28 June 2009
Sunday
It's gvira today, and I think there will be much adventuring today. We're going to visit the castle finally sometime today, and we're going to a 40-day-after-funeral supra at Katelyn's place, and I want to bathe today.
And yesterday was very event-filled, as well. We had shabatis skola (Saturday school), and then lunch at Katelyn's house. Mind you, she lives like 20 minutes away from the school, uphill. And Lauren was invited to a supra in the woods type deal with a volunteer from another village and his host family and the other volunteers in the village. We hiked back to our houses, explained (sort of) what we were doing to our host families, changed clothes, and hiked down to the highway to catch a marshutka. A marshutka is a gregarious, vagarious, nefarious, but mostly precarious looking mini-van that drives between villages for a small fare; it's kind of like a cross between a bus and a taxi. There're how we roll here in Georgia. So with our limited language skills, Lauren and I managed to catch a marshutka to the right village—although, he dropped us off at the edge of town and not at the school. But all we had to do was walk up the road a ways, so it was okay. We met up with a volunteer and went to meet the family.
Limited communication is so hard. You don't want to feel like you're shunning the family, but it's so easy to talk in English and so hard to ask “rogor aris qartulad?” (how do you say this in Georgian?) every few minutes to the younger person in the group who inevitably speaks English. But we got to hike to their vineyard and garden, saw their plants, had a mini-supra in the woods, sang songs, and all was good. The bebia and another guy were amazing singers. I had my camera there, and another volunteer took pictures and a couple videos with it, so hopefully I'll get it from him sometime (I lent him my card).
So, they sang, right? And, I had brought the pictures of my friends, which showed I was in choir. So, we Americans were asked to sing. We sang the Star-Spangled Banner, because they sang what sounded like Georgia, the Beautiful. It was such an awesome time. I'm very glad we went. But we have to be back on-site by 7 every night for safety and security reasons, so we had to leave early.
Instead of catching a marshutka back, a family friend who has a car offered to drive us back. We got in their car, picked up the guy's daughter who spoke English and wanted to meet the Americans, and drove back to our village while we tried to explain to the girl that we work for the US government and aren't taking Georgian jobs. We think she thought we are taking jobs that she could have... so it was a little awkward sitting with her in the back when we turned into our village and the car broke down. Now, Lauren and I could have walked, no prob, but we wanted to make sure they would be able to make it back. Someone from Better-a helped them out, and we made our way to Lauren's place. I didn't want to have to have them drive me up to my place, so I just got off with Lauren. I'm glad that happened, because Lauren and I are on the Party Planning Committee for the 4th of July Cultural Event Day to be held next shabati, so we got some good ideas down for that.
It's gonna be awesome! We're hoping for lots of traditional American foods, like hamburgers, potato salad, baked beans, chips, ice cream sandwiches, brownies, etc. The staff will try their darndest to make it happen. We're also hoping to get some wood to make boards, a saw, and washers for Washers/Corn hole with washers, or maybe some horseshoes and stakes for Horseshoes. We'll get some inter-village competitions going on, and it'll be awesome. We get to invite two people, and I invited my two host sisters (last night during the storm when the electricity got damaged and went out). They are super excited about coming.
I really want to learn Georgian so that I know my host mom and dad don't think I'm a spazz. I want to have them teach me how to cook Georgian dishes, and I want to be able to talk with them without a translator, so that they can tell me things like how to heat up water for my bath without me feeling like an absolute idiot because I don't know what the Georgian word for “turn it off” is, so I stand there looking (and feeling helpless). Actually, the other night, I had a dream about my teeth being rotted and held together with rickety dentistry, and then they just fell out in a big chunk and my mouth gushed blood everywhere. I mean, it was pouring out by the bucketful. I think it was just a reflection of how helpless I feel, that I don't even have good, strong teeth to serve my most basic of needs.
And you never realize how much trash we as Americans create. Our group discussed it at shabati skola, and then Lauren and the others and I talked about this yesterday at the mini supra in the woods. We volunteers have barely been able to locate a single trash can in our homes. I know we have three; one under the kitchen sink, one next to the commode, and one outside somewhere. But they're all very small. Most garbage is placed deliberately on the side of the road. But, really, houses don't create that much garbage, it seems. And I feel tons guiltier about my half-an-hour showers when I take my bucket bath and don't use a whole bucket.
Anyway, speaking of which, I should go start that.
