The Parents Come to Georgia!

I finally had my first visitors during my service...my parents! I picked them up early at the Tbilisi airport at 4am Oct 9^th. Though they were pretty tired from their previous two flights and their 11 hour layover in Munich, they managed to chat with me a bit as we made our way back to the hotel. The next few days were really packed as I tried to show them as much of Georgia as I could. They spent the first two days exploring Tbilisi and meeting my volunteer friends during happy hour on Friday at our hotel.  We took them to all the volunteer hangouts and bars that we often go to. I was quite impressed with how well they were holding up given that they were super jet lagged and had hit the ground running the day before. After Tbilisi, we began our next adventure:  learning how to navigate the rental car out of the city.

Mom and dad meeting some of my friends in Tbilisi

 I must warn you that even though I've traveled a lot around Georgia, I've always traveled as a passenger (usually in the back of marshutka), so helping my dad navigate the streets was very stressful for both of us. Georgians have a special way of driving. You go fast, you pull out quickly in front of and behind cars and you honk all the time. One must also watch out for the occasionally lamb jam or cow jam on the road as well. Anyway, we managed to get out of the city and onto the highway headed towards my town of Sagarejo.

We were greeted by my eager host family who had prepared a small supra for us. I watched as my parents tried the various supra dishes: khinkali, khatchapuri, badrijani, mureba (a soft whole walnut, hull and all, soaked in sweet water), palamushi, etc. My dad’s favorite was khinkhali (meat dumplings) and my mother’s favorite was badrijani (eggplant with garlic and walnut paste). We spent the rest of the night hanging out with my host family and watching football on the computer.  The next day was my host mother Zaira’s birthday so we had another supra but this time with 14 guests! For five hours there was dancing, drinking, singing, toasting, poetry reading, and accordion playing.  The family would make toasts and my host sister Mari and I would translate them to my parents. My parents had shots of chacha (Georgian moonshine) and homemade wine during our supra as well.

Mom learning how to milk our cow Pretty 

Dad making churchkhela

Mom attempting to make churchkhela

Transporting the churchkhela

My host mom Zaira's Birthday Supra!

Love the dancing and peace signs

The next day, Monday, we made our way up to my school before beginning back on our tour through Georgia. My director and counterparts greeted us and took my parents around the school and into various classrooms. Some of my students practiced their English by asking my parents a few questions about themselves.  After the umpteenth goodbye we piled into our blue little rental car and made our way to Kazbegi.

My 4th grade class with my director, counterparts, and coteachers. 

Explaining different icons to Dad

We managed to arrive at Kazbegi that day without any problems (unless you count the lamb jam on the highway) and checked into our hotel before embarking on a small hike to the top of the mountain.  The rest of our time there was a little bit more relaxing than the previous day.

Mt, Kazbegi in the background (view from our hotel)

View of Kazbegi from the mountain. Our hotel is the long one in the back middle. 

Dad at the base of the church with Mt. Kazbegi in the back 

Church at the top of the mountain

Tuesday morning we left Kazbegi and drove to Borjomi, stopping at Osiauri along the way to have lunch with my PST host family (another supra).  A few hours late and full from our big lunch in Osiauri, we arrived in Borjomi and settled in at Anthony’s host family’s house. His host family surprised us with a supra complete with chacha shots and mtsvadi (roasted meat). Once again my parents and I found ourselves in the middle of a multi hour supra.  The feast raged on with toasts from various chalices, magic tricks and panduri (small stringed instrument) playing by Anthony’s host mom Ia.

Anthony's host family: My mom, me, Anthony, In (host mom),Gia (host dad), Saba (host brother) and Robert (host grandfather) standing in the back

Anthony watching in the background as Dad and Gia down wine in a cradle shaped glass in honor of their offspring. 

Lamb Jam! Bunch of sheep on the road as we traveled 

Our faithful steed Blueberry 

In the morning Gia, Anthony’s host dad, drove us three hours to the ancient cave city Vardzia. We explored the caves taking many jumping photos along the way. After about two hours we loaded back in Gia’s car and drove back to Borjomi to pick up our rental car. We only stayed at the house for another 20 mins before loading into our car bound for Kutaisi that night.  

Exploring Vardzia 

In Kutaisi we mainly relaxed, walked around the city and met up with PCVs for drinks at night. I think after all the traveling and supras we just wanted a rest. We hung out with my friends Ann and Joe during our two day stay there.

On Friday we began our journey back east by traveling  to Chiatura to see Katskhi pillar and to defy death on Stalin’s Cable Cars.

