Movin' on Up

Living in a country like Georgia gives new, visual meaning to the term "developing nation." In many cases, it may seem like it's just a moniker that academics use to label broken-down dictatorships that may or may not be developing but whose non-fundamentalist leaders they want to avoid offending for some reason. Georgia, however, is developing.

Every time I visit Tbilisi, I get lost. While this is partially due to the fact that I have no sense of direction and have been known to get lost in Chik-Fil-A parking lots, there's another insidious factor at work: people keep building stores everywhere in an intentional bid to obscure the landmarks I need to find my way to the office. Today, I turn left at the crumbly concrete wall with the "Giorgi was hear" graffiti. Next week, I turn left at the glass-faced DVD emporium. Today, I find the good khachapuri stand by disembarking from the marshutka (mini-bus) when the road fills with potholes. Next week, I disembark at the newly-painted crosswalk to find my way to the creperie with free Wi-Fi (try the 3-lari ham sandwich next time you're there).

It's not just Tbilisi, either (even though it's mostly Tbilisi). I am here to announce to the world that proud little Samtredia hosts not one, but TWO doner stands, my precious and beautiful source of non-fried fast food, which didn't exist before six months ago. We also offer scoop ice cream (chocolate and vanilla), DSL internet, and American cheese.

This kind of mega-development is helped along by two things, mostly: Georgia is actively pushing toward the West with dobermanesque determination, and the foreign aid flows like agriculturally-subsidized honey. It's all enough to make one wonder how apt the comparison is between American/Western culture and the Borg, if one happens to be a giant nerd.



(For the uninitiated, the Borg is a race in Star Trek that forcibly assimilates other races into its own, erasing their former identities and taking their best qualities as its own. Key quotes include, "I am the Borg," and "Resistance is futile." Consider yourself informed.)


So, the Borg. It's not difficult for many countries to see American culture as a hostile, conquering force, sweeping away centuries-old traditions like cobwebs that are blocking a television. First comes English-language sitcom reruns and McDonaldseseses, then before you know it your fellow countrymen are rapping away in the language of your ancestors, sporting FuBu shirts that are neither for them nor by them.


Unfortunately, I can't deny these charges, other than to say that we're not doing it on purpose. In fact, many of us would prefer that travesties like American Idol remain dirty little domestic secrets. I would, however, like to thank all the cultures we've usurped over the past almost-three centuries. It's pleasant and conscience-easing to think of this in terms of the law that matter is neither created nor destroyed-- while teenage girls in one small country exchange their country's traditional wear for skanky, drug-promoting Western fashion, a musician in America fuses Byzantine drum beats into his latest single. When a city-block full of little old ladies selling spices is displaced to make space for construction of a European mega-market, an organic food store in the US discovers the chic health value of Serbian yogurt.

Where does it end? Don't read that as a statement of despair. As I've said earlier in this blog, my identity as an American somewhat hampers my ability to understand the choice of ethnic history over development. I'm just wondering where it ends. H.G. Wells (and Gary H. Kah, but with a more conspiratorial lean) suggested that the end comes in the form of a one-world government. Samuel Huntington predicts a clash of civilizations. Naysayer historians-- and my Dad-- predict the inward collapse of the American "empire," as Americans follow the path of ancient democratic constituencies and learn that they can treat their government as a teat. My friend from college, unhindered by political correctness, maintains that American culture will "win" because it's more competitive and inherently "better." Would you condemn him less if you knew he was a naturalized citizen?


In the interests of not expressing a political opinion, I'll dodge my interpretation of that question for now. Just a couple last observations that piqued this post in the first place: 1) My host family and I watched a Georgian-language sitcom on Sunday evening, complete with a live studio audience and a minimum of five laughs per minute. 2) There's a new Coca-Cola commercial airing with a Georgian jingle playing in the background, in which the underline of the Coca-Cola outline is outfitted with plates and people to resemble a supra.

Did I mention the number of Diet Coke vendors in Samtredia has tripled since I've been here? That brings us to three...

Thanks for your money!!

Thanks to all the wonderful, generous, well-dressed people out there who donated money to SELF Camp (Self-Esteem and Leadership through Fitness), even those of you who filled in your own acronym to change the lovely, inspiring title of our camp for preteen girls into something creepy. It's the money that counts, not your misanthropy, Mr Main. Another special thanks to those of you who tried to donate, but who found that the link didn't work because-- guess what?-- we got fully funded! Woohoo!


So SELF camp was largely put together by Catherine, Lyssa, Amy and Ariana after the last group of volunteers left. My being in the US didn't lead to much of a contribution from my supposed role of "curriculum coordinator," but I had the privilege/mandatory-volunteered-choice of being a counselor at two of the camps.


See the pictures of the girls you helped? See them?!?!


Three camps took place, one in Kobuleti (west), one in Surami (central), and one in Telavi (east). I was at the latter two. The girls got to learn how to play various playstuffs, like basketball, volleyball and soccer, and they were taught exercises like running and weight-lifting. At both of the camps I attended, we learned ultimate frisbee from tall blonde male volunteers-- who didn't stay overnight; don't worry, Georgian parents!-- which was much fun for me too, as my incompetent self had just mastered the art of basic frisbee-throwing 6 weeks earlier. Furthermore, expert guest speakers came and talked with the girls about issues of women's health and women in sports, answering the campers' anonymous questions about what you might expect girls aged 11-14 to be asking about.


