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.

The Trials of Teaching, as well as more Travel

No presidents this week, alas, life is hard.  I did get my ticket home, so I will be back in the States 2 months from Saturday (December 22^nd)!  I’ll be home for 2 weeks, most of which will be spent on the couch catching up on USA network shows as my face recovers from getting my wisdom teeth pulled (don’t I know how to plan a great vacation?)  I’m looking forward to seeing my friends and family.  Assuming the travel agency does change my ticket, I will also get a free trip (or extended layover) in Poland.  I’m looking forward to it.  But that’s next year, so back to Georgia.

Last week my classes continued as normal.  My 6^th graders are now split up for good, so I simply face the challenge of planning lessons out of a book not suited for these kids.  I don’t want to veer too far off from the curriculum because that will only harm them in the future, not to mention I have no idea how to write curriculum for 6^th grade beginner English students.  I probably could, but I don’t want to.  More and more, I like some of my students and have fun with them, but I realize how much my heart is not in teaching.  It’s in talking with the people around me, traveling, and knowing more about the world around me.  That’s encouraging as I spend too many hours working on grad school applications.

Last week I also got my first private student in a very Georgian manner.  A fellow teacher asks me if I want a private student who comes to her for private geography lessons.  He’s in 12^th grade, and I thought he was from a nearby village of Toneti.  My teacher asks me to think about it, and if I could have lessons at my house.  I tell her I have to ask my host mom.  Although my host mom is incredibly chill, I still procrastinated until right before I headed off to school the next day to ask her.  She said she would ask my host dad and that afternoon tells me he said it would be better to have the lessons at school.  Having no problem with that, I took advantage of one of the last sunny and relatively warm days and go walking, stopping at another teacher’s house.  After a while, my host mom calls me and tells me to come home.  A million problems run through my head (she’s never done this before) and I hurry home.  Of course, she asks if I ran home since I made it so fast (Georgian girls go very slow, and you all know how fast I walk).  There is no problem; she’s simply sitting and drinking coffee with another policeman’s wife.  She then tells me that I can have lessons at home because the kid turned out to be a relative.  So very Georgian.  He then comes over and we try to discuss a schedule and price.  Thinking he’s from a village and not wanting to gouge him, I quote him a cheap price on lessons.  He says he’ll think about if he wants 1 or 2 lessons a week and the schedule and he’ll let me know.  On Monday, my host sister walks into my room and tells me he wants a lesson.  My host family asks if I can lower my price (which is already about ½ the price of lessons in Tbilisi), but I say “no”.  He must have given in, because he then comes over, laden with books of practice tests.  I found out he's actually from Tbilisi, so I'm not sure why he comes here for tutoring.  We go through some of them, and I found I had survived my first tutoring session.  Of course, he hasn’t told me when he wants the 2^nd lesson this week, but I’m hoping he doesn’t just show up.  If he does, I’m going to make him agree to a schedule.  In general, I’m just going to see how this works out.  Since I am in Georgia, trying to pin down anything seems difficult.

That was probably the most exciting part of my week, aside from learning how to play some new card games from my host family.  I like spending time with them and am more and more, which is making grad school applications even harder to work on.  This has been on my mind a lot since my first application is due on Monday.  Oh joy!  I’ll be so happy when they are all done.  Next semester I can use that time for more serious Georgian and Russian study.

