Sakartvelo Sunshine Days

And not to forget...

2008-12-30T18:46:00.000-08:00

... the final update video.

Victory for Georgia!

2008-12-30T16:59:00.000-08:00

They lost the war with Russia, but they won some blankets. It's poor compensation but at least somewhat better than losing a war and being cold.

As you may have gathered from my tone two posts ago, I was recently feeling somewhat despondent about this project's chances of successful completion. Sensing my despondency, Blankets for Georgia donor and supporter Kristen Chocheli and her husband Niko put me in touch with the American Red Cross. Here are some magical facts that I learned that day:

Magical Fact #1: The American Red Cross was also running a Blankets for Georgia drive and would soon be shipping those blankets overseas.
Magical Fact #2: They had recently upgraded from a 20' to a 40' crate and had some extra space that they were willing to offer for our little project.
Magical Fact #3: A member of their project was the owner of a shipping company who would ship the crate to Georgia regardless of the fact that other shippers told me recently that no commercial shippers are going to Georgia in the wake of the war.
Magical Fact #4: The crate was shipping from Baltimore, which is a mere 2-hour drive from where the boxes were stored.

I can't begin to describe the serendipity/hand of God behind this. Why would the boxes be shipped from somewhere so close to where I lived? Why did their project end just as my free storage was two weeks from running out and thus necessitating the redistribution of the donations?

Like I said-- magic.

In any case, we packed up the boxes on the day after Christmas and drove them to the warehouse in a U-Haul truck that was rented to us for free by a local business owner (see acknowledgments at the end of this post). All the boxes are now on pallets and wrapped in plastic in a crate, and they should be on their way to Georgia by early January and will arrive 4 weeks later.

The project money has found a good home, as well. Since the Georgia Red Cross will be handling the transportation of logistics inside Georgia, they will receive all the project money, $2600 after expenses. In exchange, they will make sure the boxes from this project wind up at the NGO I designated them for-- CHF International, who will distribute the boxes to villages around the town of Gori-- and the rest of the money will go to defray their costs in distributing the remaining Red Cross blankets to needy Georgian families.

All in all, a happy ending. And this happy ending was brought to you by...

- Mike Hewitt
Hewitt's Service Center in Lexington Park, MD

Mike Hewitt is the man who donated the U-Haul truck for our usage on December 26th. Although we went vastly over the allotted mileage and ended up racking up a $260 rental charge, he comped all of it in the name of charity. Thank you, Mike.

- John Boyd
The Shipping Store in Wildewood Shopping Center

John Boyd owns the first business that donated to the project, and I don't know where we would be if he hadn't been so generous. He provided, free of charge, 41 new cardboard boxes with a total value of over $300, and to boot, he drove them to our house. Thank you, John.

- John Charles
Security Storage in Hollywood, MD

John Charles is the manager of the storage facility that provided three months of storage for the project boxes at a rate of $1/month (in a unit that is approx $100/month at market value). Even as the shipping process dragged on indefinitely, he arranged with the owners to allow the boxes to stay in their storage unit for an extra month above and beyond what they promised, and that saved the project. Thank you, John.

- Mark Dale
Pro Fitness Gym in Wildewood Shopping Center

Mark Dale not only allowed me to place a donation drop-off box in his gym, he also pestered his clients and anyone who walked through the door that they should donate blankets and clothes to our cause. Every time I saw that box, it was overflowing. Thank you, Mark.

- Norm Scofield
Shoppers Food Warehouse in San Souci Plaza

Norm Scofield allowed me to place a donation drop-off box in the entrance of the Shoppers that he manages even though that act bends the rules of company policy. I hope I'm not getting him in trouble by saying that. Thank you, Norm.

- Lisa Erdeljon & Mrs. Erdeljon
Northern Virginia

Lisa Erdeljon, a former Georgia volunteer, and her mother held their own drive in northern Virginia and then drove a van full of donations all the way to our storage facility in southern Maryland in time for our boxing party. They brought extra cardboard boxes with them, and the quality and quantity of their donations were fantastic. They stayed for hours packing boxes with us, and when it was all over, they drove all the way back to northern Virginia. Thanks, Lisa & Lisa's mom.

- Barbara Stanley, Rev. Mike Jones & the Pax Pres Outreach Committee
Patuxent Presbyterian Church in California, MD

Barbara Stanley coordinated the placement of a donation drop-off box in the church and promoted the project in the church bulletin. Rev. Jones actively supported the project and announced it during services, and the Outreach committee made a substantial contribution toward the shipping fund. Thanks so much to all of you.

- American Red Cross
Baltimore, MD

Without your help, these blankets would be rotting in a storage unit in southern Maryland until eternity. Thanks so much to Alan Friedman for coordinating, Jock Menzies for shipping, and Ed Gregg for packing. Double thanks for receiving the boxes on the day after Christmas so I could get back to work on Monday.

- Chris Haitz
CEVA Logistics in Torranca, CA

Chris Haitz is a former Georgia volunteer from my group who worked very hard for months to get his employer to carry the blankets to Georgia via freight. While the Red Cross opportunity presented itself before we could work anything out, I still appreciate all the work he did to try and help the project. Thank you, Chris.

- All the project coordinators at the schools
St. Mary's County Public Schools

Many people at Esperanza, Great Mills, Leonardtown, Hollywood, and Spring Ridge were involved in storing blankets, creating publicity, and encouraging students to participate in this project. Special thanks to Jackie Orr, Connie Garvin, Peggy Erdolino, Mrs. Long at Hollywood, Brenda Hecker, and Mike Sturgess.

- Former Georgia Volunteers
Various American and Georgian locales

Not only did Georgia Peace Corps volunteers turn out en masse to donate funds to the project, a select few who had returned to Georgia to work also played an invaluable role in coordinating the logistics of the arrival of the blankets. A million bazillion thanks to Johanna Holtan, Brian Halusan & CHF International, and Ruth Decalo. I feel like I'm missing somebody... please remind me if I did.

- Kristen & Niko Chocheli
Pennsylvania

Kristen and Niko sent frequent emails to keep up with the progress of the project. They were the only donors to mail in clothing donations from outside the southern Maryland area, and they also contributed to the shipping fund. They were full of ideas on how I could promote the project and what organizations I could contact, and in the end, they saved the project by putting me in touch with the American Red Cross. Thank you, Kristen and Niko; this project would have definitely failed without your help.

- Lela Termakozashvili
Kheltubani, Georgia

Lela was my only Georgian contact at the beginning of the project. She went on fact-finding expeditions back in September to identify what people needed and where those people were. This project would not, in fact, be "Blankets for Georgia" without Lela. Gmadlobt, Lela!

- The Donors
Everywhere

People donated money to this project in all different amounts and at different points on the timeline. Every little bit helped, and you all should be so proud that your money will be paying for the distribution of blankets and coats by the Georgian Red Cross during the dead of winter. Thank you!

And last but not least...

- Casey McFann
My mom a.k.a. host of "Living Fit with Casey" on channel 10 and YouTube

Mom was the secret backbone of this project. All of the driving for the project, excluding the final drive to the warehouse, was done either by her or in her car by me. Over the course of 3 weeks, she visited all the drop-off points several times in her Toyota Camry to cram as much stuff as she could into the car, and then she shuttled it to the storage unit. She also completed a large amount of the packing and cataloging of the donations by herself when I was sidelined by surgery in mid-October (surprise!). She helped publicize the project, and she edited all the YouTube video updates that this project has produced. She was the first person to think that this project was a good idea, and it wouldn't have been started at all without her encouragement, and possibly her growing concern that I was sitting around unemployed all day every day. Thanks, Mom. I love you!

- Bill McFann
My dad a.k.a. president of Island Engineering in Piney Point, MD

Dad was a big support when aspects of the project grew too overwhelming for me to handle alone. When I had spent weeks negotiating with a shipping company to no avail, Dad used his industry contacts to locate other options-- it was his contacts who informed me that commercial shipments were not going to Georgia, and that was vital information to me. Dad also applied his brilliant engineering mind to the task of packing the boxes into the storage unit and onto the truck and to developing a maximum-efficiency assembly line system as we attempted to sort the mountains of tangled blankets and coats into boxes; he brought along his girlfriend Judy to our box-packing party and they spent hours of their Saturday at that task. At the very end, he even put me in contact with his friend Mike Hewitt (see the first entry in the credits section). Thank you, Dad and Judy. Love you too!

We'll close with the last vision of the boxes as they left St. Mary's County, MD. Pictured are Judy, Dad, me, Mom, and my helpful friend Kim. She and my sister Sara helped pack and did much to keep me from crashing the 14' rental truck into oncoming traffic or parked cars. Thanks, ladies.

Wishin'... and Hopin'...

2008-12-18T18:27:00.000-08:00

We may have a breakthrough. I won't put up details about it until it's finalized, since nobody else deserves to be let down by shipping arrangements except for me... but there may be blanket-based glory ahead of us in Baltimore...

I shall say no more.

Whither Blankets?

2008-12-17T10:07:00.000-08:00

I, too, am upset that I haven't had anything to post here in over a month. Every day that ticks by on the calendar ratchets up my frustration and fear of impending failure by just a smidgen. I think the following article explains everything:

http://www.thebaynet.com/news/index.cfm/fa/viewstory/story_ID/11270

Just to clarify what the article said, there is a back-up plan in place, but it's not the greatest solution-- at the end of this month, I'll take the $3000 and use it to ship as many of the boxes as I can via USPS, and those will be distributed to needy families by an NGO in central Georgia. I estimate that I can only send 20-25 boxes this way due to financial restraints, so the remaining donations would have to go to local charities.

Well, there's an idea... contact me if you want to sponsor a box. I'll send it overseas in your name, how's that?

Stats

2008-11-04T18:21:00.001-08:00

Why are you here when you could be watching the election returns? Well since you're looking, may as well throw some Blankets for Georgia statistics at you...

Boxes of donations: 74
Total weight: 2,392.5 pounds (1,085 kilos)
Sample item tallies: 278 blankets, 278 coats, 394 sweaters, 136 pants

Now's the part where I negotiate with a shipping company to get this stuff overseas, which is what I've been doing for the last two weeks. We could still use funds-- it looks like it will cost over $2500 to ship everything, and we have about $1500 now. Help!!!

Box'd!

2008-10-18T18:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the helpful helpfulness of fellow Georgia ex-volunteer Lisa Erdeljon and her mom, my mom, and Dad & happy helper Judy, the vast majority of the blankets and coats and stuff have been organized into boxes. They brought a good bit of sorted donations and empty boxes down with them, so kudos to them.

Total so far: 50 boxes

Stuff remaining to be boxed: Not much

Project should be done: Soon

Ringo Says...

2008-10-15T16:12:00.000-07:00

... the project is coming to a close. I can't even fathom how I'm going to get the mountain of blankets we've already collected into boxes, and seeing as the original project end date was set for this past Monday, all the boxes will be taken down on Thursday or Friday.

Here to tell you about it is Ringo Starr. Sort of.

(That video made no sense to you unless you'd seen this video)

After we've got everything boxed and set, I'll post a final count, after which we can pat ourselves on the backs. Of course, we're going to be patting ourselves on the backs while a monstrous pile of blankets gets dumped in the river next April after sitting in an account-past-due storage unit all winter unless we get some shipping money.

A million thanks to the people have donated to the project already. The rest of you, take those faceless initials and town names as a shining example for us all. Wouldn't we rather bring smiles to the faces of hundreds of Georgians instead of a giant scowl to a fisherman who hooks a coat from the riverbed next spring?

Checking In

2008-10-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

Here's your second project update video. These'll keep coming as long as Mom continues to be fascinated by the video-editing capabilities of her Macbook.

The day after we filmed this (namely, today), we received calls from three drop-off points requesting a pick-up, and now there's a mountain of unboxed blankets and coats in the storage space piled next to the 22 boxes you see here. This is delightful, though we're still without sufficient shipping money... if you were waiting for your opportunity to donate until after I had started to feel creeping panic, then this is your moment.

We still need twice as much shipping money as the $850 we've raised so far, at least.

Give & Let Buy

2008-10-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

The title makes no sense, but I like the song it (loosely) derives from, so it shall remain. This post will give you a sneak peek at the generous local businesses that have contributed invaluably to the project; we'll also make our first foray into spending project money.

The Shipping Store, Wildewood Shopping Center
John Boyd, Owner

A big round of applause for Mr Boyd's generous donation of 31 brand new cardboard boxes to the project! He even drove them back to our house in his pickup. Cheers to you, sir.

Security Storage, Hollywood, MD
John Charles, Manager

Huzzah for Security Storage, who is allowing the Blankets for Georgia project to use a 10'x10' storage space for free! Well, actually, it's at the extremely discounted price of $1 per month. Huzzahs all around!

Here's some numbers so far, which would not have been possible without the assistance of the above businesses. Note: these numbers only represent what we've cataloged and boxed so far, and does not include the piles of stuff still sitting in our makeshift household storage room.

- 34 blankets and comforters
- 31 sweaters/shirts
- 30 coats/jackets
- 26 baby onesies
- 15 baby shirts

And a last note... as you can see on the right, we've raised $815 so far. There's a new list below that for expenses; so far we've had to purchase more shipping tape and a padlock for the free shipping space. Keep posted for updates there.

Update time!

2008-10-06T06:36:00.001-07:00

We're at the halfway point now in the blanket drive, and here's what's going on so far:

8 full boxes of donations
1 room half-full of donations that have yet to be boxed
$800 toward shipping

Huzzah! But keep it coming... $2000 is the goal for fundraising, which is the cost of sending a big load of boxes via freight to Georgia. Also, we'll want to have a big load of boxes to send, so keep throwing your blankets and winter clothes at us!

New drop-off point!

2008-09-30T19:19:00.000-07:00

Patuxent Presbyterian Church on Rt 4, just south of the Solomon's Island Bridge

Calvert County residents, I'm looking at you!

Locations Locations Locations

2008-09-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

Wanna donate blankets or winter clothes to our project? If it's not October 13th yet, then grab the keys to the nearest vehicle, or your STS bus pass, and head on over to one of these locations. Please note that only students and their families can use the schools as drop points...

Pro Fitness Gym -- Wildewood Shopping Center
Shoppers Food Warehouse -- San Souci Plaza
Great Mills High School
Leonardtown High School
Esperanza Middle School
Spring Ridge Middle School
Hollywood Elementary School

Also a reminder, financial donations are gladly accepted and will be either extremely or desperately needed, depending on how many blankets we end up with. Click on the Paypal Donate button on the top-right side of this blog, or send a check to the address I gave you in the last post.

And check this out:

Boxing Day

2008-09-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

We've got some new information about the project...

Timeline
Boxes will be out from Monday September 22nd to Monday October 13th; fundraising for the shipping costs will continue until all necessary funds have been accrued.

Locations
Next post, I promise! We're still securing all our donation drop-off points, and I want to make sure we get as many as possible.

Financial Donations
Sending boxes to Georgia via USPS costs $21 plus approximately $4 per pound, so for example, a 20-pound box would cost $90 and a 30-pound box would cost $125.

Please note that all donations and project expenditures will be recorded on this site so you can see where your money is going (see the donor list at the top?). Excess funds will be donated to the Georgian NGO Kartli XXI, as described in the previous post.

Let's rock this

2008-09-15T20:35:00.000-07:00

Care to join in on our little venture to get blankets and warm clothes to a pair of war-torn villages before winter arrives?

What we want: *Gently-used* blankets and clothing, shipping materials like boxes, money for shipping

Target: the villages of Tortiza and Mejvriskhevi, which were bombed extensively during the recent war; they are very close to Gori, the town that was effectively destroyed

Participants: returned Peace Corps volunteers (myself included) in the US and in Georgia, residents of the local village Kheltubani who act as fact-finders and contacts, the Megobari Project, Kartli XXI (an education NGO), donors of St. Mary's County, Maryland

Project Plan:

Serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Georgia for the last two years, I made a lot of connections with host family and friends in the communities where I worked, and I was received warmly by all my colleagues and neighbors. As such, it seems fitting that instead of blowing all my time watching Project Runway, it would be better to organize a drive to get winter supplies to Georgians in bombed-out villages before winter sets in.

With extensive publicity and multiple donation locations, we will collect gently-used blankets and warm clothes from donors in southern MD, as well as shipping money and boxes. By early October, all the boxes will be packed and in the mail, destined for the headquarters of the Megobari Project, an association of former Georgia Peace Corps volunteers who will store the donation until it can be transferred to an NGO in Gori which will distribute it to needy families in Tortiza and Mejvriskhevi. All leftover money from the shipping fundraiser will be donated to Kartli XXI to buy school suppplies for local children affected by the war.

How to Donate:

Very soon (check back here for exact date information, which as of now depends on the date that the local newspaper prints the publicity article) there will be donation boxes placed at a series of locations around St. Mary's County where you can bring blankets and warm clothing to. There will also be an address and a Paypal account where you can send money for shipping. Alas, the organization that returned Georgia volunteers are creating for the purpose of sending aid to Georgia will not come into legal existence until this project is finished, so my only option is to request that donations be sent to me. I understand that some people may not be comfortable sending money to an individual, but rest assured that:

1) I handled $3400 worth of grants in Georgia with nary a penny embezzled.
2) All monetary donations will be listed on this blog with amounts, unless the donor requests otherwise, and the shipping expenditures and Kartli XXI wire transfer transactions will be detailed here.

So watch this blog for the next week, and we'll get this project started!

Everyone needs a blankie

2008-09-12T09:03:00.001-07:00

Hello, all. You seem to have stopped coming to my blog, which is fine because I seem to have stopped posting. Thus, let's shift the purpose here: for the next couple months, this blog will be home to the project to send a donation of warm blankets and clothing to two villages in Georgia for the winter! I have yet to come up with a witty name for this project, though I did decide that if I ever ran a donation campaign of blankets for zombies, it would be called Bedspreads for the Undead (accent on the "un").

We're still in the setting-things-up phase, but check in soon for such extravagant features as...

- a list of donation sites where you can bring your gently-used blankets and warm clothing!

- a list of people and organizations who have donated money toward shipping!

- pictures!

- a detailed project description! which will definitely be the next post because it's rather important!

Stay tuned...

Back by Popular* Demand

2008-09-03T19:33:00.000-07:00

*by "popular" I mean "a"

Those of you who are hard core fans will remember this blog's tragic day back in February 2007 when a carefully-constructed and culturally-sensitive post comparing Borat to Georgia was censored by my ever-cautious employer, the US government. Well, guess what, US government? I'm not a volunteer anymore, and since you haven't responded to my State Department application, you don't own my soul anymore! Here's the post, restored to its former glory. I should note that I put a lot of effort into making it as kind and appropriate as possible, which made the censorship sting all the more. But bygones are bygones...

Borat vs. Georgia

The Sound of Impotence

2008-08-22T18:56:00.000-07:00

No, this is not going to lead to a joke about any political leader from either side. Rather, it's a reference to my impotence, sitting around in St. Mary's County, Maryland while unbeknownst to me, exciting things like pro-Georgia protests and rallies are happening in DC and New York. I could set up a pro-Georgia protest here, and maybe people would attend, but more likely it'd be just like that 9/11 candlelight vigil my friend and I held next to an intersection, with the occasional supportive beep from passing cars but little else. And don't make fun of me for holding a candlelight vigil; I was young and emotional.

It's probably for the best. I don't know if I'm the best person to have at a rally. You know how on South Park the reporters come by and ask members of the public for their opinion on an incident and they say something like,

"Well that was awfully unfair, but I can see that it was necessary."

And then the next guy says,

"It was very necessary. Though it might have been a bit unfair."

That's me, treading the lukewarm waters in the shallow end of the fervor pool. I'd love to be able to say "RUSSIA SUCKS!" without the echoing chorus of provisos in my mind... "Just the government, not the people. And they suck, but it's a dumb idea to be putting missiles in Poland and accelerating Georgia's NATO ascension, which seemed to be on indefinite pause a couple months ago. Wasn't there a reason for that?" et al.

Best to stick to specifics. If I were at the NYC protest tomorrow, I'd have a sign that says "RUSSIA OUT OF POTI" or "NO MORE CHECKPOINTS" or maybe "INDEPENDENCE FOR NORTH OSSETIA" or something like that. But I won't be. I'll be here in southern Maryland, healing my laptop that crashed (at least it was after Peace Corps) and listing Dad's various truck parts on eBay.

Even attending one protest-- especially after having attended NYU for four years without waving a single banner-- would ease my conscience, which leads me to wonder what it is that I'm doing that is bad in the first place. Not showing my red-and-whites on national TV? Not fundraising thousands of dollars to send back for the relief effort?

Back to Season 5 of The Wire...

Let's dance... the last dance...

2008-07-14T07:17:00.000-07:00

I may have just put the last two phone cards into my cell phone. It's not the most exciting landmark one could note, but it occurred to me as I was scratching the back with a 10-tetri piece.

Three days left, zero weekends left, zero days of class left, probably five or six Tbilisi metro rides left, one train ride left, two more chicken mtsvadi sandwiches from Ori Lula left, three nights in the host family's apartment left, et cetera.

I suppose this is a note to go out on... last Monday, the local newspaper published an article from an interview with me, complete with a nice-sized picture of me smiling. We spoke about me, about my sister, my job, and how to make hamburgers. Accordingly, across the top in bold letters is the title, "If I Fell in Love, I Would Marry a Georgian." The effect is rather like a personals ad. Good thing I'm leaving before the responses come in.

It's also on the front page as a tabloid teaser-- "If I Fell in Love, I Would Marry a Georgian... Page 5!"

In any case, Peace Corps is over. There were times when I would have loved to leave early, but mostly there were times when I knew no desk job could compare. There were times when I wanted to pull my hair out, but then the bell rang and school was out. There were times when I missed my friends and family, but there were (and are) also times where I feared for the impending departure of the last taxi full of my Georgia friends to the airport on July 17th.

I returned my water filter and said goodbye to my host family and neighbors. I swung by the houses of my counterparts one last time, fairly certain that they and their teaching styles are completely unchanged from June 2006. I sent text messages to my favorite students implying that I won't come visit them again if they stop studying English. I went on one last terrifying car ride, the driver squeezing between oncoming semis as the Geocell 2007 Christmas CD filled the July air with the sound of Jingle Bells.

And now, a clip from my other blog written April 17, 2006:

"I feel like I'm preparing to leave the planet. Every once in a while it'll occur to me that these are my last few weeks in the U.S. for a very long while, but most of the time the Peace Corps seems like a daydream I've been having, like it's not entirely possible that I've decided to ditch everyone I know and every cultural sensibility I've grown up with and every perk of strong economic performance (the nation's, not mine... clearly...) that I've become accustomed to-- to go hole up in a communications-isolated rural village in an ex-Soviet nation with spotty electricity and shaky governmental foundations. My little dream right now is that I'll be posted in a relatively-large city on the Black Sea (where the climate is warm and they grow oranges) with an Internet cafe or two. There's very little chance, but stranger things have happened. If all else fails, Squaw gave me a travel journal that I'm sure I'll spend many evenings crying into. What the hell am I thinking!?

Of course I know what I'm thinking: I'm thinking that in addition to the fact that I wouldn't get into any of the grad schools I want unless I have an application boost like this, the fact remains that the reasons I told the Peace Corps recruiter were true. I would like to represent the United States overseas in a non-combat, non-religious, non-elevated role, volunteering two years of my life to enhance a community, knowing that I probably won't have another untethered two years in which to do so for the rest of my life. It's a little different when you try to translate lofty ideals into concrete plans, though. I can't think of any other time I've tried to do something this crazy.

It won't be that bad. That's the difference between this trip and my trip to Cuba: I was prepared to burn through the 4 weeks and get my ass back home to my friends and family as quickly as possible. Result: weeks of abject misery. This time, the situation is quasi-permanent; any efforts on my part to try and speed up the process or to count the days until I leave will result in an even more deep-set and chronic misery. I'm sure there's people out there who hate the Peace Corps, those volunteers who get there and decide it's too hard. And I remember I almost thought Cuba was too hard, even though it was only 4 freaking weeks. But dammit, I stayed, and the Peace Corps will have to drag me out of Georgia by my hair before I'd quit (easy to say that now, huh?). I'm gonna teach English whether the kids like it or not, I'm gonna travel around the region with other volunteers, and I'm gonna retreat to my journal and mp3 player (think anyone will get me one?) to cry less and less frequently as I stay there longer."

Yay for me.

Goodbye, Georgia. Every time I see an issue of Us Weekly in a checkout line and every time I see a commercial for a Super Duper Grande Quadruple Greaseburger value meal, I will think of you fondly. Every time I step on the scale and every time a Georgian word passes my lips when I'm trying to speak Spanish, I will curse your memory. Much like the ups and downs of my Peace Corps service, it will balance out in the end.

P.S. Join Peace Corps.

Authentic Bulgarian Miak

2008-07-09T06:12:00.000-07:00

Mom said that my sister and I had to give our Eastern Europe extravaganza a name, and for this purpose we chose Authentic Bulgarian Miak. It suits the trip, partly because we intend to stop in Bulgaria for at least a day or two, but mostly because we've seen the movie that it references at least a hundred thousand times. Even if you are one of the ten people in the world who get the reference, you are still wondering why anybody would name a trip after that.

To update you (since I don't remember what the last post I made was about), my sister Sara has arrived in the great land of Georgia and is currently adjusting to this brave new world of supras and squat toilets. After my Peace Corps service ends (10 days!!! EEE!!!), we're going to mosey back to the US over the course of 4 weeks. Success will be defined as: 1) staying within $200 of our projected budgets, and 2) not killing one another.

So far, so good. She's been here three days as I write this, and we've seen Soviet model town Chiatura and country village Kheltubani. She prefers the latter, it seems, though this might be because the host family has made an inspiring effort to spend time together and to take us to ancient cave cities, both of which contribute to memories and culture and all that. In another show of culture, we did spend the entire day until 5PM staring at the wall and waiting for the heat to diminish a little bit.

