I suppose I should write something here before I leave for the US and neglect this thing for a month, during which time my proud trend of 10 hits per day will dwindle to 0. I've seen the look of doubt and anxiety in some of my friends' eyes here, the reflection of their concern that 26 days in the USA is a long time away from the lovely life in Georgia I've come to know. Long enough to detach myself from it completely, they think.
My current mantra along these lines is that if I go to the US for 26 wonderful days and then return to my life of always-successful grassroots work in a developing nation, those 26 days will become cemented in my mind as the most enchanted, delicious 26 days of my life, bumping out that day when I went to an amusement park AND saw a Weird Al concert. If, however, I become tempted into extending my time of free-rolling fun and Jennifer-level debauchery (a relatively low level indeed), I'll get the pleasure of watching it dissolve into the mundane American life of a Peace Corps quitter-- entry-level job if I'm lucky, sharing an apartment with 10 people, wishing I still lived overseas... and to boot, unable to sustain the standard of living I had during my ecstatic 26 days. I'll call my friends from college to get together again, like we did when I was just visiting, only they'll be busy with work, or even tired of getting together and doing the same crap every weekend just because I haven't moved on yet. No one's especially interested in hanging out with a Peace Corps quitter who hasn't adjusted to her circumstances yet, and who still hopes everyone will pay for her.*
The other possibility, which is highly likely, is that I'm making too much out of this America trip in the first place and that it will be enjoyable, but not orgasmic-- and the space between "enjoyable" and "orgasmic" is sufficient to deem that a "major disappointment." Of course Mom misses me, and Minnesota will be delightful with her and my sister, and Dad misses me too, but I'll probably face the reality that life has moved on without me for most, as detailed in the last whiny post about America. Indeed 14 months is not a lifetime of separation, but 22-year-olds jump a lot of hurdles after graduation, and while they're bonding over that, all I have to say is that I left the track entirely. I can only hope that the one-week blocks I've designated for each US destination are sufficiently short that I don't lose my novelty.
So kargad iyavit to all 3 of my blog readers, and I'll let you know how it went. Hint: that means you have to come back and check this thing in a month. By the way, this is for everybody I see in the US: I KNOW I GAINED WEIGHT. Don't remind me about it or I'll sit on you.
* Not that I hope people will pay for me this time around... I... uh...
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Of Wheelie Bags
This post will have no over-arching theme, as I only have 6 days left until I go visit America, and during that brief interval there are many unimportant topics I wish to cover.
1) The departure of my host siblings to English-speaking nations
Well, this one's kind of important. As I mentioned, my host brother Irakli left to go study at a EFL school in London until September. I can only assume this has resulted in extreme separation anxiety for my host mother, since they've been in Tbilisi since he left and I haven't seen them in nearly two weeks. Given what he's told me about the location of his dorm (central London) and his roommates (2 Spanish, 1 Italian, 1 Brazilian-- all women), I think he'll do fine.
And then comes today, where my former host sister Lela leaves for America! She's quite the brave soul, seeing as she's a 15-year-old who grew up in a village and who's going to go live with a host family in Texas for a year. The scarier part for me is that she'll be in an American high school. I remember high school. Lela may not be half the nerd I was, but there's always the possibility that there exists a Texas doppleganger of a Laura Wright or a Tony whatshisfacewhoIgotarrestedha. But those were middle school, anyway... perhaps Texas high schoolers are more mature and friendly. I wrote her a note recommending that she try mint chocolate chip ice cream and that she wear her clothes straight out of the dryer at least once.
2) Why can't I even make frozen khinkali?
The instructions go something like this: Boil water. Put frozen khinkali in water. Remove and enjoy. I've even seen my host mother utilize her cooking mastery to make these things. For your edification, khinkali are meat dumplings with soup inside, which they say provided the Chinese with the inspiration for their dumplings. I can't think of any comment relating to that which the censor won't make me take down.