The most absolutely delightful part of the camps for me was that I got to partly achieve my service-long goal of teaching taekwondo to young girls in danger of bridenapping. Now, whether we're going to count the 4 hours of total instruction I gave as sufficient background for effective self-defense-- it's not, which is why I didn't suggest it to them-- is a different story, but at least they've got the idea in their heads. And they liked it! Either it will inspire me to do further taekwondo instruction in Samtredia, or I'll slack off and put a rubber stamp on the SELF camp sessions as the realization of all my dreams.

In addition, we all got to eat piles and piles of Telavi watermelon, which was delicious. A few days earlier, Catherine and I were gifted from heaven by the sight of our well-funded supplies flying out of the back of the marshutka as a door blew open while we rode down the street. Heidi and I also had the unique experience of tag-teaming an ancient hotel toilet with simultaneous buckets of water to get it to flush. It's those special Peace Corps moments that you carry with you in your heart for the rest of your life.

In short, a giant gracias (or madloba, if you please) to everyone who donated; for anyone who attempted to donate but couldn't, don't worry about it-- there's plenty of months left for PCPP donation panhandling.

26 Days Later...

So, America-- pretty sweet. Everything on my self-centered Agenda o' Fun was accomplished, and certain acquaintances even deigned to add to the list. Huzzah! I would not, however, assume that a wrap-up of my little tour would be fascinating for anyone, so I'll just let these few pictures speak for themselves.

















And after that, back to Georgia. I'd like to apologize to anyone in my vicinity on September 6th, the day after my return, as I was about as sociable and perky as that one woman who keeps staring at Americans as they walk by even though they've lived there for a year already. At that point, the idea was sinking in that, unlike in the past month, I wouldn't be able to see my friends whenever I wanted, or to walk through town anonymously. No more constant English speaking, no more variety of delicious food from various locales...

Then, praise the Lord, SELF camp started. You'll recall my plead for money earlier with regards to this camp; there'll be an entry about it soon. This sounds out-of-character for me*, but teaching sports to the girls and living with them at camp made me feel a lot better. So now, I would say my happiness level is approximately where it was during April or May. I wouldn't say we've risen to July 2006 happiness levels, but neither have we fallen to somewhere February-esque.


School actually started today, and things are still optimistic. In other news, my neighbor gave me four avocados. If my neighbor gave me four avocados in the US, I would thank her politely and put them in the fridge. When my neighbor in Georgia gave me four avocados, I shrieked my thank yous, and then called my guacamole-crazed friends to inform them of this development. One friend swore me to secrecy and set up a meeting point so we could make guacamole in Tbilisi without having to share with 30 other volunteers. Then, I arranged the four avocados (and one mango) into a smiley face so I could take a picture and remember. Then I put them in the fridge, though I noticed this morning that the refrigerator is again unplugged, as per usual.

Here we go again! ~~slaps knee~~



*Here's something I said in the US, which falls on the other end of the out-of-character spectrum: "Man, I gotta lose weight when I come back to the US; there's so many clothes to wear!"

I'm Still Here

It seems like a lame way to celebrate my 50th post, but just for the record, I didn't quit Peace Corps and then hide my shame by deleting Blogger from my internet favorites... I'm just doing some girls' sports camp stuff now that I intend to regale you with later, which pulls me away from internet access for the time being. Didi bodishi (sorry).

Happy 50th Post!!!

Peace Corps Quitter

I suppose I should write something here before I leave for the US and neglect this thing for a month, during which time my proud trend of 10 hits per day will dwindle to 0. I've seen the look of doubt and anxiety in some of my friends' eyes here, the reflection of their concern that 26 days in the USA is a long time away from the lovely life in Georgia I've come to know. Long enough to detach myself from it completely, they think.

My current mantra along these lines is that if I go to the US for 26 wonderful days and then return to my life of always-successful grassroots work in a developing nation, those 26 days will become cemented in my mind as the most enchanted, delicious 26 days of my life, bumping out that day when I went to an amusement park AND saw a Weird Al concert. If, however, I become tempted into extending my time of free-rolling fun and Jennifer-level debauchery (a relatively low level indeed), I'll get the pleasure of watching it dissolve into the mundane American life of a Peace Corps quitter-- entry-level job if I'm lucky, sharing an apartment with 10 people, wishing I still lived overseas... and to boot, unable to sustain the standard of living I had during my ecstatic 26 days. I'll call my friends from college to get together again, like we did when I was just visiting, only they'll be busy with work, or even tired of getting together and doing the same crap every weekend just because I haven't moved on yet. No one's especially interested in hanging out with a Peace Corps quitter who hasn't adjusted to her circumstances yet, and who still hopes everyone will pay for her.*

The other possibility, which is highly likely, is that I'm making too much out of this America trip in the first place and that it will be enjoyable, but not orgasmic-- and the space between "enjoyable" and "orgasmic" is sufficient to deem that a "major disappointment." Of course Mom misses me, and Minnesota will be delightful with her and my sister, and Dad misses me too, but I'll probably face the reality that life has moved on without me for most, as detailed in the last whiny post about America. Indeed 14 months is not a lifetime of separation, but 22-year-olds jump a lot of hurdles after graduation, and while they're bonding over that, all I have to say is that I left the track entirely. I can only hope that the one-week blocks I've designated for each US destination are sufficiently short that I don't lose my novelty.