Creepy Stalin era cable car that we rode up to the top of the mountain in Chiatura 

After Chiatura we headed to Tbilisi again before my parents had to board their flight.

My parents got to see a lot of Georgia in their 10 days here as well a meet some interesting people (and animals) along the way.

My parents and me

Mountain Adventures: Tusheti

Hey all! I have been kind of busy with a million things, so I'll try to catch up with what I've been doing since GLOW camp this summer.

After GLOW camp I gained two new site mates in Sagarejo. I'm no longer by myself! Angelina works at our local youth house with the teenage leader group and Catherine works as an English teacher at one of the other schools in Sagarejo. Kinda crazy to think that I'm the senior volunteer now. They are still growing accustom to living in Georgia and I can all too well understand their frustrations with the culture at times. It's nice to have someone nearby who gets your quirky American tendencies  and won't judge you for it.  I'm excited about the coming year and what we can achieve together here in Sagarejo.

Speaking of achieving, I finally visited Tusheti, an awe-inspiring part of the Georgian landscape and one of the country's  most picturesque places to see. Tusheti is located on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus Mountains and is known for its picturesque views, and for its isolation. The single road into the Tusheti region is very dangerous and is only passable four months out of the year. Tusheti's road is so dangerous in fact, that it can only be navigated by a skilled local driver and his four wheel drive jeep. Sounds exciting, right? I tried to put my parents at ease by sending them the Tusheti: World's Most Dangerous Road episode. Not sure if it worked or not but I figured if Hugh Bonneville from the TV show Downton Abbey could do it then so could I.

Tusheti was breathtaking and indescribable to say the least. Guided with two drivers, eleven of us set out on our adventure into the mountains.  In order to safely traverse this perilous road, we decided to give our car the name Brunhilda, Manned by our fearless driver Lado, we slowly spent a good portion of the day driving up into the Tusheti Park Region. The views on the way were amazing while the roadside drops were lethal. We set up camp that night in the outskirts of Omalo, a small town on the other side of the mountain pass. Over the next few days we hiked to a number of the local villages and castle ruins that litter the countryside. We felt so small compared to the mountains around us. During the day we enjoyed homemade khinkali, wine and khachapuri and then at night we feasted on our camp site concoctions. My description of this place simply will not do it justice so I've just decided to show you its splendor through pictures.

Enjoying Homemade Khachapuri

Just sitting on top of the world

 

Fun Car times

GLOW CAMP 2014

Yay! GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) Camp is finally over! No more pouring over large excel spreadsheets consisting of ~300 girls' contact information, no more calling counselors and giving them the new updates about transportation to and from camp (information that they will relay to the campers), and no more crunching numbers to make sure that we get confirmations from all the girls that we invited to come to camp.

I've officially been away from site for 28 days. Almost a month mind you. The first portion of my long absence was due to MST (Mid Service Training) with Peace Corps. This was a time for us volunteers to reflect about what we have accomplished the last year, what our plans are for the coming year and build up our personal goals. I thought this training was a great tool for me to reevaluate my service and figure out how to make it more worthwhile. I have less than a year left here....what haven't I done or what do I want to improve before I leave? Was this the Peace Corps experience that I had set out to have when I first joined? All of these questions of how to make the most of my time left were going through my head. This training was definitely a great way to reset my mental attitude about role in Georgia as both a volunteer and as a member of my host family.

I set some personal goals to work even harder on my Georgian language skills, spend more time with my host family and strengthen my relationships with fellow community members in Sagarejo. Those are my main goals.

In the midst of this deep thinking period, I and a few other volunteers put on the first ever Jort Off competition as a fun way to break up the somewhat serious mood. I think it was a success and a fun way to let off some steam. My friend Aaron is now the current Mr. Jort Winner but I think he'll have to defend his title in November since we are planning on doing another competition during our All Vol Conference with the new G14s.

Enough about training though... 
LETS TALK ABOUT GLOW!

To start off, GLOW is the biggest project I have worked on and probably will be one of my greatest accomplishments of my volunteer career. I and three other PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers), along with four Georgian Board members created GLOW Georgia this year. Pretty exciting stuff to say that I co-founded an NGO but there is so much work behind it. We created the NGO in January and since then we've had to switch mindsets and focus our efforts towards GLOW Camp preparations.

