One more week gone by

Things are staying pretty much normal here in the village. Not too many exciting things happen very often. I either go to school and teach then come home and do nothing or do nothing at all on the days I don’t have school. Generally those are Tuesdays and Thursdays. This past Thursday wasn’t any different. Salome and my host mom left to go to Kutaisi for something. This left me at home to do nothing. So I sat around and watched TV in English. I read my book. I did laundry. I played games on my computer. These are all very exciting things for me. When my host sister is visiting at home I rarely get time to myself so I have to take advantage of it when I can.  It was a nice day.

On Friday I want to school as usual. The kids seem to have forgotten some of the things we learned in the fall but I expected as much. Not to mention my co-teacher seems intent on getting them through things as fast as possible without waiting to see if the kids know the material and then blaming the kids when they don’t know it. Yeah, really effective teaching that is. It’s also great when she doesn’t wait until all of the students have finished one task before starting the next one. Then we just have to repeat ourselves a lot. Superb. I really just want to teach on my own but that will have to wait.

After school I went home but then Kenneth called to say that he was going to church with his host brother and sister and wanted to know if I wanted to come to. I wasn’t too keen on the idea but it gave me something to do. It was a lesser feast day, Ninoba (St. Nino’s Day). We walked to church, stayed for about an hour, lit some candles and then walked back home. The weather was extremely windy and while we were in church the power went out but then came back on again. I was happy that it wasn’t raining yet because last time I went to church it was windy and rainy and I fell and skinned my knee. No injuries to report this time.

On Saturday the plan was to go to Ozurgeti to visit with one of my teacher friends. The weather wasn’t great. It was still windy and slightly rainy but we went anyways. My host mother was going to Poti to baby-sit while my host sister went with her niece and sister to a dance competition in Zugdidi. They would be gone all day and be back later than I would. My host mother was worried about me but I told her I would be okay. Kenneth and I took a bus to Ozurgeti and met up with our friend, Harriet, in a café. We drank hot cocoa, ate pizza and just sat around and talked for a long time while enjoying being out of the weather. There is a new teacher in Oz so Harriet called him to meet up with us too. After enjoying our lunch we headed out to the Bazaar in search for some rain boots. It became very apparent that even though I have nice leather boots I could wear that are waterproof that just isn’t going to be enough when the snow melts. Everything gets very muddy and slippery and wet. I found a nice pair for about $15 dollars. Just a side note in Georgia they call rain boots welingtonies. I couldn’t believe it when I first heard it but hey it works for me and makes it easy to remember. After successfully finding rain boots for Kenneth and myself our group headed to the local supermarket, The Modern as we call it. As we got closer we noticed lots of people standing in the street staring at the Modern and lo and behold it was on fire. So much for more shopping. We stopped and just watched for a really long time. We were all amazed at how antique the fire trucks were and how ill equipped the firemen seemed to be. They extended a ladder and the first man to climb up didn’t have anything more than normal clothes on. The next man had what appeared to be a fireman’s pants and jacket but who knows.

Check out high tech firetruck on the left

Yes let's climb on top of a burning building...

It was interesting to watch to say the least. After a while we were all pretty chilly from just standing out in the weather so we headed to another café for tea and coffee. Eventually it was time for Kenneth and I to head back to the village on our bus so we said goodbye to our friends and walked to the bus station. I got home just before dark and there was no electricity. I lit the stove, ate my dinner and sat around with my book and a flashlight until Aniko and Salome got home. It was pretty late when they got back and of course the power came back on within minutes of their arrival.

Sunday was another typical day at home. I woke up late. I had brunch. I sat around and watched TV. My host mom wanted to rearrange some bookcases so she asked me to call Kenneth to come help because he is tall. The rest of us are pretty short around here. We talked, we moved furniture, we ate food and eventually Kenneth went home. I didn’t do much the rest of the day.

Monday was Monday. School was school. After school I went to Kenneth’s school for our first English club of the New Year. We had about 15 kids show up. It was fun and at the end of it we made them all sing head, shoulders, knees and toes. It was great watching 15-17 year olds do it. They are all at the age where they are too cool for that kind of stuff but we weren’t going to let them leave until everyone did. Power of being a teacher or at least a tutor of sorts.

Tuesday was yet again a boring day. I woke up late, sat around watching TV with my host sister, I peeled some kiwi fruit, she made plavi( a rice dish with fruit bits and lots of sugar). I read some more of my book. That night we had grits for dinner. Served a bit differently than they are at home but still tasty. It was served along with cauliflower that had been cooked and then soaked in a garlic, hazelnut, and something else sauce. Very interesting way to eat cauliflower. When I told them that I like to eat cauliflower straight (either without cooking or just after being steamed) they looked at me like I was crazy. I made them try it steamed though and they said it wasn’t bad but they preferred it in the sauce. They like their food heavily flavored. Salty, peppery, spicy, sweet but nothing is ever bland.

