Mountains, Mountains, Mountains...From a Girl who Loves the Sight of a Cornfield

 Another blog I had to write for my grant, which is why I've done 2 in 1 week

I never tire of looking at Georgian mountains.  It probably has a lot to do with the fact that, although I’ve lived in several states in different parts of the US, I always live in flat country.  As a child, I would go sledding down “hills” on the golf course, because the only elevation we had was man-made.  Then I came to Georgia, where almost any view has hills or mountains in the background.  Tbilisi is ringed by hills, with apartments even stretching onto some of the hills.  

 

Climbing a mountain in Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park

 The real beauty of Georgia, however, opens up when you leave Tbilisi, when you head to the real mountains.  In summer, they are verdant green, covered with trees and shrubs and various plants, even primeval forests.  Sometimes there are even colorful wildflowers sprinkled in amongst the greenery for variety.  Villages are scattered among the mountains, and if you look closely, you’ll undoubtedly find a Georgian Orthodox church perched on some hill or mountain.  There might even be no discernible road or even path to this church, but nonetheless, the church remains as a symbol to the faithful and a sanctuary for the intrepid who dare to climb up to it.  I look at these mountains in Georgia and I see beauty everywhere. 

In Borjomi

 Certainly, there are taller mountains elsewhere.  I’ve been to the Rockies, which are certainly impressive, but they don’t speak to me like the Caucasus do.  Perhaps because here in Georgia, I see how difficult life can be in the mountains, and it is easier to imagine how long ago people forged a life in such beautiful and stark surroundings.  When I stare at the mountains, I can see invading foreign armies pouring over them, mountaineers fighting valiantly to protect their rugged homeland, and millennia of shepherds grazing their flocks on the graceful slopes.  Learning about the history and being here, breathing in the mountain air, gazing upon vistas that my camera can never really capture, and knowing how difficult it is even in 2013 to get to the mountains, I think I understand a little more about Georgia than I did before.  The clannishness, the wars, the intense patriotism, the capacity to withstand discomfort…these all make more sense now.  

On the top of a mountain in Borjomi

A few weeks ago, I took a trip to Shatili, a remote village in Khevsureti, one of the more remote, mountainous parts of Georgia. It had been on my bucket list for a long time, but the road is only passable in summer, so I had never been before.  I wanted to go because I knew that there was an ancient fortress/town high in the mountains, close to the border with Chechnya, and it was beautiful. 

I had not really appreciated how unique Shatili and Khevsureti really were.  The Soviets would not allow the Khevsurs (natives of Khevsureti) to remain in their isolated mountain villages and forced them to come down to more “civilized” parts of the country.  The Khevsurs suffered as a result.  Even though Tbilisi has hills, the Khevsurs longed to see their mountains every day.  In the 1980s, they started to rebuild Shatili and families returned.  Now, in the summer, twenty families live in Shatili but only seven remain all year long.  It is the biggest community around.  Only native Khevsurs are allowed to own property in Khevsureti.  While Georgia is becoming modernized in so many ways, these mountainous areas still keep their traditions, and in Shatili, only natives to the area own property.  When you’re a six-hour ride on a difficult road away from Tbilisi, it’s a lot easier to keep local laws enforced than anything that might be handed down from the federal authorities. 

Before we left, the tour guide told us that in other places in Georgia, the mountains are “here” and stuck his hand out.  In Shatili, however, the mountains are “here”, and he brought his hand right up to his face.  I did not really understand what he meant until we arrived.  Shatili is set in a small valley of sorts, which mountains ringing it in every direction.  There is the town of about two streets, a river, and just enough flat ground for people to camp.  The mountains really are upon you.  

 

Beautiful scenery on the way to Shatili at the Dartvsi Jvari Pass, high in the mountains

The tour guide also said that he has had some tourists look at the fort and be unimpressed.  It’s a long and painful drive to Shatili just to see some old stone towers.  However, there’s a certain amount of magic to Shatili.  It does not necessarily hit you at first, but as you breathe in the mountain air, stare at the fort stark against the mountainside, make a toast with a drinking horn, and listen to someone strum a chongoli (a traditional Georgian stringed instrument), it starts to make sense.  