So khinkali should look like this. You sprinkle them with pepper, and then despite the fact that they come to your table straight off the sun, you must eat them with your hands or else you'll lose the juice inside and your honor as a Georgian. Some Georgians put sour cream on their khinkali, which may sound gross but is actually amazing. It may have something to do with the fact that Georgian sour cream is actually a food here, and not some kind of cold tasteless fluffy thing, like in the US. Not that I partake in eating sour cream straight from the jar like my host family does.
Here's a delightful dish I made, which I affectionately call khinkali entrails. This is what happens when the freezer loses power and your frozen khinkali thaw and then refreeze, firmly grasping each other with as much surface area of noodle as they can. Next, you try to separate them so you don't have to make all 20 at once, but all you manage to do is tear open a few. You decide to cut your losses and slice the pile in half, making due with the loss of the ones you've maimed. Throw this slab into boiling water, and watch as pieces of meat float freely to the top. You may also try to separate them again once they've been cooking for five minutes, though you'll notice that they are now sticky instead of stuck, and you succeed in tearing open half of the remaining whole khinkali. The boiling water turns the color of the meat juice, and squares of meat and noodle bob along in the pot. When you manage to pry out the wad of 6-7 whole khinkali, the weight proves too much for the spatula you're inexplicably using, and three of those khinkali tear and fall back into the water. You end up straining the solids into a red bowl and taking a picture for posterity.
You try to salvage the loss of flavor by adding a dollop of sour cream on top, though the only sour cream you have is the tub you mixed with Lipton onion soup mix to make vegetable dip. Fortunately, this is not so bad on khinkali. You also remember to liberally sprinkle the free chunks of meat with pepper, though apparently you even fail at pepper-sprinkling because the entire packet empties itself onto your pathetic excuse for a dinner.
Bon apetit!
3) I'll see you in hell, wheelie bag...
Lastly but not leastly, the wheelie bag. Being a sturdy Land's End bag, it came in quite handy in New York, wheeling its way down the lovely even sidewalks and well-paved thoroughfares. It had an occasional habit of wobbling at its exact resonant frequency until it toppled, which I should have noted as an omen of doom.
I can't describe how much I despise this bag now. It still wobbles, for starts. The bag handle and I engage in a battle of wills... will I let it flip and then flip it back, or will I hold the thing even to the horizon with a death grip? It nips at my heels as I walk. Its spacious interior lures me to pack too much. And not to mention... there are no roads outside Tbilisi on which the wheels provide any sort of convenience. I could claim that I knew that before I came and that I intended to use the bag for other purposes, but then I would have brought a backpack with me too. Sans backpack, I've had to take this Godforsaken wheelie bag to places as diverse as Gudauri, Chiatura, and Turkey, wobbling all the way. Wobbling and flipping and nipping and being carried with one arm because there's nothing but pot holes for miles.
I want nothing but slow painful death for this wheelie bag. It has one last trip left in its life: I'm gonna use it as a carry-on for my trip to America, and then I'm going to LEAVE IT THERE. Wait... if I use it as a carry-on, then I have to drag it through Amsterdam for ten hours (and into coffee shops?). So what I'm actually going to do is fill it with Georgian souveniers and then check it. But then the souveniers will squish because this bag has no frame. Maybe I'll just empty it out and shove it inside the other, better bag. And then take it out to drop it over the Atlantic.
1) The departure of my host siblings to English-speaking nations
Well, this one's kind of important. As I mentioned, my host brother Irakli left to go study at a EFL school in London until September. I can only assume this has resulted in extreme separation anxiety for my host mother, since they've been in Tbilisi since he left and I haven't seen them in nearly two weeks. Given what he's told me about the location of his dorm (central London) and his roommates (2 Spanish, 1 Italian, 1 Brazilian-- all women), I think he'll do fine.
And then comes today, where my former host sister Lela leaves for America! She's quite the brave soul, seeing as she's a 15-year-old who grew up in a village and who's going to go live with a host family in Texas for a year. The scarier part for me is that she'll be in an American high school. I remember high school. Lela may not be half the nerd I was, but there's always the possibility that there exists a Texas doppleganger of a Laura Wright or a Tony whatshisfacewhoIgotarrestedha. But those were middle school, anyway... perhaps Texas high schoolers are more mature and friendly. I wrote her a note recommending that she try mint chocolate chip ice cream and that she wear her clothes straight out of the dryer at least once.
