Just When I Think I’ve Got Things Figured Out…

…Georgia is more than happy to remind me that I’m wrong.

When I taught in Russia, the other ETAs and I would frequently discuss, for lack of a better word, Russian karma.  If things had been going really smoothly for a while, we would start to get nervous, as we knew the other shoe was about to fall.  Things can only go so well in Russia for so long before a catastrophe happens to even things out.  In America, when things go well, we accept that as a reward for hard work or God smiling on us or something else supremely positive.  In Russia, it made me suspicious.  On the other hand, after a string of frustrations and problems, I began to await something good to happen.  You may scoff, but this philosophy of Russia’s vindictiveness and karma was surprisingly accurate.

I know Georgia is not nearly as vindictive, but it still seems to run on different rules.  Georgia isn’t so upset when things go well, especially since I am regularly overwhelmed by the generosity of Georgians.  Georgia more just likes to remind me I haven’t figured the system out, probably because there is no system.  Check your logic at the door.

I know this, and I try to plan for this or accept it when it happens.  But, sometimes it surprises me.  This happened at least twice this weekend.  The nice thing is that Georgia’s surprises always have a silver lining, and sometimes the change is better than the original plan.

The first time I was surprised was on our train to Borjomi.  We were going to take the marshrutka (van), but when we found out that the train was ¼ of the price, even if double the time, my love for Georgian trains combined with everyone’s love of saving money to make us all take the train.  5 hours on a train made us decide we needed supplies, so after buying them, I finally realized we had 6 minutes to check out, run up 3 flights of stairs, find our platform, run down those stairs, and get on the train.

Somehow, we made it, or at least, we jumped onto the train.  This is where my knowledge of Russian trains failed me.  I figured we could easily walk from whatever train carriage we were on to the one where the rest of our friends were.  Then I realized the train was PACKED.  All the seats were filled, as was all the space usually used for walking.  The area used generally just for entering and smoking had several people in it.  The train started moving, so we were stuck.  Having men flick the ashes off their cigarettes near my face made me immediately regret not taking the marshrutka.

However, my lesson about assumptions learned, Georgia made the situation better.  The man collecting tickets figured out I was American and eventually ordered me to follow him, into the main compartment of the carriage, and into what I thought would be a toilet.  Instead, it was a small room about the size of a train toilet with only 2 women in it…and a seat!  They gave me the seat, and I eventually struck up a conversation with one of the women in Russian.  I learned she was from Gori and asked her if she liked it, since she had only moved there after she had gotten married (albeit about 18 years ago).  She said she didn’t like it until the war (the brief 2008 war with Russia).  She’s a doctor and was working in either an ambulance or the emergency room.  They were bombed during the war, as Gori was a serious battleground, since it is Stalin’s hometown and close to South Ossetia.  She talked some about the war and said that it made her fall in love with Gori.  Since 2010, she’s worked for The Georgian Center for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of Torture Victims, an organization that helps rehabilitate people affected by the war.   She said she loves what she does, and listening to her talk about her life demonstrated that.

The conversation made me thankful for knowing Russian and for being in Georgia, as conversations like that are some of my favorite parts of being here, especially because they come as such unexpected treats.

When the doctor and other girl in my tiny compartment left, my friend joined me, and we enjoyed relative peace and quiet until the train cleared out enough for us to reunite with the other 13 friends on the train.  The rest of the journey was great.  We found our homestay and 2 other friends easily enough and then headed back to the train station for dinner, as a really great restaurant was there.  One of my friends ordered a bunch of things for us, so between the feasting, village drinks people had brought, Georgian birthday party filling the other half of the restaurant, we had a supra/dance party.

We were going to wake up early to take the 6:50am scenic train up to Bakuriani, the ski resort, but we all rethought that decision for various reasons.  After being treated to eggs for breakfast, we took a marshrutka to Bakuriani, a winter wonderland.  People go there to ski, but a couple friends and I opted to explore the village a bit and take advantage of the outdoor skating rink.  They don’t have zambonis, but rather men with giant metal sheets with handles who brush the ice to the side.  They did this before the rink opened and then continued, as we were skating in fairly heavy snowfall.  After an hour, we met up with the first casualty of skiing at a Ukrainian restaurant where she had already made friends with some Georgians.  More friends gave up on skiing and joined us, so I spent the rest of the day in the café and another 30 minutes on the ice.