So kargad iyavit to all 3 of my blog readers, and I'll let you know how it went. Hint: that means you have to come back and check this thing in a month. By the way, this is for everybody I see in the US: I KNOW I GAINED WEIGHT. Don't remind me about it or I'll sit on you.

* Not that I hope people will pay for me this time around... I... uh...

Of Wheelie Bags

This post will have no over-arching theme, as I only have 6 days left until I go visit America, and during that brief interval there are many unimportant topics I wish to cover.

1) The departure of my host siblings to English-speaking nations

Well, this one's kind of important. As I mentioned, my host brother Irakli left to go study at a EFL school in London until September. I can only assume this has resulted in extreme separation anxiety for my host mother, since they've been in Tbilisi since he left and I haven't seen them in nearly two weeks. Given what he's told me about the location of his dorm (central London) and his roommates (2 Spanish, 1 Italian, 1 Brazilian-- all women), I think he'll do fine.

And then comes today, where my former host sister Lela leaves for America! She's quite the brave soul, seeing as she's a 15-year-old who grew up in a village and who's going to go live with a host family in Texas for a year. The scarier part for me is that she'll be in an American high school. I remember high school. Lela may not be half the nerd I was, but there's always the possibility that there exists a Texas doppleganger of a Laura Wright or a Tony whatshisfacewhoIgotarrestedha. But those were middle school, anyway... perhaps Texas high schoolers are more mature and friendly. I wrote her a note recommending that she try mint chocolate chip ice cream and that she wear her clothes straight out of the dryer at least once.

2) Why can't I even make frozen khinkali?

The instructions go something like this: Boil water. Put frozen khinkali in water. Remove and enjoy. I've even seen my host mother utilize her cooking mastery to make these things. For your edification, khinkali are meat dumplings with soup inside, which they say provided the Chinese with the inspiration for their dumplings. I can't think of any comment relating to that which the censor won't make me take down.


So khinkali should look like this. You sprinkle them with pepper, and then despite the fact that they come to your table straight off the sun, you must eat them with your hands or else you'll lose the juice inside and your honor as a Georgian. Some Georgians put sour cream on their khinkali, which may sound gross but is actually amazing. It may have something to do with the fact that Georgian sour cream is actually a food here, and not some kind of cold tasteless fluffy thing, like in the US. Not that I partake in eating sour cream straight from the jar like my host family does.


Here's a delightful dish I made, which I affectionately call khinkali entrails. This is what happens when the freezer loses power and your frozen khinkali thaw and then refreeze, firmly grasping each other with as much surface area of noodle as they can. Next, you try to separate them so you don't have to make all 20 at once, but all you manage to do is tear open a few. You decide to cut your losses and slice the pile in half, making due with the loss of the ones you've maimed. Throw this slab into boiling water, and watch as pieces of meat float freely to the top. You may also try to separate them again once they've been cooking for five minutes, though you'll notice that they are now sticky instead of stuck, and you succeed in tearing open half of the remaining whole khinkali. The boiling water turns the color of the meat juice, and squares of meat and noodle bob along in the pot. When you manage to pry out the wad of 6-7 whole khinkali, the weight proves too much for the spatula you're inexplicably using, and three of those khinkali tear and fall back into the water. You end up straining the solids into a red bowl and taking a picture for posterity.


You try to salvage the loss of flavor by adding a dollop of sour cream on top, though the only sour cream you have is the tub you mixed with Lipton onion soup mix to make vegetable dip. Fortunately, this is not so bad on khinkali. You also remember to liberally sprinkle the free chunks of meat with pepper, though apparently you even fail at pepper-sprinkling because the entire packet empties itself onto your pathetic excuse for a dinner.

Bon apetit!

3) I'll see you in hell, wheelie bag...

Lastly but not leastly, the wheelie bag. Being a sturdy Land's End bag, it came in quite handy in New York, wheeling its way down the lovely even sidewalks and well-paved thoroughfares. It had an occasional habit of wobbling at its exact resonant frequency until it toppled, which I should have noted as an omen of doom.


I can't describe how much I despise this bag now. It still wobbles, for starts. The bag handle and I engage in a battle of wills... will I let it flip and then flip it back, or will I hold the thing even to the horizon with a death grip? It nips at my heels as I walk. Its spacious interior lures me to pack too much. And not to mention... there are no roads outside Tbilisi on which the wheels provide any sort of convenience. I could claim that I knew that before I came and that I intended to use the bag for other purposes, but then I would have brought a backpack with me too. Sans backpack, I've had to take this Godforsaken wheelie bag to places as diverse as Gudauri, Chiatura, and Turkey, wobbling all the way. Wobbling and flipping and nipping and being carried with one arm because there's nothing but pot holes for miles.