As I write this, she's looking through the pictures we took today at the cave city and at Sioni, a 7th century church in the village of Ateni. She seems more delighted by the pictures of my host family's one-month-old puppy, but perhaps that's because there's no squeal-y equivalent for awe.

In any case, I will make a valiant effort to put forth at least one more post on this blog before I depart the country. I foresee posting approximately zero times during my four weeks in Eastern Europe, mostly because I won't have a computer.

And after that?

Well, I assume that most of the people who read this are travelers or wannabe travelers who enjoy reading about life in another culture. I also assume that none of those same people would be remotely interested in hearing Jennifer's Observations About New York, subtitled I Live in a Box. Nonetheless, I have come to the self-promoting conclusion that there must be someone out there who would benefit from a blog about the process of readjustment to America after Peace Corps. It should be interesting. But maybe it won't be interesting to you; should my hit counter slow to a crawl, I won't be offended. Just delete this page from your Favorites, and we can move on with our lives.

So this means that the next post-- my last post until late August-- should be about conclusions and What I Learned and such. We shall see; that sounds rather lofty and ambitious. To boot, it would really blow to end this era with 500 words of contrite fluff ("I learned that all cultures are beautiful!"). The suspense is killing me...

Why You Should Go to Sarpi

2008-07-05T05:15:00.000-07:00

This was going to be a list of the top ten places to visit should you find yourself in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, but then I realized that those places I'm not supposed to go-- breakaway republics, medieval fifedoms in the mountains, gorges that double as terrorist hideouts, etc-- might have made the list if they'd had a chance. So instead, I'll just describe one of the coolest places in Georgia really quickly, and then offer some links to blog posts about my favorite places here, and you can decide for yourself. Frankly, it's way too late in the game for me to start putting any "research" or "effort" into these posts, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Cool place of the day: Sarpi

Sarpi is the border town between Georgia and Turkey along the Black Sea coast ("Sarp" on Turkish maps). From the beach, you can see lines of semis waiting to drive through customs, two mosques, mountains, and-- some have told me-- dolphins. In fact, my friends pretended to spot dolphins the entire time we were there because they knew I'd whip around and drown myself in a desperate attempt to get a peek. There were no dolphins. My friends suck.

One cool part about Sarpi is the rock beaches. Yes, there are rock beaches up and down most of Georgia's coast, but rest assured-- they're here too.

Another thing: the water is clear. If you were considering a dip in the fetid oil slick that they call Batumi harbor, try taking a 20-minute marshutka to Sarpi instead.

It's sunny and hot, too. For anyone who still thinks that Georgia and Siberia are neighbors, I invite you to come sample their 90-degree weather this summer, which is a welcome departure from last year's 104-degree weather.

Also, the jellyfish don't sting. After a test application of the underside to our arms, we established that they were not painful, merely gross. While there were jellies galore the first day, there were minimal ones the next day, so maybe you'll get lucky and avoid the whole gelatinous debacle all together.

And now the other places you should visit:

1) Chiatura-- Former Soviet model town, now just filled with crumbling signs of USSR glory. And cable cars.
2) Ratcha-- Mountainous region on the border with Russia. Come see the nature!
3) Vani-- Destination of Jason and the Argonauts, with a museum to prove it.
4) Samtredia-- There's... um...
5) America

A Roject-Pay

2008-07-02T06:54:00.000-07:00

There's not much point in writing a before-and-after post for the project done by the 3rd school, since the dramatic transformation from GOOD to BETTER is not at all inspirational. Nonetheless, for those of you who are even mildly interested, here's a quick before-and-after series.

Exhibit A, the old teacher's desk. Exhibit B would be the new teacher's desk, except I forgot to take a picture of it. But it just looks like the computer desk, so picture that. Part of me wonders what my counterpart will clang her keys on now when she wants the students to shut up. Hopefully not on this desk.

In the first corner, a nook. In the second corner, the new nook. Did the mirror need to be there? Perhaps not. I've noticed that, contrary to my expectations, the boys are the ones who pause in front of it to fix their clothes most often.

On your left, our back wall. On your right, our back wall is completely obscured by the new shelves, which are the centerpiece of this project. You have no idea how many previously hidden books we discovered in the annals of the old locked cabinet that held them beforehand, including a book for children that introduces them to the reproductive cycle, puberty, sex, homosexuality, and abortion. I hope one of the kids finds it and starts a revolution of not pretending that sex doesn't exist.

There you go. I fear that the tone of this post has revealed too much about how I feel about this project, but there's not much to be done about that which doesn't involve deleting the whole post. I can't explicitly describe the rationale behind my negativity, but it has a lot to do with the fact that this kind of grant-based project is the only eason-ray why I was rought-bay oo-tay is-thay ool-schay, and I ope-hay at-thay ere-thay will ever-nay e-bay another olunteer-vay ere-thay.

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Wastin' Time

2008-06-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

Packing up all your belongings when you're about to move inevitably turns into a trip down memory lane. For some reason, I seem to have decided that an essential step in clearing out my bedroom involves flipping through every page of every notebook in search of... well, something important and untrashable. Thus far all I've retrieved of note is hundreds of doodles, one inexplicable sentence written in a corner ("I wish for nothing but absolute success."), dozens of countdowns to COS or my birthday or the visit to America, etc.

On the same page as the 134 Days Till COS, 19 Weeks Till COS, 4.5 Months Till COS countdown was a bulleted list of weird things I missed about America. Must have been written in March, and I'm reasonably certain it was written while I was staring at the wall as my counterpart taught the 4th grade class without seeking or accepting my assistance.

Did I mention that I'm not a teacher anymore? God bless teachers. Being a teacher has given me that extra boost to pursue a career in economics or international politics because those fields are infinitely easier. You couldn't pay me enough to be a teacher again, and your tax dollars don't pay teachers enough as it is. I was a teacher for a measly two years, yet if I had to have a conference with one more parent about why we're not teaching English the same way she was taught as a child (isn't that why you don't speak English now?), or why her child didn't get the highest grade even though he never came to class... enough said. Next time you see a teacher, run up and hug them. Unless it's that teacher who had a grudge against you in 10th grade because your older sibling goofed off in his class.

ANYWAY, in lieu of writing a blog, I thought I'd share with you the list I came up with while I was hard at work making countdowns and lists instead of teaching. I think I started with the intention of making every entry quirky and esoteric, but that theme disintegrated toward the end.

Things I Miss About America

- rest stops on the New Jersey turnpike
- chickens raised on hormone injections
- Netflix
- karaoke
- Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper
- unlimited subway passes
- Chinese lunch specials
- diners
- fishing with jumbo bloodworms because the regular ones were sold out when the legitimate fishermen came through the store three hours earlier
- taekwondo tournaments
- Cranium
- Q104.3 New York's Classic Rock
- Sheryl Crow's self-titled CD
- dogs on leashes
- manual transmission driving
- Dance Dance Revolution
- anonymity
- payday
- my violin
- Jeopardy
- No-Ad sunblock

The Hottest in Samtredia News Teams

2008-06-26T05:30:00.000-07:00

I guess this clip doesn't need much explanation if you read the post about the adorable 6th graders putting on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves at our school. It's a segment that the local channel, Zari, did about the event, featuring dance clips, play extracts, exterior shots, and interviews with Embassy and Peace Corps staff, as well as a fattie Peace Corps volunteer with an American accent that she hadn't realized was so coarse and obvious (Didn't even roll the R in 'Sakartvelo'! Who does that!)

Anyway, it's mostly in Georgian, but there's some English bits in there, so I recommend you watch it. At best, you can experience a little bit of our program, and at worst, you can laugh at me. Take your pick.

Pipkia and the Seven Dwarves

2008-06-23T23:44:00.000-07:00

The very last thing I saw of my precious school of two years was the Wednesday, June 4th performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, followed by a series of dances and songs. All in all, it was a good way to go out, most especially because nearly every number starred my precious sixth formers, though also because the best students from the eighth grade class made cameos, as did my host sister. It was like a series finale where all the old characters come back for one last hurrah, complete with a greatest hits compilation of dances they already knew but that they rehashed for the benefit of our honored guests.

Speaking of which, here they are. The volunteers on the right got the shaft, as usual, but from my left is the Peace Corps director, my counterpart, the Peace Corps executive secretary, and a foreign service officer from the Embassy. The school collectively peed itself when it found out that someone from the Embassy had accepted their invitation. A bunch of representatives from the city government and the local education resource center showed up, too.

Perhaps that's what led to the change of venue for this supra, from a chain of desks in our English cabinet to a rented-out restaurant. My counterpart pled in vain that the parents not blow their money on anything fancy, especially after spending so much on costumes and such, but nothing's too good for guests, as we realized when they brought out the second helping of ice cream, after the mtsvadi, khinkali, cake, pre-cake, khachapuri, mchadi, eggplant, cherry, strawberry, chicken, sulguni cheese, pizza, and tomato-cucumber salad with walnut courses had concluded. Please refer to what I said here about what I'd do if the community coughed up a big supra after pleading bankruptcy when we were searching for contributions to our library project. Nonetheless, it was impressive.

Snow White, like I said, came out in a most adorable manner, and the children were very put off by the manner in which I squealed every time I saw them in their cute little costumes. Here we have the seven dwarves, clothed inexplicably in neon green tunics, metallic red bloomers, and Santa Claus hats. The little kid hamming it up is my neighbor Robiko, who was so moved by his own performance that he and his friends spent the next day making a 6-part movie with their camera phone (p.s. which has better resolution than my camera-camera) about a thief who kills someone's wife and then is caught with drugs and killed by a policeman.

Check out this 30-second clip, their dress rehearsal rendition of the pivotal scene when they discover Snow White is dead and they kill the queen. Pretend that Snow White is playing dead instead of giving orders from her deathbed. Props to Doc Dwarf (the tubby one) and the Queen for their SAG-worthy performances.

The amazing success of the play was followed up by a series of poems and songs, ranging from Byron and Shakespeare to "Under Da Sea" and "Supercalifragilisticexpielidocious," to "Sway" by the Pussycat Dolls and the spiritual "Do Lord." Each was met with wild applause, or at least polite clapping.

Sensing that I had not made enough of an ass of myself, the children magically became littler and cuter, resulting in a performance of traditional dances from the region of Ratcha by the 3rd grade class. If I've uploaded the video, then you should check it out because: a) it's really short, and b) they're really short.

In the end, however, my favorite dance is and always will be the Ajaran dance, or acharuli (mayhaps atcharuli or ajaruli). Every kid in this video is my 6th grade student, and I had a big stupid grin on my face the whole time I watched them. I should mention that this video was taken during the dress rehearsal and that Robiko did not dress in street clothes for his grand solo at the actual performance. He also held an instrument in his hand instead of miming it.

Last but not least, the national anthems. They had learned "America, America" instead of "The Star-Spangled Banner," but being that the latter is full of antiquated language and has a more difficult melody (not to mention that it's about war and bombs, as my liberal friends would point out), we left it as is.

While I'm beyond relieved that the school year was over, I'm going to miss my students. It sounds lame, and perhaps it is lame, but they were the only reason I didn't switch schools. I hope I run into them a million times this summer, and I'm certain that I'll receive ten billion texts from them before July 17th. In the meantime, here's a series of pictures of them looking cute. If you like these 10% as much as I do, then it was worth uploading them. If not, I've wasted your time, and I apologize for being a groupie of my own students.

Coffee with Iconoclasts

2008-06-20T05:27:00.001-07:00

Like I mentioned earlier, it feels like some of my best and closest connections with community members are happening now, which is lame, frankly, seeing as I have 27 days left in which to cultivate these relationships. Today I went to the house of a new friend of mine who helped me in a project I worked on. I expected the usual coffee, cookies, and bland conversation about soap operas and the exploits of neighbors. Tatia*, if you're reading this, I apologize!

Background information: ever since arrival, I've been inundated with so many stories about how great life was during the Soviet Union in Georgia that I was starting to believe it (though perhaps not, if the testimonial of two people is enough for me to reverse everything I've been told by everyone else). I heard about how everybody had cars and central heat, how the schools produced a highly literate and cultural crop of little Marxistettes, how those who wished could hop around the countries of the USSR on the cheap.

One of the first things Tatia and her sister told me that made me sit up straight was that their father was a Soviet dissident who was sentenced to prison time in Siberia. Apparently he contracted an illness there that killed him soon after, but his legacy lives on in their house full of forbidden books, including a 19th century Bible in Georgian that he had purchased. It also lives on in the off-beat thinking that both of his daughters exhibit.

Side note: I'm not implying that because they agree about some things that this makes them more intelligent than others. Some things we disagree about-- such as whether Chinese people should live in Georgia-- but it's really nice to meet people who will feed me something other than the party line.

Here's a selection of surprising things that Tatia and her sister expressed (disclaimer: these are their opinions and not necessarily mine):

- If they were in Peace Corps and they could choose any country to work in, it would be Kenya.

- Bile-filled criticism of the effectiveness and integrity of a certain local public servant

- The only people who prospered during Soviet times were thieves, especially in Georgia which was the most corrupt.

- Georgia is not ready for US-style democracy; what it really needs now is small business development.

- It would be better if more foreigners lived in Georgia.

Et cetera. It made for fascinating conversation that resulted in my arriving home 3 hours late, despite the fact that my host father is in town and he expects me to be a good Georgian daughter who stays home and fetches him forks and napkins and ash trays when he asks. He returns to Moscow the day after tomorrow.

In any case, the point of all this is that there were very interesting, English-speaking (what, did you think I would understand a conversation about political dissidence in Georgian?) people living literally five minutes away from me and I piddled away the opportunity to make friends with them by... by... well, I don't know what I was doing instead, but it wasn't actively searching out friends in the community. Shame on me. Shame on me forever.

* Tatia's name is not really Tatia, but I changed it because it seemed like the thing to do.

Another Wedding Post

2008-06-17T03:46:00.000-07:00

We have a wedding next door tomorrow. Because some of my blog posts are being held up by my Samtredia-based inability to upload videos, I'm gonna have to write up another lame wedding post. However, since the general themes won't change much ("The bride and groom arrived... and then they DANCED!"), this post will focus on anything and everything that sets this wedding apart from others.

1) They made Jello.

Our fridge, which is plugged in for the first time in months, is full of large trays of Jello made from scratch. I didn't want to get my hopes up when I saw it; I told myself it was the icky jelly stuff that they use in making sandwich cookies, which turns out something like a vanilla-jelly-vomit Oreo. But no-- this is Jello. Made of gelatin. Sure wish I'd known they had that here... though what I would have done with that information is uncertain. Introduced them to Jigglers, perhaps.

2) The kitchen is full of cake.

When I came downstairs yesterday evening after reading issue upon back issue of Newsweek (provided free to volunteers), there was cake everywhere. Cake covering the sink, the washing machine, the counter space, the woodstove, and the fridge. I count 24 layers in all, and considering that a) There's only enough space in the oven to make one layer at a time, and b) They don't have baking powder here so they have to churn air and fluffiness into every batch of batter with raw arm strength. Few expressions stick in my mind like the stare of intense concentration and strain on my host aunt's sweat-beaded face as she mixed cake batter for New Year's.

3) They made creative use of power tools.

Someone had the inspiration to jam a blender fork into a drill. Since it was clearly jammed in and not part of some new line of culinary power drill accessories, I steered clear, but my host mom took the opportunity to drill her cake icing like nobody's business. Then the drill-blender punched a hole through the bowl in this picture a few minutes later.

4) There was a lot of food.

I guess that's nothing new. And it's not unrealistic to expect that 250 wedding guests will eat a lot of food (repeated question of the evening: "Do Americans have wedding supras like this?"). There's not much else I can say about that, but here's a few pictures. What world food crisis?

5) My host sister was the maid of honor.

My Student's Village

2008-06-14T06:58:00.000-07:00

Last evening, I gave into the pestering of one of my sixth-graders and went to visit her family in their village, the name of which escapes me now. We're off to a great start.

It was a lot less socially strenuous than I thought it would be. In the first place, while I expected to be surrounded by fifteen men pounding shots of kerosene/vodka, there was actually no supra that night. Instead, my sixth grader, her ten-year-old sister and I could sit back with a glass of dry red wine like cultured people.

The family also had a penchant for the traditional-- they made cornbread using clay pots that they heated over a fire, with leaves on either side of the dough to keep it from burning, for one thing. We also made a side trip to this old grinder thing. I suppose it has a more elegant name than grinder thing, but that's what it does. Water goes in, wheel spins, corn goes in, corn meal comes out. Magic!

Furthermore, the whole trip turned out to be a lot more touristy and enlightening than I expected. This is mostly because it was set in the exotic and historically-relevant locale of...

VANI!

Once you catch your breath, I'll explain. Vani is the "new" name for the ancient city of Colchis, where Jason and his Argonauts went looking for the golden fleece. These days Vani finds itself a good 50 kilometers inland, but back in the day, it was coastal. What's left of the sea is a large swath of flat land and a few rivers. To commemorate its over 2000-year heritage, there's a museum chock-fulla stuff dug out of the ground that dates back to the 8th century BC. This is, of course, bits of clay and bronze that look like they were handcrafted by 3rd graders, but the later stuff is cooler and more recognizable. Especially the gold, except for all the good gold items-- crowns, necklaces, the like-- have been bought by other museums in Tbilisi, Europe and America. I did see a 3rd-century glass bead shaped like a dolphin, which bumped this museum to the top of my list.

And in between riding around in a 1960s Volga and roasting meat on a skewer, I made a mental collection of quotes to put in this blog post. It has been suggested that living every moment for the purpose of blogging is lame, but with 33 days left, it's too late for me to change.

"I won't play the drums until I get really drunk."
- the hosts' 7-year-old son, explaining his musical shyness

"This is like a dream... I can't believe Jeni is in my village!"
- Salome, my 6th grade student, whose dreams apparently don't aim very high

"Are there beautiful places in America, too?"
- Nata, the host aunt, who gets cool props for being from Uzbekistan

Dear Trainees...

2008-06-11T23:33:00.000-07:00

Very, very soon, the new volunteers will arrive. If you're reading this, perhaps you yourself are a new volunteer who's in his/her last week before hopping on the plane to staging. I just received your training schedule from my training manager. You'll be in training for ten weeks. He wants me to help you when you arrive; maybe he'd like it if I taught one or two classes for you on safety and security, or on medical issues. Unfortunately, I can't help you.

I was once in your shoes. That goes without saying. I was absolutely terrified that I would be dumped in a remote village without any language or cultural knowledge; what seemed romantic and adventurous when I signed up was slowly evolving into a reality that scared me to death. I no longer had the inclination to travel to foreign lands, especially not if it meant leaving my family, friends and boyfriend for two whole years with no guarantee of regular communication. I feared that everyone else would be more prepared than I was-- that they had already memorized the Georgian alphabet, or that they were proficient in wilderness survival measures, or that they were all certain in their bleeding hearts that Peace Corps was the right choice for them and I was the only one who had any doubts.

I got off the bus and met my host family with the same sense of panic that you will have.

I sat in language classes for hours on end, like you will.

I pretended to listen to repetitive information sessions at hub day, just like you might.

I received my site placement with the same feeling of anticipation and anxiety that you will have.

So you'd think that I'd be in an excellent position to give you moral support in your time of monumental change. The problem is, I've been here too long. This is not to say that the reason I can't help you is because I know everything about Georgia; far from it. The problem is that I've forgotten what I learned. I don't understand when you ask questions about whether Georgia has snow, even though I asked the same thing. I can't believe you'd ask whether there's enough electricity to run a laptop, even though our group got 10,000 different answers to that question when we asked. It boggles my mind when you ask whether there's dry cleaning... well, come on. That's just stupid. But we asked that too.

Everything I say to you would sound negative and resigned, much as this post probably does. To me, it's just straightforward, but to you, it's pure, unadulterated cynicism, which an upcoming volunteer has no patience for. Nor should you. Who needs a cynical volunteer who hasn't even started working yet? Where would you go from there?

Thus, it is my recommendation that you ask the G7s for help. I noticed already that Peace Corps has been forwarding your emails to them instead of us; perhaps they had problems with G1s trying to disillusion the G3s. In any case, it's for the best. This, of course, doesn't apply to Sara, the volunteer leader who has transcended the label of G6 and become some kind of mega-volunteer who is all the assistance you'll ever need. But don't ask the other G6s. We may:

- give a condescending answer that begins with "some day you'll..."

- laugh

- respond with the number of days left in our service

Et cetera. I'm sorry for this; I truly am. I apologize in advance if I do happen to bring my COS-crazed mind into your vicinity. And just for the record, you could probably ask any departing G6 if they regret joining Peace Corps, and they will say no emphatically. So bear that in mind, and good luck!

Dry cleaning? Seriously?

A boring post about international relations theory that you shouldn't read unless absolutely interested

2008-06-08T05:35:00.000-07:00

After reading Chuck Klosterman, I would guess that most people retain some overanalytical effluvium in their brains for at least twenty minutes or so, which is where we find me now (side note: most of the quality books from the Peace Corps library have returned to circulation after spending months upon months holed up in the bedrooms of a few select volunteers who never even cracked open the cover, but never mind that). I imagine most people would take advantage of this temporary boost in insightfulness to debunk some of Mr Klosterman's views on the human condition, or to disagree with his position on the Celtics-Lakers rivalry of the 80s as representing Republicans and Democrats, but that has no place here. Not only is it irrelevant to Georgia, but it is so 2004.

And now onto something completely different: international relations theory. Feel free to stop reading now; you can always go here if you prefer a post filled with pictures. Before this starts, let's just put out a disclaimer that the author of this post feels that IR theory is totally and completely useless, which is why she turned down the offer of the Rhodes committee to study IR at Oxford for two stipend-filled years, even though they were begging and pleading at her feet. The problem with IR theory is the same problem with diets, in that one comes into fashion, is religiously followed for a few years, and then is found to be the cause of a whole new set of problems that can only be solved by a new fad diet or ivory tower political prescription. Atkins chokes up your arteries as it tries to cut your carbohydrates, neoliberal economic austerity measures kick your nation's industrial sector in the balls as they try to cut your debt.

The main question here is this: do domestic politics matter in international relations? And once again, seriously, if you're uninterested in international relations, you should stop reading now. Not kidding.

Anyway, what brought this up was the Georgian parliamentary elections last Wednesday. Whilst I was on house arrest for my own safety, the rest of the nation was casting their ballots in an election that was moved up from its original autumn 2008 date by a referendum in January. This was supposed to be a way for the opposition to have a chance to establish a significant presence in the Parliament earlier on so the president wouldn't have three seasons of free rein. To achieve this end, approximately four billion opposition parties floated their candidates for election. I nearly had a heart attack and died when the public votes supporting the opposition were scattered among multiple candidates, allowing the majority party to keep that title. Surely such a paradox has never before occurred, and perhaps we will never know the full reasons behind this phenomenon.

In any case, it brings us to a question oft raised in IR circles, or at least I assume that it is since I am not a part of any: do domestic politics matter on the international scene? First answer: God, I hope not. Domestic politics are inherently boring to me, as they're just one step closer to state senators and county commissioners wrangling over new bridge construction and zoning ordinances... which someone has to take care of, but that person is not me. Populist I am not. Second answer: Of course it matters. How could it not matter that the Georgian people can storm Rustaveli in the thousands whenever they want and trigger new presidential and parliamentary elections? Part of what got Misha into trouble last November was the perception that he was reacting to the wants of the international community more than the needs of his constituency. No president is an island, or something like that.

Reluctant answer three: Maybe it doesn't matter. As anyone in the US who has the misfortune to get into a Skype conversation with me will tell you, my life revolves around Georgia. OBVIOUSLY. But I still understand why people find it annoying. That same part of me that revels in the ups and downs of Georgian news, the part of me whose permission to leave Samtredia depends on whether or not the Christian Democrats have decided to protest in Kutaisi that day, can't imagine that none of this matters outside the border.

And of course, I'm not referring to whether it makes the news in the US because nothing makes the news in the US. My friend told me the podcast from his town's local newscast had a segment about the tornadoes that killed 5 people which was times longer than the segment on the earthquake in China and typhoon in Myanmar that killed thousands. To be fair, the Georgian news covers mostly Georgia, which makes me suspicious that perhaps in terms of square mileage of interest zone, the US wins. Are European networks spending 20 minutes on Hu Jintao's visit to Japan, or are they covering the events of four neighboring countries that are about as far apart as Ohio is from Maryland? I'm just saying.

I'm asking if it affects other countries when Georgia has a snap election. In this case, both snap elections resulted in a continuation of the status quo, so the answer is definitely no. But I wonder if anyone was waiting for the parliamentary election results with bated breath other than the guys who lost it. How does it affect the UK if the Labor Party gets a significant minority stake in the house? Does a blip go off on a radar at the NSA when the Georgian speaker of Parliament announces that she's stepping down?

Now that I'm writing this, I'm wondering if maybe the obvious answer I should have thought of before I started this post was that the Parliament/Congress/Duma/Diet elections don't matter to other countries unless the legislative branch significantly affects the power of the President/Prime Minister to decide. Great. Glad I spent 1,000 words reaching that conclusion. But it sounded academic and insightful for a while there, didn't it?

Maybe I don't like IR theory because I suck at it.

Teaching of Russian as a Foreign Language

2008-06-05T05:29:00.000-07:00

As the school year winds to a painfully protracted close, I had the pleasure of attending my first Ghria Gakvetili ("open lesson"), in which a bevy of teachers dutifully piles into the classroom of another school's language class and observes their compatriot giving a lesson.

You'd think the purpose would be to transfer teaching methods and demonstrate new ways to instill an education in the minds of the Georgian youth. Actually, an open lesson here seems to be no different from an open lesson anywhere-- it's an opportunity to show off what the kids learned and how well-behaved they are. Because of this, I was smothered in a cloud of my own cynicism and disbelief throughout the entire session, a condition exacerbated by the fact that it was a Russian lesson and I don't speak Russky.

The children all sat up perfectly straight, each in matching uniforms. They all raised their hands for every question, and none of them talked between questions. This is where I note that the entire lesson was pretty much a Q&A session led by the teacher, to the tune of: "What is this?" or "What are the days of the week?" followed by the answer, which was then followed by a repeat of the answer by five or six more students to check their pronunciation.

