Mark & Lisa's Georgian Journal

A little of this and a little of that.................................

2008-05-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

BIRTHDAY PARTIES
The traditional Georgian birthday party includes a supra. Recently we were invited to a birthday party for our 10 year old neighbor. Mari is a sweet girl who lives across the street. In many ways the birthday party format here is the same as it is for a 10 year old's birthday party at home---presents, food and fun; but in other ways there are differences. There were 10 children at Mari's party. The party was held at 3:30, after school in the middle of the week. To begin with, everyone sat down to a big supra with all the traditional foods. The foods are always the same and are served in copious amounts including, among other things, lavashi bread, eggplant with walnut sauce, mayonnaise rice salad, salty cheese, a pickle plate, roast chicken legs, grilled pork on skewers, tomatoes, cucumbers, khachapuri, homemade wine and sweet peach, pear or tarragon soda called "lemonati". There is never enough room on the table so the food dishes are typically stacked on top of one another. Keep in mind that all these 10 year olds eat next to nothing, especially the girls. After the beverages were poured each child stood and presented a toast to honor the birthday girl. For 10 year olds, the toasts were quite impressive, many touching upon some of the fine things in Mari's character. After all the the food was served, Mari's mother played traditional Georgian songs on the piano, and Mari danced several traditional dances by herself. She was then joined by a friend who danced with her. Next, the only boy at the party danced the traditional dances with her. After the dancing, Mari opened her presents. Most of them were religious icons of one sort or another. Every Georgian has a collection of religious pictures honoring various saints, Christ and Mary. They are proudly displayed everywhere in their homes, car and school classrooms. Mari was thrilled with her gifts.

Next the boom box was turned on to the local pop station and the kids danced once again. Before long they were all running around in the yard screaming and having fun. We stayed around to talk with the Grandparents for a little while. As we were leaving we tried to find the kids to say goodbye. They were on a second floor porch in the rear of the house. They were taking turns jumping a gap of about 4 feet to the roof of the neighbor's outhouse next door. In America, the parents would have had a heart attack, but in Georgia it was just your typical kid's birthday party!

Another interesting birthday party was one that we witnessed one day in a small restaurant at lunchtime. Next to our table was a long table with about 14 young boys aged 13 or 14. Apparently it was the birthday of one of the boys. Soon the supra food began pouring out of the kitchen along with multiple pitchers of wine. The boys proceeded to toast the guest of honor in the same fashion as men do. Soon the alcohol started to take effect and the crowd became quite loud. We left before the festivities were over and went to the bank next door. We later saw all the boys outside the restaurant, hooting, hollering and carrying on. No fake proof needed here!

A COZY TRIP
In walking around Georgia you always see women (and often men) walking arm in arm. They are very physical with one another. Sometimes my teachers will preen me when I talk with them or put their arm around me as we walk down the hall. In class the girls will often sit two to a chair even when there are enough chairs for everyone to have their own.

Recently we were returning home from Tbilisi after our vacation. After leaving the airport we took a one hour local bus to the center of the city, and at 6 pm we were lucky to find a waiting marshutka (beat up 17 passenger van) heading to Zugdidi. We settled in but had to wait until they filled 1 more seat before the marshutka would go. I was squeezed between Mark and a twentysomething young woman who told the driver she was going to Khobi, about 30 minutes short of Zugdidi. I struck up a conversation with her and explained that our organization had placed two PCVs in Khobi, but she did not know them. Other than that brief exchange, we did not speak, although we did share an orange I had. As the 6 hour ride progressed it began to get dark and sort of cold. The next thing I knew my seat mate grabbed my wrist and snuggled her hand up the inside of my sleeve for warmth and put her head on my shoulder. We were totally cuddled up! I tried to kick Mark so he could get a glimpse of what was happening, but I was afraid I would get my new friend's attention as well. As it turned out Mark was asleep anyway. The woman from Khobi and I continued to ride "snuggled up" for the next 4 hours. Eventually, we reached Khobi at around 11:30 and she said good-bye and left. It was an interesting ride.

NAMES
Yesterday I worked on a committee with a very pregnant Georgian woman. I asked her how she was feeling and when the baby was due. She informed me it was a boy. I asked what his name will be. She told me that Georgians never name their babies before they are born.

This brings me to something I wanted to share on the blog----typical Georgian names. For girls, the most predominant name is Nino. Somewhere around 30% of all girls are named Nino, after St. Nino. With the name Nino you get two special days a year rather than just one-----your birthday and St. Nino's birthday. Other typical girl names are Salome, Eka, Nana, Mari, Madonna, Tamuna, Khatuna, Natia, Irma, Maia, Asmat, Teo, Sopo, Keti, Rusidan, Tsira, Elena, Gvantsa,Tika, Marika and Medea.

For the boys, Georgi is the equivalent of Nino in terms of popularity. Other popular names include Paata, Beso, Gocha, Kakha, Kakho, Misha, Ansor, Lado, Lasha, Uri, Tengiz, Mamuka, Dato, Todua,Tornike, Zviad, Nodari, Akaki, Irakli, Nato, Dimitri and Levani.

My strength in remembering names is weak to begin with , but once all these names got added to the mix...........let's just say it has been a challenge!

MY NEW SECONDARY PROJECT
Georgians live together with their extended families. The eldest son will move his wife in with his parents and raise his family there and the house will become his eventually. If his father has any sisters who have never married they will be living there as well. Often the family has other relatives who live in a village outside of town. These relatives often come and stay with the family for short and sometimes extended periods of time for one reason or another. Such is the case in our family. One day an older woman I would guess to be around 75 appeared at our house and did not leave for several weeks. Upon asking, we were told that she is Eka's cousin from the village, but we are not completely sure if that is the actual relationship even to this day. We also have been calling her Keti for several months but just found out her name is actually Kvati! Kvati is the hardest working old person you have ever seen. She mowed our lawn by hand, cutting it with a very small scythe as she bent over while sitting on a foot stool. She has polished every 100 year old pot in the house until it gleams. She also tilled the entire vegetable garden with a hand held hoe. When she is not doing these things she is out sweeping the street. For some unknown reason Georgian brooms are only about 3 feet long, so when you use one you must stoop over which invariably brings on a snowshoveling type of backache in no time.

By now you are probably wondering why this segment is titled "My New Secondary Project". Well, one day I heard Kvati whimpering as though she was in pain. I went over to comfort her with a hug. She fell into my arms and I started to rub her shoulders. I don't know if she ever had her shoulders rubbed before, but she was so audibly overjoyed that I offered to let her lie on my bed for an official backrub. Well, I gave her a 10 minute backrub pretty vigorously, and she loved it. The next day and every day thereafter until she returned to her Village she would meekly knock at my door and look at me with begging eyes and say something in Mengrelian (the local language which she speaks most of the time). It was pretty clear what she wanted, so as my new secondary project I have become Kvati's personal masseuse. Who wooda thunk????????

Here are a few pictures of Kvati---- by the pechi, in the kitchen and cutting the lawn.

Here are some pictures of Mari's birthday party. In the first picture, some of the kids are displaying the presents they brought to her. Her brother is the tall boy in the rear. The second picture shows the two roofs the kids were jumping between (notice the outhouse roof in the rear). The last photo shows Mari demonstrating her Georgian dance, while her mother plays the piano.

The Concert.....................................

2008-04-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we had a concert in Zugdidi which was sponsored by the American Embassy. It was a concert put on by an American jazz pianist named Dan Tepfer. This kind of stuff doesn't happen often here, and the concert hall (a/k/a the movie theater) was packed. As Peace Corps volunteers, we were contacted in advance and asked if we wanted to invite any particular people from the community to the concert. I'm proud to say that 53 of the approximately 250 to 300 people in attendance were our invitees. I didn't think we knew that many people! Unfortunately, Lisa had to be out of town on the day of the concert, so she didn't get to go, but I did, and it was very interesting experience from a cultural perspective. First of all, as is the case with every scheduled event in Georgia, it didn't start on time. Georgians are notorious for showing up late, and the concert was no exception. I wasn't keeping my eye on the clock, but it was at least an hour after the scheduled time before the concert actually got underway. Just prior to Mr. Tepfer getting started, there was a brief introduction (in Georgian) by someone from the Embassy. Everyone was reminded to turn their cell phones off or to put them into the "discreet" mode so they wouldn't cause a distraction during the concert. However, telling a Georgian to turn off their cell phone is the same as telling another person to sacrifice their first son. Notwithstanding the very emphatic request which was made, cell phones continued to ring (loudly), AND CONVERSATIONS CONTINUED TO ENSUE, all through the concert. Only in Georgia!

The music itself was a bit too avant garde for me, but I am not really a jazz aficionado, so it may have been perfectly fine for someone who knew what it was they were listening to. In any event, toward the end of the concert Mr. Tepfer asked if anyone had any requests, whereupon a portly woman made her way to the stage and, in Georgian, said that she wanted to play a piece of her own! Somewhat befuddled, Mr. Tepfer found his way to a seat and the portly woman began to play. Surprisingly, she was quite good, and at the end of her number she got a loud round of applause from the audience. I didn't get a chance to speak with Mr. Tepfer after the show, but I would bet dollars to doughnuts that it was the first time in his career when, upon asking if anyone had a request, it was suggested that he sit down and allow someone else to play!

Three Things: Two Good, One Bad..........................

2008-04-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

This is a quick update.

On Friday night at about 9:30, our host father knocked at our door and excitedly asked us to come outside. He had just received a call which alerted him to the fact that the city was about to "power up" the streetlights (quechebis naturebi) which have been in the process of being installed over the past month or so (which is a very short time by Georgian standards) along our street (which is normally pitch black at night). We all went out and waited for just a few minutes before the streetlights began to flicker and then to slowly increase in intensity (sodium vapor?) until the street was brightly illuminated. Of course, everyone else came out of their houses also, and before long there was a veritable street party going on. It's great! They are supposed to stay on all night, and now we don't have to fear falling in open manholes on our way home after dark!

A second good thing happened almost at the same time. All of a sudden we began to notice the presence of large silver dumpsters along many of the streets. I don't know why they are there or who they are for, but we have been using them to dispose of our garbage over the past few days, and it seems like everyone else is too (they are always full). Maybe the availability of these dumpsters will cause people to burn less garbage, which always includes millions of plastic bottles and bags and causes a foul smell for blocks in every direction.

