A Soviet Easter Holiday

Well I'm back from my Easter Weekend travels. Anthony and I decided to travel to Chiatura and Kutaisi for the break. We met in Tbilisi on Wednesday night for dinner and then prepared ourselves for the long trip ahead of us the next day. We started our journey early Thursday morning on a marshutka headed out to Chiatura. The driver and the passengers inside the marshutka thought we were German tourists, calling us guests of Georgia and even allowing us to sit up at the very front of the marshutka where the driver sits (a real treat because you have more space and you can see the countryside through the front window). I'm sure my huge camera slung around my neck also had something to do with our Germany tourist appearance. Our trip to Chiatura took about 2 1/2 hours. The ride itself was beautiful because Georgia had just had its first week of real spring weather. The trees were in bloom, the sky as blue as the ocean and all the colors of Georgian life just seem to thrive in the new spring air.

Once our marshutka made it to Chiatura I, in good ole Anneke fashion, dashed in and out of stores asking the shop keepers where the nearest bathroom was located (darn those two cups of coffee and a liter of mineral water!). Finally I found one in what I think what might have been the mayor's office...not sure but there was a security check, two security guards posted at the door and a place to scan a card. I quickly ran up to them, backpack and all, and did my best pee dance impression while asking if I could use their facilities. I must have been a sight for those security guards....they were stifling their laughter.

 After the crises was averted, Anthony and I explored around the main square for a few minutes. Anthony is a pretty big history buff and quickly took over my camera taking pictures of everything known to man around the town. Pictures of soviet buses, trains, buildings, signs,...you get the idea. Our friends Danae and Eric met us about twenty minutes later to show us around the town. Danae is a second year Peace Corps volunteer who lives in Chiatura while Eric is a G13 like myself who lives in a neighboring town of Chiatura.

With Danae acting as our tour guide and Anthony adding pieces of historical information about  Stalin, the soviet era and practices, we got a pretty good snapshot about what the town had gone through. The town was the only Bolsheviks stronghold during the Russian Revolution. The town worked day and night with over 3,7000 miners working 18 hour shifts and later sleeping in the mines. The river and the water around the town are toxic, full of manganese from the mines. We saw a lot of old Soviet era cars, apartment buildings, propaganda, and tributes to Stalin. In order to honor this we decided to ride one of the town's infamous Stalin's Cable Cars. These cars were and still are used today to transport people and miners above the town and to the mines. With the help of an ancient weight system, the cable cars travel up the steep mountainside 24 hours a day. We managed to survive although our trip coming back town the cable car was hindered by a spur of the moment thunderstorm...that was intense.

Stalin and Lenin mosaic tribute made out of river stones

Scary Stalin Cable Car

Guess this is the end folks. Danae, Eric and I are scared. 

Flashback Soviet bus

We also decided to explore Katskhi Piller, a 40 meter pillar outside of Chiatura that houses a monk who lives there year round in isolation. All of us, that is to say me, Eric, Anthony, Danae, and Danae's fiance Gela, all squished into Gela's car and traveled about 10 mins to the base of the pillar. Unfortunately we couldn't go to the top of the pillar because it is just reserved for Georgian orthodox men, and even then for the most devout. Still the pillar was extraordinary to see and even more extraordinary to imagine people trying to haul materials and such up its steep cliffs in order to build the chapel and small cottage that reside at the top.

Beautiful Katskhi's Pillar

From the base of the pillar

Not a bad pic actually...just wish I had my Tennessee Flag to out do the University of Kentucky representation....hmm..

....Wait! Here it is!

 After our day travels in Chiatura Anthony and I headed to Kutaisi to meet up with our friend Ann and her crew. We mainly walked around the city and took pictures of urban life. We somehow got coaxed into accompanying our friend Chase to look at baby piggies at the animal bazaar. I was not happy to find that they were not in fact baby piggies but rather large pigs that were screaming as they were being pulled out of their pins by their back legs and given a once over. That was not my idea of fun...animals such as sheep, pigs, goats, chickens and turkeys crying out because they knew they were being sold for the big Easter feast coming up two days later. We had to head to happy hour in order to console ourselves from the ordeal. Our trip ended with a few friends coming over to our hostel and playing card games while enjoying the cool evening breeze on the veranda. I wasn't looking forward to the next day because I knew it would be an all day travel day....and it was. It only took me five hours of marshutka riding, two traffic jams by two different car accidents, and one metro ride to get me back to Sagarejo.