TEFL training taught us that the Soviets were really into teaching English as far as it pertained to perfect pronunciation, as well as the ability to read and translate well. Thus, many of the students here cannot hold up their end of a conversation to save their lives, but they have vast multi-stanza Byron poems memorized. Therefore, seeing the students stand up and recite answers that were clearly practiced beforehand was not at all impressive, and was actually really depressing.

However, there were some things to remember:

1) Their teacher is actually really, really good and exclusively speaks Russian at the lesson. While sitting there and not understanding a word, I concocted the theory that maybe she was conducting such a bland, Soviet lesson to please the parents and other schools' directors, and that as soon as we left she would divide the class into fours for small-group discussion.

2) The students had cute little red flags that they held up when one of their classmates made a mistake, and cute little green flags that they held up when they could offer a synonym to an answer their classmate gave. The red flags probably scare the speakers into thinking over their words for an excessive amount of time before voicing them, something that's hard to unlearn, but they were adorable.

3) Thus concluded the last Monday in which I will ever be in a Georgian school. 45 days left.

Before and After!

2008-06-02T07:08:00.000-07:00

Voila! Before-and-afters galore; you know that's the only reason you watch Trading Spaces and A Makeover Story every Saturday. Before you move on to the pictures (if you haven't already), just a quick yet sincere thank-you to everyone who donated and everyone who tried to but was thwarted by the speed and generosity of other donors who closed out the fundraising. By the way... remember this post from last year? Which resulted in this camp for ninety village girls across the country? Well, it's happening again this year, and if you find it worthy-- or if you can't sleep at night because of unresolved guilt over missing out on the last donation opportunity-- then head over here and shove $5 in their pocket.

Also, let me just make a proclamation here: this project flew just fine without my micromanagement. All of the micromanagement was done by community members, who were pinching every penny and analyzing every line item of the grant budget in a way that brought tears to my eyes.

The door locks and everything! Turns out that they used a room from a particularly secure floor (the floor where the computer room is), which has iron bars at each entrance, so the possibility of vandalism or theft is even less likely than I had feared.

One of the cutest parts of the first lesson in the new classroom was the second that my counterpart flipped the light switch, and all the students go, "Oooo!" It's not as monumental as if they had been mountain village children who didn't have electricity at home, but it was still an unexpected surprise to them.

Part of the project money went toward getting this CD/tape player, and part went toward the red Georgian-English dictionary you see here. Why, you may ask, did I decide to go all Sultan of Brunei and splurge on a CD/tape player when a simple tape player would have sufficed? The reasons are twofold: 1) It wouldn't have sufficed, since The Powers That Be in the field of English textbooks for Georgian schools are unaware that Georgia exists anywhere outside Tbilisi and Batumi, so they decided last year to switch the format for their listening accompaniments from tape to CD. Thanks for that. 2) The thing was only $50. Also note the small piles of paperback books about America, a donation from the US Embassy.

All the desks were replaced with better ones, all the chairs with better chairs, and the chairs, blackboard, and teacher's table were painted sky blue. It wasn't my choice of color, but it does provide further proof that this was a community-run project. In the end, it actually looks kind of cool to write on a turquoise blackboard. The window glass was replaced, too, and the walls were spackled and repainted.

So there you go. Perhaps this diptych would have been more effective if I had a handful of scrawny, depressed kids in the first picture, but you get the idea. They're happy to have a new classroom! They're happy to learn! There's a chance they're really happy because school ends in two weeks!

And lastly, to wrap everything up with a pretty turquoise bow, here's a clip from our first day of class in the new room. The students are filling in the words to a song blasting from the CD player as part of a listening exercise from the 8th grade book-- some grant money was used to purchase a set of listening tapes & CDs for the textbooks. Aside from the three uncooperative weasels who decided to continue to stare into space and do nothing even as the camera was rolling, things are looking pretty nice.

So pat yourself on the back if you did as much as sending good karma in our direction. We're done!

48 days left

2008-05-30T05:12:00.000-07:00

It's our obsession-- the countdown to our last day. My apologies, but expect future posts to contain nothing but numbers. I have a friend who calculated the amount of hours left until COS, but that's something I'm going to save for the 1,000-hours-left landmark.

Believe it or not, in between trying to stomp out the embers of the last few projects that are still going on, I have been writing blog posts. However, the internet cafe I frequent in Samtredia has decided that it would like to suck for my last month and a half, which prevents me from making any posts. I guess the only way around that is to come to Tbilisi four times a month... it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Future posts...

- Before-and-afters of this project, and also of another project that we didn't need your pity money for because we got some from USAID
- More anxious whining about a future of unemployment
- A wrap-up of our All-Star English performance on Wednesday the 4th, featuring special guests Embassy Staff and Peace Corps Staff
- More anxious whining about returning to America as a fatty

Hold your breath!

Tick, tock, tick...

2008-05-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

You know when you're standing on a beach and the water's getting sucked out just before a big wave comes in? That's what the run-up to Close of Service feels like now. Not only have we broken the two-month barrier (54 days!), but they've also given plane tickets to those who requested them and promises of cash to those like me who requested otherwise. Only time will tell whether the wave will rush delightfully around my feet or sweep me off balance and drive my face into the sand.

Some of last year's volunteers who've been home for about 10 months now say that it's important to take a breather before jumping back into the swing of things, i.e. getting a job. Apparently, life is pretty fast-paced over there in America, or at least that's what it looks like on TV. I may hole up in Dad's toolshed/bar (see picture) for six weeks and gradually make my way into America in stages, like STAGE ONE: Physical presence, STAGE TWO: Interacting with American social circles, STAGE THREE: Consider looking for work, STAGE FOUR: Do own chores, STAGE FIVE: Start paying for my own food, et cetera.

It's also time to start doing all the things that I've been putting off for two years, whether out of laziness or cultural sensitivity. Here's a sampler:

- Learning how to make khachapuri. My host mom gave my friends and me a run-down on how to create the dough this weekend, so check.

- Memorizing the verb "gadatzkvetileba." It took me two years, but I can finally remember how to say "to decide," as of last week.

- Answering the suggestion, "Stay here and get married!" with "No."

- Taking group pictures with each of my classes. Haven't done this yet, must do soon before they all start skipping in celebration of the last three weeks of school...

- Dumping all the clothing that I won't ever wear again with my host family or in the Free Bin at the Peace Corps lounge. Check!

- Responding to the group of boys yelling "F*** you!" with an obscene gesture. Probably not a good idea, but quite tempting.

So I guess all that's left to do is to watch the days pass faster and faster. There's a bizarrely enormous amount of school-related work left, which will ensure I enter a project-management trance until June 6th... actually, perhaps I'm in that trance now, and that's why it seems like May 3rd was yesterday. It all makes sense now.

Um, Cherries

2008-05-22T08:11:00.000-07:00

A quick announcement: cherry season is here.

Maybe you don't care. Maybe you live in a country where cherries are available year-round, or maybe you don't like cherries. To each his own.

I, however, have been waiting since last July for the next iteration of the Georgian cherry season. It gave me a break this year, falling a whole month earlier than in 2007, reducing the lag time between one beautiful cherry season and the next.

There's something about Georgian produce that makes it infinitely better than American produce. It's tough to say for sure if it's the growth hormones, genetic modification, and breeding-for-beauty that fruit in the States goes through. Frankly, I don't really care if any of those factors is going to give me a third arm or a 500% increased risk of toe cancer, but if every species of fruit all comes out tasting like the same brand of sugar water, then what are we living for?

I tried to explain all this to the woman who piled my kilo of cherries into a pink plastic bag. I don't think she cared. She took my two lari (~$1.35), asked me when I was leaving for America, and dumped a handful of sour plums in the bag for good measure, despite the following exchange:

Her: Do you like tkemali?
Me: No.
Her: Here, have some tkemali as a gift.

But I digress. All that's worth mentioning is that cherries are here, and I'm going to be spitting pits nonstop from now until July. That is all.

The Very, Very Last Conference

2008-05-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

Our Close of Service conference took place last week. It's one of those events that you always picture as far away in the future, until it's actually over. Now begins the stream of volunteers leaving the country, friends who I may never see again. Whee.

Thus faced with the premise of impending separation, not to mention unemployment for most of us, we did as many cheesy bonding activities as possible. Scrapbook pages for yearbooks? Why not! Compendium slideshow with soundtrack? Great! A series of short films starring volunteers and staff? Hell, yeah!

That last one is a lot more hilarious than it sounds, by the way. Or maybe you just had to be there.

And what is an end-of-service party without superlatives? I was the proud recipient of Most Changed and Best Georgian Speaker. Not the most hilarious categories, but still greatly appreciated. Others' certificates included Most Hair Loss and Should Have Quit But Didn't.

They even returned to us the letters that we wrote to ourselves way back when we were PCVs. Here's a picture of mine, followed by the Director's Cut of the text with commentary. In the interest of reader interest, there's no omissions here, even when I wrote things that were too personal for a work-related letter... for some reason. Note: while I draw this girl on every notebook and paper I have, this is a rare find to see her with black hair. It's also a collector's item because I don't draw the dog anymore, as she kicked the bucket last year.

Dear me,

So it's two years later. FYI, your goals two years ago were to start a taekwondo class for girls, to have essay writing classes for 11th and 12th formers trying to get to university, to emphasize creative writing in class, to participate in the Writing Olympics and Teacher Training, probably to do something with that computer lab, and generally to make it through two years in Georgia.

Strangely, check for all those goals. The girls' taekwondo classes were only during camp, but that totally counts, and the essay writing lessons I did for 6 weeks with the 10th form counts as classes (why did I think there would be a 12th form?). Oh, and I guess being the Writing Olympics director counts as participation. *haughty laugh*

Here's what I'm wondering: As I write this, the Nationals are having a crappy "rebuilding" season and they just traded away Livan Hernandez, though they kept Soriano. Did that work out?

No, that did not work out. The Nationals are in a rebuilding decade.

Did I visit America in July 2007? Am I still de facto with Victor or did I get over him? Did Mom come to visit, and how did she like grad school? Am I still trying to apply for the Rhodes? What grad schools other than Georgetown and Johns Hopkins am I looking at?

1) No, August, but close enough. 2) Depends on if you ask me or him. 3) No, but she liked grad school. 4) No, NYU hates me. 5) Yale, but not until 2010 at the earliest.

Remember your youthful optimism, you jaded 24-year-old. And improve your handwriting.

Love,
Jennifer

Jeni and the 12-Hour Supra

2008-05-12T07:27:00.001-07:00

Much in the way that my endurance for running is limited to 2/3 mile at a time (don't laugh), I had supposed that my supra endurance was limited to five or six hours at a time. All that changed this weekend, on Victory in Europe Day in the village of Kheltubani.

The cast of characters consisted of a motley crew of my former host brother's and former host sister's friends. Actually, perhaps motley is not the right word, as all the boys were bank employees studying English and all the girls were fashion-conscious students at Tbilisi State University, but so rarely can one use the word motley three times in one paragraph.

There was a warm-up supra the day I arrived, which was the actual holiday-- May 9th. The host family invited me while I was here for Easter a couple weeks ago, reminding me that May 9th is the holiday that Kheltubanians celebrate with gusto, since what is a village without its official holiday? The cast was introduced, some toasts were drunk, dancing ensued, and we went to bed seven hours later. Thus concluded part one.

The second round commenced at eleven o'clock the next morning. When we arrived upstairs for breakfast, the entire supra had mysteriously rematerialized, like a piece of cake in a cheaply-made cartoon that the character keeps eating but which never diminishes in quantity. No one was surprised except for me. The entire table was set again, and not in the manner that one sets the table for a morning-after breakfast supra, but rather as though a whole new supra were set to begin. As the only thing that can truly end a supra is when everyone falls asleep, an eleven o'clock start time meant trouble.

Even now, the next day, I have no idea why I am still alive and not clambering at the gates for a bus to Samtredia. The thing that kept the supra alive for me was the half English/half Georgian deep philosophical conversations that the bank employees were engaging me in. There were language gaps, of course:

Gio: And that guy, he's from Nine... Nine Muxa. Do you know what is Muxa?
Me: No.
Gio: Muxa, muxa. Hey, Boris! What is Muxa!
Boris: What in the hell are you telling her that you need Muxa for?
Gio: Vai, shen! So Jeni, Muxa is... is a big tree. And the pigs eat, it has the little rko. Do you know rko?
Me: No.
Gio: BORIS! What is rko?
Boris: You're a rko. Leave me alone.
Gio: Vai, shen!

After fifteen minutes, we established that Muxa is "oak tree" and that Gio was describing Alex, who is apparently from a village that translates to "Nine Oaks." They spent the rest of the evening referring to him as "Nine Oakeli" when they weren't referring to each other by bank name.

Giorgi: Pass me the eggplant.
Alex: Sorry, this eggplant is only for Standard Bank employees. The Bank of Georgia eggplant is over there.

The main conversation that sticks out in memory is a lengthy one about religion (sorry, Peace Corps). It was the first time I've taken the bait and gotten into a discussion about religion with a host country national, since it is a tricky subject, but even if Boris disagreed absolutely with everything I said, I still had a feeling he wouldn't raise up a torch-and-pitchfork brigade against my Protestant heathenism. Besides, it was all on a grand scale and didn't involve much in the way of personal beliefs, so it's okay. I'd like to thank Chris and Heather for popping into my mind when I needed counterexamples to Boris's wild generalizations, and Andrew Main for keeping me from making wild generalizations in the other direction.

Boris: Why do you live?
Me: Um. For my relationships with people, and to help people.
Boris: But how can you live for relationships? God created all of us, and we must live for him.
Me: I'm just saying that I want to change the world a little bit.
Boris: But what makes you think that you can change the world yourself?
Me: Well, obviously it wouldn't be noticeable, but I'd notice.
Boris: You Americans always think you should go around and change things. How can you change people's minds?
Me: I'm just looking to try and help resolve international conflict through negotiation, trade, things like that. Maybe if I'm part of the team that negotiates a trade deal between two formerly hostile countries, then 50 years down the road if they consider a formal detente or something, then I had a small part in that.
Boris: But how can you change the leader's minds? It's obvious to me that invading Iran is Bush's idea, and the American people don't agree. How can you change his mind?
Me: I can't talk about politics.
Boris: Fine. But why aren't Americans religious? Here, we live for God. 99% of Georgians are orthodox.
Me: There's religious people in America. Some of my friends are very religious.
Boris: Are they orthodox?
Me: No, Americans are mostly Protestant and Catholic, but there's also some Orthodox, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists...
Boris: But what I don't understand is that you all are not orthodox, if you claim you are religious.
Me: Are you saying Georgian orthodoxy is the one true religion?
Boris: Yes.
Me: I can't stand it when people say that their religion is the one true religion, especially when there's so little difference between them.
Boris: (smiles) I was waiting for you to make this point. Good for you. There are many big differences between Orthodox and Protestant. For example, in Armenia they think that God is one being, but in Orthodox we think he is two. Do you know anything about Orthodox?
Me: Not much.
Boris: Why are you against Orthodoxy?
Me: I'm not against it, I just don't want to switch over.
Boris: Why not? What do you have against it?
Me: Nothing!
Khatia: Why should she switch? You have given no reason.
Me: I'm fine with Protestantism.
Boris: But you Americans, you live without interest in religion, so why do you live?
Me: Did I say we were disinterested in religion?
Boris: Well?
Me: I guess it's more of a personal thing there.
Boris: And why don't you switch to Orthodoxy?
Me: My personal opinion? Remember, I'm not "all Americans."
Boris: I know.
Me: I PERSONALLY don't understand religions with lots of ritual.
Boris: (light bulb) Ohhhh, so you don't have problems with our beliefs, only with lots of rituals! You want a very simple religion!
Me: Um... sure.
Boris: I understand! Thank you for having this discussion with me. (shakes my hand) You're still the best.
Me: Thanks.

And then a couple minutes later, during the impromptu toast to Orthodoxy, Alex stood up and gave a toast:

"To God as you know him, whether Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic, Jew, or anything. Everyone has their own cheshmariti* and they should live it to its fullest. Gaumarjos."

* I think cheshmariti means "truth" or "certainty" or something like that.

So there you go, 23 months into my service and this is the first major productive philosophical exchange I've had with a Georgian. I think the conclusion Boris probably reached from our debate is that I'm too lazy to cross myself, but that's fine. The point is that there was no yelling or name-calling, and we soon got back to discussing things more appropriate for a supra:

Gio: Hey, Levan! F*** you!
Levan: Thank you!
Gio: (laughs, high five)

A Pause

2008-05-07T05:08:00.000-07:00

A fancier, more professional person would call it a hiatus, but that implies long-term. Really what this is is just a 5-day pause in blog posting, since I'm in Tbilisi with friends for our COS conference, and as it's the last time I'll be seeing a bunch of them, it behooves me to be social rather than to write insightful blog posts. Or uninsightful blog posts. So come on down again after May 13th, and there might be something new. Maybe.

Hippity Hoppity

2008-05-03T07:51:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was Easter here in Sakartvelo (and in a couple other orthodox places too). Rather than re-describe the traditions of Georgian Easter, I'll just offer you a link to this magnum opus from 2007 and then go on to write a picture-filled post about my weekend in the village.

1) Chicken Factory

This was the first I'd seen/heard of this kind of building, where you take a bunch of eggs, drop them off, and come back three weeks later to pick up your nicely-incubated chickens. The facility itself used to be a Soviet collective, so naturally it consisted of rows and rows of empty buildings that still somehow smelled like chicken poo.

The nice lady, who has probably been working here since Khrushchev, opened the incubator doors and showed us what kind of chick harvest they had sprouting. I found the uncracked eggs surrounded by baby chicks to be depressing for some reason. You usually don't think of eggs as alive, but those were definitely some dead eggs. It's the same effect that made me afraid to hold the container of eggs on the way in, since dropping the container would be like performing 50 little chicken abortions. I guess it's different when you know they're destined to be birds rather than omelets.

And as an added highlight, a picture of Stalin prominently placed. Uncle Joe lives on.

2) Frolicking in the Garden

First thing's first, my village host family's garden is massive. It's how they make their living, so I guess that makes sense, but I wasn't expecting the billion fruit trees we ran into, each of which they say yields 1-1.5 metric tons of apples. Dag, yo.

Inspired by the wavy grass and blue sky and all such spring shenanigans, we proceeded to take a thousand family photos. There's not much I could say about these without sounding like I'm giving a slideshow at a reunion ("And here's us next to the tree... And here's us in the tree..."), so I'll just stick a couple of them here as silent examples.

3) Pets

Their family has a cat and a dog. That's no big deal. The unusual part is that they adore both of them and feed them people food all the time. Here, an even rarer site: a mamakatsi (man's man) host father petting a cat.

And then there's Simba, who is at least part-German Shepherd, I think. Simba is one year old and enjoys nuzzling people with her entire head, soup, and barking. She has something most Georgian dogs don't-- a collar.

4) Jeni is Fat

An inordinate amount of time was spent this weekend in noticing that Jeni has gained weight since the time when she lived there during training. Fortunately, they were preoccupied with showing their neighbors pictures that show how their daughter (who is studying in Texas) has gained weight, but any mention of the daughter's newfound fattiness is inevitably followed by the descriptor, "She's probably the same size as Jeni now!" It's not rude, it's cultural. It's not rude, it's cultural. It's not rude, it's cultural...

The Doors

2008-05-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I don't understand my host family at all, and this is usually for cultural reasons. One of those incidents that highlights this discrepancy occurred this week, when my host family returned from Tbilisi followed by a moving truck full of brand new furniture.

It seems to be that furniture is a part of hospitality. It's the part of your house that presents itself to your guests, and of course you want only the best for their dinner plate, cosmetics, or booty. Most of the Georgian homes I've seen have an entire well-furnished room that is never used except in the case of a massive supra. Dozens of unused china sets and chairs, kept in immaculate silence around a fancy table.

Now we have one, too! Our formerly-empty room now has chairs, a table, and two massive mirror-backed cupboards. The host family assures me that the table is Egyptian, carved from a single tree. Perhaps that explains the price tag, which you might be able to make out here, just in front of the reflection from the chandelier (that's in dollars, by the way).

Side note: G5 PCV Mike Robie observed way back in 2006 that I was probably one of the only Peace Corps volunteers in the world who had been asked by their host family, "May we borrow your flashlight? We need to install the chandeliers."

To boot, my host sister now has her own bedroom, conveniently placed right next to mine so I can be kept awake until 1AM every night. Yay! I am happy for her that she has some independence, though, despite my new afternoon nap habit.

Where the cultural differences come in is in the fact that most of the door handles in this house fall off the doors if you pull too hard. Perhaps 10% of the doors in this house even close properly, and there's only one lock in the entire house that can be open and closed without struggling.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

When my host mother asked me how much we spent on our table in America, my family's plain Ikea table popped into my head. Having never purchased a table, I guessed that it was probably a few hundred dollars. I told my host mom that all our doors were functional back in the US, however. She nodded away my disregard for guests and resumed directing the placement of my host sister's nightstand.

So there it is. My host family thinks Americans have whacked priorities for caring whether their doors close easily more than whether their guests are comfortable, and I think my host family has whacked priorities for installing chandeliers while the bathroom door handle spends most of its time on the floor. This will stay unresolved until the end of time.

Choose Your Own Diplomacy Adventure

2008-04-29T07:38:00.000-07:00

Once again, it's Russia. A few alert and caring friends have forwarded articles about the latest situation and inquired as to the effects here on the ground. Rather than ignore the situation like I did the last ten times Russia decided to start some sh**, I thought I'd put some carefully chosen words down here about what's going on. However, it's important to portray all sides of the issue and not to let on where my opinion lies, since that's against Peace Corps rules. Here we go...

Russia (may have / absolutely did not) shoot down an unmanned Georgian spy plane over the airspace of a Georgian breakaway province. There's a video circulating that documents the attack, which was (obtained / doctored) by Georgian authorities. Georgia has raised a fuss about the issue, especially since Russia has built up troops near its border in an attempt to (protect itself / scare Georgia).

There has been a worldwide reaction, since the issue was taken straight to whoever (would listen / was Western-oriented), including NATO, the UN, and Condoleeza Rice. Even the three US presidential candidates, showing their (concern for new democracies / assistants' Wikipedia capabilities), released statements that support the territorial integrity of Georgia.

Despite the provocation, President Saakashvili delivered an address on Wednesday that calls for a peaceful resolution and the normalization of relations with Russia. He also called for discussions with the opposition parties about the issue in advance of the May 21st parliamentary elections. The opposition, sensing that his intentions were (self-serving, especially considering the timing of this "incident" / to accomplish something productive, and thus not of interest to them), has refused to participate, choosing instead to concentrate on (campaigning so they can hold a parliamentary majority against the over-powerful president / holding protests every ten seconds).

To me, this doesn't feel as severe or threatening as the time last year when (Russia / Georgia) dropped a bomb on an empty field near Gori, or the year before when a Russian helicopter (did / didn't) shoot up a field near the breakaway province of Abkhazia. However, my host family and my counterparts seem to be more worried this time around than last time. It's clear that (they know something I don't / they like to worry about things).

In any case, we'll see how it goes. (No one / Everyone) I've talked to seriously thinks that Georgia would take Russia on, seeing as Georgia would obviously (receive massive military assistance from NATO / lose). To tell the truth, though, all everyone involved really wants is (peace / land). With any luck, (cool heads / I) will prevail.

Oh, by the way-- it doesn't at all matter when placed next to the aforementioned conflicts, but to be evacuated from Peace Corps Georgia at this point would really, really (suck / blow).

Aww

2008-04-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

In just a few words, before we return to our regularly scheduled posts, I'd like to use this blog to congratulate a certain bald friend of mine and his Texan girlfriend on their engagement. I feel like this is a necessary step, seeing as I just wrote a giant post about the multitude of faults this bald man has, since the fact that someone as good as Paige has thrown in her lot with him suggests that perhaps my masterpiece did not tell the whole story.

Paige and Ryan in an amphitheater.

We thought they'd get engaged back during their two-week vacation in Paris over Christmas, but you know what they say about Tbilisi-- the City of Love. For reasons as yet unclear, Mr. Nickum chose to propose to her in the quaint, cozy loveliness of Old Town, rather than in the Peace Corps hostel. Don't laugh; that's where everybody else gets engaged.

Paige and Ryan in Samtredia.

I don't think it's an overstatement to say that their engagement has restored my faith in marriage (not to put any pressure on you guys or anything). After two boyfriendless years of turning down unwanted marriage proposals, you could say that the idea of relationships and weddings had taken on a rather noxious, festering, enslaving, life-ruining picture in my mind. Then along came Ryan and Paige, bringing light to the world like a halogen bulb reflecting off Ryan's head.

Paige and... wait a second...

Side note to my engaged friends in the US: Don't worry, your engagements will brighten my life, too, but it's just that the effects are somewhat dulled by our 6000 miles of separation and the fact that I'm e-hearing about your relationship developments by e-mail. 83 days, guys!

In any case, one last gilotsav to Ryan and Paige! You can find their views on this latest turn of events here and here. That is, if you don't trust my version, or you find my blog insufficient. And thanks to Google Analytics, I'll know who you are if you click from my blog to theirs. And I will find you.

4 Hours of Mind-Blowing Entertainment

2008-04-24T07:31:00.000-07:00

I've just arrived home after a long morning of student language presentations at the eleventh school, which offers four foreign languages-- French, German, Russian and English-- for four times the lengthy annual language show! Four times the poems! Four times the skits!

