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.