Two Years Down and Two Months To Go

I can't believe how fast my service here has flown by....has it really been two years?! April 23rd marked my two year arrival here to Georgia. I've definitely grown as a person during my time here. Also I have gained some very useful skills (grant writing, teaching, NGO management, how to not pee on one's self in the squatty potty)  and some not useful skills (flagging down a speeding marshutka, or how to eat khinkali without spilling the juice for instance).

I've also been blessed to meet some of the most dedicated, resourceful, selfless, adventurous human beings on the planet. My volunteer group of 29, the G13s, have been my family since the first time we meet in Philadelphia that April 21st day in 2013. We have taken up hobbies together, traveled together, consoled one another, experienced both the really awesome and really negative parts of Georgian culture, and have even fallen in love with one another. In fact we commemorated these last few months together by traveling to Mestia, another picturesque village hidden in the Georgian mountains.

It is a bittersweet time for sure. Don't get me wrong, I am totally excited about coming home, seeing my family, eating all the Mexican I can stomach and going to Austin for graduate school. But I am going to miss my two host families, my counterparts and various other folks in my community. I'm also going to miss the slow pace of life where one can simply be and watch a flock of sheep gather together in a neighboring field. Additionally, I am going to miss the times where my neighbors came over at all hours of the day to drink coffee with me and my family.

That being said  I'm not quite done with my service yet. I've got a little less than two months before my COS date (Close of Service date). In fact, I have....50 days, 6 hours, 28 mins, and 55 secs to go. I'll finish my service on June 19 and then I will travel to Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland before returning home early July. Before the 19th however, I've got a dozen or so things to do between now and then, such as going to America for a week for my sister's wedding, doing my medical clearance, packing, giving stuff away, cleaning my room, finishing my paperwork for graduate school, finding an apartment to live in in Austin, and researching where to go during my travels....that's just a sample...there are a lot of other thing still left to do.

Well I'll leave you all with a few photos from Mestia, my latest Georgian journey.

Day Rambling

I decided to do a picture diary of a typical day in Georgia. Been meaning to do this for a while now but better late than never.

8:00am

Ah, the just woke up squinty face...a favorite of mine

8:30am

Eating a bread and butter laden breakfast with my host brother Dato and our cousin Ani

9:00am

The 20 min walk to school with all my students ahead of me

9:30am

Class with my 2nd graders

10:20am

Me giving past perfect examples to my 5th grade class

11:05am

5 min break between classes. Nino is stoking the fire in our teachers' lounge 

12:05pm

My 6th grade class taking an English test

1:00pm

Walking back home from school

1:30pm

Hanging out on the couch working on various projects. Dato prepares for a few hours of video game playing

2:00-5:00pm

Working on various GLOW, NESC, Peace Corps things

5:00- 6:45 pm

Eating Dinner with the Family

6:45- 8:45 pm 

Our nightly watching of a Turkish Soap Opera...Dato is tired

8:45:10:00 pm

Read until I pass out

10:00----????
SLEEP

My Last GLOW Camp

Well, I just got back from GLOW camp. This one was by far the best camp that we've ever had. It was also one of the most tiring too.  I'm planning on trying to relax this week if I can.

You might be asking yourself, "But Anneke it's winter...Isn't GLOW in the summer?"

Yes, in the past GLOW has only done summer camps. However this year because the American Embassy (who funded our summer camps) loved our project so much, they gave us the extra $18,000 that they had left over from their projects that they funded this past year ....that's right, free money and no grant to write for it. Soooo....we decided to hold a winter camp!

Hosting camp in the winter definitely had us concerned....What if the weather is bad? Can we even host a camp among the Georgian festivities that predominately take place in January? Will girls even want to go to a camp in the winter?  Is this place going to have heat? And so on and so on.

Fortunately the camp was a success. This year we were able to bring in around 60 girls to camp to learn about women's leadership, issues and empowerment. We had an amazing team of counselors to work with during camp and a great group of campers to host. GLOW also had a slew of visitors: a few U.S. Embassy staff members, a very excited Canadian Embassy staff member (the Canadian Embassy funded a small portion of our grant), Peace Corps staff members, guest speakers as well as a surprise visit from some of our old counselors from camps past.

