Recent times in pictures

I finally found a card reader and was able to download my pictures. School is ending in the next two weeks so i decided to try to capture my remaining time in georgia on digital film. I'm having my bolo (last) concerti this week, so expect more pictures to follow.
That's all for now.
Aba hey.

Mari, Tato, Me and Mari at the Bolo Dzari (last bell dance a.k.a. georgian prom)

Teachers and students at the Bolo Dzari

Looking fly on a school excursion with the 11th form.

Outside the Rustavi Metalurgical Plant (evidently metalurgi is steel production. who knew!)

My site: the always lovely PCTABYN or Rustavi

Lia and me in the English Cabinet during our 5th form class.

Rustavi in spring!

Erin with the chicken ladies at our bazroba!

Tato and Mari on their way to the Bolo Dzari

Bolo Dzari Divebi. Ra lamazia!

Clint, Paul, Austin, Hannah, Rene, Me, and Mike at dinner during our COS conference.

7th form's mini excursion to pioneer park across from our school in Rustavi.

7th form class pic.

5th form always eager to learn in our English cabinet.

My street.

COS Extravaganza!

Hello hello!
I realize it's been about a decade since I last updated my blog--my bad. I have no excuse. I'm just lazy. But seeing as we just passed through the milestone that is the Peace Corps close of service (COS) conference, I felt the need to post yet again.
Vaie maie?! i can't believe it's been two years!
The highlight of the conference, besides the plush-ish accommodations, was the COS video Paul and I labored over. It took countless hours of work, but i think think it was both crowd-pleasing and an instant classic. But then again, i'm a biased critic (though, all the best ones are, aren't they?).
I realize this post isn't really going anywhere. But that's all right. At least i'm posting. It's gotten hot here, which is good. I do enjoy the change of weather. Strawberries have come into season and I'm quite pleased. I ate about a kilo of strawberries just today. You know what they say, if anything is worth doing, it's worth overdoing! And by they, i mean me. he he.
A random georgian man took me out for khachapui today and gave me a tank top decorated with lipstick. It's metallic and beautiful.
I've been taking a lot of pictures lately so as soon as i get my hands on a card reader you should expect (with bated breath) a slew of fabulous pictures of my site and my school.
That's all for now. Below is a picture of my Peace Corps G5 homies. We rock!

A few pictures

Here are some pictures i stole from other people. I'll have more later--i just need to start remebering 1. to charge my camera, and 2. to bring my camera when i do anything remotely interesting.Drinking coke in chokhatauri's town square.
Up the mountain at the end of our hike.
At Supra #2 at Hannah's site. The food was quite yummy.

delicious memories!

About two months ago a friend of mine serving with me in Georgia, John, was forced to quit his service early because he broke Peace Corps policy. Initially I was really upset about this fact, but seeing as he forfeited his free ticket back to the states and stuck around Georgia for the past two months, his parting has been a bit easier to bear.
This past weekend I ventured to Batumi, on the black sea coast, in order to partake in a goodbye supra for John. The food at the supra was delicious…as was the company. And I don’t jest. Georgians often describe good things as “gamreli” or delicious. For example a toast that would surely win you applause at a supra would be the phrase:
“Gamreli memgonabebs gaumarjos!” (Cheers to delicious memories!)
It’s a fabulous language—really.
John’s departure is upsetting because he is leaving about five months or so before the rest of us (Kinahara! Let’s hope no one else gets sent home before then!). He won’t close his service with us or be able to stick around for Georgian summer, which is truly the most beautiful—if not delicious—time to be in Sakartvelo. I was prepared for a somber supra on John’s behalf. But then something happened that changed my whole outlook on John’s exodus.
While I was watching TV at the intourist hotel where I was staying (thanks bill and ann laurie!) I heard a startling report. It seems last week famed buxom beauty, Anna Nicole Smith, died. She was a mere 39 years old, the same age as John. Coincidence? I think not!
I realize that John isn’t actually being sent before a firing squad, or having his head chopped off at the guillotine (comme la comité de salut public), he is going back to America. It’s not such a terrible punishment. He doesn’t even live in the real America. He is going home to the San Francisco bay area where people don’t consider fried pork tenderloin to be a delicacy (not that it isn’t gamreli in it’s own right). John is going back to one of the most desirable places to live, not only in America, but in the entire world. There, he will have a flushing toilet, water 24 hours a day, heat, a washing machine, loose gender roles, and cable TV. With all that at his fingertips one can only assume that he is not going to be found dead in a luxury hotel anytime soon—unless he dies of sheer contentment.
Nevertheless, is going before your time such a bad thing? Anna Nicole’s early death has immortalized her forever. In the same vein, so will john’s early exit from peace corps Georiga. He won’t get annoying, bitter, depressed, or fat, symptoms that seem to plague peace corps volunteers here in Georgia. He will stay as he always has been to those volunteers sticking out their last few months of service. Plus his parting is all the more special because he is leaving when no one else is. When I leave this summer (again, kinahara) my send-off will be one dozens. Not so special, not so memorable, not before my time. So, gemreli memgonabebs John and Anna Nicole! You will be remembered deliciously.