This week has been considerably more interesting at school, namely because I’ve been on my own.  My main co-teacher has been absent for the first three days this week, and I don’t know when she’ll be back.  I’m really hoping she’s back tomorrow, because otherwise tomorrow will be a nightmare.  One of her husband’s relatives died in a car crash over the weekend, so I don’t begrudge her being gone at all.  I’m just not sure how I’ll survive in a class with 1^st graders who only (sort of) know A, B, C, and D.  So far I’ve had an interesting time trying to instill discipline.  Georgian discipline involves yelling at kids and pulling on their ear/hair, both of which I’m not a fan of.  I have mostly tried to keep the classes busy, but they’re so noisy, so I’ve said ‘Be quiet’ about a million times.  They didn’t really know what it meant at first, but they do now.  Several kids tried to tell me the Georgian, but I am taking this week as a chance to give them an almost entirely English only classroom.  It only kind of works.  I’m also trying to teach the children to be quiet and raise their hands if they want me to call on them.  The traditional Georgian way of getting called on is to hop out of your seat, wave your hand around, and yell “mas, mas” repeatedly.  (Mas is short for ‘mastsavlebeli’, which means ‘teacher’).  They are slowly learning.  When they do, I will feel quite triumphant and have a modicum of peace in my class.  The great thing is about half the class always wants me to call on them to speak/go to the board.  The problem is, only half of those kids actually know the answer.  It was strange the first few times a kid was dying to be called on when he or she did not know the answer.  That would not happen in an American classroom, for sure.  I suppose the humiliation factor isn’t there.  I have succeeded a bit in maybe a small bit of humiliation as I collected copious notes, a cell phone, and a few pens.  It’s hard to decide what to do when kids use their pens for spit wads. If you take the pens away, then they can’t write.  If you let them keep them, they blow spit wads at each other.  I also threw one kid out of my worst class when I could think of nothing else to do with him.  You’re not supposed to do that (this lack of real consequences is a major problem here), but no one commented on it, and it made that class a bit more bearable.

I’ll stop complaining about my kids for now.  I’m sure once my co-teacher returns, life will go back to normal.  One of the nice things is that I feel more like a real part of my school now.  One of my fellow teachers even commented to me that they all just think of me as another teacher now, part of them.  That felt good. 

Now onto my weekend adventure in Mtskheta and Tbilisi.  We did not have school last Friday because it was Svetitskhovloba, which you can read about here.  Basically it is Mtskheta’s big holiday, celebrating one of the most important churches in Georgia, Svetiskhoveli.

I went to Mtskheta on Friday for this because I figured I should see as much of Georgian life as possible, and also another TLGer had come to Tbilisi/Mtskheta (Mtskheta is 30 minutes from Tbilisi, so basically a suburb) for his birthday.  The streets were filled with a lot of the same festivities as Tbilisoba (the festival in Tbilisi the weekend before), except there was less meat and the church had roses and flowers around a lot of the icons and was all lit up.  I met up with my TLG friend and a few of his Georgian friends, who proceeded to feed me snacks before treating us to lunch.  I think I've mentioned how incredibly hospitable Georgians are, and here was another example.  After lunch, the Georgians left, and I went with the other TLGer to the archeological museum.  It had some crazy old shards of pottery and other archeological finds, but my mind did not really feel like appreciating things from millennia ago so I breezed through the museum.  A lady there told us about an archeological site so we went there.  I think she said that with our tickets we got in free to the archeological site, but the guy who should have collected our money was passed out, so it didn't matter.  The site was not that impressive.  Let's just say that in America, if we had ruins that old, we would have made a huge deal out of it, but maybe that's because Georgians have centuries of history and a lot less money to throw into tourist attractions.  Actually, the place had signs in English, so it wasn't that bad.   

Another friend then met us and we wandered around the festival and spent some time in front of a stage that I hope was meant for children.  There were lots of adults dressed in costumes (fox, clown, chicken, etc) dancing to really awful music.  Random pyrotechnics and confetti accompanied this display.  It was weird but people seemed entertained.  We walked a bit farther and there was a stage of kids performing who were significantly better than the adults in costume.  Go figure.  We walked around and found a guy with a few boxes of bottles of homemade wine.  Assuming it would be good, one of my friends bought a bottle.  It was the worst wine I've had in Georgia by far, probably halfway to being vinegar, which was such a disappointment.  We went into the church, which was way more impressive than when I had gone before because it was lit up, smelled like beeswax candles, was filled with faithful parishioners, and had flowers around the icons/graves, etc. 

