What's been going on for the past three and a half months? So glad you asked! School ended, my mom visited Georgia, I explored Croatia and Armenia, and I ran a boys' leadership camp. This post will be picture-heavy - rejoice!
Graduation in Georgia is known as bolo zari, or last bell, and it occurs almost a month before the rest of school finishes. Each senior rings the school bell, signaling the end of his or her high school career. The seniors wear white shirts that students, teachers, parents, and anyone else who happens to be around sign. Last bell is also a smaller ceremony for the first graders, who end school at the same time as the seniors. Our last bell consisted of song and dance for about two hours followed by a supra for the teachers. Our town priest also joined in on the supra and threw back shots of cognac like it was the 11th Commandment.
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Some of my 1st graders |
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Shirt signing |
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The class of 2015 |
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My host brother giving a fervent toast |
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Dance party for everyone at the end |
A couple weeks after last bell was the senior banquet, which is similar to the American prom. Only the school director and 3-4 teachers are invited each year, but being the awesome teacher that I am, I was of course one of the lucky invitees. The teachers and I left around midnight, but the kids stayed until around 4am.
Saturday, June 6 was "America Day" in Tbilisi. Many American and international organizations had booths and tents set up; naturally, I was at the Peace Corps tent all day. We had balloon animals, face painting, frisbee, and football. It was a great day hanging out with staff and volunteers. Ambassador Norland even stopped by for a bit with the Georgian ambassador to America.
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Peace Corps tent |
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My awesome Abe Lincoln tattoo |
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My program director's daughter in some high balloon fashion |
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The Ultra crew |
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Team America in Croatia |
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Filling up the stadium |
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Sunsets on the Dalmatian coast |
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Supetar, Brač Island |
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Plitvice Lakes National Park |
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The beginning of our ~20 kilometer hike around the national park |
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Croatian National Theater in Zagreb |
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Jelačić Square |
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Zagreb Cathedral |
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Interesting displays and descriptions of objects left by former lovers |
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You can walk around the museum with a beer |
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One of the sadder items. "May 24, 2006 - May 23, 2011. Sao Paulo, Brazil. I'm a writer and I married my favorite editor. This bouquet was made from strips of paper by one of the two witnesses (and best man) at our wedding, who is also an editor. Our marriage was over on the eve of our 5th anniversary when I found out he was cheating on me and writing details about it to a group of our friends, who supported him. One of them was my best friend Emilio who had once written a novel with me. Guess this is what it means to be hurt by a paper cut." |
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One of the funnier displays. "2006 - 2010. Denver, Colorado. When I moved out, and across the country, I took the toaster. That'll show you. How are you going to toast anything now?" |
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St. Mark's Church |
Three days after I got back to Georgia, I hopped on a van with Angela and arrived in Yerevan, Armenia a quick four and a half hours later. We stayed in Yerevan for four nights, doing day trips from the city each day. Similar to Georgia, the overarching theme of our trip was "Churches and Monasteries."
From July 30 to August 2, a project I had been working on for a long time came to fruition. This project was BUILD Camp (Boys United in Leadership Development). Some volunteers and I got together back in January with an idea to start a boys' leadership camp, and we put a lot of time into planning camp. We received a $2,000 USAID grant to fund the project, recruited four Georgian counselors and 20 campers from all over Georgia, and worked out the logistics, finances, camp curriculum, and a million little details. In the end, it was a huge success. Each day our counselors engaged our campers in discussions on topics such as leadership, goal setting, project design and management, gender roles, and peer pressure, and we also had a lot of fun activities in between sessions and in the evenings. Check out the
BUILD Camp website and please Like our
Facebook page! You can also see a lot more pictures on the website/Facebook page.
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All of BUILD Camp |
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My team - the "Wolves with Dentures" |
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Morning exercises |
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Teambuilding activities |
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Campfire on the last night |
And that's that. Summer is all too quickly coming to an end with school starting back up in September. I'll have a lot of work coming up with the National English Spelling Competition, as well as looking for new ways to finance and grow next year's BUILD Camp. Also, law school apps...
All of my blog posts have so far been "this is what I've done/this is what has happened" as opposed to "here's my take on these various cultural things in Georgia." If any of you have any questions about the Peace Corps, life in Georgia, English education in Georgia, or whatever, e-mail me (
ZachFeldman@me.com) and I'd be happy to include my answers and more of that kind of stuff in my next post, which you will hopefully not have to wait three and a half months to read!