Mr. Bean goes to Georgia!

So!
A little while ago I was on a walk with my friend Erin. We had just bought some food at the store when I mentioned to her that I was in desperate need of face lotion (No, I’m not that high maintenance. I live in a semi-arid place and it’s very dry here. Especially because of global warming! Eeek!). So we wondered into the nearest aptiaki in search of some moisturizing balm. We first approached the glass cabinet with moisturizer-like products to see if we could find some face lotion on our own. However, upon realizing that the cabinet was locked and all of markings on the products were written in Cyrillic I decided that the best way to procure face lotion was to ask the clerk at the medicine counter. In Georgian I queried,
“Face balm, do you have?”
To which I was met with a series of awkward glances between the two sales clerks. Erin stepped in with,
“Face cream. Do you have cream?”
At this point I started rubbing my hands over my face in circles in an attempt to mimic applying face cream. The clerk then seemed to understand and she walked over to the glass cabinet, promptly unlocked it, and showed me a blue box of what appeared to be Nivia lotion. She then said something to me in Russian and I asked her to please repeat herself in Georgian. (This sort of thing happens a lot to other volunteers in Georgia. Even if they speak perfect Georgian people will automatically reply to them in Russian. However, this rarely happens to me. Normally I’ll sit down in a restaurant with the other volunteers and the waiter will hand them all English menus and me a Georgian one.) She gave me a blank look—possibly because I continued to mime that I was applying lotion to my face—and then she turned to the other sales clerk and asked her to translate her Russian into Georgian for me. The other sales clerk did just that, but Erin and I with our stellar Georgian still couldn’t understand what she was saying.
At this point the two sales clerk begin to talk to one another:
“These girls are German. Do you know German?”
Seeing as neither knew German, they then began to ask the other customers in the store if they knew German and could translate. I then butted in with,
“No. We are American. We speak English.”
Then the sales clerk walked over to the phone and held up a her index finger making the universal signal for “wait a second.” Thirty-second later she took me over to the telephone and had me talk to a girl on the other end of the line to tell her what product I was searching for. I told the girl, who had impeccable English, what I wanted and handed the phone back to the clerk who then spoke a few short words in Russian to the girl on the phone. We then filed back to the cabinet and she handed me a yellow box. Then, she pointed to the corner of her eye with one hand and made a thumbs up gesture with her other hand in a way I could only assume she equated with fighting off wrinkles. Erin then informed me, rightfully, that at this point I really couldn’t leave the store without buying the cream. So I made a thumbs up sign of my own and we headed to the counter to pay.
I paid a reasonable-ish price for my wrinkle cream and decided to cut and run before I embarrassed myself further at the aptiaki. However, as I’m crazy, on my way out I thought I dropped some money on the floor. I then dropped down into the squat position and started to peek under the counter to see if I could find my phantom missing money. This wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t been wearing pants that were two loose and mooning half the store. But, alas, I was. The lady behind the counter (bless her soul) saw me in my lunacy and decided to abandon her new customer in order to help me find my missing make-believe money. Needless to say, there was no money on the floor. I’m insane. Erin in all her wisdom was waiting for me outside the apothecary when I came out. She said I was hopeless and thought it best to bail when she saw my uncovered derrière on display. I don’t blame her. She also said that the whole experience played like an episode of Mr. Bean and that my life was like a page from “Mr. Bean goes to Georgia”.

