The EU is First World, Part 1: Rome

Forgive any non sequiters, rambling, typos, or grammatical errors as this was written on a midnight flight back to Tbilisi and 3am in the Tbilisi airport does not exactly make for good editing.

 

This was a very different type of travel than the trips I’ve become accustomed to taking in the last year: no friends, two parents, a much larger budget, and three European capitals.  I met my parents in Rome, the Eternal City, and the city that’s been on my bucket list the longest, more specifically, since eighth grade, when I started taking Latin for the first time and fell a little in love with the Roman Empire.  As I got to plan the trip, there was a definite focus on the ancient world; aside from the Vatican, my itinerary mostly revolved around buildings that predated the fall of Rome in 476, so Baroque churches were mostly shelved for another trip and tour guide.  My affable parents were happy to be led to ancient sites, especially since I had planned a more leisurely itinerary than I had for our England/Ireland trip six years earlier.  We mostly walked around the day I arrived, since my 7am departure meant I had stayed up all night one last time with good friends in Tbilisi and therefore I was suffering from more than your usual jet lag.  The next morning we headed to one of the four major churches (Maria Maggore) and listened to a few minutes of mass as we admired the gorgeous church.  It was only the second mass I had ever heard, and it seemed fitting to hear it in Rome.  We then toured the Catacombs of San Clemente, which meant we got to ride out on the old Appian Way, a fact which pleased me almost as much as the tour of the catacombs.  I also appreciated that both my mother and I envied the bikers we passed and thought how lovely it would be to bike the Appian Way.  

 We also toured the Basilica of San Clemente, the 4^th century basilica underneath, the 2^nd century Mithraic temple under that, and a 1^st century room with no obvious purpose but with water still running through the ancient lead pipes.  The 4^th century basilica was probably my favorite.  In addition to the first written Italian, “Pull SOBs, pull” on a fresco about St. Clement, Cyril and Methodius also got some love.  I believe they are buried there but I mostly found plaques from Slavic countries as the brothers helped Christianize the Slavs and Cyril created the precursor to the alphabet that now bears his name (for those who can’t connect the dots, Cyrillic is the alphabet for languages like Russian, hence the fact this delighted my nerdy heart).

We ate dinner with a friend of mine from St. Louis who was also touring Europe (and the DRC) with her family.  Georgia has taught me that the world is much smaller than you think, and this reunion confirmed that fact a little more.

 

We had to rise early on day two to tour the place I was most excited to see.  If I could describe in one word why I’ve wanted to see Rome, Colosseo would do it.  The Colosseum, even after being used as a quarry for centuries, was still a spectacular sight.  From the gladiator’s area underneath to the third tier overlooking the forum, the world’s best-known amphitheater was impressive.  The Romans knew what they were doing: they developed a canopy that provided shade and some air flow, built in some protection against earthquakes into the building, and created the Colosseum as a powerful political message to erase some of the injustices of Nero’s reign.  If only Titus hadn’t had to sack Jerusalem to pay for it…

We also toured the ruins of the Forum and the palaces on the breezy Palatine Hill, but after the glory of the Colosseum and several hours in scorching Rome heat, these were great but not as exciting.

That afternoon we got a special tour of the Scavi, the excavations underneath the Vatican.  In addition to some of the best-preserved pagan tombs, the Scavi holds a unique and beautiful early Christian grave with stunning mosaics that still gleam with gold, some parts of Constantine’s 4^th century basilica, and, as the Catholic Church has always held, the resting place of St. Peter.  Excavations only began in the 1940s and originally were not supposed to go under the altar, and they were done by hand in secret.  The pope at that time was all in favor of the excavations and gave the go-ahead to excavate under the altar when they got close.

