Roller Coaster of the Caucasus.

The Hygeine Poster Contest Award Ceremony is taking longer to accomplish than I thought it would.  Reasons?

1) Everyone at school has gone through their cycle of being sick for a week or so.  Including both my counterparts and the teacher I was doing the contest with, so last week was especially fun.  Cough.
2) It's Georgia.

So, I'll give you a draft I found lurking in my backlog (because much of it is still relevant/the same old), and prep another blog post later this week about what's been going on.

First order of business:  Giving Thanks.

I gave thanks multiple times this year.

• Once, I guess, at the All Vol conference in a huuuumongo group.  That was more of a period of not sleeping and drinking too much (every night.. not used to this) and talking about ridiculous things and philosophy and whatever else is a topic of great importance at 2 in the morning.

• Second Thanksgiving: I baked two pumpkin pies in the pechi this year.  One I shared with the 8th graders after they wrote an e-mail to my World Wise Schools correspondent about how they celebrate Christmas and New Year and Giorgoba.  The other I sent to the teachers lounge for them to enjoy while I sped off to Thanksgiving number three...

• in Tbilisi.  Good conversation, good people, good mood, good food.  Not all my axloblebi, but a couple good friends (one who's a good cook) and a good group of people and a 13 kilo turkey, not to mention an awesome girl who shares an odd kinship with me.

• Last Thanksgiving this year: in Telavi.  I still didn't get to help make pies, but Jeff and Tina helped me make PEANUT BUTTER (!!!!) and I helped Barb make pumpkin bread with a little of the leftover pumpkin.  The peanut butter is delicious, albeit a little... dry.  But it's chunky and au naturale, baby!  And not bad with apples from the backyard. (as long as I cut out the bad parts.  The apples are au naturale, too.)  But, anyways, it goes without saying that the people who were in Telavi are awesome people and a good time was had, despite faking sick on the marsh there so I didn't make people mad for having to pee, and my typical moody self flaring up, and not being able to shower. ("It takes a lot of money to heat the gas.  If you can be quick, go ahead.  But everyone will want to shower.  I'm sure you understand.")

 Things that annoy me:

Working seemingly all the time but never really having anything to show for it.  It's not like I have THAT MANY hours at school or a million (really, any) afterschool clubs (I guess the computer training counts) or other projects or keep in touch with friends back home or other volunteers.  Where does my time go?

Advice from "experts":

•  "You run on the stadium, right?  You should breathe only through your mouth when you run.  I'm a sportsman.  Just so you know."
• "Your hands, they're so dry!  You should use special lotion.  It's in drugstores.  It's got glycerin in it.  Then wear gloves all the time."
• "You should stay here for the rest of your life.  Don't you like Georgia?  She doesn't want to stay.  That means she doesn't like Georgia.  If she did, she would stay.

/end backlog

I think I will start a blog logging only the 3 things I'm thankful for each day.  That way, when my notebook runs out (both the paper one and the one I'm typing on, I guess) it'll exist somewhere.  Kinda like myself.

Now, back to work!  I asked my director for the off--and the initial reason, being a guest trainer elsewhere, has been (surprise!) postponed.  I'm still taking the personal day to get some work done, because heaven knows I need it!

I did promise..

And though I'm getting to be flaky and irresponsible (hey, it comes with the go-with-the-flow way of life here.  I'm just doing my job by integrating?), there's still a kernel of I-should-get-this-done.

Plus, when I talked with the Country Director today about the possibility of extending service, he suggested I write in my blog, as I haven't for a long while.
And it's true.  I've been here, there and everywhere, and no amount of me sitting in one place has inspired me to write a blog entry.

Among the things I've been busy with:

Teacher Technology Training,
aka Trying to Make Lightning Strike the Same Place Twice
Trying to get the second wave of the Technology Training underway.  It's tough when A) My right-hand woman-and-translator's no longer participating, B) My other right-hand (left-hand??) woman is a little flakier and not as proficient in English, C) I lost motivation because the teacher-trainees lost motivation.  But there's the seed of desire in the star pupil from the last group.  I orchestrated a meeting with her and my left-hand woman finally last week, and it came to a stalemate over who should be in the next group, teachers or doctors who expressed interest.  We'll see.

Daily Work as Assistant to the ICT Manager
Speaking of Technology, general computer maintenance/fixing/IT girl-being... I have burned ISO images to CDs, messed with partitions, reinstalled Windows, swept away a squintillion viruses from every computer and then again, and learned Ana's secret method of cleaning memory (pencil erasers?!) in the lab at school.  She needs to ask the computer guy in Kwareli if we have permission to actually reinstall Windows, because one computer suddenly started saying something about no monitor driver for Windows, and another shuts off with no notice every once in a while.

I'm Ms. Fix-it?
Yesterday I was also Rich American In-Village IT Girl and Obligatory Food Repository for one of the teachers.  She held me captive in her kitchen for day-after-birthday-feast food and coffee, even after telling her I had just eaten before coming to her house (which was the case).  THEN I spent a few hours installing an antivirus, Georgian fonts, and OpenOffice on her computer (all in Russian; that was fun) and attempted to teach her how to use them in Georgian.  If she actually listened to me, she should now understand, but we'll see how that goes.

