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.

A Multicultural Existence

Oh, where to begin?  Less than five weeks left, the weather is gorgeous, I just spent the last 6 days having a great vacation out west and a bonus day in Tbilisi… 

So, here are a few scattered thoughts…

Wednesday was a holiday, so two friends and I took the rest of the week off to do some adventuring out west.  It was a great trip and showed me that trusting a 23-year old frat boy over my common sense sometimes leads to a great adventure instead of jail or death.  The trip will get its own blog entry later, but since I’m nearing the end, I’ve been doing more thinking and am starting to evaluate my year here, so you’re going to get another one of those blog entries.

One of the nights we were on a beach drinking and talking and I brought up something that had been bothering me since about my last blog entry.  All of my close friends here are expats.  This was also true in Russia, although I made some close Russian friends.  Why do I feel so compelled to travel halfway around the world to a foreign language and culture just to make friends with other people like me?  They told me it was normal. 

It came up a few days later with a friend from South Africa.  She pointed out that being here lets us meet people from other parts of the Western world we never would have met otherwise and would not have made friends with.  She has a good friend she met in Georgia who is from England, so now they both have an impetus to visit a country that previously held no interest for them.  Even the Americans I’m friends with probably would not have become friends, and certainly not good friends, back in America. 

Another friend recently wrote on the Facebook group page frequented by TLGers, asking if people who had eschewed laptops and ereaders had really felt that they had gained more by doing so, since connections with home make it harder to make connections here.  While everyone who answered obviously leads a wired Georgian life, all the responses echoed the sentiment that people got plenty of Georgian culture.  Obviously I’m not the only one who has been wondering about the expat bubble vs. Georgian immersion experience.

While I may not be immersing myself 24/7 in Georgian culture, I’ve gotten a multicultural experience.  I’m slowly learning Australian slang and realizing how wrong they speak English in England.  My knowledge of Singapore has grown exponentially and I’ve realized how different America does certain things from other parts of the West.  It’s made me much prouder to be from America, as I’ve defended certain aspects of American culture that seem strange to my friends but I hold much nearer and dearer than I thought.  Conversations about the Constitution, including incredulity that Britain exists without one and a conversation about the Supreme Court that ended at 5:30am, have made me appreciate the brilliancy of that document and how it has helped shape our national character.  There are plenty of things about America and Americans that drive me crazy, but there’s plenty that we’ve done well as well.

For Cinco de Mayo, my Peace Corps friend, Australian friend, and Singapore friend cooked food for about 20 people to celebrate.  It was a great snapshot of what this year has been.  We had a token American of Mexican descent to add some legitimacy to the event, but mostly we had a bunch of Americans and a few people other nationalities, including a few Georgians and Armenians, enjoying good burritos and stir fry (don’t ask).  I got to make guacamole and we made “sopeli sangria”, as one friend dubbed the village wine sangria we made (sopeli is Georgian for village).  Ten of us ended the night chatting on the rooftop of the hostel, overlooking the city and watching fireworks and paper lanterns float across the skyline while chatting.  It was a night I will remember for a long, long time, and one of the reasons I will miss Georgia so much, getting to spend quality time with so many interesting people with so many different reasons for coming to Georgia and views on life.

After the party, I felt I had to do something related to Georgian culture so finally made my way to the National museum.  Basically there is a floor dedicated to the Soviet Occupation and one dedicated to all the sweet stuff they’ve dug up around Georgia.  The Soviet Occupation museum made me consider for the first time the independent Georgia that existed between 1918 and1921.  While the Red Army had little trouble taking over Georgia, the museum catalogs other heinous deeds of the Soviets: the poets and writers shot, the thousands killed, the struggles to retain Georgian culture and language, the war against religion, and other crimes of the Soviets.  There are letters begging other nations for help, including one from the Khevsurs (a group of people in a remote mountain part of Georgia) pleading with the US government for help as the Soviets were forbidding them from practicing their religion and traditional way of life and vowing that they would fight until the last Khevsur was killed against the Soviets.  I’m sure they got no response.

The basement is a completely different story, filled with gold, silver, and other exquisite treasures dating back centuries.  Ancient Georgia was alive and well, trading with far-flung places in the known world.  It was nice to follow up a sorrowful visit with an appreciation of beauty and human craftsmanship.  The pieces were all amazing, some incredibly detailed, most well preserved.