A brief aside about the layers of the Scavi, from the bottom up.  After Peter was crucified upside down, he was buried nearby in a pagan cemetery, since those were the only cemeteries around.  It was a cemetery for freedmen, and it was never a desirable place to be buried until centuries later under the Catholic church.  Peter was buried in a simple grave with two slabs in a V formation over his body.  Christians quickly started making pilgrimages to the site, even though it posed significant danger to them.  The pagan cemetery built up around his grave.  Either to disguise Peter’s grave, or to mark it as a grave that had been accidentally damaged, a small red wall and small temple (OK, I forget what they called it but it has two small columns and a roof) were erected over Peter’s grave.  Constantine built a basilica over the spot, taking the tops off of the cemetery rooms and filling them in with dirt, perfectly preserving the tombs for posterity, giving his church a firm foundation on Vatican hill, and mostly abiding by the Roman law that forbid destroying graves.  He built his altar on top of Peter’s tomb, and on the level of a basilica is a wall scratched with what looked like graffiti but a lay scholar took about 10 years (she thought it would take about 2 weeks) to determine that the scrawled writing said ‘Peter is here’ more or less and had symbols for Peter, Christianity, and the papacy repeated over and over.  They found bodies nearby; at least one was a woman, but one was a man with no feet whose general physical characteristics matched those of Peter’s.  Bits of royal cloth, cloth that pilgrims had dropped over the centuries, and soil that matched that underneath the temple-like structure below were all found with the body to give about as conclusive empirical evidence that the bones were Peter’s as we can really ask for.  On top of this is Bernini's masterpiece and the current altar of St. Peter's.  The tour was fascinating on a historical level as well as a spiritual one.

We hit up the Pantheon on our own.  Many guides will tell you it is their favorite building in Rome.  I liked it but did not see quite why it got such rave reviews.  Someone told me that the Pantheon is praised as a perfect building but upon further inspection, it actually has several flaws which we’ve copied in buildings around the globe for centuries.  Since the Pantheon was converted from a temple to all the gods into a church for all the saints, it survived being taken apart by industrious Romans intent on building projects so is the oldest building in continuous existence.  I mean, it is pretty cool.

We then toured the Vatican.  To be honest, while I did appreciate seeing in person some art I had only seen in books and on posters, I mostly felt anger toward the (mostly Renaissance) Catholic church that had spent its money on building a priceless art collection instead of carrying feeding the poor and taking care of widows and orphans.  It makes sense when you view the Catholic church as the heir to the power of the Roman Empire, but not as the church built upon a simple fisherman who walked with Jesus.  I got a much greater appreciation for St. Peter’s basilica the day before when I looked up into it from a medieval chapel built over the bones of St. Peter than I did walking around in it after seeing the Sistine Chapel, Raphael’s masterpieces, and a ridiculous amount of ancient works.

We had a Context Walk of Ostia Antica the next day.  Ostia Antica was the port city of Ancient Rome and grew to have over a million inhabitants in its heyday.  The Tiber silted up and the town dwindled, with its streets and buildings astonishingly well-preserved.  Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable and even took us to the current summer’s archeological dig of the synagogue.  (Context Walk guides are academics and our guide has lived in Rome since he was a Fulbrighter there a few decades ago.  He’s even taken Rick Steve’s around Ostia Antica and other places.)  While it was pretty cool to walk around a real archeological dig, the painfully slow work, multiple comments about graduate students as the modern-day equivalent to ancient slaves, and blistering summer sun made me very glad I never decided to become an archeologist.

We also explored other nooks and crannies in Italy, tried the metro, threw coins over our shoulders into the Trevi fountain, delighted in strawberry gelato from the corner restaurant, tried new Italian delicacies, and bought our fair share of tourist gifts.

There’s much more of Rome for me to explore on a future visit but I enjoyed this first taste and have only written a basic account of our adventures.  I also realized how accustomed to the chaos of live in other countries I’ve become.  My father graciously paid for several taxis for our convenience but hated every ride because he was convinced we were going to die in a new accident every few seconds while the driving seemed downright sane after Georgia.  He also fretted over the line management (or lack thereof), which again seemed mild in comparison to Georgia.  The service at restaurants seemed better than what I was used to, since I was thrilled to be given my own personal menu with decent English translations, while my parents felt the opposite, missing the tip-induced service they were accustomed to.

