internet!

river in town

view from my bedroom window

view from the marshutka stop

so i have finally buckled down and purchased a wireless modem here in georgia. it’s working well…and i can finally catch up on my american tv shows. woot.

synopsis of the past week or two: started teaching georgian classrooms for the first time last week. we only had to prepare and conduct one activity during the lesson, but it was extremely nerve-wracking and required a lot of preparation on my part. it’s not common for georgian teachers to lesson plan and most of the english class is conducted in georgian. but, it was exciting and the students seemed to be receptive to the activities. this week was the first week of team teaching with our respective counterparts. i taught 3 classes (1 in the town where i’m living and 2 in a borjomi school)  i loved working with the 5th graders in borjomi. they are really fantastic learners and extremely excited to learn english. it seems the higher the grade, the less interested in english they become. but alas, that’s just another challenge we’ll have to face. we also just took our first technical, health and safety tests as trainees. gotta love those tests…no. but they went alright. we also had our mid-assessment interviews where we could air our grievances and got feedback from the pc-georgia staff members. that all will certainly be helpful throughout my time here as a volunteer.

this weekend i’m heading to akhelsikhe with some other trainees for our “cultural” trip. it’s about 2 hours from where i am now and apparently has some nice ruins and a castle. it will certainly be a much needed and, hopefully, relaxing trip. we’re only allowed to be there from saturday night to sunday afternoon, but we’ll drink some wine, take some pictures and MAYBE have a nice, hot shower. AH…hot showers.

i leave you all now with a funny story: on monday night i had gone to a supra (the georgian equivalent of a party with a lot more wine and a lot more food) at one of my clustermate’s homes. i had had a lot to drink and was slightly hungover in the morning. when one wakes up, especially with a hangover, the first sight should be a pleasant one. i ended up waking up to a gutted pig in the back of my host grandfather’s marshutka (vans and the choice means of transportation). i go about my morning routine (yes mom, i brush my teeth every morning) and come down for breakfast. the first thing i’m offered is some sort of barbecued meat. i’m never offered meat for breakfast, so i should have been wary. it turns out it was liver (i don’t like liver). from the pig. that was gutted. in the back of my grandfather’s marshutka. to be polite a try a little bit (tsota, tsota), but i’m not a big fan. i drink my tea and eat my bread and head off to school. i’m coming out the gate and my clustermate says to me, “so, i heard your pig got hit by a car this morning!” thus, pig liver for breakfast.

yum!