It's Zugdidi..............

This was a big week for us here in Georgia. On Friday (7/20), we packed up all of the stuff that we won't be needing until cold weather arrives in a few months, as well as all the clothes etc. we would need for a 5 day trip. We were picked up at our home by a Peace Corps marshutka and were transported to our usual training site in Gori. Shortly after our arrival we went outside, where a large map of Georgia was painted on the pavement and various cities were labelled by sheets of paper taped to the ground. One by one our names were called and we were given an envelope which contained information as to where in the country we were to be permanently assigned for the next two years, where we would be working and information about the family we would be living with. As each name was called the volunteer stood on the appropriate spot on the map. As you can imagine, the level of excitement was quite high. Lisa and I will be going to Zugdidi, which is a city in the western part of the country, about 20 km from the Black Sea. Until now, Zugdidi has been an area of the country which has been off-limits to Peace Corps volunteers because it is located immediately adjacent to Abkazia, a conflict zone where many of the people want independence from Georgia. Russia supports the secessionist movement and there has been armed conflict in the region off and on for the past 10 years. Zugdidi is a city of about 70,000 people, with an additional 50,000 or so IDP's (internally displaced persons from Abkazia). Lisa and I will be the first Peace Corps volunteers ever to serve in Zugdidi (the Peace Corps has been operating in Georgia for 7 years now). Lisa will be teaching English with a Georgian counterpart teacher in a school that has 1200 students. There are 22 English teachers in the school !! I will be working for a Chamber of Commerce/ Business Service Organization which supports businesses with permitting issues, financing, tax issues, public relations, import/export matters and the like. Shortly after learning our destiny, everyone loaded all their luggage onto several Peace Corps marshutkas and we were of to Gudauri, a small village high in the Caucaucus mountains, for a 2 day conference where we would meet and interact with our workplace supervisors, who were also traveling to Gudauri from all over the country. The conference was interesting and productive (I think). Neither my supervisor or Lisa's spoke any English, so there were some language issues, but our language teachers were also in attendance at the conference to assist in translating. After the conference broke up on Sunday morning, we then left with our supervisors (most of whom had arrived by marshutka or bus) to go for a three day visit to our permanent site. It was a tough day for us, since we had to travel by marshutka to Tbilisi (about 2 hours) and then we boarded a non-airconditioned bus for another 6 hour trip to Zugdidi. The temperature was hovering around 100 F and the bus was absolutely full of very sweaty people. If you count the time that we sat in the bus waiting for it to leave and the time it took to fix the flat tire we had along the way, the 6 hour leg of the trip turned into a 9 hour ordeal. When we arrived in Zugdidi our new host family was there to greet us, along with the son and husband of Lisa's supervisor (the Director of the school). We loaded our stuff (contained in a mere 5 suitcases) into the two vehicles and proceeded to our new home. Our new host family had prepared a Supra (an elaborate dinner which symbolizes Georgian hospitality) in honor of our arrival. Fortunately, our host family was able to convince Lisa's director and her son to stay and participate in the festivities. I say fortunately because no one in our host family speaks any English (good for us learning Georgian), and Irakli, the Director's son, had just returned from a year as a foreign exchange student in the US. He was able to act as translator, and we successfully communicated with our new "host parents" throughout an enjoyable evening. Our new house is very clean, but simple. It does have a western style toilet (as well as an outhouse). Lisa and I will have a large room on the first floor, which by the looks of it previously served as the living/dining room. Our new host mom works part time in a government office and the host father is unemployed (as is over 50% of the workforce in Georgia). The family is clearly not well off, but they are very kind and I think we will do just fine there. We stayed in Zugdidi for three days and visited our workplaces and toured the city. The town has a nice feel to it and we are happy to have landed in a more urban environment than in one of the many small villages where lots of the other Peace Corps volunteers have been assigned. On our last night in Zugdidi, we were invited to another Supra, this one hosted by my new boss, the President of the BSO where I will be working. It was quite a production (think of a dinner that starts at 7 and ends at 1 in the morning, attended by 20 or so people). There was lot of toasting, dancing and singing. They even lugged the piano out of the house in the middle of the Supra to facilitate the merriment. My supervisor's house is magnificent, located high on a hill overlooking the entire city. We had lots of fun and, as always, Georgian hospitality was in abundant display. Lisa and I just got back to Gori, having taken a marshutka whose driver took delight in tempting fate by passing cars on every turn in the road. Georgian drivers are reputed to be the worst in the world and this fellow has to be right up there with the worst in Georgia. It took us just 3 hours and 45 minutes to get back, and we fortunate to have made it in one piece. Well, tomorrow is back to the grind with language class in the morning and technical training in the afternoon. In one more month we will be done with our training, and after the swearing in ceremony in Tbilisi at the end of August, it will be off to Zugdidi to begin our two year stint. Enough for now...more later.