Whoa! It’s been a while!
My sincerest apologies for completely abandoning this blog for, oh…6 months. A bit of stuff has been going on and I’ll try to fill you in as best as I can. Needless to say, 6 months is a really long time. So, let me take you back a ways:
Thankfully my first year of teaching with the Peace Corps FINALLY came to an end in mid-June. I honestly thought it would never end. Is that what all teachers worldwide feel like?! Because I was seriously exhausted, troubled, depressed and all sorts of other dreary feelings words…
Biggest excitement of the summer, though?! MY PARENTS CAME TO GEORGIA!! It was great to see them out of their natural environment and hang out with them in MY NEW natural environment. They were true troopers and I definitely admire them even more now. They rode local (and cramped) transportation, ate new foods and were all around a pleasure to have visit. It was also nice playing tour guide for a week. I think the best part of the week was my American family meeting my Georgian family. At first I thought it was going to be strange, but everyone got along really well and we had some great times. My host mom prepared quite the supra for us so my parents got to meet neighbors, teachers from school and even my counterpart, Margo (along with Margo’s 9 month old daughter, Nuntsa). Unfortunately, a week in Georgia is not enough (and sometimes I feel that 2 years is too long. Ha. Ha.), so we weren’t able to do everything that I had wanted to do. But my parents got try local Georgian wine and eat Georgian food. In my book, I think we were pretty successful! And, I also took them to what I guess we would call an “antique market” in Tbilisi (Dry Bridge). Mostly it’s a lot of junk, but every once in while you can find some really great stuff (I bought a good amount of Soviet medals and turned them into jewelry as gifts…the Soviets gave medals for everything, by the way). Speaking of Soviet, we also went to Gori a.k.a. home of Josef Stalin. We perused the museum, got a peek into his childhood house and even walked through one of his old personal train cars. Despite the positive spin on everything Stalin, the museum was pretty informative. Best thing though? Pictures of Soviet VIPs and their great mustaches!
AH! I forgot! There was some serious political drama before my parents got here. A number of people were protesting against the current government leading up to Georgia’s Independence Day (June 26). Things got so bad, a number of people were seriously injured and, if I remember correctly, 2 men were run over by opposition party motorcades. Crazy sauce! We were on serious emergency alert and were not allowed to leave our sites. Therefore, my parents had to make it from the airport in Tbilisi to the Marriott on their own and I showed up later. But like the super cute travelers they are, they got to the hotel with no problems. WAY TO GO PARENTAL UNIT!
After my parents left, I spent a week in Tbilisi working with Tbilisi City Hall. I facilitated 2 groups of adult English conversation groups. It was actually a lot of fun! It was a nice change working with Georgians who already knew enough English to have a concise conversation. Mostly it was great working with adults…who actually want to improve their English…and who were interested in using me as a resource to improve their English. Whew! I also had the chance to hang out with my host brothers and spend time with Volunteers Erin and Danielle who were also involved in the program.
Erin and I also worked together (along with Volunteers Kelsey and Melissa) at the Koda internally displaced persons (IDP) camp. Most of these IDPs came from South Ossetia when war broke out between Russia and Georgia in August 2008. We organized and taught activities for a week during the camp’s summer learning program. The manager of the community center, Khatia, was extremely great to work with. She is organized, speaks perfect English and is a great motivator! We had a good time, but we were all super exhausted when the week was over.
On a completely unrelated note: around this time I signed up for a few “flash sale” websites. Peace Corps is definitely not the best place to obsess over these websites. I’ve been looking at some great style blogs, too. Also not the best reading material for Peace Corps…I can’t buy or wear nice stuff here! It just gets ruined :[
I participated in a Race for the Cure event also this summer. And by “participated” I mean I walked around a Georgian park (that was not closed to the general public) and yelled at curious onlookers to get out of the runners’ ways. Crazy. I also got heatstroke. No big deal.
I took the GRE for the first time. Let’s just say my scores weren’t at all impressive and I’ll surely be taking it again within the next year or two. I’m bad a math anyway, so this is like relearning 4 years of math (that I never really learned in the first place). I need a math tutor, self-discipline…or something.
In between going to the beach and hanging out with Volunteers in the nearby town, I did a lot of lazying around in the house trying to stay cool, watched a kajillion movies and caught up on my summer TV shows. Sounds exciting, eh?! Badri (my host dad) constantly worked on the English classroom when he wasn’t doing things around the house. More on that later!
If you don’t know, some of my blog posts were chosen to be a part of Peace Corps’s 50th anniversary/Peace Corps – Georgia’s 10th anniversary blog book. Since 2011 is the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps (and the 10th anniversary of Peace Corps – Georgia), countries around the world celebrated by organizing different projects. Ours was a compilation of blogs from PC – Georgia volunteers. My “animal updates” are a hit! We had an official “Blog Book Launch” (the American Ambassador to Georgia was also in attendance) to commemorate the books being published. P.S.: these books are true legit. They have an ISBN number and will be put in the Library of Congress!
