East Traditions

I first want to mention that I spent last weekend in Zugdidi with some other TLG volunteers. The volunteers in this city were hosting a Karaoke Night for the schools in Japan to help rebuild from the earthquakes. There were many volunteers that showed up. Together we raised over 300 GEL! We had some drinks around town and spent the night at a great new hostel. The owner, Regina, opened early for the event. She is a past TLG volunteer and amazing. The place was really nice even though they were still working on remodeling it. If you ever find yourself in Zugdidi, Georgia, stop there for a night. It's well worth the reasonable amount of 20 GEL. It was a blast.

I also spent some time walking aro und the Palace on Palm Sunday. The small church is next to the palace. Women were all over the gardens selling small baskets of palms. These aren't the palms that we use in the states. Instead they use a small bush that grows faster for the day. The church was so crowed that people were waiting outside in large groups waiting to catch part of the services.


This is a picture of the church next to the Palace.

I stayed home for our long break. Nino and Gocha's kids came to Poti. Their two sons and the oldest's wife are here until Monday. The house is filled with a gigantic amount of food. It doesn't even fit in the fridge. We have two regular cakes and five Pacas or Easter Cake (it's essentially hot cross buns done in a cake form) It's a good thing, too, since there seems to be some new friend or family member at every meal. Lots of people going in and out. Everyone is just talking and eating and enjoying each other's company. It's nice but awkward at the same time. I only understand half of the conversations. I also feel like I'm invading into something I shouldn't be. Nino and Gocha don't get to see their kids much anymore. I try to give them space to talk without worrying about entertaining me. It's an interesting balance for managing my time spent with the family and alone.

The really great tradition here that is similar to the states is dying eggs! They only use red dye to symbolize the blood of Christ being shed. My family then put plastic pictures around the eggs for added decoration. During lent many families have been growing wheatgrass for this weekend. They put the eggs in the grass or around it. It's a nice reminder of the greenhouses at home.

It's an exciting weekend filled with people and food, a perfect way to celebrate spring and Christ rising. Happy Easter!

House Slippers and Other Reasons I am Sick

Despite the reasons I might believe I am sick such as I work at a germy school that doesn't have soap in the bathroom or the maid, Dalika, doesn't cover her mouth when she coughs, really this is what the Georgians keep telling me.
I am sick because . . .
1. I don't wear my house slippers all the time. You are supposed to get home, take off your shoes and put on your slippers. Sometimes I forget and walk around in my socks. If I'm just in my bedroom I might even be barefoot. My host family will all look at me like I'm crazy when they see my naked feet and immediately demand I put slippers on.
2. I wear short sleeved sweaters. I have a couple sweaters that I wear on sunny days or when I know the school will be heated. For some reason this is not a good idea even though the outside temperature is usually in the 30s and even low 40s on those days. It always makes me giggle to think of what they'd say if they saw all the Wisconsin kids wearing flip-flops in six inches of snow. That surely makes you more cold than wearing short sleeves.
3. I take a shower in the morning. I don't really understand the reasoning behind this because I've only gotten the comment once. Shannon, the other Poti, volunteer says her family harps about it a lot. I guess having wet hair in the morning allows germs to infect you easier. I would like to point out that most Georgians don't have curly hair. They have no idea what trials I go through to tame my hair even a little while living next to the sea and in the humid air here.


The cold that I currently have seems to be the same one that everyone has been passing around for the last three weeks. The sinus pressure was bad enough for me that on Thursday I stayed home from school. When I arrived at school on Friday for my two lessons, my co-teacher first demanded to know where I was yesterday. I had texted her the morning before school started. The school was also contacted. I don't think this teacher has ever missed a day of school even when she was terribly ill. This teacher was also one of the first to get the cold earlier this month, perhaps it's her germs that got me sick. I told her that I was felling better and didn't want to miss school. Since I wasn't coughing anymore, I figured the potential for me passing germs had become more limited. Telling her I was still sick was a mistake. She kept telling me to go home and sleep and feel better. I couldn't tell if she just didn't want me in class with her or she really thought I looked sick and miserable.
I will continue to drink tea and orange juice and plenty of fluids (happy mom?). I didn't go traveling this weekend like planned so I could rest and recuperate. I think I'll be able to beat this nasty bug soon. All I'll have to do is buy some soap for the school.