Speaking of jewelry, I’ve acquired a ring that has become one of my favorite pieces of Georgia.  No, not that kind of ring, although I did get it from a man in my village.  A few weeks ago, I went to wait for my marshrutka to Tbilisi for the weekend.  I started talking to the woman who sold me the ticket and another old man who was waiting.  They figured out who I was, asked me all the usual questions like do I like Georgia and why don’t I get married to a Georgian.  He then told me he wanted to give me a gift.  After so many months in Georgia, this did not make me feel weird or guilty, as I regularly get things like flowers or candy now.  (Yeah, getting lilacs from students and random kids on the street is pretty awesome, in case you wanted to know.)  He then started taking a ring off his key ring and I thought it was going to be some stupid key ring like we have back home.  He told me it was silver and handed me a twisted silver ring that could or could not be real, but it is still something I treasure since he gave it to me simply so that I would think Georgians were hospitable.  Georgians may drive me crazy with a lot of their ideas and ways, but their hospitality is really incredible. 

The old man then told me that the Georgian language was the easiest language in the world to learn.  I tried to suggest that maybe that’s because he was Georgian, but he was adamant that it was an unbiased fact.  I decided not to argue the matter since I knew he was wrong and he knew he was right.  And it reminded me of the double-edged sword that is Georgia.  Of course, I don’t even know if I got his name, but I’ll remember him for sure.

I think I’ve expressed to many of you that I’ll be ready to go home when I go.  I’ve got several amazing adventures left, have loved Georgia, but I’m ready to go home for a while.  Part of it is that I long to cook my own meals made up mostly of veggies, go to the bathroom where the neighbors don’t know that’s what I’m doing, and just be me.  Another part is that the internet can only do such a good job of communicating the joys and sorrows of friends and family back home.  While I’ve had so many wonderful experiences here, there are ones I would have liked to have been a part of back home, for better or worse.  I’ve realized that there has been an emotional and relational cost of my penchant for strange countries.  I’m not saying I’m close to hanging up my hat, but I’m looking forward to sitting tight for a while and hoping for lots of visitors in Bloomington.

While that would be a good place to end this blog, I won’t.  I have to write about how lovely spring has made everything.  I am surrounded by green.  It is lush and lovely, and I am constantly stunned by the beauty of the earth in my little region of the world.  While I don’t love the 90 minute rides on Georgian marshrutkas that take me to Tbilisi every weekend, they give me at least 50 minutes to gaze on absolute loveliness, especially on Sunday evenings as the sun sets over the mountains or the valley is submerged in fog.  I love my Midwestern cornfields, but the sights of the area around Manglisi remind me again and again of the Georgian legend that God had reserved this place for himself.

So while on vacation, I left behind my laptop and found my phone only worked as an alarm (which I needed far too much for a vacation).  The 5 days free of connection to the outside world was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  Granted, I was too busy exploring, but it was a reminder that I need to unplug every once in a while since I am tethered to my computer so much.  When I got back to Tbilisi, too late to go home to the village due to our bus breaking down, I stayed the night at a hostel and used a friends’ internet connection.  I had a lot of unread emails but only a few important ones.  My Facebook account had weathered my absence just fine.  Without my laptop to write down thoughts, I had actually written in my travel journal, which is still not full after 5 years and 3 trips to the former USSR.  That night, having no computer or exhaustion to lull me to sleep, I borrowed a book from the hostel.  Having no real agenda for the next day, I sat on an outdoor couch, sipped tea, and finished the book.  It was an easy read, but the feeling of simply sitting and reading was absolutely delightful, and it had been so long since I had lost myself in a book like that.  Monday as a whole was a mental health day that worked wonders, but the experience also reminded me of what my life was like before it was invaded by the internet.  Of course, today, I’ve been tethered to my computer, so maybe the lesson isn’t quite fully learned.

Also, my workweek is about to get even shorter.  Yes, that is possible.  Apparently the ministry lets the 12^th grade out a few weeks early to study for the big national exam.  That’s understandable and should save my mother from having to yell at my sister each morning to get out of bed.  The ministry also lets the first graders out after this week.  I don’t really know why, and neither did my co-teacher when I asked her, but I think it has been like that for a while.  I can’t say I’m disappointed, as I don’t hate the class, but I also can’t say I’ve been that effective there.  Some of them are super cute, though.  But now I’ll be able to sleep in on Thursdays.  I can see the cute kids when I roam the streets instead.

Oh, and my upper grades are finally getting past the verb “to be” and into action verbs.  I like that a lot.  Taking a page from my high school German teacher’s handbook, I’ve made the kids do motions for the verbs to help them remember it.  I think they like it.  I also get a kick out of making them bark and meow and flap their wings like a bird.  I taught my 6^th graders Simon Says, and they now beg to play the game every class.  It makes me feel like I’ve done something I came here to do-teach them English, give them a slice of American culture, get them to remember something in English, and enjoy it.