I want nothing but slow painful death for this wheelie bag. It has one last trip left in its life: I'm gonna use it as a carry-on for my trip to America, and then I'm going to LEAVE IT THERE. Wait... if I use it as a carry-on, then I have to drag it through Amsterdam for ten hours (and into coffee shops?). So what I'm actually going to do is fill it with Georgian souveniers and then check it. But then the souveniers will squish because this bag has no frame. Maybe I'll just empty it out and shove it inside the other, better bag. And then take it out to drop it over the Atlantic.

Happy Campers

Why did I disappear off the face of the planet all last week? Since I received approximately three emails during that period which weren't from NYU Alumni Services or Webster's Word of the Day, clearly it's not a question any of you were losing sleep over. For your information, I was engaged in a worthwhile Peace Corps project that I have yet to ever mention in this blog, since I have little to do with it-- Eco Camp!


As Georgians say, we all love the beautiful nature. The goal of Eco Camp and its subsidiary clubs is to get kids to back up that claim by refraining from throwing empty bottles out marshrutka windows and into the nature. The children are taken to a week of roughin' it, location depending on which region they're from. I got to go to Ratcha, a region that's somewhat restricted due to its proximity to a conflict zone (but that's half the lure...), to a village called Shovi, about 30 kilometers south of Russia. Check out the picture-- if you'll look around Aaron (who was-- along with Ian, Joe, Peter, David, Pierre, Nicholas and I-- a camp counselor), you'll see the kind of beautiful nature I'm talking about.


We took the kids up in a bus that Ian generously referred to as a jalopy (is that how you spell jalopy?). One could argue that this was an example of American arrogance and that it's unfair to apply American expectations of bus quality to a developing nation... but that "one" would not be me, because that thing was a piece of crap. We got to make many unscheduled stops in the beautiful nature, at which point any and all moving parts would be torn from the Model T-era engine and replaced with one of the many extra parts hidden in the glove box. As Tom, the eco coordinator in Kutaisi, said: before you agree to board an aging bus that's headed uphill into an uncharted abyss, it might be a good idea to check the amount of spare parts it's sporting. Many = bad sign.

Final statistics for journey to Ratcha:
- 4 hours estimated travel, pre-departure
- 9 hours actual travel
- 100 kilometers traveled
- 10 km/hr (6 mph) average speed


Finally, we got to our campground at Shovi. It was everything I imagined camping in the mountain woods would be... tents, sleeping bags, campfires, washing from a spring in the ground (though not from the river, which rushed along at a good 10,000 mph through rocks and such), a toilet in the woods made of tarp and a hole in the ground, picnic tables, etc. We had 35 kids with us, who were duly split into "patrols" by the Georgian Scouts-- the Scouts being the late-teens/early 20s Georgians who pretty much ran the camp, allocated the money, made my presence redundant, things like that.


What would camp be without icebreakers? Despite the fact that the word "icebreaker" used to strike fear into my social anxiety-ridden heart when I was that age, these kids all loved it. The pictured game involves a sheet placed between two teams, and when the sheet drops, the two players race to shout the name of the person opposite them.


Each of the patrols got to make their own flags and chants to go along with their-- yay!-- chores. The sole reason I mention this is to show this picture, wherein you will see a Georgian boy assisting the girls with the dishes. Don't blink or you'll miss it! This feat was accomplished with some forced substitutions from the cadre of boys lounging in the shade while the women did the women's work, but I was duly impressed nonetheless.


Other than forced labor, the kids also learned about nature or something. Pictured here, we have Nature Journal, where they're thrown into the woods to write or draw their impressions about their surroundings.







... and here's Nature Smell, where each kid is given a red plastic cup to collect things that smell strongly. Note that the criterium is "strongly" and not "good." I got to be on the judges' panel, so I'm thankful that none of the kids found the pile of nearby poo.


... here we have a leadership activity, wherein groups of 9 kids are tied together, and only one remains un-blindfolded. The kid with sight becomes the leader, who guides his or her team to a series of trees to pick up number cards and carry them back to the start line. It went pretty well, though there were isolated incidents of children being pulled backward down the hill, shouting "NELA!!!" ("slow down").


... and what would a Peace Corps event be without hippie handholding and singing in a circle?






... One of the big events was a mega-long hike. It didn't actually end up being mega-long, due to the guide never arriving and us waiting for him until 1 PM, the children bodily requesting breaks every ten minutes, and the arrival of an untimely thunderstorm while we were nearing the top. The rumbles echoed through the mountains, necessitating a speedy descent, though the crumbly rock path was somewhat an obstacle to that. We ended up making a big chain of people holding hands, sidestepping down the trail.


... Once we made our way down to the bottom, though, we could partake in the minimalist supra we'd brought with us, namely bread, eggs, and boiled potatoes. It was better than it sounds, especially when you do what David does and smush a hard-boiled egg into the bread.






Actually, eggs were our best friends. The chef was really into carbohydrates, and also into talking about the time in 1979 that he cooked for 500 children in the town of Kobuleti. Our average dinner consisted of no less than three types of carbohydrates, some combination of porridge, bread, potatoes, or noodles. There was a cameo appearance by beans on the last day, but other than that, our saving grace was the eggs. As a side note, I'd like to express my displeasure with the assistant cook's comment in Georgian that I was a pretty, good girl because I couldn't talk back in Georgian. Up yours, buddy.


