Oh, where to begin?
Less than five weeks left, the weather is gorgeous, I just spent the
last 6 days having a great vacation out west and a bonus day in Tbilisi…
So, here are a few scattered thoughts…
Wednesday was a holiday, so two friends and I took the rest
of the week off to do some adventuring out west. It was a great trip and showed me that
trusting a 23-year old frat boy over my common sense sometimes leads to a great
adventure instead of jail or death. The
trip will get its own blog entry later, but since I’m nearing the end, I’ve
been doing more thinking and am starting to evaluate my year here, so you’re
going to get another one of those blog entries.
One of the nights we were on a beach drinking and talking
and I brought up something that had been bothering me since about my last blog
entry. All of my close friends here are
expats. This was also true in Russia,
although I made some close Russian friends.
Why do I feel so compelled to travel halfway around the world to a
foreign language and culture just to make friends with other people like
me? They told me it was normal.
It came up a few days later with a friend from South Africa. She pointed out that being here lets us meet
people from other parts of the Western world we never would have met otherwise
and would not have made friends with.
She has a good friend she met in Georgia
who is from England,
so now they both have an impetus to visit a country that previously held no
interest for them. Even the Americans
I’m friends with probably would not have become friends, and certainly not good
friends, back in America.
Another friend recently wrote on the Facebook group page
frequented by TLGers, asking if people who had eschewed laptops and ereaders
had really felt that they had gained more by doing so, since connections with
home make it harder to make connections here.
While everyone who answered obviously leads a wired Georgian life, all
the responses echoed the sentiment that people got plenty of Georgian
culture. Obviously I’m not the only one
who has been wondering about the expat bubble vs. Georgian immersion
experience.
While I may not be immersing myself 24/7 in Georgian
culture, I’ve gotten a multicultural experience. I’m slowly learning Australian slang and
realizing how wrong they speak English in England. My knowledge of Singapore
has grown exponentially and I’ve realized how different America does
certain things from other parts of the West.
It’s made me much prouder to be from America, as I’ve defended certain
aspects of American culture that seem strange to my friends but I hold much
nearer and dearer than I thought.
Conversations about the Constitution, including incredulity that Britain exists
without one and a conversation about the Supreme Court that ended at 5:30am,
have made me appreciate the brilliancy of that document and how it has helped
shape our national character. There are
plenty of things about America
and Americans that drive me crazy, but there’s plenty that we’ve done well as
well.
For Cinco de Mayo, my Peace Corps friend, Australian friend,
and Singapore
friend cooked food for about 20 people to celebrate. It was a great snapshot of what this year has
been. We had a token American of Mexican
descent to add some legitimacy to the event, but mostly we had a bunch of
Americans and a few people other nationalities, including a few Georgians and
Armenians, enjoying good burritos and stir fry (don’t ask). I got to make guacamole and we made “sopeli
sangria”, as one friend dubbed the village wine sangria we made (sopeli is
Georgian for village). Ten of us ended
the night chatting on the rooftop of the hostel, overlooking the city and
watching fireworks and paper lanterns float across the skyline while chatting. It was a night I will remember for a long,
long time, and one of the reasons I will miss Georgia so much, getting to spend
quality time with so many interesting people with so many different reasons for
coming to Georgia and views on life.
After the party, I felt I had to do something related to
Georgian culture so finally made my way to the National museum. Basically there is a floor dedicated to the
Soviet Occupation and one dedicated to all the sweet stuff they’ve dug up
around Georgia. The Soviet Occupation museum made me consider
for the first time the independent Georgia that existed between 1918
and1921. While the Red Army had little
trouble taking over Georgia,
the museum catalogs other heinous deeds of the Soviets: the poets and writers
shot, the thousands killed, the struggles to retain Georgian culture and
language, the war against religion, and other crimes of the Soviets. There are letters begging other nations for
help, including one from the Khevsurs (a group of people in a remote mountain
part of Georgia) pleading with the US government for help as the Soviets were
forbidding them from practicing their religion and traditional way of life and
vowing that they would fight until the last Khevsur was killed against the
Soviets. I’m sure they got no response.
The basement is a completely different story, filled with
gold, silver, and other exquisite treasures dating back centuries. Ancient Georgia was alive and well, trading
with far-flung places in the known world.
It was nice to follow up a sorrowful visit with an appreciation of
beauty and human craftsmanship. The
pieces were all amazing, some incredibly detailed, most well preserved.
Speaking of jewelry, I’ve acquired a ring that has become
one of my favorite pieces of Georgia. No, not that kind of ring, although I did get
it from a man in my village. A few weeks
ago, I went to wait for my marshrutka to Tbilisi
for the weekend. I started talking to
the woman who sold me the ticket and another old man who was waiting. They figured out who I was, asked me all the
usual questions like do I like Georgia
and why don’t I get married to a Georgian.