Now Wednesday started out as a normal boring kind of day. I am now very familiar with the term wintry mix. It snows one minute and then it is raining the next. It did that all day but it was mostly snowy but it was too warm for it to stick so it just made giant puddles all over the place. The kids love snow. If it was acceptable for me to run around in it just because it’s there I probably would too but I have to save my running around in the snow time for after school, not between lessons. Wednesdays are my favorite lesson days because when teaching 3^rd and 4^th grade I don’t have to compete with the 1^st or 2^nd graders in the same room. The younger ones get taken out into a different classroom because they only get two English lessons per week. I’ll complain about that some other day. I’ve also come to the conclusion that my 5^th graders are just never going to do their homework. Whenever we assign it we almost always spend the next lesson having them do it in class because they didn’t do it at home. We might as well not assign anything. After school I went to the kindergarten where my host mother works and she fed me a bean soup and then sent me home. I was just sitting at home reading my guidebook when she came home and asked me if I wanted to go somewhere and mentioned something about pigs. She was talking quickly so I didn’t catch all of it but I agreed anyways. I knew that one of her pigs had been missing for a day or two so I figured someone had spotted it and we were going to get it. Well I was right about that part. Before we left she had me put on tall rain boots and an old coat and then she gave me a laundry basket with some old clothes in the bottom and a little bucket of corn. When I saw the basket I thought about the fact that we might be going to rescue piglets and their mother. One of our neighbors had found the pig so he was showing us the way. He also brought a small axe with him. Aniko said it was in case we came around a wolf. I’d rather not think about that part.

Little did I know that going to get this pig would mean us crossing a stream six different times and walking up the side of a hill where there was a “road” that had now turned to mud. My boot got stuck in the mud at least five times and on the last time I almost had to have Aniko pull me out. We get to the top of the hill her pig had buried herself under some bushed and when we got her out there were indeed little piglets, five of them in total. After they got the momma pig out and distracted I was in charge of picking up the little guys and putting them in the basket. Whoa did they squeal. Momma also wasn’t too happy with that but the neighbor was keeping her away from me. I didn’t think about it when I grabbed the piglets but I imagine that mother pigs could get pretty aggressive. We got the piglets in the basket and got momma pig to follow us by dropping corn kernels and occasionally picking up a little one so they would make some noise. It was an exciting adventure walking back because the snow really started to pick and the wind started to blow. It was getting cold fast and the snow was finally sticking. We made it back to the house with everyone in one piece. I do have to say that piglets sound a lot like ducks. If I hadn’t personally put the piggies in the basket I wouldn’t have believed it by hearing the noise they were making. Bizarre little creatures. This was a great experience of village life in Georgia and it beats my corn adventures by a long shot. I really did enjoy our little excursion to go rescue pigs but next time she asks me to go somewhere I will definitely get more details before agreeing.

Weather just after pig rescue

Snow covering the next morning.

When I woke up on Thursday there was about four inches of snow on the ground. Everything was very beautiful all covered in white. It was also pretty cold. Getting out of a nice warm bed to brave the cold of the house is never a pleasant experience but it certainly wakes you up quickly. My normal routine it to get out of bed, find my clothes for the day, stick them in my bed that is still warm, go downstairs, have breakfast, wash my face, brush my teeth and then go back upstairs, pull my slightly warm clothes out of my bed and get dressed. I had no lessons, which was a good thing because I heard from one of my colleagues that there were only six kids at school. It seems the parents just decide that it will be a snow day and so they don’t send their kids to school. I did walk to Kenneth’s school for an event that was described to Kenneth as an international symposium. Really it was just the tenth graders asking questions to teachers who were originally from somewhere else, i.e. the Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and USA. We were asked about becoming a citizen, civil rights and other things like that but there wasn’t anyone there who could truly translate what we said. They asked me to try but I’m severally lacking political vocabulary in Georgian. It’s also very hard to dumb down the English for that particular topic. But they didn’t seem to mind and were happy to have us talk, well Kenneth talk. I didn’t say much. Today was also Groundhog Day and I thought about trying to explain that to someone but decided it would just make Americans sounds crazy. Relying on a rodent to predict the weather… yeah sounds like a great idea. However, it’s still one of my favorite minor holidays. I walked back to Kenneth’s house and spent some time there before going back home.

On another note I’m currently working on a 30-Day Drawing Challenge. I will post my pictures at the end of my 30 days, today marks day 12 so you still have some time to wait before you get to see it. Some of the pictures are good, some of them not so much. But it is a way to pass the time in the evenings and mark the passage of time so I don’t completely lose track of what day it is. I like the idea of doing something for 30 days. If you have any suggestions for what I should do next feel free to let me know. I’d really appreciate some ideas.

 Oh and Will and Tracy are going to have a girl! Just found out yesterday. Yay!