Pretty soon we headed back to Tbilisi.  Two friends and I were going to another TLGer’s apartment so we decided we should bring some wine.  Having grown averse to bottled wine, as it is too expensive for our tastes, we went looking for some cheap jug/homemade wine. I asked a saleswoman in a grocery store if she knew of anywhere nearby where we could get some homemade wine, hoping for better luck than earlier that day.  The woman said there was nowhere nearby.  In America (well, in America this situation would never happen for several reasons), that would be the end of that.  But I’m in Georgia, so she asks the next customer if he knew.  He told me he knew of a place about 800 meters away, and he could take us in his car.  Again, in America, I would never, ever agree to this. But, we conferred, and we decided this was worth pursuing.  So we followed him to his car, where his wife was (sigh of relief there).  We drove for a bit until he stopped, locked his wife in the car, and took us into an open door with "Chateau Telavi" on it. Of course, the guy working there was a relative of our driver, so our driver dropped us off, and, lo and behold, we were in a winery.  The man explained that he had just been cleaning up, but he let us sample the 3 kinds of wine they had in vats there.  The white was good, and the reds were OK.  Of course, the white ended up being 20.50 GEL a liter and the reds 3 and 4 GEL.  We went with the 3 GEL red and got a 3 liter container.  The guy asked me how many of us there would be.  I said we would have friends, probably about 4.  He assured us that 3 liters would not be enough, but was mollified when I told him that the others would also be drinking beer.  The old man was actually incredibly nice and even kissed our hands goodbye after sending us in the right direction.  As I was the one speaking with him (in Russian, of course), I asked for directions and successfully navigated us back to where we needed to be.  This is a huge feat, which many of you will appreciate.

The next day I headed to the train station to go to the market there.  I had explored it some before but found a whole new world full of anything you could possibly want to buy.  It reminded me of markets in Russia and made me quite happy as I whiled away a few hours there.  I found some cheap second hand scarves and tried to find a cheap hat but couldn't.  Some old woman selling socks said she had hats at home so if I came back on Sunday, she would have one.  It also felt weird looking for cold weather items on a warm, sunny day in Tbilisi, but in Manglisi it is much colder.  Sadly, when I went back the next day, this woman was nowhere to be found, but I did manage to find a nice hat that was in my price range.  I also completed the entire transaction without relying on my Russian, so that was pretty exciting. 

I then wandered around Old Town Tbilisi until I stumbled upon the greatest find of the weekend, a tea festival!   

Intrigued and incredibly pleased, I ventured inside and got to taste some honey, tea, and cheese.  I then started walking back to my hostel and met another TLGer, who was on her way to meet other TLGers, because Georgia is a very small world.  I showed them the Caucasus Tea Festival, and since it was less crowded, we got more samples of cheese, tea, and honey.  We also got wine, jam, and an explanation of what the festival was about.  The Caucasus Business and Development Network put it on as part of their ongoing efforts to show that despite political conflicts, businesses can work together and need to work together.  So, the tea, wine, cheese, etc. comes from various parts of the South Caucasus-Armenia, Azerbaijan, the region they fight over (which has delicious honey), Turkey, Georgia, South Ossetia, and Abkahazia and is all called Caucasus tea, Caucasus cheese, etc.  A pretty cool idea, plus I got lots of free samples of several of my favorite foods.  After that, I met another TLGer to investigate ‘dry bridge’.  It is just a bridge, but people gather there to sell all sorts of things, including antiques, Soviet memorabilia, jewelry, and random electronics.  It did not have a ton of souvenirs, but still happily reminded me of Moscow’s Izmailovo, where you can find any souvenir your heart desires.  Most sellers spoke Russian, even to each other, so my friend greatly appreciated my language skills.  It is weird hearing Russian and just simply understanding.  It doesn't register as Russian as much as I just get what they people are saying.  In real conversations, this doesn't always happen and I frequently have no idea what people are saying, but it's cool to eavesdrop and just understand.  I’m finally feeling like I really am comfortable with Russian.