TLG "Graduation"

On Friday we had a “TLG Certificate Ceremony”.  It was done in typical TLG fashion.  Last Saturday, an email invitation was sent out.  I read ‘Sheraton’ and the ability to take a free day off school to hang out with friends and agreed.  Others were much more reluctant, so there was a firestorm by Tuesday when TLG called to demand people’s presence at the suddenly ‘mandatory’ event.  Since it was the 2^nd to last Friday and people had things planned at their schools or travel plans for one of their last weekends, they were not pleased about the ‘mandatory’ nature of the event.  I was mostly curious as to how TLG was going to arrange transport for me as they had promised, since no one really lives near me.  When I saw that they were arranging transport from my regional center, I shrugged and figured I would just take my marshrutka into Tbilisi as usual, since I can easily get there but not to my regional center.  On Wednesday, my regional rep called to tell me that my director had been told she was responsible for getting me to my regional center.  Then, not one but two different teachers came over to tell me what the plan was.  My director does not speak Russian and both of the teachers do, but I have no idea why she sent two emissaries with an easy message.  Since it meant I had to be ready by 7 and my director had to hire a taxi to take us to Tetriskaro, I called my regional rep to ask if I could just get to Tbilisi on my own.  She freaked out a little, so I just agreed to go with TLG.

With two teachers coming to explain what was going on, my family knew I was going to Tbilisi.  My grandmother thought I was going on Thursday, so she woke me up at 6:30, asking me why I wasn’t awake.  I eventually figured out what was going on, told her I still had a day, and fell back asleep.  I woke up on my own at 6:15 on Friday, reluctantly got out of bed, and found that my grandma had gotten everything ready for me to eat breakfast.  She also ordered me to drink tea and not to leave hungry.  Have I mentioned I adore her?  I started eating at 6:45 and heard a car.  I looked to see who it was, afraid that a car this early could only have one purpose.  I was right; the car stopped at our house, so I quickly finished my tea, finished packing, and was out the door within five minutes.  My director tried to chat with me but I only know so much Georgian and was much more content that early to admire the gorgeous scenery.  We arrived at 7:40, 20 minutes early and were let into the regional Educational Resource Center.  After a few minutes, four other volunteers and their directors arrived.  It was interesting to finally meet the people in my region.  They were all male and lived in places I had never heard of, most of whom lived closer to another ‘city’ but were technically in my region.  It was nice to chat with them a bit, which we did until the bus finally showed up at 8:40, instead of at 8.  We then drove to Tbilisi so we could drive to Rustavi, the capital of Kvemo Kartli, and we picked up all the people from Rustavi, which gave me a chance to chat with more friends and people I slightly knew. 

Once at the Sheraton, we took a few minutes to register and then delighted in oversized coffee mugs and Western breakfast treats like croissants and apple pastries.  I caught up with a few more friends until it was time to “rehearse”.  Yes, we had assigned seats and had to rehearse.  This is when we all felt like it was a graduation.  We practiced walking on stage, had a few minutes’ break, and then watched the press pour in as the Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Science entered. They both gave good speeches in English, including the first legitimate total for TLG I have ever heard (over 1500 volunteers have come from over 40 countries), jokes about how the most TLG-Georgian marriages have happened with volunteers placed in Samegrelo, and how the program has succeeded despite a host of skeptics.  The press left with them, so the event became more a way for the TLG staff to thank volunteers than the press stunt we were all assuming it to be.  After a few more speeches, walking on stage for real, and a slideshow the staff had put together against a very fitting and very cheesy song about making a difference (TLG’s motto), we were unleashed into the lobby for more food and wine.  We were all hoping for Western food but got renditions on Georgian favorites that did not last long.

Thus, with a few friends, I went again in search of lobio khinkali.  This time we were successful, and it was delicious, although we agreed it would have been just as delicious as plain lobio or lobiani (lobio means bean so these are all bean dishes).  That night, four of my closest friends from my group and one friend’s girlfriend returned to the Machaxela next to our training hotel.  A long night of appreciating Georgian dancing, toasting with copious amounts of wine, feasting on food we could now order in Georgian, and reminiscing ended like one of the last nights of training: we headed next door to the beer garden.  We did not stay out quite so late as during training, but still managed to get in several more toasts and another khachapuri.  As several of us remembered that someone had requested “My Heart Will Go On” when we were here in August, we asked for the song to be played, the only time I probably ever have and ever will do that.  Thankfully, it now will remind me of Georgia and not merely middle school.

