote learning so fabled), but their English leaves something to be desired.  Sometimes communicating is difficult, and I almost find it easier to speak to other teachers in Russian.  The good thing about this is that there is much for me to do, and I certainly feel that I have a lot I can add to the school here.  I just wonder if the language barrier will prevent my co-teachers from becoming good friends like my colleagues in Izhevsk were (if any of you are reading this, I miss you all a lot!).  That said, the kids are generally adorable and should make teaching pretty fun, especially since I only have to keep their attention for 45 minutes.  This feels like nothing after having gotten used to the 80 minutes at UdGU.

The only other troubling aspect of teaching is another one that is teaching me about how America’s policies have shaped my views.  Having gone to school in a society that was so far removed from corporeal punishment that we even worry about laying a hand on a child in a positive way, it was very strange yesterday to see teachers actually lay a hand on their students.  The students were being little punks, and I would have liked to slapped them, but in that way where I know I never ever would.  My co-teacher did not slap them but did pull one kid’s very short hair and box his ears.  What was more disturbing was the fact that when this boy or another troublemaker got caught, they would throw their arms up to protect their face, as if they were expecting to be hit.  I’m hoping I don’t see any actual violence, but even what I saw shocked my American sensibilities.  I was really bothered when I gave one kid an evil glare and he threw his hands up around his head, as if he thought I would strike him.  This is obviously a big cultural difference, but I abhor the idea that I would ever actually harm a child, even if he deserves to be punished.

I am also getting to know (a little) some of the other schoolteachers.  Those that can speak Russian are very friendly, and they encourage me to get better in my Russian (although they say it is great) and my Georgian.  Hopefully I can find a Georgian tutor soon.  One of them, a PE teacher, today showed me the gym and said that if I want to play volleyball or basketball sometime, she’ll have my host sisters tell me when.  I like this idea a lot.  I also like that she and others asked if I played basketball, because there is also the stereotype (which I fulfilled as a child) that tall girls play basketball.  She also talked about how awesome my twin host bros are at basketball, generally extolling my host fam’s athleticism. 

In short, so far, I don’t know what I’m doing a lot, but I like going to school.

Mail

Now that I know that I'm staying put, I have my address for those of you who have asked for it.  I have it in Georgian and English, which I would recommend putting on the package for an increased chance in it ending up here.  Getting packages is still a gamble, as there is no door-to-door mail service like in the US.  My host mom says that any packages will probably go to Tbilisi and someone will then call me, hence the number.  Also, Gela Mgeladze is my host dad, in case you're interested.

საქართველო

თეთრი წყაროს რაიონი - დაბა მანგლისი

მისამართი: თამარის ქუჩა No. 24

გელა მგელაძე

ჰანა ქეი (577-97-34-18)

Georgia

Tetri Skaro region – village Manglisi

Tamar Street 24

c/o Gela Mgeladze

Hannah Kay (577-97-34-18)

An Education in the Ways of Georgia

So, last Tuesday I was told I was moving and I was going to a meeting on Thursday with my new co-teachers and director.  On Wednesday, sick with a cold and finally realizing what moving might actually mean, I started to freak out.  I did not want to move.  My host family came home from vacation and also were quite upset to hear I was moving.  They asked if I could just say I wanted to stay.  Since I had struggled to get any response from TLG at all, of course I said no.  I had been told where I was moving and that was that.  My host dad called my co-teacher and then informed me I would not have to move until the 20^th, so at least I had a few more days at home before I had to pick up and readjust to a new host family.

My new co-teachers and directors were lovely and very gracious. They picked me up and drove almost 2 hours to our meeting and then dropped me off on their way home (I probably made them go an extra hour out of their way to pick me up).  I felt like quite a traitor to my host family as I got in the car with the people I would be working with, but what else could I do?