2) Why can't I even make frozen khinkali?
The instructions go something like this: Boil water. Put frozen khinkali in water. Remove and enjoy. I've even seen my host mother utilize her cooking mastery to make these things. For your edification, khinkali are meat dumplings with soup inside, which they say provided the Chinese with the inspiration for their dumplings. I can't think of any comment relating to that which the censor won't make me take down.
So khinkali should look like this. You sprinkle them with pepper, and then despite the fact that they come to your table straight off the sun, you must eat them with your hands or else you'll lose the juice inside and your honor as a Georgian. Some Georgians put sour cream on their khinkali, which may sound gross but is actually amazing. It may have something to do with the fact that Georgian sour cream is actually a food here, and not some kind of cold tasteless fluffy thing, like in the US. Not that I partake in eating sour cream straight from the jar like my host family does.
Here's a delightful dish I made, which I affectionately call khinkali entrails. This is what happens when the freezer loses power and your frozen khinkali thaw and then refreeze, firmly grasping each other with as much surface area of noodle as they can. Next, you try to separate them so you don't have to make all 20 at once, but all you manage to do is tear open a few. You decide to cut your losses and slice the pile in half, making due with the loss of the ones you've maimed. Throw this slab into boiling water, and watch as pieces of meat float freely to the top. You may also try to separate them again once they've been cooking for five minutes, though you'll notice that they are now sticky instead of stuck, and you succeed in tearing open half of the remaining whole khinkali. The boiling water turns the color of the meat juice, and squares of meat and noodle bob along in the pot. When you manage to pry out the wad of 6-7 whole khinkali, the weight proves too much for the spatula you're inexplicably using, and three of those khinkali tear and fall back into the water. You end up straining the solids into a red bowl and taking a picture for posterity.
You try to salvage the loss of flavor by adding a dollop of sour cream on top, though the only sour cream you have is the tub you mixed with Lipton onion soup mix to make vegetable dip. Fortunately, this is not so bad on khinkali. You also remember to liberally sprinkle the free chunks of meat with pepper, though apparently you even fail at pepper-sprinkling because the entire packet empties itself onto your pathetic excuse for a dinner.
Bon apetit!
3) I'll see you in hell, wheelie bag...
Lastly but not leastly, the wheelie bag. Being a sturdy Land's End bag, it came in quite handy in New York, wheeling its way down the lovely even sidewalks and well-paved thoroughfares. It had an occasional habit of wobbling at its exact resonant frequency until it toppled, which I should have noted as an omen of doom.
I can't describe how much I despise this bag now. It still wobbles, for starts. The bag handle and I engage in a battle of wills... will I let it flip and then flip it back, or will I hold the thing even to the horizon with a death grip? It nips at my heels as I walk. Its spacious interior lures me to pack too much. And not to mention... there are no roads outside Tbilisi on which the wheels provide any sort of convenience. I could claim that I knew that before I came and that I intended to use the bag for other purposes, but then I would have brought a backpack with me too. Sans backpack, I've had to take this Godforsaken wheelie bag to places as diverse as Gudauri, Chiatura, and Turkey, wobbling all the way. Wobbling and flipping and nipping and being carried with one arm because there's nothing but pot holes for miles.
I want nothing but slow painful death for this wheelie bag. It has one last trip left in its life: I'm gonna use it as a carry-on for my trip to America, and then I'm going to LEAVE IT THERE. Wait... if I use it as a carry-on, then I have to drag it through Amsterdam for ten hours (and into coffee shops?). So what I'm actually going to do is fill it with Georgian souveniers and then check it. But then the souveniers will squish because this bag has no frame. Maybe I'll just empty it out and shove it inside the other, better bag. And then take it out to drop it over the Atlantic.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Happy Campers
Why did I disappear off the face of the planet all last week? Since I received approximately three emails during that period which weren't from NYU Alumni Services or Webster's Word of the Day, clearly it's not a question any of you were losing sleep over. For your information, I was engaged in a worthwhile Peace Corps project that I have yet to ever mention in this blog, since I have little to do with it-- Eco Camp!
