School's Out

I've officially been a volunteer and living at my permanent site for a little over a month now, and so far so good.

On Friday, July 18 I was effectively converted from a Peace Corps Trainee to a Peace Corps Volunteer. The ceremony took place in Tbilisi State Medical University's auditorium and lasted about 1.5-2 hours. The crowd was full of training site host family members, permanent site host family members, Georgian media, current volunteers, Peace Corps staff, and probably a few random Georgians who happened to wander by at the right moment. We heard from speakers such as the United States Ambassador to Georgia Richard Norland, the Georgian Deputy Minister of Education, Peace Corps Georgia's director Maura Fulton, and a few of my fellow volunteers. Each volunteer was introduced to the crowd and then as a group we took the official oath of United States government employees, led by Ambassador Norland. 

Front and center. At least I wasn't the only one not looking at the camera...

My Gomi cluster

Ambassador Norland

After the ceremony the university's dance team performed, and it was pretty awesome. If you've never watched any Georgian dancing, I highly recommend that you do. There's a ton of YouTube videos you can check out.

We had a reception after the ceremony and my Gomi host mom got a chance to speak with my new Pasanauri host mom. I didn't catch everything, but a good portion of the conversation was definitely dedicated to what food I like to eat and what my new host mom should feed me. My Gomi host mom started crying when everything was wrapping up and I was about to head off to Pasanauri for 2 years, but I'll definitely be going back to Gomi to visit. One moment I was with my fellow volunteers who I'd spent every day with for 3 months and the next I was on a marshutka on my way to Pasanauri, not knowing who I'd see when.

Waking up in Pasanauri the next day was a little surreal. Despite having lived in Georgia for 3 months, it was the true start of my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer, which will last 24 months. Despite the heavy existential burden weighing upon me that morning, I managed to make it downstairs for breakfast and proceeded to watch TV for a little while. That afternoon I sauntered over to my school director's house. I played badminton with her grandchildren and took a walk around town with her daughter, during which I met a lot of people - future students, parents, grandparents, store owners, etc… For the first week or two at site I had this bad habit of mixing up the Georgian words for expensive and difficult, and as a result I told many people who I had just met that the Georgian language is very expensive. I think they got the gist, though. I really enjoy watching American movies dubbed over in Georgian to help me learn the language, and when we got back from our walk I was excited to see that the Wedding Planner was on. Personally I think it's JLo's second best work. First place obviously goes to Anaconda, wherein the complete repertoire of her thespian talents clearly shined.

All week I did pretty much what I've been doing every week since arriving in Pasanauri - eating, reading, and watching TV shows on my computer. School doesn't start until September 15, so I've essentially been on summer break. It's quite the change of pace going from 4 hours of Georgian classes 6 days a week on top of technical training sessions to, well, nothing much. I try to spend time integrating into my new community through various means, but in general I have lots of down time to just relax, which I'm not complaining about in the least. 

The Saturday at the end of my first week I went into Tbilisi for the first time on business unrelated to the Peace Corps, i.e. personal fun business. I met up with some friends at Didube, the main marshutka station, and our first stop was Wendy's. The Wendy's in Tbilisi is quite impressive. I've heard that it's the biggest Wendy's in the world, but who knows if that's actually true. We met some G13s at Wendy's and ate and chatted there for a while. The wifi is just as good as the food. Also, in case you forgot, G13s are Peace Corps Georgia volunteers who came in the previous year's group, so they're about halfway done with their service. Naturally, I'm a G14. After Wendy's we went over to Carrefour, the Tbilisi mall. It's a pretty big mall with a lot of nice stores. Most of the stores were out of our volunteer stipend price range, but we did manage to find a few with decent prices. We were at the mall for most of the day before I went back to my hostel to shower prior meeting up with a bunch of G13s who were staying the night in town. We ended up at a karaoke bar, but by karaoke bar I mean there was a screen hooked up to a laptop and we played YouTube videos of songs with their lyrics. At least we had microphones. We had one large Peace Corps table and the only other people there was another large table of younger Georgians. We alternated turns with the Georgian table, sometimes combining turns as well. It was a lot of fun. We left around 1am and moseyed on over to a bar owned and run by a G10 and G11. There were a lot of other G13s at that bar with a large group of Georgians, as they had all just gotten back from a wedding. I was pretty beat and didn't stay for too long, but it was great to see some of the older volunteers who I hadn't seen in a while. 