Looking Forward and Looking Back

I have 6 ½ weeks left of school and a little over 2 months before I step foot on American soil once again.  When I got back from Turkey, I calculated how many lessons I had left.  I’m somewhere under 90 now.  These numbers tell me 2 contradictory things.  I have so little time and I have so much time.  Being me, my planning is taking me mentally past Georgia into my travels and then starting to think about life beyond Georgia, like grad school.  Mostly this is simply thinking about what I’ll need for my new apartment because the thought of actual work is terrifying after a year here.  Still, I have adventures still to enjoy, lessons still to teach, and hopefully relationships to continue.

With the end in sight, however, I’ve also started thinking over my year in Georgia.  I know I’ll be able to reflect better when I’m home, but then life will consume me with thoughts of grad school and other matters.  Now I have plenty of time to reflect, especially as I enjoy the fresh mountain air.

Sometimes I think about what I set out to do when I came to Georgia and realize how I’ve fallen short of many of those goals.  While I can speak some Georgian, it’s far from where I expected it to be, because I was so easily able to use Russian. In the grand scheme of things, increasing my fluency in Russian is a much better thing, but still, I wish I would have studied a bit harder with Georgian.  My fluency in Russian is definitely better, but my vocabulary and grammar could have been improved more as well.

While I came here mostly for me, I wanted to be a good teacher, and I often wonder what impact I’ll have made.  I know a lot of why TLG exists is to help raise the English level of our co-teachers.  While my cos can understand me better now, their English is still pretty terrible. I feel I’ve failed in really improving their English, but the limited overtures I made in that regard were ignored or misunderstood.  My cos seemed in no hurry to appreciate having a native speaker around and prefer to speak in Georgian than attempt to work on their English.

While it isn’t a great excuse, I blame my cos’ poor English as the reason I didn’t do more in my school.  They don’t really translate announcements for me.  I usually find things out from a teacher who translates for me into Russian if I find out at all.  I talked with my cos about a few ideas for English clubs and working with older students but again was ignored or misunderstood, so nothing came of it.  My English Club for other teachers (which has fizzled out) basically only got started because my Russian-speaking friend helped me talk to the director about it.  People with more enthusiastic/engaging cos are able to communicate and just do more.

Basically, in TLG, you have to have a lot of initiative to implement new things or get lucky and have a really receptive school.  I have initiative, but I funneled it more into graduate school applications and travel plans.  Ideas for improving my community stopped mostly at ideas because I had basically no support and no initiative to override that lack of support.

Sometimes this is why I think older volunteers are better.  They have more life experience, confidence, and are less likely to bend their expectations to fit the status quo.  Sometimes I hear volunteers (especially those placed in cities) talk about all the things they find shocking about Georgia and just want to laugh.  I overheard say she asked if there were grief counselors at her school when a student died.  Seriously?  While that would be a great thing, so would adequate heating, books for all the students, electrical outlets in every room, and schools that were not falling down, just to name a few things I view as more pressing problems.  Those in the city don’t really understand the poverty and difficulty of Georgia.  Yes, Georgia is trying to rise above being a developing nation, but it has a lot of work to do once you leave Tbilisi.  Resources are scarce and often not used correctly. 

But, maybe these city folk aren't always just being city folk (but sometimes, oh they are!) and are just unwilling to accept the status quo as is and are voicing their concern as part of the effort to change Georgia, which is why we're here.  Sometimes I wonder if by fitting in, I've wasted opportunities to instigate change.  But then I realize I live in a village, where life sometimes feels as different to life in Tbilisi as it does to life in America, and the way I know how to affect change requires resources I don't have here.

I realize that this is another excuse I’ve created: that in the village, there aren’t the resources to do the things I’d like.  I also realize that I’ve worked so hard to remain conservative in my life in the village so as to avoid problems and be considered a ‘good girl’ by everyone, since crossing that line invites lots of problems.

Yet, lately, I’ve realized that I’ve been so conservative in some actions, I’ve failed to take risks that really could have helped my community and school.  I’ve made small strides toward change, but not major ones.

And there are volunteers who have taken risks and made real impacts upon their communities.  This weekend, I went on an excursion to Vardzia, a cave town in western Georgia. It was arranged by TLG, so I got to meet some new TLGers.

One guy had been a nuclear engineer and then a broker in New York before coming to Georgia.  That, of course, prompted the question of why he was here.  Apparently foreclosing homes in New York made him so disgusted he wanted to go do something good for poor people and ended up in Georgia.  He came in fall 2010 and started out in a small somewhat isolated village.  He was trying not to brag, but just told some stories about the changes that he had made in his village.  After a year of him being there, they got a racquetball court, since he loved to play.  After he left, his school went around the village and picked up trash (a huge problem in Georgia).  He said that they had done this on their own because he had talked to them about how it was a problem while he was there.