The evening fires were a delight, not only because the temperature plunged down to an unseasonal 15 or so degrees every night (Celsius, of course), but because we got to bond with the chilluns while the Scouts taught them ultra-nationalist songs and chants ("We love you, our flag..."). The fires would have been nice decrescendoes from a long day into a night of refreshing sleep, were it not for the fact that the Scouts would usually start an activity at 10:30 PM or thereabout, thus creating the inevitability of yet another 18-hour day for campers and counselors alike. I promised myself that I wouldn't mention that this may have had something to do with the fact that certain parties had the luxury of midday sleep and were therefore energized for late-night Capture the Flag sessions, since that would be petty of me.


It would be a travesty if I failed to mention Kutsura, the Eco Dog. At the last Eco Camp in Lagodekhi, she was found in a cardboard box in the rain, probably left there by an owner who meant to drown her but who lost heart at the last minute. She was so bloated that she couldn't walk more than a few steps, most likely from being weaned from her mother too soon. Three weeks later, and voila-- she's been unofficially adopted by Eco Camp, traveling from campsite to campsite with the Scouts and Peace Corps volunteers, free to roam the woods, chew on pinecones, eat leftovers, chew on tents, be adored by campers, chew on campers' ankles, etc.

So the end of camp comes and goes, and we pile into the (better) bus to ride back down to Kutaisi. Unfortunately, being a better bus doesn't guard against cutting a switchback curve too closely and getting stuck in a ditch. The children panicked and tried to flee the bus, while the jaded Americans moseyed along behind, perhaps not stopping to notice that the rear window displayed a 30-degree lean. We disembarked and then belatedly noticed that the undercarriage of the right side of the bus was resting on the road, the right tires were smushed into the wheel wells, and the whole vehicle was leaning into a crevice, supported by the lucky presence of a concrete drain pipe. Even if we'd fallen, the crevice was only about two meters deep, but it was still precarious enough to warrant a slew of rubberneckers as we sat there waiting for the next two hours. A kindly KAMAZ truck driver towed us out, and after the bus driver & co. fixed whatever was wrong with the hydraulics, they kindly started up the bus and drove it 2 kilometers down the road to wait for us. This provoked much grumbling from the campers and was not appreciated. My one regret is that my camera was in the luggage compartment of the bus, so I couldn't get any cool pictures; I had the feeling that if I'd taken the initiative to retrieve my camera, it would have been the last straw that tipped the bus into the ditch. That would have made a better anecdote, I think.

As we stood at the side of the road, keeping children from merrily skipping into oncoming traffic, Ian pointed out the unfairness of having to be the adult of a situation. Were this an official Peace Corps event, we could have scurried over to watch the bus drivers struggling with air hoses all we liked, but in this case, that would have set a bad example for the children, whom we wanted to keep on the non-traffic side of the road. It's situations like these that make me forget that 23 is still young; when everyone around you is 15, you feel old anyway. This is the mindset that led to my absolute surprise when Twisted Misters (see previous posts for out-of-place explanation) were repeatedly described as being ridiculously young. Woohoo! That means I'm still young, too!


I'll conclude with the American counselors' reenactment of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. We really did make the Georgian Scouts take the flag back out of the ground so we could get this picture (much like the original WWII photographer did?), so you'd best appreciate the artistry of the bleached-out lighting and poorly-framed shadows that mark my work.

Dacha Crashing

Now on to a recent weekend in July, when I was invited to a dacha outside Tbilisi for the night, even though I had to be back at the office at 8 the next morning. It was near Tbilisi Sea, which I had no idea existed, and which looked more like a lake to me, but the dominating feature of that landscape was the rows of Soviet apartment blocs rising in the background as Tbilisi fell behind us. It may be the one angle I've seen that makes Soviet apartment blocs seem picturesque.

It was getting dark already, and my host brother was driving his friend Keti and me. I was admiring the view when I caught her telling him that they should probably wait for the SUV carrying the rest of her family, since it wasn't a good idea to drive alone on this stretch of road. I found this implication discomforting. A little bell rang in the back of my mind that there were places near Tbilisi that were restricted to volunteers, but I couldn't remember quite where, or whether it was okay to go such places with your host family. To cement the fact, my host brother decided to tell me how this road was 10 years ago, when Shevardnadze was president.

"In Shevardnadze's time, on this road-- BRACHHH!!" (punctuated by mime of execution)

To add to this, a truck drove by slowly while we were waiting alone on the empty road with the car turned off, and Keti noted that our situation was somewhat like the movie Jeepers Creepers. For the uninitiated, there's a truck in Jeepers Creepers that stalks the protagonists as they drive across the state, ramming them occasionally and then bloodily ending their lives. After texting noted Jeepers Creepers fan Laura Griffith, I sat back to wait for the truck to return and kill us.