I’ve never even tried to claim I was a good cook (although I do make a mean chocolate chip cookie and am proud of my various attempts at guacamole), but I dearly miss getting to make my own nutritious meals.  Thus, I suggested we utilize the homestay kitchen, cook something healthy, and enjoy the 6 liters of wine some friends had bought at the Poti bazaar for a whole 12 lari.  It was a huge success.  There were 18 of us in a tiny kitchen, eating, drinking, and talking.  It was like a slice of home with Georgia’s distinctive stamp on it.  We offered several toasts, had no problems making do with 18 in a small room with only small plates, and all enjoyed ourselves fully until the lure of bed, however cold, sent us away.  Getting to indulge in and share the joy of Russian food I missed made the night even better, as we had гречка and veggie икра.

We had a leisurely morning until we headed back to Tbilisi, where I got to introduce my friend to her first schwarma ever.  (On a side note, I am baffled as to why the US does not have schwarma stands/trucks all over major cities.  They’re great, cheap, and easy to eat on the go.)  We also got accosted by several beggars and a wino, which felt weird for Georgia. I think they were taking advantage of the sunny and warm weather like we were.  Well, warm really means not that cold.  I walked around with friends until I needed to head back for my 6pm marshrutka.

This is where Georgia taught me not to become complacent.  The last marshrutka should leave at 6pm and has countless times.  For a while, I was told it might leave earlier, so I would get there at 5 or close to it and slowly freeze until 6, when the marshrutka actually left.  The last few weekends, I had cut it close but made it in time for the 6pm departure. I arrived 10-15 minutes early only to be told I was about 5 minutes late.  I may have even seen my marshrutka leaving. 

Regardless, I was told I had no recourse but to wait until 10 or 11 the next morning to head back to my village.  I was frustrated, having missed the marshrutka not because I was late, but because I wasn’t extra early.  One of the men explaining to me I had no other choice but to wait until Monday to go home then walked with me out of our little marshrutka yard.  He chatted with me for several minutes and then took my information and gave me his number.  He said if I couldn’t stay with my friends, I could stay with him.  Before any of you flip out, this is Georgia, and this is just an example of Georgian hospitality.  He also assured me he had a wife and kids at home, and he looked to be at least my parents’ age, if not older, so I was not worried.

I still decided to stay at a friend’s apartment, after calling my host mom.  I asked her if I could go home in the morning with my host grandpa, who daily brings bread from Tbilisi to Manglisi.  She called him and then told me he was not sure he was coming since the road was closed and may not be open in the morning.  Being American, I tried to figure out if he would know in time to let me still go with him.  She told me my host sisters would simply tell my director that the road was closed so I couldn’t come back and told me not to worry.  I knew that this wouldn’t be that big of a problem in Georgia, but I still felt bad.

Her words worked their magic.  I decided to treat myself this morning to hot chocolate at one of the fancy cafes I have up to now avoided for fear of the cost.  It was not as painful as I thought, and I basked in the joy of good bread, delicious hot chocolate, fast WiFi, and lots of ambient English.  They even gave me a free gift of some dried bread (think large croutons that dip excellently into tea), which made my return certain.  I also bought myself a Russian spy novel called “Breakfast with Polonium” to help me work on my Russian.  I soaked up the sun and good weather until my feet told me I had to go home.

When I came home, I was informed that school had been called off after a few lessons because of the cold.  Although I still would have been able to teach most of my classes before school was canceled, I can definitely say that Georgia gave me a much better day than teaching in a freezing-cold school would have been.

A Post About More than Just the Coldest Winter in 40+ Years

I realize it has been a while.  It’s not that Georgia has not been interesting or I can’t think of things to write about. I’ve had several themes for this blog post but none of them seem appropriate when I actually think about writing.  So, here’s a blog post in search of a theme.

After being so cold that the whole country shut school down for 2 (or 2 ½, depending on how well your director regarded the “finish today” directive, which I don’t think mine ever got) days, it has finally gotten warmer, both in my school and in general.  The entire country did not need to shut down, as a friend in the west has only had rain, but my village needed it.  Of course, now things are starting to thaw…and refreeze, so I get ice, my favorite!  Not!  Still, the hope of positive temperatures is exciting, reminding me that this too shall pass, and there was a time in Georgia where I was not always freezing.  That day is a distant memory now but someday I will have it again.  Pictures of the cold are on Facebook.

The 2 days off school ruined my great intentions to stay in the village for the weekend, so I headed off on Friday to a gathering of volunteers in Kaspi, a small city that required me to go via Tbilisi, but was totally worth the 2 marshrutka rides.  I got a wonderful surprise in seeing one of my group members who lives in the west so I don’t see very often, as well as seeing a few other friends and making a few new ones.  It was nice to be in an apartment with other English speakers, a bit of normality.  Of course, when one of the hottest conversation topics was everyone’s water, or lack thereof, you can’t really forget you’re in Georgia. 

