The Break Room

“I have been out of school for a very long time,” I realize washing my face before bed on the eve of my first day of school.

My student teaching semester ended in May and it is now mid September.  This has been the longest summer vacation I’ve ever had, and feels especially lengthy since my first few weeks in Georgia have been spent in relative leisure.

I have been to Lesichine Public School Number 2 several times since I moved in with my host family, but mostly what I do there is sit. “Dajaki, Hannah” the other teachers, and even students, are always saying to me, indicating a chair they pulled into the center of the room. We sit in the various classrooms and drink sugary instant coffee while students hang new curtains, or in the teachers’ lounge eating bologna and fresh baked bread, passing around a large bottle of Coke.

The first day of school begins very officially. Everyone gathers outside the front of the school to sing the national anthem, the principal (called the director here) addresses the students, and I introduce myself very awkwardly in English while one of my fellow teachers translates for me.  However, this is the only part of the day marked by any remote semblance of order. As the rest of the day progresses, bells ring to mark the beginning and end of lesson periods, but students constantly filled the hall. They barrel down the hall at a full sprint calling loudly to their friends and occasionally pausing to greet their teachers with a kiss on the cheek.

I am passed from teacher to teacher to parent to student, in a blur of swift smiling introductions punctuated by my companions talking in Georgian about me behind their hands. Sometimes they would even tell me, “You’re such a good girl!” I always try to take this particular remark as a compliment, though it often makes me feel like a dog begging for a treat.

The day passes quickly in this manner and it isn’t long before I am surrounded by my fellow teachers in the office, just sitting. They are conversing quickly, and sometimes very loudly, in Georgian about how the students have changed and complaining that not all of the new books have yet come in. As my host teacher stops translating the conversation for me, I lose track of what the other teachers are talking about and return to my realization that summer is finally over. It is time to begin something new, and after this quick and dirty introduction to Lesichine Public School Number 2, I am beginning to realize just how new this thing will be.

Buzi

Quick update on previously mentioned mosquito problem.

The number of bites on my body is quickly moving toward catastrophic levels. While sitting in bed writing the Ojakhi post, I literally received eight new bites.

The chacha remedy that my host mother gave me yesterday works pretty well to stop the itching and swelling, but only lasts a little while. My host sister Irma informed me that the smell of it also keeps them away (they seem impervious to regular bug spray), but I don't know how appropriate it would be for me to reek of vodka on a regular basis.

If anyone has any remedies/ideas/would like to come restrain me from scratching myself, please let me know.

ოჯახი

I’m sitting in the kitchen of my host family’s house. It’s a wood building with two rooms and an attic that you can only access by a very precarious looking ladder. I’m sitting at the small round table where we eat all of our meals, in the chair closest to the window (I sit here because it is the most out of the way).  I’m surrounded by my host family; not just the seven that I have been living with for the past few days, but a swarm of cousins, an aunt, and even a neighbor (I think). My host mother’s sister has come to visit from Tbilisi because it is the anniversary of her husband’s death. They buzz around me, pecking me on the cheek in greeting, reaching over me for cheese or grapes from the table, or practicing the one or two English phrases they know on me.

This is the fifth-ish meal we have had today. Usually my family has breakfast between 8:30 and 9am, super between 2:30 and 3:30 pm, and then a small dinner or tea with bread anywhere from 7pm to 10pm. I like this system so far, though it might become a problem when I can no longer snack off of the numerous fruit trees goring in our yard. Today however, all we have done is sit down to meals. Every time another family member arrives or returns home from running and errand, we eat. We stop by a neighbor’s house to say a quick hello, and we eat. My host aunt remembers some other treat she brought for us all to share, we eat.  It’s actually pretty surprising how much and for how many reasons a person can eat.

The women in the room, there are rarely any men in the kitchen, are all talking over each other, laughing and eating and teasing their children or younger siblings.  My host grandmother (the mother of my host father, that is) is sitting on the sofa/bed next the door with two live chickens under her arm. Suddenly the oldest cousin sitting next to me begins singing. I immediately recognize the song and finish the line with her.