As Georgians say, we all love the beautiful nature. The goal of Eco Camp and its subsidiary clubs is to get kids to back up that claim by refraining from throwing empty bottles out marshrutka windows and into the nature. The children are taken to a week of roughin' it, location depending on which region they're from. I got to go to Ratcha, a region that's somewhat restricted due to its proximity to a conflict zone (but that's half the lure...), to a village called Shovi, about 30 kilometers south of Russia. Check out the picture-- if you'll look around Aaron (who was-- along with Ian, Joe, Peter, David, Pierre, Nicholas and I-- a camp counselor), you'll see the kind of beautiful nature I'm talking about.
We took the kids up in a bus that Ian generously referred to as a jalopy (is that how you spell jalopy?). One could argue that this was an example of American arrogance and that it's unfair to apply American expectations of bus quality to a developing nation... but that "one" would not be me, because that thing was a piece of crap. We got to make many unscheduled stops in the beautiful nature, at which point any and all moving parts would be torn from the Model T-era engine and replaced with one of the many extra parts hidden in the glove box. As Tom, the eco coordinator in Kutaisi, said: before you agree to board an aging bus that's headed uphill into an uncharted abyss, it might be a good idea to check the amount of spare parts it's sporting. Many = bad sign.
Final statistics for journey to Ratcha:
- 4 hours estimated travel, pre-departure
- 9 hours actual travel
- 100 kilometers traveled
- 10 km/hr (6 mph) average speed
Finally, we got to our campground at Shovi. It was everything I imagined camping in the mountain woods would be... tents, sleeping bags, campfires, washing from a spring in the ground (though not from the river, which rushed along at a good 10,000 mph through rocks and such), a toilet in the woods made of tarp and a hole in the ground, picnic tables, etc. We had 35 kids with us, who were duly split into "patrols" by the Georgian Scouts-- the Scouts being the late-teens/early 20s Georgians who pretty much ran the camp, allocated the money, made my presence redundant, things like that.
What would camp be without icebreakers? Despite the fact that the word "icebreaker" used to strike fear into my social anxiety-ridden heart when I was that age, these kids all loved it. The pictured game involves a sheet placed between two teams, and when the sheet drops, the two players race to shout the name of the person opposite them.
Each of the patrols got to make their own flags and chants to go along with their-- yay!-- chores. The sole reason I mention this is to show this picture, wherein you will see a Georgian boy assisting the girls with the dishes. Don't blink or you'll miss it! This feat was accomplished with some forced substitutions from the cadre of boys lounging in the shade while the women did the women's work, but I was duly impressed nonetheless.
Other than forced labor, the kids also learned about nature or something. Pictured here, we have Nature Journal, where they're thrown into the woods to write or draw their impressions about their surroundings.
... and here's Nature Smell, where each kid is given a red plastic cup to collect things that smell strongly. Note that the criterium is "strongly" and not "good." I got to be on the judges' panel, so I'm thankful that none of the kids found the pile of nearby poo.
... here we have a leadership activity, wherein groups of 9 kids are tied together, and only one remains un-blindfolded. The kid with sight becomes the leader, who guides his or her team to a series of trees to pick up number cards and carry them back to the start line. It went pretty well, though there were isolated incidents of children being pulled backward down the hill, shouting "NELA!!!" ("slow down").
... and what would a Peace Corps event be without hippie handholding and singing in a circle?
... One of the big events was a mega-long hike. It didn't actually end up being mega-long, due to the guide never arriving and us waiting for him until 1 PM, the children bodily requesting breaks every ten minutes, and the arrival of an untimely thunderstorm while we were nearing the top. The rumbles echoed through the mountains, necessitating a speedy descent, though the crumbly rock path was somewhat an obstacle to that. We ended up making a big chain of people holding hands, sidestepping down the trail.