The day was a splendid one, and was a good reminder of all that this year has encompassed: making a difference in my school and community (I hope), making lots of good friends, having a lot of great memories with the people I’ve met here, and (hopefully) having grown a lot as a person.  I know I’ve changed a lot, especially since one friend said she couldn’t imagine me as anything other than a social butterfly, which made me laugh.  No one has ever called me that before.  A horrid experience in an expat bar recently reminded me of why I hate going out in America and made me question if all the boldness, risk-taking, and friendliness will disappear once I return home or if these changes are permanent.  Regardless, they have made for a wonderful year in a fascinating country with great friends.

A Visit from Home Prompts Reflections on the Idea

I was talking with a friend yesterday about leaving Georgia and our futures, and she said that Georgia felt like home.  I have definitely been thinking about that, even if the thoughts have not crystallized thus defined in my brain.  In many ways, my life in Georgia is not as comfortable as life in the West, but there is a comfort in the familiarity of it now.  I knew I could wait until a week before my friend came to visit to ask my host mom for permission for my friend to stay because it would be shocking for a Georgian to refuse a guest (of the same gender in terms of overnight guests).  I can tell by the landscape approximately where I am on my marshrutka rides home from Tbilisi.  I can apparently sing along to a Justin Bieber song, which would never be possible in America.  I can leave my possessions on a marshrutka without fear of them being stolen.  I understand most of the strains of conversation in my family.  Tea with cheese and bread is now extremely comforting and salads of tomatoes and cucumbers seem more normal than Caesar salads.  I have come to understand, at least in the ways I can, in the subtleties of life here.  There are still times when I feel as though I will not understand Georgian culture, but they often stem from not being able to fathom the why behind something or how Georgians endure what they endure, instead of a surface-level shock at customs and practices. 

Now that my days are numbered, I find myself clinging more to this little patch of earth. I feel as though I am clenching my fist around grains of sand, which slip through my fingers even more the stronger I try to hold onto them.

I had a delightful 2-hour impromptu visit to a colleague that shed a lot of light on who she is and how she’s interacted with me this year.  It made me regret not taking more of an interest in her before and also further clarified why my school does not feel as welcoming as other schools.  The teachers are always nice to me, but more and more, I find myself doing my own thing.  This colleague described the “collective” she had experienced at her other schools previously.  The Russian word works much better than the English, but in essence, my school lacks the community that is often present at other schools and other TLGers have described, mostly in that they are included in events.  My school does not have a lot of events or parties or even impromptu gatherings, and I’m more often than not totally clueless about said events when they do occur.  Granted, I am probably gone for most of them, but my school just isn’t that way.  It made me realize that my colleague, seeing that lack, was reaching out in order to be welcoming but also to reach out to someone else whose life existed beyond the small village we both now call home.

I also have realized how much I have come to love Tbilisi. 

This is the door that welcomes new arrivals at the airport.

 No, it lacks the flash of most major capitals, but I love its ancient buildings and run-down bits more than the newly rebuilt sections of town.  I smile when I see its monuments at sundown, take great joy in counting how many Orthodox churches I can see from a rooftop, and love that I can navigate certain parts of the city better than I can almost any stretch of Springfield.  I have realized that Georgia’s beauty to me is in its rundown, undeveloped ruggedness.  When international corporations splash their billboards along roads outside of the big cities, blocking views of unadulterated mountains and valleys, I think I will weep. I see that future in my lifetime, and I hope that Georgia does not lose that untamed quality that has preserved life from another era.  Yes, Georgia must modernize, but I hope that it does not do so at the expense of its history and natural splendor.