The third thing is a bad thing. Over the weekend, someone broke into my office and stole two computers. My office is on the 4th floor (walkup) of a building that has locks on all of the doors and separate locked metal gates on the entrances to each of the floors. In addition, there are always 2 security guards on duty in the building 24 hours a day. All I can think of is that it was either an inside job or it happened while the guards were napping. The locked front door to our office was broken down and the computers were carried down four floors on the way out. I guess this experience also settles an issue that Lisa and I have had. In the summer here it gets beastly hot, and we have no air conditioning. I like to sleep with the windows (first floor) of our room open to get what little air there is, but our host family told us that we should keep the windows shut. With another summer approaching, Lisa has been saying that we really need to keep the windows shut this summer (easy for her to say when its not so hot at the moment), but I have been resisting (knowing what it's like). In view of the recent experience at my office, I guess I will just have to give in on this one.

Celebrating Healthy Women........................

2008-03-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

When I interviewed to be a Peace Corps Volunteer, my first choice was to work in health education. Even though my years of experience have been in the elementary classroom I have always felt strongly about health care issues. My primary assignment here in Georgia has been teaching English as a foreign language. We are strongly encouraged to pursue secondary projects as well. In October, a Breast Cancer Awareness walk was held in Kutaisi. As volunteers, we were invited to come and help. Mark was at a different conference that weekend so I went to Kutaisi on my own to help. In the prewalk gathering phase there was a table with breast models for women to feel what a lump might be like. In my personal education about breast health I always felt that these models were helpful. I offered to to help out and saw how hesitant, if not downright terrified, Georgian women were to actually touch the models.

On the way home I got thinking that having a Saturday event at my school to give information on breast health might be a good thing to organize. My school has 1200 students, and accordingly, there are many women teachers there also who could benefit. I talked to my teaching counterpart, and she agreed that it would be a good idea. At the PC Halloween party I had a long conversation with Johanna Holtan, an NGO volunteer from my group, who is working with a women’s health care organization focusing on prenatal parenting education. She said she would love to partner with me to make this happen and that there was an NGO in Kutaisi whom she would ask to come and run the show.

In January, Johanna came to Zugdidi to spend some time to scope out the venue and plan the event. Together we brainstormed how to make the event informative and fun. This kind of presentation would be a new concept here, and we were concerned whether Georgian women would take time for something like this. We were determined to make it happen. We decided to incorporate a breast self exam training as part of the event. The people here are crazy for trainings and certificates. March 3rd is Mothers’ Day and March 7th is International Womens’ Day, both a big deal here. We chose the following weekend, March 15th, for our “Celebrating Healthy Women” event.

There was much to do. Johanna was working on recruiting organizations in Kutaisi to come. I had made friends with the director of an NGO in Zugdidi who does wonderful support work for IDPs (internally displaced people). I asked the director there to partner with me to go to a workshop on HIV/AIDS and to assist us in organizing the event. She is fluent in English and was happy to help. She also offered the aid of an IDP doctor who she had helped and now works in her organization. We also decided that we should incorporate many different aspects of womens’ health and well being into the event, so we reached into every health related direction we could. We knew that prenatal health education was vital, and family planning was needed. There is a high rate of TB here so information on that was important. To present the HIV/AIDS information we needed infectious disease doctors and basic facts. Women need to feel comfortable with gynecologists, so we needed them on board too. Cancer was an issue so we needed an oncologist.

When the Peace Corps heard what we were planning they approached us and encouraged us to apply for a VAST grant. This was exactly the kind of event that Washington was trying to encourage, especially if we included information on HIV/AIDS, which was already in our plan. Johanna’s expertise in grant writing was called into service, and within 2 weeks we found out that we had received $500 in our project budget, which meant we could expand our possibilities. We then had a budget which we could use to advertise, decorate and entice women to attend
with food!

We also decided to go to local businesses to ask them to contribute so we could have some sort of door prizes. My NGO counterpart said that one of the local banks had stated that they might be willing to help organizations in such a fashion. So Eka and I ventured off to the Bank of Georgia to make the pitch. In my days of fund raising for Camp Chingaghgook I learned much from George Painter about how to approach this. I initially spoke briefly in Georgian, and then through Eka as my interepeter, I launched into our request. The answer came quickly. The female bank manager thought it was a great idea which was much needed in Georgia. “500 lari would be no problem.”( 1 lari = $0.66). I immediately texted Johanna, and we were exuberant! Everyone we approached about the project was very positive. Georgia has the fifth highest rate of death from breast cancer in all of Europe. Everyone knows someone who has been afflicted. Women do not go to the doctor here except to have a baby or an abortion. The rate of abortion is 3.7 abortions per woman. There is very little family planning information available to them. It is just not talked about here. On the HIV/AIDS front, the numbers have been dangerously climbing in each of the last four years, and Zugdidi, where we live, has the second highest infection rate in Georgia. What makes this worse is that many men here frequently visit “Female Sex Workers”, and often a blind eye is turned.

We hired a neighbor of my teaching counterpart to prepare refreshments for those attending. Decorations were to be posters designed by the kids at school. We would get flowers at the bazaar which would later be given to the presenters. In speaking with my Georgian friends about door prizes they were confused about the concept. Because the people here are all so poor, there was a concern that if only 20 women left with gifts there might be bad feelings among the others. So,as an alternative, we decided to give each woman a small gift instead, a bottle of nail polish with a tag on a satin ribbon saying “When you use this nail polish remember to examine your breasts once a month. Compliments of Bank of Georgia “. Everyone loved the idea! Johanna arranged for five organizations to attend, dealing with reproductive health, breast health, prenatal care and family planning. She was busy ordering a huge banner, certificates, preparing the program and jumping through the hoops for the grant. I was busy visiting 3 local gynecologists, an oncologist and 2 infectious disease doctors and inviting them to participate and provide handouts. There are no big pharmaceutical companies to give out free information here. I met with kids to make posters. We also decided to introduce the women to low fat dips with fresh vegetables and provide recipes for them to take home. To complicate things, many of the women would be in the middle of their pre-Easter fast, which meant that at least half of the food had to consist of items which had no dairy, meat or egg products. The entire event, including all the signs, had to be in Georgian, so there was much translation help needed. We also invited PC volunteers to come help. We had 8 volunteers helping us. They came from all around Georgia, several
traveling 5 hours to get here!

We also learned that the Director of Peace Corps Georgia and the PC Language Coordinator were coming as well. A comforting thought. We had set a goal of 200 women, but if the word did not get out, it had thepotential to be a pretty bleak occasion, with lots of hoopla and no women. I spent an entire day pounding the pavement asking stores and businesses to post signs. We talked to everyone we knew. I was handing brochures out to other riders on marshutkhas (minibusses) and to waitresses in restaurants, and I even resorted to bribing kids in my classes with stickers if their Moms came. The day arrived. It was cold, rainy and windy. But to our surprise more than 200 women attended! The family planning expert offered confidential family planning information, and 10 women left that day with oral contraceptives. Everyone had a wonderful time and went home with arm loads of information.

Afterwards we had a luncheon for the presenters and volunteers to network and to thank them. At this event my school director was speaking with the local oncologist and gynecologist, and they offered to arrange free breast exams and pap smears for all the teachers in my school. Needless to say, Johanna and I were thrilled. We even have some money left to use to put together an informational kit that other volunteers can use to duplicate the event. Today we are very happy campers (volunteers) !

Here are some pictures (Johanna is standing in front of the school and at the mike with me in the blue scarf) .........................

Developing Country............................

2008-03-13T12:33:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note. Georgia really is making progress as a developing country. During the past week or so, workmen have been busy putting up light poles on our street! Yep, we're gonna have streetlights! Of course, one shouldn't get too excited before it actually happens (as exemplified by the new gas heaters that were installed in Lisa's school....the only problem being that there has been no gas and consequently no heat all winter). We're really excited though because at night here it is pitch black on our street and dangerous to walk home. Also, today was the third day in a row that the power did not go off once !!! Usually we lose power at least once and frequently several times every day. I took my camera with me to work today and here are a few pictures for you.

This is the electrical panel for our building, which is located at the base of the stairs heading to my office (4 floors up). Many days when I arrive at work there is a group of people huddled around the box playing with the wires. We frequently check our power by turning all the power off in the office and see if the meter keeps running (which means that someone has tapped our line!).

This is the wall in the stairwell outside my office on the fourth floor. As you can see, there has been some electrical work done there too (it even looks like they may have had a small fire at one time). The pink piece of paper on the wall is an advertisement for the women's health fair which Lisa is spearheading in Zugdidi this weekend.

Here are the streetlights!! We're excited and they look pretty impressive. I just hope they have electricity hooked up to them soon!!

There are lots of used clothing stores in Georgia. Here is one that is on my way to work.

Here's a place where you can buy shesha (pronounced shay-shah), which is wood for your petchi. Lots of people pick up some for the evening fire on their way home at the end of the day.

Here is another used clothing store and a couple of small stores selling general merchandise. There are many, many of these small stores all around town, all selling the same stuff at the same prices.

Here's a fellow who has a stand on a street corner in town. On the table for sale are two bottles of vodka, a carton and a few stray packs of cigarettes. He even has a cup in which there are a bunch of single cigarettes for sale. If you look closely, you can see that his arm is in a sling, consisting of a loop of string wrapped around his neck and forearm.

Here's a car getting pushed to get started. It's a frequent sight. Notice that the driver is one of the pushers too. You really need to develop your technique in order to push the car fast enough, hop into the driver's seat at just the right time, put the car into gear and pop the clutch!!

Snow in Zugdidi............................................

2008-03-08T04:50:00.000-08:00

(written February 21, 2008) Winter reached a crescendo yesterday when Zugdidi got about 15 inches of snow. Although it snows here each winter, the memories of most locals were taxed in trying to remember the last time a single storm deposited more snow than this one. There are no snowplows here and by the looks of things, there are few shovels either. Snow is simply packed down by the few cars venturing out and by pedestrians tromping hither and yon. Very few of the cars here have snow tires. In fact, most of them have tires that display no treads whatsoever! Not many of the cars here would be able to pass the annual inspection required by the motor vehicle department back home. Cars are stuck everywhere and will likely remain just where they are until the snow and ice melts sufficiently for them to get out. The power has been out at our house for the past 24 hours, and of course, that means we have no water either. I have a meeting in Tbilisi tomorrow, and I am on the train at the moment because the marshutkas and buses are not running because of the snow. Unfortunately, the train takes forever (8 1/2 hours on a good day, and today isn't good). Actually, I just received a text message that said my meeting has been canceled because of the weather. Unfortunately, I'm already on my way! At least there’s power in Tbilisi. It was only a few years ago when power outages for months at a time were commonplace throughout Georgia. Everyone here remembers those times, and they are completely non-plussed about the power being off now. Not so me! I can’t imagine what it must be like to live without electricity for any length of time. I’m stressed out now and it’s only been off a day!