... Once we made our way down to the bottom, though, we could partake in the minimalist supra we'd brought with us, namely bread, eggs, and boiled potatoes. It was better than it sounds, especially when you do what David does and smush a hard-boiled egg into the bread.
Actually, eggs were our best friends. The chef was really into carbohydrates, and also into talking about the time in 1979 that he cooked for 500 children in the town of Kobuleti. Our average dinner consisted of no less than three types of carbohydrates, some combination of porridge, bread, potatoes, or noodles. There was a cameo appearance by beans on the last day, but other than that, our saving grace was the eggs. As a side note, I'd like to express my displeasure with the assistant cook's comment in Georgian that I was a pretty, good girl because I couldn't talk back in Georgian. Up yours, buddy.
The evening fires were a delight, not only because the temperature plunged down to an unseasonal 15 or so degrees every night (Celsius, of course), but because we got to bond with the chilluns while the Scouts taught them ultra-nationalist songs and chants ("We love you, our flag..."). The fires would have been nice decrescendoes from a long day into a night of refreshing sleep, were it not for the fact that the Scouts would usually start an activity at 10:30 PM or thereabout, thus creating the inevitability of yet another 18-hour day for campers and counselors alike. I promised myself that I wouldn't mention that this may have had something to do with the fact that certain parties had the luxury of midday sleep and were therefore energized for late-night Capture the Flag sessions, since that would be petty of me.
It would be a travesty if I failed to mention Kutsura, the Eco Dog. At the last Eco Camp in Lagodekhi, she was found in a cardboard box in the rain, probably left there by an owner who meant to drown her but who lost heart at the last minute. She was so bloated that she couldn't walk more than a few steps, most likely from being weaned from her mother too soon. Three weeks later, and voila-- she's been unofficially adopted by Eco Camp, traveling from campsite to campsite with the Scouts and Peace Corps volunteers, free to roam the woods, chew on pinecones, eat leftovers, chew on tents, be adored by campers, chew on campers' ankles, etc.
So the end of camp comes and goes, and we pile into the (better) bus to ride back down to Kutaisi. Unfortunately, being a better bus doesn't guard against cutting a switchback curve too closely and getting stuck in a ditch. The children panicked and tried to flee the bus, while the jaded Americans moseyed along behind, perhaps not stopping to notice that the rear window displayed a 30-degree lean. We disembarked and then belatedly noticed that the undercarriage of the right side of the bus was resting on the road, the right tires were smushed into the wheel wells, and the whole vehicle was leaning into a crevice, supported by the lucky presence of a concrete drain pipe. Even if we'd fallen, the crevice was only about two meters deep, but it was still precarious enough to warrant a slew of rubberneckers as we sat there waiting for the next two hours. A kindly KAMAZ truck driver towed us out, and after the bus driver & co. fixed whatever was wrong with the hydraulics, they kindly started up the bus and drove it 2 kilometers down the road to wait for us. This provoked much grumbling from the campers and was not appreciated. My one regret is that my camera was in the luggage compartment of the bus, so I couldn't get any cool pictures; I had the feeling that if I'd taken the initiative to retrieve my camera, it would have been the last straw that tipped the bus into the ditch. That would have made a better anecdote, I think.
As we stood at the side of the road, keeping children from merrily skipping into oncoming traffic, Ian pointed out the unfairness of having to be the adult of a situation. Were this an official Peace Corps event, we could have scurried over to watch the bus drivers struggling with air hoses all we liked, but in this case, that would have set a bad example for the children, whom we wanted to keep on the non-traffic side of the road. It's situations like these that make me forget that 23 is still young; when everyone around you is 15, you feel old anyway. This is the mindset that led to my absolute surprise when Twisted Misters (see previous posts for out-of-place explanation) were repeatedly described as being ridiculously young. Woohoo! That means I'm still young, too!