“I was just honest with them, and if you’re honest with people, they’ll respond,” was more or less his way of describing the sudden interest in the environment and other changes he helped bring about.  This got me to thinking, that, sadly, I’m not really honest with the people in Manglisi.  No, I don’t lie to them, but I also choose the diplomatic answer over the truth.  I haven’t really shown who I truly am to them.  This is part of why I like leaving every weekend and look forward to being in America, where I can feel comfortable again.  Sometimes the language barrier prevents me from being honest.  A lot of times, I decide the cultural barrier is too great to overcome.  Sometimes I just decide it isn’t worth the trouble.  Thinking about it this way makes me sad for all the lost opportunities I’ve had because I haven’t been honest.  I could have made a bigger impact had I been willing to take risks and tell the truth.

I’m hoping that I have made an impact in ways I just can’t see.  I hope that I’ve inspired students in ways I don’t realize.  I hope that my co-teachers will take something away from how I’ve taught class.  I really hope that Manglisi gets another TLGer and they aren’t shocked that the school and community had a volunteer for a year.

While I realize I’ve had a lot of missed opportunities, I’ve still had a wonderful year.  I discussed the lack of being honest with a friend, and she agreed she did the same in her village.  We’ve both gotten wonderful travel experiences and have gotten to experience Georgian culture, sometimes more than we’ve wanted.  I have a much better understanding of life in a developing/impoverished nation.  As much as I hated life in the depth of winter, village life has shown me a lot about living outside of the comforts I’ve always known and shown me many of the joys that can come of it, like drinking fresh milk, eating fruit off the tree, seeing baby animals in the spring, and living in beautiful surroundings.  I have come to care about my students, which is why I still get so frustrated by them some days and am so happy when I realize I have taught them something.  I’ve made some great friends, even if they are mostly other expats.  I’ve grown as a person and am far more confident in the face of challenges.  I have been constantly amazed by the kindness of strangers and hope to bring home the spirit of hospitality I’ve witnessed here.

Let’s see what the next 6 ½ weeks bring, since it’s not over yet.

They Love Me, They Really Love Me - for once a post dedicated to teaching

Last Friday my main co-teacher looked even worse than I felt.  On Sunday night, she texted me to say she was too sick to come to school.  I was not bothered.  However, between her absence and the absence of many other teachers at school this week (because we’re all sick, I assume), I’ve taught every single lesson alone.  My 3^rd grade class has driven me crazy.  I have yelled a whole lot, since my Monday experiment in not yelling meant I got practically nothing accomplished in 3^rd and 5^th grade.  So, Tuesday, I had more of a voice, and I used it.  I also have thrown a few kids out of class, which works well unless they’re a certain 3^rd grader who enjoys getting thrown out of class so he can annoy me from outside the door.

Still, it hasn’t been all that bad.  Yes, there’s a language barrier, but I know most commands, and I honestly don’t care to understand the silly things kids try to explain to me when they aren’t doing what they’re supposed to.  No excuse makes not doing their work OK.  I enjoy the autonomy (shock to most of you, I am sure).  I feel more like a real teacher and feel like I’m contributing.

The best part has been my students showering me with love and affection.  A few of my 3^rd grade girls had already started shaking my hand and then giving me hugs or kisses.  They did that a lot this week.  Yesterday I had several of them jumping up and down and tugging on my coat to try to get me to tell them my phone number.  I walked into that class with a note on the board saying that they loved me.  I walked out to another note with the same meaning.  One of my 3^rd graders gave me a pair of earrings.  I was awed, even if a jewel is missing from one of them.  It was still so sweet. I have a collection of drawings that I have not confiscated but been given by kids. 

My 4^th grade girls gave me a bracelet.  I felt so guilty when one girl gave me a hand-made bracelet that was made for a 4^th grade hand so it was too small.  The poor girl was so upset.  One of her friends then produced another seed bead bracelet that did fit.  I’ve gotten several compliments on it, because it is pretty (except the string is starting to break). 

My 5^th graders have this silly game with cardboard pieces.  On one side are points.  On the other is some figure.  I confiscated several of them, but lately they’ve just been giving them to me.  The first one they gave me was Hannah Montana, appropriate enough.  It has progressed from there.  I have been given probably every Disney princess.  Now even the boys have given me some, so I have cars.  Plus, today, 2 boys gave me Spider-man stickers.  The girls also gave wrote me a note that said “Hana ticha you have nice”.  Clearly I have work to do, but the thought was what made me smile.  Even when these kids drive me crazy and I don’t feel respected, they actually do like me and are sad to hear I won’t be hear next year.