He then told me he wanted to give me a gift. After so many months in Georgia, this did not make me feel
weird or guilty, as I regularly get things like flowers or candy now. (Yeah, getting lilacs from students and
random kids on the street is pretty awesome, in case you wanted to know.) He then started taking a ring off his key
ring and I thought it was going to be some stupid key ring like we have back
home. He told me it was silver and
handed me a twisted silver ring that could or could not be real, but it is
still something I treasure since he gave it to me simply so that I would think
Georgians were hospitable. Georgians may
drive me crazy with a lot of their ideas and ways, but their hospitality is
really incredible.
The old man then told me that the Georgian language was the
easiest language in the world to learn.
I tried to suggest that maybe that’s because he was Georgian, but he was
adamant that it was an unbiased fact. I
decided not to argue the matter since I knew he was wrong and he knew he was
right. And it reminded me of the
double-edged sword that is Georgia. Of course, I don’t even know if I got his
name, but I’ll remember him for sure.
I think I’ve expressed to many of you that I’ll be ready to
go home when I go. I’ve got several
amazing adventures left, have loved Georgia, but I’m ready to go home
for a while. Part of it is that I long
to cook my own meals made up mostly of veggies, go to the bathroom where the
neighbors don’t know that’s what I’m doing, and just be me. Another part is that the internet can only do
such a good job of communicating the joys and sorrows of friends and family
back home. While I’ve had so many
wonderful experiences here, there are ones I would have liked to have been a
part of back home, for better or worse.
I’ve realized that there has been an emotional and relational cost of my
penchant for strange countries. I’m not
saying I’m close to hanging up my hat, but I’m looking forward to sitting tight
for a while and hoping for lots of visitors in Bloomington.
While that would be a good place to end this blog, I
won’t. I have to write about how lovely
spring has made everything. I am
surrounded by green. It is lush and lovely,
and I am constantly stunned by the beauty of the earth in my little region of
the world. While I don’t love the 90
minute rides on Georgian marshrutkas that take me to Tbilisi every weekend, they give me at least
50 minutes to gaze on absolute loveliness, especially on Sunday evenings as the
sun sets over the mountains or the valley is submerged in fog. I love my Midwestern cornfields, but the
sights of the area around Manglisi remind me again and again of the Georgian
legend that God had reserved this place for himself.
So while on vacation, I left behind my laptop and found my
phone only worked as an alarm (which I needed far too much for a
vacation). The 5 days free of connection
to the outside world was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Granted, I was too busy exploring, but it was
a reminder that I need to unplug every once in a while since I am tethered to
my computer so much. When I got back to Tbilisi, too late to go
home to the village due to our bus breaking down, I stayed the night at a
hostel and used a friends’ internet connection.
I had a lot of unread emails but only a few important ones. My Facebook account had weathered my absence
just fine. Without my laptop to write
down thoughts, I had actually written in my travel journal, which is still not
full after 5 years and 3 trips to the former USSR. That night, having no computer or exhaustion
to lull me to sleep, I borrowed a book from the hostel. Having no real agenda for the next day, I sat
on an outdoor couch, sipped tea, and finished the book. It was an easy read, but the feeling of
simply sitting and reading was absolutely delightful, and it had been so long
since I had lost myself in a book like that.
Monday as a whole was a mental health day that worked wonders, but the
experience also reminded me of what my life was like before it was invaded by
the internet. Of course, today, I’ve
been tethered to my computer, so maybe the lesson isn’t quite fully learned.
Also, my workweek is about to get even shorter. Yes, that is possible. Apparently the ministry lets the 12th
grade out a few weeks early to study for the big national exam. That’s understandable and should save my
mother from having to yell at my sister each morning to get out of bed. The ministry also lets the first graders out
after this week. I don’t really know
why, and neither did my co-teacher when I asked her, but I think it has been
like that for a while. I can’t say I’m
disappointed, as I don’t hate the class, but I also can’t say I’ve been that
effective there. Some of them are super
cute, though. But now I’ll be able to
sleep in on Thursdays. I can see the
cute kids when I roam the streets instead.
Oh, and my upper grades are finally getting past the verb
“to be” and into action verbs. I like that
a lot. Taking a page from my high school
German teacher’s handbook, I’ve made the kids do motions for the verbs to help
them remember it. I think they like it. I also get a kick out of making them bark and
meow and flap their wings like a bird. I
taught my 6th graders Simon Says, and they now beg to play the game
every class. It makes me feel like I’ve
done something I came here to do-teach them English, give them a slice of
American culture, get them to remember something in English, and enjoy it.
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