My sister Mari awaiting the fire 

Upon my arrival at home, around 6 pm, I unpacked, told my family of my travels, and showed them pictures of my adventures. I was tired from the trip but I wanted to stay up and ring in the Easter holiday with my family. So at 11:30 pm my family and I walked in the dark to their church and lit candles while listening to the Georgian scriptures (none of which I could understand but I thought they sounded nice). The bells tolled at 12 am and then the crowd waited for the fire to come from Tbilisi (kind of like the Olympics...the fire is lit in Tbilisi and then it is passed village to village lighting the churches...not sure how that pans out for people 6 hours away on the west coast...I didn't get much of an answer about that). Anyway we didn't get home until late that night/super early that morning (try 5am).

Women wearing head scarfs and waiting outside the church. 

Hope you all who are reading this had a happy Easter as well and that the weather it treating you well wherever you are. Happy Easter!

Cheers,
Anneke

Ladies and Gentlemen…I now am Finally a Volunteer

July 12th, 2013

I had my Swearing in Ceremony on July 12, 2013! Now I am officially part of the Peace Corps Georgia family! All 30 of us (the trainees) got up super early…6:30ish mumbled goodbyes and farewells to our PST host families and boarded the PC caravan that drove us the hour and half to Tbilisi. 

The Swearing In Ceremony is kind of a swanky event. PC invites one member of your PST host family, one member of your new host family and your school’s/organization’s director. We get all dressed up, give speeches, say oaths, cut cake, and have live performers come and give a performance on stage for us.  It’s so swanky that we have to do a practice run of the whole event. Unfortunately I made the mistake of placing my bag in the marshutka that broke down on the way there so for a while I thought I would have to swear into the government in a pair of jeans and some black converses…The marshutka came in time though.

My cluster mate Ann and I, along with a few other volunteers, performed both Georgian and the American national anthem for the ceremony…we had no idea though that we would be on Georgian tv later that night…another reason I was glad that my formal clothes had arrived on time.

My invitation, Peace Corps Pin, and my certificate. 

It's Official!!! 

Nora, Brenna and I in the front Swearing In

Maura, our country director, cutting cake

Day in the Life of a PST Trainee

I officially have completed my first month of PST (pre-service training)...now two more to go! PST is a rigorous and challenging time for all of us new trainees. We have to go through three months of PST training before we are officially called volunteers, until then we are still trainees. Here is a peek at what a typical day in PST consists of...

7:00 am Wake up, dash to the outhouse, brush teeth, wash face, make a cup of tea and check the internet on my family's computer (They are usually still asleep then and it's nice to have some quite time)

7:30 Get ready for the day by picking out clothes, putting on makeup, gathering up my homework and other materials that I studied with the night before.

8:20 My host brother Giorgi like clockwork knocks on my bedroom door and tells me, “Anneke eat”.  I usually try to head to the kitchen before 8:30 but lately it’s been later. My grandmother usually has a cup of coffee and a cup of tea for me waiting when I get there and then an assortment of food. There is always bread on the table but other than that is changes….list of stuff I’ve had so far:  homemade meatballs, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, fried chicken, plain yogurt, hard boiled eggs, beef stew..etc. Breakfast is not really a set cuisine…you kind of just eat the leftovers from dinner the night before.

8:40 Leave with my host brothers Giorgi and Atchiko for school. The Osiauri village school is about a 15 minute walk from my house.  There are usually kids that run by me or tag along and shout Hello from a far. It's nice too see everyone  in the morning. Some kids that I've taught in class come up and say "Hello Anneke, how are you?" I usually respond and ask them how they are doing as well. 