I stayed home this weekend to hang out with my host family/work on grad school apps.  On Sunday, I was talking with a neighbor, waiting for my host mom to get home so they could have coffee.  My host sister comes in and explains that my host mom is talking to someone they know, who is now head of the Tetri Skaro ERC (educational resource center), and if I want to stay in Manglisi, she could make that happen.  Of course I wanted to stay (especially when asked by my host sister).  My host family was happy, but I was holding out until I heard something definite from TLG.

On Monday I emailed TLG and, of course, the person who would need to decide such matters was out of the office.  My host dad made a call that day “to someone in the ministry” (this sounds so official and awesome), and he said that I would be staying.  I was still not 100% convinced but was hopeful. I had heard no more talk of how I was going to move to Tsintskaro, so I decided I would wait and see.

On Tuesday, my friend who’s teaching in Mtskheta came to Manglisi.  It was a good test run of how my host family would handle visitors (especially male visitors as gender roles are a whole different ballgame here).  Since the weather here has been rainy and cold, most of the mountains were shrouded in fog, but I still enjoyed playing tour guide of my new home.  Of course, this included me going the wrong way at least once but we went to the church and hit all the other “highlights” of town, like the bank that looks like an abandoned building, the vrosha which now is empty, the ancient church which was thankfully open even if overrun with schoolchildren, a forest of trees engrossed in a fight against erosion, the shiny new police station, and my house.  Unfortunately, the marshrutka back to Tbilisi left at 4, so it was a short trip.  While waiting for the marshrutka, I got my official TLG call saying I could stay in Manglisi.  I was quite happy and thought I might actually begin to teach.

When I got home, my host family seemed totally uninterested in my phone call from TLG.  They already knew I was staying.  They also informed me I was going to school today with the host family kids.  Thus, this morning I woke up early and watched the children go from comatose to out the door in about 20 minutes.  We went to school, which was basically what I expected, just like the schools I had visited in Russia, except less official photographs, etc. adorned the walls.  The school is also large, so I am sure I will get lost several times.  I met the director and my main co-teacher, who both seemed very nice.  They talked about how delighted they were that I would be teaching with them, even though another school had tried to take me away.  I was not supposed to teach today so was not that surprised when I was sent home after about 30 minutes.  Tomorrow we go to Rustavi for a meeting.  Of course, I have already gone through this meeting with the teachers from Tsintskaro, so I am not thrilled about enduring another drive through windy mountain roads to endure another meeting that will be repetition of what I already heard. Still, this meeting gets me closer to teaching, and I am glad I get to stay put.

For those of you who think that I am taking the easy way out by staying in Manglisi, you could be right.  Perhaps my adventurous spirit is showing signs of age. I prefer to think of it as wisdom.  Host families are a complete gamble.  I have heard plenty of horror stories about rat and scorpion infestations, host families not feeding their volunteers, outhouse holes in the ground that serve as toilets, families that want to know about every website and email you send, host families stealing volunteers’ items, etc.  Granted, most of these incidents are isolated, and some people love their host families or find a way to make things work. 

I have found a very happy existence with my host family.  They give me plenty of privacy and do not mind at all when I leave for the weekend.  They also give me lots of tea and bread.  My host mom is incredibly laid-back (especially for a Georgian woman) and rarely yells (something most Georgian women seem to do).  Although the men in my family smoke, they rarely do so inside, so I rarely have to deal with the smell (several of my friends say they feel like they live in a bar sometimes because of all the smoke).  My host sisters are a lot of fun and very curious.  My host brothers and I don’t interact that much, but their antics (mostly random chanting/singing/responding in Russian) generally amuse me.  My host grandma makes me smile on a frequent basis.  Their extended family has been so nice to me, and I really like them.  Moreover, I have already spent over a month getting comfortable, setting boundaries, figuring out how to fit into this family.  I may have had a great host family waiting for me, but I wanted to stay where I knew I had a great host family already. 