Actually, here’s a list of some of the most popular topics of conversation among my expat friends this winter:

1) The last time you showered

2) How cold it is in a)your school b)your village, and most importantly, c)your bed

3) The water situation where you live

4) How far your personal hygiene standards have fallen

5) Food you miss, which now includes any form of vegetables except potatoes

One of the signals that Georgia has made me far more outgoing is that I went to this apartment, having only met the couple who lived there the weekend before.  I met them because on our Facebook group they posted they needed a corkscrew and I offered one of my 2.  So, that seemed like enough of a reason to venture to an unknown city to meet 2 strangers, although I knew a bit about them from the wife’s posts on our Facebook group.  My gamble totally paid off, and I enjoyed both visits very much.

My other weekend adventures include frequenting Teremok, the Russian cuisine restaurant that is now my favorite place to eat in Tbilisi, venturing to Uplitsikhe (pictures on Facebook), an ancient cave village that was the center of the Kartli kingdom way back in the day, doing my laundry at a hostel in Tbilisi, watching in amazement as a Georgian man fixes my friend’s Macbook charger, indulging at the Gori cake house, and being envious of other friends who now live in their own apartment.

Oh, and a supra.  My host dad’s birthday was last Wednesday, so I was expecting a big feast.  On Monday, I was informed he and my host mom were headed to Tbilisi for a few days because he was having surgery on his leg (something to do with veins, maybe?).  He was not supposed to come back until Wednesday.  That day kept getting pushed back, but on Wednesday, he told us to go ahead and kill the pig.  The pig had recently had piglets and out of 12, only 2 survived the cold.  My host brothers cooked the piglet, and I thought that was that.  Then I heard a terrifying sound and went to investigate.  I resisted the urge to take pictures of the dead pig, so I will not be posting any pictures of blood-soaked snow anytime soon.  We made mtsvade (shish kebabs) and had a mini-supra in his honor.  A few friends who did not know he was gone came over, as a Georgian does not tell his friends to come celebrate his birthday, but they all know to come.  It was a fairly low-key affair.  On Sunday, my neighbor turned 16, so I went over for a supra.  Unfortunately for my ever-expanding waistline but great for my taste buds, I enjoyed a supra with the kids and then was graduated to the adult table, where one garrulous guest offered to be my godfather when he learned I didn’t have one.  I might have agreed, but I figure no one actually expects me to baptized in the village church anytime soon, so I think I’m safe.

At the supra, I finally started to appreciate that maybe TLG had a reason for placing me in Manglisi.  I’m always jealous when my friend on the Black Sea talks about his placement, since that’s where I wanted to be.  I always took for granted that I could get around speaking Russian in Georgia, despite having heard from some people that they had problems.  I knew that Manglisi used to have a lot of Russians, but I finally realized that is part of the reason I am able to get around so easily with my Russian.  My neighbor’s mother speaks atrocious Russian until she’s drunk, and she informed me that’s because she grew up in a pure Georgian village and so only learned Russian in school, while the majority of the people I interact with speak Russian quite comfortably, since the language is common in Manglisi.

I also should take this time to say a few words about the birthday girl, Mariami.   

She lives next door to us and is good friends with my host sister.  She first came into my life as the girl who ALWAYS had handfuls of sunflower seeds to offer me, whether I wanted them or not.  From what I can tell, they’re her favorite food, and she’s still frequently bringing them by.  She used to annoy me to no end as she always wanted to know what I was doing.  She also speaks about 3 words of English.  We frequently have conversations that go like this:

Mariami: Hello

Me: Hello.  How are you?

Mariami: Kargad.  Shen? (I’m well.  And you?)

Me: Good/Kargard. (I’m well.)

However, she’s starting to grow on me.  She got a camera for New Year’s so we’ve been going on walks in the snow, taking pictures.  She is incredibly persistent about speaking to me and asks me lots of questions, stretching my Georgian.  Half the time I have no idea, but it’s making me try.  And lately, she’s even been asking for English translations of things.

As far as Georgia making the news regarding the Israeli/Iran bomb issue, have no fear, I and everyone else in Georgia is fine.  I’m much safer here than in my neighborhood in St. Louis, although I’m sure several of you won’t be terribly comforted by that thought.

In other life news, I got an invitation to interview with Michigan!!  I was convinced it was not going to happen and was all set to go to Indiana, but it looks like it will be March before I know.  At least I feel justified in applying to Michigan now, even if they do reject me.

A neighbor just brought over some fresh homemade bread and a homemade cake.  God bless Georgia.

An Entire Blog Post About How COLD It Is

Now this, my friends, is winter.  February, my feared enemy, has arrived, and it has brought it’s A-game. 