Here's a brief rundown of the highlights you missed while you weren't attending:

10:00 Spectacle is slated to start.
10:10 My counterpart and I arrive.
10:15 The women next to me say that I stole the director's chair. I tell my counterpart, who tells me to ignore them. They insistently pull at my arm and talk among themselves about how rude the English girl is.
11:05 The spectacle starts.
11:20 The French students begin with a dance between a boy and a girl that seems somewhat sensual, but no one else looks embarrassed. Perhaps the audience is certain that two little 14-year-olds couldn't possibly be aware of the sexual undertones of their movements.
11:35 The French poems begin. Funny, the dead, vacant look of incomprehension in the students' eyes is the same one the English students wear as they read the homework that their tutors did for them.
12:10 Ze Germans take advantage of their country's musical tradition to throw some Beethoven into the presentation. I approve, especially since it's Moonlight Sonata on piano and not on synthesizer.
12:25 The English part of the program starts. Or maybe it's still the German part... I can't really tell.
12:35 First-year English students begin their rendition of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. I disapprove of making first-year English students learn the words "wherefore" and "thou."
12:40 A few students recite poems by the Georgian poet Galaktioni which were translated into English. To my counterpart's delight, she realizes that they're using the translations that her aunt published in Tbilisi. Her criticism of the school's language programs, students, hallways, et cetera cease.
12:45 The Russian students come out and speak with a fluidity and fluency that puts the first three programs to shame. Apparently, their Russian teacher is actually a Russian, which helps.
12:55 A boy in Georgian clothes and a girl in Russian clothes dance for the friendship of Georgia and Russia. It was actually kind of cool, since they each did the traditional dance of that country, but with each other. Usually it's heresy to mess with a traditional dance.
1:05 Now that the students are done, it's time for 100 people to get up in turns and say how great the students are and how great Georgia is and how great the teachers are and how wonderful Samtredia is. Anyone who wants the microphone can come up and take it; anyone who thinks they haven't gotten the attention they deserve during the last 3 hours can make themselves seen and essentially repeat what the last person said. There's a phrase for this that I don't think would be caught by Peace Corps censors, but I do think Mom would disapprove... the first word is a round shape, and the second is the insulting name that Uncle Frank calls Kevin in Home Alone when Kevin dumps milk all over the plane tickets.
1:20 Think you're leaving? HA. Supra time!
2:15 Thanks to the magic of someone having died the day before, the supra is cut short so people can go pay their respects. The End.

I know. You're all jealous.

Laughing at Students

2008-04-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

Everyone likes to laugh at the mistakes of others. Here's some English mistakes that my students have made over the past two years which are particularly dirty/entertaining...

1) He has on blue pants and brown sh**.

This is why we shouldn't teach British English: the kids have to make the R disappear from "shirt" ("shehhhht"), but they sometimes do that a little too successfully.

2) She is my lover teacher.

Call the cops? No, this student is confused because Georgian uses the same word for "lover" and "favorite." I didn't really pick up on this until one of them wrote about their friend's father having two "favorites."

3) I poured oatmeal into my bowel.

Just a mispronunciation, but it leads to the least appetizing mental picture ever.

4) I was fart of a singing group.

She means "part," of course, but the whole entire year she kept saying "fart" despite my alternating giggles and scolding. Some Georgian children confuse P and F because the letter F is used in text messages for the Georgian soft P, while the P is used for the hard P. A lot of fart, farents, haffiness and such results.

5) Do you like cock?

You might wonder why this isn't bleeped out like the first entry was. WELL, it's because this is not a mistake, except for on the part of the books that are ignorant of the better word, "rooster." Drop your articles, and you have a very forward inquiry, indeed. See runner-up: "I have a large, nice cock." ROOSTER, children. ROOSTER.

And lastly, my favorite...

6) We go to the seaside and get ****anned.

This one was written on the board by a student and then read aloud by my counterpart, much to my chagrin, but I really can't write any part of it here. To form this nonexistent and extremely dirty-sounding word, you should know that the word the student is looking for is "suntanned." You should also know that they learn Russian from the second grade here, and sometimes they confuse the Russian and English alphabets. In the Russian alphabet, the "s" sound is made by the letter C. See where this leads?

The Big 2-4

2008-04-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

With the uneventful yet enjoyable passing of my 24th birthday, I've decided to take a quick look back at the changes in perspective that come with each passing year in Peace Corps, from the blind ignorance of age 22 to the jaded cynicism of age 23, now being replaced by the contented enlightenment of age 24. Maybe.

Here's a helpful, informative chart:

(22) Tomatoes and cucumbers for lunch? How foreign and exotic!
(23) Oh good, this again. Let me guess—a side of cheese?
(24) When will tomato and cucumber season get here?! I’ve got a hankerin’.

(22) This school will be transformed by my hard work!
(23) Nothing can save this school.
(24) I’ll teach the kids who want to be taught.

(22) Khachapuri—the word just rolls off your tongue.
(23) No, I don’t like khachapuri. Stop asking.
(24) Where will I find khachapuri in New York?

(22) I’m going to get married when I’m 27 or thereabouts.
(23) I’m going to get married when I’m 60 or when someone puts a gun to my head.
(24) I’ll get married either when I’m good and ready, or when I want to go gold digging.

(22) There’s no “right” or “wrong” when it comes to cultures—just differences.
(23) Everything here is wrong.
(24) Everything everywhere is wrong.

(22) Georgia is a land of mystery and enchantment.
(23) It’s funny how things become so commonplace when you’ve been there a while.
(24) How have I still not been to Vardzia and Signaghi?

(22) It’s gonna be so cool just to rough it for two years!
(23) You know what would be good right now? Netflix.
(24) I may be fooling myself when I say that I’ll line-dry my clothes when I get back home.

(22) Those little boys are talking to me. How friendly!
(23) Those stupid street kids are swearing at me again.
(24) Those street kids are swearing. 93 more days.

Happy birthday to me…

Look! I have friends and a birthday party! It's not all made up!

The Chiatura Mini-Documentary Series

2008-04-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

Nothing quite portrays life in another country like a video clip does. Yessir, it's that special blend of audio, video and subtitles that shines a new light on all aspects of a situation, while simultaneously scaring off blog visitors who'd rather not waste their bandwidth on that kind of multimedia crap. If you find yourself reading this using a broadband connection, however, maybe you'd like to watch one of the clips below from Chiatura (see this post and this post), none of which runs more than a minute and a half. If you only choose one, go with the first.

This is a clip of what it's like to ride the air gondolas in Chiatura, a town which is situated in a gorge and whose angular setup necessitates this skilift-esque transportation option. This particular gondola is the manganese miners' gondola, which is the rustiest, creepiest, and steepest one. Mom, you may want to wait and watch this one after I'm safe at home.

Here's a short introduction to the Pioneer Palace. I talked more about it in one of the posts linked above, but 90% of you were not yet reading this blog when that was up. Complete with cliffside view of Chiatura and the charred, crumbling echo of communist idealism!

And lastly, an illustration of how far volunteers' health standards have fallen. I'll give you a hint: it involves spaghetti and bathwater.

8 Facts About Ryan Nickum

2008-04-11T07:31:00.000-07:00

Despite our many months of service together, one Ryan Nickum got it into his head to write a slanderous blog post about his dear friend Jen. Now that all his friends hate me, it's time for the truth to come out about Ryan Nickum. Since he began his blog entry with the worst picture he could find of me, I shall do the same with this shot of an apparent brain aneurism in progress.

Now, here's several facts which were inaccurate or omitted from Ryan's post:

1) Dimi was a hotbed of English fluency before Ryan Nickum arrived.

During his pre-service interview, Ryan in his infinite laziness insisted that he be placed in a site where all the children already knew GRE-level English. Fortunately for him, such a site existed in Dimi. Upon his arrival, dozens of children rushed to greet him, shouting in unison, "We welcome you and embrace the practical simplicity of your modern teaching methodology!" After three months of Nickum reign, only twelve percent of students could spell their own name.

2) Ryan Nickum wears the same plaid shirt with pearl buttons every day.

Several volunteers have asked him why he refuses to change his clothes. Some theorize that he likes the faux-midwestern appeal of a plaid shirt, especially when paired with a ragged TWA hat, and that it takes him back to his days of burning cars at WTO protests and throwing rocks at the windows of his local Starbucks.

3) Ryan Nickum is bald.

It can never be said too many times. He may, in fact, have mentioned it in his own post, but it still needs to be said.

4) Ryan Nickum cares more about beer than about Paige.

Countless are the canceled dates and postponed evenings that poor Paige has had to face on account of her boyfriend's love affair with Natakhtari. She has tried to leave him repeatedly, only to be drawn back in by his heartfelt pleas that he'll give up beer for her as soon as they arrive in Seattle, where the temptress Kazbegi will have no power over him, and where he'll only have to resist the weaker pull of microbrews.

5) The person who smudges Ryan Nickum's glasses is Ryan Nickum.

Never in my entire life have I used my fingers, forehead, or nose to put oily smudge marks on another person's glasses. I find it disgusting and completely disrespectful to obscure the vision of someone who requires glasses to see; it's no better than distracting a seeing eye dog. As someone who wears reading glasses occasionally, I sympathize with the victims of glass-smudge attacks, and the fact that Ryan Nickum would stage something so abhorrent on himself just so he could blame it on innocent bystanders is despicable, frankly.

6) My life has been threatened repeatedly by Ryan Nickum.

Knives, guns, strangulation, poisoning... if it kills people, then Ryan has threatened me with it. Perhaps he can't stand the idea that his long, winding life is in its sunset years while I have decades left to explore the Earth.

7) Ryan Nickum is a liar.

He insists in his post that I'm derisive of his writing skills, despite the fact that he researched and wrote an entire 365-day desk calendar called "This Day in Bald History" (see #3), because I'm a published author. Well, Mr. Nickum, if I'm a published author successful enough to be criticizing others, where's my best-seller? Or, let's top that-- where's my royalty check, hmm? I didn't think so.

8) Ryan Nickum omits anecdotes that are very embarrassing in favor of ones that are only a little so.

He decides that the time I made ten kilos of disgusting fried rice is more shameful than the time I made guacamole with unpeeled avocados, bearing in mind that avocados are highly rare and expensive here, and that our neighbors' friends had brought those avocados all the way from Israel so that they could be mangled by my expert hands. What's with that, Ryan?

I think I've made my point. Take both of these blog posts into consideration before you form any judgment on myself or Mr. Nickum, though you will probably come to the conclusion that neither of us wins this battle, since blog battle decisions have little precedence. And also, if you find yourself interested in the Georgia-related musings of a bald, smudgy-glassed murderer, then you'll enjoy this link.

A Place for Honey

2008-04-09T07:23:00.000-07:00

It's not often that we get to go see something completely new in Georgia anymore. Sure, there's always one more 6th-century church, or yet another healing mineral spring, but unless you're an architect or a springologist, you probably can't tell much of a difference after the first ten or so have gone by. It was with this mindset that a group of volunteers finally mustered the willpower to take a ten-minute taxi ride from their site to a point of archaeological and spelunkerific interest.

Sataplia-- "a place for honey" (though I saw no honey)-- is located ten kilometers from the city center of Kutaisi, or so the 10th form English textbook tells us. Its two primary features are a cave and dinosaur footprints, two distinct attractions in the category of Naturalists' Paradise. Having been to so many aforementioned mineral springs and churches, we told ourselves to expect an afternoon of mild interest, the kind where you take pictures just for the sake of it and then delete them afterward.

First stop: the cave. Clever, jaded travelers as we are, we strode straightaway to the trail down to the cave, ignoring the protestations of the charlatan Sataplia employee who insisted that we needed a guide. Having successfully navigated the paved path to the cave entrance, we realized that the door was locked and it was thus necessary to wait for the guide. Our plan to ditch him as soon as the lock unclicked was undone when we noticed that the interior lights installed in the cave were nonoperational, and we would need someone to walk ahead of us and lower our chances of getting stabbed in the eye by a stalactite. He didn't even end up charging us anything, which only proves that we know nothing about Georgia.

Turns out that the cave was really cool. We lit our way with light from our cell phones and with camera flashes. Sataplia cave amenities include a small waterfall, stalagmites galor, and according to the guide, the world's largest heart-shaped stalactite. We didn't doubt it for a second. Take that, Luray Caverns!

Being Peace Corps volunteers, we took a break after the cave excursion to relax in the woods on wooden benches and unpack a picnic from our Kelty backpacks. Our lunch was catered by Populi (remember this post?), which makes me wonder why I chose nuts and raisins like a hippie while the others had fried chicken.

Next up: the dinosaur footprints. The most noticeable aspect of the footprint area was that it also contained a Soviet footprint-- acres of concrete. The fence was open, so we stomped around on the marked footprints, certain that future chances to legally disturb archaeological sites would be few and far between. It was a leap of faith to trust that the labeled footprints were genuine dinosaur prints, while the unlabeled ones were accidental indentations in the concrete, since they all looked the same. I wonder what led the Soviets to see a plain of fossilized footprints and then to decide that what it needed was a flood of concrete to give it that historical touch. In any case, it was lame.

Thus concluded our sojourn to Sataplia, and thus disappeared another entry from our list of unique things in Georgia left to see. I still have high hopes for Signaghi, a renovated town in the far east of the country with a French restaurant. There's also the breakaway republic of Abkhazia, but once passports start getting stolen, I think the line between tempting and forbidding has been crossed. Maybe South Ossetia is where it's at...

Superior Post 100!

2008-04-04T01:31:00.000-07:00

If I had been posting every other day, then this hundredth post would mean that I've been in Peace Corps for 8 months. But that's not the case.

And if I had been posting twice a week, it would mean that I've been in Peace Corps for almost a year. But that's not accurate, either.

As of this one hundredth post to this Peace Corps blog, I've been in Georgia for nearly 22 months. Unbelieveable.

Perhaps the time to go into all this would better fall closer to the close of service, but it's doubtful that such an auspicious post number will be reached again before I leave. Maybe the blog will enjoy a brief afterlife as a chronicle of the day-to-day existence of a returned volunteer, a shadow of its former culturally-enlightening self, but that's like celebrating the 150th episode of X-Files when you know that the series should have ended a whole season earlier.

Much has changed between post 1 and post 100, and not only the quality and length of posts. Most of this "much" is pretty obvious, and probably too cheesy and personal to go into. Instead of making a giant list of cheesy, personal changes, I'll just go ahead and mention the cheesiest, most personal change in the hope that I can hang onto one or two readers through the end of the paragraph, bearing in mind that I'll leave out pretty much every detail and unnecessary word that I can. No adverbs, I promise!

This week, I ran a project design workshop for a group of the new volunteers, most of which with I had only a passing acquaintance beforehand, and I managed not to spend a single second hiding alone in my room. 22 months ago, I was petrified that I would pass my Peace Corps time completely devoid of friends, except for a select couple who I'd attach myself to like a barnacle. This was an improvement over freshman year of college, when I would leave my room ten minutes before my roommate arrived so it wouldn't look like I'd spent the whole evening inside alone, and even more so over high school, when I went an entire year without saying a word in Civics class because I didn't know any of my classmates. I suppose the one word that sums that up is CONFIDENCE! I suppose that another phrase of summation would be NO LONGER A PSYCHO! Told you it was cheesy. But you read anyway, didn't you. Which means I win.

Lame Post #99

2008-04-04T01:28:00.000-07:00

So the only post I brought with me to put up here was one entitled "Post 100," but to my chagrin it's only time for post 99. I suppose I could BS something about last week's project design conference, or I could make yet another reference to my impending close of service, but instead I'll just put this lame little placemarker in with a promise to post something better on Sunday. If not better, then at least more.

Goofus and Gallant

2008-03-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

This morning, I had an interaction with a Georgian man that could either be underanalyzed or overanalyzed, depending on your imagination. Let's take a look at both possible explanations and then choose the more accurate, less insane one.

First, the scenario: I'm at the stadium running. They don't let normal people onto the track, so I'm running along the sidewalk around the outside. I've got my headphones on, blasting some tunes from my state-of-the-art cassette player so that I don't have to interact with any of the many Georgian men, who are casually strolling around the track at the same time (perhaps a post is in order about the Soviet definition of "exercise," too). One exhausted mile later, I pull my earbuds from my ears and go to retrieve my jacket from the trunk of the tree where I've hidden it so it won't be stolen, when one of the Georgian men calls me over, and the following conversation takes place:

Man: Girl, why are you running the wrong way around the track? You're supposed to run counterclockwise.
Me: I don't know. (leaves)

Actual reason why I was running clockwise around the track-- because it minimizes my interaction with strangers to a few fleeting seconds as I pass them on the left, instead of a protracted minute or so as I catch up and then breeze by. But I couldn't tell him that, could I?

The main thing that bugged me was the question in my mind of why this guy cared which direction I was running in, considering that I was the only one running and I ran off the track to get out of the way of the walkers when I crossed in front of them. I came up with two explanations...

1) This is yet another holdover from Soviet times, the psychology that "the man" is watching and he's going to get you if you so much as sneeze without permission. This Georgian man obviously thinks that everyone who uses the track must strictly follow the rules of track & field, wherein all runners proceed counterclockwise around the track. He seems to imply that a representative of the Central Committee is going to find me and give me a citation for violating the orderliness of society with my reverse running habits, stirring up all sorts of antisocialist ideologies in the minds of those who watch. It's the same syndrome that causes my counterpart to write false dates on tests so it looks like we held them in strict accordance with the Ministry's educational guidelines.

2) The man saw that more runners were coming to the track and that I was getting in their way.

Which do you think is more accurate? Goofus blames all disagreements on the inferiority of the cultures of others. Gallant takes time to understand his opponent's point of view and acknowledges that he himself may have been at fault. Jennifer falls somewhere in the middle.

One of Us

2008-03-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

The first fact that any traveler to Georgia will carry away with them is that Georgians love to make toasts, something that (strangely enough) came up in the toast post. The tradition of toasts is deep-seated, and even if the order of toasts varies from region to region, certain orders of business do not.

- No sipping wine between toasts

- Toast to the dead must be drunk to the bottom

- The merikipe must fill your glass before you toast, even if you only pretended to drink the last one

- Toast with your right hand only

- Never toast with beer

As you may be aware, the beautiful cultural idiosyncrasies of a nation become commonplace when you live there for a while, unfortunately, and in the case of toasting rules, somewhat oppressive. What if the wine's really tasty and I don't want to chug it like it's a PBR? What if I was in the middle of watching an episode of The Wire when I was called down to the supra and I'm just looking for an exit toast?

So you can imagine what the volunteers dream of when they think about dinner parties with Americans. I'll give you a hint-- it's the same thing the huddled masses dream of: FREEDOM. Freedom to drink with whatever hand is closest to the cup, freedom to drink something other than wine, and-- most importantly-- freedom not to toast. Freedom to sip!

The identities of Americans with drinks have been concealed for their protection.

Then, like dogs who stay in their cage even after the door is unlocked, we toast at our dinner parties. It just doesn't feel right without it. We even keep up the right-hand rule, although occasionally we toast with beer. Someone told me the Georgian tradition of toasts is not (or didn't used to be) about getting the party-goers drunk, but rather about keeping the table unified and giving each supra a progression rooted in the subconscious of the attendees, knowing how far along they were in the evening and how much further they had to go. A skilled tamada pulls those at the supra out of their side conversations periodically, reminding them of the purpose for the party and connecting each person with all the others at the table.

This is just one example of the way pieces of our minds have become Georgian. There's also volunteers who offer snacks to visitors and won't take three no's for an answer, volunteers who use phrases like "He studies well" and "When I was at university," volunteers who crave khachapuri, et cetera. And in 115 days, we'll return to America and be the very model of a model Peace Corps weirdo who's completely disconnected from their own culture. I have no problem with that.

Won't you be... my neighbor

2008-03-25T07:29:00.000-07:00

What with my blind focus on July 17th, I'm finding it difficult to be inspired by the Muse of Georgia when writing these blog posts. Rather than write yet another entry about my job search or my broken mp3 player, I thought I'd go for a change of pace and describe an aspect of Georgian culture for once.

Randomly selected topic: neighbors. Or as they would write here, "neighbours." They would really write "mezoblebi," or if they were my English students they'd probably write "naibers" or "niebores," but you get the picture.

Here a neighbor...
Our neighbors may as well live at our house. Without fail, an army of neighbors descends upon our humble abode at exactly eight o'clock in the evening, which is exactly the time that "Mientras Haya Vida" comes on TV. Sometimes they bear snacks, usually they just bear gossip. They watch the show intermittently, in the moments where they're not discussing how much weight Mediko's daughter has lost, and then they leave an hour later to a chorus of "What's your hurry?" from my host mother.

There a neighbor...
There's no phone call of warning, either; they just stride right in. This is fairly universal here. Sometimes Georgians who I've met minutes before will ask me if I'm familiar with my neighbors in the US, to which I reply no, thus confirming in my new friend's mind the superiority of her own culture. I have no ground to stand on when arguing/discussing this point, either; I don't even know the names of any of my next-door neighbors in the US. Not one. The usual American line of defense goes that we make friends based on mutual interests and not based on proximity, but you'd think we'd run out of ways to wave hello to our neighbors without eventually walking over and making friends.

Everywhere a neighbor neighbor...
Georgians also ask if Americans have to call before they go to their neighbors' or relatives' house, to which I reply yes. Unless I throw in the caveat that you can never be sure an American will be at home, the perception is that we're sitting in our living rooms screening our calls for any annoying relatives that might want to disrupt Heroes by visiting (yes, we know what you're watching). Could I explain that when I return, I probably will screen my calls for annoying relatives? Perhaps. Would it go over well? Most likely not.

In the meantime, it's nice to have a million people in the house every evening. It triples or quadruples the number of close community contacts that I have, and it fills the awkward conversational gaps that surface when my host mother, host sister and I are left alone. Sometimes the arrival of a special, rare neighbor warrants the purchase of a kilo of apples, most of which are left for scavengers like me afterward.

And if I suddenly remember why Americans like to have their houses to themselves, I can go up to my room, the little American corner forbidden to neighbors and relatives alike. Maybe that's why the teachers at my school think I'm not "contakturi"...

A Letter to My Nation's Currency

2008-03-23T02:11:00.000-07:00

Dear US Dollar,

Thanks so much for depreciating from 1.75 to 1.47 lari during my relatively brief time here in Georgia. On behalf of our program staff who are paid in dollars, it really makes a difference when you can watch your income dwindle even having swiped nary a credit card, and it's especially nice during a time when world food prices are rising. On behalf of my school, we really appreciate how the two-month period between when we wrote our grant (in dollars) and when we received our payment saw such a drop in the price of the dollar that we lost $78 from our budget of $1000. A special thanks from me for making it near impossible to travel back through Europe when it comes time to leave Georgia, since everything priced in Euros may as well be paved with gold.

Yours Truly,

Jennifer McFann

P.S. I would greatly appreciate it if you'd greatly appreciate.

Thank you for your application

2008-03-20T04:34:00.000-07:00

I appreciate that the NGO I applied to had the courtesy to use that phrase in the subject line of their rejection email to me, as opposed to something more ambiguous, like "And the answer is..." and then you open it and it says "...NO!" In any case, my job search is back to square one, which is not such a step back since most job openings for August/September aren't even posted yet. But still, I kind of wanted to work there.

The beginning of my illustrious career

Most of the volunteers in my group are now in the thick of their post-Peace Corps planning. A select few are continuing their service in another country, including one volunteer who, after two years in Georgia, apparently dreams of the Kyrgyz Republic. A few have applied to grad school or law school, while another few refuse to look beyond post-Peace Corps travel when planning for the future-- which would be my category if not for the student loans I took to fund the acquisition of my useless job-repelling degree. NYU, the gift that keeps on giving.

Waitressing, my once and future profession.

The rest of us are looking for jobs. Popular sources of employment-based pipe dreams include Craig's List, the US government jobs listing, and idealist.org. Most of the jobs on these sites are either very unattainable or very unpaid. Much as I'd like to be the Director of Acquisitions for the Department of Homeland Security, they might find my resume lacking.

Plays well with others

As I said earlier, any of you loyal readers who happen to be the heads of international non-profits with job vacancies should feel free to leave a comment on this post. I'll work in any country, learn any language, brew any kind of coffee, etc. if it means coming into contact with diplomats, aid workers, foreign nationals, refugees, or any combination of the above. Does your NGO bring together foreign aid workers? Does it house refugee diplomats? I'm there.

Give it away now

2008-03-17T06:51:00.000-07:00

The professor of a class I reluctantly took on the poetics of Greek tragedy told us that the ancient Greek audience already knew the stories that Aeschylus and Sophocles and the like were telling, so the goal of the playwright was to make the journey from known beginning to known end as interesting as possible. Many Georgians take that philosophy to heart.

What brings this up is that right now I'm either working or playing solitaire while my family watches Latin American soap operas. While Emiliano lies on the brink between life and death, my host family remains unperturbed. They're too busy guessing how Paulo is going to be killed on his wedding day.

Every week, there's a Georgian newspaper that publishes what's going to happen on that week's set of soap operas. Admittedly, these series aired years earlier in their countries of origin so it can't be that difficult to get spoilers, but I cannot bring myself to understand why you would want to completely erase all the surprises from a TV show. Sure, I used to get my spoilers from alt.tv.x-files, but after the letdown I felt in watching the 6th season episode "The Unnatural" while already knowing that Mulder would teach Scully how to play baseball at the end, I gave up spoilers for good.

It's not just TV shows, either. My host sister was flipping through the bootleg copy of "I am Legend" that I gave her on her computer, getting a peek at about every twenty minutes of the movie, even the end. I stared as long as was polite, and then a little more, and asked her what in God's name she was doing. She said that she can't get into a movie unless she knows what's going to happen. I told her that Americans would think that's very strange. She shrugged the same shrug that she gave last July when I tried to make her understand why I didn't want her to tell me whether Harry Potter dies in the seventh book, and resumed her viewing.

It made watching Lost with the neighbors last year a real treat. Desmond spaces out, having another one of his visions where Charlie dies. My neighbor Keti asks, "Is Charlie really going to die?" It sounds like the kind of rhetorical question you ask when you're wrapped up in the drama of a series; I laughed to myself and kept watching. Then I realized that Keti was still staring at me, waiting for an answer. I told her I wouldn't tell her, which is what I say when watching movies with that person who always asks questions about the plot. She scowled. I think she was really upset with me. I told her that if she were an American and I told her the plot, she would kill me. This confused Keti, which was at least better than having her sitting there thinking about what a stingy ingrate I was.

