one year in…

Two Wednesdays ago was the one year anniversary of the G10s arriving in Georgia! More importantly, only 14 more months to go! As for any celebrations…I went to school.

But, I feel that it is time to reflect on my experience so far. I purposely held back from doing this in previous posts because I didn’t want to come across as culturally insensitive, but I now feel that I have been here long enough to give you some honest reflections, but also do it in an acceptable and insightful way. A note: the following is solely based on my personal experience here in Georgia and may not reflect the experiences of other volunteers here or in any way should it be regarded as general statements about the country as whole.

First of all, I’ve been blessed to have a great host family that has made my time here easier and, honestly, is probably the reason I  haven’t left prematurely. We have a collection of inside jokes and I really feel like a member of the family. My host mom refers to me as her daughter and even the neighbors comment on how I’ve become the one daughter in a family of two sons. I’ve said on numerous occasions to other volunteers, my own parents and members of my community that leaving my family behind will be the hardest thing for me to do when my time here is done.

Because I work in a developing country, it is to be expected that things won’t necessarily go my way all the time, or even half the time. But I’ve come to the conclusion that my “things going my way” statistics are pretty low. At first I was frustrated, upset and disappointed that things weren’t working in my favor. But now, I realize that that’s just part of the experience and it’s the small differences that make the biggest impact.

One of the most frustrating elements of this whole Peace Corps thing is my primary project (or, my main responsibility): teaching. I don’t really think I’m cut out to be a teacher, in the developing world or the developed world, but I’m trying. It’s an incredibly difficult job, and it’s made even more difficult when you don’t speak the same language as your students. I’ve also come to the conclusion that many students (at least in my village) don’t even have rudimentary study skills. No one is really at fault for this because going to tutors outside of school is common practice (I’ve even met a girl who doesn’t go to school – even though she is enrolled – her parents just pay for her to go to private tutors) and there really is no need to “study” the material. I think that many of these students don’t need tutoring (in the traditional sense of the word) and if they just read the material and did their homework, they would be fine. I find this to be an incredibly unfair practice, especially to those students whose parents don’t have enough money to send their children to outside tutors. Many of my students have fallen behind (and not just in English) because they can’t afford the fees. However, many teachers make more money through private students than they do teaching during regular school hours (the average Georgian teacher makes less than $100 per month). It’s a difficult situation and won’t be remedied until teachers are paid higher salaries, among other policy changes.

Probably THE most frustrating day-to-day problem at my school is the general lack of attendance. My counterpart and I have rarely had full attendance in any of our classes. There is a system for recording absences and I’ve been told they do get looked at. But it seems nothing is being done to increase class attendance. For example, there are 18 students enrolled in grade 10. On the average day, 5 students come to class. It’s incredibly hard for us to plan lessons, especially more fun lessons, without knowing how many students will show up on a given day. We also can’t present as much new material as we want because students just get left behind. A student might be in class on Monday but not on Tuesday or Thursday. He might not show up again for another week or 2. The school director knows that truancy is a huge problem at the school (the local Ministry of Education people even held a meeting about it at our school), but there hasn’t been any changes implemented that even begin to combat the problem. Students also rarely arrive to class on time (even though there is a bell) and my counterpart and I usually have to waste the first 10 minutes (of 45) of class time searching and corralling our students. We’re like cowboys trying to gather in the straggling cows…every class period. Luckily the school is pretty small but we’re not these kids’ parents. The older students should be responsible enough to get to class on time…with all their materials (also another problem: kids not bringing materials to class). The thing that I don’t understand about my school’s truancy problem is that we live in a village (near a town) that has absolutely NOTHING to do. When kids aren’t at school, I just can’t fathom what else they might be doing. But, I guess it’s understandable kids might not come to school if they run the risk of being called lazy by their teachers…an especially common practice here. It certainly doesn’t help build a student’s self-esteem, and it also doesn’t give the student any sort of motivation to do better.

I remember when I was in school a lot of my teachers incited the fear of God in me (not you Mrs. Jefferies!). Half the time I was too scared to not raise my hand or to leave the room without asking first. We education volunteers have talked a lot about this: disrespectful students. For example, there was a schedule change (7^th grade would have English class instead of P.E.) and one student outright argued with my counterpart. He was yelling at her to switch the schedule back and refusing to come to class. I’ve had students listen to music during class time (both with and without earphones), many students don’t do the homework assigned to them, cheating is a rampant problem (and also not addressed) and I’ve even had a few students walk into class only to leave and never come back 5 minutes later.

I think one of the easiest ways to combat all of these problems is more parent involvement. As it stands now, parent-school relations are pretty minimal.  I think I’ve met a parent of maybe 3 or 4 of my students. I tried sending home progress reports last semester and made sure to mention that I was available to talk to the parents if they had any concerns or questions. I didn’t receive any feedback. I’ve been told parent-teacher conferences are held, but I don’t know when or how they’re organized. Once I start an adult English club at school, I hope to reach out to more parents and, by helping them learn English, maybe they will be more eager to get involved with their child’s learning. Something that I can understand is that very few parents know English so, of course, it might be difficult for them to relate to what their child is learning in English class, but I’ve spoken to my host mom about this (she’s a Georgian teacher) and she feels the same way: parents just aren’t involved with their child’s education like they should be.