Old and new in Tbilisi

Old Town Tbilisi

As I knew it would, having my best friend come visit me gave me fresh eyes to understand how familiar and dear Georgia had become to me.  Before I went to the airport, a friend at my hostel told me she had a friend coming in about the same time.  She had described me to him and described him to me (Asian-North American) and figured we could split a cab, since otherwise he was just going to sleep at the airport until the buses started running.  I was more than happy to oblige, especially since it meant I had someone to talk to while waiting for my friend’s delayed flight.  It also seemed so very Georgian, or totally normal here but something that would never happen at home.  I will miss things like that, when the world feels very small in very good ways.

On the first day, I took her to Mtskheta, the ancient capital, and had my friend there be our tour guide for the day.  We hiked up to Jvari Monastery, since the climb makes the church that much more impressive.  It was easier than I remembered, and the walk down was aided in its loveliness by the kilo of fresh cherries we had bought in Tbilisi.  Then I introduced my friend to lobio and let her taste lobiani in its homeland.  We got to play the ever familiar “hurry to get the 6pm marshrutka home” game I play every week, and then I showered her home.  As we lay in bed, she turned to me and said, ‘I don’t know how you do this’, which I thought was funny since I had just thought about how impressed I was that she was handling everything so well.

The next day, I showed her around Manglisi, which was more a chance to catch up and talk like we always do than much of a tour.  It was a wonderful day nonetheless.  My host mom made mchadi that night, which was a special treat.  We had gone into the kitchen to say hello to my favorite neighbor and her daughter and found the cornmeal cakes sitting there and were told to eat.  I was pleased by this surprise and in general pleased that, although they did not interact a lot and I had to play translator, my host family and friend seemed to be happy with one another.  I then took my friend to school.  I tried to include her a bit in the first lesson and realized that most of my friends probably do every day what she was doing, sitting there (bored) until the teacher includes them in an activity.  It made me thankful that I was able to teach the majority of my lessons.  I also appreciated my friend’s presence because the fifth graders were very well-behaved, which is rare.  Classes were shortened, so I was surprised by the bell, since it was International Defense of Children Day (apparently that’s a holiday here but not enough of one to call off school altogether).  Then, I should have had a break, but instead we went to 2^nd grade, so my friend got to see the chaos that rules the school, and how I have no clue as to how most things will go until they happen.  The 2^nd graders were great as usual and invited us to attend their carnival later that day.  Since we now had extra time and no one ever invites me to anything, I agreed.  We ran home and then came back a bit refreshed.  My 2^nd graders are one of my favorite classes, so I loved watching them play games, dance, and try to make khinkali.   

The girls had to ask the boys to dance for the "White Dance".

The boys had to try to make potato khinkali.

 We snuck out in time for us to pack and eat some tea, bread, and cheese before grabbing the 1pm marshrutka.  I showed my friend the most important cathedral in Georgia, Sameba.  It’s shiny and new, but I still like it.  Then we met up with friends and got our marshrutka to Kazbegi so my friend could get a taste of the Caucasus mountains.  Since Georgia does not mesh well with plans, I had no place for us to stay that night, but even before we had left Tbilisi, we had negotiated a homestay.

Our homestay turned out to be wonderful.  We could see Mt. Kazbek from the house and had plenty of room.  Dinner that night was delicious.  When we told our host that my friend was a tourist and we wanted her to try chacha, her face lit up and she procured for us a half-full bottle of homemade chacha, to which we introduced my friend.  I was also so pleased that she got to see why I have loved Georgia, as we stayed up until almost 2am sitting around the dinner table chatting.

First shot of chacha

We got up early the next morning to climb to Gergeti Trinity church, by far my favorite church in Georgia.  I love it because it seems like a Georgian church ought to.  The light pierces the dark of the church, slicing it from a high window, creating a beam straight to the door, as if God himself was beckoning worshippers to enter.  I would have taken a picture, but the holiness of the church does not allow for cameras, cell phones, pants on women, or any leg at all, just reverence and awe.  The darkness, divine smell of beeswax, unintelligible incantations of the priests, and quiet adoration of devout worshippers give the church a holy presence I have not felt anywhere else in Georgia.  Perhaps the sacrifice made to reach it or the natural beauty surrounding it help. For whatever reason, I was glad to return and pray in a church where my prayers feel like more than just a flickering flame in front of an icon.

