Nothing says Home like Khinkali and Frozen Pipes

I came back to Georgia a week before I really needed to.  I was convinced that I would spend a few days in the village, catching up with friends and family, and then round up my friends and head somewhere in Georgia for a few days because so much time in the village would drive me crazy.

That did not happen.  After spending two whirlwind weeks at home and another week chasing Polish history, I was ready for a rest.  Between a sleepless night while traveling to Georgia, time changes, and jet lag, I needed a few days to rest.  So I slept in like my teenage siblings, spent the days by the petchka (wood stove), drank tea, walked around the village with my host family and by myself, caught up with friends, and remembered why I love Georgia and my Georgian home. 

Last Thursday was Orthodox Epiphany, which I only realize after the fact.  My family and friends told me that it was a holiday celebrated by making khinkali (dumplings) in the morning and had something to do with the patriarch baptizing the cross.  I slept in, had vodka and khinkali for breakfast (my host mother never drinks but said on this day it was a must, so I had my obligatory vodka and set off with my host sisters for church.  Despite the cold, we stayed in the church longer than I ever had for an Orthodox service. I enjoyed getting to see a few of my students.  We still did not stay long and went with my host sister’s friends to the priest’s residence, since one of their friends lived there.  Then they had a supra (Georgian party) at the residence.  My host sisters and their friend stayed in the kitchen but had me in the dining room, where I kind of knew one person.  The priest asked who I was (by calling me a beautiful girl) and was more than satisfied with the answer that I was the English teacher, and then the supra began.  I was able to drink little and eat little.  The coolest part was that after the men would make toasts, a few women and one teenage boy would sing. Their voices were one of the most beautiful things I had ever heard, so the feeling of being awkwardly in a place I felt I didn’t belong slid into an appreciation for taking part in a new part of Georgian culture.  Unlike most supras, this one ended early.  My host siblings, their friend, and I played in the snow before heading over to some relative’s house, where we were treated to more khinkali.  I really liked this holiday.

I went on several walks, soaking up the sunshine the last 2 weeks.  On one, I found a new part of Manglisi that led to some woods that looked gorgeous in the snow.  On another, I ran into a friend who invited me to come to her house on the weekend.  I went on Sunday and played with her 4 kids, stretching my Georgian, while also chatting with her.  Her 4-year-old daughter played with my hair and gave me a “makeover”, so somewhere there is a great picture of the two of us, and I have a Disney crown on, as well as a bit of make-up.

School starts on January 20^th, but since that was a Friday, only one kid came since everyone knew they wouldn’t do anything.  I went to school but stayed for only 15 minutes.  I realized that the proper thing to do that day would have been to turn off my alarm, roll over, and keep sleeping like the rest of my host family.  It did not make Monday morning that much easier either.

School has actually continued almost seamlessly from last semester.  I think the kids’ parents made them review their English since they had not forgotten nearly as much as I had expected.  Like always, some classes make me smile, others drive me crazy.  I did realize this week as I had a bunch of my 3^rd graders read a small bit of English aloud that although some kids were still clueless, I had actually helped several of them to learn to read English.  Maybe I am making a difference after all.

On Monday, the first real day of school, my main co-teacher had her birthday.  She invited me to her house for her birthday supra.  My host sister showed me the way and got roped into staying.  As one of the guys pointed out when he toasted Mari, she was a great sport as she was stuck the whole night between 2 teachers.  It was great to see my co-teacher outside of class and encouraged me to try harder in my relationship with her, especially speaking more in English. 

Some intrepid souls in my region got an email chain going for TLGers in my region, so this weekend I went into Tbilisi to meet several of them.  Several of my old friends were also in Tbilisi, so it was a great weekend of old and new friends.  Georgia has made me much more social, and I love running into old friends on the streets of Tbilisi.  I also love how easy it is to make friends with other TLGers, since we all have stories to tell and experiences to compare.  I spent the entire day walking from one place to eat and drink to the next, since the weather was not very good.  People came and left throughout the day, but the day was a great mix of hearing about old friends’ vacations and new friends’ life stories and tales of their Georgia.