On that note, I’ll sign off.  Soon I’ll have stories to tell of camping in Borjomi (yes, I’m going camping, and in October).  If I survive the cold and bears, I’m going to Armenia at the beginning of November.  In general, life is very good here.

Batumi, Mtskheta, and finally a word on school

How can so much happen in so few days?

I realize this is a very long post and may get boring in parts, so sorry if it does.  Most of the interesting stories require a bit of explanation.

On Friday I woke up early and headed into Tbilisi.  TLG had a yearly meeting, which was mostly a big PR move talking about all the program had done.  However, it was really interesting to see how in little more than a year, the program had really started to make a difference in the country.  Not only were kids starting to learn English, teachers complaining about a lack of supplies (like good books) led to the government purchasing brand new curriculum for grades 1-6 for this school year from a Western publisher.  Hopefully the books will be as affordable as promised (I get the vibe students buy their own books) and will really help.  This also means I should be teaching little kids, as they have the new books.  Mostly I went to the meeting because it was at the Courtyard Marriott and I wanted some good free food.  With salsa and cheesecake among the choices, I was very happy. I also got to meet up with some of my TLG friends and made a few new ones.  That night I met up with 5 of my friends from my training group and we boarded a midnight (well, almost midnight) train to Batumi.

Much to my delight, the train was just like Russian trains, and my friends were very pleased with my knowledge of post-Soviet trains, like knowing there is a bottle opener under the table (thank you, Fulbright).  Far too early, for it was only an 8 hour ride, we arrived in Batumi.  Batumi is the Black Sea resort party town, so we were quite excited about our weekend.  While I had organized the trip for several of us coming from near Tbilisi, the majority of people from my training group ended up in Batumi last weekend, so we had a great reunion. 

After taking a while to find our hostel and then move (of course our hostel didn’t have our reservations but it worked out just fine), we settled into our hostel and set out for some food.  We wandered around in search of morning coffee.  Finally finding some, we wanted a café with food (because the place where we got coffee was only serving breakfast food for patrons of the adjoining hotel), which was difficult at 10:30 on a rainy Saturday.  I think most places there don’t open up until later because the town is still sleeping off the night before.  Starving, we found a place serving beer.  No, we didn’t start drinking then, but found it was right next to a little bread stand.  Not only did the old man making ‘tonis puri’ (Georgian kiln bread) let us come in and see him at work, he let us take pictures (see my facebook pics).  Then we bought the hot, fresh bread and had a delightful breakfast.  We met up with some other friends and I ran into some Peace Corps people, including my friend Chris.  If I haven’t yet mentioned how small Georgia, or at least the expat world of Georgia is, let me do it now.  It’s small.  I know very few people here but regularly run into someone I know in Tbilisi (or Batumi).  After that, still battling drizzly weather, my friends and I headed off to find a museum to while away some time.  We spent a while in the art museum, which offered an array of good and bad art. 