 

One of our guides playing the chongoli and singing

The more time I spent in Shatili, the more in awe I was.  The scenery is breathtaking, but the fact that people have carved out a life here, in this tucked away part of the mountains, with the ever present fear of Chechen raiders coming down from Russia, is awe-inspiring.  Even in summer, the air is crisp and cool.  Shatili did not have electricity until one of Saakashvili’s projects created a hydroelectric power station.  There are no stores in Shatili.  Yet people have clung to this place they call home in spite of significant obstacles.  Perhaps they’ve done it because it is beautiful, perhaps because it is simply their home.  Regardless, it’s impressive.

Shatili

Khevsureti is one of the extreme regions of Georgia, but the mountain fierceness resonates throughout much of Georgia.  The mountains have helped shape Georgia’s history, culture, and according to a recent article by the BBC, maybe even the language.  As I study the language and see more of the country, I start to understand this ancient land through experience.  As I gaze upon the mountains, I appreciate why Georgians have fought so hard and suffered so much for their little patch of earth.  I also understand why they claim in the favorite origin myth that God gave them the part of Earth he had reserved for himself.  I probably would have done the same.

Translating Time and Space

An American academic gave a lecture recently in Tbilisi.  I was not impressed with it, but I was impressed with certain things he said.  He’s been studying Georgian since 1977, and when he started, he was told that he was the 29^th American to study Georgian.  Obviously that number has increased since then, but the fact that at that time they knew all the Americans who had studied the language shows how remote Georgia was.  Now all it takes is a valid passport and two plane rides.

However, the longer I live here, the more I realize separates America from Georgia.  I am loving my language lessons but the language is a huge challenge.  Since the study of Georgian by foreigners, especially Americans, is fairly limited, the materials available are also somewhat limited.  Having studied a handful of languages, the difference in approach and material is noticeable.  About halfway through my first book, one of the vocabulary words is ‘hungover’.  I’m pretty sure they never teach that in American high school language classrooms, and I don’t even think I ever had it in a Russian class even in college.  However, when you’re talking about a language spoken by people who have been making wine for centuries, if not millennia, hangovers are a part of life, especially for the male population.  A few chapters later, an entire chapter was dedicated to words regarding the Georgian supra.  ‘Supra’ actually means tablecloth, but the meaning is extended to mean a certain type of feast/party where there will be lots of great Georgian food, lots of alcohol, and lots of toasts.  It is the way Georgians celebrate almost everything.  Sitting in an American classroom, I’m sure I would think learning the word for ‘toast’ was too long and difficult to remember, especially because in America it isn’t very useful.  However, learning the lesson in Georgia means that no matter the fact that the word is long and difficult, it’s also very necessary, so I must learn it.  I also must learn a few basic toasts to go along with it.  A few chapters later, I’m learning about corruption and punishment.  I’m pretty sure I don’t even know how to say ‘to punish’ in Russian, but in Georgia, with its recent history, this seemed important enough to teach to beginners.

There are a few other sentences that have stuck out in my mind.  In my exercise book, a few of them are:

At my place, my mother is always cleaning dishes.

You should learn the road signs, but if you don’t, you can still drive.

These two sentences are pretty indicative of Georgian life.  Women are either cooking or cleaning up dishes about 75% of the time, or so it seems.  Georgians are terrible drivers, as evidenced by the statement above, which typifies Georgian sentiment about driving.  They’re sentences that only make sense and don’t seem terribly incorrect when you understand Georgian culture. 

In a story I’m reading, the street cleaners are grumbling about the weather.  However, the word for street cleaner really is yard cleaner, but the idea doesn’t translate.  An American yard is green grass and a few flower beds attached to a private single-family house. In Georgia, in the country, it’s a fenced-in area around a house where you spend a lot of time, where you might have a sink, undoubtedly have trees that will help feed you in summer and spring, and probably has no grass at all.  You might even have chickens or bees or some other animal in your yard.  In the city, the yard is a public space.  There might be a playground, there will be cars, and there might be not much more than cracked sidewalk/road.  The distinction between road and sidewalk is often blurred to the point of irrelevancy.  In summer, you might play in the yard, especially if you’re a child, in which case you mingle with neighbor children.  Young men sit and drink beer in the yard.  Your neighbors watch what goes on in the yard from their balconies.

My host family's yard in the village, with my little host bro for authenticity.  The thing that kind of resembles grass is because they haven't had as much time to care for the yard since the host dad died.  All these trees bear wonderful fruit.