I can figure out no way to reconcile myself with this strange aspect of Georgian culture, which is probably not the type of culture gap that the ancients had in mind when they set out to new lands, but it's just as maddening. Or funny. Or both.

I dedicate this post to that chick who was three people ahead of me in line to see Titanic at the movie theater when it came out, and who said to her friend, "It's so sad that Jack dies at the end." Also to my roommate's boyfriend who came in the room while I was watching Braveheart and asked, "Has he been killed yet?" Also to Kim Zitnick who has given away the ending to almost every movie she's ever seen.

Premature Imagination

2008-03-14T06:59:00.000-07:00

I'm wondering now if maybe the turn of spring has made me a little too excited for July 17th, and if perhaps I need to tone down my looking-forward quotient in order to make it through the remainder of the school year. Granted, what remains of the school year is not much-- especially when one takes into consideration that after I get back from COS conference in mid-May, the kids will probably have stopped attending-- but still, maybe it's time to go one week at a time.

Why do I think this? Well, this morning I was loathe to go to school. This level of loathe doesn't happen often, and I think it's because it's cloudy today, which is no excuse but is still a relevant factor. I arrived at school to find the English cabinet room locked, which was a bad sign because my counterpart has the lesson before me on Mondays. Turns out that my counterpart's mother had a medical emergency, and my counterpart couldn't come that day. Just then, my 8th form filed in, the most out-of-control class with or without the presence of my counterpart, but especially so without. Praise the Lord, the assistant director believed me this time when I said I wasn't qualified or permitted to teach alone (first time in 2 years she's listened to me! progress!), and the kids were shuffled off to the French teacher. I called my counterpart, who instructed me to ask the director to do the same for the other two upcoming lessons.

Me: So Tsira wanted me to ask you to put the classes together, the 6th and the 9th form, with their parallel classes.
Director: Then you'll teach them both?
Me: I can't teach alone. Tsira will be back tomorrow.
Director: But she won't be back today.
Me: I don't have permission to teach alone.
Director: I know that's the rule, but... you won't be teaching the lessons today?
Me: No.

Despite my concrete knowledge that I was only brought to the 3rd school to write grants-- and this is not hearsay or rumormongering, this is what I was told by the school-- I still felt a little guilty. Was I exercising my legitimate right to stick to the parameters of my Peace Corps program, or was I skipping out because I didn't feel like teaching? In either case, I doubt very much that my counterpart will be there tomorrow, so I'll probably end up teaching by myself anyway and balancing the karma. Or was the karma balanced when I taught by myself for two straight weeks in December? In any case, it reminded me that there is a lot more school left, and perhaps it would be good to focus.

*******

Note from the next day: I am psychic. I did end up teaching alone today, just in time for an encore performance from the 8th form, so I've done my penance for my laziness and/or attention to rules. I confiscated two cell phones, slapped one desk with my notebook, and dragged one child by the arm to another desk. All the while, work/slave songs were playing in my head; they really do keep you going... "He picked up a hammer and a little piece of steel, said this hammer's gonna be the death of me, lawd, lawd, this hammer's gonna be the death of me."

I also started having heart palpitations. Coincidence?

2nd Inaugural 1/2-Mile Run/Walk

2008-03-12T05:41:00.000-07:00

When I first got to Samtredia, things got off to an excellent start when President Saakashvili popped by to open a new stadium. My sitemate Ian, my friend Heidi and I were let into the compound, despite the fact that the other residents of Samtredia were crowded around the chain-link fence, restlessly awaiting their chance to see their own elected leader. Decoy cars arrived, and even a decoy helicopter and a decoy train before he set down in all the majesty of yet another helicopter. He cut a ribbon, some kids dance and sang, he shook our hand and said hello in English, the end. Also worth mentioning that we rudely shouted "Hello Saakashvili!" to get his attention, instead of using "President Saakashvili," or even "Mr. Saakshvili," an error I replay often in my mind. It ranks up there on the list of etiquette gaffes in Georgia with the time I asked the Estonian Ambassador if he was staying at the Peace Corps hostel.

That stadium became my saving grace when spring rolled around. After two failed attempts to go running in my neighborhood without happening across groups of unoccupied Georgian boys who want nothing more from life than to eat sunflower seeds and make fun of the foreigner, I tried running at the stadium. Once I gathered up the courage to make the 1.5-mile trek there alone-- since it's somewhat deflating to one's ego to go running whilst one's sitemate is lapping one once every two minutes-- I found the only corner of heaven where I could exercise in peace. Rare were the Georgian boys, which was my primary criteria, but it also helped that there was a running track in somewhat pristine condition. Even after the stadium manager decided that only football teams would be allowed inside the field and that I would have to run around the outside of the track, I still managed to show up once or twice a week, a winter's worth of cake and khachapuri bouncing steadily around and around.

On Saturday, I initiated the 2008 running season at 9:00 AM, having tried at a later hour a couple days earlier and run into a football game. I should mention briefly that I despise running and that I only do it as a surrogate exercise when a taekwondo school is not available. The taekwondo podcasts I downloaded help ("How to Do a Spinning Hook Kick"), but it's just not enough. Utilizing the technological wonder that I described in the last post, I pressed the play button and flew free into the wild blue yonder. One lap later, I was bent double huffing and puffing, but a few minutes after that I was again hitting the pavement and making my way around again. Five minutes later, I had finished the second lap and was feeling simultaneously accomplished and pathetic. This continued for the remainder of my allotted 1/2 hours of run time, during which I might have actually made it 1 mile.

The plan is to relive this vision three times a week at the stadium, rising in the early morning hours to get there before the Georgian boys awake and decide not to go to school. Ideally, this will make me presentable when the time comes for me to return to the US, and there will be a minimum of, "Oh... So, how's the food in Georgia?" from acquaintances. Will it succeed? It did somewhat last year, so precedence says yes. And if Georgian boys do happen to start swarming the stadium in the early morning hours, then maybe I'll be able to switch back to taekwondo...

I prefer Diskoteka Ballads 5

2008-03-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned, and as I will frequently repeat, my mp3 player has died. I downloaded a fixer-upper program from the company web site, and it didn't fixer-upper it because my computer doesn't even know when the stupid dead player is docked. The company web site sells new batteries, but only long-life batteries for newer players, not for my 21-month-old antique.

This put me in dire straits, not only in terms of losing 8000 songs (some of which were actually paid for), but in terms of the fact that I can't run without music. If I'm jogging along, all red-faced and huffing, and someone notices my uncovered ears, they may try and talk to me. Then I have to slow my roll, waddle over to them, wipe the sweat off my upper lip with my sleeve, and try to gasp my way through rejecting their invitation to come drink at their house. Fortunately, I came up with a solution that puts me at the forefront of modern fashion and technology...

This is my new player. I suppose I could legitimately call it a Walkman and not sound like those geriatric teachers who call CDs "records" and who refer to anything handheld, from PDAs to cell phones, as "Walkman." It's a Congli CL-205, featuring built-in speakers and a sweet headphone jack. It runs on blazing-fast AA batteries and has rewind and fast-forward capabilities. As if that weren't enough, it has translucent blue plastic casing on both ends so you can witness the miracle of music stored on magnetic strips. How do they do it?!

Total cost: 8 lari (~$5)

Since the salesman was kind enough to throw in free batteries, which will die within the week, all that was left was to find some appropriate jamz. And what gems of jamz did I find!

Let me introduce you to my new music collection. It may not have the diversity or quality of my former one, but since I couldn't find any classic rock compilations, these had to do. On your left, Diskoteka Ballads 6, filling out the empty piece of my heart that was longing for something by Westlife. At center, Super Hits 18, an eclectic mix of 2003-era Sean Paul- and Nelly-type hip hop. And on the right, Arash 2007. I'm sure Arash didn't release a tape called "2007" and then put all of his songs from the last 5 years on it, but someone else had the courtesy to do so.

Total cost: 7.5 lari (~$4.75)

Thus, my new player and music collection set me back by $10. My old, dead player was $200, and when you include the costs of the 600 or so songs that I paid for, let's estimate that it was worth $500 to me. Does this mean that I valued my old music 50 times more than my new music?

Yes. It does. And if it takes until my last day of service, I'm going to search the entire e-world for anything that'll make my mp3 player live again.

Thaw

2008-03-07T04:58:00.000-08:00

As briefly alluded to at the end of the last post, Soviet spring began March 1st. While I appreciate the simplicity of dividing the seasons by months, I'm not sure why the decision was made to move the dates in the first place. If the seasons were split based on religious dates, then maybe, but they begin and end on the solstices, which are just astronomical placemarkers. I thought the Soviets were all about science. Maybe they were also all about being contrarian for its own sake. It does make it easier for my students to say, "Spring months are March, April, May," rather than delving into the intricacies of "21st" or "equinox."

On cue, it warmed up here this week; apparently the weather, unlike the proletariat, will conform itself to Marxist theory. After weeks of cold and snow, I'm delighted to be able to roll up my sleeves in my own bedroom, but after last year's rainy, cloudy hell that lasted until May, I'm suspicious that this weather change may be transient. In addition, there's a few more pros and cons...

Pro: No more long underwear

Con: Will have to start taking more than one shower per week

Pro: Can unpack suitcase full of spring clothes, most of which were purchased at the Mall of America in August

Con: Unpacking of spring suitcase will necessarily trigger snap cold front

Pro: Temperature upstairs has reached 57 degrees, which is warm enough that I can work up there now instead of downstairs in front of the Latin American soap operas

Con: Can no longer use room as a refrigerator for storage of things I don't want to share with my host family, such as American cheese and olive oil; ironic, considering that the last bottle of olive oil I stored in my room froze solid and was rendered unusable

Pro: Begin wearing year-old blue spring jacket, rather than 5-year-old fake suede formerly-black winter coat with avocado stain from Quizno's Turkey Bacon Guacamole sub in 2004

Con: Sandal season won't begin until May, since my neighbors are convinced that 70 degrees in March will give you the cold through your feet, but 70 degrees in May is safe; argument went as such last year-- "But it's 70 degrees!" "But it's March!" "But it's 70 degrees!" "But it's March!"

Pro: Sunny weather will revive my faith in teaching, and I'll be inspired to write detailed, entertaining lesson plans with innovative activities for every class

Con: Sunny weather will revive students' indefatigable love of skipping school, now with the excuse that it's too nice outside to go to school, since they can no longer say that it's too cold to come to school; may perhaps find two weeks of good attendance between cold- and warmth-based truancy

Pro: We're that much closer to July 17th

Con: We're that much closer to my unemployment

Interesting Things of the Last Weekend

2008-03-04T06:02:00.002-08:00

Disclaimer, much like the disclaimer at the top of this blog: these things have been deemed interesting by me. It is not the opinion of my readers or of Peace Corps that the following items of interest are, in fact, of interest. Just mine.

1) I bought a copy of Hari Poteri da Pilosopiuri Qva, known to one billion other people as Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone. It was only five lari, so I thought if I could peel myself away from bootleg episodes of Lost season 4 for a few minutes, I could give it a shot. It boggles the mind to think of how many languages Harry Potter must be printed in if Pilosopiuri Kva exists, bearing in mind that Georgian is the 126th most common language in the world. I suppose a few of those more-common languages are without written form, so that reduces the translator's load somewhat.

2) My mp3 player has stopped working, much like the electronics of many volunteers. It seems that our laptops and iPods were not designed to be kept in 30-degree weather and subjected to flaky electricity. I pride myself in my non-iPod mp3 player, not only because it's smaller, cuter, and has FM radio capabilities, but because it was cheaper. Another difference from iPods-- its proprietary battery, that will probably cost me 1/4 the cost of the machine itself to replace. If I return from Georgia fat, it's the fault of my mp3 player for failing and leaving me psychologically unable to go running without music, and not the fault of all the calories I shovel down my throat.

3) There's no school Monday because it's Mother's Day here. In my sluggish winter inertia, I'm not only glad to have a break after missing 3 days of school last week, but also that I don't have to write a special Mother's Day lesson for each class. The Soviets had it right, though-- every year, Mother's Day is March 3rd. This has the dual benefits of making it easy to remember, as well as resulting in a day off work if it falls on a weekday. Anyone who's had Mother's Day sneak right up on them would appreciate a solid date, especially those like me who've had Mother's Day sneak right past them (sorry, Mom).

4) My sixth form student won 3rd place in Imereti for her creative essay in the Writing Olympics contest (see this post for tales from last year's contest, my directorial year). She wrote that she would like to be a bird so that she could see the gods, goddesses, and demigods in the sky. I'm curious to find out where she learned the word "demigod."

5) My friends Paige, Catherine and I-- with special appearances by serial blogger Ryan and serial source-of-information Seth-- had an impromptu America party in a conference room on Thursday after a visit to the Dollar Store in Tbilisi. The Tbilisi Dollar Store sells the same crappy things as an American dollar store does, but here it's like treasure. I don't mean the Georgians think it's treasure, because there's not usually many people there. I mean that we Americans think it's treasure. Our party haul included offbrand fig newtons, crunchy mini oatmeal cookies, offbrand Ritz crackers with fake cheese, and a 3-liter bottle of Dr. Stripes, a Dr. Pepper knockoff (or possibly, worse, a Dr. Thunder knockoff). When combined with doner on lavash from a nearby stand and Everlasting Gobstoppers from a care package from Ryan's brother, and when jealously hidden from the remainder of volunteers at the lounge, the result was a serene oasis of delicious American junk. And Turkish food.

For the Record

2008-03-04T06:02:00.001-08:00

In these last few months of my Peace Corps service, you're going to see many references in this blog to my upcoming close of service, usually with the tone that I'm going to explode in a big burst of happiness the second I get on the plane home. There's two ways to interpret this: 1) That I'm excited to see my family and friends again, and to return to my home country where I know the language and the culture, and where I can have as much tuna and Swedish Fish as I want, or 2) I hate Georgia.

I'm not going to spend any more time in each post explaining that option #1 is the correct choice for understanding my state of mind, since it takes up too much space. If you choose to believe that option #2 is the way I really feel, and that I've spent 21 months living in a country whose culture and people I despise, then you're entitled to your opinion, just as I'm entitled to the opinion that you're completely wrong.

In conclusion: Yes, I like Georgia. Yes, I will miss my host family. Yes, I will miss my students and coworkers. No, I will not miss teaching. Yes, I will miss khachapuri. No, I will not miss being harassed as a foreigner. Yes, I will miss all my friends in Peace Corps. Yes, I will miss speaking another language every day. Yes, I will miss MuzTV. Yes, I will miss saperavi grape-flavored limonati. Yes, I will miss the convenience of marshutkas. No, I will not miss salty cheese. Yes, I will miss supras. Yes, I will miss Georgian dance. Yes, I will miss living without bills (or paychecks).

Yes, I am counting the days until July 17th.

What is a Market Economy?

2008-03-02T00:28:00.000-08:00

That's the title of a paperback book the US Embassy handed me as part of their American resource donation to my school library, a donation that many other volunteers make use of-- other Embassy Greatest Hits include American Literature of the 19th Century, An Outline of American Sports, and American Teenagers. There's a few people I'd really like to give the market economy book to, but I can't name them here, since somehow they will find out. Information travels fast in Georgia, and there's no doubt in my mind that my thoughtless gripes would somehow jump out of the internet and into the memory of our cousin's neighbor's teacher or something, soon to be related to the subject herself.

But maybe if you suggest that the Georgian government should pay for central heating for every home, you deserve to be outed on the internet... perhaps not.

There is hope. My host cousin, who holds a master's degree in Business & Tourism from the Tbilisi College of Subtropical Agriculture is very market-minded. When not shouldering his Kalishnikov and protecting President Saakashvili from harm, he is planning a grand business scheme. He wants to take out a loan and send the money to me in the US, where I will buy secondhand clothes and send it to Georgia, where he will sell it thirdhand, and we will split the profits. The business will be in both of our names because he says that'll keep the mafia away.

Now, I've been hard on myself recently with the belated realization that my degree in international relations is a useless piece of paper that does nothing more than record that my lack of practical skills has been insitutionally certified, so naturally I have little faith in my ability to analyze business or law matters, but there's still something iffy about this plan that I can't put my finger on. It gets even iffier when we get to stage 2 of the plan, wherein I use the money to buy new brand name jeans which he resells in Georgia at four times the price, knowing that fashion-minded Tbilisians will gladly pay the premium, mostly because they won't be aware of it.

I studied liberal arts. I don't know if this plan is legal or not. My loyal and oft-disappointed readers, please analyze this for me. Is this my sustainable presence in Georgia, or an illegal smuggling scheme?

God Bless MacCoffee

2008-03-01T06:40:00.000-08:00

"How could you possibly have lived in New York for four years and not been a coffee drinker?" the other volunteers ask me in disbelief/disgust. My response that I got my caffeine from a liter a day of Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper only inspires more disgust.

Let me introduce you to MacCoffee, the coffee for non-coffee-drinkers. There's not much about it that resembles coffee, and in fact the first two ingredients are sugar and powdered dairy, but it's deliciously desserty. It also comes in amaretto and hazelnut varieties, as well as "strong" MacCoffee, which may boast as much as 25% coffee inside.

In a heartfelt appeal to Midwesterners, the MacCoffee packets feature a proud bald eagle and the bold red and white stripes of the American flag, sure to bring a tear to even the most left-wing of eyes as they dump the packet into a mug every morning. It's even got the olive branch and the arrows, like any self-respecting bald eagle on a coffee packet should. As if that weren't enough, a ribbon streams through the handle of the coffee mug, proclaiming "True American Taste."

This has always perplexed me, as MacCoffee is made in Turkey for local distribution. Why should a mostly-sugar faux coffee be so closely associated with the USA, whose population is known for drinking gallons upon gallons of extra-strong coffee? I'll leave you with that profound thought.

Snippets

2008-02-23T03:14:00.000-08:00

This new internet cafe has ten computers, and I'm always directed toward the one where the USB port doesn't work. This affects nothing more than my ability to post pre-written blog ramblings, to download NPR podcasts, to get bootleg music, to change my Facebook picture-- in essence, all the important reasons why I would go to an internet cafe. Let's see what happens when I post something written spontaneously and unedited, without checking it over for mistakes or long stretches of uninteresting nothing. To make it easier on us all, this shall be in the form of snippets of conversation from the last 24 hours that I've been party to.

Host Mom: You should have reminded me that you wanted to take a bath! I'm sorry. Can you wait till tomorrow? The water won't be hot until midnight if we start it now.
Me: I don't know... is my hair shamefully dirty?
Host Sister: It's not dirty at all! We don't care. As long as you don't smell bad. (smells me). You're fine.
Me: In America, this would be shameful.
Host Sister: Here it doesn't matter if you go 3 or 5 days without--
Me: 9 days.
Host Sister: You haven't bathed in 9 days? (pause of consideration). Well, let it be 9 days. That doesn't matter, either.

Host Mom: You're not wearing any socks! You'll catch a cold!
Me: My socks are all out on the line, drying.
Host Mom: (rummages through drawer) Wear these.
Host Sister: Those are full of holes.
Host Mom: Who asked you? At least she won't get a cold.
Me: Thanks.

Pickpocket in internet cafe: (puts hand in my coat pocket where my phone is)
Me: Excuse me, what's your problem?
Pickpocket: What?
Me: Your hand was in my pocket.
Pickpocket: Was it?
Me: I saw it.
Pickpocket: You saw it?
Me: Yes. (returns to work. notices pickpocket is still hovering. offers him obscene hand gesture)
Pickpocket: What's your name?
Me: Don't talk to me.
Pickpocket: What, you don't have theft in America?

Me: (pokes head into a store) Do you have phone cards?
Old lady: No.
Me: Okay, goodbye.
Old lady: (follows me outside) How do you like Georgia?
Me: It's very nice. The people are very hospitable and warm.
Old lady: What a darling! When will you return to America?
Me: In July.
Old lady: Ah. And weren't you in America last year?
Me: Yes... I visited home in August. Why do you know that?

Host Mom: You can't go outside with your hair wet! You'll catch a cold! I'll blowdry it for you.
Me: Okay, thanks. (sits and lets host mom blowdry her hair. realizes that the last time her hair was blowdried, it was the previous August and it was her biological mother doing the blowdrying. becomes sentimental and smiles through entire hair-drying sequence.)
Host Mom: There. Did I miss anywhere?
Me: No, it's great. Thank you.

Well, that was fast

2008-02-21T02:50:00.000-08:00

If the purpose of leaving the project post up until the funds were raised was to give myself a brief sabbatical from the ceaseless toil of writing blog posts, then it has failed. Here I am, three days later, typing away. Can you guess what that means? A means B, therefore C...

Our project has already reached complete funding.

I just got the call from the grant director, who I was sure was calling to tell me they were pulling the plug because I have too little time left before close of service. Au contraire! She said that somewhere in the universe of generous and development-loving folk, someone had called up the office in Washington and offered to fund our community's project. Whoever you are, THANK YOU. Thank you from Nana 1 & 2, thank you from the students at School #12, and thank you from me. Expect picture-filled updates and letters by the bushel.

As it ended up taking more time to write the project proposal than to get it funded, I have a moment to look around at the fund-raising apparatus I've set in motion and wonder how to reel it in. Tens of you received emails from me, a few more saw the blog post, and there's probably a bunch among you who intended to donate, and among those some who actually had already. To those of you who did donate, I really, really appreciate it and you shall also get thank-you letters. To those of you who intended to, why not divert your already-earmarked funds to another PCPP project? If you're in the English classroom groove already, there's another project here that's trying to create a classroom for village students in central Georgia. And here you'll find the list of all projects in Eastern Europe/Central Asia.

Good work, guys!

Got $5?

2008-02-18T23:47:00.000-08:00

Click here to help the 12th school create an English classroom! It's tax-deductible!

Today, I'd like to introduce you to the teachers and students of the 12th school of Samtredia (upper right). Attentive readers might recall that my main school is the 3rd school, but even though the other 99% of you didn't notice the discrepancy, I'll just explain that I teach there once a week. Peace Corps calls it "outreach teaching." It's a bit tougher than working at the 3rd school, mostly because the area around the 12th school was destroyed during the civil war in 1993, which caused the local businesses to move elsewhere; thus, the 12th school houses a significantly impoverished student body. Many students can't afford the $7 English textbooks, and most of our classes are conducted in rooms where the majority of the desks are broken, the chairs are backless, and the walls are crumbling. That, and I have to walk 20 minutes in the mud to get there.

But then there's the teachers (who both happen to be named Nana). This is Nana 1. She's a fluent speaker, though she claims to have forgotten everything in her old age. Her dream is to have a full-time Peace Corps volunteer next year so she can learn new teaching techniques. She makes time for lesson planning, and she will try any and all new English activities with her students. Essentially, she's the ideal Peace Corps counterpart.

Example: Projects involving grants are supposed to be initiated and managed by the local community. I hadn't yet mentioned this to Nana, since I didn't plan on writing a grant for a school I only worked with part-time, but then one day she mentioned that the school's students would benefit from an English room. Encouraged but wary of false hope, I explained to her the time-consuming difficulty involved in such a project. When I returned from Christmas break, she had hand-written a manifesto of the 12th school's goals and objectives for this project, as well as an explanation of its value to the community. The next week, she presented me with a detailed budget that included sources of community contribution. I almost cried. The following phone conversation almost occurred:

Me: My counterpart designed a project and set a budget all on her own!
Peace Corps project manager: Yes, they're supposed to do that.
Me: Yeah, I know, but she actually did!

In any case, through Nana's inexhaustable effort and my awakening from jaded disbelief in miracles, we've composed a project. The current situation is that there is no "English classroom" where students can be surrounded by English posters and have access to English books and all that. The English teachers jump from room to room, teaching where space is available; oftentimes, they find themselves without necessary supplies, like chalk or a functional blackboard or students. Nana's project takes an existing room and renders it suitable for learning-- redoing the floors, walls, and ceiling, building a bookshelf, replacing the desks, chairs, and teacher's table, purchasing books and posters, wiring the room for electricity, installing whole windows, et cetera. With a stable learning environment, students will learn English better than they currently are; considering that English literacy is becoming a necessity for finding a well-paying job in Georgia, this is no small feat. The 12th school students are already disadvantaged by their inability to afford private tutors, unlike many of the students at other schools. Through this project, we hope to ameliorate that problem.

Can you imagine learning English here? Picture how much more conducive this space would be to learning if the walls weren't falling apart, and if there were chairs that didn't look like Lenin bought them himself, and if there were happy little English posters all over the wall, and a happy little shelf of English books. Remember the classroom where you took Spanish, and how it said "Bienvenidos" on the brightly-painted wall? That's what we're going for.

Obviously by now, you've guessed that this is a plea for money. Before you run for your wallet, let's add one more fact: despite their poverty, the school and the community have provided 51% of the project price BY THEMSELVES. A local carpenter is going to do the construction and painting for 60% less than he usually charges. The school is going to pay to repair its own tables, desks, and chairs, and is also going to buy a new blackboard.

Those of you who've been here a while may recall last year's link to a web site where you could donate money to our Girls' Sports Camp grant. This is the same kind of grant; the total grant amount is approximately $930, and if you can donate $5, please do! If you can donate $930, please do also! It's tax-deductible. All non-anonymous donors will receive updates with pictures, thank-you emails, and perhaps even thank-you letters (!). Here's exactly what your money is going toward: construction materials and transportation, an audio player, and English resource books.

A final note-- I had to beg and plead to be allowed to submit this grant proposal because I only have 6 months of service left, and since it usually takes a couple months to fund these projects online, Peace Corps is concerned that I won't be able to finish on time. If I can't finish on time, then all the money must be returned, and the 12th school kids must continue to learn English in rooms unfit for broom storage. So, please send the link for this post to ANYBODY you know, preferably with a little personal message so they think it applies to them. My mantra is that we CAN fund this project in 3-4 weeks, and I DO have enough friends to make that a viable goal. More accurately, my friends DO have enough friends to appeal to for donations.