9:00-1:00pm I have Georgian language class with my other cluster mates in one of the empty rooms of the school. Our door doesn't close all the way or lock so at least twice during our four hours of class students fling open the door to look in and shout hello. Our LCF (Language and Culture Facilitator aka my Georgian teacher)  Ana promptly tells them to go to class. We have two breaks in the middle of our four hour language class to use the bathroom or to step outside and stretch our legs. I’m learning Georgian slowly; it’s a very difficult language with 7 different cases. By the end of class I’m usually brain dead from all the new information from that day.

1:00/1:30 Walk to lunch.  It usually takes a while to get anywhere we are going just because we have to pack up our stuff padlock our room door for the day and walk 15 minutes to lunch.

1:30 Eat Lunch. Our host families take turns each day hosting us at lunch. We are on a rotation schedule throughout the week. This gives us a chance to see the different living styles of each cluster mate’s home. We also get to know each other’s host families and converse to them in Georgian.  I’m pretty sure each family tries to outdo each other and they usually ask us if their food is the best.  Georgians never cease to amaze me; they just pull out large quantities of food from nowhere.

2:20 Walk to the martshutka (van) stop in Lower Osiauri. We usually pass a Frisbee around while we are walking just to make the journey more interesting. Our walk normally is about 15 minutes too although when the Frisbee is out there is a lot of backtracking.

2:40 Meet Giorgi our martshutka driver and his martshutka. We like to think that we have formed a bond with Giorgi even though he doesn't speak much to us and when he does we usually can’t understand it. Either way we've grown accustom to seeing this white 10 passenger van with a painted alligator on the hood and a Giorgi sitting in the front seat. Did I mention that he has a gold alligator figurine on his dash? The martshutka drives us the eight minute drive to the town Khashuri where we have PST Education training.

3:00-5:00/6:00 PST Education training. All the clusters come together during the afternoon for training so it’s nice to catch up with the all education trainees who live in other villages. We have different sessions each time…some sessions cover how to properly write a lesson plan while other sessions teach us about how to teach a class with limited resources.

6:00/6:30 The martshutka  picks us up outside our training school in Khashuri. Sometime we convince our driver to give us 10 minutes of shopping in the town because we need to recharge our phones or grab some essentials like toilet paper.

6:30/7:00 Get dropped off in our village, Osiauri.  My cluster mates and I usually try to get a rough plan going of what we are going to do later on that night if we get together. After plans are made I make the 10 min walk from the martshutka stop to my home.

6:45/7:10 Arrive home.  I usually arrive home, say hello to my host family and go to my room to drop off my big backpack that I've had with me since language class that morning.  I have time to do this and use the outhouse before my grandmother escorts me to the table and demands that I eat at least three pieces of bread and seconds of everything else on the table. My family usually refers to this meal as Lunch…kind of confusing.  But “Lunch” consists of anything left over from breakfast plus some potato dishes or veggie dishes.

7:40 I usually excuse myself and try to get some homework done. I try to study until around 8:30ish if I can. Sometimes if my cluster mates and I make plans to meet up I usually meet up with them around 8ish. We normally attempt to study but we end up hanging out and sometimes watch movies.

If I end up going over to a cluster mates house I try to get back home as close to 10pm as I can. As soon as I get home I usually get asked if I've eaten while I was  and even if I've responded yes  I am still escorted to the kitchen for dinner which usually takes place 9:45ish or 10ish. I usually try to eat a little bit both there have been other times where I tell them that I am full...but that does not fly here.

If I don’t go over to a cluster mate’s house then I hang out with my family before and after 10pm dinner time. We watch TV as I attempt to use the new Georgian words or phrases that I've learned that day.

11:30 I am exhausted from the long day and I just want to have my alone time to wind down. I get ready for bed, use the outhouse (hopefully for the last time that night…dashing outside in the dark to an unlit outhouse while wearing a headlamp on your head should be a new game or sport lol) wash hands, wash face and brush teeth.

12:00-1:00 Either finish my homework that I have not completed yet, read my kindle or pass out from exhaustion.

7:00am Repeat.

Like I said PST is intense training.