“Crazy for feeling so lonely,” we sing together. Her voice is sweet and low.

She looks over at me surprised. I have found that my host family is usually equal parts pleased and surprised when I can sing part of a song they are listening to. Georgians, in general, enjoy singing. This is the stereotype anyway, and they do have a rather rich culture of folk music.

Later that evening we all pile into my host father’s car and head to Khabume, a neighboring village and the temporary home of my friend Natalie. My host mother’s parents live there in the house where she and her sister grew up, and where Salome and her cousins spent a great deal of their time as children. Since her parents had no sons, they live alone, their two daughters having moved in with their respective husbands’ family when they married. I feel sad for Larisa’s parents when she explains this to me using some very creative pantomime. Though it is not uncommon for elderly couples to live alone in the US, the situation here seems somewhat more desperate. 

Larisa’s father was a chess master, as in he won trophies for it. Which explains why eleven year old Saba doesn’t even have to try very hard to hand me my ass the two times we have played. Nonetheless, he sits down across from me as one of the cousins sets up a huge chess bored in front of us. I know that my family means well by offering to play with me, but I can’t help feel I’m being made a spectacle of. They know my skill level by now, but continue to want to play me, and then talk about how the game is going in Georgian. In any case, this game is quickly over. The things that this old man can do with a pawn; it was illuminating, to say the least.

Part of my hasty loss on this occasion (a very small part) was due to the arrival of yet another meal part way through our game. Larisa’s mother made Khachapuri, and the whole family was raving about how it was absolutely the best Khachapuri there ever was. You will hear no argument from me. I was made to eat at least three pieces of this. The third I used to chase my first glass of chacha, a Georgian moonshine somewhere between vodka and whisky. One of my host cousins toasted to me and I took the rather large shot she had poured from an old plastic water bottle. It burned but not in the way whiskey or vodka usually burns. It was more like what I imagine a shot of gasoline would feel like. (Later my host mother gave me a cotton ball soaked in this to treat my mosquito bites.)

During the car ride home I was drowsy from the chacha and the four dinners I had just eaten. I drifted in and out of sleep as we made our way back to Lesichine and was happy to arrive home. 

Tech Wave

As much as I am ashamed that one of the things that frightened me the most about my new home was the distinct lack of internet access, it is really nice to blogging in bed right now.

Thanks to my handy-dandy wireless modem, I have internet where ever I can think to use it.

Boy did I earn this sleek little portal to the web, though. Natalie and I waited in line for upwards of five hours at the Magti store in Zugdidi (Samegrelo's capital) and had to literally fight our way through a rowdy crowd of Georgian women. At one point I thought there might be a squirmish between some of our fellow que members, but thankfully they were able to work it out.

Now that I have internet I wanted to note that some of my posts are back dated to the day that I wrote them. I don't always have time to post something, or time to type it up if I hand write it first, but I want to maintain a kind of intellectual timeline. So if you suddenly discover that I have five new posts in the last four days when you just checked in a few hours ago, never fear. You have not lost your mind...yet.

Diaspora

The lobby of the hotel is as full as I have seen it when I enter with Eteri after a short walk the morning of our last day in Tbilisi. We quickly recognize the small clusters of people gathered in the waiting area by the door and the front desk as families; the host families that we will be living with for the next several months, and they watch us make our way to our rooms with curiosity and trepidation.

“They’re here.” I inform Natalie, my roommate, as I begin to frantically toss my things about the room. In only five days, I have managed to completely unpack and I am sweating rather profusely by the time I am able to zip my large suitcase again.

We wheel our luggage into the lobby where most of the other volunteers have already gathered. It is a mess of suitcases and volunteers milling around nervously in small groups, much as the host families had done just a short time before. I’m not nervous at first, but it doesn’t take long for the waiting to take its toll. When I am approached by an elderly woman with a scarf tied over her hair and a small girl clinging to her skirts repeating the name of another volunteer, I feel the bottom drop out of stomach. This is really happening, right now.