That's all I have. I can only hope that I conveyed how much the school wants this project to succeed, how much support they've given, and how little I had to do with the whole thing. The fate of the English students at Samtredia School #12 rests in your hands! I won't post again until this project is fully funded. See you soon... Remember, donations are tax-deductible.

Click here to help the 12th school build an English classroom!

A Very Tom Schreiber Post

2008-02-15T23:36:00.000-08:00

Perhaps you've seen other imitatin' posts about Tom Schreiber. Perhaps one could argue that since this post's creation is derived from the existence and subsequent Google success of that other post, that this is the imitatin' one. No matter. The world of cyberspace is never too full for another post about Tom Schreiber.

Tom Schreiber the Sensitive Intellectual, never too engrossed in his round of Scattergories to give his wife Amy a shoulder to lean on.

Tom Schreiber the Creator and Destroyer, utilizing the laws of physics and geology to bend his surroundings to his will in a raw display of keenly-focused power.

Tom Schreiber the Includer and Uniter, a fair judge and a good listener who brings together people of all races and creeds.

Tom Schreiber, one of the many quality volunteers of the G6 Peace Corps group, standing tall with integrity, patience, cultural sensitivity, and respect. Tom Schreiber, this blog and its 30 viewers per day salute you!

Volunteers vs. The Cheese Lady

2008-02-11T02:33:00.000-08:00

The following tale of woe does not represent the usual pleasant bazaar experience, and it is in fact its departure from the norm that renders it retellable. Feel free to co-opt this anecdote for your own use.

The setting: two male volunteers (shoutout to Nicholas & Seth) and I were strolling through the bazaar looking for cheese to put in the chicken parmesan we were making that evening with 5 other American friends. We successfully found our way to Cheese Row, where a long line of ladies bearing cheese wheels of varying salinity awaited us. We selected a suitably saltless cheese and answered the saleswoman's casual questions about our home country.

Woman: Are you German?
Us: No, we're Americans.
Woman: How nice! Do you like Georgia?
Us: Yes, we like Georgia. The people are very warm and hospitable.
Woman: How nice!

At this point, it usually ends. We buy our cheese, a few extra bazaar saleswomen inch closer to hear our funny accents, and then we leave to the buzzing soundtrack of their pleased chatter. But not yesterday...

We were paying for our cheese when the saleslady next to ours began to rant in Georgian, directing the full power of her scowl against us but clearly under the impression that we didn't understand what she was saying.

"These foreigners, these Americans come to our schools and take our jobs! There's Georgians in the street, and so many Georgians have no jobs, and the government brings in these Americans to do work that we could do. So many Georgians have no jobs!"

It's true, so many Georgians have no jobs. However, part of our presence here is ameliorated by the fact that we work in tandem with Georgian counterparts, so we're not replacing-- or stealing-- anyone's job. Usually I ignore people who rant against me, but the fact that she was so angry due to the lack of one piece of information-- and the fact that none of the rest of the bazaar ladies were backing her up so it was unlikely to turn into an ambush-- not to mention the fact that I'm leaving in 5 months and am thus becoming more brave/careless, led me to try to explain the above caveat to her. Being an idiot, I began with the fact that we're unpaid.

"OH! So the foreigners come in and steal our jobs by working for free! How can a Georgian work for free and still feed their family?!"

I waited for a pause between words, and then I broke in with the fact that we work with Georgian counterparts.

"AND?"

Good point. I made a valiant attempt to explain that we work with counterparts so that we're not stealing any Georgian jobs, but I don't know the word for "steal," so that mostly failed.

"Why do you work with Georgian counterparts?"

I'll mention quickly that this type of interrogation is not unusual, only this is the first time I'd ever heard it delivered in a hostile manner. I told her that we teach the counterparts methodology.

"We have plenty of methodology here! Why do we need the foreigners to come in and make us use their methodology while they steal our jobs!"

Having thus aggravated the problem, we paid for our cheese and left, the woman's diatribe echoing loudly as we tried to get out of earshot. At least we had our cheese.

We arrived home, where my host family was sitting around the woodstove. I mentioned we'd fought with a saleswoman. My host mother, not usually the leaping type, leapt to her feet and demanded to know the whole story, which we relayed with the help of my host sister, the translator. She was a reluctant translator, as she could already tell her mother was getting ready to go on the warpath, which would inevitably lead to embarrassment at school for the 16-year-old daughter of the Crusader. Nevertheless, my host mother pulled on her fightin' boots, threw on a matching black coat, and dragged Nicholas, Seth and I back to the bazaar.

"You're our guard," I said.
"You're a member of my family," she told me, "and I have to be your protector. Who gave her the right to say bad things to you in public? If I don't talk to that nasty woman now, you won't be able to go peacefully to the bazaar again."

We stormed triumphantly into the building that housed the cheese saleswomen. Rather, my host mother stormed while we volunteers debated which expression we should wear. We went for 'solemn,' which seemed more likely to win sympathy and support than did 'proud and offended,' or 'hurt.' The cheese ladies saw my host mom stomping down the aisle, and called out to us helpfully, "The end! The one at the end!"

She approached The Cheese Lady at last. If I had expected that she'd lose her temper and start flailing her arms and making matters worse, I was mistaken. And I had, so I was. My host mother did indeed give The Cheese Lady a forceful piece of her mind, but Nicholas also noted the proficiency she exhibited in persuasive public speaking. She directed her angry statements toward The Cheese Lady, but then she'd swivel her shoulders out to address the gathering crowd of other cheese ladies and meat ladies and pickle ladies, explaining the mission of Peace Corps. As you'll notice, she also threw in some compliments that may seem irrelevant but actually are crowd-pleasers over here. It was a proud moment, and she said something like this:

"This is a member of my family, and who do you think you are to insult her and her guests? You said you're upset that they're stealing jobs. They're not here to steal jobs, they're here to help for no salary! They work in Kareli, in Chiatura, and here in Samtredia for no pay, and they work with Georgian teachers so that your children can learn English. They're good boys and girls-- there's 8 of them at my house right now. There's four very pretty girls, and they know how to make delicious food. They made delicious food for me this morning. They work very hard, and they should be able to come here and buy cheese in peace! Do you understand?"

I've never loved my host mother so much.

In a double-tier attack of both hard and soft power, Nicholas and Seth were simultaneously the subjects of an impromptu press conference, wherein about 10 of the spectators drifted over to bask in their clean-cut glow and ask questions about Georgia. Half the thrill was hearing Nicholas and Seth answer in Georgian, so all the answers were well-received. One woman asked if Nicholas would marry her daughter.

In the end, flushed with triumph, my host mother informed me that I would be able to shop in peace from then on. Waving goodbye to our newfound supporters, we turned heel and followed my host mother home.

I don't know if there is a moral to this story, other than that: 1) Sometimes it's okay to restart an argument, and 2) My host mom really does know what I'm doing here. As she explained to me on the way back, and as I mentioned above, it is a rare occurrence to be on the receiving end of so much hostility here (Asian-American volunteers not withstanding). Using one of my favorite Georgian words, she told me that some people are "blooey" in Georgia, just like some people are blooey in America. So maybe that's the moral of the story.

Some people are just blooey.

Overheard at a Supra

2008-02-07T15:16:00.000-08:00

Instead of relating anecdotes, let's use direct dialogue from a recent supra to paint a picture of cultural exchange. This supra happens to be the Ormotsi ("Forty") of our next-door neighbor, which marks the end of the official mourning time for his family-- forty days past his death.

Dialogues

Neighbor: Do they have khachapuri [cheesebread] in America?
Me: No, we don't have khachapuri.
Different elderly neighbor: They don't have khachapuri. They don't have khinkali [meat dumplings]. What do they eat?

Familiar neighbor: Where do you want to sit?
Me: Where there's people that I know.
Familiar neighbor: Okay, sit over there next to Mediko.
(sits down)
Me: Hello, Mediko.
Mediko: I invited you to my house last week, and you didn't come.
Me: Um...

Toastmaster: And now a toast to our guest from another continent!
Me: Thank you.
Toastmaster: I know that you'll have a great family because you know not only American culture, but Georgian culture.
Me: Thank you.
Toastmaster: America is over 200 years old. It is a province. Georgia is thousands of years old. Compared to Georgia, America has no culture.
Me: Thank you.

Familiar neighbor: Jeni, you must drink that toast to the bottom!
Me: Fine. (drinks to the bottom)
Familiar neighbor: Good girl. (turns to other neighbors). Do you know what she said the other day? She was at home with her host family, and they made a joke about how the word 'cheese' sounds like the word $%^@# [Georgian swear word]. They said it was okay because Jeni doesn't know the bad word, but then she said, 'No, I know: cheese is good and $@#%#$ is bad.'
All neighbors: (general boisterous laughter)
Me: (blushes)

Me: Something smells good! What is it?
Host sister: [in English] Hen bowels.
Me: Oh... wait, why do you know that word?

Host mother: (sleeping in chair)
Host sister: (takes picture)
Host mother: (wakes up) Oh, I can't sleep yet-- it's not dark.
Me: You need sleep!
Host mother: I know. I baked cakes last night for this supra until 3:00 AM. Then at 3:30, I woke up to start baking khachapuri. I spent six hours yesterday making three atchmas [cheese & butter lasagna], and it was in vain because they didn't even finish eating two of them. But what can I do? We're Georgians, and we always make a ridiculous amount of food.
Me: It was delicious.

Chain Chain Chain...

2008-02-04T21:28:00.000-08:00

We all claim to be averse to chain stores in the US. Being occasionally pretentious, I tend to tell people my favorite restaurant in New York is Via Della Pace on 2nd Avenue, a tiny little Italian place that serves shrimp fettucine too delicious for words. Despite its old-world charm at developing-world prices, however, I still frequented Olive Garden. Never-ending pasta bowl!

Why do we do this to ourselves? Don't answer that question if the answer is "I don't," because you're either lying or you're a hippie vegan communist. Chain stores, while devoid of individuality, provide a certain guarantee of quality, not to mention familiarity. You know that whatever Sephora you walk into, the staff are going to be so beautiful that one glance at your reflection in the mirror, and you'll buy their whole stock of $90 foundation. When you enter a Bath & Body Works, the salesperson will immediately tell you which products are 2 for $12, available in Coconut Lime and Juniper Breeze. No matter where that Friendly's is that you bring your family to, you know your service will be slow and indifferent, but that the honey mustard and the Oreo Brownie Sundae will be worth the wait.

If there's a place where chain stores bring glee to the hearts of many, it's Georgia. Let's divide these stores and their respective glees into two categories: 1) International chains that are breaking into the Georgian market, and 2) Homegrown Georgian chains.

The first category generally applies to Tbilisi, though even Kutaisi will have its own McDonald's soon. This glee falls closer to the "relief" end of the spectrum, as in relief from going without the unessentials. Most of the chains in Tbilisi are high-end fashion chains, like Boss and Armani (the latter of which has a Georgian spokesperson, AC Milan footballer Kakha Kaladze), with the occasional mid-range fashion chain, like United Colors of Benetton. While Peace Corps volunteers may find that prices outside the Turkish clothing bazaar are prohibitively expensive, it's nice that the well to-do Tbilisians have some choice. You'll also find electronics retailers like Bosch, Samsung and Sony, selling some of the only computers in Georgia that come equipped with genuine Microsoft programs, rather than bootlegs. The glee of seeing a new Radisson under construction is a distant kind of happiness, a rueful acknowledgement that multi-national corporations will someday own the body and soul of every living being in the world, but a touch of gratitude that real Adidas warm-ups are available, even if you can't afford them.

The second category of glee is a less selfish one, but perhaps equally self-centered. Homegrown Georgian chain stores visually signify the growth of a class of Georgian entrepreneurs, as well as the nation's continued transition from Soviet dependency to capitalism. Any Georgian reading this is going to think I'm being condescending, but I'm not trying to be-- it really is impressive to see successful chain stores with commercials and everything in a nation that spent 80 of the last 90 years with all major industries controlled by the state. Furthermore, it's nice to know that if I buy hair conditioner in a chain pharmacy, it's less likely to turn out to be filled with dish soap than if I buy it elsewhere (that only happened once). Since this is my blog, let's take a brief tour of my favorite Georgian chain stores.

1) Nikora

Nikora is like a deli. While it doesn't sell roast beef, cheddar cheese, tuna sandwiches, or any of the other things I would irrationally expect from a deli, it does have whole frozen chickens and American cheese. The selection of sausages is impressive, and they even have cartons of ice cream. Note: you can buy the hot dogs if you want, just don't expect Ballpark.

2) Aversi

Aversi is a 24-hour pharmacy, in case you wake up with a 2AM craving for Valium, which you can purchase without a doctor's note for a few cents per pill. They have a fine selection of shampoos, shaving gel and toothpaste, and they keep computerized records with access to a nationwide database of pensioners who are entitled to drug discounts. They also sell tea and mineral water, which cures everything.

3) Elit Electronics

It's an electronics store! Most of their stuff is the kind of fancy, energy-saving European appliances with lots of buttons that confuse me but probably serve their purpose better than any 50-gallon washing machine I've ever used. I can't really afford anything at Elit Electronics-- except for the plug-in water boilers for tea-- but it's fun to browse.

Honorable Mention: Populi

Populi is a gigantic grocery store-- and by gigantic, I mean about half the size of an American big-box grocery store, but gigantic and beautiful in comparison to its local compeition-- which would have held all three of the above places on my list of favorite chains if I were certain that it was a Georgian company; somebody told me it's Russian. I still think it's Georgian, but I'll put it down here just in case, and if any passing Georgians could straighten this out for me on the comments page, I'd really appreciate it. Anyway, Populi has everything: foreign cheese, whole wheat bread, frozen premade food, Magnum ice cream bars, peanut butter, ketchup, Haribo gummy candies, spinach, ham, et cetera. They accept credit cards, and their staff are actually trained in customer service. Ten stars.

You call those apples?

2008-01-22T04:15:00.000-08:00

My host mother goes to the bazaar every day. This could be because we don't keep our refrigerator turned on and thus all food must be replenished each day, but I think most Georgians make daily trips to the bazaar anyway. Some of the fruits and vegetables can also be found in the grocery stores, but it's always the little bruised ones, and the price is always jacked up. Sixty cents for a kilo of apples? No thanks.

I venture into the bazaar significantly less often. It's not because I get lost, which I do-- though now I know my way out if I can find the fish market-- rather, it's because I rarely get the opportunity to test out my new cooking-from-scratch techniques, and thus I don't really need to buy a kilo of carrots for no reason. I used to use carrots as meal substitutes during the long bread-and-cheese winter, but that's hardly the same. Sometimes I like to pop on over and pick up a kilo or two of fruit, but then due to Georgian customs of communal ownership, my host family ends up eating most of it as I frown at them from the living room, longing for my homeland and the Western traditions of self-reliance/selfishness.

The best part about the bazaar is the surprises within-- will I find what I'm looking for, or has it gone out of season in the two weeks since I was last here? Did they sell out of it already? Is the bazaar even open? You never know. One week you're noting to yourself how there's thick black cherries for sale on every corner, the next you're digging through the lost cobwebby corners of the bazaar in search of the last pile of withered, gooey cherries. For example, check out the variety in the following picture. Can you label the apples, pears, oranges, bananas, mandarins, lemons, kiwis, pomegranates, grapes and persimmons? A sticker for all ten correct.

And of course, there's the haggling. Personally, I feel a great sense of capitalist guilt when haggling with bazaar ladies who are just trying to earn enough tetri to buy cheese for their families that day, so unless they're charging me a dollar per grape, I'll usually pay it. This, of course, is not including GREAT MOMENTS IN BAZAAR HISTORY #1: The day when I haggled the price of bananas down from 70 tetri a piece to 35. I made banana bread; it was delicious except for where I hadn't mixed it properly and there were chunks of baking soda.

Another problem is that, strangely, all the wares are labeled in Georgian, and by "labeled" I mean that the saleswoman tells me what they're called in Georgian. I usually just stare stupidly at a row of spice bags until someone asks me what I'm looking for, to which I tell them in Georgian that I don't know the word, but that it goes on chicken. It's good practice for improvisational cooking.

Sometimes you don't even have to go into the bazaar to find your fruit and veggies. There's usually a trail of fruit vendors outside the market, selling produce at an even lower fare, which seems impossible given that you can get two kilos of mandarins for one lari ($.70) even inside the bazaar. This probably has something to do with the presence of Ladas filled with mandarins. Mandarin-filled Ladas drive back and forth across the western side of Georgia, pouring forth their wares for whatever change you can fish out of your pocket. Since Russia doesn't buy Georgian mandarins anymore, there's quite the mandarin surplus; last year they had to dump a few tons into the Black Sea. Thus, mandarin-mobiles in the west, occasionally stopping by to trade with apple-mobiles from the east.

A final side note: this is a quince. The alphabet poster in our classroom has "Q is for Quince" written on it, and for 19 months I've wondered what the crap kind of made-up word that was. Now, I know: it's a grainy, tart fruit. And knowing is half the battle.

G.I. Joe!

It makes a village

2008-01-20T04:35:00.000-08:00

It's still freezing. The record low Jen's Room Temperature I mentioned a couple posts ago was broken the next day by a delightful morning of 32.8 degrees Farenheit, or 0.5 degrees Celsius. I was overjoyed.

The frozen water pipes have turned the tables on all my cushy bourgeois advantages that come from living in a town. Yesterday, I took a bucket bath for the first time in over a year. Just now, I've been told that we're to use the oft-forgotten squat toilet out back, rather than the two renovated Western bathrooms, one of which is right outside my bedroom, that have sheltered me from the squat for 17 months.

The irony is that I visited my friend in a Gurian village yesterday, and her shower and toilet are fully functional. Woe to my hubris. Now the only advantages left are 1) the giant TV, and 2) internet. As I've come to despise the giant TV for playing mostly Latin American soap operas and fake Russian concerts (don't you people ever sing live?!), that leaves internet. Perhaps by writing this, I've cast a jinx on Samtredia that will cause our internet to go down-- it happens-- but if that occurs, I guess you won't find out about it until it's over.

However, enough of that; let's remember things to be thankful about. Thank God I usually have internet. Thank God the sun is staying out later each day. Thank God Misha's inauguration went off peacefully. Thank God I'll be really busy this week with grant proposals.

Thank God I'll be on a beach in Croatia in six months. I'll leave you with the pictures that occupy my mind these days

This one's nice.

This is good too.

And then there's here...

Making Bazhe!

2008-01-19T03:13:00.000-08:00

You asked for it, now you're gonna get it... it's the recipe for five-minute Georgian walnut sauce, or bazhe! Despite reviewer Casey McFann's verbal parry that it "looks like crap," it's my favorite food in Georgia. Plus, the video's only like a minute long, so you may as well.

Um, Brrr

2008-01-15T02:32:00.000-08:00

I believe the current cold snap in Georgia is worth a short post. It's been absolutely frigid since I got back from Armenia, so maybe this is like The Neverending Story and it won't go away until I name my enemy-- it's the cold front in Fantasia, Bastian!

- To mark the occasion, the temperature in my bedroom reached a record low of 33.8 degrees Farenheit. I'm sure Peace Corps volunteers in Mongolia wish for such an unseasonably warm day, but as for us in the temperate rainforests of Samtredia, that's too cold.

- The major water pipes are mostly frozen, so I poured buckets of water from the sink into our family's washing machine at intervals that seemed to resemble its usual cycles. Rather than hang the clean laundry on the clothesline to freeze, I hung it throughout the kitchen, where the gas burner on the stove is constantly running. While it would be nicer if my host family trusted me to run the woodstove in their absence, the open flame did turn out to be an efficient clothes dryer. Only a couple of burn marks.

- The start of school in Tbilisi was postponed due to the cold. My theory is that if the Tbilisi schools with their heaters and furnaces had to postpone, perhaps Samtredia with its nothing* will follow suit. If you're wondering why school has yet to start, by the way, then you must be reminded that Monday the 14th is Old New Year on the Orthodox calendar, and one cannot attend school before Old New Year. Happy Old New Year!

* There's no heating devices of any kind, except for in two classrooms, one of which is the English room. We have a small woodstove, which-- I may have mentioned when it happened-- melted its own smokepipe last year and keeled over, belching flames from the blazing inferno of its centerpiece. Fortunately, the 7th graders were there to carry the firy, rusty container outside.

Hi-ya, Hayastan!

2008-01-12T03:44:00.000-08:00

Now that Georgia has chosen its new president, I've returned from my self-imposed exile in Armenia. My friend Heidi and I were forced to stay another day there due to the political situation, or perhaps due to the icy roads, but I'm pleased to say we overcame the hardships of being stuck in a warm hostel next to a Mexican restaurant for an extra day with nary a complaint.

Being a newly-designated travel snob, I'm reluctant to say that we discovered anything about Armenian culture by staying in the capital for six days, and with only token interaction with Armenian citizens... who don't, as it turns out, speak Georgian. Nonetheless, we did manage to pick up on some things:

1) In this video clip, Heidi describes the biggest cultural difficulty we had in Armenia (not the snow). This was a colossal error in planning on my part, and if not for the extra forced day in Yerevan, we wouldn't even have seen the Ararat cognac factory. But we did, and now I can pretentiously swirl a glass around with the best of them. To pass the time, we made friends at the hostel; highlights include a UN vs. Peace Corps game of Trivial Pursuit. There's a joke in there somewhere.

2) The Armenian diaspora is a force to be reckoned with. Outward manifestations of this include the powerful Armenian lobby in the US and the considerable Armenian enclaves outside San Francisco, but you really get a sense of it in Yerevan, especially if you've lived in Georgia for 18 months. For example, the stores are well-stocked with unlocal favorites, like broccoli and Corona. Sure, there are places in Georgia to find both, but in Armenia they're inexpensive and labeled in Armenian because there's an actual market other than for aid workers. They also have the EuroNews channel in Armenian-- the Georgians have to watch in Russian-- and the channel CNN Armenia. Needless to say, there is no CNN Georgia.

3) Armenian churches are more laid back than Georgian churches. We waltzed in to a few on Christmas Day, wearing jeans and no headscarves and generally prepared to be turned away at the door, but the Armenians were wearing more of the same. My host sister tells me this is because Georgians are orthodox and Armenians are Gregorian; I'll leave that there as a fact, but attribute it to her if you decide to complain to the New York Times about my chronic inaccuracy. This relaxed church atmosphere does not apply to the confused reception we received at a small chapel in Echmiadzin as we barged in on a private wedding. Awkward.

4) Wikitravel.org said that Republic Square in Yerevan boasts one of the two greatest examples of Soviet architecture in the world, after Tashkent, Uzbekistan. To me, Soviet architecture meant concrete apartment blocks, but it turns out that they were referring to the blocky, modernist look as shown in the museum in the picture. The most unusual thing about the Soviet architecture was that, unlike in Tbilisi, the Yerevan planners seem to be using the city's Soviet architectural history as a central theme for development. We saw new buildings, with cranes and scaffolding, whose facades resembled those modernist ones of the town square, right down to the orange and red stones. There's something to be said for planned design; it might restrict architectural innovation, but it also prevents the construction of glass-domed presidential palaces that look like reflective pickles. Ahem, Misha.

5) Being unable to read or recognize the characters of the Armenian language was like arriving in Georgia for the first time again. To me, all the Armenian letters look the same. To the Armenian Peace Corps volunteers, the Georgian letters look like squiggle. It's been said that the same man, Saint Mashtots, created both languages. I'm unable to verify this with Encarta, but if it's true, this guy is on my hit list. Why-- oh why-- would you create two esoteric alphabets for two geographically and linguistically isolated languages, unless you really disliked the Caucasus? Thanks, man.

Two last unrelated comments:

- Ararat's brandy tastes best to me when aged by 10 years.

- If you lose a contest, you can't concede defeat to a candidate that didn't win. If you really wanted that other candidate to win, you would have voted for him instead of campaigning for your ego and racking up your own coalition-splintering 1% of the vote.

That is all.

New Year, New Video Clip

2008-01-03T06:40:00.000-08:00

Georgian New Year is best summed up with pictures of food and videos of fireworks. Thus, I'll give you a quick timeline and then jump right into the multimedia to appease those of you with American-level attention spans.

January 31st
9:00 AM - 10:00 PM: Host mother makes food, host sister buys fireworks
10:30 PM: Neighbors head home, for once. When the clock strikes 12, you gotta be in your own house with your own family.
11:45 PM: Commencement of fireworks. These are not 4th of July fireworks in a large field with a fire engine on standby, by the way. These are large, explosive fireworks being shot from every single yard in every single neighborhood in town. What it lacks in brilliant display and color coordination it makes up for in being life-threatening.
12:00 AM: The president appears on TV and wishes everyone a happy, protest-less New Year.
12:05 AM: We visit our neighbors, though after cooking all day it's clear that my host mom is trying to make it a speed tour of the neighborhood so we can return home. Her sister informs her that it's customary to stay for an hour. My host mom laughs and tells her we'll be waiting for her at our house.
12:10 AM - 2:30 AM: We drink champagne and watch the band Chico and the Gypsies play Spanish guitar music live from Tbilisi. Host sister repeatedly expresses her wish that she could be at the concert, or in Spain.

And now for the pictures...

My host aunt is grinding walnuts for bazhe, which is a delectable walnut sauce that I would put on everything every day if it weren't so expensive to make. This New Year's, the bazhe was destined to top boiled chicken, which is like putting caviar on Wonder bread.

I assisted my host sister in making vinagretti, which is a salad of pickles, carrots, potatoes, onions, "greens," and MAYONNAISE. I successfully cut a few carrots, which is an accomplishment if we realize that I have been chastised by my host family in the past for poor carrot-cutting.

Did I mention that vinagretti contains mayonnaise?

This huge cake might suffice for most three-person families, but we made four of them. It wouldn't be normal to be the only family on the block with one kind of cake on the table, like we were a bunch of hobos.

So this is what the final table looked like, more or less. Please direct your eyes to the obligatory khachapuri, the plates of cake, and the Bagrationi champagne. The delicious vinagretti is in front of the champagne bottle on the left.

In a heart-warming show of New Year's spirit, the children tie up their fireworks for maximum explosive effect.

