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

End of School Semester

Well it’s been about a month and a half since I last wrote on here so I guess I’ll fill you in on the end of school, Christmas, New year’s, my trip to Belgium, Germany, and Turkey and the beginning of 2014. I warn you that this will probably be a three part post…bear with me.

First thing’s first, I survived my first semester of teaching. A huge milestone for those that know me…I’m not as apt to teaching as my sister Olivia is but I managed to do alright my first real go at it. My program manager came to my school to observe my counterpart Nino and I conduct a lesson for my 10^th graders. It was a little nerve racking at first but all went well for the most part. Both my counterparts and my school’s supervisor gave me glowing reviews and expressed to my program manager how grateful they are to have me.  I’m glad they feel that way; I’m never too sure what they think of me at times. Normally I can pick up on social cues and expressions but those are mostly lost in translation here.  We all have big plans for the coming semester such as have a technology training class for all the teachers at school, starting the dormant English club back up, and participating in more national projects.

The end of school came soon after my observation. The school lost power a few times and we even had to shorten our classes to 35 mins in order to keep the kids from freezing in the classroom. It’s harder than it looks to try and write with chalk while wearing gloves. The petchi (wood stove) in our classroom helps a little bit but just enough so you can’t see your breath in the room.  My favorite part of the last few days of school however (as childish as it may sound) was teaching my 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th grades all the lyrics to Jingle Bells and then having them sing it for their end of semester performances.  They in turn taught me the Georgian version of Jingle Bells which is more like a happy chant.

My best friend, her name is Blaze and she keeps me warm when I'm in the living room

A bebia (a grandmother) making her way down the cold snowy moutain

My family was really sweet and decorated their house early so it could feel like Christmas for me. My family usually doesn't decorate the house or put up a tree until the 25^th of December because Georgians don’t actually celebrate Christmas until January 7^th. So it was a real treat that they wanted to start their Christmas traditions early for me since I would be gone on my trip to Brussels and Istanbul.  My family and I decorated the tree and sang both Georgian and English Christmas songs as we decorated the house. My mom sent Christmas cookie cutters in a care package so I taught my family how to make Christmas cookies. They were a big hit, so big in fact that the neighbors were asking for the sugar cookie recipe that I had used.  I’m glad that I could share a bit of my traditions with theirs during the holidays.  It was a great way to spend some quality time with the family before embarking on my first trip of my service…Which leads me to my next post….

The Christmas tree my mother sent us

Winter is Coming!!!

In the words of Ned Stark, "Winter is coming". Last night was the first night that I slept in my blue meanie long johns (you read correctly, blue meanie long johns) AND my sleeping bag in my room. I can tell this is going to be a harsh winter.

Update: I survived my first week of teaching. There are a few hiccups here and there like the fact that my whole fifth grade class does not have textbooks or the fact that 4th, 5th and 6th grade all have the same textbook and are essentially learning the same thing. On Friday however I was invited to attend a Teachers' Day concert to celebrate teachers around the world so that was nice. It's still weird to be called Miss Anneke in class...or the fact that I have to discipline these kids for not doing their homework . Oh well. I'm going to see if a rewards program with a chance to select a prize from the prize box will inspire more of my kids to complete and bring their homework to class.

On a completely different note, yesterday I learned how to bake bread Georgian style and how to make Churchkhela, a Georgian treat consisting of strung walnuts dipped into a thickened grape juice goo. Very good. Below are some of my pictures from yesterday.

Bread stuck to the inside wall of the kiln/oven thing

Wrangled me a loaf of bread from the oven with my hook

Before...

After!! Freshly made Churchkhela

My mom and I

My sister and I

Yum yum!

Summer Camp Sagarejo Style

So if you’ve been following along, one of the activities I have to do before I start school is plan and implement a summer camp for my community. Not an easy feat when you lack materials, money and oh I don’t know…basic communication with vendors, students and others alike. However my camp ran really smoothly thanks to the help of my two counterparts and my sister and her friends. They helped me out with translation and guidance when I needed it.

The camp was 5 days long with each day being a different theme. Themes are as follows: Introduction Day, Sports Day, Arts & Crafts Day, Pop Culture Day and Nature Day.  I would open each day by passing out an attendance bead to each of the campers…this served as an incentive for the campers to come back each day. By the end of the week the campers who attended every day of camp would have enough beads to make a summer camp bracelet. After the bead passing and roll call, the students and I would warm up by dancing the call and response song called “Funky Chicken”.  After “Funky Chicken” I would give the day’s vocabulary lists to the campers and go over each word to make sure that they knew them. Afterwards we would do various activities and games that involved the words from the words list of that particular day.