Since my host family not only said that they did not want me to leave but actually put forth effort to have me stay not only in Manglisi but with them for the entire school year, I feel very loved and truly included in their family.  My host mom told me yesterday at breakfast that my oldest host sister has decided that she wants to study foreign languages, namely English in college.  That was an obvious ego boost.  Granted, that is a smart decision for her since Georgia is making a big push toward English, but my arrival and stay with them seems to be the instigating factor in this decision.  This also means that I have a year to improve her English so that she can pass her exam with flying colors, a new goal for me.  This also makes me feel like I have some material contribution other than my paltry rent to this family.  Obviously there is some prestige to having a foreign guest, but I am not sure that alone makes up for the presence of a stranger for an entire year.  Georgians are not nearly as concerned with privacy as Americans (and especially my family) are, but still, having an American living with you changes your family’s existence a bit.

Come January when I am tramping through two feet of snow to go to my freezing-cold school, I may feel a little less pleased with this decision to stay, but for now, I am very glad that I will get to continue the relationships I have already begun to foster and I will get to enjoy a true Georgian village for the rest of the year.  Hopefully in a few days I will be able to tell of my first day of teaching.  I also have plans to go to Kazbegi (highest mountain in Georgia) this weekend with some friends, so I should have more adventures to tell of as well.

Batumi, Mtskheta, and finally a word on school

How can so much happen in so few days?

I realize this is a very long post and may get boring in parts, so sorry if it does.  Most of the interesting stories require a bit of explanation.

On Friday I woke up early and headed into Tbilisi.  TLG had a yearly meeting, which was mostly a big PR move talking about all the program had done.  However, it was really interesting to see how in little more than a year, the program had really started to make a difference in the country.  Not only were kids starting to learn English, teachers complaining about a lack of supplies (like good books) led to the government purchasing brand new curriculum for grades 1-6 for this school year from a Western publisher.  Hopefully the books will be as affordable as promised (I get the vibe students buy their own books) and will really help.  This also means I should be teaching little kids, as they have the new books.  Mostly I went to the meeting because it was at the Courtyard Marriott and I wanted some good free food.  With salsa and cheesecake among the choices, I was very happy. I also got to meet up with some of my TLG friends and made a few new ones.  That night I met up with 5 of my friends from my training group and we boarded a midnight (well, almost midnight) train to Batumi.

Much to my delight, the train was just like Russian trains, and my friends were very pleased with my knowledge of post-Soviet trains, like knowing there is a bottle opener under the table (thank you, Fulbright).  Far too early, for it was only an 8 hour ride, we arrived in Batumi.  Batumi is the Black Sea resort party town, so we were quite excited about our weekend.  While I had organized the trip for several of us coming from near Tbilisi, the majority of people from my training group ended up in Batumi last weekend, so we had a great reunion. 

After taking a while to find our hostel and then move (of course our hostel didn’t have our reservations but it worked out just fine), we settled into our hostel and set out for some food.  We wandered around in search of morning coffee.  Finally finding some, we wanted a café with food (because the place where we got coffee was only serving breakfast food for patrons of the adjoining hotel), which was difficult at 10:30 on a rainy Saturday.  I think most places there don’t open up until later because the town is still sleeping off the night before.  Starving, we found a place serving beer.  No, we didn’t start drinking then, but found it was right next to a little bread stand.  Not only did the old man making ‘tonis puri’ (Georgian kiln bread) let us come in and see him at work, he let us take pictures (see my facebook pics).  Then we bought the hot, fresh bread and had a delightful breakfast.  We met up with some other friends and I ran into some Peace Corps people, including my friend Chris.  If I haven’t yet mentioned how small Georgia, or at least the expat world of Georgia is, let me do it now.  It’s small.  I know very few people here but regularly run into someone I know in Tbilisi (or Batumi).  After that, still battling drizzly weather, my friends and I headed off to find a museum to while away some time.  We spent a while in the art museum, which offered an array of good and bad art. 