There was really no point to this entry. But I decided to update anyway. I have a new analytics tracking system on my blog page and evidently I have a fan base! 10 hits yesterday! YES! I think two were from me, but that’s of no consequence. So, if you are a new visitor to this site you should consider hiring me for a fabulous job at the end of August this year. I’ve decided I have no real skills but fairly good grades in college. I also speak Georgian. YES!
Hire me!

Pictures as promised:

Here are some pictures from winter travels. I have no skiing pictures. Sorry.
School #2 Christmas Concert. They are performing the little red hen. Clearly the girl in the ball gown is a hen.

The finale: Merry Christmas, War is over. Very moving and poingnant.
The weather that Susi and Anya brought with them was spectacular. A rare view of the Greater Caucases from Tbilisi.
Posing in Batumi.
A break on one of our many bus trips through eastern turkey.

Ani. 10th C Armenian capital. Said to have been bigger than Constantinople.
Climbing on ancient churches.
I don't know how to spell the name of this Pasha's Palace. But it overlooks Mt. Ararat.

A nicer view of the Palace.Aslan's gate at Ani. Sorry things are a bit out of order.
View of Mt. Ararat from Dougbyazit.

Hot (not literally) New Winter Destination: Georgia!

I probably should have learned my lesson about convincing people to visit me in Georgia in the dead of winter after my parents took their ill-fated trip here last year. But I didn’t. Luckily, when Susi and her friend Anya arrived in Georgia they took their good German weather with them and, unlike my mom and dad, they could actually see the mountains! Success!
Susi actually admitted, and I quote, “it vas one of the best vacations I’ve ever taken. Ja.” Well she actually didn’t say “vas” or “ja”. To add some ethnic flair I like to embellish her impeccable English with more colorful German phrases.
Winter vacation kicked off with a trip to the mountains. Some PCVs and me headed up to Bakuriani, Georgia’s winter wonderland, to celebrate the birth of Christ and try our hand at skiing. Christmas dinner was amazing. I wrangled up some avocadoes in Tbilisi from the only avocado seller in the entire nation and trudged my treasure up with me to Bakuriani. We made our own tortillas from scratch and the salsa and guacamole were mouth watering. Even though we couldn’t go home for Christmas we had a bit of America (via Mexico) in Georgia with us at Christmastime. Turns out I’m not a very good skier and on my third day attempting to ski I was convinced that some other PCVs were tricking me to go on the intermediate slope in order to kill me. They were not and after some fear-induced protest I boned up and made it down an intermediate run.
After Bakuriani I rushed home for a midnight run to the airport and picked up my German visitors. The first order of business on their Georgia itinerary was watching my Christmas concert. The electricity went out an hour prior to the concert so the kids had to perform a cappella. The kiddies still brought the house down at the end of the concert with an impressive political stance in the form of “Merry Christmas, War is Over”. It was very moving. We stayed in Rustavi for a few days and took in the sights in Tbilisi and David Gareji
New year’s is my least favorite holiday in the states but here it is the Georgian equivalent of Christmas. (Blame the communists. New years tree, say what?!) That means, unlike say the multiple St. Giorgi’s days or St. Mary’s days or even Christmas, New Year’s is a big deal in this country. Thus, I thought that the best bet for fun on New Year’s eve would be to hang out with HCNs…and I was right. My host family had a veritable feast when we went to visit them. I’m a bit obsessed with walnuts in this country, and the walnut sauce (baje) they serve on New Year’s is to die for. At midnight everyone started stetting fireworks off their balconies and shooting them at each other. Rustavi was alight. In the iridescent sparklingly light even the drabbest concrete apartment block looked festive and Rustavi looked rather beautiful.
The next morning we hoped on a train bound for Batumi and spent the night there before crossing the border to Turkey. The trip was a bit spur of the moment (mom and dad: sorry I didn’t tell you I was leaving the country), and we were traveling on the fly but we did manage to see some fantastic things. Susi and Anya accompanied us on the first leg of the trip to Kars. There we took in the former Armenian capital of Ani. It was fantastic and I was astounded to find out that Armenia had a golden age that rivaled Georgia’s under Queen Tamar (aba what?!). After that Susi and Anya left us to take, what I can only assume was, a miserable bus ride to Istanbul to catch their flight back to Germany. We continued on in Eastern Turkey to Dogubuyazit to take in a Pasha’s palace and see Mt. Ararat where Noah’s ark is famed to have landed. After a night in less than congenial settings in Dogubyazit (think no heat, no sheets, no water, a mouse, and some bizarre conversations concerning the assassination of various political figures) we moved onto Erzurum. There we ate more delicious Turkish food and took in more sites before heading back to Grujistan.
I’m back at site now after an exhausting winter vacation and it’s time to start being a real person again by updating my blog, paying my bills, cleaning my rank apartment, and getting that pesky water heater fixed.
I did learn one very valuable thing from a 17-year-old Turkish girl on my trip that I think we should all ponder and remember: Saddam Hussein is alive. His execution was just a rouse and he is now living at Michael Jackson’s Bahrain Never-never-land estate.

