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. 

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.