My Birthday!

The week leading up to my birthday was filled with anticipation. Ever since the first night I was here, when Pridoni and Ramazi asked if they could see my drivers licence, and found out that my birthday was on February 12, they had been telling me that I needed to have some of my friends over to celebrate.

A few weeks before my birthday I invited Matt, Cody, and David to come over. I would have invited more but I wasn’t exactly sure what was going to happen and I didn’t want to over burden Ramazi with too many guests. I knew that these three would be there, and I told Sopo that I would love it if her and her husband would join. I also found out on the Monday before my birthday that the husband of one of the teachers at the school had died, and that the funeral was to be on Saturday. Sopo then told me that Ramazi would prefer if I had my friends over another day, only to come back five minutes later to say “never mind, Saturday will work. Ramazi wants to take you and your friends out to a restaurant.” Hearing this I began to wonder if the teachers were all going to be at my party too, since this would be the only reason that it would matter that the funeral was the same day.

During the week there were multiple loud debates about “something.” I knew they were all talking about going somewhere…and I figured it was about getting rides to the funeral or to my birthday get together. I thought about asking but figured the suspense leading up to my bday would be better.

Saturday came and we all went to the funeral supra in the afternoon. Around five, all of my friends arrived in Siktarva. As we drove out to the road to meet them, we picked up one of the teachers along the way. This more or less confirmed that teachers would be at my birthday supra. We went to a restaurant between Terjola and Siktarva, and upon arriving I saw four or five more teachers standing outside. This confirmed that teachers would be there. I went in and the majority of the teachers were there.

The civics teacher, who speaks English, told me that this supra would be a gift for my birthday from all of the teachers at school. They surprised me again by giving me two horns for drinking out of to take with me back to America. We ate a ton of food, drank wine, sang, and danced. It was a very fun night.

Dikhashkho

A few weeks ago a few of us visited Cody and Stephanie at their house just outside Vani. They live in the village of Dikhashkho. I set off Friday after school and met Carl and Matt around 5 in Kutaisi. From there, the plan was to catch a marshutka (about an hour ride) to Vani and a taxi into Dikhashkho. Kate also came, but since she came from Tbilisi she didn’t get in till around 7. We decided to wait for her so that she wouldn’t have to make the journey by herself.

When Kate arrived we went to catch our marshutka. There was one problem…they stopped running to Vani around six. So, we looked around for a taxi. Stephanie called to see how we were coming along, and upon hearing our situation, told us that a taxi should be around 20 lari. We found a group of them but were not able to negotiate lower than 35, probably because it was getting late and they knew that they were our only option. We finally settled on the price with one of the drivers, and he smiled and nodded when we tried to ask to make sure he knew where Dikhashkho was.

Off we went, leaving Kutaisi around half past 7. After about an hour drive, our driver started looking at us and making gestures that seemed to say “where do we go from here…” This was confirmed a bit later when he pulled over to the side of the road and looked at us with a frustrated face. None of us had ever been in this part of Georgia, so we had no idea where to go. And it was pitch black out.

We called Stephanie while our driver tried to wave down cars. Eventually Stephanie was able to find a neighbor to tell our driver how to get to the village. Since there aren’t street signs in Georgia, this didn’t help much. We drove around for at least another half hour. Every few minutes our driver would look at us, throw up his arms, and yell something not happy in Georgian. There were a few moments when we though he was going to drop us and leave. But he didn’t. And finally, after going in a huge circle, we ended up on the right road. We drove past a family of Georgians who waved us down, and it ended up being Zaza, the man that Stephanie put on the phone to help our driver.

When we arrived at their house, we invited the driver in for food and wine. He refused, but I could tell that he was pleased with the offer after the stressful drive.

The rest of the weekend included beef stew, pizza, and supras with Zaza. It was fun.

I also played Fallout for 8 hours on Saturday, only to end up in the radioactive area (I’m blanking on the name), with 1 charisma point and no way of leaving without dying…it was dumb…I haven’t played since.