Of course, I forgot my camera, so I have no pictures of the beautiful sight of Tbilisi covered in snow.  I treated myself to 2 nights in Tbilisi as opposed to the usual one this weekend, a wise decision.  Our pipes have been freezing at night for months, but this week, only a few have come unfrozen for only a few hours a day.  Unfortunately, those pipes do not lead to the hot water heater or the washing machine, so I was in desperate need of a shower and had a pile of laundry that I did not relish hand washing.  I found a hostel with free laundry, so that was my Friday night.  The hostel even had a dryer, which was a great shock, as I was not sure if they existed in Georgia.  I enjoyed this luxury even as I find myself growing more accustomed to the seeming hardships that village winters can bring. 

In general, I think leaving Georgia and coming back to it has made me appreciate it more.  It helps that I don’t have grad school applications anymore, but my life in general feels less like a struggle. I realize it is as much my mental state as how I fit in with my family, but my Georgian family really does feel like family.  I spend most of my days with them and rarely do things in the village without them.  I was so pleased when they liked their Christmas gifts and humbled when tonight my host sister gave me a small box with several pairs of earrings and a few rings as gifts.  I like the jewelry for its style, but I know I will treasure it for the love behind it, and it will serve as a reminder of my Georgian family even after I leave here.

Back in the USSR

To be honest, I was not ready to leave home when it was time to fly out to Poland.  When I headed to the Warsaw airport, a large part of me wished I was heading back to my parent’s warm basement for a few more days rather than my cold mountain village.  It did not help that my friend and I realized our flight was earlier than we thought it was 2:15 minutes before it was to leave, so we had to rush to the airport.  Once at our gate, we met a bunch of new TLGers.  Getting to talk about Georgia made me happier to back. 

Arriving at 5AM without having slept did not.  I met 2 of my friends and waited with them until the buses started running. In the process, we met a drunk, gay Brazilian journalist who works in Moscow.  He was so pleased to hear us speak English and offered us a place to stay if/when we are in Moscow.  It was a good reminder of how small of a world Georgia is.  Once the busses started running, we saw the sun rise over the city as we headed to a 24/7 restaurant for breakfast.  Then I ran some errands and took a nice nap on the Peace Corps office couch, knowing that it would be several hours before I would get to crash for good.  My Peace Corps friend then made my day by showing me where there was a Teremok (a great blini/crepe place I loved in Russia and missed every morning I was in Tbilisi) in Tbilisi.  After that, I headed home.  I was tired enough to sleep on my marshrutka and started to look forward to returning home. Having to drive around sheep and cows made me smile and made me feel back at "home".

Once I got home, my grandmother met me on the porch with “Moya krasavitsa!” (My beauty/my beautiful girl!), and I knew it was a great thing to be back.  I got hugs and kisses from my family and tried valiantly to keep up conversation until about 9.  I slept in until 2 the next day.  It was glorious.  The last few days have been incredibly relaxing.  I’ve been sleeping in late, not worried about doing much of anything.  Friends have come to visit, and I’ve been thrilled to see them.  Yesterday I ran to the bank and on the way home was invited by my neighbors to a small birthday supra.  They and their neighbors from Tbilisi spoke in Russian the majority of the time for my sake.  I really appreciated it, as well as enjoying the conversation.  One of the women had a handful of anecdotes.  I found that I was able to offer up halfway decent toasts in Russian.  I remembered how delicious fresh mtsvade (shish kebabs) are and indulged in far too much birthday cake.  When I arrived, the party was outside as they made mtsvade.  Being Georgia, the fire that was keeping everyone warm was also heating a fresh batch of chacha (Georgian hard alcohol), so I got to see the process up close.  Of course, I had left my camera at home, thinking it was a short trip to the bank.

Today I went for a walk and saw several friends along the way.  I hate saying goodbye but I love reunions.  I even was able to have a brief conversation with my director (principal), including finding out that my New Year’s gift from Misha was at the school.  Tonight, for the first time since I got home 3 days ago, my toilet flushed.  The fact that I had forgotten it wasn't flushing is a sign of how used to this place I am.  Even after 3 weeks back in the first world, I am getting quickly accustomed to the quirks of life here.

Tomorrow is a holiday that involves the patriarch baptizing a cross and sanctifying the water that way.  Common people celebrate by making khinkali (Georgian dumplings) early in the morning and then sharing it with neighbors.  I’m very excited.  We’ll also head to the church for a bit.