I was head of the Recruitment Committee for the NGO so a lot of what I had to do was needed way before camp even started. I was in charge of creating application workshop materials, finding and interviewing counselors for camp, receiving all the potential campers' applications and creating a master excel list of all of their info to send out to our counselors, developing a grading system for the campers' applications so the counselors could review and pick the very best candidates to attend camp, creating a info packet for all the campers selected (what to bring, what to expect, where camp was etc), and balancing our numbers to make sure that we had enough girls to attend each camp. It was a lot of work and many hours pouring over the master excel sheet but it all came together in the end.

Below is a description of Glow Camp. You can also watch our GLOW Camp videos:  Beginning of Camp and Closing of Camp courtesy of Alan, one of the G14 GLOW Committee members that will take over this year.

For more pictures and information about GLOW you can find us on our Facebook page: GLOW Georgia .

The Beginning: 
GLOW Camp officially began on August 2 and continued until August 20th. Over that period we hosted two 1 week camps, held two ToTs (training of trainers), trained 13 counselors sand 7 PCVs, and saw GLOW come to life with the 97 girls who attended our camps.

Here is how camp went:
ToT
First we had two days of ToT before camp. ToT is basically the time in which we train the counselors who will be hosting the camp that week. We go over the camp schedule, assign and diviup presentations, go over camp expectations and the mission of GLOW. That's usually what happens the first day of ToT. The second day is a working day for the counselors as they prepare their power point presentations and activities. The PCVs meanwhile are assisting their counselors and preparing the physical materials needed for these sessions. It's a long two days but everything needs to be really before the 50 girls arrive at camp.

Camp: Day 1
1:00pm
The campers arrived from one of the three marshrutkas that we had for camp. These three marshrutkas met campers earlier that day at assigned places and times. It was quite hectic to somehow get 50 girls meet one of these three stopping points across the country in a timely manner and make it to camp but somehow we did it.

3:00pm-9:30pm
After greeting the smiling girls with room and group assignments, we officially began our camp with an opening about what GLOW is and what was to be expected over the next few days. This was followed by camp group icebreakers, dinner and a camp wide scavenger hunt.

Day 2-6
8:00am
The girls woke up early meet their exercising rotation group for 8am exercises. I and my fellow PCVS offered different exercising stations for each day of camp. I taught Zumba in the gym, Brenna taught combat in the lecture hall, Betsy taught yoga on the upstairs balcony, Alica taught relays on the field and palates and full body workouts were taught by our visiting PCVS for that week.

8:45-10:00am
Once exercise was over, there was a quick breakfast followed by our daily camp opening before launching into the day's sessions.

11:00am -1:30 and then 4:30-6:30
We covered: Hygiene, Smoking and Alcohol awareness, Men's Health, First Aid, Nutrition and Fitness, Problem Solving and Conflict Resolution, Self Esteem, Peer Pressure and Bullying, Relationships and Communication, Women's Health and Reproductive Educations, Gender Based Violence and Women's Rights, Gender Roles and Gender in My Life, Children's Rights and Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Diversity and Tolerance, Leadership, Civic Responsibility, Volunteerism, Youth Participation and Project Development, CVs, Cover Letters and Social media, Setting Future Goals, and a Q/A with a Women's Guest Panel.

Some of these were lecture based large group sessions while others were discussion based small group sessions. In between these sessions we had lunch and  fun afternoon activities planned for the girls (capture the flag, hiking, board games, tag, volleyball etc.).

We would close the last session of the day with journaling time in which the girls would reflect on what they had learned that day and how they could potentially use that information to create a community project back home.

6:30-7:30
Dinner

8:00-9:30
Evening activity: Movie Night, Disco Night, Campfire Night, Talent Show Night and Farewell Dinner Night

Day 7 (Last Day!) 
8:45-10:00am
Breakfast

10:00-11:00am
Number and contact information exchange

11:00am-12:15pm
Camp Closing

12:15pm-1:00pm
Lunch

1:00pm
Departure (PCVS doing happy dance in the background as girls load into marshrutkas)


Day off and then repeat again.


There were a few mishaps through these two weeks of camp.
*The first camp we had ~30 girls separated on the hiking trail for two hours. They were with their leaders but the group had taken a wrong turn. All girls and leaders were accounted for in the end

*During the first day of our second camp, an hour before the campers arrived, one of our counselors had to leave due to a death in her family. We scrambled to find a replacement counselor and ended up calling one of the previous counselors from the week before. She graciously accepted and arrived at camp two hours later.

*One of our PCVS was doing a pre-exercise run and was attacked by a dog. She was bitten three times and had to be sent to Tbilisi for rabies shots and recovery. We managed to do without her the rest of the week but  it was still very unfortunate for both her and us.