Only in Georgia!.............................

2008-01-30T03:06:00.000-08:00

(Written January 15, 2008). Some days you just say to yourself, "Only in Georgia!". This is one of those days.

Today was the first day back in school after the holiday vacation. However, yesterday they announced on TV that schools in Georgia would not be starting until the 21st. I thought we were supposed to be going back to school today, so when I learned about the TV announcement, I texted my counterpart to find out what she knew. She said the school director hadn't said anything to her about a change in the plan, so we'd better go. She also told me not to expect many children to be there since it was cold outside (in Georgia that means it's cold inside as well).

Today also happened to be my host sister Nino's 17th birthday. Her Mom takes school pretty seriously, so I knew she'd be ready to go when the time came. We bundled up and started our 20 minute walk, but about 5 minutes into the walk we both started to hear loud music. I remembered blaring music had been playing the first day of the school year so I asked Nino if the music could possibly be coming from the school. The closer we got the louder it became, and sure enough, it was coming from the school. Nino said a famous New Year's song was being played (in Georgia they celebrate the "New" Year on January 1 and the "Old" New Year on January 14th). As predicted, very few students showed up for school (I'm sure the TV announcement didn't help). In one of my classes 2 of 15 kids showed up, so we had 2 students and 2 teachers, which is a pretty good ratio for public school! Unfortunately, someone had broken into the classroom over the vacation and stolen the small electric coil heater that was given to each class before Christmas. They also took some flowers according to my counterpart. Keep in mind that our school has 24/7 security guards!

After my scheduled classes I returned home to help with the festivities for tonight's big birthday supra for Nino. You can always tell it's the day of a big party because our host family always rubs the floor in the front room with a gasoline like substance which gives off noxious fumes throughout the evening's festivities. You would think that they could modify the schedule to do the floor treatment the day before the party, but they don't. The whole extended family is here to help in the afternoon, although the men generally hang around the petchi and smoke and eat, while the women do all the work. When I came in there was also another man in the front room I did
not recognize and we were not introduced. I went into the kitchen where the women were busy preparing a second cake (20" in diameter), several potato/carrot/onion/cabbage/mayonnaise salads and a mushroom dish using about 10 lbs. of mushrooms. I made myself useful by cutting the mushrooms into tiny pieces. Oh, how I long for my Cuisinart! As you may recall from our last post, Beso, our host Dad, and 2 partners have started a mushroom business in a vacant house next door. Needless to say we eat mushrooms at every meal. In the midafternoon some guests arrived from our host mom Eka's office to bring a big teddy bear to Nino and to toast her with shots of cha-cha (moonshine). The petchi in our room adjacent to the kitchen was fired up to cook much of the food in, but the first batch of chickens gave off so much smoke from the fat that our PC smoke detector went off. There I was in the smoky room with 6 adults and 2 kids who had never seen or heard of a smoke detector before. We cleared out the smoke but the room got pretty cold. I went into the front room to warm up (our room and the front room are the only two rooms in the house with petchis for heat) only to find that I was disrupting some sort of a religious ceremony. The man who I did not know was gently swinging a crucifix over a large jar of water while softly chanting prayers. I went back to the ladies in the kitchen to find out what was happening, and I was told that he was here to bless the mushroom house! I still don't know why he came in the middle of the preparations for a birthday supra to perform the ceremony or why the ceremony itself wasn't held in the mushroom house next door. Well, it's not yet 3 pm (6am for you) and there is much more to do before the 20+ guests arrive at 6pm. Some of the men are outside blowtorching the hair off the two piglets that our host family bought at the bazaar this morning and just killed and cleaned. Shortly they will be "doing time" in our petchi. To complicate things, our water pipes are frozen today with no hope of thawing before party time, so we will be drawing water from our neighbor's well for cleanup.

As I said at the outset, "Only in Georgia!"

Here is Beso's sister working on one of the many salads served at the supra.

You can never have too much khachapuri (it's the national dish)

a scene from the kitchen next to our room, just before the smoke detector went off (note the cake in the cabinet)

One of the piglets getting cooked in our petchi. The petchi is about two feet from my side of the bed in our room (we pulled the bed farther away during the supra for better cooking access).

The outside sink where all the dirty supra dishes ended up getting piled (after this picture was taken) while we waited for the water to unfreeze.

The stove top in the family kitchen. Almost everything is cooked on it or in the petchi (the oven doesn't work). Note the propane cylinder on its side. When you are running out of gas that's what you do first to try and get as much gas out of the cylinder as possible. Next you stand the cylinder up in a tub of hot water. When you can't get any more gas out after doing that, you have to get the cylinder refilled.

A picture of the five girls named Nino who attended the birthday supra, including the guest of honor (our host sister Nino) holding the youngest Nino's hands.

Potpourri.............................................

2008-01-07T04:00:00.000-08:00

Since our last post we have been busy!

Mark's 60th birthday was celebrated by our family
with a huge supra and many toasts. His office
also celebrated all afternoon at work!

Irma, from Mark's office, got married and had a big wedding reception. She is the English speaker in his office, so, of necessity, they have become quite close. The party took place at her husband's family home, where she now lives with her husband in accordance with Georgian
tradition.

This is the tent in the middle of the street in front of Irma's new house, where the wedding reception was held. There were about 150 people there. Cars had to find an alternate route to wherever they were going as the tent blocked the whole street. There were many toasts, and during the dinner, the head of the cow that was butchered for the meal was presented to the "Tamada" ( toastmaster) by the bride's family as a gift for his services. A great deal of eating, drinking and dancing took place, and when we left about 4 hours after the festivities started, the party was still going strong.

Here are a couple of typical Georgian fellows at the wedding.

Our host father has started a mushroom business with his brother in law in the empty house next to ours. They constructed a hot water heating system to keep a constant temperature in the mushroom rooms and they rigged up lights which shine on the mushrooms 24 hours a day. The mushroom season runs from about late November until May. Every day they harvest the mushrooms that are ready and send them on the night train to Tbilisi. As you can imagine, mushrooms have become a big part of our diet at home too!

Here is Beso stirring the "bamba". The bamba is something like peat moss that gets cooked before being put into clear heavy plastic bags in layers which alternate with layers of mushroom seeds.

The bags are kept in the dark for 14 days at a certain temperature and then slits are cut into the sides and they are hung in a room with lights shining on them. The mushrooms then start growing out the slits and are harvested daily when ready. It only takes a day or two from the time the mushroom can first be seen until it reaches full size and is harvested. Every night the mushrooms are sent on the night train from Zugdidi to Tbilisi, where they are sold at the bazaar the next morning.

We were walking down the street when one of Lisa's students spotted her and rushed up to say hello. Pretty soon the rest of the family showed up (along with a couple of the neighbors) and the parents and kids wanted us to come into the house for a visit. This kind of stuff happens pretty much every day. Here's a picture that we took of the kids. We had prints made up and gave one to each of them.

Our host mother, Eka, has two sisters. They are
a very close family. Each sister has a daughter close to the same age as our sister, Nino. The Moms and Dads spend a lot of time hanging around our house and watching television together. They also help with the mushroom business or the cooking, cleaning or whatever else is going on. This picture shows our host sister Nino and her father Beso in the middle, with Nino's two cousins and their fathers in the family's living room (the only room in the house, other than our room, which is kept heated in winter).

Eka's sisters and a visiting Aunt are gathered around the pechi for warmth while they enjoy a cup of Turquli kava.

We rounded up three Peace Corps Volunteers from the villages in the mountains (they lead a much more difficult existence than we do) to come to our room for a visit over the holidays. One could say that they were stand-ins for our own kids, who are about the same ages as our visitors. Our first thought was to have a big turkey dinner, but the price of turkeys at the bazaar was to the moon (about $50 for a 15 to 20 pounder live weight....and then you had to kill it, pluck it and clean it). Instead, we made eggplant parmesean. Unfortunately, we mistakenly used the family's holy oil to cook with!

We used our pechi (because the kitchen gas canister was empty) and cooked in the dark (because the electricity was out). Notice the headlamps on the cooks in the picture. Surprisingly, everything turned out great, thanks to Christie, Paul and Erik!

This week was the presidential election in Georgia. The current president Mikheil Saakashvili

seems to have won, getting slightly in excess of 50% of the vote. Shortly before the election he came to Zugdidi and presented the City with a gift of 10 new tractors and 8 new buses, which have been on display in the center of town since his visit. He also gave each family in town (including ours) a 50 kg sack of flour and a voucher to get free firewood in the forest! He got our vote!

Here's a picture of our host father, Beso, with his Saakashvili poster.

And finally, here's a picture of Lisa doing something in our room, while waiting for the laundry to dry.

Internet and lines................................