Snow

I'm extremely happy because it finally snowed here last week! We got about 5 inches the first night. Each day after some would melt, but more would fall later on. Sunday we were up to about a foot when it started raining. Monday morning there was about 3 inches of slush, with 4 inches of snow on top of it.

When it snows in Georgia school is more or less optional. Last week I had a few classes with only 3 students. Monday, only 20 students came to school. Good times. Today it warmed up and most of the snow is gone, but it is supposed to cool down and snow more the day after tomorrow.

I had an epic snowball fight with my host bro and sis. I obviously won, but I let them think they were doing OK.

I love snow!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/world/europe/24teachers.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1


Go to the link above and read the article. It pretty much sums up the teaching experience in a nutshell. I agree with the third person's view that the government should focus on basic resources, such as books for all students, before bringing in outsiders...but like him, I am trying to make the most of it with what I have.

Lots of stuff...

It has been a while so I have quite a bit to write about. Sorry to those of you who have been checking my blog frequently to find nothing new.

Christmas and Supras

First of all, let me say that everyone played up Christmas day to be something really exciting. It wasn’t. It was a completely normal day. I read for a few hours, my family did their farm work, and we went to dinner at my host-grandmas sister’s house. O well. That being said, there was a lot that happened around Christmas day. Around Christmas time, all Georgians kill a pig to eat. They spread out who does it on what day so that you can go to each others houses and have a supra when each house kills their own pig.

In case I haven’t explained it, a supra is a feast/party with lots of food and lots of wine. Any time there is a special event, such as a holiday, birthday, baptism, funeral, wedding…etc, there is a supra. Also, if you have a guest over there is usually a supra. Tons of dishes are put out on the table and stacked on top of each other. Men usually eat apart from the women, although depending on the age of most people and who the host is this might not be the case. To begin, the host of the supra always appoints the tamada, or toastmaster. The toastmaster leads the toasts (to God, parents, siblings, peace, deceased, children…and so on). And when they toast in Georgia, they don’t sip their wine. They fill a small juice glass full and down the whole thing in one go. It is pretty intense. There are also special glasses for different toasts. A horn is the most common ‘other’ glass. For example, when Noam (my new nephew) was born, we drank out of the horn and toasted to his long life.

The first pig was killed at my Pridoni’s house a day or two after Christmas (Pridoni is my host mom’s brother). We got up early and drove to his house. For breakfast we had three shots of whiskey and an orange. Pretty standard for Georgians. After that the pig was killed, cleaned, butchered, and cooked. It was delicious. There were about 10 men who came and joined the supra. Good times.

The downside to standing outside in the rain watching the guys do pig stuff was that was I got sick the next day. I had a fever and was in bed for two days. The day after my fever was gone we killed a pig at my house. There were only about six of us for this meal, but it was equally good.

Borjomi

The next day I met up with other volunteers in Borjomi. Borjomi is a small town on the way up to the mountains. It’s famous for Georgia’s largest export, Borjomi water. It has a salty taste and people either love it or hate it. Yiannis, one of the other volunteers, and I got to Borjomi the day after everyone else. We stayed the night in a nice warm hotel with hot showers. On a side note it had finally gotten cold in Georgia and it was great to have a hot shower. Everyone stayed up playing chess or cards and drinking wine, but I went to bed early because I was still recovering from being sick.

Bakuriani

The day after we headed for Bakuriani, one of the two main ski towns in Georgia. It’s about a 45 minute drive up into the mountains from Borjomi. Upon arriving, we found a hotel for a good price and settled in. At about one in the afternoon a few of us set off to look for skiing. The only thing we could find was a small bunny hill that was mostly ice with some grass poking through. We rented skis, 5 lari for an hour, and went up. The lifts were toe lifts, and cost 25 tetri (cents) per time up. I skied for an hour before I started feeling under the weather again and went back to the hotel.

That night one of the guys in our group bought wine and a few of us found a guy that was selling rotisserie style chickens. We bought a few and went back to the hotel for dinner. There was a Georgian family from Tbilisi there and the father joined us for a supra of drinks and sweets. He pulled out a huge bottle of vodka and his wife brought out a bunch of chocolates. I was still sick so I just ate chicken and had an enjoyable time watching everyone interact with our Georgian guest.