I even had a breakthrough teaching moment today.  Some days I don’t mind the book we have, but others it drives me crazy.  The book, although made for teaching English to non-native speakers, sometimes seems very British.  It isn’t just the British voices, but also the parts of life that don’t jive with the cultural realities of Georgia.  We’re currently on a chapter talking about possession.  The book teachers a weird British form of “I have got” and “Have you got…?”  I’ve gotten over that well enough, but we talk about rooms and I realize how the normal childhood bedroom does not fit the Georgian lifestyle.  Especially now when families are limited to a few heated rooms in winter, Georgian kids don’t have their own bedrooms.  They certainly don’t have bedrooms with computers and TVs in them, unless that bedroom is shared by other members of the family.  Still, I stumbled upon a way to make this lesson applicable.  We had been talking about having family members and dogs and cats.  I asked if anyone had a cow and drew a bad picture of the cow on the board.  Since more of my kids have cows than cats, that got 75% of my class screaming at me.  One of the kids even remembered talking about a “hen” to tell me how many hens (chickens) he had.  Several kids chimed in.  When I asked about rabbits, my class went crazy.  The word had been introduced as part of dialogue about a magic trick in a toy shop.  My kids all have them because they make tasty shish kebabs.

Much-needed Reminders of Why I Love this Country

So I have a lot to catch up on.  I’ll start with International Women’s Day, because it was the first day that really started to remind me why I love this place.  The weather was not terrible, so after sleeping in and being lazy like my teenage host siblings, I set off for my daily walk.  Aside from losing my 3^rd left glitten (glove + mitten) in 2 months, the walk was great.  The ground was dry enough for me to wander onto some hills.  I forgot to take my camera, or else I could show you more mountains and a sweet skull (probably a sheep or dog) I found while looking for my errant glove.  On my way home, I saw my friend’s mother-in-law, and she said my friend was home, so I stopped by for over an hour to chat with her and play with her kids.  On the way home, I met up with a woman walking home from the shop she worked at.  I had never met her before but she knew who I was and told me we were neighbors, so we walked home together.  She is at least in her sixties, but actually had the same pace as I do, which was a considerable feat since most Georgians walk very slowly.  We had a lovely chat, and I remembered why I enjoy being in Georgia: the people.  When I finally remembered to wish her a Happy Women’s Day, she in turn returned from her stop in another shop with a Snickers bar for me, in addition to the sugar she needed herself.  (Don’t ask me why her shop didn’t have sugar…this is Georgia).  She had told me how hard life is since she is the only one who works in her family, but she still spent money on buying me a candy bar.  I felt almost guilty.  I shared it with my host family, since my plans to make cookies for them had been foiled by my laziness and extended walk. 

Several of my friends had headed off to see Armenia again, but I did not want to take Friday off school.  I had planned to visit a friend in Kakheti, but she needed to make other plans for the weekend, so I needed a plan B.  One of my friends who lives in Tbilisi also needed a weekend away from Tbilisi (I’d spent every weekend but 1 for almost 2 months in Tbilisi), so we decided to head out west.  My friend in Ureki, a summer vacation spot on the Black Sea, said he was thrilled we wanted to come, so we set out on the night train.  I thought we would get super cheap tickets, but by Friday afternoon, only the renovated seats were open, so we had to pay 14 GEL (yes, that’s still so cheap, I know) for the nice sitting area instead of a bad bench we could have stretched out on. 

Tickets purchased, I wandered around the market at the train station for a few hours, buying snacks for the train and supplies to cook burritos for another friend, who was letting me use her shower and had made me dinner the week before. As I was wandering around, I befriended 3 Nigerians.  They stuck out and looked like they needed help, so I spoke to them in English, much to their delight.  I found out they were students at the American University in Tbilisi (didn’t even know we had one of those) and had only arrived a week before.  I got to play translator to help them buy a big soup pot, among other things. It was a lot of fun helping them, aside from not always understanding their English and getting overtly hit on.  Still, it was another encounter that made me love Georgia.  A few hours later, I was missing America as I stuffed my face with lettuce(!), tomatoes, and other burrito fixings.

I was having too much fun that I again barely made my train, but I met my friend and made our train.  We shared our snacks and made friends with an adorable 4-year-old girl as we tried to sleep.  The train left a bit after 9 and got to Ureki at 5 AM.  Yes, 5AM.  My friend in Ureki is so awesome that he came to meet us at 5AM at the train station, even though he had been up until 3.  He had not mentioned to his host family we were coming, so we put our bags down in his room and left without waking them.  Hoping to see the sun rise, we walked to a nearby village to a hill.  Even though Ureki is always warmer than my village and has nice weather almost all the time, it decided to snow on us on our walk.   

Not the greeting to Ureki I was hoping for

Palm trees covered in snow are a strange sight, but it was still a very tranquil walk.  We headed back down to the main road in search of tea and warmth.  When the marshrutka to Poti started running, we caught one.