After that, it looked like the rain had stopped, so we headed to the Botanical Gardens.  Of course, it started raining again, or at least drizzling, but that made our excursion seem like that much more of an adventure.  There were not a lot of flowers, but there were some cool trees, so our trek was still fun.  The Botanical Gardens is also right on the water, so we had some spectacular views.  After walking and walking, we paid for a ride on what was really a glorified, elongated golf cart (probably supposed to be a tram).  It had plastic around the sides so we were finally dry and could take a break.  We got dropped off at the end and informed there was a seaside park nearby.  Finally, I got to stick my feet in the sea!!!  Perhaps because it was wet and cold outside, the water was quite warm, and I wished I had my bathing suit on right there.  Regardless, we had fun putting our feet in.  We eventually headed out the exit, which was not the brightest idea since it led us to a road that took quite a while to meet up with civilization.  Once it finally did, we hailed a marshrutka (public taxi van) back to Batumi and found some delicious Turkish food to eat.  My friend Linda realized she had left her phone in our marshrutka.  We called in vain but quickly gave it up as lost.  Right when we got back to our room at the hostel, the marshrutka driver called from her phone.  I raced down the 3 flights of steps to get the Georgian girl at the front desk to talk to him, since he seemed to know no Russian.  We were directed to a bus station where we could pick up her lost phone.  There were 2 next to each other, so I was not sure if I was at the right one, so I was waiting to call the driver to get the phone until I was sure I was at the right station.  However, 4 foreigners looking confused definitely stand out, so without a phone call, our marshrutka driver walked over with Linda’s phone.  A bad situation was suddenly another display of the kindness of the Georgian people.  We walked back through a market, in search of fresh figs.  Unfortunately, the market seemed to cater more toward the Home Depot crowd, with stall after stall of home building goods.  An interesting sight, but no figs.  The moral of this story is actually that Georgia is a very small country.  We were about to cross a street in this market when a car comes dangerously close to us.  Out pops one of the girls from our group and another TLGer.  They had hitchhiked (safe and common here) from their city and somehow found us when we couldn’t have even explained where in Batumi we were.

After a cold but still much-needed shower and a bit of food and drink at the hostel, we were set to explore Batumi night life.  Unfortunately, the first place we tried had neither food nor wine.  I can handle a Georgian bar that doesn’t have food.  But no wine?  Georgia is famous for its wine; people have vats and vats of homemade wine (mostly in the 2 wine-making regions but still, it’s everywhere).  This was hard to comprehend, especially since I like wine a lot.  Some nice old Georgian tried to take us to some other restaurant since we were guests in his city (as the Russian speaker, I got to play translator, negotiate how to get out of staying at a restaurant we didn’t want to be in without being ungracious), and headed to a bar recommended by our hostel.  My favorite part about this bar, which was near a statue of Medea and the Golden Fleece, was that it was near the Iranian consulate.  The best part was that there was a sign at the consulate of a room for rent.  We were so tempted, but did not inquire.  It would probably be bugged anyway, right?  The bar, while cheap by Western standards, was expensive by our cheap Georgian tastes, so we left again. 

Then, we stumbled upon the best find of our life: a café that sold alcohol.  It seemed so very Soviet to me.  There was a counter with big plastic jars of various shades of wine, drinking glasses, a cooler full of vodka, pickles, chips, and a cool limonadi (fruit-flavored soda) dispenser.  I should have taken pictures.  The woman who served us also seemed very Soviet-she looked cold, unfriendly, and overworked, but she was also incredibly nice to us.  The sparsely decorated place was empty except for a group of young Georgian men who were singing in Georgian.  After a few drinks, they came over to talk and turned out to be much nicer than I expected.  They wanted to take us to some ritzy club, but instead we spent most of the night on the beach, briefly met up with the rest of our group, and had a great night of talking, toasting, and drinking in a park by the beach.  (Alcohol will probably feature more prominently in this blog than it ever did in my life in the States because it is so much a part of life here in Georgia.)  Georgians have ritualized their drinking, so whenever you want to drink your wine, you must make a toast.  It was fun practice for all of us (I spoke in Russian, but a few of the guys spoke in Georgian), and we are already feeling adjusted to the culture enough that we feel guilty just sipping our wine sans toasts.  (You don’t toast with beer, or if you do, it’s an ironic toast, like to your enemies).  One of the Georgians, who had excellent Russian and afforded me a great night of Russian practice, explained the reasons Georgians toast.  Georgia is a fairly religious country full of Orthodox believers.  Lighting a candle and praying is a huge part of their religion.  They also take their drinking seriously, so their drink is like a candle and their toast is like a prayer.

