Spring is in the air... kwelgan I davtwalierav

I am dead tired, and there are miles to go after I sleep. So I'm just gonna tell you a couple of highlights that I remember from the couple past days I haven't written.

Homemade hamburgers with awesome barbecue sauce. Like, the best barbecue sauce known to man. This may be biased due to lack of comparison bbq here, but I doubt it. This stuff was the nectar of the gods, man.

Dancing at the Club and watching people do stuff you shouldn't be able to see them doing from the window.

Working all week on the SPA grant with my cp, staying at her house either late or overnight, freaking out in the teacher's lounge over fear that it wouldn't get done, and then watching cp and computer teacher friends pull together and come to Tbilisi so we could price check and get shit done.

It's ice cream season. Also strawberry season.

CP's son, who's a self-proclaimed future advertisement-maker and/or pencil sketch artist (he's a prolific sketcher), bawled when I left their house one day, and rarely lets me leave without giving me a big, juicy kiss on the cheek.

Made lettuce salad (YUM!) today at my cp's house with homegrown lettuce given by one of the teachers. And had more lettuce promised me for Monday by another teacher.


The biggest news of the hour is that this week, two days ago, I had three seventh grade girls join me for my morning anti-notrunning training (good thing I'm also equally training for the stress-eating team. It has more than balanced things out). Yesterday, I had five, including host sis. Last night I slept at cp's house because I spent a lot of time planning and helping her fix her computer, then it was raining, and this morning she had her heart set on feeding me strawberries and oatmeal, so I didn't run. But the girls ran without me and asked where I was. What's going on?!

And.. there's dancing bazari bags on TV. I think it's time to call it a night. Headed to Tbilisi to practice for med sessions for new Trainee trainings, then Patara to the old host fam for some good ol' awkward moments, then Borjomi to hang out at a meet, greet, eat, drink with the newbs, then hightail it back home for a day or two, then back out for Trainee mentoring and delivering said medical sessions on hub day. AH!!!!

Because the cheesiest and catchiest are the best guilty pleasures in life.

Mac and Cheese and Pokemon knew what they were doing.  Also syphilis.  But don't tell Shakespeare, he's still a little touchy about the subject.

Sakartvelo's Police Hymn!!

Mokle List.

The Sucky:

• Rainy weather makes our water yellow.  Good thing we have those handy-dandy PC issued filters!
• Rainy weather also makes for less-than-ideal trips to the toilet in the middle of the night in a path that falls right underneath the edge of the roof and ends in a mud patch.
• Rainy weather also makes me want to feel sorry for myself, (more than usual).
• 2 Georgians now have said my Georgian isn't good enough.  Also, apothecary lady when I went to get Mono cards for Internet told me I need to start an English club so her son can go, and proceeded to yell at him for not studying before I could escape.
• Trying to reassure my counterpart she's not a bad mom because she works hard and doesn't have a lot of time for her son.  She is the bomb.  And I don't mean the ones brought to mind by a certain TV station who cried "war with Russia."

The Good:

• My host mom, telling me my Georgian is understandable and that I don't need to work on it because I won't need it after I leave.  Which will be a good and bad time for me, and not really a good time at all for the fam because I'm not annoying.
• Hair cuts that make me feel cute.  All for the low low price of conversation and a gift of tights given to me for women's day by my secondary counterpart (the one who worked with "Lizzy" from Montana [read:not too keen on the newcomer who is notlyssa]), size large (for people 60-80 kilos, or something ridiculous like that).
• A new ring, that I don't need.  Georgian people don't understand the concept of "I want it, but I don't need it."  Thus, when the ring lady comes a knockin', Cara and I yield to temptation to buy ourselves the first things we've bought ourselves in a long time.
• Successful journey to Tsinandali, complete with marshutka "layover" in the middle of nowhere.  Woot!
• Nettles are delicious vittles.  Cluny the Scourge adds his seal of approval.
• Also, a neighbor gave me a pear when I was walking home the other day.  Because he could.  It was delicious.
• Today, I used the fam's old Singer and a pair of the host bro's old jeans and reconstructed the awesome denim skirt that I burned a hole in the butt in out of distractedness (and putting it on a heater to dry.  Oops.).  SEW GOOD!

The Usual in Georgia:

• Breaking resolutions to train for the 2016 Notrunning Team.  My left leg HURTS LIKE AN EMPTY BOX OF CHOCOLATES.
• Study time with host fam consists of a lot of impatience on the part of the kids with the cousin, who learns at a slower pace than they do.  But the host bro reprimanded the sis for laughing, keeping things back on track.  *proud of subtle signs of maturity*

And, it's probably about time I explained my blog's name.  The guys in the family are known as "Kwavebi" = "ravens" or "crows" (not sure), because they're dark skinned with raven hair.  My official last name, as host unc informs me, is Schmid-Mosulishvili.  Thus, I'm a Kwavi, too.  One with significantly different plumage than the rest of the family.  (Tetri = white.)  Tetri Kwavi.

Back to life, back to the interwebs.

So! Thanks to me realizing that Peace Corps sends necessary information via e-mail, I shelled out the 155 lari and got myself a high speed modem. Then, after the two free trial days, as I was left in a village with no bankomati (aka ATM), I scrounged enough emergency funds together to buy myself 45 lari worth of mono cards to make my monthly payment. Naturally, the cards were in denominations of 5 (this is a village--who's gonna get a 25 lari card?) and I had to go to 2 different stores to get them (who carries 9 mono cards at a time? Not a village store.).

Anywhoo, expect more regular updates.

It's 2:00 in the morning now. I've not been sleeping regularly for about a week now--either stay up late for this supra, or because I'm too excited by the prospect of online shopping I can't go to sleep. Not that online shopping is more practical than going to the bazari at Tbilisi, because who's going to ship to Akhalsopeli? It's just that I have an aversion to haggling, and I was not about to pay 90 lari for a pair of much-coveted grey suede boots.

Basically, life is good. I seem to have stumbled upon the luck of the mystical triad-- my host family is awesome, my main counterpart is a wonderful teacher and a great friend, and I have a picturesque view of the Caucasus mountains when I step outside my room.

Firstly, my general "routine":
-wake up
-run/yoga
-dress
-breakfast
-school
-coffee with teachers
-lunch
-lesson recap writing
-tea
-sereales (terrible latin american soap operas), kronika (news), Who Wants 30,000 Lari, Va Banka (Georgian Deal or No Deal), Geostar (Georgian Idol), Truth Time, etc. etc. (da ase shemdeg)
-tiptoe to the toilet
-bed

Twice a week or so is shower night, when we light the pechi in the bathroom for some hot water (if it's rained and there's water in the tub-- the system broke when we had a big storm and they haven't fixed it yet. More on that later.)

Weekends are usually spent traveling, the most recent of which was Erakleoba in Telavi and then Johnnyoba and Iliaoba in Kvareli. (the suffix -oba is used to create days of celebration. In conversation class, I made up shokolatoba--guess what that celebrates. Anyway, Erakle was superduper king man, and Ilia was a writer, a banker, a patriot, a martyr, and a saint from the nextdoor town of Kvareli. It was also Johnny's birthday.)

I'm going to label some pictures, maybe sleep, and be back for more.