Speaking of fireworks, the fireworks were probably the coolest part of the evening. I've included a bit of masterfully-edited fireworks footage here, but since it was recorded using a sub-professional five-year-old camera, this will be more of an auditory experience. I tried to capture the Black Hawk Down-ness of being surrounded on all sides by explosions, and you might notice the part at the end where my host sister pulls me out of the tiny-firecracker danger zone. I think Georgian tradition states that this means she'll save my life at some point this year. This implies that my life will need saved, which I don't like.

And there we have it. Reread this post for the next week or so, as I will be in Armenia. If problems happen in the Georgian elections on the 5th, reread this post a few more times because I will be stuck in Armenia.

Out with the Old

2007-12-28T23:54:00.000-08:00

I've been in Tbilisi all this week, and everywhere you look there's numbers. If this were because the local government had finally decided it would be a good idea to number the streets instead of giving them five-syllable names of dead writers and then not labeling them, that'd be great, but it's not the case. What's actually going on, and what I've avoided mentioning thus far in my blog (but then I saw other volunteers were doing it, so I'm now moving to sit at the cool-kid table), is a snap election.

Without saying anything remotely political, it's bare-bones enough to know that snap elections were called after opposition protests in November, and on January 5th the next president will be chosen. Candidates include members from various opposition parties, as well as Mr Saakashvili himself, who is eligible to engage in his current ultra-mega-populist campaign because he resigned from the presidency last month.

For a student of international relations, this is a delightful and exciting time to be in Georgia. Why international? Well, Russia and the US both have a stake in the outcome of this election. But I'm sure neither will try to interfere.

However, as a Peace Corps volunteer, it's mostly an exercise in smiling and nodding, coupled with feigned ignorance of anything and everything political. I turn around and head for home every time I see a giant 5 for Misha Saakashvili (the candidates are numbered, by the way) or a Gachechiladze 1, or a Gamkrelidze 3. Here in Tbilisi, there's no hiding from the numbers. Have you seen The Number 23? That's what it feels like. On the government building, 5. On the doner stand, 5. On the city buses, 5.

You start to make mental connections. The election is on the 5th. The highest score in the Georgian school system used to be 5. It costs 5 lari to see a movie at the English-language theater-- AMERICANS speak English. There's a 5-hour time difference between Georgia and London-- where people outside the Georgian government's good graces like to hide out. There are five paragraphs so far in this blog entry. As of this sentence, I've used the word Georgia five times.

So clearly, they've gotten into my head, and the only cure is a trip to Armenia. While I'm doing that, you can read this tale of Soviet-esque political deceit that one of the candidates dreamed up. If I tell you that it involves murder, will you read it? Well, it does.

A Merry Little Shoba

2007-12-25T06:55:00.000-08:00

My Christmas post from last year was fairly negative, in hindsight. Maybe it's because I'm not really going anywhere for winter break, though, that leaves me with a better impression of the holiday season in Georgia. Maybe it's the prospect of eight months left in my service, as opposed to twenty.

There's quite a few things to be happy about during the Georgian Christmas season. The key to everything is to realize that even though the Georgian Christmas falls on January 7th, the holiday that they get all excited about-- with the trees and the presents and what have you-- is New Year's. Naturally, I still pine for Christmas 2005, when I passed the Macy's Christmas windows on my way to work every day, but until Macy's Tbilisi opens, here's what to look out for next time you find yourself in Georgia in late December...

1) You can still find the Coca-Cola polar bears on TV, watching brightly lit Coca-Cola trucks speeding yuletide cavities to children throughout the world. Last year these commercials were only on the Russian channels, but the proudest pronouncement of Georgia's entry on to the world stage is that they're showing the commercials in Georgian this year.

2) Your school's Christmas carnival will be an exhibition of singing and dancing, though not like the exhibitions of singing in dancing that you sat through in the US, where the littl'uns adorably forget their lines and sing out of tune, or step with the wrong foot. Their singing and dancing teachers have long since taught them that mistakes are not cute. Nothing warms the heart like carols and folk dances juxtaposed with razor-sharp Soviet precision.

3) Your host sister might receive a free CD full of Christmas music from cellular provider Geocell when she buys a new SIM card. She might play the songs over and over again, referring to her 10th and 11th grade textbooks for the words from "White Christmas," "Silent Night," and "So This is Christmas (War is Over)." She might ask you to help her with the pronunciation of the lyrics to "Jingle Bell Rock," which she'll be singing at the aforementioned Christmas carnival. You might explain to her that she should say "swingin'" instead of "swinging," and that the A doesn't mean anything in "a-mingle."

4) You can watch a new set of mysterious commercials that has appeared this year, where a bunch of Santas read letters from children and announce in English that they're from Georgia. There's Georgian subtitles, so at first I thought it was an international commercial dubbed in Georgian, but then the Santas are shown walking around Georgian stores-- it's not like anyone else uses this alphabet-- so apparently the commercials were made under the assumption that Santa speaks English. I guess that makes sense; it is the international language.

5) In case you start to get depressed about the impending passing of December 25th as a day without celebration, take advantage of the smattering of saint's days that fill the time before New Year's. Monday was St. Barbara's Day, when one eats pumpkin, bean pastries, and fish. Wednesday was St. Nicholas' Day, when one goes (or intends to go) to church.

Bear in mind that there's plenty of American volunteers scattered around the country who'll celebrate with you, too. If the camaraderie of a bunch of tree-hugging, organic-farming hippies doesn't make your holiday merry and bright, then perhaps there's nothing left for you here. Go back to America, where they play the Christmas carols 24 hours a day for six weeks, and where the Christmas aisles at Wal-Mart are set up before you've eaten the last of your Halloween candy. Go buy presents for your friends, and then wonder at what point you should draw the line between "friend" and "Christmas present friend." Go take advantage of the one day off your job offers you, knowing that they could call you back into the office at any second. Go stuff the used wrapping paper into a giant trash bag and wonder if it was worth all the effort.

Yes, I miss it anyway.

Making Atchma!

2007-12-17T04:23:00.000-08:00

Is American food too free of butter for you? Do you scowl at the artificial transfat goo they layer on your movie popcorn? Check out this Georgian dish, fit to satisfy all your butter, cheese, and carb needs-- ATCHMA.

Underemployment for All!

2007-12-14T02:20:00.000-08:00

in your notebooks:
How will you deal with finding a job after you graduate? Who will hire you?

That was the question my 11th-graders had to write answers to at the lesson yesterday. Mostly, it was to practice the unit 5-8 vocabulary of "to graduate," "to hire," and "to deal with," but it also seemed at least a little relevant. But then...

student 1: Do you mean after we graduate from school, or after we graduate from university?
me: If you're going to university, then after university. If you're not, then after school.
student 1: Okay.
student 2: Who's not going to university?
student teacher: Jeni, in our country, you cannot get a job if you do not go to university. Especially not in Samtredia.
me: I mean, you could be a waitress--
student teacher: You must go to university to get a job.
student 3: "When I finish university, I will be a professional and I think companies will easily want to hire me, and that is how I will deal with finding a job."
me: That's very optimi--
student 4: "I will study psychology at university because I want to be a famous psychologist. There are many people in Georgia who need help."
me: That's interesting, you're the first student I've seen here who wants to be a psychologist.
student 4: (points at student 5) She is the second student you've seen.
me: You want to be a psychologist, too?
student 5: (nods)
me: Well, read your response.
student 5: (shrugs, lowers head)
me: What have you been doing for the last ten minutes?
student 5: (shrugs)
me: Thanks.

The entire exchange got me to thinking about a trait endemic to those who walk upon American soil, namely the ability to resign oneself to a lesser, possibly crappy job if no others are available. That doesn't come up a lot here (granted, there aren't a ton of jobs in either category to begin with). Someone who has a degree from Tbilisi State U, 1984 in economics is therefore an "economist" and will not work in a restaurant. No self-respecting 11th-grader would ever be caught dead cleaning dishes for money. University students are loathe to deliver flyers or clean floors. It's a matter of pride in oneself, I think, but pride really has no place in the heart of a broke university student. If I ate canned corn for dinner, you can. If I'm currently wearing the same pair of $9 brown pants that I got on clearance at Old Navy five years ago, you can.

Aside from the millions of exploited immigrants and overseas sweatshop workers who take the jobs that broke American college students won't take, selling oneself short is what makes our economy tick. Maybe, in exchange, you have no Japan-esque job security, or Sweden-esque benefits. Maybe it's taking it one step too far for immigrants with post-graduate degrees to have no options other than to run grocery stores. But at least I know that somewhere out there is a job for me, as long as I'm not too stuck-up to take it.

This issue is a pertinent one for second-year Peace Corps volunteers. With a mere eight months left to go, the younger and less-experienced among us may find ourselves wondering what kind of magical resume we'll have to come up with to avoid the drifting unemployment we watched our fellow bachelor's-degree-holders bob through for months after we left. Now, they've all found their footing, and we're the ones with no two-year plan. I wish I had the faith in my degree that my students have in their future ones. As I don't, I'm going to have to use the power of my 20-hits-per-day blog and throw this out there...

PLEASE HIRE ME!!!
Jennifer McFann, age 23
willing to relocate to Washington, DC or New York City
availability: September 2008
languages: Georgian, Spanish, minimal and practically useless levels of Russian and French
education: B.A. international relations, NYU
publications: "Laveidem," Scholastic 2004
publications that sold non-negligible number of copies: none
advantageous personal traits: love of writing, willingness to agree with anything that's eloquently articulated, in favor of in world peace, minimal social life to interfere with weekend working hours, sometimes able to keep running sarcastic commentary to self and not blurt it out, blue belt in taekwondo
work experience: Peace Corps volunteer (teacher, projects, etc), NYC City Council intern, software review analyst (that is, analyst of reviews and not of software itself, which would be cooler), tutor, administrative assistant, server at mid-range family restaurant
looking for: global NGO, esp working with East Asia or Caucasus; political thinktank (I can make coffee); mid-range family restaurant
contact info: leave a comment on this blog with your organization's name and email, and I'll trip over both feet in my desperate rush to get in touch with you

P.S. If you are a citizen or resident of any other country and you object to my classification of taking lesser jobs as a distinctly American quality, then I urge you to leave comments on this post correcting me for my blatant ethnocentricism. If I see no comments, then I'm right forever.

How a Thought Becomes a Blog

2007-12-08T05:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I go a while without writing anything in this blog, as you may have noticed. It's not that ideas don't abound-- they definitely abound-- but there's a certain weeding-out process that any blog inspiration has to go through before it becomes a post. Let's follow a sample idea through the blog post-writing system, a la School House Rock.

Example inspiration: I just ate an overripe persimmon.

Obstacle one: Who will it offend?

This obstacle stops most blog post inspirations dead in its tracks, for I am not merely offending people by my own cynicism and apathy, I'm offending them in the name of the US government. It's my contention that some people will be offended by anything-- and that they should have the sense to read the disclaimer at the top of the page before they blame all 300 million Americans for something I carp about-- but nonetheless I won't write anything without scanning it thoroughly for possibly offensive clauses or sentence fragments. Exceptions include posts that are offensive to other Peace Corps volunteers named Heidi and Ryan.

Will my story about an overripe persimmon aversely affect my standing with the persimmon benefactors, the teachers at the 12th school of Samtredia who gifted it to me three days ago? Probably not, since they don't have internet. Is it offensive to say that they don't have internet? No. Because they don't. Is it offensive to say that it's not offensive to say that they don't have internet, implying that it's a given fact? Et cetera.

Obstacle two: Is it substantial enough to warrant an entire post?

Rarely are the thoughts that pass through my head coherent enough to congeal into a post. Rarely are the coherent thoughts remembered long enough to congeal into a post. It takes a special thought to blossom into a blog post, one that occupies my mind while I should be teaching, or one that comes to me while I'm within arms' reach of my laptop. I've wanted to write a blog post about the bazaar for a long time, and yet nothing. Here I am, writing this instead.

The persimmon story is rather short. It consists of: I was given a persimmon by the teachers at the 12th school because every time I go there, they feel obligated to gift me with food. They've also offered to put a plaque on the wall with my name if I can help them get funding for an English language laboratory. I took the persimmon home and let it ripen for two more excessive days, then sliced/mushed it into pieces with the help of a dull butterknife that I keep in my room for the purpose of eating straight peanut butter. The inside of the persimmon was translucent and gooey, either like a glazed sashimi if you're sophisticated, or like the alien cadavers from the Texas morgue in X-Files: Fight the Future if you're me ("Mulder, it's completely edematous.")

Obstacle three: What does it say about Georgian culture?

The only thing that stops this blog from completely dissolving into a self-indulgent diary is that it's supposed to be edifying, dispensing occasional tidbits about the trials and tribulations of living in Georgian society. Of course, once we start discussing "Georgian society" as a whole, a bunch of ambulance-chasing disclaimers come into play, just to drive the point home that I know that not every Georgian behaves the same way, not every Georgian compliments my looks by telling me I'm going to be bridenapped, not every Georgian has a two-degree range of temperatures that they find comfortable and relegate all else to "freezing" or "very hot," not all Georgians think Chinese people are being sent by the government of China to take their jobs, and so on.

The persimmon story is absolutely without value in this regard and would not even suffice as a blog post on a normal blog. Perhaps I could take the example of the gift persimmon and use it to talk about the selfless generosity and hospitality of Georgian society as shown by the broker-than-broke teachers at the 12th school who make $60 a month and insist on spending what little they have on their American "guest," much to that guest's shame and burden of gratitude... but that's depressing without an uplifting note about how karma resolved itself and they won the lottery the next day. But they didn't.

Obstacle four: Who will read it?

I don't put much thought into this last obstacle. If the inspiration has made it past my short term memory lapses and the first three obstacles, then it's time to give it a break and turn it into a post. Somehow, despite their own best interests, people end up reading the post anyway. You, for example, have just read a post about someone describing the way they wrote a post about eating a piece of fruit. I applaud you for it.

Congratulations! The mushy, oversweet persimmon I just ate has become a full-fledged blog post. The only thing it lacks now is a hard-hitting and overarching conclusion, which I can't quite come up with. Just a SLICE of life, I guess! Ha, ha! No. Life's kinda FRUITY like that! Oh... definitely not. Perhaps I'll just end it here.

And that's how the persimmon crumbles!

A Thanksgiving/Giorgoba Post

2007-11-26T03:36:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! And gilotsav giorgobas!

There's not much sense in a long, detailed Thanksgiving post since the only reason the children of Samtredia celebrated it this year was at the behest/command of me and my sitemate in the name of cultural exchange. It so happens that St. George Day, or Giorgoba, fell on the day after Thanksgiving, so the holiday celebration was just muddled enough to be completely devoid of educational value.

To make a long story short, our half-conceived idea of a Thanksgiving dinner at the local youth development NGO was quickly hijacked. We did our best to describe the various American foods, but we were stumped by a lack of vocabulary for locally-unavailable foods like cranberry sauce or stuffing. For example, I described pumpkin pie as being a cake with pumpkin and sweetened evaporated milk, and gravy as being a sauce made of fat. Little wonder that supra favorites like khinkali and khachapuri began to appear on our preparations list to save them from our disgusting American trough food. We arrived Saturday to a table filled with Georgian food, on top of which we balanced Ian's gravy and my chocolate chip cookies.

They asked us what Americans did on Thanksgiving, and we told them that they spend time with their extended families. The manager of the NGO conveyed this to the children, and then pointed out how Georgians do that every day, so Thanksgiving wouldn't be very special here. They asked us what else Americans did on that day, and we said they watched football and a parade on TV. They asked if Americans drank alcohol on Thanksgiving; we lied and said no because we didn't want there to be wine at the party, which would have guaranteed an extra hour of toasting and protocol rigamarole. Much as we enjoy throwing it back with fifteen-year-olds.

At least we did successfully convey that Thanksgiving is a holiday about thankfulness. When we arrived at the NGO, there was a big cake in the center of the table that said "Thank You." It wasn't directed towards us, but rather toward life. I think if Americans made Thanksgiving cakes, those would say "Thank You" too. It pretty much says it all.

Of course, we were merely passing along the favor. Our selfless, tireless gravy- and cookie-making was in part inspired by the wonderful Thanksgiving dinner we were invited to at an expat's house in Kutaisi, where every unavailable food whose vocabulary we lacked was suddenly made available, and where any lies I may have propogated at the NGO about traditional Thanksgiving celebrations were disproved. Also, in the spirit of American consumerism and excesses, the volunteers are going to put together a giant Thanksgiving celebration at our upcoming conference, which will mark the third turkey I've seen this week.

All in all, it looks like 2007 is going to be a year of three happy Thanksgivings. Don't get jealous, though-- on top of all the existing sacrifices that volunteers make during our 27 months overseas, it's also important to remember that we don't even get to watch the Westminster Dog Show after the Macy's Parade. I know, I know. Don't cry for me. All care packages go to:

Jennifer McFann
Peace Corps Volunteer
PO Box 66
Tbilisi, 0194
REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA

Can't even watch the dog show...

Most of a Wedding

2007-11-15T03:45:00.000-08:00

I caught eight hours of a Georgian wedding last weekend; alas, I didn't have the energy or the will to attend the second day of festivities. However, seeing as I have written excessively in this blog about funerals and death rites, it's really only fair to hear a little bit about weddings too.

Let's begin with a disclaimer: I didn't know the wedding would be outside in a tent and that weather would come into my wardrobe consideration. Thus, I was woefully unprepared in terms of clothing and I ended up borrowing an electrically-red blazer from my neighbor to complement my navy blue pants and black boots, all topped off with purple-tinted lipstick. It turned out okay, considering. It went well with my host cousin's bright red turtleneck, denim jacket, and mullet.

The tent was made of tarp, but the inside was ornately decorated for something so temporary. To my non-layer-wearing relief, it was quite a bit warmer inside than out. Unlike at the last wedding I attended, I actually got to sit close to the tamada, seen here standing with a microphone. His toasts were either eloquent or full of crap, depending on if you asked the women or the men. All I picked up on is that they were very long and full of words I didn't know, even the toast where he brought me to the front of the room and toasted my presence-- specifically, the opportunity for me to witness such a great example of Georgian tradition and hospitality and to take it back to the US with me... which is what I'm doing RIGHT NOW!

Of course the toast to the wedded couple called for the big guns. He's holding a kantsi, which is an animal horn. Yes, it's full of wine. Yes, you're required to drink every last drop of it all at once. No, I didn't drink it because I'm a woman and they would have been more scandalized than impressed. Well, maybe more impressed, but still scandalized. All the men in the room passed the kantsi around, toasting the bride and groom and then dumping another liter inside between toasts.

My host mother says there were about two hundred people at the wedding, which is average. There were three long tables set up with piles and piles of plates as far as the eye could see. Having assisted my host family in making a taxi-load of food for the wedding the day before, I was uneasy to notice upon our arrival that while the plates were stacks three-high, our family's food had yet to be served. Every half hour or so, a new culinary delight would pop out of the kitchen and sit untouched because everyone had been eating for the last three hours straight.

Examine this diagram of the table in front of you at a sample moment in the supra. Here's a helpful list of labels so you know what to try and what to avoid: 1) atchma (cheese and noodles and butter), 2) khachapuri (bread and cheese), 3) tolma (cabbage and ground pork), 4) pig (pork and faaaat), 5) tongue salad (no thanks), 6) mtsvadi (grilled meat), and 7) cake.

Just so you get confused, that cake in front of you was not the wedding cake. It was merely a sampling of the many non-wedding cakes people made and brought. You'll have to save room for the immaculate wedding cake, which features creamy white icing and kiwis inside. It won't come to your table until you've been eating for about five hours, so don't let it slip your mind...

You can always dance off the calories. The keyboardist and singer alternate between traditional music and modern. During the traditional songs, the dance floor becomes a battlefield, and men and women compete to stay the center of attention. It's like "Save the Last Dance," but 500 years ago. If I've uploaded the video, then here we have a woman who's dancing away with a series of men who keep getting shoved aside by increasingly smaller and smaller competitors.

The wedding dresses here are similar to western ones, and after staying pretty all day, the bride too must uphold her fair portion of dancing antics. However, check the Benjaminshvili in her hand: she gets paid to swirl around on the dance floor by random onlookers and guests.

Other than that, there were even more hours of eating, drinking and dancing. The bride threw the bouquet and I didn't catch it, but having decided recently that my ideal age for marriage is approximately 50, I wasn't too broken up about that loss. Side note-- single women at the wedding greeted each other with the phrase "And may yours be soon." Nobody said that to me.

Two last entries in the category of wedding chefs doing some showboating. They serve mtsvadi, this pictured roast meat, at many supras, but only at weddings have I ever seen it in standing skewers over a live flame. For even more effect, they cut the lights before a train of young girls trotted in bearing the firy dishes. If there's something that was lacking at every American wedding I've been to, it's fire.

Lastly, this poultry testament to everlasting love. It's a roast rooster and a roast hen, adorned in leaves and stretching toward each other for all deep-fried eternity. It's a beautiful thing, with the added bonus that there's one less rooster in the world crowing as a result. Thirty years from now, I think I'll have one of these at my wedding, too...

Persimmon Cookies-- a Recipe in Photos

2007-11-13T04:00:00.000-08:00

We don't have persimmons in Maryland, as far as I know. I explained this to my family as they scowled at the very idea of using persimmons for anything other than eating. I doubt that at any point in the rest of my life I will have a persimmon tree in my yard, so why not use this opportune moment to give one chance to the dubious recipe for persimmon cookies? It couldn't turn out as badly as the frozen khinkali entrails...

This is a persimmon, in case you're unfamiliar. It tastes like honey, and it shows up in the late fall. The inside is flecked with black, which makes it look rotten and dirty. The seeds are large and smooth, like roaches without legs. Mmm, mmm!

In the name of world peace, American baking soda comes together with Iranian raisins to create something more beautiful and edible than either alone. Actually, the leftover raisins were quite edible.

If this is what creamed butter and sugar is supposed to look like, then I'm on the right track. There's no telling sometimes-- as my college roommates will gladly reveal, I've burned canned corn before. So after you end up with something that does or does not look like this, throw an egg in there, too.

Chop a cup of persimmon. Ignore the strange looks from your host family.

Dump the persimmon and Iranian raisins in with the mix of crap you already made. There's something so Food Network about being able to chop food from your yard and throw it into your recipe, something so mundanely exotic, like referring to your raisins as Iranian even though they don't taste any different. They really are Iranian, though.

Sift together the dry ingredients, one of which is unfortunately ground cloves. I had whole cloves. There might be a better way to grind cloves than the one pictured, but I couldn't really think of it (besides, it called for GROUND cloves, right?! HA!).

Dump everything into the same bowl. It actually looks like cookie dough! Fancy that. Tastes like cookie dough, too. By this point in your service, you're probably immune to samonella, so eat away!

Voila! Persimmon cookies. What really makes these cookies is the raisins; you can also add walnuts, but those are expensive here and I didn't feel like going to the bazaar. I'm not really sure what makes these Georgian enough for inclusion in the blog, other than the ingredients... maybe you could wrap them in eggplant. Or put cheese on top.

Icing would be good. Don't use this icing, though: it's been open and sitting in the cabinet for 3 weeks. Maybe it would be a good time to throw it away, but you got it at the Dollar Store! Who knows when they'll have icing again?!

Want to make your very own persimmon cookies? Here's the recipe, courtesy of the Simple Satchmeli cookbook.

NOT-REALLY-GEORGIAN PERSIMMON COOKIES

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 egg, beaten
1 cup chopped or pureed raw persimmons
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup raisins
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350. Cream together the sugar and butter until light. Add the egg, blending well. Add the chopped persimmons, nuts, raisins; stir to blend. Sift the flour with the cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, cloves, ginger, and salt and add to the sugar mixture, blending until a thick batter is formed. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake until light brown, about 12 minutes.

Charted Territory

2007-11-08T00:39:00.000-08:00

At Georgian supras, you can only drink when the tamada (toastmaster) makes a toast. There's little you can do to alter the order or content of the toasts, since stepping on the tamada's toes is a big no-no, and since you don't usually have the language proficiency to say anything other than "Nu-uh!" or its equivalent.

You can, however, lay a major smackdown on the toast by expressing your opinion through a calculated pattern of wine intake. Drinking a toast bolomde ("to the end") expresses your absolute support and agreement with the toast-- the drinker tips the empty glass over and tells you they affirm the toast with the empty space in the glass. A couple gulps, and you're half-heartedly in favor of the toast. A few sips, and you're not opposed to the toast, in theory. One sip means you're a woman. No sips and you're a snobby imperialist pig who spits on Georgian traditions and who uses ancient Georgian texts for kindling, or else you didn't understand and you're wondering why no one finds you cute and interesting anymore.

I like to follow this helpful chart:

toast to the dead, toast to the host, toast to Georgia, toast to God

toast to parents, toast to siblings

toast to sweet memories, toast to love, toast to peace

toast to women, toast to children

toast to certain former world leader of Georgian ethnicity

There's also the occasional quirky toast that gets thrown in by an inebriated tamada by the end of the evening; file those under picture #4. Nobody will notice or be offended if you don't bolomde the toast to traveling, or if you completely disregard the toast to good weather. By the time the toast to tradition comes around, I've usually stopped listening. Special honors go to Ryan Nickum's multipurpose toast to peace and love among dead businessmen; very creative for his age.

You can develop your own chart, of course. Maybe your 14 months as a teacher haven't left you with the inclination to designate children as a two-sip toast. Maybe you think the toast to women isn't misogynist, and you have the maturity to appreciate it within a cultural perspective as a toast of respect and appreciation. Maybe you think the legacy of a certain former world leader of Georgian ethnicity is ambiguous and that it's more important to defer to host country tradition than to make an unnecessary political statement. To each his own.

And watch out for the chacha.

About that...

2007-11-08T00:36:00.000-08:00

I can't say too much, of course. I can't really say anything. I'm still going to work like normal, teaching and running clubs and such. Attendance has diminished a bit, but it'll bounce back if conditions improve. Things are perfectly safe in sunny Samtredia, just that the usual Latin American soap operas have been replaced with different television fare of the 'live bulletin' variety.