The following Tuesday I started to feel feverish, and I ended up being sick for a full week. It was a great excuse to watch all of The Sopranos. Another plus was that I got to try out an interesting Georgian mountain-people remedy. I had a special bandana tied around my head to help with any head pain, and then I had a large cabbage leaf smeared with honey wrapped around my neck to heal my sore throat. The efficacy of both treatments was negligible. I also happened to have had had somewhat of a neck beard at the time - let me just say, if you ever find yourself in a position where you're about to have a honey-coated cabbage leaf bound to your neck, do yourself a favor and shave first. 

English Education volunteers are required to plan and run summer camps at their respective sites. I decided to split my camp up into two weeks, the first for grades 1-7 and the second for grades 8-12. We met for 2 hours each day and played a variety of games. During the first week about 25-30 students came each day. A typical day might have included frisbee, Simon Says, pictionary, soccer, and/or some kind of thinking exercise, such as what 5 items would you want on a deserted island and why. My director and one of my partner teachers were usually around to help me translate, and the kids had a great time all week. On the last day we had a mini concert where students played instruments, sang songs, recited poetry, and spoke about their camp experience. 

The following week with the older kids wasn't as big a success numerically, but we still had a great time. Each day about 8 girls and 1-2 boys showed up. We played a lot of the same games, but we also did some more advanced exercises. For example, each student made a list of the 5 most important things to them within each of the following categories: material goods, people, places, memories, and goals. I then had them cross out 5 items, and then 5 more, and 5 more, and finally 5 more. Each round the kids groaned and voiced their opposition to having to eliminate more items off their lists, but at the end each student was left with 5 out of their original 25. Those last 5 items were supposed to represent the 5 values or things that were most important to each student. I think every student had a plurality and most had a majority of items in the people category, while the rest of the items were usually goals. It's an interesting exercise of introspection, as well as an interesting exercise to compare results cross-culturally. We did this exercise during training, and there were definitely more material goods left on our American lists. On the last day of camp we went hiking and had a picnic. I brought a mini speaker and we danced, sang, and ate for a couple hours in the woods. 

The weekend between my two weeks of camp I went on an amazing camping trip to the region of Khevsureti with about 15 other volunteers and a Peace Corps staff who acted as our tour guide. Khevsureti borders Chechnya and is an incredibly scenic area. 

Khevsureti region

We stopped at a number of sites on the way to our campground, which was quite literally at the end of the road. Our first stop was in Datvisjvari Pass, 2,700 meters above sea level.

Next up was Lebaiskari fortress, where we stopped to eat lunch.

Inside the tower

After lunch we made our way to the old town of Shatili, but first we had to stop and take a picture at this cool mini cave -

Shatili is a fortress-town built between the 7th and 13th centuries. 

Shatili

We explored and climbed around the town for a couple hours before heading straight for our campsite.

One side of our campsite

The other side

Everyone brought food and alcohol, and after setting up our tents we had a big supra. We hung around the campfire all night and had a great time. The next day was centered around Mutso, the highlight of the trip. Mutso was a medieval village that has been abandoned for more than a century. There are a lot of fortifications still standing and fantastic views of the surrounding Mutso-Ardoti gorge. 

Our final destination was the Anatori crypts. The town of Anatori was completely wiped out by the Black Death, and the skeletons of all the villagers can be seen in the crypts. Anatori is also the closest settlement to Russia, and we could see a Russian flag planted on the mountain across the way.

One of the crypts

Pretty eerie...

So now we're pretty much up to date in my life. One last thing - this past weekend I went to the town of Tsalka with some friends to celebrate another volunteer's birthday. Here's a couple pics from that…

Next post will probably be towards the end of September and will cover the beginning of school. Please try to contain your excitement. 

Georgia Über Alles

Lots of happenings since my last post…

In case you didn't know, it's officially summer here in Georgia, which means that it is both very hot and kids are off from school for summer break. Their last day of school was Friday, June 13. It was a little sad for us Gomi volunteers since we won't be teaching our students here anymore, as we all head off to our permanent sites on July 19 (but more on that later). We had a great time teaching various classes in Gomi's school and it was excellent practice for when we begin teaching full time in September. One of my favorite memories from school is when we were teaching a lesson on food. We had a list of foods on the board and students had to guess which food another student was thinking of. During one round of guessing almost all of the possible food items had been eliminated when a student, who just could not contain his excitement any longer, jumped out of his seat and shouted, "Is it… COTTAGE CHEESE!?!?" with a thick accent and peculiar cadence. This text cannot do the scene justice, but it was hilarious and I'll never forget Cottage Cheese Kid.