 Even in American cities where high-rise buildings shoulder one another, the community aspect of apartment buildings in Georgia does not exist.  Perhaps it is because in Georgia you need at least one, if not two balconies in your apartment.  You need these for the breeze on summer nights, for a place to hang your drying laundry, for storing jars of preserves and other goodies for winter.  However, since everyone has one, and few people have air conditioners, in the summer, people are on the balcony and have their windows open.  Your neighbor’s smoke wafts into your apartment.  You can see into the half-finished apartment across the yard.  The young people blasting music until 3am keeps you up.  The ubiquitous see-through curtains don’t allow for much privacy.

A bad shot of part of the apartment 'yard' during the day

However, I’m not sure people would complain about the lack of privacy.  I think communism forced community upon people, but I think it’s been part of Georgian culture even longer.  Part of it is the village mentality.  Your family members are incredibly important and your neighbors become like family.  You know each other’s business.  Even in the city, this is not completely lost.

The other night, my host sister and I were sitting watching a Turkish soap opera my host mother got us hooked on, when the yelling from the yard grew to an unusually loud volume.  We, of course, went onto the balcony to see what all the yelling was about.  Two older women were in the middle of a yelling match, with several young people and others gathered around.  My host sister translated the gist of the conversation to me.  Apparently some of the young men had been smoking pot in the yard and one of them had reacted poorly to it.  One of the yelling women had been forced to help the young man since no one was calling the police or taking him to a hospital.  Cops showed up soon after, which is when several younger members of the crowd conveniently left.

Another bad shot, since the yard was empty for once when I actually had my camera ready.

This struck me as interesting because of how involved people were in each other’s business.  We, and several other neighbors, watched the fray from our balconies.  The women yelling may not even have known the young men involved.  Yet, they are all part of a community that feels responsible and somewhat entitled to be in each other’s lives.  They have no problem airing their dirty laundry and grievances in front of anyone else who is around.  The very environment encouraged this, with the way the buildings are constructed.  Between the balconies and public yards, people live in each other’s way.  I’m sure the lack of air conditioning has a lot to do with it, and perhaps America used to be more like this.  But, the America I grew up in was fairly private, and spacious air-conditioned homes certainly encourage that far more than apartments that give far less private space.

In undergrad, I took a class on architecture and learned about Jane Jacobs, who tried to promote the regrowth of cities and neighborhoods.  One of her mottos was about having ‘eyes on the street’.  She wanted apartments and stores to mix, so that day and night, someone was around to keep watch.  While Georgians generally have their apartments in large, separate Soviet monoliths, I still think they would make this woman proud.  Little shops are everywhere, although I’m not sure how that is sustainable.  Even at midnight, people are sitting at vegetable stands, keeping watch on the street.  Neighbors are watching anything unusual that goes on in their yard.  There is safety in this.  There might not be much privacy, but there is safety.

I’m pretty sure this way of life could never translate to modern America.  Even explaining it without living it is difficult.  Even pictures can tell only half the story.  That is what I’m learning and what I love discovering-culture isn’t easily translated.  Sometimes phrases have word-for-word translations.  Those are little surprises.  Instead, it’s interesting to find how different cultures use different words to explain similar concepts.  It’s even more interesting to learn the words for concepts you don’t have.  Like the street cleaner.  In America, street cleaners are probably men in a machine that go around after bad weather.  In Georgia, they are old men and women with small brooms and ancient dust pails sweeping up trash and dust from public spaces, rarely the street.  In the story I’m reading, I get a glimpse into Soviet life.  My teacher laughed when I asked for clarification whether the ‘taloni’ for butter was for free butter or just permission to buy it.  It was essentially a ration card, as butter was always rationed in the Soviet Union.  I should have remembered this, but the laughter that my question engendered was totally worth it.  In the story, the shopkeeper also counts on an abacus.  I had to rack my brain to remember the English word.  I don’t know when we stopped using them in America, but I’m pretty sure it was before my parents and maybe even my grandparents’ time.  I’ve seen a Georgian shopkeeper use one before.  The same story has a girl about ten doing the grocery shopping, an alien concept to modern America, where ten-year olds are probably not allowed on the street even to play, for fear of being kidnapped.