GLOW also took it up a notch by really hitting hard its "Taking GLOW Home" initiative, an initiative that encourages the girls to take the information that they've learned at GLOW Camp and share it with members of their community back home through projects and training opportunities. In fact, because this is the main sustainability factor of GLOW and because we've been hugely successful with girls completing multiple projects in the past, we applied for and were awarded a grant to fund GLOW's very first GLOW Ambassador Conference. The GLOW Ambassador Conference will bring together past campers who have completed three projects or more within the first three months after camp. If they achieve this, then they are named GLOW Ambassadors and are invited to attend the conference where they will learn more about project design and management and further their leadership skills.

Since the creation of GLOW-Georgia NGO last January (we are not even a year old yet, January 27th is our anniversary) we have been able to host three GLOW camps, hire interns, and create the GLOW Ambassador Conference. All of this through grant funding and amazing support from our board of directors. Not many NGOs our age can say that, which is why I'm so proud.


Stats:
1,707 Likes on our GLOW Georgia Facebook page and counting
800~ Applications received
156 girls have attended a week long GLOW camp, transportation, food, lodging and all paid for
47 Take GLOW Home projects have been conducted around the country
20 Counselors who have received leadership experience because of their time at GLOW
16 GLOW Ambassadors
3 GLOW Interns
2 GLOW Banners
1 Amazing Year!

Below is a video from our winter camp. For more videos go to our YouTube Channel GLOW Georgia

GLOW is by far my most rewarding project that I have worked on here in Georgia which is why this past camp was bittersweet because it is also my last. Four GLOW camps in and still loving it!

Keep on GLOWing!

The Last Few Months of 2014 and The Future

Like most bloggers, I'm running a bit behind on my posts. I've been pretty busy since October and it seems to never let up. This is what I've been up to:

1) Halloween
We had our annual Halloween party at my school again. All the teachers and students were asking about it as soon as October started. This year we had a costume contest, slide show, dancing, and students reading the history readings from my students about Halloween during our presentation.

2) All-Vol
This was my last All-Vol conference. Every November all the Peace Corps volunteers in the country gather together to conduct trainings and interviews for next year's committee members. This is also the time that we get together and have a Thanksgiving feast with the U.S. Ambassador.

The Thanksgiving Cooking crew

Anthony and me

Finishing our All-Vol Thanksgiving

All the Volunteers: G13s, G14s, and Response Volunteers

3) Thanksgiving
I celebrated Thanksgiving with a few friends in Tbilisi at another friend's apartment. We made pumpkin pie, a gratin, mulled wine, chicken, hummus and veggies. Yum yum.

4) GRE and graduate school applications
Ugh, not fun especially when you have to take the GRE two days after Thanksgiving. Also applications and personal essays are the worst. I want to earn my masters degree in social work so I'm currently applying to graduate schools. I've narrowed it down to seven different schools and so far have submitted four of the seven applications. Trying to coordinate transcripts, recommendation letters, rough drafts, application fees, final drafts, and communicating to various admissions offices overseas has been a juggling act. Wish me luck and I'll keep you posted about how it turns out.

5) Grant Project
Finally finished!!! I mentioned a few posts back how my counterpart and I were awarded a grant for our school. Well ,we finally finished it. Now all that's left is to submit the paperwork

6) GLOW Camp Preparation
We have our Winter GLOW camp in less than two weeks so I've been busy finalizing our camper and counselor list for camp. Having a camp in the middle of break and making sure that all of our campers and counselors can be present for the whole of camp has proven to be challenging. I'm so glad that my recruitment part of camp is almost over....just gotta get them there. 

7) NESC Regionals
We finished the second level of our competition! Now for the big push in March for our national competition. This is going to be a big task too but fortunately it's after GLOW Camp so I can focus on it afterwards. I've got to coordinate volunteers and plan and manage the resource fair among other things.

6) Christmas
Christmas was much needed after all this stress and cold weather. Ten of us rented an apartment in Tbilisi for a few days to celebrate Christmas. We made/ate tons of amazing food that we normally don't get to enjoy (take out Chinese food, fresh veggies, tacos, tomato soup, mulled wine, hot chocolate etc.). I even got to Skype with my family back home.

7) New Years!
My host family rang in the new year Georgian style. We cooked and prepared food all day for the midnight supra that we would have when the clock struck twelve. At midnight my brother, mom, sister, and I set off fireworks in our front yard and toasted to the new year.

I'm ready to take on 2015! It's going to be a year of change for sure with my sister  and a ton of friends getting married, finishing up my two year service here, returning home and hopefully starting grad school in August.