The families are released from their informational meeting in shifts, and move through the volunteers reading names off of forms they have received only a few minutes before. I help several families pair up with their respective volunteers and even watch a few of my friends ushered away by their hosts before I am approached by a pair of very pretty girls and a stately looking older woman.

“Hannah?” They say, holding the “a” sound out like the Georgian letter *****

I nod nervously and shake each of their hands.

“I’m Tica,” says the girl closest to me.

“Salome,” says the other pointing to herself, “and this is my mother Larisa.”

Salome and Larisa have light brown hair that curls into tight ringlets and flairs out around Salome’s shoulders and on the sides of Larisa’s face where it is coming loose from her ponytail. We chat haltingly. Larisa is having a conversation with Natalie’s host father. Their two villages are close together, and it appears that Natalie will be coming with my family, for now, and meeting up with her host father again later. Although where he will meet us and how much later is hard for us to tell from the snatches of English we can make out as we are hurried out of the hotel.

In the taxi, they inform us that they are taking us to their flat in Tbilisi. I learn that Tica and Salome are cousins and that they are both studying at the university in Tbilisi. The apartment is further outside of the city than we have been before. The rolling hills are covered in huge cement apartment buildings adorned with whimsical arches, decorative balconies, and gazebos that blazingly out of place amid the see of rigid cement block towers.

When we arrive at the apartment building, I am embarrassed as my family helps me haul my enormous suitcase up three floors to their flat. Thank God they live on the third floor. Their building had at least twenty and hardly amenities enough for a light in the hallway – Salome fought to locate the correct key in the dark – let alone an elevator.

We share a meal at the apartment but they won’t let Natalie or me help prepare it. Instead, they sit us down in front of the computer to watch an English movie they have and bring a large bowl of plums white peaches for us to nibble on. When they call us into the kitchen we eat short hotdog-like sausages with Mayonnaise (it took us a while to reconcile the language barrier for this word; eventually, I just smelled it), crusty bread, tomatoes, fried eggplant filled with onions and garlic, watermelon, and instant coffee. The meal is simple, fresh, and satisfying. 

The journey from the apartment to the family house in Samegrelo is a long one. We catch a marshutka (a kind of mini-bus/van) at the train station in Tbilisi and ride crammed in the back with luggage piled on our laps for five hours. I lean over the person sitting in front of me occasionally to catch glimpses of mountains rolling in the distance, or lush farm land spreading out across the plains.

The whole family is waiting at the house. Salome has a younger brother named Saba, and a seventeen-year-old sister, Irma. Their cousin Oto also lives with them and is asleep on the couch when we arrive at about eleven. I am also greeted by her father and grandmother who kisses me on the cheek and nods approvingly.

I’m so tired the first night I don’t have energy for much after my tour of the house (my room is huge!) besides drinking a cup of tea and collapsing into my freshly made bed. Though I am tired, I am suddenly full of dread. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to live in this new and radically different home that has been so graciously offered to me. I feel alone and trapped, despite my welcome.

It is about three in the morning, when I finally give up and make the long trek to the outhouse, in the dark, twice. I remember all the times I have made similar treks on camping excursions with my friends holding a flashlight behind me, that I realize this is just a house, and the village just a village. And these are only people, living normal lives. There is nothing here to fear (except perhaps mosquitoes, I’m covered in bites).

Please Send Workout Videos

Food in Georgia is disgustingly cheap and equally delicious in an eat-until-you-truly-feel-like-you-will-burst kind of way.

Though the other volunteers and I make a point of exploring the city during our first few days in Tbilisi, we always return to the hotel for the free meals provided by the TLG program. This food is not bad, but it’s not great either. My favorite part is the consistent presence of dishes of assorted pastries (including cream puffs!) provided with every meal and coffee-break. The meals, however, are tiring in a way only mass produced food you serve yourself out of troughs can be, and we eventually reach the point where we must branch out.