Coming soon: pictures from winter vacation.

Gilotsavt indauris dgres!

Summer ended as swiftly as it came and so has swooped the cold hand of winter gripping its boney finger around pulse of our mountainous Repulic of Georgia, blotting out any sort of emanating warmth. Perhaps you find me a bit melodramatic. But if you had to wonder around your apartment with an extension cord tied around your waist connecting you to newly purchased electric heater (and consequent source of happiness) in order to stay warm, you too might be prone to a bit of an affectation.
But I jest (well, partly). It does seem that there was very little fall this year. They claim that Georgia has a supta (pure) continental climate. But I’ve yet to see the existence of seasons in this county. It’s either incredibly hot or heinously cold. No medium, mean, moyen, or moderation.
Enough kvetching, it really isn’t so bad. Like I said, I bought a fabulous electric heater, with a warranty (gasp!), so I think I’m pretty well set for the winter ahead. I’ll be warm. After all, you really can’t help but be warm with a heater strapped to your waist! I also nailed a blanket to my window to mimic my old Science Olympiad competition and “keep the heat”.
School is going fairly well. Not much new to report on. My grant it almost finished I’ll post pictures of my room as soon as I get my camera back from the camera-stealing bandit. Halloween was a few weekends ago and I went as North Korean dictator Kim Jung Il. Way better than the beat-up ex pat that I went as last year. I had problems staying in character and it seems I was way too tall for the role...and not korean or a man…but I really think I captured the spirit of Kim Jung Il. The glasses I was wearing for the costume almost made me sick though. For future reference: even if you have extraordinarily bad vision, a pair of prescription glasses—no matter how weak they are—will mess up your site and cause you to get ill if you are already wearing corrective lenses. Just so you know.
I’ve been busy cooking up a storm! I’ve finally figured out how to use my kitchen and the products of my endeavors have been delicious! I’m a regular Martha Stewartishvili! I had a week of pies where I made chicken potpie and pecan (aka walnut) pie. I had so much pie leftover that I gave some to my neighbors, whose taste buds, I can only assume, were so overcome with delight and gratitude that I introduced them to such a gastronomic sensation, that they later surprised me with a verdant bouquet of flowers in thanks! Or, so I must deduce.
As you can see from this entry, not much new is happening and I have tapped into my over abundant imagination to embellish life here in Georgia. Perhaps my father was correct when he said that the first year everything is new and the second year you finally figure out what’s normal and what’s out of the ordinary...or maybe I’ve just finally become delusional.
We have yet another conference for Peace Corps next week. This conference shouldn’t be too bad as it coincides with Thanksgiving dinner. I’m looking foreword to Christmas break, the visitors, and the chance to ski for the first time! I’m going to go somewhere for vacation…I just haven’t figured out where yet. Let me know if you want to meet me anywhere.
In the meantime I’ll be here.
Happy Thanksgiving or as the Georgians say Gilotsavt indauris dgres!