That Saturday I went to a picnic with a lot of my fellow volunteers to hang out with a bunch of current volunteers. I forgot my camera so don't expect any pictures, but it was a lot of fun - except for when I accidentally hit a little Georgian girl in the head with a frisbee and she started crying. Her mom was not thrilled, to say the least. I apologized profusely and the grandma at least was trying to help me out a little and suggested I get some chocolate for the girl, but unfortunately there was no chocolate to be found. Suffice to say, that was the end of the day's frisbee playing. 

The next day I went into Khashuri for my first haircut in Georgia (straight #3 buzz, so it's not like anyone could have messed that up), had lunch, and bought an awesome pair of pants that I see all the kids wearing. They're normal soccer warm-up pants except they say Georgia on one leg and also have a Georgian flag patch. So, yea, they're pretty sweet. When I got home I went fishing with my host-brother and sister-in-law in the Mtkvari river, which mostly consisted of just laying poles on the ground and checking them periodically for fish. 

The following week we had arguably the most important day of training. On Thursday, June 19 I found out where I'll be living for the next two years. All the trainees were given envelopes with other trainees' information and we stood around a big string map of Georgia with various locations labeled. Volunteer A would open his envelope and read out which permanent site Volunteer B would be serving at, and then Volunteer B would walk to that area on the map and proceed to open up his envelope with Volunteer C's information, and so on until all the volunteers were standing near their permanent sites. It was a fun way to find out our sites, and it was also great to get a visual of where all of my friends will be living for the next two years. I'm sure you're wondering where I was placed… Pasanauri! 

As you can see, it's very close to the breakaway region of South Ossetia, but don't worry there are some big mountains separating us.

Pasanauri is a small town with around 700 people, but it straddles a major road and was a thriving resort town during the Soviet era, so it has the infrastructure of a larger town. It's a 75-90 minute drive from Tbilisi and is still a popular vacation destination, especially in the summer when many people from Tbilisi travel there to escape the summer heat - Pasanauri has great air and is cooler due to its elevation (~1,000 meters/~3,500 feet). Pasanauri is also 30 minutes away from Georgia's main ski resort! Major plus.

The next day (Friday) after learning our placements, all the volunteers traveled to Bazaleti (our orientation site during our first week in Georgia) to meet the directors of our respective schools and organizations. We were introduced to our directors in a similar fashion to how we were introduced to our host family's, except this time I wasn't called first and I went in on the correct side for the cheek kiss. Great success! My director, Manana, is awesome. Not only is she one of the few directors who speaks English, but I think I'm the only English Education volunteer whose director will also be one of their counterparts (aka Georgian partner teacher). If you thought I'd be teaching classes all by myself, I'm glad you thought wrong. Somebody in there has to speak Georgian! Most English Education volunteers will have 2-3 counterparts. My director also happens to have a daughter and son-in-law who live 40 minutes away from my home in New Jersey - small world! 

Following introductions we were split up by geographical location and each group had to make a big postcard/poster representing their region. Only two other volunteers are in the Mtskheta-Mtianeti region with me, but there's still probably about 15-20 volunteers all within a 2 hour radius of me. I'm sure we'll all be seeing plenty of each other on Tbilisi outings. During our poster-making activity I learned that the Mtskheta-Mtianeti region is known particularly for a few things - it’s the only region where (religious) animal sacrifices are still kind of a thing, it’s the birthplace/home of many great Georgian poets, and it has the best khinkali around. Jackpot! (Mostly because of the khinkali, but animal sacrifices and poets are cool too.) After the activity we all had dinner and got to know our directors a little more. Manana is incredibly nice, funny, and a super legit director. She visited the states a while back at the invitation of the U.S. Department of Education, and she also received a grant a few years ago which she used to build a computer lab and set up wifi in Pasanauri's school. I can't wait to start working with her.