*Water randomly was shut off time to time...not too much of a problem except for the fact that we exercised everyday and the day we were hosting a guest from the US Embassy we greeted her with a fresh post workout aroma.

Again GLOW Camp was quite a production but talking to those girls and seeing them open up about issues and topics as the week progressed was worth it.

Slight Hiatus and a Busy Summer

I apologize for the hiatus. I've been pretty busy since my last post at the beginning of May. Let me catch you up to date and include some pictures of the experience since then. PS. This is a particularly long post

May and on:
I successfully completed one year of teaching here in Georgia! There were times when I thought I couldn't handle it and just wanted to walk out of the classroom. But then there were those moments where I felt like I was making a difference, and those moments are worth everything. I witnessed "Last Bell" which is the event put on by the 12th graders as their last contribution to the school before exams. There were dances performed, singing, speeches thanking the teachers for putting up with them all these years and words of wisdom spoken to the students as the approached graduation.

At the end May I prepared for my one week visit to America. That's right, America. By this time I couldn't contain myself and had to quickly buy souvenirs for family and friends back home. My host family here was so sweet and bought gifts for my family members as well. Their gifts included a drinking horn set for my father, a silverware set for my mother, perfume for my two sisters, cologne for my brother, a ceramic vase for my grandparents, and miniature wine vases for my aunt and uncle. I somehow managed to pack all of this and more (I helped a fellow volunteer out who was leaving Georgia to travel after service by taking some of her stuff back to the States so she wouldn't have to travel with all of it.) into my large suitcase. That last weekend of May was a crazy one because I had so many meetings at the time and I had to force myself to be productive and not just slip into vacation mode quite yet.

June
June 3, 2014 at 8:30 pm I arrived back in America after a whole year and a month of absence. My mother, father and aunt greeted me at the gate with a sign and promises of a Mexican dinner after I picked up my bags from the baggage claim. We promptly went to dinner where I had my first taste of proper Americanized Mexican food in over a year. And let me tell you that Mexican food has never tasted as good as it did that night.

My parents and I in Knoxville, TN

After my short night in Atlanta, GA,  my parents and I started our trek to Knoxville, TN where I was to begin my Big Great American Tour. I joked to them that I should have made an event on Facebook labeling it "The Great American Tour: For one week and one week only. See Anneke Valk as she travels cross country to three different states, participates in a friend's wedding as a bridesmaid,  helps her sister pick out a wedding dress, eats tons of American food and takes her first proper bath in a year!"

 Needless to say that the trip was a whirlwind of tears, laughter, hugs, questions, toasts, confusion and then some more laughter. I didn't have much time to relax...but who needs that anyway?

 I was honored to be part of one of my best friend's weddings and to witness her and her now husband Ben start their lives together. They had their beautiful wedding in my hometown Greeneville, TN and the reception afterwards at Mary's house. The night got pretty crazy with a 50 person party train, Star Trek dancing, and sangria. We all wished the happy couple off with a sparkler tunnel. Shout out to Mary and Ben, may you have many grand adventures together!

Wedding Rehearsal Time!

Ben and Mary running through the sparkler tunnel as they leave the reception 

 I also went back to Knoxville where it immediately felt like home again.You know you are good friends with someone when you walk into their apartment, see them for the first time in over a year, hug them, and then promptly use the bathroom with the door wide open as you catch up with them. This is a shout out to you Alyssa. You also know you as super friends with people when you accidentally break into their house to meet them only to find that they aren't in their house and the first thing you say to them when you do see them after a year is "So I broke into your house...did you know your door isn't locked?" Shout out to Forest and Kayla!  And last but not least you know that you are friends with someone when you lay on a make shift futon couch looking at each other not saying a word and cracking up because you know what the other one is laughing about. This is for you Yaz!

Emotional moment with Yaz as we meet at  Flashbacks, Whatever

Very familiar Thursday night shenanigans with friends

I also spent time with my whole family catching up on what had happened this past year, checking out the new improvements to the house and grilling out like old times. I shared some Chacha (Georgian moonshine) and some homemade house wine with them. Not sure if they really liked the taste, I told them it was something you had to get use to or just submit yourself to when you need a drink. My family and I also went bar hopping in Asheville, the beer capital of the states to make up for all the good beer that I've been missing. Georgia has beer but it's nothing to brag about plus the only have two types of beer, თეთრი ლუდი (white beer) or შავი ლუდი (black beer).