A Wedding Supra: An Event Suprisingly Similar to the Packers Winning the Superbowl

I will first endeavor to explain what a "supra" is. This is not an easy task, however. Supra literally means table in English. It is a giant feast where Georgians toast anything and everything they can think of. At every toast an entire glass of wine is had. You start the feast with a table full of food. An American could relate it to the amount of food seen at a Thanksgiving meal. You take that amount and multiply it by six or seven. You pour wine (a cousin assured me that the alcohol content of this wine is more like beer, but I'm not so sure about that) into beer pitchers and sit a ton of people around the table. Then you make a toast every few minutes, eat some delicious food, bring out more food, make more toasts, sing some songs, make more toasts, bring more food, dance, more toasts, more food and it just continues like this for hours.

It sounds a bit overwhelming, and, frankly, it was. Yet, there was more to this adventure than just the supra. It started Friday afternoon. Gocha and I got into his car and picked up one of his cousins who had a small boy with her of four or five. We picked up another cousin and headed off to Tbilisi. The car was an SUV. They are big vehicles but not really meant for five adults (Gocha's car has a driver, Beso. I think it's his Valet. Language barrier has made this difficult to understand) and a small child. Tbilisi is four-six hours away depending on whether you go 80km/hr or 160km/hr. We stopped at the same restaurant in the mountains for dinner. We had khatchapuri, of course, some grilled meat and pickled vegetables.

We got to Tbilsi and sat out in a parking lot for 20 minutes before Nino and her youngest son came out. Her son told me in English that I would be spending the weekend with a family friend, Tamuna. Tamuna spent eight years in Russia with her family and spoke English pretty well. Her husband, George, did, too. They have two teenage sons that I met that night. They had super and then I went to bed. The next morning was a bit awkward. Waiting around for the family to wake up was odd. What are you supposed to do? Anyway, we went to Nino and Gocha’s apartment at 1PM. There I proceeded to wait some more. This waiting was mixed with short episodes of understanding the family was talking about me but not the details and having the cute cousins being herded towards me to entertain me since they spoke English. 

Finally, we went to the Church, the oldest church in Georgia. Beautiful doesn’t begin to cover the space. An Orthadox service was different but still held elements I could figure out despite it being in Georgian. I will admit that the crowning part was difficult not to laugh at. Both the groom and bride had to kiss each other’s crowns and then wear them for a bit. Next the best man and maid of honor took off the crowns to hold them above their heads. All four then proceeded to follow the priest in walking around an icon in the center of the church. I’m sure there is some great meaning in this symbol. But, it looked a trifle funny. Don’t worry, I didn’t actually laugh. I held on to some dignity and didn’t embarrass the whole family. 

After the service, we went to the restaurant for the supra. There was some more awkward waiting and smiling at strangers staring at the foreigner, me, while Nino found a cousin to pawn me off on. I ended up at a table right by the wedding party’s table. This table was full of male cousins. Most of them spoke some English and were pretty darn attractive. The family has some impressive genetics, let me tell you. They helped to explain the toasts and encouraged me to try the endless platters of food that were brought out. I was next to the dance floor and got to dance with some fun people. One dance was even with a very drunk guy who kept trying to dip me. I refused with “ara” (no). He didn’t seem to understand why I wouldn’t trust him. I don’t know, a drunk guy who can barely stand up straight doesn’t sound like the best person to trust to hold your head a couple feet from the floor. It was a great party. I just didn’t have the stamina of Georgians for the food and drink and dancing. It was exhausting. 

Georgians can party for hours. The young men love to show off how much alcohol they can consume. They are loud and cheer for the bride and groom. If you stand off to the side of the party you will see what must surely amount to chaos. The males wander from table to table drinking and chatting with everyone. It really reminded me of watching the celebrations of Packers’ fans after winning the superbowl. The hours of celebrations and the conversations for weeks later of the drunken escapades and game highlights were very similar to the longevity of the Georgian party.  I will admit that Georgians have us Wisconsinites beat when it comes to alcohol tolerance. I have a new perspective on what it  means to be drunk. There were no mean or weepy drunks to be seen. They were friendly and boisterous. It was an interesting evening. 

I spent the night with Tamuna again and met up with Nino and Gocha at the restaurant on Sunday. For four hours I engaged in another supra with the 30 closest family members. The Tamanda, the leader of the supra and toastmaster, was George. He and I had talked a lot during the weekend, and he seemed to adopt me as his own daughter. Therefore before I could leave after Gocha demanded that we be released to get back to Poti that day, he made a ten minute long toast about me and my teaching and my home state and how I was a part of the family now. (It’s not uncommon for toasts to take up a lot of time, this was just inconvenient) It was cute and quite the sendoff.  

The wedding supra was without a doubt the most adventurous activity I've done here in Georgia. 

An introduction to Poti

I would like to first mention that there are fireworks being shot off in the rain tonight. I have no idea why, but it certain makes you wonder about cultural differences, doesn't it?