The next day we had sessions from 9-3 on various topics such as planning summer camps and working effectively with our directors. Afterwards, everyone proceeded to their respective permanent sites for a few days to meet their new host-families and get to know their new communities a bit before we all move in on July 19. My director’s daughter, who lives in Tbilisi, picked us up in Bazaleti and they then showed me around Mtskheta and Tbilisi. Mtskheta is the old capital of Georgia and also happens to be right outside of Tbilisi. 

In Mtskheta we visited Svetitskhoveli, an 11^th century church that is one of Georgia’s most important religious centers - it was the seat of the Georgian Catholicos for hundreds of years, Georgian kings were consecrated there, and Georgian royalty and patriarchs were buried there. You can also see Jvari Monastery from Mtskheta, which is a 6th-7th century monastery.

Svetitskhoveli Cathedral

Jvari Monastery

In Tbilisi I think I was driven everywhere there is to go (although we didn't get out of the car everywhere, so there's still plenty to explore). We went to all the main squares/circles and up to Sameba, a beautiful church in Tbilisi that was built somewhat recently (1995-2004). We also went to McDonalds (of course) and then to an awesome ice cream place. It was my first time in Tbilisi and I was really glad I finally got to check it out, but considering my proximity to the city I'm sure I'll be back quite often.

Manana and I in front of Sameba Cathedral

Sameba from the side

Main room inside

 

Manana and I took a marshutka out of Tbilisi to Pasanauri in the evening. Almost the entire route is through the mountains, so it's pretty scenic, but I was constantly afraid we were going to shoot right off a cliff - we took some serious turns at some serious speeds, but such is driving in Georgia, and eventually we reached my soon-to-be home in Pasanuri. I walked in the front gate with my director, who yelled out that we had arrived, and I promptly heard a loud scream of “THE AMERICAN IS HERE!!” It turned out to be my new host-brother Nika, who ran out and gave me a big hug. He's 7 years old and was obviously wearing a Barcelona jersey as all Georgian kids are wont to do, and we talked a lot of World Cup. I also have a new host-mom and grandma who are great, and that's the fam. It’s going to be an awesome time in Pasanauri.

The incredibly verdant Pasanauri

Home for two years

On Sunday after breakfast my host-mom and brother showed me around the backyard, aka the mountainside. We walked around for about an hour and then I went with my host-brother to his friend’s house, where four of us played a little soccer and basketball. One of the kids, who was probably in about 6th grade, was really good and megged me at least twice. It was kind of embarrassing. After some fun with the kids I went a couple houses down to my director's house for some food, beer, and homemade brandy. We chatted for a while and watched the Nigeria-Bosnia World Cup match, which is unfortunately still the only match that has been on at a reasonable Georgian time. After the match I went home where of course I had more food, but it was khinkali so it's not like I could say no. My neighbor, host-brother, and I then took a walk around town. At the southern end of town is the confluence of the Black and White Aragvi Rivers, and they really are two different colors.  

Nika and I next to the confluence

The mineral water in Pasanauri is supposed to be good for your eyes if you wash them with it. I didn’t get a chance to try it, but I’m sure it works like a charm. When I got back from the walk I had dinner with the family and introduced them to the PB&J sandwich. I had brought them some peanut butter as a little gift, and when I was listing the foods it goes well with my host-mom jumped up and grabbed her homemade jam, and we made some delicious open-face PB&Js. Big hit.

On Monday morning I went to school with my director to meet some of the teachers - a lot of them were at school for a training. One of the teachers has a daughter who lives in New Jersey, so now two of my coworkers have children living in New Jersey. Who knew it was such a hotspot for Georgians? After I met and chatted with the teachers for a bit they started their training, and I hiked up to a great vantage point of the town with an 11th grader and a recent graduate. Afterwards, I went home, ate khinkali, and watched TV for a while. We have about 200 channels, but 190 of them are Turkish. Naturally, I like to stick with the Georgian channels. There's one channel I like to watch that has 5-10 minute biographies of political figures and famous businessmen, as well as 5-10 minute travel guides of various sights/cities around the world. 

"Pranklin Ruzvelti" (there's no F in Georgian, and all nouns have to end with a vowel)

During my second lunch my host-grandma was still grilling me for not eating enough. I continued working on my couch potato skills until my host-mom came home from work and we all had dinner. She works as the director of the local preschool/kindergarten, which I guess still goes on in the summer? I was a little confused. 

