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

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...........

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..................

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.............

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...............

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......................

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................

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..........

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!

Some Pix......................

This is a random conglomeration of pictures that we have taken. We are still feeling our way in reducing the size of pictures and getting them posted in the proper way to the blog. If the presentation of the pictures seems somewhat disjointed , it's because it is disjointed ! We'll post more later.





Here's a small park near the Bazaar. As you can see, some people are not particularly environmentally conscious. The Peace Corps is involved in a number of projects to raise environmental awareness, particularly among young people.













Here comes the train we are about to board for a day's excursion with our host family to Borjomi. It is about 2 hours to get there by car, but it turned out to take us more than 3 1/2 hours by train. We came back by marshutka and bus.














The train was hot and slow and the seats were hard wooden benches.











This is a church located right in Gori. It takes about an hour and a half to hike up to it. We haven't done it yet, but we hope to get there before our training is over and we leave Gori


















This is the family after getting off the gondola in Borjomi park. Borjomi is a travel destination within Georgia and is also the home of Borjomi water, the most sold bottled water in Georgia. With the family is Marina, the person who tutors Miriam, Natia and Ilia in English, along with her children, Luka and Elena.







The gondola during its ascent.














This is a wishing tree. You make a wish and tie it to a branch of the tree.















Lisa had practice school for a couple of weeks during
her TEFL training. These are some of her students.

















I was lucky enough to be invited to attend a conference in Batumi, a beach resort on the Black Sea. No conference would be complete without a supra, and this one was held at a restaurant on a pier extending out into the water. Other than the fact that the temperature was a humid 100 degrees plus, a good time was had by all.









Here's the view out the restaurant window at the bathers on the beach. As you can see, the beach is all stone, rather than sand, as are most beaches in Georgia.

Winding down PST...........

We are still in Pre-Service training (2 weeks to go) and we are being kept very busy by the Peace Corps. As a consequence, we have not been able to post to this blog to provide you with details on the funny, odd and just plain different things which permeate our daily life here in Gori.

Our host family are parents once again. This time to 20 baby chicks. They go along with the 20 chicks that were hatched a couple of weeks ago (actually I think there were originally 25 or so in the original batch, but a stray cat got to a few). We have a constant supply of eggs (K'vertse) which we often cook scrambled or fried. This is a source of great amusement to our family, since Georgians generally take their eggs only one way--hard boiled.

As we noted in previous posts, we have language class 3 1/2 hours each day (a 4 hour class with a 1/2 hour break in the middle), six days a week. We also get lots of homework. It isn't easy (particularly for us older folks). We are taught by an LCF (which I think stands for "language and cross-cultural facilitator") who is assigned to a group of between 4 and 6 people. That means that we have about 9 LCF's for our entire group. The LCF's are all women, in their early to late 20's. Most of them are English teachers in the Georgian school system. The competition to become an LCF for the Peace Corps is intense; there are many more applicants than there are positions to fill. As a consequence, those chosen to be LCF's are GREAT teachers. Not only do they pour their hearts and souls into each day's lesson, they make themselves available for tutoring on an individual basis
whenever and wherever anyone wants additional help. We have taken advantage of the opportunity to receive the additional one on one training on several occasions, but there is only so much language class that one can take in a day! The LCF's work very hard, and they deserve whatever pay and recognition they get for having been chosen as LCFs for the Peace Corps. In little more than a week, we will have our LPI (language proficiency interview), given by an independent tester, to assess our ability to converse in Georgian. If we don't pass, which I think requires a "low intermediate" rating, we will be allowed to continue as Peace Corps volunteers "on probation". That means we will be required to get tutoring in the language at our permanent sites and that we will be tested again in 6 months or so. I don't know (and I don't want to ask) what happens if we don't achieve a low intermediate rating on the follow-up test (we just may be coming home sooner than you think).

We are required by the Peace Corps to be politically and culturally sensitive in our blog postings (the blogs are monitored), so without any editorial comment, I will relate an interesting occurrence we experienced this week. Georgia has just accused Russia of violating Georgian airspace and dropping a bomb near a radar facility located about 15-20 kilometers from where we live in Gori. The bomb did not explode, but it resulted in many accusations and denials which made the international headlines. The day after that happened we were eating dinner with our host family when, all of a sudden, a huge explosion rocked the house and scared the S..T out of everyone. Initially we were told that a bomb had accidentally exploded at an Army base located a few blocks away from our house. However, later we were told that it was the unexploded Russian bomb that the Georgian Army had brought to the facility and detonated. Either way, it made a lasting impression on us.

Ah yes, life here in Georgia is more than somewhat different from life back home. However, the people are great, and we are having the time of our lives so far. Now if we can only get through that LPI next week..........