I tried yet again to teach kickball to another group of Georgian students….just as hard as the first time but by the end of the hour they had a pretty good grasp on the rules and such.

I think they activity the kids loved the most was the clothing relay game. I brought some articles of clothing for this activity and asked each student to bring one article of clothing for this activity as well. I divided the clothing into two piles, each pile having the same amount of shirts, pants, hats etc. as well as equal numbers of colors and patterns. I would shout out an article of clothing or a color and each time would have to find the item and then run to the other side of the room and dress their other team member. They got so into it!

The other activity that was a huge success was the making of God’s Eyes. This was a craft that my family and I would do when we would go camping. All you need is two small sticks and some yarn and presto a cool craft and as I have come to realize from my memories of family camping… a way to easily keep kids occupied and in one place.

Besides god’s eyes, the clothing relay game and kickball we also  did the hokey pokey to learn body parts, made collages from magazines (each student had to spell their name, I love Georgia, include a picture they liked and spell out one new word that they learned that day), wrote poems with 3 new vocabulary words, went on a nature scavenger hunt, a human treasure hunt (students had find other students in the classroom who had something in common with something on their list…asking questions in English of course), watched and English film (Finding Nemo), made team posters and team songs, and had a celebration picnic at the end of our last day of camp

Though the camp had a lot more work/planning/improvising than I had originally anticipated…it all worked out in the end.

Below are pictures from my camp…my counterpart Zaira took most of these photos

Playing Everybody who has...

Maka, one of my students, and her collage

I know you all are jealous of my beautiful handwriting...

Just a sample of some of the god's eyes made...my students picked the craft right up 

Checking off the Nature Scavenger Hunt list...(and for your information I'm thinking...not picking my nose)

Last day of camp supra picnic 

The infamous clothing relay

Learning body parts and action words with the help of the Hokey Pokey

Kickball! The sheets of my summer camp schedule also doubled as bases

Nature hike exploring

Pictures and collages time!

One of the team posters...We had team Funny Children (poster above) and team Smile

Woot Go Sagarejo's 2013 Summer Camp!

Sagarejo or Bust!

I KNOW WHERE I AM LIVING THE NEXT TWO YEARS!!!

Recap of this week

Monday: 

We had our Hub day as usual where all of the education trainees and all of the  business trainees meet up and have training all day long in Khashuri.  This Hub day was special though because we finally got to find out about our new families, schools/organizations, towns/villages/cities that we will be living in for the next few years. I felt a little bad for the presentations that were being given before our site announcement…most of us were so nervous and preoccupied about our new sites and where we might be placed that we didn't really pay attention to them. 

Site Announcement (later that day)!!!:

Our director Tengo and the other PC staff took us to the school’s gym where a huge rope was laying on the floor in the shape of Georgia. In the “map” there were the names of cities and villages that would become our sites. Each one of us was handed a random packet face down with the name of the trainee and their new site.  We had to announce each other’s sites to one another.  Out of the noise of excited clapping; I heard my name being called…”Anneke you will be going to the region of Kakheti to the town of Sagarejo!” I received my packet from my friend Sarah and then quickly headed over the east side of the map to join the rest of the Kakhetians.

Our packets included information on the region

 Kakheti:  wine country, land of old monasteries, maize, sunflowers, grapes and wheat

 The town/village we would be staying in:

Sagarejo…population 13,000….52 km from Tbilisi

 And our host family information

            Host mother 33, host father 36, host sister 16, host brother 6 and host aunt 53.

Another portion of our packet provided us with information about our school, such as how many students
there are,  what kind of facilities they have and what kind of programs they have participated in the past.

My school is one of four in the area. It has 169 students total and 29 teachers.  I have two English counter parts that I will be working with for the next two years.

Supervisor's Conference (Tuesday):

The next day after our site announcement we (the trainees) had language classes in the morning and then got ready for our supervisors' conference. We packed up and headed to the city of Bazaleti for supervisor training and then after that to our new site to visit our soon to be towns and families.  My school director Nato is very sweet and is excited for her school to be part of the PC program. Our first encounter was interesting because I knew very little Georgian and she knew very little English so we had to use my LCF as a translator for some of the activities that we were doing. All of the G13s and our supervisors/directors stayed the night in the big resort hotel in Bazaleti since we were parting the next day to our individual sites. 