AND NOW FOR THE MOST WONDERFUL PART OF SUMMER: I WENT BACK TO AMERICA FOR 3 WEEKS! New Jersey, Michigan and a wedding in Portland, OR. 3 weeks went by so quickly but I had a great time. It was nice to be back in the States, make trips to Target (IN A CAR!) and see so many people I miss everyday I’m away! I got to go get my nails done, my hair cut, I drank yummy cocktails and ate 7 layer carrot cake (twice!). So nice.
AND THEN…WHEN I GOT BACK TO GEORGIA…AND WENT INTO SCHOOL…I FOUND…THAT THE CLASSROOM WAS DONE! Badri worked the entire time I was gone and finished it by the time I was home. It was so nice to come home to a bright and beautiful classroom! We just had to paint the walls. And, even better, the government paid for the outside of the school to be re-painted (hey there Pepto-Bismal pink) and the installation of new windows. Thankfully our classroom overlooks the front part of the school (the new windows are only in windows that overlook the street. Typical).
All that brings us back to the relative present. School started September 15, my med-service medical exams happened at the end of September (I'm healthy. For now) and I’ve started meeting twice a week with teachers who want to learn English (my host mom included). Yesterday was my 25th birthday (a quarter of a century…wow!) and my host mom gifted me a simple, yet chic silver ring (she noticed I wear a lot silver) and my counterpart Margo gave me a great 100 sights of Georgia book. It will look great on my future apartment’s coffee table. My students didn’t know it was my birthday yesterday, so they sang “Happy Birthday” to me today. And then they kept saying ‘happy birthday’ to me…numerous times…at numerous volume levels. And you wonder why I never mentioned it to them in the first place ;] On Saturday volunteer friends are coming over for a supra and a sleepover!
I have yet to really discuss how school is going, but I really only need one word: GREAT! Margo and I are teaching grades 1 through 6 and we really couldn’t be happier. We enjoy coming to school and we’re sad to leave at the end of day. The kids are still at that age where they are interested in learning and want to impress their teachers. 1st grade has been a challenge: they can’t sit still for more than 2 minutes and constantly fight with one another. It’s tiring, but at least it’s only twice a week. We also have a set of twins in grade 1. I think they’re more of a celebrity than me…I guess twins are pretty rare here, maybe?
I’ll be helping out at Tbilisi City Hall again in December and mid-November we have our All-Volunteer Conference. It’ll be nice to get out of the village and into Tbilisi before the holidays start, but I know I will (gasp!) miss going to school. But Margo has been learning to lesson plan on her own and has made some fantastic improvements in the way she conducts class. And that’s what I came here to do: transfer my skills so my counterpart could become a more competent and effective teacher. We also had a break through with one of our 2nd graders. He’s really quiet (and looks like a baby George Clooney) and, I found out today, doesn’t know how to write in Georgian. But he did so well in the game we played that Margo and I were majorly stunned! And to top it all off, my Program Manager from Peace Corps was observing our lesson…she was also really impressed! YAY! It also helps that the government of Georgia has an agreement with Macmillan publishers and requires us to use new (significantly) better books in 1st – 6th grades. Thank goodness.
Winter break plans include: NOTHING! Well, definitely sitting next to the wood burning stove so I don’t freeze my little tooshie off! And then, once January 2012 rolls around, I’ll only have 6 more months left! I’ll also need to start looking for jobs (boo hiss) and figuring out the next step. I’ve decided to forgo grad school for the moment (I want to get some GRE studying done and get some real skills, but I’m also unsure of a concentration). So, if you know of anyone that may be hiring, geography is not much of a consideration for me. I also haven’t really made much of a decision whether or not I want to continue teaching. I like ESL, but I’m definitely more interested in working with adults.
So that what’s been going on. I visited Volunteer Danielle (with Volunteer Samantha) in Kakheti for a weekend and we picked grapes for wine-making and introduced her family to s’mores. Her family is really great and they have a beautiful house. Last weekend I visited Volunteer Alissa in her village near Kobuleti (western Georgia) and we made pudding, popcorn and mac & cheese. YUM! I also had the opportunity to visit a cafe in Batumi that was a project Volunteer Craig worked on last year. Pretty nifty.
I wish there was an easier and faster way to upload pictures so maybe I’ll save those (and the ANIMAL UPDATE – lots of scoop!) for another post. I will sincerely try to post more frequently, especially since I’m in a better mood than I was last spring. Hopefully that will make me more enthusiastic to share my experiences with you!
Love you all, thanks for reading and enjoy the fall weather in your respective locales. It’s been rainy and cold here for the past few days. EW!
Cheers!