2007-11-26T02:01:00.000-08:00

We have internet at our house! Actually, I should say we HAD internet at our house. It worked for one day (Thanksgiving Day) and has been on the fritz for the three days since then. Hopefully it is a temporary problem and we will be back up and running soon. At least now I know for sure that it is possible to get a connection here. Our street is about 5 miles long and we are the only connection on it (actually, I suspect that we are the only connection in this part of town). It is a DSL connection, although the speed is about the same as dial-up (I'm not complaining). Getting the internet has been a long involved process. As I mentioned in earlier posts, I was told at one point that we could get an internet connection in a week. Subsequently, that estimate was extended to a month, and in actuality, the process ended up taking about 2 1/2 months, which is still well within the "time-estimation parameters" for getting something done in Georgia. In order to make the necessary arrangements, I first had to go to the telephone office, where all the records for Zugdidi are maintained manually, on ledger cards. Arrangements had to be made to change the type of line servicing our house and that required that the phone number be changed also. Then the people in the internet office had to put the order in through the central office in Tbilisi and we began the 2 1/2 month wait. Once I learned last week that the internet office in Zugdidi had gotten whatever they needed from Tbilisi, I stopped over there and they gave me some pieces of paper, which I had to take to a different telephone office than the one I had been to previously. The woman in the new telephone office stamped the pieces of paper with a rubber stamp of some sort and then gave me back all the papers along with a bill, which she also stamped a few times with a different rubber stamp. Then I had to take the paperwork over to the Bank in order to pay the bill. At the bank, bills are first presented to a person at a desk. That person enters something into a computer and waits for their printer to spit out another piece of paper which is then stamped a few times and given back (Georgians love stamping stuff.....I'm convinced that if wax seals were readily available here they would be a big hit too). All the pieces of paper are then taken over to another area of the bank known as the "Cash Desk", where payment (in cash) is made and a receipt is given. All of this would have been fine if it were not for the crush of people seeking service at each step along the way. Unlike America, where people line up and are served when their turn comes, here in Georgia the concept of a line does not exist. At each of the stops which I've noted above there were many other people who also wanted attention for one thing or another. Instead of lining up, everyone stormed the desk of the person providing the service and then wiggled and jockeyed for position in front of everyone else. As a result, things took much longer to accomplish than if everyone simply waited their turn. Also, the whole process here is considerably more stressful, since you invariably become angry at people who have unjustifiably butted in front of you ("line rage"). I had to go to three separate offices and spend over two hours one afternoon in just trying to pay our internet bill. Imagine my surpirse when I learned that this process much be repeated each month. Here, people don't get bills in the mail (there is no home mail delivery). You must go to the telephone office at the correct time each month, make your way to the front of the crush of people there, get your bill, take it to the bank, make your way to the front of the crush of people there, and then again repeat the process when you actually pay the bill at the cash desk in the bank. People must do this to pay their electric bill as well as their phone bill. If you forget to go get the bill and make payment at the proper time of the month, your electricity or telephone is simply turned off. With the exception of the bank, which is located on the first floor of a recently renovated building in town, the locations where these agencies maintain their offices are also eye-opening. For example, the telephone office that I had to go to is located in a very large old Soviet style cement building which is largely abandoned. I had to climb a very narrow staircase until I reached the proper floor and then walk down a narrow hallway which runs the length of the building (two people walking in an opposite direction can barely get by one another without turning sideways). The entire hallway is illuminated by just one or two lightbulbs hanging from the hallway ceiling, which necessarily means that a considerable length of the hall is almost completely dark. On both sides of the hall are many doors, none of which identify the office which lies within (you must have precise directions in order to get to where you want to go). Some of the doors are missing and you can see offices inside that have been abandoned and the entire contents (including the windows) looted. There is no heat and there are piles of trash in the stairwells and hallways, all of which combine to give the building a very haunted house feel. I was happy to get out of there after my business was done. Fortunately, next month it will be Lisa's turn to pay the internet bill !!

Halloween at School.............................

2007-11-08T22:47:00.001-08:00

When my counterpart teacher, Nino, learned that there was an American holiday called Halloween coming up she immediately seized the moment and said, "We need to plan a special day for all the classes." We then spent a lot of time prepping the kids on the origins of the holiday and what kinds of costumes we wanted them to create. I confess to being a little skeptical about what they would come up with. Prior to the big day, we had a team of students carve a Jack-o-Lantern (out of a squash of some sort that resembled a pumpkin), and Nino and a friend of hers went crazy trying to "decorate" the room. They brought in little plastic bugs and dinosaurs they thought looked scary. I tried to find black paper in town to make bats or spiders. No go. On the big day, we made 2 big ghosts to hang and had scary music playing. We put the headlamp I use for reading at home inside our pumpkin in the flash mode. The kids were so excited we actually needed someone to guard the door when word got out in the rest of the school that something spooky was going on in our room. Many teachers who did not have classes (many are part time) were in the back of the room watching the goings on. I had on my Marge Simpson costume on with 3' of blue hair and an outrageous necklace. They know "The Simpsonis" here, so the costume was a hit. The kids came to school dressed in many fantastic costumes themselves! They took turns describing their costumes in English and then each came forward one at a time to "Trick or Treat" at the classroom door from the inside out. Nino was poised in the hall outside the door with a big bag of candy, and she dutifully answered the door as each kid knocked in turn. Then I took picture of each student. Next we bobbed for apples... a big hit! There was a lot of water in the tub (at least to start with) and the kids were cheering for each other. We were waiting with towels to rescue them. Everyone then sang that old standard, "If You're Scary and You Know it Clap your Hands". As we reached the stanza, "If you're scary and you know it then your face will reallly show it" everyone made a ghoulish face. You can see my ghoulish face in one of the pictures below. We finished up by first discussing and then writing about the party in English. This week we are preparing a huge display with all the photos that we took and the kids' written reports. They have all been taught British English so many of them agreed that is was a very "jolly" party. I was pooped after holding separate Halloween parties for each of my five classes, but it was worth it! The festivities were apparently such a hit that Nino has just informed me that there will be a Christmas pagent at the end of December, and we need to come up with a big performance to wow the director! I will be waiting for all your recommendations, and I'm counting on all you music teachers out there to come up with something good!

11th Grade Class --class bad boys (tseudi bitchebi) as siamese twins in lower right

Bobbing for apples........

If you're scary and you know it, then your face will surely show it!!!

7 th Grade Class

Achicko as a baby!

A Quick Observation.......................

2007-11-07T01:01:00.000-08:00

In Georgia, all physical maladies can be cured in one of two ways. You need either to eat a certain type of Georgian food or to go to a certain location in Georgia and breathe the air. The foods and locations vary depending on what ails you. In a place with no medical insurance, it's nice to know that there's always a quick fix for any problem that may arise!!

The US Peace Corps Director comes to Georgia!

2007-11-05T04:03:00.000-08:00

We had an interesting week. Ron Tschetter, the US Director of the Peace Corps, was in Georgia for a visit. Since the Peace Corps is now actively attempting to enlist older volunteers, we were invited to meet and have lunch with him as the local poster children for this new initiative. However, in order for us to do so, we needed to travel to another city in Georgia (Zestafoni) where the luncheon was scheduled to be held. That required that first we go to Kutaisi, where we were to stay overnight at a guest house, and then travel to Zestafoni the following morning in order to arrive in time for lunch. Unfortunately, our get-together was set to occur on the same day as a large rally in opposition to the current government was to take place in Tbilisi, the capital. Small rallies have been held in various regions of the country over the past few weeks and they were set to culminate in a very large rally in Tbilisi to be held on the same day as we were to have lunch. A regional opposition rally that was held in Zugdidi a couple of weeks ago turned violent when persons supporting the current government clashed with opposition supporters, and pictures of the violence in Zugdidi were shown on TV all over the country. When we went to catch a marshutka or bus from Zugdidi to Kutaisi the day before the lunch (and the rally in Tbilisi) we were told that no marshutkas or buses would be operating between Zugdidi and the larger cities to the East until after the rally was over. We could only speculate as to why. We managed to identify and board a rogue marshutka that was traveling in the correct direction (without a destination sign in its window), but we were stopped by the police about 15 miles outside of town. After a great deal of agitated conversation and the arrival of additional police, the passengers on the marshutka were ushered off onto the shoulder of the highway and the marshutka was taken by the police back in the direction of Zugdidi. We latched on to a lady who was a fellow passenger in the marshutka who was also heading to Kutaisi and decided that whatever she did to deal with the situation we were going to do as well! Fortune shined upon us a short time later when we caught a taxi and completed the rest of the trip without incident. We enjoyed a nice dinner at a restaurant with two fellow Peace Corps volunteers and then returned to the guest house where we spent the rest of the evening talking with the owner (who spoke pretty good English) and a young couple from France who were in the last month of a seven month road trip which they started from Beijing. The following morning we caught a marshutka to Zestafoni without any problem, had our lunch with the Director and our Country Director (at a table for 4) and caught a (very) slow train back to Zugdidi. The Director seemed to be a pretty regular guy, who was genuinely interested in our experiences so far and our suggestions as to how the Peace Corps might better achieve its goal of attracting older volunteers. Of course, we had to have a picture taken with him. It appears below.

Yesterday..................................

2007-10-22T02:20:00.000-07:00

(written Friday, 10/19/07). Yesterday was a big day. First, when I got to the office and checked my email I found I had email messages from both my son Craig and my daughter Molly which asked that we call them right away concerning an emergency involving our son Drew, who is a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama. They had each tried to call us, but neither could get through (no one can). Of course it was the middle of the night for both of them at that point, but I tried unsuccessfully to reach them by phone none-the-less. When they didn't pick up, I left messages for each. The emails which they sent were not particularly enlightening as to the precise nature of Drew's problem, which caused us additional angst. As far as we understood, he was in a hospital with what was thought to be Dengue Fever. Since Drew was just about to get get out of the Peace Corps to begin a two month trip around South America before returning to Panama to serve a 6 month stint in the Crisis Corps (an adjunct organization of the Peace Corps), we didn't know if he was in Panama or in a hospital somewhere else in South America. After a flurry of calls, we finally succeeded in getting in touch with our son Craig who said that he had received a voice mail message from Drew the day before asking him to get in touch with us to let us know. He said that Drew didn't sound good on the message, and that prompted him to "declare an emergency". As it turned out, Drew was scheduled to end his Peace Corps service and fly to Lima, Peru on the first leg of his South American adventure two days after he became ill. He is presently in a hospital in Panama City where he is recovering from Dengue Fever. We were able to get in touch with him by phone and he sounds like he is on the road to recovery. However, because of the nature of the disease, they want to be sure that he is okay before turning him loose. Apparently there are two varieties of illness, one "not so bad" and the other "very bad". They want to be sure that he has the former variety and not the latter. Hopefully, he will be out of the hospital within a week. The Peace Corps has administratively extended his Peace Corps service, and they are supervising (and paying for) his care. I guess if this had to happen, it was better that it happened when it did, rather than few days later when he would have no longer been in the Peace Corps and would have been on his own in Peru.

The second thing of significance that happened yesterday was that I got back my computer that had basically gotten so many viruses that it stopped working. After unsuccessfully trying to deal with the problems myself, I brought the computer in to a computer store in Zugdidi, where they said they would take a look at it and see what they could do. Of course, I did not bring to Georgia any of the original installation disks for the programs I have on the computer, and I was also concerned that something they might do would endanger either the data in those programs or the many pictures which I have taken since our arrival in Georgia back in June. Fortunately, no data was lost and the computer now works again, although I did lose some of my programs. All in all, I feel fortunate. The results could have been much worse.