I'll conclude with the American counselors' reenactment of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. We really did make the Georgian Scouts take the flag back out of the ground so we could get this picture (much like the original WWII photographer did?), so you'd best appreciate the artistry of the bleached-out lighting and poorly-framed shadows that mark my work.
As Georgians say, we all love the beautiful nature. The goal of Eco Camp and its subsidiary clubs is to get kids to back up that claim by refraining from throwing empty bottles out marshrutka windows and into the nature. The children are taken to a week of roughin' it, location depending on which region they're from. I got to go to Ratcha, a region that's somewhat restricted due to its proximity to a conflict zone (but that's half the lure...), to a village called Shovi, about 30 kilometers south of Russia. Check out the picture-- if you'll look around Aaron (who was-- along with Ian, Joe, Peter, David, Pierre, Nicholas and I-- a camp counselor), you'll see the kind of beautiful nature I'm talking about.
We took the kids up in a bus that Ian generously referred to as a jalopy (is that how you spell jalopy?). One could argue that this was an example of American arrogance and that it's unfair to apply American expectations of bus quality to a developing nation... but that "one" would not be me, because that thing was a piece of crap. We got to make many unscheduled stops in the beautiful nature, at which point any and all moving parts would be torn from the Model T-era engine and replaced with one of the many extra parts hidden in the glove box. As Tom, the eco coordinator in Kutaisi, said: before you agree to board an aging bus that's headed uphill into an uncharted abyss, it might be a good idea to check the amount of spare parts it's sporting. Many = bad sign.
Final statistics for journey to Ratcha:
- 4 hours estimated travel, pre-departure
- 9 hours actual travel
- 100 kilometers traveled
- 10 km/hr (6 mph) average speed
Finally, we got to our campground at Shovi. It was everything I imagined camping in the mountain woods would be... tents, sleeping bags, campfires, washing from a spring in the ground (though not from the river, which rushed along at a good 10,000 mph through rocks and such), a toilet in the woods made of tarp and a hole in the ground, picnic tables, etc. We had 35 kids with us, who were duly split into "patrols" by the Georgian Scouts-- the Scouts being the late-teens/early 20s Georgians who pretty much ran the camp, allocated the money, made my presence redundant, things like that.
What would camp be without icebreakers? Despite the fact that the word "icebreaker" used to strike fear into my social anxiety-ridden heart when I was that age, these kids all loved it. The pictured game involves a sheet placed between two teams, and when the sheet drops, the two players race to shout the name of the person opposite them.
Each of the patrols got to make their own flags and chants to go along with their-- yay!-- chores. The sole reason I mention this is to show this picture, wherein you will see a Georgian boy assisting the girls with the dishes. Don't blink or you'll miss it! This feat was accomplished with some forced substitutions from the cadre of boys lounging in the shade while the women did the women's work, but I was duly impressed nonetheless.
Other than forced labor, the kids also learned about nature or something. Pictured here, we have Nature Journal, where they're thrown into the woods to write or draw their impressions about their surroundings.
... and here's Nature Smell, where each kid is given a red plastic cup to collect things that smell strongly. Note that the criterium is "strongly" and not "good." I got to be on the judges' panel, so I'm thankful that none of the kids found the pile of nearby poo.
... here we have a leadership activity, wherein groups of 9 kids are tied together, and only one remains un-blindfolded. The kid with sight becomes the leader, who guides his or her team to a series of trees to pick up number cards and carry them back to the start line. It went pretty well, though there were isolated incidents of children being pulled backward down the hill, shouting "NELA!!!" ("slow down").
... and what would a Peace Corps event be without hippie handholding and singing in a circle?
... One of the big events was a mega-long hike. It didn't actually end up being mega-long, due to the guide never arriving and us waiting for him until 1 PM, the children bodily requesting breaks every ten minutes, and the arrival of an untimely thunderstorm while we were nearing the top. The rumbles echoed through the mountains, necessitating a speedy descent, though the crumbly rock path was somewhat an obstacle to that. We ended up making a big chain of people holding hands, sidestepping down the trail.