On our second day in Bakuriani, David and I set out to find the big ski lifts. It turns out that two of the three are broken and haven’t been open for two years. And the third was operating, but didn’t have enough snow for skiing. We decided to look for it anyway. It was about an hour walk from the town center, but was worth it when we got there. It was six lari to go all the way to the top of the lift, and the views were amazing. You could see all of the northern Caucusus Range, on the other side of which is Russia. It was pretty cool.

While waiting to leave Bakuriani, we were sitting in a café and some Georgians invited us over for a makeshift supra. We ended up having a small dance party as well (This was the video on facebook for those of you that saw it.) After about an hour of awkward dancing, David, Yiannis, and I got on our marshutka (mini-bus) headed for Kutaisi. On the way, Yiannis invited David and I to Gogni, his village.

Gogni

When we arrived in Gogni, we discovered that there was a supra going on at Yiannis house. We went downstairs to the dining room and joined in. This was the first event I’d been to in Georgia where there were Georgian girls around my own age. There was dancing, and tons of food, and wine. It was fun.

The day after we went to one of the girls houses for another Supra. Her father had done some work in Greece and made a decent amount of money. Their house was the nicest and most modern house I have been to so far. And they were the only people in Gogni with internet.

Back to School

After Gogni I was finally back in Siqtarva. Matt came over for a few days and we had a good time. We watched A Fist Full of Dollars, and had my host brother take us to a graveyard in the middle of the night…long, funny story.

Last Thursday school started back up. I am pleased to say that I have already gotten more time in front of the class and my teacher and I have been able to implement some speaking activities. This makes school so much better. It is way more fun when the kids are enjoying it as well.

This morning I woke up with food poisoning and was in the bathroom every 15 minutes or so for about half the day. Needless to say, I didn’t go to school. I’m hoping to go back tomorrow but we’ll see. Also, I bought and internet modem so if anyone wants to skype let me know!

New Years

Georgians are all about fireworks and firecrackers on New Years. The whole week leading up to it there are bangs going off everywhere. My host brother would always light them off and throw them right next to his grandmother, without her knowing. It was pretty funny. On New Years Eve we had a late lunch and about 9PM went into Terjola, the town next to my village. The city square was all lit up and decorated, and there was a concert of some local artists singing Georgian songs and mouthing the words to American songs. The best part was that I was able to meet up with one of the other American teachers in my area. There was a raffle around 11, which we stayed for (but didn’t win) and we headed back to the house after it was over. We then ate supper and watched the New Years program on TV until midnight. At midnight, we went outside and lit off fireworks. Then back in to finish dinner and drink more wine. It was a very nice evening.

On special evenings, like New Years or a birthday party, special glasses for drinking wine are brought out. On a normal day small juice glasses are used, but on these special days the host uses either a horn, an actual wineglass, or a bell turned upside down to drink the wine out of. Some of these are only used for certain toasts, while others can be used for any. For example, the bell is used when toasting to those that have died, and after you drink the wine out of it you turn it over and ring the bell as a symbol of remembrance of their life.

My family also put up a Christmas tree the day before New Years. I helped decorate it. Also, they don’t have tree stands here so we tied it up to the wall. This made me laugh.

Last night I was correcting an English paper of a student who is entering into a contest in Terjola for writing and speaking about contemporary problem. They chose the topic of smoking. I was reading it and very impressed with how well it was written…until I got to a part that mentioned that smoking can lead to erectile dysfunction. Keep in mind that this was a 9^th grade girl. It became quite clear at this point that she had more or less copied everything from a wikipeda page. I tried to explain that this was plagiarism to my teacher, and that in a university in America you would be kicked out for doing this, but I’m not sure she understood what I was saying. O well. It was a good laugh when I explained to my co-teacher what erectile dysfunction was.

I’m going to try and set my co-teacher up on facebook now. We’ll see how that goes as she has very little experience with computers.