Everything happens twice: Hiking and goodbyes.

SURPRISE!!!! Whoops, did I skeeer ya? Bet you weren't actually expecting to hear from me again, ever. Truth to be told, I'm no longer in the land of the Kartveli, but I am forever a White Crow, whether I like it or not. More on that later.
I never actually covered the trip to Svaneti, other than a meager post on Stalkernet with an urge for you to Wikipedia the place to see how beautiful it is. Now you can do the same, but with pictures from yours truly!
I'm also thinking about making this a more regular thing, although as I transition, I should probably create a new blog, and maybe even try to make a living blogging and choose a focus that will actually be interesting to a wide variety of people, not related to me.
But there's still some unfinished business from Georgia coupled with all my culture shock. So, instead of doing things purely chronologically (numbers are my wolfsbane [or, you know, this], and time's wicked hours are no exception), I'll completely ignore my post-service jaunt in the UAE and Thailand with the lovely Cara Bragg and do a rundown on my thoughts on two things: hiking and saying goodbyes.

Hiking/traveling in general.

Mestia, Svaneti vs. St. Mary, Glacier National Park, MT
Observations:

• Things don't always turn out as you plan them. Helicopter flights can be postponed and cancelled in a moment's notice, and the cheap, long way home may turn out to be the more reliable one.
• Certain old Megrelian women need to learn a) what a line/queue is, b) what people standing in front of her look like, and c) how not to mouth off to people when questioned about their blatant disregard for both a) and b).
• My dad is not the conversationalist on topics of my/PCV and guests' interests such as how cool glaciers look, stressing about landing a job, what love means, or bowel movements, but I did learn about how polyethelyne is made and what his favorite car he ever owned is (and how to revive failing pistons). The man also hiked 10 hours with me on 13+ miles of trail, over trees and glaciers and shit (literally-- there was bear scat). Not only did he keep up, he hiked about 3/4 of the way back with a toe the color of Barney blushing and a blister the size of South Dakota. He deserves heaps of street cred. Props to my pa.
• Hiking up to and on glaciers is sweet. It's a lot easier with proper gear. (Thanks, online shopping. But, by the same token, it's hard not to feel like a dork-in-snob's-clothing when you're wearing something with THE NORTH FACE promulgating its superiority from your chest.
• 1500 mL of water is not enough to take for oneself, when one's hiking companion has only brought 1/3 that amount. Thanks, Peace Corps issued potable water tablets.
• Waterfalls are pretty.

Conclusion:

• Even though I didn't grow up doing it, (Iowa?) hiking's rad.
• I'm going back to Glacier. Look out, Cracker Lake, there's a storm comin'.

Saying goodbyes

Observations:

• -Easier when you just don't let thoughts like, "I'll probably never see you again, and if I do it won't be the same," creep in.
• That said, leaving my host family was probably the hardest thing I've done. Some waterfalls are pretty, some are disconsolately sad.
• Drinking large quantities of alcohol and toasting one another can bring "closure", but it can also be dangerous territory for emotions of all kinds.
• When you have time to prepare for goodbyes, you have to deal with the whole impending thing for weeks/months where people get all passive aggressive toward one another to make parting easier, even though it's a dumb solution. When goodbye's unexpected, you have to deal with the whole pain-like-a-battle-axe-hack-at-your-heart thing.

Conclusion:

• Goodbyes hurt.
• If all else fails, take my bidzashvilishvili (first-cousin-once-removed) Paul's lead: Hug the people you think are nice, but refuse to speak to or look at the person you think is coolest in the hour of parting. Remember, if you don't say goodbye, they don't leave.

Bonus!  Blathering philosophical metaphor about life!!!!!!!!11111!!

The time, love, memories, life I've shared with those I met in Georgia can't be undone-- until I become senile or get hypnotherapy, of course. Part of them lives in me, and I live in part of them. It's like if I had been living in the same, clay-ridden soil my whole life, and I shoveled my sprouts into a pot and took them to Georgia, and the people I met had other things-- good peat moss, exotic sand used to growing different types of plants, apathetic rocks, and smelly but kinda useful manure, and it got all mixed up in my little mound. Some of them threw some seeds in there that I'd never seen before, some of them showed me alternative sources of light, some treated me more like a chamber pot. I tried my best to cultivate love, but sometimes I was just too tired and sick of the the scratchy plants and the sun beating down on me.