The final item of particular significance which rounded out the day yesterday was that I received the World Space Satellite Radio that I ordered about 6 weeks ago. It will allow us to receive some English language programming (NPR!!). For reasons that are not worth the telling, the radio was shipped from Dubai to Glens Falls and then to Georgia. The radio arrived a month and a day after it was sent by the USPS express delivery service from GF! I was beginning to think that it it had gotten "misdirected" along the way and that I would never get it. You can imagine my joy when someone delivered a note to my office that said I had a package at the post office. Now I've just got to figure out how to set it up.

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Today, a Georgian fellow who I had earlier met took me out to have Khashi for breakfast. Khashi is cow's feet which have been boiled. It is sometimes served in a soup made of broth and milk. You put salt and hot mustard on Khashi before you eat it (probably to help mask the taste), and you either drink beer or vodka when you eat it. There are only a few restaurants in the area that serve Khashi, which is always eaten in the morning (the place we went to served Khashi from 7 am to 10 am). The restaurant was packed with other Khashi eaters when we got there, all of whom were men. Apparently, only men go out to eat Khashi (when I was invited to go, I suggested that maybe Lisa would like to come, and it was explained to me that women generally don't go out to eat Khashi). We had vodka with our Khashi (at 8 am!). Khashi is traditionally eaten by those who have had too much to drink the night before; kind of like a "hair of the dog" approach. Depending on how late the festivities run the night before, revelers can go directly to eat some Khashi before retiring. It is supposed to settle your stomach and counter the ill-effects resulting from the over-consumption of alcohol.

Georgian Food....................

2007-10-16T02:32:00.000-07:00

I had no intention of writing a blog entry today. I came home from school at 4pm not having eaten since breakfast, so I naturally stuck my head in the fridge. To my surprise I was greeted by a large bowl of pigs feet, another bowl containing a huge heart, liver and other entrails, and finally, the piece de resistance, a whole (roasted) pig's head. That made me decide it was now time to launch into making that blog entry I have been planning regarding Georgian food.

As it turns out, our neighbor Anzor slaughtered one of his pigs on Sunday. Mark was home to hear the squeals and observe the process. Luckily for me, I was in Tbilisi and didn't return home until the late afternoon. So last night we were treated to a feast of fresh (and I mean fresh!) roast pork with all the fixins. The fixins are pretty much the same as we have at every meal: sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, jalapenos and salt, massive amounts of fresh bread, sliced cheese that is somewhat salty and a meat sauce made from sour plums with some hot spices. Other high frequency foods are natural casing long frankfurters, sliced salami, chicken legs (don't know where the breasts go but I've never seen one here) and 60/40 ground beef. Just about all food preparation is on the cooktop with the exception of cakes. Also, you can pretty much be sure that whatever you are eating has been prepared using lots of cooking oil.

The food section at the bazaar is fabulous. There are bountiful vegis, but you won't find any type of lettuce there (although parsley, cilantro and basil are plentiful). There are lots of apples, peaches, plums, fresh figs (before they are dried) and cherries (in June), and I am told the mandarini (small orange) season is in winter and they are everywhere in massive amounts. They had a surplus last year and apparently dumped tons in the Black Sea! There are also many varieties of nuts. Georgia is especially known for its hazelnuts and walnuts. Recently, I was treated to a tour of the local hazelnut packaging factory, which is one of the main businesses here in the city of Zugdidi. One whole section of the bazaar is devoted to just spices, which are displayed in large sacks. Another huge section is strictly cheeses (most vendors selling exactly the same product as the person next to him). Most of the cheeses are very salty. Cheddar or swiss cheese is nowhere to be found. There is also a big area where various grains are for sale and the vendors are all armed with big scoops and ancient looking weight measuring scales. Perhaps the most striking part of the bazaar though is the area where the fresh meat is sold. There is no refrigeration, of course. The meat hangs from hooks, and the flies appear to be having a field day! Also, if you are one of the "roll your own" crowd, you can pick up just about any kind of tobacco you are looking for from one of the many tobacco vendors stationed at the bazaar. Every city, town or village of any size in Georgia has a bazaar, where almost everything you might need can be found.

The food specialities here are : khachapuri, sort of like a cheese only pizza (served at almost every meal) and khink'ali, a dumpling filled with spicy meat which is boiled and eaten smothered in pepper (and is always served with beer). Also, there are many bean dishes. They also make unsweet pastries filled with mashed potatoes. As you can imagine, Mark's Atkins Diet has fallen by the wayside here in Georgia. They also serve seasoned pork on skewers, which is known as mtsvati.

Our family is always harvesting something, usually various fruits or nuts. The nuts are dried and jam or mouraba is made from the fruit. Mouraba is juicier than jam and is served with homemade yogurt known as matsoni. Dannons will never taste the same to me! Honey is a local product so that is also a popular condiment.

We have introduced the family to popcorn (bati-buti), which is hard to come by here, and they really love it. They couldn't believe that so much popcorn could be produced from what seemed like such a small number of popcorn kernels.

The cakes made here are always from scratch and are huge. Most are at least 16" in diameter and 3 layers tall. Although these huge cakes are heavy, they are very light to the taste and have a not too sweet custard type frosting. Often they are garnished with glazed fruits.

As you can see we are eating well. We like the food, but the only problem is repetition. The same foods are at every meal and each restaurant has identical menus. I never realized how fortunate we are in the United States to have so many ethnic foods to choose from as well as access to just about any food ingredient you can think of. We also have so many food preparation methods with microwaves, gas grills, crock pots and ovens. No one here has any idea what a microwave oven is.

I have had fun trying to cook on occasion. So far I have made applesauce, eggplant parmesean, french onion soup and blackbean soup.

So back to the beginning. After surveying the possibilities in the refrigerator (monsivari), I settled for popcorn for my snack. So be sure to savor whatever delicious American food you may be having tonight! !!!

The Pig's head

The feet

The other stuff

Beso cleaning out our non-frost free refrigerator. It is so rare for a man to do something in the kitchen that we had to take a picture!

Eka (right) and her sister trying to fit the requisite number of candles on my birthday cake

Getting ready for my birthday supra to begin.

A bit of smoke fills the kitchen. The red thing on the floor is what they used to bake my cake. The stove oven doesn't work.

Giving Mom a smooch in the kitchen.

Helping with the canning out back.

Mark stringing up an extra length of clotesline to make room for the nuts drying on the line.

A lady who has a cake shop in a tunnel under the street (used by people to cross the street to minimize the risk of getting knocked off by a passing motorist)

A meat stand set up on the street on the way to school. Notice the ax on the table.

The spot where the meat vendor butchered what ever is was that he was selling.

Youth Bank.......................

2007-10-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from a 5 day training at a hotel outside Tbilisi (the capital), which is about 6 hours away from Zugdidi where we live.The training related to a project sponsored by the Eurasia Foundation known as Youth Bank. The concept originated in 1999 in Northern Ireland and now there are Youth Banks which have been set up all over the world. Here in Georgia interested people between the ages of 16 and 24 completed applications, and each applicant was interviewed by representatives of the Eurasia Foundation. Seven people were then chosen from each of five different socio-economically challenged regions of the country, including Samegrelo, where Zugdidi is located. All 35 Youth Bank members then traveled to Tbilisi for the conference, which was held in a hotel/conference center about 10 km outside of town. I'm sure it was the first time some of the kids had ever been to the capital and the first time that others had ever stayed in a hotel. Some were from minority areas of the Country and barely speak Georgian! They speak Armenian or Azeri instead. The six trainers were from Northern Ireland, and the brogue which some of them had made it difficult to understand them as well!! You can imagine the linguistic nightmare that the training presented, but surprisingly, things went fairly well. There were 3 interpreters in attendence at all times, and the training went from 9:30 each morning to 9:30 each evening, with breaks for meals at the hotel. The Youth Bank concept is that the Youth Bank is given a sum of money which it then disburses to fund small community development projects proposed by other youths from the region. I think the Eurasia Foundation intends to provide initial funding of 7,500 GEL to each of the five Youth Banks being established in Georgia. The training related to the methodology which the Bank's members are to use in soliciting and evaluating project proposals, interviewing applicants, selecting projects to be funded, entering into contracts with successful applicants, and finally, monitoring and evaluating funded projects. The training was very professionally done and was specifically oriented toward the 16-24 year old crowd it was aimed at. For instance, at one point, a film clip of a love scene from a movie was shown. The scene was quite graphic, but no sex was actually depicted. The kids then broke into groups and individually wrote down everything they had seen in the film clip. Of course, most of them said that the couple had had sex. The exercise was intended to to make the point that when an interviewer is reporting to the full board on a project proposal, he is to report only that which he actually observes or which he is told. Interviewers are not supposed to interject their own personal thoughts or conclusions regarding project proposals. If the kids did not see the couple having sex they should not have reported that they did! The training is now over and everyone has gone back to their respective homes across the country. In the upcoming months we will see whether or not the concept of a Youth Bank will work here in Georgia.

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In Georgia, almost everyone has a cell phone (kids included), and among the kids, the kind of cell phone you have is a status symbol. The more bells and whistles the better. At the conference, one kid even had a video cell phone, where each party to the call could see the other person (or anything else the camera was aimed at) in surprisingly good video (both parties had to have similarly equipped phones of course)!!

The Start of School...................