As Far As Laptops Go, 5 Years Ain't No Spring Katami...
My own computer's been on the fritz, as well.  The stupid magti modem's been a thorn in my computer for some time now, mainly because (I hypothesize) it's USB based, and I tried to install a program to block USB devices from automatically opening (because they've all got friggen viruses here!).  Since that turned out to be more of an annoyance than a help, I uninstalled the program.  It was still acting weird, so I tried to fix up stuff on the registry myself and with a free registry cleaner.  Three or so days ago Trent gave me a blue screen of death.  I took it to the neighbors' and he opened it up (I can't use a screwdriver because I'm a girl) and we cleaned out surprisingly little dust.  I then did Windows recovery, am back to Service Pack 1, and am currently trying to sort through my stuff and back it up on 10 lari's worth of double sided DVDs (as I lack an external).  Then I can hopefully just do a clean swipe and reinstall SP3.  Though I fear Trent is is danger of Fading Out soon, so I may or may not be scanning the Interwebs for an investment I didn't want to make until I got readjusment allowance.

Conference Time!
Backtracking and changing topics, I also attended the All Volunteer conference in a center outside of Tbilisi.  Every PCV in Georgia was there, the noobs for Language a few days before us old hands arrived.   Then, the real party began as we went over safety and security policies, held committee elections, and taught each other cool stuff with volunteer-led session day.  I held a yoga session with a fellow Iowan (w00t!) and, though very different from my usual style of "strike-a-pose-and-hold-it-for-like-2-minutes", went okay.  Then we had our early Thanksgiving feast, with all volunteers, staff, and the Ambassador.  He's such a cool guy.  He walked in with our Country Director, came over and greeted me with, "Hi, Paula!  How've you been?" Me: "Ehhh.. okay." Him: "Spend too long in the village?"  More like lack of sleep, but you'll have that.  Also, I was stressed because I was supposed to arrange the G9s' contributions to the Thanksgiving feast, but I really didn't do all that much, and I'm pretty sure one of the G10s in charge was POed at me because I forgot to buy aluminum foil.  Well, what are you gonna do?  Some people just don't like me, and that's all there is to that.  All in all, it was good to see people again and chat with the PC Response (short-term assignment after service) Volunteers, but it was exhausting.

Birthday Bash or Banya?  Both!
And a birthday the day after the conference didn't help much.  Luckily I stayed with an awesome couple doing some research for Fulbright and English teaching, and managed to avoid the detrimental chaos that ensued.  I got the best of both worlds: watching the ridiculous beer pong 9 game winning streak, then heading out to the banya to relax when the party moved to the wild and crazy club scene.  I sorta returned the favor playing hostess this weekend; they were guests here, and I had fun showing them around the village and meeting my friends and coworkers and such.

Things that annoy me:

• My camera won't turn on.
• A creepy 50-some-year old Georgian man who noticed a young American girl stuck in the backseat of the marshutka, just trying to read A Clockwork Orange, and continually harassed her and asked for her phone number and was generally impertinent.
• No one on this marshutka, from my village, spoke up, even though I was yelling and freaking out, all in Georgian.  Seriously.
• After All Vol, someone unknown has what was formerly my cinnamon, ranch packets, and curry powder.  Life without spices is a life not worth living.
• I got Intermediate High on my Georgian LPI.  Haven't I wasted more of my life than that on learning this ridiculously difficult language?
• Private students from 3-10 every day makes it hard to plan even with the most motivated of partner teachers.  And planning with two counterparts basically means I'm never at home, because planning is NEVER at my place, and half of planning time consists of eating and/or watching them do other things.

Things that are kinda cool:

• Teaching my 8th graders "Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?" for Past Simple and making them write alibis in Past Continuous and get witnesses to sign for them.
• Some planning with Ana.  It's half and half.
• Working on both Appropriate Projects (getting running water for the school) and Darien Books (getting English books for the school).  Writing = Please, give us things, for we have them not!
• Dirt cups with the family tonight!!!

So, yes, I'm thinking about extending.  But there are many things to think about, my personal hygiene/living situation happiness being one of them.  It really is the little things.  No showers, no salads, no DDR.  And I can't live in a little town with like 3 friends, all of whom have kids, forever.  If only I'd nerded out more as a child and wasted more time taking apart computers, I might have a job elsewhere...

Now that it's 2 AM, however, I think I'll take this opportunity and sign out.

I'll post soon, I promise...

I know the masses are screaming for more fun, witty tales of my sxovreba in Georgia, and I'm not one to make people mad at me.  Not even teachers who will never lesson plan with me and so I dropped classes with her.  Still trying to be her friend.  Call it peacemaker, call it people pleasing, I just like everyone to be happy, especially when they're around me.

But though I'm suffering from a slight touch of the insomnia tonight, you just get the teaser.  I'm gonna lie in bed and pretend the world doesn't exist right now.

