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.