Sunday was sunny and warm so we finally headed to enjoy the beach.  I had heard that Batumi was overcrowded (now that it is September it isn’t a huge deal but still wanted to heed the advice I had heard), so we headed a little farther down the coast to Sarpi, which was supposed to have a better beach.  It was still a pebble beach (all of Georgia’s beaches are) but clean and not too crowded.  The best part by far was that it was right at the border with Turkey.  One of my friends suggested swimming to a buoy that marked the border out in the water.  This, of course, sounded like a good idea to me, so my years of swimming came in handy as we headed out to the buoy.  That’s when the guards rushed out and brandished their guns at the foreign interlopers.  No, not exactly.  Nothing happened.  No yelling, no guards, no guns, just some pleasant swimming.  Swimming did feel so good, even if the water was not as warm as I remembered from the day before and it has been years since I had swum so much.  We all enjoyed the water and sun as well as the tasty treats people hawked on the beach.  Like good Georgians, we sat and ate sunflower seeds (you can’t help but eat handfuls at a time) and also had some delicious baklava as well as some grape fruit leather thing.  After a few hours, we headed back into the city for some food. I went with a friend on an unsuccessful venture to get him a train ticket (the train was sold out) but we found him a bus and finally found fresh figs!  With our few remaining hours, we headed back to the delightful hole-in-the-wall of a café from the night before.  Amongst other things, we toasted and remembered 9/11.  Since almost half my group wasn’t American and we were sitting in a Georgian café, it was a very interesting way to remember those who had suffered and sacrificed.

My host family, who had been vacationing nearby, texted me that night to check in.  They then told me they were in Batumi.  To an American, this means that we should meet.  When I tried to arrange that, in hopes of introducing my family to my friends, I found out that they were heading back to the town they were vacationing in.  I was slightly frustrated but also learned a cultural lesson.  Georgians will text to ask ‘where are you?’ as a way of saying ‘I am thinking of you.’  That made the exchange make so much more sense, so I headed off to the train station without guilt.  We were all very tired and all slept soooo well on the train that night, although not enough.  In the morning we headed our separate ways.  I came home, showered, and crashed.  It’s been quite a while since I felt so exhausted. 

I also had really enjoyed my weekend, so coming home to my host grandma and her sisters was a bit of a readjustment.  I was disappointed to find out my host grandma didn’t understand the washer either so I would have to wait to get some laundry done (which always seems to be a pain).  Not quite ready to go back to being the only foreigner around and not really relishing another day of doing nothing, I spent yesterday visiting a friend in Mtskheta.  Mtskheta is the old capital of Georgia and the spiritual heart of the country.  Mostly, Mtskheta has several beautiful old churches, which we visited, as well as an old fort.  I got to see his host family’s nice house (Mtskheta is clearly a bit nicer than Manglisi-it’s a “city” of 19,000 that even has a tourist center) but did not get to meet his host family since no one was home.  Since we always swap host family stories, I was a bit disappointed, but I suppose I have a year to remedy that.  The main draw of Mtskheta is the cross church (Jvari), so we saved it for last.  Either right before or right after St. Nino converted King Mirian to Christianity in 327, she made a cross on a mountain near the city.  That cross soon became a church and monastery- Jvari.  Most people take a taxi since it sits on the top of a hill/mountain, but we decided to hike it, which made getting to the top that much more of an accomplishment.  The church is very cool.  Georgian Orthodox churches are not as similar to Russian ones as I would have expected.  The icons and murals are different, and I really wish I could understand the symbolism in them more.  Some of the icons look ancient while others are brand new.