Instead, Keti's family's SUV appeared, and we rolled on up to the dacha in the village. It'd be great if I remembered the village name, but it sounded Russian, so I couldn't. In fact, Keti's whole family-- down to the small children-- were more fluent in Russian than in Georgian and were jumping back and forth between the two languages all evening, to the effect that I understood even less than usual. At least most of them knew some English, too... Keti, especially, but also her little nieces, Mari and Ana, who dragged me around the house by the hand and explained things to me in English that I think outpaced my Georgian. Trilingual children make me insecure in my intellect. Ana, who's 7 years old, picked up on this and remarked to her mother Natia that I understood Georgian, but very very little. Mari asked me if I liked billiards, and she scolded herself for forgetting the verb "to rock," as in chairs. I think Mari's 8 or 9. Neither of these girls are yet old enough to study English in Samtredia's schools (we start in 5th grade).

That was pretty much it. We ate expensive sausages (9 lari!) and wheat bread, and the house caretaker busted out a bottle of Gomi vodka (adjectives do not exist to describe the awfulness of this beverage, but "keroseneian" will have to do), with which we toasted to my host brother's imminent departure for London (who, btw, I won't see again during my service, since his visa in London outlasts mine in Georgia). I mentioned in my toast that he might not like London sometimes, since it's difficult to immerse yourself in another culture, and he looked surprised. We'll see how that goes.

We finished our sausage around 1AM, and after apologizing for taking me to a place that only has an outdoor toilet, the Tbilisians and I headed off to bed. They didn't know that their immaculately-clean sit-down toilet that happened to be outside was far removed from my definition of roughing it after training in the village, which was cute. I suppose talking about toilets is an awkward way to end this post, but sometimes Jen is awkward.

*Clearly if you're reading this blog, you know that Tbilisi is the capital of Georgia. If you don't, I encourage you to keep returning to this blog and upping the hits on my map counter, and I've provided this little asterisk explanation so you can pretend you knew where Tbilisi was. Don't feel bad about it-- before I came here, I thought Georgia was a region in Russia. Turns out that's insanely wrong and offensive. Oops.

We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us

I can't take credit for that quote (so you can't censor me for it!), nor can I claim it was originally about Peace Corps, and a further nor to the idea of using it to describe Peace Corps being mine. Actually, we do work sometimes...

I know I posted that ridiculously-long post about what I do during the day, but looking at my day-to-day schedule is unduly unfair to me. Shame on myself. Now we're going to look at what I do on a project-to-project basis, and not only will it be a much shorter post than the summer schedule one, but it will make me look like a better Peace Corps volunteer, too.

6th grade textbook:
The textbook I used this year for the 6th grade class was the bane of my existence. Just so people (read: government censors) don't assume I'm defaming the most popular textbook series in Georgia, I'll clarify here that this is not the same textbook as everyone else uses. It is, in fact, worse. Never in my life have I seen a book that can use up 2/3 of its pages teaching nothing. Rather than whine about it (or in addition to whining about it), a group of us is writing new 5th and 6th grade textbooks. I'm one of the lucky workers on the 6th grade book, as I have ample motivation to pilot a new book this year. Unlike the volunteers who are writing the 5th grade book, we 6th grade-level functionaries have accomplished a grand total of nothing so far, save for outlining. This is probably due to all three of us having scheduled America visits this summer... as soon as one member got back from the US, the second left, and he gets back this Friday, after which we will have about 4 weeks to write the book in its entirety before I leave. Oops.

Writing Olympics handbook:
Since you either read or purposely skipped the Writing Olympics entry from earlier in this blog, I'll leave out the main project description here. It suffices to say that Writing Olympics is currently dependent on the memory of the previous year's director, who guides the current director with sample emails and files and such, offering tips and reminders on occasion. After the overachieving Azerbaijan Writing Olympics committee created a 52-page handbook, last year's Georgia director suggested that it might serve us well to follow suit, though more along the tree-saving lines of 20 pages. So she and I are putting that together now, though just like the above project, it has only made it to the outline stage so far (I sense a theme...). In deference to the Azerbaijan committee, I should mention that their project turns out a lot more complicated than ours, since the Embassy pretty much takes care of the awards ceremony for us.

Writing Olympics anthology printing:
This is the last step in the part of this project that involved a grant... and I can't close out the grant and deliver the final report until this gets done. I've got all the files and stuff, so now we just need the permission of all three (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) country directors, and we're set to go! I will heave a giant sigh of relief when this book gets printed. Special thanks to the overachievers in Azerbaijan for designing the whole thing.

Computer classes:
You may have noticed in my summer schedule post that these classes didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. WELL, I'm going to try the main idea again in September, but in the meantime I'm using some of the flexibility that working in Georgia necessitates, namely that I'm teaching a grand total of two students, both during the time in which I'd slotted for the teachers' class. Special thanks to the six teachers who signed up for the class and never showed up, by the way. Flexibility has actually come in handy every day of this class. First day, the school computer room was being used for computer tests, so I had to move to the English classroom. That, and only one student came. Second day, the computer room was available, but I realized that it's not easy for me to teach computers that are powered by Kubuntu (not a typo, I know what Ubuntu is), some Linux derivative. Third day, the school was locked, not to mention that another student appeared and asked to join the in-session class, so I took them both back to my house where my host sister and I did some team teaching. Same for the fourth day. But now, they can both use Microsoft Word and also make mix CDs of their favorite B-level American pop music.