The Valk women at Green Man Brewery in Asheville, NC

Coming back to Georgia was painless. Yes I'm going to miss my family and friends again, and yes I will miss food and American conveniences, but Georgia, believe it or not regardless of my frustration at times has become my home. I missed my family here and my friends here when I was in America. You know you've officially made a space in your heart for a place when you start to miss it.

Anyway, enough with the reflection stuff. About an hour after i arrived in country I met a bunch of volunteers for drinks in Tbilisi. Somehow we managed to stay up most of the night which led me to only get four hours of jet lagged sleep before jet setting to Khashuri to meet the new-soon-to-be volunteers at a picnic meet up. After a few hours of mingling I, and few other volunteers made our way to Kutaisi that evening. So if you are keeping count right now you will have noticed that I have been back in country for less than a day and have already traveled through three different cities. What can I say, I love to travel and see my friends no matter how tired, how jet lagged, or how dirty I am. From Kutaisi I traveled to Oni to stay with a friend and check out his site. That makes four cites/towns in three days and still jet lagged. I did happen to doze off on the marsh, something which never and I mean never happens so that was nice. Finally I arrived home to Sagarejo tired, dirty, a little scraggly looking but in good spirits with gifts to give my host family.

Somewhere along the end of June I also participated in my first 5K here in Georgia. I ended up running in a dress and Keds because that was all I was wearing when I made the snap decision to run. I was at the Race for the Cure to help out and volunteer before the race. However my friends convinced me to run so I dug out a pair of Keds out of the free box of clothing at the PC office. I think it kind of took people by surprise because I had little girls on the side line cheering me on saying "Go dress, Go!" I wasn't too fast but I did finish the race. Now on to July...


July
I've been pretty busy these last two weeks. GLOW Camp is fast approaching and I'm on the GLOW NGO's recruitment committee. We are in charge of making the applications for both campers and counselors interested in attending camp, sending out said applications, conducting application workshops, collecting all the applications through hard copy or by email, interviewing potential counselors, selecting counselors who will then help us select campers based on their  application essays, alert all the girls who applied whether or not they are invited to camp or not and confirm all those who accept their invitation to come to camp. All of this really hit these past two weeks. I successfully managed to interview and select 14 new counselors for this year's GLOW camp, met/emailed all of those counselors with the 282 camper applications we received so that they can review them and pick campers, and  reviewed and helped pick our G14 successors for next year. It's been quite busy and I've spent a good portion of my time either running around Tbilisi meeting counselors and giving them their applications to review or working on the master excel spreadsheet with all the information about the 282 potential campers. I haven't had too much down time but I did manage to have a slight weekend vacation in the middle of all of this.


I know, i know, I just got back from America. But America was more like a marathon and less like a relaxing vacation. Between the traveling, meeting up with friends and family and attending wedding festivities, I didn't have that much down time let alone to breath. Which leads me to Kobuleti. Kobuleti is a sleepy beach town on the coast of the Black Sea. It doesn't get as much hype as Batumi nor does it get the amount of tourist but that's why we picked it. Ten of us went there to celebrate the 4th of July in style. We grilled hot dog like meat, made some potato salad and greedily stuffed our faces full of s'mores (a rarity since marsh mellows are no where to be found and that I happened to bring a bag of them back from the States). It was overcast most of the time but pleasant. There was an afternoon where I and two other volunteers had to work on plans for our various camps but other than that it was blissful.

Happy Birthday America! Fellow PCVs and I in our 4th of July gear

Beaching it up!

Currently I am now working on GLOW stuff (the norm these days) and on my grant project that was funded  back in April. Today I went shopping with my counterpart Nino and our deputy director Nana  for electronics for our new language and cultural cabinet. We bought a new computer,  a printer, a set of headphones, some speakers, a few posters, four dictionaries, a computer desk, a computer chair and some magnetic alphabet letters for our chalk board. We still have a few more things to do before we paint a world map on our cabinet wall or hold any computer training sessions. I'm still excited though because I actually get to see our grant coming together.

My counterpart and deputy director being shown a chair they want to purchase for our cabinet

Don't worry, you're almost up to date on what I've been doing the past two months. On top of my GLOW stuff and grant stuff I am also in charge of planning our first annual "Jort Off" for the older volunteers after the swearing in of the new volunteers. It is a jort competition to see who can pull off  jorts, jean shorts, the best. I and two other PCVs are trying to make this a reality because what's more classy on a hot July day than debuting a jort creation to your fellow friends before swimming in a  lake to celebrate less than a year left of service. Whew, I think that's up to date now. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.