I love and miss everybody in the US, by the way, but I'm going to be very disappointed if I return to you before August 2008.

Shrug

2007-11-04T01:38:00.000-07:00

The title of this post is not a reference to that blot on the face of late-90s fashion. It's the only response available sometimes when someone from another culture says something that you disagree with on such a basic level that you know there is absolutely no sense in arguing. It's not even usually something offensive; it's usually something that erases all possible witticisms, commentary, facial expressions, etc from your mind. You could laugh, but then you'd have to explain yourself. You could get angry, but then you'd be angry for the rest of the day with no one to take it out on but your site mate. It's best to shrug, and then to detail it in your blog that no one reads.

- From a neighbor: "I've had chicken in Moscow. It was completely without taste. But Samtredia-- Samtredia has the best chickens IN THE WORLD! You cannot find a better chicken in any town in the world."

- From a host relative: "You've stopped eating bread? Then what will you eat?"

- From a teacher: "You can't give extra credit to students who help you after school. That's punishing the rest of the students."

- From a neighbor: "Why are you putting on your seat belt? Are you afraid? Don't worry, you're in the back seat; if we crash, you won't get hurt."

- From a host family friend: "To lose weight, don't eat anything before 12 o'clock. Then, have one kilo of matsoni with honey and coffee mixed in. Then don't eat anything until six o'clock. Then have another kilo of matsoni and a cucumber. Then don't eat anything for the rest of the night."

- From a villager: "It's terrible that the president is suggesting people get degrees abroad. Then what happens if the next president says foreign degrees are worthless?"

- From TV: "It's not safe to drink water with meals. The water turns the food to porridge in your stomach and makes it difficult to digest."

- From a medic: "It's possible that she fainted because it's cold outside and then she came inside where it's warm."

- From a host relative: "You're a slave, and I am free. I don't run around looking at my watch all the time. I do what I want, I don't work if I don't want to, I get places late, and I am free."

- From a taxi driver: "You can't wait that long to get married. Once you're 25 or 30, it becomes very difficult to conceive."

- From a parent: "Why haven't you assigned my son any long texts to memorize? He should be memorizing long texts every day."

- From a teacher: "Our country has lots of factories and manufacturing. The government should be able to pay for us to have cars and central heating like the Soviets did."

- From a teacher: "The weather forecaster said that it's going to reach 60 degrees (140 degrees Farenheit) this summer."

Then again...

- From an American: "Of course you didn't get need-based scholarships; your family's been in America for 400 years. You had your chance."

- From an American: "No, I don't eat breakfast; I'm fat enough!"

- From an American: "It's good that someone like you came to study in the city. There's no real point in me going to the country, what could I learn there?"

Gilotsav Halloween! (+ Baseball...)

2007-11-01T05:21:00.000-07:00

Being the outgoing and active volunteer that I am, I was successfully henpecked into organizing a Halloween party for my 6th grade students. We offered the party to the 10th and 11th graders first, but surprisingly the prospect of bobbing for apples and playing musical chairs didn't pique their interest in the least. What seventeen-year-old wouldn't want to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey? It's okay; the sixth grade is one of my favorite classes, partially due to their freakish intelligence, and partly due to their indulgence of me as their first English teacher last year, when they were fifth graders learning to read and I seemed to them an expert in my field, cooler than cool because I was from America. My eleventh graders harbor no such delusions.

As any of my college friends could tell you, there's never a dull moment at a party organized by Jennifer. While one student did ask me halfway through if they could please leave-- to which I said no and commanded him to have fun-- the rest had a great time, as shown by Salome and Ani in this picture, partying it up like it's 1999.

What do you think of when you think of a Halloween party? My counterpart asked me what I usually did at Halloween parties, and all I could think of was walking in the Greenwich Village parade... probably not the answer she was looking for. Fortunately, the last volunteer Nicole had held one of these things, so the precedent of various little activities made their way into canon and tradition:

Bobbing for apples. Notice the little wallflower against the back wall. This kid knows all the answers but never says a word in class without being singled out. Here he is LAUGHING. I'd say that made it all worthwhile, but maybe if the whole party had consisted of waiting for one kid to laugh, it would have sucked.

Biting apples on a string. The kids voted this one into existence because they saw it in a movie.

Toilet paper mummies. It seemed more appropriate than a "TP the Teachers' Houses" contest.

Musical chairs. Levan the Tiger seems to have neglected the empty chair behind him. Way to blow it. You've failed Halloween.

And lastly, a costume contest. Our helpful jury of parents and the director chose as the winner: everyone. Everyone's costume was great, so everyone's the winner. Everyone was happy with this result except for me, holding my pack of glitter pens for the nonexistent first prize winner. Fine. Nobody gets glitter pens.

Lest I neglect to mention it, the children also learned the song "The 12 Houses of Halloween," though we stopped them after 10 houses because the parents were shifting in their seats ("10 shiny pennies, 9 orange gumdrops, 8 peanut clusters, 7 popcorn balls..."). If I've been to Tbilisi by the time you read this, then I've uploaded the video. If not, then not.

All in all, an exhausting success. No pumpkins caught fire, no students had wardrobe malfunctions, and only 1/4 of the water was spilled from the bobbing-for-apples bowl. Did I mention I was dressed as a baseball player? Seems like a good way to end the post-- except I must also note that as I listened to a download of NPR's news report, the reporter said something about Boston coming home with a World Series trophy. Was I more surprised that the Red Sox won, or that the World Series had started and ended without my knowledge? Thus ends my second baseball season away from home. When I get back... Nationals 2008!

How to Make Ready Your Life for Winter

2007-10-28T03:44:00.000-07:00

1) Take your insulated sleeping bag from behind your wardrobe and unroll it in all its unwashed glory. You'll be spending much of your winter here, though at least this year you can work on your laptop inside the sleeping bag instead of wearing the sleeping bag while you work on the family computer in the next room. Apply ample Febreze.

2) Get your projects to a nice stopping point, far enough along so they won't roll back into nothingness but not so far that they're too time-sensitive to withstand the long winter months, during which it is neither fruit season nor community contribution season. Don't worry; your projects will crank back up in April, around the same time that your community members start appearing outside again.

3) Borrow your site mate's portable hard drive and fill your computer with movies. This is not a time to be discerning: by February, you'll wish you'd taken that copy of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

4) Take your winter clothes out of suitcase storage. It'll be just like in the US, when you realize how unstylish everything you wore the last season was, but it won't bother you because all anyone will ever see you in is your coat. It's a faithful little coat, but you can also take this moment to contemplate the 100% possibility that this'll be the last year you wear it. Hopefully the remaining button will hold tight.

5) Teach your family how to make cinnamon buns. You'll have to ignore your mother's voice in your head telling you to teach them how to make redeeming American food instead, since you're not quite sure what that is, and since you're pretty sure that it involves nonexistent things like boneless skinless chicken breasts and lettuce.

6) Wash all your clothes. The six-month rain season is not conducive to doing so, and you never know when you'll have the chance again.

7) Give yourself a list of Emergency Productivity Activities. It's quite easy to completely waste a day when it gets dark at 5:00, so why not study Georgian some more? Why not learn to knit? Why not read all the handouts and manuals from every conference that Peace Corps has given you since training? The RPCV Career Manual is highly recommended.

8) Put away your sandals. It's still warmish outside, but your neighbors and family will have daily coronaries if you wear such foot-bearing shoes outside in months that end in "-er." You'll catch a cold. Keep warm instead with the thought that the next time you wear those sandals, it'll be time for your Close of Service conference*.

9) Wear layers.

* This is not to imply that you are anxiously awaiting your release from the fine republic you live in, but rather from teaching. The end approacheth.

Creative Instinct

2007-10-16T05:56:00.000-07:00

Getting the kids to think creatively is one of my weird focuses/obsessions here, and I pursue it at the expense of other skills I could be teaching, such as... I don't know, reading. Or grammar. Or vocabulary.

I'm sure this vexes my counterpart to no end, such as today when I hijacked the lesson on using modal verbs in interrogative and negative sentences ("I must go to school. Must I go to school? I musn't go to school.") and made them write dialogues instead. Usually I keep my subversive creativity-building activities to the first five minutes of class, when we write journal entries and I make fun of the kids for all writing the same answers.

"Imagine you want to study in the USA. Write one unique reason why."

After 20 kids told me that they want to go to the US to make new friends and to learn English, we had a nice little discussion about what the word "unique" means. Then, as usual, one student raised her hand and gave a bizarre answer on which I lavished praise, and which my counterpart thought was almost abnormal enough to be wrong.

"I want to study in America to see what kinds of grass grow there."

I was delighted with this response. Creativity! Perhaps I'm mistaking non sequiturs for creative answers, but it's a start. The problem is that in the rest of their classes, they're taught that there's one right answer to every question. So one day I brought a sock to the 10th grade class and asked them what they could do with it.

"We can wear it on our feet when it is cold."

Right. So I explained the purpose of the activity, which was that they should brainstorm as many ideas as possible and not worry about whether or not the idea is stupid. I tied it around my eyes as a blindfold. I mimed putting a rock in it and hitting a thief in the face with it.

"We can wear it on our hands when it is cold."

Improvement.

"We can put nuts in it and hang them to dry."

Better! Thus concludes a satisfying brainstorm activity. It really is a skill they all have, but it's the process of tapping into it that takes all the patience. It's one of those things that has to be addressed before you start cracking open the new-agey, no-walls classroom activity books that Peace Corps gave us. This is something I didn't yet know when I began my long and distinguished teaching career in September 2006.

"Okay kids, we have the names of 15 animals on the blackboard. Pretend to be one of these animals, and then write answers to the questions on the board! For example, what do you eat? What are you afraid of? Where do you live?"

Twenty minutes later...

"A bear lives in the wood." "Fish eat smaller fish." "Cat is afraid of a dog."

Then I'd go home and stomp on my copy of "Grammar Games & Exercises." The next lesson would be spent reading and rereading a text about a Doberman that was rescued by a firefighter, and there was really nothing I could do about it, what with my track record of failed alternatives.

No more! Well... occasionally more. But less often! Now that my students are familiar with the antics of their crazy American teacher-- speaking in English all the freaking time, playing games, cowering in the corner as they throw paper at each other-- they have a better understanding of what the purpose of these activities are.

(The secret purpose is that they will do better in the Writing Olympics contest next March, but of course I have the goal of improving their trajectories in life next to my heart, too)

Back to that lesson which I hijacked today... It was the 6th grade class, which is the most delightful little collection of hyper-talented language learners that I've seen in Georgia-- I had them last year, too, when they started English. Their assignment was to write group sketches about an English lesson at which something happens, and then I gave them pieces of paper on which said event was written. Among the events were a dog entering the room, the teachers falling asleep, and President Saakashvili coming to the lesson. Perhaps it was a bit of a stretch to have one group write a sketch about if it started raining apples at the English lesson; they traded for a new event.

It was this last group that had the most creative presentation. Scene: They're at the English lesson, and the flowers on the windowsill start speaking English. Action! The students said that the flower asked them questions in English, and they wrote the answers on the blackboard. Then the bell rang and the lesson was over. They said goodbye to the flower, who assigned them some homework, and left. End scene.

I gave them some stickers.

Three Funerals and a Wedding

2007-10-11T06:25:00.000-07:00

People seem to die around here more often than in the US. If that were a statement based on a low life expectancy or high mortality rate among Georgians, then I would deem it in bad taste and maybe not write it, but since my friends insist that the Georgian life expectancy is comparable to the US life expectancy-- thanks, McDonalds-- we're in the clear. It just seems like more people die around here because everybody knows their neighbors up and down the street, as well as their neighbor's cousins in Tbilisi, their neighbor's friends in Greece, their neighbor's Godparents, etc. so among that vast range of categories, someone's bound to die every once in a while.

I went to my third funeral in Georgia today. The first, which I wrote about already, was for my friend Heidi's host father from training. The second was for a neighbor whom I perhaps passed in the streets everyday and didn't say hello to because I never know who's going to stare at me like a crazy person if I greet them and who's going to be offended if I don't. The third was the father of my host brother's friend, and also our neighbor on an adjacent street. Since he's our neighbor, I tagged along to the panashvidi-- a ceremony in which you go to a room with the coffin and you offer your condolences to the female family members who are sitting and talking to the dead person. If you are a woman, which I've been known to be, you stay in the room and listen to the mourning for a little while, probably sitting in quiet contemplation of life and death. On this particular occasion, a trio of men sang dirges in the other corner.

I thought this was another anonymous funeral for me, until Irina told me I have a picture of the dead guy in my computer. Here he is, an innocent bystander and prop from my quest to capture Samtredia on film. To this man who died, I'm that weird American who showed up and took a picture of him with toilet paper in his hand. To toilet paper in his hand. He doesn't even look that old in the picture. I tried to think about that while sitting around at the panashvidi, but I soon reverted to me, the dead man is the guy who frowned at me after I took a picture of him with trite philosophical thoughts about the fleetingness of existence. I wondered why the Georgian church is against cremation. I entertained morbid thoughts about the condition of the unembalmed body, thoughts which proved unfounded at the open-casket funeral the next day.

The panashvidi was yesterday, and the funeral was today. I'd guess about 200 people showed up. I'd be pretty satisfied with my time on earth if 200 people showed up to my funeral. The only problem is that you end up with moocher guests, like my host sister and I. We arrived at the funeral procession for the final five minutes-- just in time to see the pallbearers pick up the coffin and rotate it around three times before placing it in the car, a custom I hadn't noticed before-- and then we waited an hour or so for the mourners to return from the graveyard so we could eat their food at the funeral supra down the street from our house, which we promptly left as soon as we were full, having made no toasts. Furthermore, Irina was entertaining me the whole time with her strange knowledge of funeral vocabulary-- "There is the coffin." "Here comes the hearse."

Speaking of food (as usual), there's a special funeral food that I think falls under the category of cool exotic food that belongs in a blog. It'd really help if I knew the name, but alas I just point at it when I want it. It's buckwheat with honey and coffee. Pretend this is a restaurant menu, and that I've just described this food with all the delectable, irresistable adjectives that are due it.

This weekend, I shall break my streak of death-based events and attend my first Georgian wedding. I've been told that they're 2-day affairs, full of non-stop eating, drinking and dancing, all of it videotaped. I've seen one such videotape, and by hour 22 the bride looked like she'd seen better days, so maybe this weekend's wedding will be a bit shorter, since they had their Kutaisi (nearby city where the groom lives) wedding last weekend. Did I mention the bride and the groom both get a wedding? The bride in this case is my sitemate's host sister Natia, so it's like one of my friends told me; in the grand scheme of things, where there's no question as to whether I'll attend my host brother's friend's father's funeral, this is practically my best friend's wedding. Perhaps a post on it will be due.

Side note-- I hate movies that steal phrases like "my best friend's wedding" and make each incidence of that phrase remind everyone of the movie. I also hold no love for people who take that opportunity to make a jocular reference to the movie in question, so there best not be any jokes left in the comments section of this post. I'll settle for the usual nothing.

Through the magic of pod technology...

2007-10-08T06:52:00.000-07:00

I wonder idly if NPR podcasts will boost the popularity of public radio among people in my generation. There's a bunch of us here who listen to them, even some like me who don't have an iPod-- only offbrand players for me, thank you. We get our domestic news from Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!, our in-depth radio essays from This American Life, our international updates from Foreign Dispatch...

Let's turn the tables: while we get our information about the entire universe from podcasts, the entire universe can get its information about Georgia from a podcast! This podcast was created JUST FOR YOU by a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers, some of whom have blogs and would love to hear from you about their creation. Having listened to the first episode, I can only include that it's very well produced, including interviews with Georgians and with our country director, a day in the life of a TEFL volunteer and an NGO volunteer, music, and a radio essay. I guarantee you'll love it and listen to every episode for the rest of your life. You'll lay awake at night, crying and tearing at your pillow because the next episode is still weeks away. You'll sketch pictures of the volunteers based on their voices, and you'll use clips of their speech to create greeting messages for your answering machine. More to the point, you'll learn something about Georgia; you'll form a more complete, balanced picture in your mind of this lovely little country we live in without the distracting hum of my attempts to entertain myself.

And while we're at it, you could also check out the UCSD International Relations & Pacific Studies podcast here. Maybe if they find out I linked to their page, they'll let me go to their school...

Disco Inferno-shvili

2007-10-03T05:57:00.000-07:00

To continue our recent streak of blog posts about Georgian musical culture, let's have a looksie at my favorite part of it-- the dancing! This post will be fortified, supplemented, and generally gooded by the presence of just a few of the 5,000 short video clips I've taken of traditional Georgian dances at various venues. It's further gooded by some shots of the Georgian national ballet. See if you can tell the difference.

Note that modifier-- TRADITIONAL Georgian dances. You might think this is like the reminder from the last post, where I condescendingly insisted that you realize that Georgians don't just listen to traditional music. Well, as on-point and obvious as that was, it's a little different in this situation. Yes, I have seen Georgians in Discoteca mode, and they generally dance like Americans do but in a less blatantly scandalous manner (although occasionally, the young folk will break it down like it's an Akon video). The difference, though, is that I don't think I've been to a Georgian dance party where they didn't bust out the moves of their Caucasian ancestors; it's probably not something they do in the debaucherous night clubs of Tbilisi, but of course I wouldn't think of going to those. No one ever invites me.

So braid your hair into four parts, stick a knife in your waistbelt, and come with me to a land of swirly skirts, acrobatics, and permanent knee damage.

The first thing I noticed about Georgian dance is that the boys get all the cool parts. The men jump around and spin on their knees, the women clap. The men fight with swords, the women drop their handkercheifs to stop the violence. The men create a human tower, the women get up on their toes and slowly circle in place. We could read into this, and we'd have a decent chance of making at least one or two apt observations, but then we'd be generalizing, and nobody likes that. Instead, let's make some wide, sweeping observations:

- The men and women in Georgian dance don't touch. There's some dances where they're partners and the man will guide the woman around the stage, but his arms and hands are always at a safe distance lest he be overcome with desire at a brush from her hand. Actually no, it's an act of respect for the man not to touch her, but it's still kind of funny to think of it as a straw-and-camel's-back situation.

- Women are graceful, floating creatures that gracefully float around the stage, long dresses billowing in their floaty breeze. Their main role is to slowly move their hands at the wrist while they raise and lower their arms, then rinse and repeat. There are a few dances where women get to break a sweat, and these are coincidentally my favorites.

- The dances are mostly regional. Perhaps, having not paid attention during that segment of World History, you're unaware of the regions of Georgia, or that Georgia has regions, or that Georgia is an independent nation. In any case, the regional variations in the costumes, gender roles, music, etc. are all the geography lesson you'll need, unless you've had the pleasure of taking the cross-country train and watching as The Nature of each region fades into that of the next. Only 9 lari from Tbilisi to Poti, but buy your tickets early.

On to the videos! If you only watch one, watch the last one-- the Khevsuruli. If you watch two, check out my fifth graders (3rd video). If you watch three, you may as well watch all six.

This one took place at my school. The dance is called kartuli, fyi. In fact, I might have already included this video in the Bolo Zari post, but you'll live. Check out the way the female dancer moves her wrists like a pro, slowly spinning like it's her birthday. Other things to notice include the eyes of the dancers, which are important in this one-- the male dancer stares at the female dancer like she's a vision chart, and the female dancer casts her eyes down. Why? OUT OF RESPECT. Or something like that.

Either Mrs. Thompsonshvili dropped the ball on this year's costumes, or the sleeves are supposed to be that long (they are). This is the Ossetian dance, and the most delightful part about this jaunty little ditty is that-- in case you didn't notice-- the boys and girls dress the same and dance the same. Gender equality in Ossetia!

These dancing machines are last year's fifth graders at my school. Thanks to the same-yard proximity of a dance studio, our school's students get only the most thorough of cultural educations. In this clip, they're dancing the Acharuli like no one's ever Acharulied before. The dance is from the region of Ajara/Atchara, which is even now more liberal than much of the country. Does that stem from centuries of dance where women and men kick and spin and reach in two-part harmony? The world may never know. It could just be because all the tourists go party on the beaches of Batumi every summer. Liberalism is contagious.

Just wanted to show you what it looks like when it's not choreographed. At supras, they'll usually hop aboard the dance train somewhere after the sixth or seventh toast, occasionally with video camera in tow to catch every excruciating moment of the American's impromptu dance lesson. It's a bit different without thirty people dancing in unison, but it's still harder than it looks. Videos which prove this will never be posted.

Khorumi! This all-male dance has some pretty blatant references to being on the warpath and listening for enemies. Usually when you're watching a traditional dance based on war, it takes some interpretation to see the similarities, kind of like looking at a constellation. Deciphering war from the Khorumi is like looking at a giant billboard that says "THIS IS A WAR." You'll see what I mean.

Why did I recommend that you watch the Khevsuruli? Because I think it has the most "Ooo, Aaa" moments. If you're tired of waiting for arthritis to settle in, why not accelerate the process by learning this dance? Jump five feet in the air and land on your knees! Hop across the stage on the curled tip of your unsupported big toe! All these stunts of amazing manliness are accomplished during the part of the dance where men try to outdo each other's feats of osteo-defying magnificence, so if you're looking for that part, skip past the beginning where they're feigning gentleness for the woman on the stage in all her graceful, floating loveliness. On a side note, I'm not sure I've ever seen someone sword fight like this... oh wait, there is that one Georgian music video with traditional music in the background, where 10th-century Georgians are having a supra in a field, when suddenly an innocent Georgian damsel is plucked away by a gang of ne'er-do-wells (probably also Georgian), and then the first group of Georgians slam their clay cups of wine to the table and race to her rescue, where they engage the second group of rapscallions in spinning sword fights. Don't worry, it ends well.

That's probably excessive enough for now. When you come visit me in Georgia, we'll go see the National Ballet if they're in town, where you can fully appreciate the sensation of watching a dance that people were probably doing in the same place fourteen centuries earlier. There's more adrenaline involved, too, not only from the girly reactions of awe at the sparkly costumes, but also a legitimate fear that the knives that the dancers are throwing into the floor are going to bounce out and stab you in the eye. Fun for the whole family!

I Want My MuzTV

2007-09-30T00:39:00.000-07:00

You might think that all Georgians listen to is traditional Georgian music, straight from the 6th-century Caucasus and into their CD players. While they do listen to their share of traditional music-- a practice I'm 100% in favor of because their traditional music sounds cool and old and has lots of chords that resolve into fifths-- there's other stuff around, too. If you think a little harder, you might smack yourself in the forehead and realize that, of course, they listen to American pop, as well. What red-blooded Georgian wouldn't want to hear "Stars Are Blind" by Paris Hilton five times a day? I could probably count the number of students in my classes who don't have at least one Pussycat Dolls song on their cell phones with one hand.

Now think a little harder. Georgian pop, you say? Yes, it exists. Georgian rap, even, and Georgian R&B, all of which gets played on the radio station Ar Daidardo; the name translates to "Don't Worry," and since the station only plays Georgian tunes, I can only infer that the true meaning of the station name is "Don't worry about foreigners."

Let's dig a little deeper, though. If you were a post-Soviet republic, where would you look for pop culture? The Soviet Union! But since that dissolved over fifteen years ago... Russia!

Enter MuzTV, the cornerstone of my Peace Corps television-viewing experience. In those rare moments between the five hours of Latin American soap operas in the evening and the five hours of Latin American soap opera reruns the next morning, sometimes I can sneak downstairs and put on my dear sweet MuzTV, bastion of all that is recent. Perhaps we get our American pop songs a few months after you do. Perhaps most of the songs are Russian, anyway. It's music videos! It's new! It's (occasionally) English!

During my visit to the US, many conversations went like this:

My sister: Man, Minnesota stations don't play any good jamz.
Me: Speaking of jamz, did you see that new Timbaland video?
My sister: WILL YOU STOP ASKING ME IF I'VE SEEN MUSIC VIDEOS?!?!
Mom: Be nice to your sister.
My sister: But Mom, she always--
Mom: She's just a little out of touch. She'll come out of it.
Me: Like in that Fallout Boy video.

But the secret love that I couldn't share with my family and friends, no matter how many burned CDs I distributed, was my love for Russian pop. I walk around the house singing the first line of "Bostochnaya Skazka" because I don't know enough Russian to understand the rest. I find Valeri Meladze's machismo to be tolerable because he's representin' for the Georgians on the Russian pop scene. I wish I knew what the song "LML" was about, though Via Gra's better song is definitely "Tzvietok i Nozh."

The women are identical, blonde and gorgeous, and the men are portrayed as sex symbols of a kind we usually don't see in the US. Case in point...

DIMA BILAN! Most of his latest hits have been in English, which makes me think that maybe he's shooting for a crossover. For the record, he is a very pretty man, and some of his songs are catchy, especially "See What I See." He's a pop star in Russia of the same mega-level as Justin Timberlake in the US, and if he continues to pronounce "won't you" as "won'tcha" in his songs, then maybe he does stand a chance in the American market... except for one thing. The mullet.

Dima Bilan, if you read my blog: lose the mullet. PLEASE. The mere presence of this mullet makes me wonder if maybe his English songs are only in English because it sounds cool; I refuse to believe that any kind of PR handler would put so much effort into making his English sound believeable, and then send him onstage with a mullet. Of course I'm projecting American culture to an excessive degree by writing here that mullets are unacceptable in any form-- especially since the mullet is popular among Georgian teenage girls (ladies-- the above mullet message applies to you, too)-- and if he's planning on sticking around Moscow, his mullet waving in the breeze next to Red Square, then that's fine. I'm just saying, if the man is looking for a crossover, business in the front/party in the back is not the way to do it.

In abrupt sum, MuzTV is a godsend. Except for those countdown shows it airs in the evening, where I can't identify the overarching theme of the countdown because it's in Russian with no cognates, so I have to wonder how Bruce Willis, Paris Hilton, Jennifer Aniston, and Antonio Banderas all fall under the category of "Something Something Love Something." But other than that, ochin liubliu MuzTV.