I probably won't have time to write tomorrow.  We're prepping food for the funeral Thursday, that of Shorena's grandma.  That woman always asked about me and blessed me the traditional Georgian "grow up! be happy!" in such a sincere manner that if the occasional "get married!" was thrown in there, too, I didn't mind so much.  Here's to you.

A few other headlines:

Hopefully we'll have some Halloween activities underway.

Ambivalent about computer courses, wave 2, with indefinite start date. Hm.

A committee of 3 including me are coordinating the planning/buying/making of the Thanksgiving dinner at the all-volunteer conference in 2 weeks.

Lab remonti hopefully underway soon with program pointers from tech saavy folk.  Also, there's this: Free educational and/or computer games for kids! Win!!!

Magda wrote a test for the 5th graders on the computer and printed it out on our NEW PRINTER.  Totally all by herself because I was gone.  She rocks my world.

Thanksgiving part 1: counterpart, family fun

Okay, so I should probably get on that Thanksgiving post that everyone else has already done like two weeks ago. Whatever. So I've been zarmatsi (lazy). I've also been busy.

And, you know, I've actually been enjoying life. In contrast to Spain (and much of the time afterward).

Let's examine the facts:

1) I've got a frigging awesome counterpart teacher.
"I want to be one of the best English teachers in the region."-My counterpart.

You probably won't hear this out of any of the other volunteers' counterparts' mouths. I've heard success with lesson planning, but it's more like a trip to the dentist; wheras my counterpart said, "We must plan the lessons together," when we first met. Granted, they're not perfect--what can you expect from lessons based on a book that's excellent albeit beyond the students' comprehension level?

Also, last week we planned a Thanksgiving party pulled a party out of our asses in two days, complete with nuggets of info read by our 7th graders in both languages about the history of Thanksgiving (nuggets so enthralling that the teachers talked only QUIETLY throughout the whole thing), making of I-am-thankful-for hand turkeys, and feasting on pie made by yours truly as well as popcorn, nom-nom-squares (namskhwari aka cake/goodies), fresh berries, and coffee brought by the students and Magda. Everyone naturally applauded me and called me a "kargi gogo" (and it wouldn't be Georgia without an urging for me to get married. I love my director..). The whole thing turned out okay, but it was kind of a pain in the ass, and I didn't want it to be so much of a dog-and-pony-show as a time for the kids to learn the phrase "I am thankful for" and learn how to spell "pearents" right. Ah, well. What can ya do?

After the spectacle, my counterpart and I were cleaning up. I was carrying away the remains of coffee in a plastic cup, (the amount which, this time, I had managed to undermine the urgings to miertviet). I said to myself, "I don't want it anymore," to practice the newly learned Georgian word for "not anymore".
My counterpart said, "School or parties?"
I, stopped, did a double take, and we laughed.  That's how cool my counterpart is.

Also, we had a slumber party at her house last week (lesson planning ran late and she didn't want me to go back in the dark and I didn't want to have her call my host mom to escort me).  This culminated with us doing yoga on her bedroom floor while her 4-year old son played some racing game on the computer in Russian. Not very relaxing, but keep in mind that this was yoga in Georgia with a Georgian.


On to reason #2 I'm thankful and happy: The host family.

They're the most normal Georgians I've met in this whole country. And they've got a reputation in the village as people who get along with one another and are honest and giving and helpful. All true. These people give used clothing to the orphanage. The females still do 99.9% of the food prep, but the grandpa's been known to heat up a thing of beans when he wants to, and I swear my host bro made himself eggs the other night. And the guys DO work really hard; grandpa in the yard with the animals and crops and stuff, and the dad with his guard job. Not to mention all the guys (and my host mom, sometimes) are working on the house renovation now.

My host mom is something else. In addition to helping carry heavy things once in a blue moon, she stomped the grapes for the family because the dad was gone at work. Also, she is so patient with me, talks with me, and understands and corrects my poor grammar. She introduces me to people in the village, all of whom she's friends with/relatives with/godmother to/all of the above. She still thinks in the traditional Georgian manner that I'll catch cold if I walk around the house without wearing slippers, which I'm not sure I believe. (to quote Lauren, "I now wear socks all the time for reasons I don't understand!") But it is hella cold here. Like I said, we're doing renovations. The room with the pechi (wood stove) is being defloored and refloored. Thus, the pechi is outside. Solution? Go to the small room that's also been refloored and is half-put together and warm ourselves by the small pechi temporarily installed there.

I love my host kids/siblings, too. Last night at the family tutoring session, they successfully managed to make menus with practically every fruit in English, ask for coffee and vodka, and refuse to sell to one another, telling each other "shen khar stupid" and "shut up, ra." They crack me up.

Now it's khinkali-making night for the workers--my contribution will be some vashlis piure (apple's puree, aka applesauce). I'm gonna head to do that, but I'll catch you later.
I've got to tell you about me being a tamada (toastmaster) at a birthday supra, danceoffs with butt bombs, and also pie cooking escapades, if nothing else. I'll be back.