Gergeti Sameba Church

By the time we got to the Gergeti church, Mt. Kazbek was shrouded in clouds, but the views were still stunning.  We enjoyed them for a while and decided to keep on trekking, as we had risen early so that we could hike to a nearby glacier if possible.  After another hour and a half, my friend’s feet were killing her, and a few of us were starting to wonder if it was worth it.  When it started to hail, we staged a mutiny, and all but two of us headed back.

The marshrutka back gave us some friendly Georgians and an overly friendly (read aggressive and annoying) Georgian to chat with. We had to decline an invitation for khinkali (dumplings) and pretend to sleep to ward off unwanted attention.  About an hour away from Tbilisi, the annoying Georgian found a new crop of foreigners to talk to, as several newly-minted TLGers got on our marshrutka.  I got to talk to one of them for the rest of the ride.  Her three weeks of Georgian experience made me realize how far my understanding of the culture had matured.

Thus back in Tbilisi, we had time for the baths, the one thing my friend had expressed interest in trying.  We all were also in need of a good cleansing.  So, the three of us girls headed to the baths.  I knew the best baths were closed because construction had ripped up the street in front of them.  I also knew that the public baths were little better than public showers, so we were all willing to shell out a bit more cash to indulge in the luxury of the Royal Baths.  For 50 lari (about $30), we got a private room for an hour.  We paid a bit extra for a scrub or massage, which basically meant an overweight Georgian woman in pajamas took a rough mitt and scraped off my top layer of skin and then rubbed something that frothed with bubbles over me.  My friend tried the massage, and although she described it as being violated in ways she had never been violated before, she enjoyed it, and we all considered the hour a great success.  We then attempted to eat at a restaurant which had lobio (bean) khinkali, which blew the minds of all of us when we heard about it.  Khinkali are usually filled with seasoned meat, but potatoes, mushrooms, and cheese are also possible.  Sadly, the place was packed, so we stuffed ourselves at the Russian place nearby.  Exhausted, we called it a night.

The next day, I had made plans for three of us to go to Gori and Uplistsikhe, an ancient cave town near Gori.  Time and tired feet meant we only made it to the Stalin museum and the Cake House in Gori.  I got to play tour guide, since the actual tour guides were busy with actual tourists.  When I had gone in December, my friends and I made up half the visitors at the museum.  On Sunday, the place was full of tourists, which was rather surprising.  My friend, who does not share my love of things Russian and Soviet, did not seem nearly as intrigued by the museum and Stalin’s private rail car as I was, but I enjoyed taking her nonetheless.  

Finally got my picture on Stalin's toilet!

It seemed like I would be a bad tour guide not to show her this facet of Georgian culture.  I was also quite pleased to notice a banner that stated that the museum, which was full of Soviet glory, is going to be turned into a museum of Stalinism.  The museum, aside from what my friends and I like to refer to as the ‘cupboard of repression’ largely ignores anything but what are seen as glorious deeds of one of the worst slaughterers in the 20^th century.  That will be changing, another sign of positive steps away from Georgia’s dark past.

We ended my friend’s visit basically where my Georgian journey began.  I took her to the restaurant next to my orientation hotel.  We went to say goodbye to a few friends who leave shortly and to eat with others.  We went to that restaurant for sentimental reasons but also because they have a live band that plays Georgian music in an atmosphere of old Georgia.  I’m not sure how much my friend got out of the experience other than Georgians will go to dinner at a restaurant to dance.  I was reminded how much I love these aspects of Georgian culture.  I made her do a Vakhtanguri with real Georgian wine glasses and we introduced her to a bit more of toasting culture. 

 After dinner, we finished the night sitting on the rooftop of another friend’s hostel and admired the view of Old Town Tbilisi before crashing.  I will miss that view a lot.

I have already said goodbye to four good friends and am not looking forward to the many more I will say goodbye to in the next few weeks.  I do like that it means more hugs hello are coming my way, but the closer I get to leaving Georgia, the more I want to return sooner rather than later.