While visiting one of the churches, I finally got a call from TLG saying that tomorrow I have a meeting about school.  Since tomorrow is the first day of school, I am happy to hear I’ll actually be teaching soon.  I also got a call from one of my future co-teachers.  It looks like I’m moving to the village of Tsintsqaro (of course I have to move to a place I can’t pronounce right since the q/k sound is one I can’t really do right).  I am waiting to hear about my new host family/when I am moving.  Still, school is getting closer and closer!

Not working

One of my friends says he sometimes feels a though he’s in a Russian short story because of the things that happen to him here.  With the situations I’ve found myself in, I’d say I feel more like I’m in a Soviet comedy (and yes, the Soviets did make funny comedies).  The last few days/weeks have provided plenty of examples.

Last week, my classes were simply canceled.  At eleven on Monday morning (my classes theoretically start at 12 but never have), my host mom calls my host dad to see if I’ll have class that day.  She then tells me to go to the station now because they’re all there.  In shock that I’m actually having class, I hurry up to get ready and head out.  Once I get there (a few minutes’ walk), they tell me to sit down.  After a few minutes, they tell me in Russian that we won’t be having class anymore.  After a few minutes of chatting, one of them then drives me to the bank, since I had to go there to add money to my phone (yes, that works here).  When I get home, I tell my host mom, and she’s also shocked.  I email 2 various parts of my program and get no response.  My class is supposed to end next week.  I’ve only had 2 actual classes.  I get no response so Tuesday call my program. After 4 phone calls, I get told that I’ll have a meeting about school next week.  Having done all I could, I resign myself to over a week off.  I realize most of you will be envious, but I’ve had so much time to rest, I want to work.  I also have friends who are actually working.  Alas, I am stuck relaxing in the mountains for a while longer.

I am doing some work, though.  Yesterday at breakfast, my host sister asked me if I was going to the garden.  Having heard nothing of this, I of course say I want to.  My host brothers, grandma, host sister, and I all get in my family’s old Zhiguli (Soviet car).  My 13-year-old host brother drives into the middle of a field.  Part of the field is roped off, our garden.  There are a few stalks of corn, lots of weeds, a few unidentified plants, and beans.  I discover that we are picking beans.  This means we actually uproot the entire plant and stuff it in a bag.  This was a first for me, and quite fun.  It did not take us that long, and we drove back home.  I got a ‘molodets’ (good girl) from my host grandma and a few neighbors for working.  Pictures below are the others (since I was behind the camera) and our haul.

Last night my host grandma’s 2 sisters, who had come to visit a few days ago, came back into town.  They’ve been sorting the beans from the plants and then opening the bean pods.  Thus, today for lunch we had ‘lobio’, or beans.  It was simple but delicious.  My host grandma’s one sister now lives in Greece.  This is the first time she’s been back in 5 years.  She’s little and feisty.  Did I mention before how the first time I met her she tried to sell me her husband?  She did.  I really like her, mostly because she’s funny and she likes talking to me in Russian.  She had said several times how she wants me to see how tall and big her husband is (so then I will want to buy him), so she asked if we could talk to her family on Skype.  Of course, I said yes, however I couldn’t find him when I looked up his Skype name.  My host sister came in and tried to help.  She speaks minimal English, so we’re trying to talk in English, they’re talking in Georgian, and my host great-aunt and I are trying to talk in Russian.  Shockingly, we’re still not getting anywhere.  We think my host sister might be able to get a hold of him on her Skype account, so we try that to no avail.  After the other great-aunt calls someone on her cell, we finally find the right Skype name.  After about an hour and a few more calls, we finally get a hold of the family in Greece via Skype.  Although I knew it was probably using up some of the last of my high speed internet for the month (it re-ups in a few days), I was so happy I got to be the vehicle for the family to communicate.  Not only did I get to see her family in Greece, but my host family got to see and talk to family they had either never met or had not seen in years.  There was a lot of ‘this is Gela’s wife, this is Gulo’s granddaughter’, etc.  Hooray for technology!