01 July, 2009
samshabati
So, I'm going to go out with my host sister in about 20 minutes, but I want to get a little journaling in before I do. Yesterday was pretty intense for me. We had our mini LPIs (language proficiency interviews). How did it go, you may wonder? Well. I wasn't awful, I suppose. But I was nowhere near being able to understand her on the first go. Or second. Or after some deliberation. So I felt pretty numb until sitting in the hot classroom talking about methods to teach English vocabulary to Georgian students just fried my brain. I got home, sat at the magida, attempted to do homework, decided that a little resting would be a good idea, then as soon as my head hit the pillow, before I knew it I was leaking like a faucet. So I sneaked down to the abazana to wash my face with some cool water ('cause it's so damn HOT in the afternoons! [and 'cause I'd made myself all hot and bothered and flushed]) and my host mom saw me looking miserable. It made it worse that I couldn't really tell her what was bothering me—because that's exactly what was bothering me! Language barriers, pardon my language, suck balls. She called Tatia in to translate my half-intelligible mumblings. But she hugged me and told Tatia to get my water, and told me to not do any studying that day. So I took some time off in my room and just lay there in my bed. I was aware-ened by an SMS from Katlyn, another volunteer, who invited me to go play frisbee with the kids at the school stadium. That jump-started me to wind up the Victrola of myself back to life and got my butt out of bed.
We went to the stadium and threw some frisbee and played some volleyball. I was coerced into an Americans vs. Georgians game. Somehow we won! Lauren and Brian and Kyle totally carried the team; Katelyn and I were just kinda there. Sometimes we helped the ball stay aloft, so that was okay. Whatevs. Then I decided to go back home. I'd told Katelyn that I had felt a little off that day, so she talked to me. She told me to keep in context how long I've been here, that I am learning, that no one becomes fluent even in 2 years, and then she told me about her communicating with her host mom last year. Sometimes... you don't need to understand the words to understand the sentiment. Tsota gavige... vpikrob.
Then she gave me a Snickers and told me to take one weekly, as needed. I think that's a pretty darn good prescription to follow.
The days are just so long, though, and simultaneously so short. I feel like I get very little done, but it takes so long to do it all.
I do feel better today. Our group's dynamic is just so that it's hard not to be happy when I'm with them, even if we're learning a ridiculously different-from-English language at a ridiculously rapid pace. Good satchmeli (food) helps, too. Mmm, kveli.
I think my sister's ready to go out. I'm not too keen on it, but it might make me feel better. I'd also like to have some tutoring with Ana tonight, too, so we'll see. Blegh!
02 July, 2009
hootshabati
The days definitely have their good and their bad. Yesterday, the good points: I talked with my host mom about coffee. She's very interested in differences between America and Sakartvelo, as are pretty much all Kartvelian people. So I told her that we have instant coffee and drip coffee. I also told her about espresso and cappuccinos, but I don't want to try to explain Starbucks. I don't understand Starbucks myself. That was actually part of our lunch conversation today; Ana asked about coffee, too. We have Turkish coffee here after every meal and whenever we visit a house and whenever I ask for it at breakfast time and randomly throughout the day sometimes. Here's how you make it:
One covsi-ful (spoon) of Turkish (VERY finely ground) kava (coffee)
One covsi-ful of shakari (sugar)
One pikrulob-ful (teacup) of water
Put all ingredients in tiny saucepan, bring just to a boil, pour in pikrulob. Enjoy with chocolates, tea cakes, cookies, biscuits, whatever. rogor tsginda.
Om nom nom. My host mom's coffee is the best. It's so thick you can almost chew it. I seriously like it. And I'm getting used to the really, really salty khveli (cheese). It's expecially good with cornbread (tchadi). I don't remember if I already wrote this, but I helped my host mom make tchadi one day! Well, all I did was form the dough that she had made into lumps and stick it in the oil. Two of them, to be exact. I know, cool, right? But hopefully I'll get to help her with more food prep, because I have a presentation about Georgian food to do at the end of PST. Actually, she said I might make pizza tomorrow night. But my sister is fasting for a religious holiday. Which means she can't eat dairy products. We had Georgian style pizza tonight—with tomatoes, peppers, dill, and instead of tomato sauce, mayo. Yeah, that's right. It was actually incredibly delicious. I could barely believe my taste buds. I'm not one for mayo, usually, but it was tasty. I don't know how me making this pizza thing is going to go. My mom'll have to show my how to make homemade crust, and I'll have to guess on the tomato sauce. Maybe I have a recipe in here somewhere...
