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.

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.

Gori, Goodbyes, and Gunpowder

Ten days...and definitely counting.  This also means that I have 10 days before I want my Michigan apps done, so I’m ignoring that fact and trying not to salivate at the thought of Taco Bell, fresh fruit, and Apple Barn toffee.

What is a great way to forget about American food?  By going to see the origins of one of the biggest monsters of the 20^th century, of course.  Stalin was born in Gori, a town about an hour’s drive from Tbilisi.  As the Wikitravel article on Gori explains it, “relatively few people in the world "cherish" the memory of one of the 20th century's greatest mass murderers, Joseph Stalin, but most that do live in Gori.” 

Three guys from my training group and I decided to take a day trip to Gori, mostly to see the Stalin house-museum.  Stalin was born in a one-room apartment his family rented in a small house.  His father, a cobbler, had a shop in the basement of this house.  Since the 1930s, this house, still in its original spot, has been memorialized as part of the museum.  It is surrounded by a nice roof with a glorious Soviet design and surrounded by marble pillars.   

The guys in front of Stalin's encased home

Me in front of Stalin's family's room

 Behind this humble building is the museum.  It cost 10 GEL to get in, which seemed incredibly steep, so the extra 5 GEL for the English tour guide and tour of Stalin’s private railroad car did not seem like much extra, so we opted for the tour.  Our guide was a twenty-something young woman with a decent command of English.  Perhaps because the museum is unheated and was cold enough that you could see your breath, or perhaps because of the inappropriate comments by one of the guys in my group and the others on our tour, our tour guide probably gave us the fastest tour of the museum humanly possible.  It did not help that soon after we started, we were joined by three Polish men who worked in Tbilisi.  As Kelley, one of the guys who was with me put it succinctly, “nobody hates Stalin as much as the Poles”. 

They joined us after learning about the promising poet that young Stalin was.  One of his poems even became a regular part of elementary school curriculum (before he became a revolutionary) and during the Soviet Union, several of his poems were used in school under a pseudonym.  It wouldn’t fit a dictator to write poetry, now would it?

Still, while we got to admire a model of an underground printing press and look at a map of Stalin’s exile and return, the Poles were literally cursing Stalin.  It definitely added another dimension to the trip.  They were so pleased when we saw a copy of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which was when Stalin and Hitler agreed not to invade each other.  While that obviously did not last, the pact also carved up Poland between the two of them, a knife in the back, as the Poles put it. 

Most of the museum was filled with old photos that were blown up like lots of other Soviet museums, but they also had his office furniture, pipe collection, mother’s china, and gifts he had received from people around the world.  Perhaps the best exhibit inside the museum is a gloriously displayed death mask, 6 of 9 created after he died.  After seeing these normal exhibits, we followed our guide downstairs to a locked room which briefly touched on the “repression” during the Soviet Union (they never blame it on Stalin).  It is replete with letters sent home from Siberian exile, a secret police’s interrogation desk, and a recreation of a prisoner’s cell.  At least they acknowledge something terrible happened under Stalin.  That’s something, right?

The best part of the tour came last, when we went outside.  We got to go into the house, which has the original Jugashsvili (Stalin’s family) furnishings, or so they claim.  Then we toured Stalin’s very swank private railroad car.  I took pictures of 2 of my friends on Stalin’s toilet (his personal bathroom had a toilet and a bath!) before a tour guide yelled at me.  

Kelley on Stalin's personal toilet

 

The rest of our trip included walking up to a snowy Gori Castle (it’s a fort that isn’t that special) and warming up in a café, where some drunk Georgians bought us xachapuri and beer because they loved one of the guys I was with.  It was a reminder of how different male-female interactions are in Georgia because the two men wanted their picture with Kelley and wanted the boys to drink with them while they totally ignored me, not even asking my name.  (More Gori pics are on Facebook; the link is on my "Pictures" page.)

The next morning, one of the guys and I played tour guide to a German we met at our hostel.  He was very appreciative and bought us breakfast and tea, which for a German is quite extraordinary.  If you think I’m being mean, he regaled us with stories of German stinginess.  I, however, was playing tour guide simply because it is one of my favorite things to do.  (If this whole grad school business doesn’t pan out and I can’t stand the idea of another year of children shouting “Hannah teacher” ad nauseam, I’m looking into being a tour guide.)  It was also very cool to realize how much I’ve learned about Georgia

This weekend, I was back in Tbilisi to say goodbye to some of my group members and other friends who are not coming back.  Most of my group got together, which was a great time.  We went to dinner at the restaurant next to our training hotel, “where it all began”, which was a lot of fun, especially to think about how much had changed and how much had not.  We still received terrible service but this time it was not due to our linguistic inabilities.  We discussed what we had done, where we still wanted to go, what we missed at home, our plans for break, and our respective school experiences.  In four months, strangers with various reasons for coming to Georgia had become good friends, a sort of “family” for me.  I will miss those who won’t return but look forward to another 6 months with those who will.

The night turned out to be very interesting.  Knowing that there was a new group at the hotel, we went to introduce ourselves and invite them to join us in our night out.  Things worked out that I found myself in charge of getting 10 newbies downtown from the hotel by myself.  I have never taken a bus in the city, but I led all of them fearlessly onto a bus and walked them down the main street in Tbilisi to meet up with the rest of my group.  We soon went to another place, where a few of my friends got themselves and therefore the rest of us invited to a supra (Georgian party) for some stranger’s birthday.  It was so very Georgian, I loved it.  In the States, only drunken college students and twenty-somethings invite perfect strangers to their private parties.  In Georgia, I’m not even surprised anymore.

As far as school is concerned, the most notable event is the addition of firecrackers to daily life.  Last Wednesday, I walked into the school yard for my first class (2^nd hour) to see a gaggle of my 5^th grade boys clearly up to no good.  When I went to investigate, I saw one of them had a lit firecracker in his hand.  As a sign of my cultural assimilation or an affirmation I am not meant to be a teacher, I simply shook my head at him and kept walking.  Now, booms are regular parts of breaks, and the halls smell like gunpowder.