To give you some insight into Georgian communication, last night I found out my host family is going to Kobuleti, a beach town.  Last week I had told my host mom I was headed to Batumi, the main beach town, this weekend.  About 10PM last night, they tell me they’ll be gone for 5 days to Kobuleti.  My host grandma and her sisters are still here, so I’m not stranded.  If I had not had plans, I probably could have gone with my host family, but the whole situation is just so un-American in that I have lived here for over a month but they did not tell me until less than 12 hours before they left.  I’m pretty sure that’s totally normal for Georgia.

Another memorable event was my drive to Tbilisi last weekend.  Our neighbor was headed to Tbilisi as well.  As he’s a bit spoiled, he’s too good for the marshrutka (public taxi/van that I normally take), so he convinces me to take a taxi with him.  Sharing a taxi is only about $2 more per person. We actually found a guy who had a car full of stuff who would take us for only 1 GEL more than the marshrutka, so a great deal.  I think once he found out I was an American and new, he decided to act as a tour guide.  He showed us castles and fortresses in the distance, pointed out an ancient battleground where a greatly-outnumbered Georgian force beat the Turks, and even stopped the car and had us get out to look at a cliff where Stalin used to send people over the edge by sending them over the cliff.  The taxi drivers I’ve met have been nice in general, but this man was so friendly and made the experience so pleasant.  He even gave me a plum from his garden!

Collectivism in Georgia

Now, I'm sure this topic is worthy of a dissertation or two, but I'm just going to offer a few thoughts.  First, if you're not familiar, cultures tend to be either individualistic or collectivist.  American always ranks at the extreme end of individualism.  Georgia, even more so that Russia, is collectivist.  Obviously 70 years of communism would encourage a collectivist culture, but the roots are much deeper and spread much wider than a political/economic system put into practice in a very flawed way.  As an American, the depth of collectivism is often shocking or at the least jarring.

When we had our few language classes during training, one day we went over family words.  Then my teacher told us, since it is Georgia, we needed another family word: neighbor.  Neighbors are like family.  They just pop in, sit for a while, feed you, bring you cake, share your joys and sorrows, etc.  Our neighbors have all been very nice to me.

On the subject of family, almost everyone seems to be related somehow, but untangling that somehow is sometimes confusing (especially if they are drunk and speaking in Russian, so they repeat about 4 family words for far too many people for them all to be sisters, wives, brides, etc.)  This week, we had lots of family come for a long weekend: my host mother's brother's family, someone's cousin and her son, and my host father's sister's family, which included their little granddaughter (and sometimes here mother) who had already been spending several weeks at the father's family's house.  Confused yet?  Most of this family lives in Tbilisi and comes to Manglisi to escape the heat and relax in the country.  Some of the family was then headed to another village to visit more family.  While they were here, the woman cooked (fresh xachapuri-yum!) seemingly all day long.  I have no idea where everyone slept but I know that the 2nd mattress on my bed (I have essentially 2 twins stuck together) disappeared for several days.

One of my neighbors (the boy whose English is decent) told me that you could live in Georgia, especially a Georgian village, and never do any work.  Your neighbors would take care of you.  From what I've seen, this is true.  Neighbors will share the fruit from their tree, other food, etc.  They will come and go even late into the night.  I am almost positive that my host mom yesterday went to a neighbor's house to hang laundry up on the neighbor's clothes line since ours was full.

I am sure once I get into the school system, I'll see this even more, but cheating is rampant here.  The main issue is that culturally it isn't an issue.  Students constantly "help" one another.  Even in my classes with my host siblings, the older ones feed the younger ones the answers, which makes it difficult to teach, since the younger ones don't know much and the older ones know a decent amount.  Deciding what to talk about is difficult, so I've been sticking with basics they all have learned but can't necessarily say correctly.

More to come on this topic in future months, but that's all for now.