Playing in Europe's Playground a.k.a A Brief Overview of my visit to Poland

As the tour guide on my Krakow city tour mentioned, Poland is considered Eastern Europe as it was behind the Iron Curtain, is now Western Europe in its outlook and mentality, and geographically is part of Central Europe.  I was expecting it to feel like Eastern Europe.  The prices seemed more akin to things I’d find in Eastern Europe, but that’s about it.  Granted, I was in the tourist areas almost the whole time, but I think at least the cities have caught up to Western Europe on many levels.

Of course, in contrast to Georgia and Russia, Poland only suffered under communism for 44 years.  Still, they took their toll.  Independent Poland had a GDP double that of Spain at the beginning of WWII.  In 1989, it was half of Spain’s.  Ouch.

I appreciated that Poland was still a budget traveler’s friend, since even after having to pay way too much for the train from Krakow to Warsaw due to some bad directions from the girl at our hostel (she told us our ticket was for a different and more expensive train than it actually was), I spent less than $300 on the trip.  It doesn’t hurt that the exchange rate with the dollar seemed to be pretty good.  It was difficult not to think of things in terms of Georgian lari.  The dollar is about 1.6 GEL and about 3.5 PLN (but I kept making calculations at 3 złoty to the dollar), so things seemed expensive at first glance until I realized they were very cheap, some things being even cheaper than they would be in Georgia.

January was not such a horrible time to go to Poland, either.  While it was cold, it was no worse than Georgia, and often better than in my village.  Hostels were cheaper and attractions were much less crowded.  We also met lots of Australians, as this is their summer so many take the time to backpack now instead of our summer.  My favorite part was that the cities were still done up for Christmas, with gorgeous lights along the main streets and large Christmas trees in many of the squares.  In Warsaw, I also got to see the last two days of the Christmas market, where stalls selling winter gear, trinkets, and hot food and drink lined the Old Town square.  I also could have bought Elvis’s “Blue Christmas” at one of the stalls selling all sorts of Christmas CDs but refrained.  Nat King Cole would have been a steal, but my backpack is already brimming.

Once I got the hang of the crazy spelling of Polish, I could sound out lots of words and figure out what they meant since they were so similar to Russian.  This helped me out except I still could not speak aside from a handful of very basic words.  One of my tour guides did not like that I suggested Polish and Russian were so similar (he claimed they had about 5% of words in common), but that is because the Poles still have a lot of reasons to hate (dislike, distrust, blame) the Russians.

It’s hard to encapsulate the trip, so I’ll try to hit some highlights.  In Krakow, we spent a day in Auschwitz; a day touring the adorable Old Town, including going inside the Wawel Cathedral and inside St. Mary’s Church (the one on the main square) and getting a taste of Polish karaoke; and I spent the next day taking a tour of Wielczka Salt Mines, a salt mine where miners have carved gorgeous chapels and statues from the rock salt there.  In Warsaw, we walked around the main street and Old Town a lot, spent a full day in the Warsaw Uprising museum (definitely go if you’re interested in WWII Poland or want another reason to hate the Nazis and Stalin), hit up some parts of Jewish Warsaw, drank some of the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had, went to the only working 3-D photo display (Fotoplastikon), went to a park where there were some palace-like homes, and made several trips to the airport.  Food and drinks in Warsaw were definitely more expensive than in Krakow, partly because Krakow still has several milk bars left.  Milk bars are a holdover from the communist era when the government would subsidize cafeterias so that food was incredibly cheap, cheap enough for the common laborer to be able to afford a filling meal out.  I had my fill of pierogis, borscht, paczki (basically jam donuts but they’re a Polish specialty), kebab/schwarma, and plenty of other good Polish treats.

Auschwitz

On my way back from Georgia, I stopped in Poland.  I'll write more about the overall trip later, but here is a bit about Auschwitz.

The original sign was stolen in 2009 (who could do that?) and found in a forest in northern Poland, so this is replica.

The weather seemed so fitting.  A sunny, clear spring day would be marred by the death and destruction of the camp.  Instead, we got frigid drizzly weather, complete with overcast skies and a chill that set into our bones throughout the day.  It’s hard to complain about that since I enjoyed the warmth of a hat, gloves, scarf, good shoes, and a wool coat.  I still was able to understand how miserable the cold would have been for the prisoners of the camp a little better.