2007-09-30T23:50:00.000-07:00

(Written September 18, 2007). September 17th finally arrived. As is the Lebowitz Family tradition, Mark took my picture with my host sister Nino as we left the house all shiny and clean for the first day of school. The only thing missing was the school bus approaching from the rear on West River Road. We have taken that picture every year since Craig's first year in Kindergarten. As Nino and I proceeded on the 25 minute walk to school I began to hear very loud music playing, as though either a band was tuning up to play for a wedding or a car with a supersized boom box was approaching. The music grew louder until I realized it was coming from the front yard of a school (not mine) along our way, where many students were milling around. As we continued toward our school, I began to see many parents and children all heading in the same direction. Many were holding hands with each other, but what caught my eye in particular was how finely everyone seemed to be dressed and how nice everyone seemed to be "fixed up".
As we approached the school building we heard different music which grew in volume as we got closer. When I saw the building I was quite amazed. It is a large building, 2 stories high, which houses 1200 students. It is surrounded by a tall iron fence and a large paved enclosure. The place was teeming with people, mothers and fathers, teachers and students, big and small. Almost half of them were carrying large, beautiful flower arrangements. There were flower peddlers who had set up shop for the day outside the gates. Music was blasting and the children were running around like whirling dervishes, greeting friends, teachers and relatives. The traditional greeting here is either an "air kiss" or a regular kiss on the left cheek. This is done by everyone, regardless of sex or age. As is also the cultural norm here, there is no such thing as personal space, so you are constantly being squeezed, bumped into or or leaned upon by others who are going about their business.
Eventually I attempted to make my way to the main entrance to greet the director of the school ("superintendent"), Nino. Before I got there though, I was intercepted by the head of the English department, another Nino, who escorted me through the crowd to an area where her collegues were hanging out. (By the way, in case you have not surmised, Nino is a very popular name here for girls, just as Giorgi is for boys. If your name is Nino or Giorgi you get to celebrate on your birthday and on St. Nino's Day or St. George's Day as well!) Anyway, on the top steps of the school there was assembled a mixed group of children and administrators. As I was waiting for the opening words to mark the beginning of the new school year, I realized that the Director was already speaking into the microphone. The problem was that the crowd was making so much noise and running around that you could not hear anything. Eventually, the national anthem was played over the P.A. system and it managed to catch everyone's ear, afterwhich a small mixed choral group began to sing. The sound system failed twice during their performance, but they made a quick recovery each time. Then a girl, who must have been the student body president, addressed the group. Since I couldn't understand what she was saying in Georgian I became fixed on her outfit as she spoke. She wore a frilly blouse, short skirt and white Go-Go boots topped with white feathers! The girls here are stick thin from pre-pubescence until they reach middleage. It really looks as though they eat nothing (in another entry I'll tell you about all the great food they are not eating).
At the assigned moment the throngs began pulsing toward the door. We made our way up to the room where the English department hangs out. My immediate supervisor was so busy orchestrating so many people that she didn't have time to give me direction. I had asked for a schedule in advance but she said we would figure it out later. It is very Georgian to change plans at the last minute or not to make a big fuss about preplanning; so there I sat for the first hour of the first day of the school year. Eventually, a school business person showed up with a ledger. That really got all the teachers buzzing. Because they work part time for hardly any pay, each of them wanted to make sure she (there are no male English teachers in the school) was being properly compensated for the number of classes she was assigned to teach. I don't blame them. I feel that I am back in the pre-computer age of the 60's, where everything is recorded in longhand---the schedules, the business ledger and attendance at school. The Georgian Education Ministry had promised computers in the school by the start of the school year, but it hasn't happened yet. I think their attention would better be directed toward getting heat of some sort in the school building first. There is no heat, and in the winter everyone wears their long underwear, coats and boots during an abbreviated school day.
Well back to the first day. Finally, the teachers started to feel sorry for me and asked what I would be doing. At about that time Nino came up for air and said, "Maybe you could talk to the classes about why you are here and what you will be doing. I will be right back." That gave me a leisurely 10 minutes to come up with a plan. Following that 10 minutes, I was escorted to a classroom with 35 5th year students. One girl actually had her little brother sitting in the seat with her. There I was, with my immediate supervisor in attendance, ill-prepared to dazzle them with information about the goals of Peace Corps. Fortunately, however, the creativity Gods smiled on me and my " Dog and Pony Show" was launched!
In Georgia, all students refer to their teacher as "Mast". That is short for mastavlabeli, which means "teacher" in Georgian. Imagine an atmosphere where every kid is beckoning you as "Mast". The thought seemed to me to be very impersonal. After all, I wasn't going to call them "student". To avoid the uncomfortable feeling associated with being called "Mast", I had asked the kids in my camp to call me "Miss Lisa" ( the counter to "Measter Mark"), and I decided to go with that in school as well. "Mrs. Lebowitz" seemed way too long, "Lisa" seemed too informal and "Mrs. Lisa" didn't have the proper ring to me. Maybe it is my way of feeling more youthful. Soon after adopting that name though, the teachers also started calling me "Miss Lisa", but fortunately I nipped that in the bud and have since encouraged them to call me just plain ole "Lisa".
In my introductory lesson, I used a world map and my cell phone as classroom "realia" and tried to elicit from the kids the reasons why a middleaged, retired teacher might want to say good bye to her family and friends and come to Georgia for 27 months.

1. So Americans can learn about Georgians.
2. So Georgians can learn about Americans.
3. To let the Georgian students work with a native English speaker.

After my presentation, the kids posed questions to me. The rules were simple: "You may ask me anything except how much I weigh." I had to whisper in the ears of many who were paralyzed by the thought of asking a question. Ask me, "Do you have a husband?". Ask me," Do you have a dog?". We then pulled our chairs in a circle and had a pretend conversation "at the cafe".The most interesting question by far was put forth by two girls in different classes. "What is your dream?". When you see how poor these kids are and feel the discouragement of their parents with life in general, it's uplifting know that the kids still have hope and dreams for a better future. Things are changing in Georgia, and these kids represent the future of this country. The question session was a lot of fun and when the bell rang before all the questions were answered the kids actually groaned, which made me happy. After hugs and kisses all around, the class was off to run and socialize in the hall. I felt happy that they were enthused. I know this initial enthusiasm will wear off, but nonetheless, I am excited about working with all the students who seem so excited to learn English. A number of the students found it very difficult to formulate a question in English, and surprisingly, their teachers were eager to pass them by, but I made a point of trying to get something from everyone. Eventually everyone asked a question, although the contribution of some may have been as little as two words out of a five word sentence.
Following the trauma of teaching my first class, I delivered 3 more classes and that was it for the day. I took a wilted but beautiful bouquet I was given by one of my co-English teachers and left. Mark's office is only 2 big blocks away. He had texted me during the morning to see how it was going, but at the time I was too busy to respond. After I left the school grounds I leaned against a tree and texted him back. We met under a big tree in the park for lunch. If you have been following our blog, this was the same day as Mark's legendary blisters so it is better said that he "hobbled over to the park". At any rate, he totally enjoyed the rendition of my first day at school, and he filled me in with what was happening at his office . That is our life here in Zugdidi. After lunch, Mark went back to his office, and I walked home in the blazing sun with my umbrella for heat protection as all the women do here. I got home at 4 pm, just in time to dive into my book, "Ahab's Wife", and escape. I am happy. I am finally doing what I came here to do.

Typical seventh form students

Hanging by the water fountain between classes. No such thing as a line in Georgia!

Typical chaos in the halls between classes.

Brothers on the way to school.

My director Nino (left) and some of the other English teachers.

Campers at my English camp during the two weeks before the school year began.

internet update......................

2007-09-18T02:03:00.000-07:00

Lisa has been running an English camp for the past couple of weeks at the school where she will be teaching. She has two groups of approximately 20 kids each (older and younger) who come to the camp each day to play games, read books and sing songs, while speaking only English. The camp has been a big success, as evidenced by the fact that each day more kids show up than were there the day before. The mother of one of the boys in the camp somehow communicated to Lisa that her daughter had just returned from America (Ohio) where she had spent the past year as a foreign exchange student. On Sunday, Lisa and I were in town together on a family shopping trip to the bazaar (to buy more clothesline and clothespins), and who should we run into but the mother and daughter. The daughter speaks perfect English, and as a consequence, she immediately became my new best friend. It didn't take me long to enlist her services in my attempt to sort out my internet problems. She agreed to accompany me to the phone company guy to see what the real scoop is on getting DSL service at our home. We arranged to meet today and to visit his office together. Unfortunately, however, I mistakenly decided to wear my new shoes today. Although they are new shoes that I brought from home, I hadn't worn them until today. As I previously mentioned, it is close to 2 miles from our house to my office, and I generally walk back and forth (unless I am able to cajole a ride from some good samaritan). This morning I was about half way when I realized my new shoes were causing blisters on the heels of both of my feet. By the time I got to my office I was in major pain and was barely shuffling my feet as I walked. I would have taken my shoes off and walked barefoot if I didn't have such tender soles (Lisa calls them"baby feet"). As soon as I got to my office I took my shoes off, but when Gvantsa (the daughter) called I was forced to put them back on and shuffle off to meet her. The way I was forced to walk down the street was somewhat embarrassing, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to get things straight with the phone company. We got there and pushed our way to the front of the crush of people hanging around, and I watched as Gvantsa engaged in an animated conversation with the telephone guy (actually it appears that there is more than one telephone guy, since we were dealing with someone other than the person that I had dealt with before). Soon a question came up that required a phone call to my host mother, and before I knew what was happening she had left her work and joined us in the telephone guy's office. Jumping to the end of the story, I am now told that we CAN get DSL service here. However, it is DSL service that is routed over the "2" exchange, rather than the standard DSL service routed over the "5" exchange (whatever that means). Apparently, only the "2" exchange is available where we live. It appears that "2" exchange DSL is vastly inferior to "5" exchange DSL, but it still is DSL and is supposedly better than dial-up. The down side is that it will be "a month or two" before it can be installed. Using the Georgian multiplier of 3 (used when estimating the actual time of an occurrence vs. the expressed time of the occurrence), it will be from 3 to 6 months before this actually happens (and even then the performance of this connection will be suspect). None-the-less, I am now pleased and satisfied that we have done all that we can do, and I am no longer distressed over the absence of internet access at our home.

P.S. In case you are wondering, one of my co-workers took pity on me and had her husband come to the office with his car and give me a ride home tonight.

Anzor and Nani................