Poti is an odd city. It lacks much of the juxtaposition that Tbilisi had. There is construction going on in a few areas. However, most of the city looks like the stereotype of a post-soviet city. There are buildings in ruins everywhere. Stray dogs run rampant. There are cows just hanging out on the street corners next to the chickens. Through all of this you begin to see the certain charm that such a city holds. You can easily walk down to the Black sea from my house. There is a long trail that runs along the port where you can find people biking or walking. Every house has fruit trees and grapes growing in their yards. The architecture is very unique. The city is begining to grow. Businesses are moving in. This means the standard of living is much greater here than in the villages.

A picture of my house in Poti

I'm very lucky to have the host family that I do. The mayor, Gucha,  is very busy but kind. His wife, Nino, is amazing and a cardiologist. They both know a fair amount of English and are eager to practice. I haven't picked up too much Georgian because they both want to become comfortable with English. Nino said she'd help me learn though. They have been very generous. My room is well furnished. I even get my own bathroom! They have two sons who are studying in Tbilisi at the University there. Some of the anticipated issues that were mentioned in training like lack of privacy or lack of luxuries have not been an issue for me. 

 

School has been interesting. I work with four different teachers and have 25 lessons every week. One of the teachers has been working for 40 years. You can tell by her yelling at students and the books she prefers to work with. It's this old book that just has a few boring texts to read and nothing conversation related. Thankfully, she can only use it with the sixth graders. I'm hoping to add a lot of games to that class. So many of students look like they are falling asleep in class. Ironically, this is the same teacher who was trying to correct my own pronunciation of words while I was reading today.  No it wasn't a "q" sound, it was the word mountain. I'm pretty sure I say that one correctly. lol We get a long fine otherwise, though. The students are eager but noisy in class. I could write a lot more about school, but I'll leave that for another day. 

I really want to make a small mention about driving in Georgia. IT'S TERRIFYING! To get to Poti, some men from the resource center picked me and the other Poti volunteer up in Tbilisi. We drove on only one road through the mountains. It was like being on a roller coaster. Imagine a two lane road winding through the mountains. Then add cars and trucks going over 140 km/hour. Cars pass each other all the time, including around corners and up hills. The only notice they give is the occasional honk. The cars are also driving three a breast for one lane. Oh, and add the occasional cow in the middle of the road. You have to be very brave to drive here and I give a lot of props to the man who got us here safely. Craziest part of living in Georgia so far!

Spontaneous Interview with Georgian Police

Tonight was incredibly surprising. Our last meeting of the evening was mainly about our placements. We were being told what city we would be living in for at least the next six months. Before the announcement the director (who reports directly to the minister of Education) spoke about the program. She then asked that four of us, including me, follow her.
We all follow her out into the freezing cold hallway trying to think of a reason for us being called out. Did we break some rule? We weren't the ones going out every night, so what could we have done wrong? Were we being sent home? Needless to say it was a nerve racking fifty feet.
Our destination was the TLG office in the hotel. There a man, that we had seen earlier observing our Georgian Lessons, was waiting. It turns out that the Police Academy has a couple TLG volunteers for Tbilisi and hoped to add two female teachers to their group. There would be no host family, rather you would live together in an apartment paid for by the academy. You would be teaching adults and not really be working with a co-teacher. Essentially, it was a huge twist on the program we thought we signed up for. He wanted to interview the four of us. One of the fellow volunteers declined because she had really wanted to be with a host family. It just left the three of us.
I volunteered to go first. I knew coming into this program that I would have to be flexible to whatever changes were brought my way. This was definitely a big change! It really wasn't what I had hoped for. I wanted experience in a classroom and an opportunity to learn Georgian in a host family. However, I was willing to take the risk and see what happened. He just asked about my work experience. I forgot to mention volunteer work which was silly of me since it includes most of my teaching experience.
Once I was finished (a whole three minutes later), I waited in the hall outside for the other two girls to go. We chatted and nervously wondered about this change in fate. He told us after the third individual that I was the one not selected. Frankly, I was a bit relieved. I didn't think I would be able to offer my best in the capitol city to a bunch of adult Georgians. I have no experience teaching adults.
I walked back to the meeting room with the director while she called to find out my placement. She told me that I would be in Poti, the second largest port city on the Black Sea, living with the mayor! It sounded fantastic to me. I leave tomorrow to head out to my host family and new home. I can't help but wonder if my host family will like me. I wonder if I can really handle this complicated Georgian language. I wonder if my smiley personality is going to cause problems. I guess we'll find out in less than 24 hours.
Wish me luck!