SELF Camp:
Since this camp (formerly Girls' Sports Camp) got completely funded a couple weeks ago, all there is to do with this is make sure I have the curriculum all straightened out before I leave, since I'll probably be going straight from the airport to the camp site. I cross my fingers as tightly as I can that all the campers come regardless of our repeated date changes-- at least the Samtredia one will be there, since there's only one, I have her phone number, and I have the means to phone-stalk her until she agrees to go, despite the fact that none of her friends will be there.

Imereti Reads:
Some volunteers in Kutaisi and Baghdati are running this one, but us Samtredia mignons are duly participating. It consists of creating a reading incentives program in our region (Imereti) to get kids to read more Georgian and Russian books, and to encourage them to join and use their local libraries. Chilluns who read a certain amount by the end of the school year-- as demonstrated by how many book reports they've turned in-- will be invited to an ice cream party in May.

English book donation:
This is partially my role in the Imereti Reads project, but I'll separate it here since it'll happen regardless of the success level of the former. We're working to attain a donation of 20,000 books (one crate) from an organization in the US, and those books will be split among Imereti volunteers, with perhaps some sharing to the school libraries of volunteers who help us cart these things around. The application is due in August, so we'll see how that goes. Our local library in Samtredia informed me that if I give them books, they'll give them away, so the first item of business is to figure out a place to put these things. Also to contemplate why any library with 0 English books would want to keep it that way in the presence of an offer of 4,000 free English books.

That's about it, I think. I loaded my summer with secondary projects so I wouldn't be bored, and yet here I am with ample time to write a blog entry about my secondary projects. 20 days til I leave for the US.

*any inconsistencies in time and number countdown are to be blamed on the fact that I wrote this post over a week before I published it

Why I'm afraid of America

I leave for the US in 26 days. In case it's not apparent enough by the fact that I have a countdown this far in advance, perhaps it's worth mentioning that I have this countdown at the ready every second of the day, so should anyone choose to ask me if I'm excited about going to the US, I regurgitate that day's countdown number to them.

I hadn't originally intended to visit the US at all, but Mom's graduating from grad school and asked me to come cheer her on as she dons a cap and gown for the first time in almost 30 years, this time with shorter hair and a much higher GPA. Her grad school's in Minnesota, and then I'll roll over to New York and see all my NYU friends, and then it's down to Maryland to see my Maryland friends, and of course Dad, who will be holding the 26th Annual Pig Roast on September 1st (just my luck that I missed the 25th anniversary blowout).

This isn't really blogworthy, as you've probably noticed. The actual purpose of this post is the next few sections, to share with you a sentiment that you may not have experienced if you've never lived abroad-- especially in a developing nation-- or if you have, that I hope you can relate to, else I am crazy (what else is new?).

There's several reasons why I'm nervous about my return. The first is the most menial, and it's not really something I'm dreading: culture shock. Since my starting point on my Tour o' America is New York City, I expect that there will be some adjustment difficulties, especially regarding my plan to travel into Manhattan 12 hours after I get there and take a Metro North train to visit my Great Great Aunt Lolly. There's tons of cars and people in Tbilisi, of course, so what I think will freak me out the most is the tall buildings. I also heard of another volunteer who, while in America, attempted to cross the street the Tbilisi way-- wherein you move through traffic one lane at a time, standing in between lanes while traffic speeds by-- and got confused when the American drivers screeched to a halt instead of continuing on their way. I've also heard of two or three volunteers who were overwhelmed when they first set foot in an American grocery store; most Georgian grocery stores aren't much bigger than my bedroom. Volunteers in America have also been known to stare in awe at things like circular door knobs and gallon-bottles of milk.

Like I said, it's not really that which concerns me, since it seems easy enough to get over, and people can laugh at my idiocy, so it'll bring joy to others. What I'm worried about is the fact that I've been experiencing my friends' and family's lives in America via email. It's all well and good to hear about the various stuff they've been doing, but it doesn't really register as strong as it would if I were living there (what's more, things that I count as new news in my mind turn out to have happened weeks earlier and are no longer interesting to those I communicate with). The problem with this is that I'll step off the plane and I bet I'll expect to see the same world I saw when I left, like it's been on pause. After all, I'm the one who left. How much could have changed?

It doesn't help that 2006-07 has been an especially change-filled year, either. Since I sat down on the train to staging in Philadelphia on June 13, 2006, the following has happened: three of my friends have moved away from where they lived for most of the last 10 years, my family moved out of the house I grew up in, my stepsister had a baby, my mom moved out of the state, my dad and my stepmom have separated, and I've lost my dog and my boyfriend (only the former of which died).

Will I get into a car and accidentally drive to my former house? Will I wait for my dog outside Mom's house when I arrive? Will I call up my friends to go out on a Wednesday afternoon, assuming that they're on summer break when they're actually at work? Will I tell old jokes and reference anecdotes that they stopped talking about months ago?

Probably. I'd like to clarify here-- since apparently every post I make that doesn't contain a joke in every other second is viewed as a mental crisis on my part-- that I'm not too worried about this, either. I just thought it would make an introspective post, and would thus fulfill my introspective post quota for the next six months or so.