2007-09-18T01:25:00.000-07:00

Our immediate neighbors are Anzor and Nani. They live in a very large house next door. I say "very large house", but I mean it is a very large skeleton of a house. Their house, like many others in the neighborhood, is a large masonry structure, without almost any interior improvements (i.e. it is a block shell of a house). Anzor and Nani are at our house often, and they frequently eat with us. They are always bringing things over that come from Anzor's garden or which Nani has cooked. All our left-overs travel in the opposite direction to Anzor's pigs (who are especially fond of watermelon rinds). We have never been invited over to Anzor and Nani's house, and perhaps that is because it is very spartan in nature. From the looks of it, they have constructed perhaps two rooms within an immense masonry infrastructure. From the outside, the house has a very haunted house-like look to it. Anzor works at the local Coca-Cola company, but I'm not sure what it is that he does there. He is missing lots of teeth, but the ones he has are all gold in color. Nani works in the same government office as our host mother Eka, and in fact, she is Eka's boss. Nani frequently doesn't get home from work until 8 each night, and often it is dark by the time she gets here. Nonetheless, she always walks the approximately 2 mile long route home along our very dangerous road, because the 2 Lari cab ride (approx.$1.33) is a budget breaker. Anzor and Nani speak no English whatsoever (actually that's not true, Anzor likes to say "thank-you"). The first night we met our host family, they had organized a big Supra (a special Georgian dinner, with lots of food and drink) for us. Anzor and Nani were there and Anzor acted as the Tamada. At some point during the course of the evening we were asked where in New York we were from, and we told everyone we were from Glens Falls. Immediately, Anzor jumped to his feet and shouted "James Fenimore Cooper"!! Anzor is a big reader, and he was familiar with The Last of the Mohicans and Cooper's Cave. We were shocked. Who woulda thunk?? Although Anzor and Nani live a simple life and have little in the way of money, they are very well self-educated, and they have perpetuated that trait in their children. Their oldest daughter is a doctor in Tbilisi. She speaks perfect English and accompanied Eka and Nino to our swearing in ceremony in Tbilisi. Afterward, she came with us to the bus station and made sure that we all got safely off to Zugdidi from the big city. Their second child, also a daughter, left two days before we arrived to start college at Harvard in the US, where she is "on a full ride", and their third child, a son, has just accepted a high Federal governmental position in Tbilisi. Simple, yet very caring neighbors who quite obviously value education.

P.S. Coincidentally, Nani just knocked on our window and presented Lisa with a bouquet of flowers she picked from her garden.

Here is Anzor about to have breakfast at our kitchen table. He brought over a melon from his garden (look at the size of it!) and is preparing to eat a piece after first having a shot of his home made cha-cha (moonshine). Apparently, that's the way you eat melon here.

Anzor cutting his "lawn" with a scythe . It certainly beats our host sister's effort to cut our "lawn" with a pair of scissors.

Nani in our kitchen.

Nani and Anzor's house from the road.

telephone pole...........

2007-09-18T00:49:00.000-07:00

This is a telephone pole on the way from the center of town to my house. Double click on it to get a good view. And I wonder why it is that I can't get an internet connection where I live???

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There is an area of Georgia that is famous for the wine which is made there (think the Georgian equivalent of the Napa Valley). It is located around Telavi, which is the nearest city of any size. Wine from this region is supposed to be very good and recently we noticed that there are places in Zugdidi where it is sold in BIG jugs. Yesterday, on her way home from school, Lisa stopped at a roadside stand and prepared to buy a jug for us to try. Fortunately, before the purchase was completed, she somehow realized that the stuff in the jugs that the guy was selling was not Telavi wine, but rather benzene. Guess we dodged a bullet there!! ************************************************************************ I couldn't resist posting this picture of Lisa, enjoying some wine in the yard with our host father Beso and a couple of his childhood friends, who also happen to be neighbors (the guy with the cigarette is a doctor). Notice that the wine glasses are full, as they always must be. You only drink wine when there is a toast and not casually inbetween toasts. Fortunately, the toasts are made frequently and generally the entire glass of wine is then drunk. You don't have to drink the entire glass, but most of the Georgians seem to do it that way. No matter how much you drink, however, the glass is always refilled to the top after the toast is completed, in preparation for the next one.

internet woes..................

2007-09-12T23:26:00.001-07:00

Well, my level of frustration is running high at the moment. In Gori, we had the luxury of a DSL internet connection in the home of our host family. Even though it is outrageously expensive here by Georgian standards (about $64 US/mo), it is something that I wanted and was willing to pay for. About two weeks ago, I got my host mother to take time off from her job to take me to the "phone company" to make the necessary arrangements for a DSL connection. It was hot as hell that day. After going from one dingy office building to another and from office to office within each of them (each 4th floor walkups I might add), we finally located the indidvual who appeared to be in charge of such things. He said "no problem" and that the phone company would do what needed to be done within a week. In fact, someone from the phone company showed up at our house the very next day. They checked out the line and told my host father that we would need to get a new telephone wire (we don't have a landline phone now, but the family used to have one) and run it from the house to the telephone pole in the street. In the succeeding days my host father (who, by the way, is approximately 13 years younger than I am) went to the Bazaar and bought the specified kind of wire, and then, with the aid of some people that he hired to help him, took down the old wire and restrung 130 meters of new wire from the house to the pole. Then he drilled holes and ran the wire from the point where it reached the side of the house at the roofline down to our room. When I tried to pay him at least his out of pocket costs to do all of this he absolutely refused to accept anything (that made me feel bad because I know that money is not in abundant supply in this household). Then nothing happened for the next week and one-half. Finally, I asked my host mother if she would again inquire of the man in charge of the phone company as to what was to happen next. This is not the kind of thing that you call someone on the phone about here. You must present yourself at the office, wait in line (more about lines in Georgia in a future posting) and then speak to the guy directly. This actually required 3 additional visits to the office of the phone company over a period of three days, since the only guy who apparently runs the phone company was out of town on the first attempt and was at lunch on the second try. Yesterday, my host mother finally succeeded in talking with the guy. Shortly after her meeting she showed up at my office (another 4th floor walkup in an only slightly less dingy building) and delivered the good news to me through the only person in my office who speaks both Georgian and English (needless to say I lean on her language skills a great deal). Apparently, it has now been determined, for the first time, that the telephone infrastructure in this neighborhood is such that DSL is unavailable here. This is after the phone company guy told us "no problem" in our first meeting and after the phone company crew came to the house and directed the installation of a new line from the house to the pole in order to make the necessary DSL connection!!! Needless to say, I was not happy, and now, a day later, I'm still not happy. Part of the problem is my own inability to communicate directly with the people in charge of such things. I have to rely on my host mother to convey what I want to ask and/or say, and she really doesn't speak more than a few words of English, so it's difficult to communicate with her. I am not giving up yet. I will either get the English speaker in my office to accompany me to the phone company or ask one of the very few other people that I have met who speak English to go with me. We do have a DSL internet connection at my office, but in order to make use of it I must do so at someone else's desk, which is inconvenient for me and a pain for the guy whose computer I am using. Also, the time here is 8 hours ahead of the US, and direct communications to the US really can't be made during my work hours because everyone is in bed then at home. I will report on my success or failure with respect to my efforts to obtain internet access in a future posting. I just felt the need to vent my spleen at this point.

continuation of last entry.............

2007-09-10T04:50:00.000-07:00

Here are the rest of the pictures that I couldn't fit in the last entry for some reason.

This is a picture of our room before the mosquito net was erected.

Here is our neighborhood store.

Another room picture

Another view of the outside of our house. Our room is in the darker cement portion on the ground floor.

Our host family and our home...............

2007-09-09T23:07:00.000-07:00

Our new home is in a city named Zugdidi in the northwest region of Georgia known as Samegrelo. We have been told Zugdidi has a population of 150,000, including the surrounding area, but it feels much smaller than that. The center of the city greets you with a beautiful large fountain and a broad boulevard. The two sides of the main street flank a large park in the center. The park contains huge trees and many park benches which give relief from the sun and provide refuge for people of all ages. All day the park is full of people who congregate to visit, play games (mostly "nardi"-- backgammon) and tend small children. On both sides of the boulevard are many small shops selling 7/11 type fare, as well as numerous beauty parlors in which you can buy your wedding dress while you get your hair done! In front of these stores are many peddlers selling everything----sunflower seeds in paper cones (everybody chews on them), all sorts of gossip newspapers, ice cream and ludi (beer). One block from the main street is a huge, very colorful bazaar with quite literally hundreds of vendors selling everything imaginable. Our house is situated on a residential street which is a 25 minute walk away from this part of the city . During the walk you must share the "sidewalk"/street with many cows and pigs who wander freely munching on the grass and trees. The road is full of potholes and cars are driving all over the place to avoid them (as well as the animals in the road). Unfortunately, the poor road conditions do little to deter the drivers from proceeding at extremely high rates of speed (which makes walking in the roadway quite dangerous). Our street (and every other street as well) has many very small Ma & Pa type stores, each the size of a large garden shed. Although the inventory of these stores is limited, they all sell the basics---cigarettes, vodka, cognac and beer (everyone here smokes and drinks). Although the people here primarily drink wine, the stores generally don't sell it, because every family has their own homemade wine which they drink all year round.
Like all the other houses on our street, our house is located behind a large gate and the perimeter of the property is fenced. We live with a family of three; Beso, Eka and Nino. Our immediate neighbors, Anzor and Nani, spend as much time at our house as they do their own, so you could say we live with a family of five. We occupy one half of the first level of the house. We have a private entrance as well as two interior doors which lead to the family's quarters. Our room is very large, 25'x15' with a 10' ceiling and 3 large windows. One wall has a large credenza with numerous drawers, closets and shelves. We have a long work table, a sofa, a large bed and a small woodstove known as a pechi for winter. The Peace Corps has supplied us with a large water filter which we use consistently (we have been told not to drink the water). It is situated on a makeshift table in the back corner of our room which also serves as Mark's shaving station. Our bed is currently sporting a large mosquito net which I was forced to erect because there are no screens on the windows and I was getting bitten to death nightly. I like to refer to it as "The Kasbah" . We also are lucky to have a fan. It has been so unbelievably hot here that unless the fan is blowing directly at you at all times, you sweat profusely. That goes for the night as well as the day. The only lighting in our room consists of two overhead bulbs, so we hunted all over and purchased (at the bazaar) one of the only lamps to be found anywhere in town . There is a nice oriental type carpet in front of the couch which actually dresses things up quite a bit. There is no vacuum cleaner so we are a good team at shaking our rug. We have fixed the place up pretty well with pictures cut from an Adirondack calendar and prized photos of family and friends. We also have a big map of Georgia taped to the wall on which we have labeled the locations of all our fellow G7 volunteers. Lying on the threshold outside our exterior door can usually be found the family dog, Sherry. She is an 8 mo. old Sharpei mix who actually looks a lot like our dog Jake. In Georgia we have yet to find a family who allows a dog in the house (most dogs don't have owners at all, much less a place to sleep indoors at night). Sherry tries to sneak in the house when no one is looking. She is still a puppy and is incorrigible at times, but all in all we like having her around. At the back of our room is a door that enters the small family kitchen. There is a gas stove fueled by a refillable propane cylinder (the oven doesn't work), a sink, small counter and a baby matsevari (fridge). Adjoining the kitchen is a storage room with cupboards to store all the pickles, jams, preserves and nuts that the family is constantly preparing. At this time of the year, there is a great deal of energy put into the pursuit of putting up food for the winter (another blog theme). From the small storage room you may either: go outside to the back of the house (where there is a sink, a pump, the garden and an outhouse), go into the family's living/dining room (since we took over one or the other) or enter the bathroom.The bath area actually consists of three very small rooms: one with a western style toilet (for which we are thankful since most bathrooms here have squatter toilets) and a washing machine!!!; the second with a small sink (cold water only); and the last (sort of scary to look at but functional) containing a tub, a clothesline and a big hot water tank mounted on the cement wall. Although the tub room is entirely crumbling cement (walls,floor and ceiling), the water is hot and the pressure is good so we are (very)happy.
The family sleeps upstairs. To get there you have to go outside and up an exterior staircase. This is sort of hard to feature in winter, but we will see. This brings up another interesting point. There is no central heat. As far as we know there will be 2 woodstoves downstairs and that's it. The Peace Corps will provide us with a kerosene heater if we want it, but the consensus seems to be that pretty soon both you and your clothes start to smell like kerosene and very few of the current volunteers actually use those heaters. We have pretty much decided that we are going to go with the Pechi and heat with wood. We would prefer to smell like smoke rather than kerosene anyway.
Here are some pictures of our house and family to give you a sense for what things are like. All in all, we are pretty comfortable here and happy that we landed with the family that we did. First up are some pix of the family. Eka and Beso after engaging in a water fight in the yard. Next is a picture of Eka and Nino at our swearing in ceremony, which they attended in Tbilisi. This is a picture of the whole family taken on an excursion that we made to the Black Sea, and finally, here's a picture of Lisa with Nani (the next door neighbor) and Eka. Here's a picture of the outside of the house. Our room is on the first floor, left hand side.