Poti is a port city, and from all accounts, a dirty port city.  It also suffered during the 2008 war and has none of the charm of the other cities on the Black Sea.  The snow had stopped but the weather was still awful when we arrived.  The streets were muddier than any streets I’ve ever seen in a city (not a village but a real city).   

My Tbilisi friend miserable in the cold in Poti, with shoes that were no match for the dirty streets

We had breakfast and wandered around the market, which I always enjoy.  We even got to buy spinach(!)  Yes, I am thrilled about vegetables, since I have so few in my diet these days.  After that, we headed to a hotel.  The reason my Ureki friend had been up to 3 was that he had started giving English lessons to and then befriended this amazing couple.  The husband runs a hotel in Poti and one in Ureki.  The one in Ureki only works during the summer, so Goga (the Georgian) and his family live in the hotel in the off-season.  He also said me and my Tbilisi friend were welcome to stay the night.  He gave us tea at his hotel in Poti and then took us back to Ureki.  We met his family, including 3 adorable kids.  They fed us great food (they have a cook) and then let us take a walk on the beach.  The weather was still bitterly cold, but I was determined to put my feet in the water, since I was on a beach.  We also got to admire the black sand, which is magnetic and supposedly has healing properties.  The wind was ripping up the beach, stealing chunks of sand.  My philosophical friend in Ureki said it was a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of our lives.

Playing in the cold water

After taking in the sights of the Ureki strip, we returned to warmth.  After the kids went to bed, we got to make a walnut, apple, and spinach salad for the Georgians to try and got to eat more food.  We also were treated to good wine and started listening to music.  The Georgians were incredibly nice and more than a little crazy.  They had no problem when, at their suggestion to start making music by banging our forks against glasses and plates, we broke a few plates.  They broke a few glasses.  The night culminated with Goga’s cousin pouring the plate of fried potatoes on his head.  This was definitely alcohol-induced but speaks more to the crazy, carefree nature they all had than the amount of alcohol, as this was not that atypical of the night.

It was a lot of fun hanging out with my friends and my new Georgian friends, especially because I don’t really have equals in my Georgian village, so people I can easily speak to who are similar in age and mindset are great treats.  The next morning, we grabbed a marshrutka back home.  I gave myself 90 minutes of leeway for making my marshrutka in Tbilisi.  The weather was so bad that I only had 20 minutes to spare.  We passed a lot of snow, accidents, and trucks pulled over on the side of the road.  When we finally stopped for our break, I got to pay to use a Turkish toilet with no door and not much protection from the cold.  It was a reminder of how far I’d come.  My friend and I were sitting next to some young Georgian men and chatted with them some on the trip.  At the end of our journey, one of the boys gave us both a kiss on the cheek.  This is the standard way to greet or say goodbye to friends.  It seemed perfectly normal, but afterward struck me as another indication of how Georgia had molded me.

Last week was pretty good. I think TLG had told my director some of my comments on my report because we finally have a CD player.  Unfortunately, it is a giant stereo system and large speaker that we have to get from the director’s room whenever we want to use it.  We have done this a few times.  The kids love it so much that it seems worth the effort.  It has also made me aware that several of my classrooms don’t have a working outlet, so we have to run an extension cord from a nearby room.  In other words, it is a huge pain, but at least we now have use of a CD player.  A few spots where the classroom floors were really torn up have been fixed.  Also, my 2^nd grade class is now going to put on a production for the kids who came to our school a few weeks ago.  This means we have to pretend they are awesome at English.  I got to look up a few nursery rhymes for kids to learn.  Then I had to help transliterate them into Georgian, but we did not tell the kids what they meant.  The best part was that my co-teacher and I spent half of Friday’s lesson translating an incredibly patriotic speech from Georgian into English so the kids can spout of love of country in 2 languages.  Apparently I’m going to get to go with them.  I will enjoy helping them with their English, but the overly patriotic/Potemkin village feel makes me slightly uncomfortable.

To end a good week, my family made khinkali on Thursday night.  I love it when I get homemade khinkali (dumplings), and even managed to help make a few that weren’t terrible and did not fall apart when boiled.  We even made potato khinkali, which I had never had at home before.  I also got some of the Polish vodka I had given my dad for his birthday.  We toasted his father, and I finally learned that we were having khinkali and vodka because Thursday was the 13^th anniversary of his father’s death.