I think my biggest success here, though, has been the English club that I’ve started for students. We only just had our 4^th meeting, but things are going strong and I have a lot of regular attendees (usually around 13 or 14). Probably the most unbelievable thing is that many of the students who come aren’t even learning English this year! Well, that and the great reaction to the Wallace & Gromit shorts we watched this past Saturday. I even shared my beloved Canadian cookies with my students. Doing so cuts down on the chances of me stuffing my face with unnecessary carbs and sugars during a depression-fueled binge. Feedback seemed to be positive. But most importantly, my counterpart and I are planning big changes for the next school year. Whether or not she continues with our new implementations is up in the air, but if everything works out (even just a little bit) that should be motivation enough for her to keep things going. Attendance, preparedness and general classroom conduct will be recorded, regular weekly and unit-based tests will be given, homework checked and recorded on a regular basis and motivators (such as computer time/assignments, outdoor activities) will be built into our teaching routine and curriculum. I’m also developing a unit outline that should be done by the new school year that will start at the elementary level and build on knowledge and skills unit by unit. I’m also planning a small computer training for teachers (that may also be open to community members) and I really want to do a teacher training that will give teachers some basic skills and knowledge they can use during their own subject lessons.

I have a number of other reflections, but I might save those for another time. I’ll be coming back to the States for a 3 week visit in August so I’ll see many of you then and will be able to give you a longer version of this…that’s not in a public forum! The English classroom is coming along, slowly but surely. We’ve ordered new desks and chairs and my host dad is still slaving away at the renovations. Next week I’ll be in Tbilisi and will have access to better, faster internet. I will post some pictures and, hopefully, some videos to give you a better idea of where we are in the process and a better indication of how things are progressing.

I’m really looking forward to the summer because I have a lot of things planned that will make up for this somewhat mediocre semester. First, I will be a facilitator for an English discussion group in Tbilisi that has been organized by the Tbilisi city government. Three days a week, I will help guide discussions for 2 groups of adults during evening language classes I will only participate in this for one week. Then, my parents will be arriving in Georgia on May 27 (OH  BOY!) and staying until the beginning of June. I’m both nervous and excited. Nervous because who knows what they’ll think of Georgia and excited because they get to see where I’ve been working for the past year and meet my host family, neighbors and friends. After I see my parents off, I will work as a counselor at an English camp for teenagers in Bakuriani for 2 weeks. Bakuriani is the hometown of the luger who died at the Vancouver Olympics. It’s a mountain town and well known for its spring water and skiing during the winter. I hope to take a long weekend trip to Yerevan, Armenia or Istanbul sometime as well. Like last year, I’m planning on holding a summer camp in my community, but maybe extending it to 2 weeks instead of just one. Also, a good friend of mine here has invited me to spend some time with her and her family at their summer home in Bakhmaro (a summer “resort” where many Georgians go to relax. Apparently the air has healing qualities). I don’t know if I’ll be able to go, but I hope so. And then I COME HOME FOR 3 WEEKS! Add in a trip to New Jersey and Krystal and Matt’s wedding and I think this will be quite the exciting summer; a good start to my final school year and my final 10 months with the Peace Corps.

Animal update: we slaughtered our mother pig. I didn’t realize what was going on (even though I remember it making a lot of noise) until I walked out into the yard and there was the gutted pig hanging in our storage shed. Yay! My host mom then boiled the innards and I practically puked at the smell. I caught the cat playing with a mouse. He then ate it. Yum! He also makes play things out of the tiny lizards who live in the yard. It is truly springtime: we have so many baby chicks peeping around now. I think the count is up to 20. In other poultry news: baby turkeys are crazy ugly. We have 12 of those now too. I also almost ate the food my host mom makes for the baby turkeys. It looks a lot like this spinach dish that I really enjoy…good thing I asked if I could eat it first. My host mom thought I was crazy. Unfortunately one of our bee families died over the winter (it was too cold and too wet for them) so we won’t have a new batch of honey until June or July. Sad panda. The smell of boiled meat (BIG EW!) will always remind me of my time in Georgia.

Funny thing: the font I’ve been using for these posts is named “Georgia”. OH! I have also successfully kept up-to-date with one of my favorite American TV shows (that I watched religiously in the US) thanks to the ability to stream TV shows online. Now that I know I can do it, I can’t wait for season 4 of Fringe. If they don’t bring Peter back, I don’t know what I’ll do!

Thank you for all of your support and I hope to see many of you when I come back to the US during the summer. I hope you are all well and healthy and that spring has sprung in your respective locations!

Cheers!