On Tuesday, my sunny but cold weather had turned into snow, snow, and more snow.  In interest, I checked the weather forecast.  Not a single positive digit in sight (in C).  That was a depressing thought.  Yesterday was too cold for me to venture outside for long.  Last night my host mom reminded me to turn on my space heater, as if I needed the suggestion.  I appreciated the comment, since I could then crank my space heater up all the way guilt-free.  It still only does so much.  On Wednesday morning, my boots still had snow on them.  Still, the space heater is my best friend in Georgia (sorry to any real friends reading this; you don’t keep me warm at night).

Thus, I knew something was amiss this morning when I woke up and my face was cold.  I turned to my trusty friend and did not see those bright orange coils I have gotten to know so well.  I know they had been there an hour before when a creaky door had woken me up.  With dread, I realized the power had gone out.  I lay in bed, my body warm thanks to blankets and my down coat, my face cold because no space heater was blasting warmth its way, and I contemplated my next step.  My morning routine is defined by the space heater (I told you, we’re tight).  Without it, I had to re-evaluate.  I also wondered if we would even have school.  Assuming we would, and realizing my bed was not a warm cocoon anymore, I woke up.  However, I decided that there was no way I was putting on freezing-cold clothes (which I normally warm up via space heater).  So, I survived the cold and darkness to go down to the bathroom, came back up to my room,  grabbed the closest warm outfit I could find and walked into the kitchen, to get dressed by the wooden stove.  I decided it was too dark and cold for contacts but put on a bit of make-up before my daily tea with jam and bread breakfast. 

Once I got to school, I found out that my fears were confirmed.  No power meant no heat, although we tried to absorb whatever residual heat resided in the radiators.  My co-teacher and I headed to our first class with the first graders, not sure what it would be like.  We saw only 2 of our kids and one of their mothers, so my co-teacher wrote down an explanation of colors for the mother and sent the kids packing.  We then sat the rest of the lesson by the radiator in the teacher’s room.  One of the other teachers was in there since she didn’t have a first lesson.  She said she passed a class with 15 kids and asked them if their parents didn’t love them, since they still sent the kids to school on such a cold day.  She had left her 1^st and 2^nd grader at home with their grandmother.  That was the general consensus of the town, for good reason.  My 2^nd class was with 2^nd graders, and my 3^rd with 5^th graders.  My co-teacher went to cover for another teacher 2^nd hour, so I found myself alone with 7 2^nd graders.  I taught a little, asked them to interpret my awful chalkboard drawings, and moved around to keep warm.  I think I entertained them enough and taught them something, so the lesson was a success.  My lessons completed for the day, I headed home at 10:30, since classes were shortened because of the cold/lack of power.  I warmed up with a cup of tea and read by the stove, enjoying the quiet morning with my host mom and grandma.

Then 2 teachers came over about noon, with news that school was canceled for the rest of the day and for tomorrow as well.  My host mom, with help from the other teachers, my grandma, and a bit from me, soon had a mini-supra set.  We said a few toasts, drank some good bottled red wine, and had a lunch that was slightly more varied than most.  It was fun to see the teachers outside of school and laugh along when I understood a story or they translated for me.  Thankfully there was more talking than drinking.  During our lunch, the power came back on, but it had stopped being important somewhere along the way of trying to figure out what exactly one teacher meant by saying she and my host mom were “stolen” when they got married and hearing stories of teachers throwing grapes at each other on excursions.

The sun eventually came out and the day clearly improved, but winter is still very rough.  Our toilet seat is literally freezing.  I scraped flakes of ice off of it.  The toilet bowl water also tends to get a layer of ice on it.  We have water flowing through some of our pipes for a few hours a day.  Our hot water heater and washing machine are out of commission until further notice.  Our toilet is flushed by a large bucket of water retrieved from the bathtub reserves.   I no longer question the need to wear socks every second of the day and wear multiple layers all the time.

I do not say this to engender sympathy in you.  In fact, while I dislike the cold and will rejoice when the weather gets warm, these hardships don’t seem nearly that painful.  I actually enjoy the days when the power is out at home.  There’s no music or TV to distract us.  I can sit and read (or play on my laptop even if that feels like cheating).  I chat with my host family more on those days.  I like the temporary withdrawal of technology from our life.  While the cold is brutal, the snow is beautiful, coating everything in my village in a blanket of white.  I get a childish enjoyment from crunching through inches of untouched snow and revel in the crunch piercing the quiet of my village.  While the water issues have made life harder, I’m learning how to be resourceful in ways I never thought I would ever need.  I have gained significant respect for the wonder of the stove-it heats, it cooks, it boils-in short, it makes my village life function in winter.  If nothing else, this winter won’t kill me, so it has to be making me stronger, right?

I’ll let you know on the other side of February, as today is only day 2.  Tomorrow I have a date with the stove.  I actually have about 27 more dates with the stove this month.  Don't worry, the space heater isn't jealous.