... Once we made our way down to the bottom, though, we could partake in the minimalist supra we'd brought with us, namely bread, eggs, and boiled potatoes. It was better than it sounds, especially when you do what David does and smush a hard-boiled egg into the bread.
Actually, eggs were our best friends. The chef was really into carbohydrates, and also into talking about the time in 1979 that he cooked for 500 children in the town of Kobuleti. Our average dinner consisted of no less than three types of carbohydrates, some combination of porridge, bread, potatoes, or noodles. There was a cameo appearance by beans on the last day, but other than that, our saving grace was the eggs. As a side note, I'd like to express my displeasure with the assistant cook's comment in Georgian that I was a pretty, good girl because I couldn't talk back in Georgian. Up yours, buddy.
The evening fires were a delight, not only because the temperature plunged down to an unseasonal 15 or so degrees every night (Celsius, of course), but because we got to bond with the chilluns while the Scouts taught them ultra-nationalist songs and chants ("We love you, our flag..."). The fires would have been nice decrescendoes from a long day into a night of refreshing sleep, were it not for the fact that the Scouts would usually start an activity at 10:30 PM or thereabout, thus creating the inevitability of yet another 18-hour day for campers and counselors alike. I promised myself that I wouldn't mention that this may have had something to do with the fact that certain parties had the luxury of midday sleep and were therefore energized for late-night Capture the Flag sessions, since that would be petty of me.
It would be a travesty if I failed to mention Kutsura, the Eco Dog. At the last Eco Camp in Lagodekhi, she was found in a cardboard box in the rain, probably left there by an owner who meant to drown her but who lost heart at the last minute. She was so bloated that she couldn't walk more than a few steps, most likely from being weaned from her mother too soon. Three weeks later, and voila-- she's been unofficially adopted by Eco Camp, traveling from campsite to campsite with the Scouts and Peace Corps volunteers, free to roam the woods, chew on pinecones, eat leftovers, chew on tents, be adored by campers, chew on campers' ankles, etc.
So the end of camp comes and goes, and we pile into the (better) bus to ride back down to Kutaisi. Unfortunately, being a better bus doesn't guard against cutting a switchback curve too closely and getting stuck in a ditch. The children panicked and tried to flee the bus, while the jaded Americans moseyed along behind, perhaps not stopping to notice that the rear window displayed a 30-degree lean. We disembarked and then belatedly noticed that the undercarriage of the right side of the bus was resting on the road, the right tires were smushed into the wheel wells, and the whole vehicle was leaning into a crevice, supported by the lucky presence of a concrete drain pipe. Even if we'd fallen, the crevice was only about two meters deep, but it was still precarious enough to warrant a slew of rubberneckers as we sat there waiting for the next two hours. A kindly KAMAZ truck driver towed us out, and after the bus driver & co. fixed whatever was wrong with the hydraulics, they kindly started up the bus and drove it 2 kilometers down the road to wait for us. This provoked much grumbling from the campers and was not appreciated. My one regret is that my camera was in the luggage compartment of the bus, so I couldn't get any cool pictures; I had the feeling that if I'd taken the initiative to retrieve my camera, it would have been the last straw that tipped the bus into the ditch. That would have made a better anecdote, I think.
As we stood at the side of the road, keeping children from merrily skipping into oncoming traffic, Ian pointed out the unfairness of having to be the adult of a situation. Were this an official Peace Corps event, we could have scurried over to watch the bus drivers struggling with air hoses all we liked, but in this case, that would have set a bad example for the children, whom we wanted to keep on the non-traffic side of the road. It's situations like these that make me forget that 23 is still young; when everyone around you is 15, you feel old anyway. This is the mindset that led to my absolute surprise when Twisted Misters (see previous posts for out-of-place explanation) were repeatedly described as being ridiculously young. Woohoo! That means I'm still young, too!
I'll conclude with the American counselors' reenactment of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. We really did make the Georgian Scouts take the flag back out of the ground so we could get this picture (much like the original WWII photographer did?), so you'd best appreciate the artistry of the bleached-out lighting and poorly-framed shadows that mark my work.
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