The kitchen, with Nino hard at work.

Our room, after the erection of the mosquito net.

My shaving stand near one of the windows in our room, where the light is good.

This is one of the three small rooms that together comprise the bathroom. As you can see, although we have a western style toilet, you practically have to sit side saddle , since there is no room for your knees between the toilet and the wall.

Here is the room with the tub in it. It looks bad but does the trick. I had a problem uploading the pictures to this blog entry. I will try and follow up with wnother posting whichwill include the rest of the pictures (although they will be out of order.

Bebias and Babuas......................

2007-08-29T04:33:00.000-07:00

Bebias & Babuas

Grandmothers and Grandfathers in Georgia are given special respect. When we were assigned with our first host family all the trainers commented, "You are so lucky, you have a Bebia!" The family is usually living in the Father's parents' home. The grandparents are closely involved in the lives of their children
and schvili schvili (grandchildren). At our home in Gori the 87 year old Bebia's opinion weighed heavily in all family decision making.

Another observation on senior citizens is that if they have economic hardship they can be seen sweeping the street, peddling gum on the train, hauling styrofoam containers strapped around their necks filled with ice cream bars for sale or sitting on the street corner selling the ever popular unshelled sunflowerseeds wrapped in newspaper cones.

Eric's Bebia is an energenic farm hand. She gave me a lesson on milking the cow. We hiked out to the distant family field to find her in the hot midday sun pulling onions and carrots.

She spends her entire day on chores. On the way home we ran into her friend, hauling huge bundles of dill. Her shoes and socks are caked with mud. She loved joining us in the outdoor kitchen for a ludi (beer) and was giving out the warmest hugs and smiles you've ever seen.

Futher observations................

2007-08-28T23:12:00.000-07:00

I am convinced that all marshutkas have cracked windshields and are a minimum of fifteen years old.

Many families (at least in Gori) have one or more cows that are kept at their houses at night and turned out in the fields surrounding the town during the day. Every morning and evening there is a parade of cows through the city streets, as their owners herd them to and from the fields.

There are lots of holes in the middle of the streets and sidewalks (where they exist), as well as open 18 inch deep storm gutters on the sides of most of the streets. You have to watch your step at all times because of the holes and also because of the drivers who are attempting to avoid the holes by weaving their vehicles at high rates of speed from one side of the road to the other.

There are "maghazia"'s (stores) everywhere, many so small that only the proprietor himself can fit inside. Sometimes there are five or six situated immediately adjacent to each other, all selling the same stuff at the same prices. These stores are where everyone buys their groceries (unless they venture out to the bazaar, of which there is one in every town or village of any size). You have to wonder how the store owners can make a living from what they sell. I bet that most do not.

It's hot here and there is no air conditioning. Many people have fans that they constantly wave to keep themselves cool.

Everyone kisses (men included) left cheek to left cheek when greeting an acquaintance.

Whatever fruit is in season is served at every meal. It's watermelon (sazamtro) season now.

Many people keep their savings in Rubles, Euros or Dollars, rather than Laris (the national currency).

Banks also act as pawn shops.

Two years ago Russia cut off all imports from Georgia. At the time, Russia was by far the largest market for Georgian goods. Relations between Russia and Georgia have not been good for the last several years, and Russia supports the defacto governments established in two "breakaway" regions of Georgia, one of which is located less than 10 miles from our new home.

Almost everyone in Georgia at least nominally belongs to the Georgian Orthodox Church. There are a number of Muslims also, located mostly in the area of the country adjacent to Turkey. There once was a substantial Jewish population as well, but most of the Jews have emigrated to Israel. My observation is that most people don't actually attend church, but many people (seems like more women than men) cross themselves three times in succession every time they pass a church, either on foot or in a vehicle.

Almost no one in Georgia wears glasses, and it's not because they see well, wear contacts or have had laser surgery.

The numbering system here is based on 20, rather than 10. For instance, the number 55 is "two times twenty plus fifteen" (ormotsdatkhutmeti).

The time is stated to be the next upcoming hour, rather than the hour last past. Thus 8:20 is tskhris (the number 9 in the possessive case....if the minute hand is in the first half of the clock the hour is stated in the possessive case and if it's in the second half the number of the hour is stated in the dative case) otsi (20) saatia (o'clock). If the minute hand is in the second half of the clock, you would say tskhras ("9" in the dative case) less the number of minutes until nine. Thus, 9:45 would be tshras uklia tkhutmeti tzuti (nine less 15 minutes). To say the least it is very confusing. I usually just show people my watch when they ask me what time it is.

I think it is always proper (and generally observed) that the last word of every sentence be the verb. Thus, "I newspaper and book read" is a well constucted sentence in Georgian.

Today, our 16 year old host sister Nino spent a good portion of the afternoon cutting a small piece of the overgrown lawn with a pair of scissors.

That's it for now. I am sure I will think of more stuff later.

Our new home..........

2007-08-27T06:14:00.000-07:00

August 26th. We are now in Zugdidi, in the northwest part of Georgia (approx. 25 kilometers from the Black Sea). This is to be our home for the next two years. The climate here is more semi-tropical than the climate was in Gori. We even have palm trees! In the one day since our arrival, I have discovered a new all-time favorite fruit......figs! They are in season now and taste delicious. You peel off the outer skin of a green fruit which is the size of a small peach. You then eat the entire fruit (no pit). It is the most succulent, sweetest fruit that I have ever tasted. Lisa thinks that what we know as figs are a dried out version of what I have been eating (with reckless abandon) since we got here, much like a raisin is a dried out version of a grape. All I can say is that they are good....very good, and at our new home we have a fig tree in the yard (along with an apple, cherry, peach and pear tree).
We left Gori early on Friday morning (August 24) with the rest of our group of trainees and traveled to Tbilisi by bus with all of our belongings for the big swearing in ceremony as official Peace Corps volunteers. Enroute, we learned that another two members of our group had decided to pack it in at the last minute and return home, bringing the total to 4 in the last two days. This was very surprising, since we hadn't lost anyone since the very first day of training in Georgia 10 weeks ago, and that was due to a medical issue. The swearing in ceremony was held at a large theater in Tbilisi and was actually quite well done. In addition to the speeches given in Georgian by two members of our group, there was a movie about the Peace Corps mission, remarks by Georgia's Minister of Education and comments by the number two man at the US Embassy here. As a finale, there a very entertaining performance by a professional Georgian folk dance group, which showcased traditional dances and dress particular to the various regions of the country. Following the ceremony, there was a reception held for all those in attendence. Our new host mother and sister came from Zugdidi for the festivities, along with representatives from my new office and from Lisa's school. That is noteworthy, since the trip on the night train from Zugdidi to Tbilisi takes over 8 hours and the return trip by bus (which we all took) was about 7 hours. It made for a long night and day for many of them.
We occupy the former living/dining room of our new home , and ever since our arrival, Lisa has been working hard to configure the space in the best possible way. It is bright and airy and has a nice feel to it. We even have our own woodstove ("pechi") for heat in the winter. Soon we will have to buy our wood, since it gets more expensive the closer to winter that you make the purchase. As best as I can figure at the moment, you must either split the wood yourself or hire out the job to someone else to do for you. Of course, I lean toward the latter alternative, but I don't want to appear like a wimp while our host family is in the process of splitting its own wood. Probably the most culturally appropriate way of handling the situation would be to let Lisa do the splitting, since the women here do everything anyway. I intend to discuss this idea with her shortly.
In the center of Zugdidi, there is a large park within which is situated a large palace and residence which belonged to the Dadiani family, who founded the city and lived here for nine generations. There are lighted walkways and fountains throughout the palace grounds, and each evening during the summer there are hundreds of people out strolling. Last night we walked with our host mother, sister and dog (Shelley) into town (a thirty minute walk each way by itself) and spent an hour or so strolling through the palace grounds and watching all the people. It was something that Lisa and I never do at home, and we had fun (although we were all somewhat tired by the time we got back to the house).
Our internet access here "ain't what it used to be" in Gori, but we will try and get this blog entry posted as soon as we can, and we will also try and put some pictures up to give you a better sense for what things here are like. We are thoroughly enjoying the experience so far, but then again, we haven't yet started our respective jobs either!