I just want to take this opportunity to apologize to my friends in advance for being out of touch, and for bringing up old stories too often, since that's the latest common ground I'll have with you. I apologize in advance for using the occasional Georgian phrase instead of English, and for starting too many conversations with "In Georgia..." I apologize for showing the same disinterest in domestic American news and stories as you'll show in my Georgian stories. I apologize for thinking of the salary of my counterpart teacher when you show me the new cell phone you've bought; that'll wear off when my service finishes, I think (and I'll be due for a New Every Two! thanks, Verizon!). And finally, I apologize for assuming that you've had as much spare time to think about me as I've had to think about you.

I also apologize for my new taste in crappy Russian pop, which I will make you listen to.

Reading is for Losers

Admit it, you're tired of reading this blog. There's been some long, unpictured posts lately, and despite the cute little map app I just added that tells me where the readers are from (I hereby proclaim my unhealthy interest in anything and everything that involves e-stalking... you heard me, Twisted Misters), I think everyone deserves a break from words. Thus, this post will be made entirely of pretty pictures that you can browse and read/not read the captions.


This is my cluster, the love of my life. We all trained in Kheltubani under the guise of Bella (lower left), our accomplished and lovely Georgian instructor. One quick fact about each (clockwise from me): Heidi got pulled over in Texas because the cops thought she was a Mexican running the border; Ryan was captain of his high school football team because the first captain was put into rehab; Nicholas-- my twin, for reasons that shall go unnamed-- objects to the celebration of July 4th because it commemorates bombs, violence, and the cultural destruction of the American Indian; Van didn't miss Chinese food like I did during training because she spent the year before backpacking through Vietnam and southeast Asia; and Bella teaches us swear words. She's also engaged!


The bus from Kheltubani to Gori was only 70 tetri (about 50 cents), but it was also sometimes crowded to the point of being unboardable. In such instances was a six-person-stuffed taxi ride necessitated, at an outlandish 8 lari ($5.50). The buses are, of course, Soviet.


Also Soviet are the many statues of Uncle Joe Stalin. He was, of course, born in Gori, and his namesake street, square, and museum greeted us every day. Earlier this week, I noticed that they put up a nice statue of him at the newly-renovated train station, so there went my assumption that his ubiquitous presence was due to bureaucratic inertia.


Here's what a supra looks like. Georgia's always ready for guests, which is why you should come visit me.









Pretty, pretty Kutaisi. I contend that Kutaisi is prettiest when viewed from afar, but that may be bitterness resulting from having 10 lari jacked out of my pocket on a Kutaisi bus.


Some toasts are done as "vakhtanguri"s, which is where you link arms, drink to the bottom ("bolomde"), and then kiss three times on the cheek. Bolomde toasts can also be done without linking arms. Drinking to the bottom represents your affirmation of whatever the toast is for, so if you only drink half a glass for... say, God... you're doing your hosts a disservice, to say the least. Some toastmasters will declare every toast bolomde-worthy, from peace to sweet memories.


The heart of Samtredia is the train station. These ladies are waiting for the next train so they can hop on and sell whatever deep-fried wares they happen to be carrying-- cheesebread, bean pastries, potato pastries, sweet buns, etc. These ladies are also found in bus and marshrutka stations, calling out that they're selling tasty, hot, fresh whatevers.


My family has persimmon trees in their yard ("karalioki"). I'd never had persimmon, and other than eating it straight, I can't really figure out what to do with it. Any recipes?


This may be the only time it snowed in Samtredia; within 6 hours, it was gone. Right now, it's about 1000 degrees every day (actually about mid-90s).


I can't tell if this picture is actually as cool as I think it is. It's a break in the trees that lets you see that the river below (Tskaltsitela River, I believe, which means 'red water') is like 100 feet down. Interesting? Not?


Sometimes when you've not seen meat for a while, you go to a 4th of July party and smuggle some leftover grilled pork home in an empty Pringles can. Don't judge me.


Frescoes are my favorite parts of Georgian churches. Somehow, pictures like these survived not only centuries and centuries (and centuries... some are from the 500s) of wear and tear, but also escaped the Soviet whitewashing of religious paintings.


Parliament equals pretty. It was changing colors every few minutes, which took me back to the days of walking back to the dorm in New York and watching the Empire State Building change colors-- purple for graduation day!


This is the drive to Tbilisi, as seen from a couple hundred feet up. I suppose the dark side of the road where it's been newly paved is indicative of Georgia's infrastructual improvements or something.


Jvari is one of those really old churches I was talking about. This would be a better description if I remembered any statistic about it at all... maybe it was built in the 6th century?


My host mom in Kheltubani, doing her laundry in a Soviet washing machine. We were pretty lucky to have a washing machine, in spite of the fact that it tore holes in my new clothing. Serves me right for bringing new clothes to Peace Corps.


Now we get into the pretty pictures that I'm just including because they're pretty. This is the moon over Kheltubani.


And last but not least, lovely Mtskheta, where two rivers meet whose names I don't know. Mtskheta was the old capital of Kartli (before-Georgia land), and there's two mega-old churches there, one of which has the body of one of the Zurab kings, and one of which has a drawing of Queen Tamar. Of course you know who those are. Like Lela told me, all Americans study Georgian history, and I'm a big slacker for only taking 10 years of it in high school. Sarcasm will serve her well in the US (she's gonna study at a US high school for a year; anyone from Texas?).