My super cool Director Nato! (Here she is at the Prom) 

Site Visit (Wednesday-Saturday afternoon) 

The next day we parted from the conference and traveled to our new sites where we would be visiting for the next few days. I was greeted by a whole flock of women at my new home. My new mom and sister were there along with my new English counterparts, and current volunteer Emily and her director. I was getting kissed and hugged and passed around among these women. After I had introduced myself everyone turned their attention to the TV in the room because there was a big scandal in my new town that had just come to light the hour before. Basically the new and well liked Mayor of the town and his staff embezzled money from the government. Everyone in the whole building was found guilty except the secretary their sentences are yet to be decided. Not a bad way to start out in your new town…a governmental scandal.

After our lunch I was left to explore my new room and the rest of the house before heading to Georgian prom. I've only been here a few hours and they want me to attend a fancy event…not too shabby. However since I assumed that I would just be exploring the town and the school for the next few days, I didn't pack any super nice clothes (not that I have a prom dress lying around in Georgia, but I do have some nicer dresses back at my PST sight in Osiauri) so I proceeded to wear my dressiest travel clothes that I had brought with me: a Dalmatian print cardigan, a dark gray V-neck, and a pair of royal blue skinny jeans to the prom.

My new bedroom for the next two years (it has shiny wall paper)

Me at a Georgian Prom!

Georgian prom is basically a graduation party for the seniors. Georgian schools don’t have a prom but this is the closest they get. The boys and girls go all out and wear fancy clothes to a banquet hall where they have a supra and then dancing in between toasts.  Imagine sitting with all the  teachers and your director at a long dinner table super under dressed watching the seniors across the room getting hammered from Kakhtian wine. Now imagine your  60+ counterpart ushering you to the dance floor to dance with an 18 year old boy named Giorgi…while the whole time you are trying to make a good/professional impression to not only all the teachers but the whole town as well... I whipped out my best impression of the Carlton for two dances before returning to my table. Since I literally just arrived four hours before this and I’m going to be working in this town for the next two years,  I don’t want to tarnish my reputation as a “good girl” by performing  Beyoncé like booty shaking moves…I instead opted to stick with the good ole fashion Carlton move and sprinkler move.

Next few days in my town were very busy. I saw two end-of-the-year school plays, attended a school wide skit/dance competition between the four schools in the area, attended a professional Georgian dance performance, and met the director of the school board too.

My Counterpart Zaira's English cabinet

My Counterparts at the school are pretty cool. There is Zaira who has been teaching English for 40 years and Nino who has been teaching for 20. Both speak and understanding English very well to the point the Zaira is near fluent. From what I've heard they are very passionate about their jobs and are very excited to work on some projects with me. That is rare with some of the older teachers in Georgia so am I excited that my counterparts are willing to support my new ideas for the school. 

One of the two school plays that I saw while one my site visit

My new sister Mari is amazing! She is so smart and her English is very good for her age. Mari was very helpful the three days I was in Sagarejo by being my guide and translator around the town. She even took me to the town's youth house where she is involved with this women’s empowerment/leadership group run by the current G11 volunteer Emily that I had met the day before. The group itself promotes healthy living, women's rights, and even dedicates a portion of its time teaching the girls about women in power now. They just finished talking about Hilary Clinton, Rosa Parks and many more women in history. I love that Mari is a part of this group.

My new host sister Mari and my host mom Zaira. 

 Both Mari and her mother Zaira are very strong women. My new host father works in Italy and sends money back home to the family. Since my father is absent from the home most of the year, my host mom Zaira  is in charge of house as well as tending to the family’s livestock. I’m basically in a house full of women. I have a six year old brother Dato that I haven’t met but other than that it’s all women in the house. As far as I know my host aunt does not live with us but I guess I'll confirm that when I go back permanently.

My view from my bedroom window

I’m pretty sure I got the mother load of sites:

I have a strong independent progressive family, my school has all the facilities and resources that I could ask for, there is a women’s empowerment/leadership club established in the city that I can be involved with after school, my new house is beautiful with nice amenities, I’m less than an hour away from the largest city in the country, and I will be living in the country’s wine region.

My front yard with the view in the background. My house and barn are in the right hand corner.

Saturday afternoon

Mari walked me to the marsh stop in Sagarejo to meet Emily. Emily and I traveled to the Peace Corps Office in Tbilisi. It was the first time I had been in the city in the daylight and the first time I got to walk around in it. The office was cluttered with G11 volunteers' bags since most of them are completing their two years service this week and headed back to the states. Nice office though with a volunteer lounge and everything. With the help of some G12 volunteers I found  and met up with the rest of my fellow G13 trainees in the city who were also traveling back west with me to our PST sites. Traveling around Tbilisi was kind of confusing but I guess that's goo because it gives me some practice before me and my whole G13 group have our Tbilisi day trip this Wednesday. Around six in the evening arrived back to my PST site exhausted from traveling.