After that, it looked like the rain had stopped, so we headed to the Botanical Gardens.  Of course, it started raining again, or at least drizzling, but that made our excursion seem like that much more of an adventure.  There were not a lot of flowers, but there were some cool trees, so our trek was still fun.  The Botanical Gardens is also right on the water, so we had some spectacular views.  After walking and walking, we paid for a ride on what was really a glorified, elongated golf cart (probably supposed to be a tram).  It had plastic around the sides so we were finally dry and could take a break.  We got dropped off at the end and informed there was a seaside park nearby.  Finally, I got to stick my feet in the sea!!!  Perhaps because it was wet and cold outside, the water was quite warm, and I wished I had my bathing suit on right there.  Regardless, we had fun putting our feet in.  We eventually headed out the exit, which was not the brightest idea since it led us to a road that took quite a while to meet up with civilization.  Once it finally did, we hailed a marshrutka (public taxi van) back to Batumi and found some delicious Turkish food to eat.  My friend Linda realized she had left her phone in our marshrutka.  We called in vain but quickly gave it up as lost.  Right when we got back to our room at the hostel, the marshrutka driver called from her phone.  I raced down the 3 flights of steps to get the Georgian girl at the front desk to talk to him, since he seemed to know no Russian.  We were directed to a bus station where we could pick up her lost phone.  There were 2 next to each other, so I was not sure if I was at the right one, so I was waiting to call the driver to get the phone until I was sure I was at the right station.  However, 4 foreigners looking confused definitely stand out, so without a phone call, our marshrutka driver walked over with Linda’s phone.  A bad situation was suddenly another display of the kindness of the Georgian people.  We walked back through a market, in search of fresh figs.  Unfortunately, the market seemed to cater more toward the Home Depot crowd, with stall after stall of home building goods.  An interesting sight, but no figs.  The moral of this story is actually that Georgia is a very small country.  We were about to cross a street in this market when a car comes dangerously close to us.  Out pops one of the girls from our group and another TLGer.  They had hitchhiked (safe and common here) from their city and somehow found us when we couldn’t have even explained where in Batumi we were.

After a cold but still much-needed shower and a bit of food and drink at the hostel, we were set to explore Batumi night life.  Unfortunately, the first place we tried had neither food nor wine.  I can handle a Georgian bar that doesn’t have food.  But no wine?  Georgia is famous for its wine; people have vats and vats of homemade wine (mostly in the 2 wine-making regions but still, it’s everywhere).  This was hard to comprehend, especially since I like wine a lot.  Some nice old Georgian tried to take us to some other restaurant since we were guests in his city (as the Russian speaker, I got to play translator, negotiate how to get out of staying at a restaurant we didn’t want to be in without being ungracious), and headed to a bar recommended by our hostel.  My favorite part about this bar, which was near a statue of Medea and the Golden Fleece, was that it was near the Iranian consulate.  The best part was that there was a sign at the consulate of a room for rent.  We were so tempted, but did not inquire.  It would probably be bugged anyway, right?  The bar, while cheap by Western standards, was expensive by our cheap Georgian tastes, so we left again. 

Then, we stumbled upon the best find of our life: a café that sold alcohol.  It seemed so very Soviet to me.  There was a counter with big plastic jars of various shades of wine, drinking glasses, a cooler full of vodka, pickles, chips, and a cool limonadi (fruit-flavored soda) dispenser.  I should have taken pictures.  The woman who served us also seemed very Soviet-she looked cold, unfriendly, and overworked, but she was also incredibly nice to us.  The sparsely decorated place was empty except for a group of young Georgian men who were singing in Georgian.  After a few drinks, they came over to talk and turned out to be much nicer than I expected.  They wanted to take us to some ritzy club, but instead we spent most of the night on the beach, briefly met up with the rest of our group, and had a great night of talking, toasting, and drinking in a park by the beach.  (Alcohol will probably feature more prominently in this blog than it ever did in my life in the States because it is so much a part of life here in Georgia.)  Georgians have ritualized their drinking, so whenever you want to drink your wine, you must make a toast.  It was fun practice for all of us (I spoke in Russian, but a few of the guys spoke in Georgian), and we are already feeling adjusted to the culture enough that we feel guilty just sipping our wine sans toasts.  (You don’t toast with beer, or if you do, it’s an ironic toast, like to your enemies).  One of the Georgians, who had excellent Russian and afforded me a great night of Russian practice, explained the reasons Georgians toast.  Georgia is a fairly religious country full of Orthodox believers.  Lighting a candle and praying is a huge part of their religion.  They also take their drinking seriously, so their drink is like a candle and their toast is like a prayer.