It’s things like this that remind me why I love traveling and learning new languages.  In this way, I get to unlock new cultures, I get to understand things that must be seen and tasted and experienced to understand them, concepts that cannot be packaged and explained sufficiently in a textbook or an English-language video clip.  The Turkish soap opera that has sucked my family in sucks us in because it is weaving a saga where East meets West, a theme that resonates with the Georgians and that I have begun to appreciate only after living here.  The Caucasus are the geographical dividing line between Europe and Asia, but that divide is so much more interesting as I watch in played out in the culture- the striking difference between old and new, the mixture of Asian and European values, and the influences of Islam, Orthodoxy, and Western thought on life here.

Country Mouse in the City

When I was here before, another friend and I who lived in villages used to joke about being country mice, especially when we would visit our “city mouse” friend.  After living in the village, living in Tbilisi has been a bit of an adjustment, but generally a very positive one.  I had to get used to Georgians who had nice things and weren’t uber rich.  I found out that it was possible to have a car in Tbilisi without a cracked windshield.  People on the marshrutkas frequently have fancy smartphones, although I’m still not sure how they afford them.

Tbilisi at night-I love this city a little more every day.  The city is beautiful at night, made even more so by the fact that not that long ago, there wasn't electricity to keep it lit at night.

Public transportation in general was something I had to learn.  Before, I would basically stick to the metro (subway) since it got me most places I needed to go and it was easy to understand.  A few months before I left, they installed digital signs at bus stops showing approaching bus numbers and their general destination, as well as approximate arrival times at said bus stop. The signs are in Georgian and English. It revolutionized the bus system for me, making it possible to use them.  Thanks to a handy website, I now know which marshrutkas run along paths I frequent, so I’ve started to use them too, as they are faster and more comfortable than buses.  It also requires me to use a bit of Georgian, but after the first few times, it got pretty easy, so now I feel like I’ve mastered public transportation in Tbilisi. That means, of course, that I’ve only gotten on the wrong bus or marshrutka a few times, but I’ve always figured out where I was.

The problem with public transportation is that it actually takes me a while to get places.  I used to think everywhere in Tbilisi was close, but then I realized that I stayed in one section of Tbilisi.  Now I live at one end and several places I like to go are at the other.  This is city life, I suppose, spending hours in transit.  It never took that long to get anywhere in the village.

I actually went back to my village for a visit soon after I arrived.  It was wonderful and terrible at once.  It was wonderful to see my old host family again, to walk the same streets, to breathe in the cool mountain air.  Walking around the village, I got to see a few former students and several colleagues, which was great.  I loved being able to show off my new Georgian skills, although they did not last very long.  I also loved hearing that the volunteer who replaced me was not liked nearly as much as I was.  Since he didn’t even know Russian, he did not really communicate.  I never met him, but I both pity him and am more than a little glad he wasn’t a better volunteer than I was.  The problem with going back to visit was that after a few minutes, I did not have much to say.  I exhausted my applicable Georgian quickly.  I didn’t get married in the last year and my brother still doesn’t have a kid, so basically they decided nothing new happened in my life.  I got fed a lot, quickly remembering how I had gained 25 pounds in a year, but you can eat only so much.  So it was boring.  And then, it suddenly wasn’t boring because my host dad decides we should have a mini supra to celebrate me coming home.  I actually got roped into two in the weekend I was there, even though I almost never experienced supras that weren’t connected to birthdays in the year I was there.  While it is in some ways so nice that they toasted me and told me I was their fifth child and always welcome, it was also uncomfortable because I rarely drank with my host dad and his friends in the year I lived there.  Also, trying to navigate the world of drunk drivers without offending people who treat you like their own child is awkward.

With my former host sisters

 I had forgotten what it meant to have someone else be responsible for me.  In many ways, it was great and made my life in the village easier.  However, I like my autonomy more than most people, and I had forgotten how much I give that up in the village.  Someone else decided when I would eat and where I would go.  Sure, I could have thrown a fit, but I was a guest, and these people had cared for me for a year.  I’m definitely glad I went back to see them, but the country mouse no longer prefers the country.  In Tbilisi, I have more control.  I can relate to the people I meet more.  I have an existence closer to the one I’m used to living than the one I had in the village.  And I like it.  If only it wasn’t going so quickly.

With my former host parents.  I'm pretty sure in a year of living with them, I never got a picture with both of them.

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.