We decide to try a small pub that some of the group spotted during one of their treks through the city. We refer to this establishment as Chaplin’s because of the spray painted picture of Charlie Chaplin on the side of the building, as well as the fact that the stylized nature of the restaurant’s sign makes it impossible for us to read the Georgian letters. 

Chaplin’s is a small cave-like establishment. From the sidewalk we descend a flight of steps to enter and the eleven people in our group along with two other small parties max out the capacity of the humid dinning room.

Nic, our resident Georgian expert, orders for the table. He and the bashfully smiling waitress huddle with their heads together choosing dishes for several minutes as the rest of us sip happily at our two-Lari beer. Some of our group orders and incredibly high quality bottle of wine for seventeen Lari and none of the dishes are priced at more than seven.

When the food arrives I indulge in a kind of gluttony unknown to me before this night. Everything is fresh and hot and incredibly flavorful. We have hen salad, eggplants rolled with walnuts and a creamy dressing, gritty biscuits and cheese, pan bread filled with beans, and, of course, Khachapuri. Khachapuri translates literally as “cheese bread.” It is thin hearty bread topped with delectably pungent cheese and baked until it is crispy on the outside and creamy and salty on the inside. It’s like Georgian pizza, if the pizza in question had been made by angels.

We eat family style, sharing every serving several ways and still leave clutching our stomachs in the hope that we might be able to hold them together at the seams.

We quickly learn that we simply can’t go back to the mass produced hotel food. There are several bakeries in the area surrounding the hotel selling delicious street food for a steal (a loaf of bread here costs about 60 tetri/cents). At these hole-in-the-wall (I mean this very literally) establishments, we buy pizzas with a kind of creamy mayonnaise, puff pastry with mushroom filling, or a kind of calzone style khachapuri. We eat on the sidewalk sipping bottles of coke in between bites, or cutting our salty bread product with apples or peaches we buy from tubs on the street. The days are warm here now, but the breezes are cool and we are too wrapped up in our meal to care how many stares our street picnic is attracting.

Going Nowhere

The first two days in Georgia I spend walking, endlessly walking, walking more than I have ever walked or wanted to walk. Most of the time the other volunteers and I wander aimlessly. I’ve never really understood the meaning of that term before now. We walk without a destination, without time constraints, and often without thinking.  Occasionally, we catch sight of a notable church or are given suggestions from a local on where to go, but mostly we just walk.

The first day we all go out together, we try to make our way to Rustaveli Avenue, a popular tourist destination lined with restaurants and shops. The twenty or so of us who set out that night are quite a sight, walking single file in the street when the side walk runs out, or huddling around the one map of the city we have between us.

We walk for about an hour before coming up on some posh looking restaurants and strange brick domes built low to the ground like rolling hills.

“They’re baths,” Someone informs the group, slowly deciphering a nearby sign.

           

Later we learn that they have been built over natural sulfur springs. This is where Tbilisi gets its name.  It means warm.

We make our way through a garden toward a bathhouse with a mosaic front. While the rest of us are taking pictures, some of the group breaks off and heads up a narrow staircase crowded between the bathhouse and the houses next door. From here we forge a path through a maze of back alleys, cobblestone walks, and rubble paths carved through gutted buildings in which families have made their homes. We catch glimpses of kitchens and living rooms with skeletal walls, only rotting support beams holding up the roof.

When we emerge, we find that we have climbed a hill overlooking the old, historic section of the city. Behind us the great brick wall of a fortress rises, the steeple of a church just breaching the sightline of the wall. We follow a wide road through the door in a large wooden gate, and climb to the top of the fortress. We climb the crumbling brick, making our way up stairs so rotted they are barely recognizable as such. At the top the city stretches out before us, the golden roof of the cathedral across the river glittering in the orange sunset.