Sunday was sunny and warm so we finally headed to enjoy the beach.  I had heard that Batumi was overcrowded (now that it is September it isn’t a huge deal but still wanted to heed the advice I had heard), so we headed a little farther down the coast to Sarpi, which was supposed to have a better beach.  It was still a pebble beach (all of Georgia’s beaches are) but clean and not too crowded.  The best part by far was that it was right at the border with Turkey.  One of my friends suggested swimming to a buoy that marked the border out in the water.  This, of course, sounded like a good idea to me, so my years of swimming came in handy as we headed out to the buoy.  That’s when the guards rushed out and brandished their guns at the foreign interlopers.  No, not exactly.  Nothing happened.  No yelling, no guards, no guns, just some pleasant swimming.  Swimming did feel so good, even if the water was not as warm as I remembered from the day before and it has been years since I had swum so much.  We all enjoyed the water and sun as well as the tasty treats people hawked on the beach.  Like good Georgians, we sat and ate sunflower seeds (you can’t help but eat handfuls at a time) and also had some delicious baklava as well as some grape fruit leather thing.  After a few hours, we headed back into the city for some food. I went with a friend on an unsuccessful venture to get him a train ticket (the train was sold out) but we found him a bus and finally found fresh figs!  With our few remaining hours, we headed back to the delightful hole-in-the-wall of a café from the night before.  Amongst other things, we toasted and remembered 9/11.  Since almost half my group wasn’t American and we were sitting in a Georgian café, it was a very interesting way to remember those who had suffered and sacrificed.

My host family, who had been vacationing nearby, texted me that night to check in.  They then told me they were in Batumi.  To an American, this means that we should meet.  When I tried to arrange that, in hopes of introducing my family to my friends, I found out that they were heading back to the town they were vacationing in.  I was slightly frustrated but also learned a cultural lesson.  Georgians will text to ask ‘where are you?’ as a way of saying ‘I am thinking of you.’  That made the exchange make so much more sense, so I headed off to the train station without guilt.  We were all very tired and all slept soooo well on the train that night, although not enough.  In the morning we headed our separate ways.  I came home, showered, and crashed.  It’s been quite a while since I felt so exhausted. 

I also had really enjoyed my weekend, so coming home to my host grandma and her sisters was a bit of a readjustment.  I was disappointed to find out my host grandma didn’t understand the washer either so I would have to wait to get some laundry done (which always seems to be a pain).  Not quite ready to go back to being the only foreigner around and not really relishing another day of doing nothing, I spent yesterday visiting a friend in Mtskheta.  Mtskheta is the old capital of Georgia and the spiritual heart of the country.  Mostly, Mtskheta has several beautiful old churches, which we visited, as well as an old fort.  I got to see his host family’s nice house (Mtskheta is clearly a bit nicer than Manglisi-it’s a “city” of 19,000 that even has a tourist center) but did not get to meet his host family since no one was home.  Since we always swap host family stories, I was a bit disappointed, but I suppose I have a year to remedy that.  The main draw of Mtskheta is the cross church (Jvari), so we saved it for last.  Either right before or right after St. Nino converted King Mirian to Christianity in 327, she made a cross on a mountain near the city.  That cross soon became a church and monastery- Jvari.  Most people take a taxi since it sits on the top of a hill/mountain, but we decided to hike it, which made getting to the top that much more of an accomplishment.  The church is very cool.  Georgian Orthodox churches are not as similar to Russian ones as I would have expected.  The icons and murals are different, and I really wish I could understand the symbolism in them more.  Some of the icons look ancient while others are brand new.

While visiting one of the churches, I finally got a call from TLG saying that tomorrow I have a meeting about school.  Since tomorrow is the first day of school, I am happy to hear I’ll actually be teaching soon.  I also got a call from one of my future co-teachers.  It looks like I’m moving to the village of Tsintsqaro (of course I have to move to a place I can’t pronounce right since the q/k sound is one I can’t really do right).  I am waiting to hear about my new host family/when I am moving.  Still, school is getting closer and closer!