Mari made a fish khinkali out of one of her potato khinkalis

Steaming hot khinkali...mmm

March musings...and some exciting news

Running water has become a sign of hope for me.  When I hear the rush of water in our toilet tank, I smile inside.  When evening comes and the outside sink is still gushing water, I rejoice.  When I walk along our now-muddy roads and see a stream of melted snow weaving its way to the drainage ditches, I feel a small sense of victory.  Spring, which the Georgians recognize as regulated by the calendar, so started on March 1, is slowly conquering winter.  The temperature is still only dallying with positive degrees (in Celcius) and then returning to spend the night in the negatives, but the abundance of sunny days has made life much more bearable.  Still no hot water at home, but I’ve learned you can survive without that.

Ok, so this isn't really supporting my declaration that things are thawing, but it is just so cool.

While this winter has been painful, it has taught me a lot about myself and about life in poverty/developing countries.  I have toyed with the idea of working in economic development and would like to work in emerging markets.  I now have a much better understanding of what that means now.  No, I still have no clue about economics, but I understand that if you have something, you use it, you don’t save it for later here.  Food goes quickly.  I bought some cookies in Tbilisi and brought them home on Sunday night to share with my host family.  Granted, I ate some in Tbilisi, but I brought a kilo home.  I had a few for breakfast on Monday but never saw them again.  They’re gone.  Today my host mom made lobiani-basically refried beans in fried dough.  It’s much better than it looks.  I tried to eat only a little bit to save some for the kids who weren’t home yet.  My host mom told me to eat more.  Those who weren’t there just miss out.  It was delicious!  A friend just moved into an apartment.  It has 2 burners but no oven.  Our stove actually has no oven.  You can buy a glorified toaster oven or in winter in the village, you just use the wood stove you are using to heat the house.  I’ve realized that a lot of Georgian food does not need an oven, probably because most people don’t always have access to them.  Toaster ovens require having electricity (so the power has to exist and work) and that costs money.  The wood stove works well in winter.  These are realities that never occurred to me before.

That’s not to say life here is all hard.  Tomorrow is a holiday (International Women’s Day, which is celebrated mostly in the former USSR).  Today a friend, colleague, and mother of a 1^st and 2^nd grader gave me jewelry from the 1^st and 2^nd grade class.  I felt very honored.  We also got cake and cookies in the teacher’s lounge on Monday to celebrate, since we don’t have school tomorrow.  I’m hoping to make cookies for my host family to celebrate.

I mentioned before I’m trying to take advantage of the sunshine and warmer weather by going on walks.  I’m discovering new sites around my town, taking pictures of the graffiti that has become familiar, and constantly turning down offers of rides.  Why else would I be walking along the road except to get somewhere, especially in the cold?  I’m constantly impressed by the kindness of people, both friends and strangers.  When the mud dries, I’ll move off main roads, but I’m inviting this attention now by staying on paved roads for ease of use.  Now I know how easy it is if I ever do want to hitchhike somewhere.

Why I like paved roads, even if unpaved roads yield treasures like this van

On that note, my host dad took me from school to the bank on Monday.  They needed to borrow some money for a few days, and I had to get it out of the bank.  I am pretty sure they don’t understand why I keep most of my salary at the bank, because the impression I get is that on payday everyone goes to withdraw their entire paycheck at once.  For me, that would mean that I would spend it.  It’s much easier to budget when you can’t spend money that isn’t in your wallet!  Regardless, when the bank opened, he came to pick me up and drove me to the bank.  I’ve walked the short route tons of times, but I realized that I had never taken the trek (ok, it’s about 3 minutes in the car) in a car.  That got me to thinking how little I actually use cars in my village.  I love that I can get anywhere in Manglisi I need to by my own energy.  Cars are for heading to Tbilisi.  I hope that I don’t lose this way of life completely when I move back to America.  To finish the story, I told no one that I was leaving, and actually ended up leaving during a faculty meeting I had no idea about, but my co-teacher did not ask any questions or see anything strange when I showed up about 10 minutes late to class and just picked up where we were.  I knew this would happen, but I still marvel at how Georgia works sometimes.

Our Russian TV experience is continuing.  I much prefer the Russian shanson music videos to the horrible Western videos that come on when my host sisters turn on the Polish music station (I’ve come to the firm conclusion that Rihanna should never be a role model for any woman or girl).  When Putin got re-elected on Sunday, I came home to watch the last hour of voting (and lots of apparent monitoring) on Vesti, a Russian news network.  We still watch our Telemundo soap operas (with Georgian dubbing) each night, but most of the day is full of Russian, much to my delight, especially since late afternoons mean a Russian style show that my host mom loves.

Now that it is finally starting to warm up, I will finally make it somewhere other than Tbilisi every weekend, so more adventures should be coming.  In the meantime, I’ve been getting lots of good news while sitting in Manglisi.  My parents have decided 26 hours is too long to fly to Georgia, so they’re meeting me in Rome and letting me plan a European adventure for the three of us in June once school ends.  I am very excited, since I’ve wanted to go to Rome since I started studying Latin in 8^th grade (half my lifetime ago…weird).  