But, other things. I only went to the stadium for a short time gushin (yesterday). I called Ana and worked on words with her. Verbs, like vskhovrob sakartveloshi (I live in Sakartvelo) vmushaob skolashi (I work at school) vamzadeb sachmels (I prepare food) vaketeb davalebas/khatchapuri (I do homework/make cheesybread), visveneb saklshi (I rest at home), vgegmav gaketeels (I plan lessons), vkitkhulobe tsigns (I read books), vtsair tsigns (I write books), etc. It's a good time. It's actually just about the most mentally taxing thing I've ever done. Learning this language at this rate is very wearing. And I'm not actually learning as much as I'd like.
But hopefully I can still be a good masstavlebeli without knowing Georgian superwell. And hopefully I can still do whatever I'm supposed to do here without knowing Georgian as well as I'd like. Or maybe I will learn it pretty well. Who knows? We'll have to see.
Apparently people like me, though. Last night, Tatia and I went to get milk from one of the neighbors. The bebia there offered me food, so I had a sour cream (matsoni) cake and she gave me three more. She asked if I liked matsoni, and I said yes, and she gifted us a jar of matsoni! Holy crap! When we were back eating dinner saklshi, Tatia commented that everyone seemed to like me; when we played volleyball at the stadium yesterday, there was a girl there who's staying with Lauren's family (she's a cousin or something). She'd run with Lauren and I in the morning once, and she stood next to me after the American-Georgian volleyball game. She was afraid of the ball, so I was trying to tell her to conquer her fear and just put herself out there and try to hit it (easier said than done). Just then, the ball came and smacked me square in the face. So that didn't really help my case. She left the game soon after, and I wasn't too far behind her.
But I was talking about people liking me. Tatia talked to this girl, with whom I'd maybe exchanged 10 words with (2 kartulad, 8 English), and she said she liked me and I was nice and whatnot. “Why do people like you so much?” Tatia asked. “I don't really know,” I said.
Then, today, we had TEFL training in our village. As we were going into the classroom, we passed some of the staff. One of the ladies I had attempted conversation with earlier last week—and maybe got “how are you” and “what's your name” and “no I don't want to marry a Georgian,” and she greeted me with a kiss on the cheek (it's kisstomary here). She's probably the first person other than my sisters to do that. It made me feel special. And either yesterday or the day before yesterday (gushintsin [Georgian has a word for that!]) I talked with an older lady on my way to run in the morning. And she had to ask me to repeat “how are you” because she's hard of hearing and my accent's bad, but she called me a kargi gogo, I think. A good girl, that is. Aw. : )
Also, tonight I wrote in Khatia's book of letters and drawings. She asked me to write her a letter about the good and bad of her character. I've only known her erti gvira (one week), which I told her, but she asked me to write anyway. So I did. And I drew her a dzagli (dog) smelling a sunflower, because I could. By the by, dzagli in dative case is one of the most fun words ever-- “dzaggles.” Yeah. It's pretty kickin'. Or, as we say, it's the muraba (jam)!
There was some bad, though. A couple times now, about once a week, I've felt sick to my stomach. While I love Turkish coffee, Turkish toilets are a completely different story. Using Turkish toilets when you aren't feeling well is, well, the pits. Blech. Oh, but I'm sure you all want to hear that I've not too bad an aim. Pretty darn proud of that.
There are probably other things that I wanted to write about but have forgotten. I should get to bed for tonight, anyway. I'll add onto a list of things I'd like:
Frisbees (kids just love 'em. They're not common here.)
magazines (for news and for cutting pictures out of to use in lessons)
pocket pack tissues (maybe, if I can't find them in the bigger villages/Tblisi)
cinnamon maybe
nice pens, pencils, notebooks
love
Meh, that's it for now, vpikrob.
04 July 2009
Shabati
So, just got back from the American Independence Day party. It was pretty awesome and intense. However, we were lacking the one thing that makes the 4th of July American: FIREWORKS. The Party Planning Committee and I were very disappointed. But there was lots of food: hamburgers, soyburgers, "potato salad", chips, potato pie (SO American...), peaches, apricots, watermelon, soda, ice cream sandwiches, and a birthday cake for the USA. We're 233! Yaaaay! We also had a three legged race, a water-cup-bucket race, a water balloon toss, Georgian dancing (I tried to join!), random singing of Don't Stop Believing, dodgeball, frisbee, and bunnies! It was actually a lot of fun. Great success!!
So now we're in Sagarejo. I'm gonna buy some tskali, because we won't have a hub day for two weeks again. Next week we start our summer school. I'm a little.... frightened. Not too sure how this is all gonna go down. But hopefully it'll be okay. Lesson planning is weird for me. But I think I'll get used to it.
Anyway, I'm gonna go buy that tskali (water) now, because I am parched. Lots of love!