After dinner I went to the local soccer field, which is a fenced-in 5v5-sized turf field. A ton of kids were out and about playing around the field, while older kids were playing on the turf. Games are played to 6, and when the current game ended I threw on one of the neon pinnies one of the teams was wearing and played for about 2 hours. Games were filled with cigarette-smoking goalies, beer breaks, and very little defense. It was a blast. I still need to adjust to that elevation, though…

When I got back to the house my host-mom asked me if I wanted some watermelon, and I said sure, but I should have known better. She brought out the watermelon and then rice, bread, eggplant, cheese, salad, tomatoes, khinkali, mushrooms, and some nut things that looked like black gemstones. I think they were figs, but taken before they turned green and then boiled for days… or something. Apparently, if you have just one per day you’ll never get sick. Between the mineral water and these, I'll be healthier than ever! During this postprandial feast we were all watching the movie Speed on TV, dubbed over in Georgian, and yes, it was still awesome. I couldn’t believe Nika fell asleep right before the end. I mean, it’s gotta be a top 10 movie decapitation scene. 

The next day I said my goodbyes and trekked back to Gomi. We only had class Wed-Fri, so it was a nice and short week. That Sunday I went to Georgian dancing lessons, which is something I had actually been wanting to do for a while. One of the Peace Corps staff is a really good dancer and has been kind enough to train us a little. About 8 other volunteers and I met up at Khashuri’s school and learned the Rachuli dance for 2 hours, and then this most recent Sunday I went again and we learned the Kintauri dance. I can’t wait to bring my sweet moves back to the US.

On Tuesday all of the volunteers took a trip to Tbilisi to visit with various organizations and drop by Peace Corps office for the first time. We were split into small groups of 4-5, and my group was assigned to go to the the National Assessment and Examination Center, which is in charge of the national tests for teacher certification, university entrance exams, and various other tests. I took a 9:30 AM marshutka to Tbilisi with my Gomi-mate Alan, and we then successfully navigated the Tbilisi subway to the closest stop to the Peace Corps office. We couldn't help but stop in the Nike, Adidas, and North Face stores we spotted on the way. 

Didube Station - the main marshutka stop in Tbilisi

Some familiar sites

Tbilisi Medical University

The Peace Corps office is a three story building complete with a small lounge for volunteers where there is also a mini-library and a nice bathroom and shower. After taking a tour of the office we went to an American-style pizza restaurant down the block. I had a personal 12-inch pie and it hurt so good to finish. 

Amy and I enjoying some beer and pizza

After lunch we took the metro a couple stops and walked the rest of the way to the National Assessment and Examination Center. It was a good 45 minute walk from the metro stop… it looked a lot closer on Google maps. The building was super nice and seemed to be pretty new.

Newer (nautical themed?) apartment buildings

Not quite sure who this is... 

Some (not as new) apartment buildings

National Assessment and Examination Center

The woman we met at the Center is the Head of the Foreign Languages Group as well as a professor at Tbilisi's main university. We talked with her for about an hour, asking questions about the national tests, the education system in general, and other related topics. She was very pleasant and provided some great insight we can hopefully use during our service. 

Last on the (blog) agenda… 4th of July! Each volunteer brought 2-3 host-family members to an area we had rented out for a big 4th of July bash. We had a ton of hamburgers and hotdogs, cake, tug-of-war, three-legged-races, water balloon tosses, face painting, balloon animals, and an amazing America-themed playlist (shameless self-plug right there).  

4th of July Party

Team America 

Happy birthday America

Three-legged race… some Georgian kids took a tumble

Teaching Georgians how to throw a football

Team Gomi in the semifinals before taking a tough loss in the championship

Hangin with some volunteers

My host-mom and sister-in-law

So… that's pretty much the last month. Next week is the last week of Pre-Service Training before we all head off to our permanent sites for two years. It's been a wild ride so far, and the real adventure is only about to begin. Stay tuned!

E-mail updates

Apparently, many (maybe all) of you faithful readers have not been receiving e-mail updates after signing up for them. I fixed the issue, but you'll need to reenter your e-mail address and sign back up. Don't forget to click the link in the e-mail that you'll receive shortly after to confirm the sign up. Thanks!