I know I need to get back to tending my little bit of earth, though. The time I spent in Georgia will nourish me in the future in ways I can't see, and most of all, I hope desperately that I've done something that's mattered, that's good to other people's garden's, too. I just hope it don't get raked away or burned up.

Video blogs for your viewing pleasure!

I promise, I'll actually tell you about things going on with my life when I have some time.  Maybe tomorrow after school.

For now, enjoy these videos I finally got uploaded.

The Georgian Homestead
Ra lamazia! (How beautiful!)

Merry Christmas, Here's to Many More.

I'd like to start off this post with some bad news, then move on to the good.

First of all, there is a serious black mold problem in this house, both in the newly renovated grandparents' bedroom and the kitchen.  I'm not quite sure what to do.  These next two weeks I have off, so I'm going to try a plan of action that may involve:
a) talking to my family (who is probably not aware of the dangers, as I was not exactly aware until I did some research).
b) lemon juice?  bleach?
c) buying a dehumidifier or two.
d) calling... someone at staff?

I don't know if they'd buy it or not, as the renovations were cut short due to a secretarial mix-up in the dad's paycheck, ending up with the family PAYING BACK hundreds of lari that he was overpaid the entire year.  Bull.  Really, secretary?

Secondly, Christmas was great.  It was def a much needed respite after a week of going to class and not delivering the lessons we'd planned because not enough students showed up.

At least it gave me some extra time to prep for my trip this weekend-- beautiful Kazbegi/Stepantsminda!

I woke up Christmas day really wishing I could have raced Ange to the tree, sit the way my dad and I used to sit when we were both bawshwebi (it's killer on your legs, though), and revel in everyone's joy as we exchange cool/stupid things with one another and then set into the preparation of some interesting, nontraditional meal.  At least I got to hang out with awesome people.

And the interesting, nontraditional meal part was preserved.  Every night this weekend something new and different.
One night was spaghetti with light-on-the-tomatoness sauce and homemade cutout cookies with icing.  I made the cookies, overcoming lack of cookie cutters with a knife, lack of powdered sugar with a coffee grinder, and lack of food coloring with a packet of German kool-aid, cherry flavored.
Another night was pasta with tomatoey-carrotey sauce, toffee peanuts, helva, and interesting contributions by David: meranguey cookies and stories of his life that defy classification or description.  Let's just say he's been everywhere.  And is a good philosophical ambler, too.
Also, the pasta served us the next morning as breakfast.  Because Georgians don't wake up early, and thus maghazias were still closed when we wanted to go hiking.  Thus, Brian fried up the pasta and we had mush with black pepper.   Delish.
The next night we were lucky to get dinner of frozen kababi, carrots-in-kababi juice, and peas.  All the maghazias were closed but one far away, and we got a police escort to it.  Why, you may ask?

Let's just say that ice is not kind to downward hiking, and the police were worried that someone was pushed, so we had to assure them with help of a translator that no one was at fault.
The translator was largely unnecessary, because Cara's and my skills in Georgian are pretty serviceable.  But her English was amazing.  If she gets one more hour, she'll be at the minimum required hours of English to host a volunteer, for whom she also said she'd look for housing for.  Motivation?  It seems that way, so I hope that's the case (because that's a trait that a volunteer can actually work with), and I hope she'll get her wish.


Well, we had a wonderful time, regardless.  We got exercise (!) on our hike to the monastery.  Mt. Kazbegi is simply stunning.  I'll get photos of the sunrise on the mountain from Cara and David.  And the stars at night twinkled like I've never seen stars twinkle before.

And the policeman who gave us a ride to the store bought us a chocolate bar.

And the "real" holiday here in Sakartvelo is yet to come.  Today I've been invited to a pig roast for New Year's (basically Christmas--see Saint Facetious' blog) at the aunt's place (the one who cuts my hair).
Host dad is at work and probably won't be home for New Year's, but maybe there will be some Chri-er, New Year's magic.  And I'll make plenty of nom nom squares (aka cookies and maybe some babovka) in the weeks to come.

Perhaps I'll do a post sometime this week finishing up my thankful list from Thanksgiving, as well as a Festivus airing of grievances.

Until then, stay cool! And, if you're in Georgia and are always cold, stay warm!