We opted to go cheap and not take the group tour but just to buy a little guidebook with a map.  While that is not an option in busier months, I was very glad we did it.  I thought we would be able to go faster than the tour, but we actually spent th entire day there, catching the last bus home.  We soaked in the truth of the horror with little conversation.  In the face of such tragedy and injustice, any words seem inane, complaints ring hollow, jokes profane.  On a cold January Tuesday, Auschwitz was rather empty, yet the tour groups we kept running into still made the place seem too crowded, perhaps because the weight of the camp’s history bears down on you so that you’re forced to wrestle with the extremes of humanity and actual humans can interfere with this process.

There were three camps total, which I didn’t realize. I only thought there were two, Auschwitz and Birkenau.  Those are the two where most people were sent and both are part of the museum.  Auschwitz is much smaller and feels much more like a museum.  You walk through the camp and stop in several different buildings to learn more about the camp.  Most people know that Auschwitz survivors have numbers tattooed on them, but that was only started later, in 1943.  Before that, prisoners were photographed from three different directions when they entered the camp.  Several of the hallways are lined with three rows of photos on either side, with the person’s name, profession, date of entry, and date of death.  More than the written descriptions of the atrocities committed here or statistics, visuals like this got to me.  One building has multiple rooms of things the Nazis pillaged from prisoners.  The museum tells you that these things are the things they could not send back to Germany for her citizens or destroy before the approaching Red Army liberated the camp in 1945.  Thus, the goods were a fraction of the overall goods that were stolen, yet there was a room full of shoes, probably a hundred pair of children’s shoes, a pool of pots and pans, a large room full of suitcases with the prisoner’s names and home addresses still on the side.  The part that got to me the most was the large room of human hair several feet deep.  Pots take up a lot of room; human hair does not.  Some of it was even still braided.

Hair

Shoes

Pots

 

We walked the three kilometers to Birkenau in the cold rain.  I was shocked to see streets of nice, fairly new houses just minutes from Birkenau.  What would it be like to grow up in the shadow of one of the worst atrocities of the 20^th century?  As a child, wouldn’t you want to go play in the big open park nearby?  However, Birkenau is not a place for playing.  In general, silence reigns over both camps, with the press of history and horror robbing you of words.  Birkenau is huge.  There are still some buildings the Germans did not manage to destroy, but even the ones they did destroy still have a chimney and the outline of the bunker.  They go on and on and on.   

The railroad tracks go straight through the middle of Birkenau and end right by the gas chambers.

The bunkers were basically like human chicken coops, with three bunks of wood or brick (can you imagine how cold brick would have been in winter?), designed to sleep around seven prisoners each.

Although the Nazis blew up the gas chambers and crematoria before they left, their location is obvious by the rubble.  You can even see the entrance where the victims would have entered the gas chambers and envision how it must have been.  

Entrance to a gas chamber

In a weird contrast, while walking around the edge of the camp, I saw several small deer or some other woodland creatures prancing along, a shocking sign of life on the grounds of so much death.

It’s hard to say that the visit was good.  Later that night we talked with some Scots in our hostel who had also been to Auschwitz.  One of the girls said that horrible was the best way to describe it.  Normally, if you say a tourist attraction was horrible, you’d never ever recommend it.  But for a place described by tour guides and Pravda as a factory of death, the point is to start to understand the tragedy, to witness the depths of human depravity.  There were also some signs of the strength of the human spirit.  Although pictures of survivors show skeletons that make models look healthy and well-fed, the mere fact that they survived is a sign of their strength.  Prisoners not only endured backbreaking work, torture, starvation, and disease, at risk to their own life they helped their dying fellow prisoners, smuggled letters and other news to the outside world, and even had a strong resistance movement inside the camp.  The group of prisoners responsible for cleaning up the gas chambers even went so far as to blow up one of the chambers in 1944, which put it out of commission forever.

While the museums do fill you up with a lot of facts, most of those can be found in books.  Actually walking the camp grounds brings the tragedy to life.  Birkenau especially made the horror seem real and more awful simply by the sheer size of the place.  While the camp is known as a major site of the Holocaust, especially in the beginning, the camp was the site of death for hundreds of thousands of Poles as well.  This year has made me more and more thankful for the freedom and easy life we have in America, for being spared so many problems other nations have dealt with throughout history.