 I find out next week about acceptance into the MBA program at Michigan and about the FLAS scholarship for Michigan…but last night I found out I got a FLAS from Indiana for next year.  The FLAS is basically a full ride for a year care of the Department of Education, and, coupled with the scholarship I got for the Indiana MBA program, means that I am 98% sure I’m about to become a Hoosier (and no, St. Louis friends, not that kind of hoosier!).

Manglisi Moments

My ninth-grade neighbor just left our house, telling me “good morning”.  While my family got a kick out of this, it still made my heart warm.  This is the same girl who after 4 months, will always tell me “hello” but if I ask “How are you?” she responds in Georgian.  My 1^st graders are already beyond that. I still really like her, but tonight was the first time we really got to communicate, generally with my broken Georgian and help from my host family.

I haven’t gone anywhere since my last blog, but village life seems worthy of its own report this week.  I made burritos for my host family on Tuesday.  I had to substitute a few ingredients, but they were still delicious.  And by I, I mean my host mom, neighbor, and I, with my host mom still doing a lot of the work.  Thanks to a recipe I got from my Peace Corps friend, we made refried beans from scratch.   

Beans in progress...we had a lot

Being Georgia, we didn’t buy ground meat.  Instead, my host mom cut some meat off some part of the bull that we have been storing in our house and gradually eating the last week or two.  She then ground the meat herself before I cooked it. 

Freshly ground meat

 It was pretty awesome.  

That's right, cooking on the pechka.

 Once they were cooked, I got to add them, cheese, tomatoes, and sour cream to lavash, which substituted for tortillas.  They had me be the master burrito maker.  In true Georgian, what’s mine-is-yours fashion, they then cut up the burritos so more than one person could have part of each one. We made enough that everyone got their fill.   

Some of the awesome burritos

Everyone from my host grandma to my host brothers to the neighbors liked them.  Hoping to make chocolate-chip cookies tomorrow.

The next invasion of American culture came in the form of a package from my father.  I came home from school on Wednesday to find another package underneath the TV.  My host mom told me that someone had brought it by.  It had come in 16 days, far sooner than most people even in Tbilisi get their mail, and they usually then have to pay a feel.  My village rocks.  I knew that the package contained gifts for my host family that my father had gotten together for me.  He even individually wrapped each person’s gift.  

Potatoes and American care package

 However, only my host mom and grandma were home when I opened the package.  They appreciated the gum and candy, but my mom was too interested in finding out what everyone got to wait for everyone to get home.  So she unwrapped all the gifts by herself. 

This surprised but did not phase me, while my father was shocked when I told him.  I think this is a symptom of a massive cultural difference. Within the family, very few things register as belonging to only one person.  Personal property doesn’t really exist here.  Even my kids at school are constantly sharing pencil sharpeners (normal), erasers (understandable), colored pencils (also reasonable) but also pens and pencils.  When a kid doesn’t have paper, 2 or 3 other kids tear paper out of their notebooks for their classmate.  You might think communism encouraged this, but I think this is far deeper rooted in Georgian culture than that.

I don’t think they ever wrap gifts either.

My host family appreciated the gifts a lot.  I also stuffed myself with Butterfinger bells and felt a little closer to Christmas.  At 6 days, I am definitely counting.  I can’t wait to be home again, much as I love Georgia.

School has also been an adventure.  Today, I read a dialogue for my 2^nd graders for the first time. I was in a good mood, so I hammed up the characters a bit more than usual.  They kept begging me to read it again.  It was one of those moments that TLGers often get where our kids make us feel like rock stars.

That was a big improvement over my 3^rd grade class on Wednesday.  I was flying solo since my co had gone home to take care of her sick husband.  The kids were rambunctious from the start, so I knew it would be a challenging class.  Then one of my girls got a bloody nose.  Nothing like taking care of a sick kid when you can’t really communicate with them.  In all honestly, it was not that bad.  The other kids offered plenty of tissues.  I don’t know why they also offered her “spirt”, which I take as some form of alcohol used for medicinal purposes.  Usually people rub it on an area that hurts. I have no idea why they thought it would help, but I didn’t use it.  I was also intrigued when the kids put wet tissues on the girls head.  We clearly have different ideas about medicine.  She recovered, and I tried to keep teaching.  I’m pretty sure the lesson only got worse from there. I threw one kid out of class and had another who misbehaved in the hope that I would throw him out.  Of course, I didn’t.  The rest wouldn’t sit still and frequently got up to pick fights with each other.  I was very happy when that bell rang.

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.