April and May: Davit Gareji and Nokalakevi

It’s been a good and kind of busy month. Towards the end of April I picked some flowers with my host mom. Later they pickle them and then eat them. They kind of taste like a pickled pepper of some sort. We call them jonjoli. I don’t know if it exists at home or not. I don’t care for it very much but most Georgians love it.

After my trip to Italy I had to go to my bank here in Georgia to get a new ATM card. They told me to come back after 10 days and it should be ready. I did make the trip back and fortunately it was ready. I had to wait around for about an hour for the system to start working again but this is Georgia.

On the last weekend in April I took the train to and from Tbilisi. Saves lots of money on hotel and transit, woohoo! I went to Mtskheta and Ananauri. Cool, old churches. I went on an excursion with my teaching program. We went to Davit Gareji. It is a series of old cave monasteries. It’s pretty awesome. It’s on the edge of the Kakheti region. You can also cross into Azerbaijan at certain points. It’s a bit of a disputed border area so you can cross back and forth between the two countries without a visa. So now I can say I’ve been to Azerbaijan too, thanks to the Soviet Union drawing a line down the middle of a monastery complex. It’s been in the news recently because of the border dispute. Maybe one day they’ll get it sorted out but probably not any time soon.

Ananauri churches

Davit Gareji Cave Monastery Complex

Cave church

 

Sitting on a rock in Azerbaijan

After school I’ve been helping my host mom sew new curtains for the house. I get to turn the handle while she feeds the cloth through. She’s also been busy working in the garden planting vegetables and such. I’ve also been reading a lot on my iPod. I finished Siddhartha and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer last week; I’m working on Moby Dick right now.

Our lovely antique sewing machine!

I went on a second excursion with my teaching program during the first weekend in May. Had to go to Batumi first but that's no problem. I like Batumi. It is a nice coastal city and it is quickly becoming very up to date and even better. We went to Nokalakevi and Martvili. Big old castle/fortress then and old church and monastery complex, then there are some waterfalls near the monastery so we got to eat lunch there. It was another good trip. It’s always nice when you can sit around and talk in English and not worry about vocabulary because everyone is going to understand you, even if you decide to verb a noun.

Nokalakevi remaining fortress walls

Small church at Martvili

I got a package from home on the 8th. Girl Scout cookies for the win! A couple other nice surprises as well. In other news my brother shipped out for Coast Guard basic training on the 9th. I’m proud of him and excited by the new adventures he will be having. He’ll finish up just before I get back home so that will be nice.

I went to a wedding in the village this past weekend. I had some fun and was forced to dance yet again. They seem to think that foreign guests should always be forced to dance no matter what. I had to leave a little earlier than I wanted because my host sister got bored. I would have stayed but when your car leaves, you leave too unless you want to walk.

I sat through a lively conversation between my host sister, Salome, and host mom, Aniko, about the guy my sister is “talking” to. He lives and works in Tbilisi. Aniko thinks there is this other boy in a neighboring village that would be great for Salome. The two guys couldn’t be more different, from what I’ve seen and heard. Aniko seemed very opposed to the Tbilisi boy. In the end it came down to Aniko not wanting to be left alone in the village as she gets older and because she only has on daughter left unmarried she must try to keep her close as possible. This did not sit well with Salome. In Georgia it’s typical for the sons to grow up, get married and continue to live at home to take care of the family. Aniko had four daughters so no one to stay unless they wanted to. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with this kind of situation.

School is just four weeks from finishing. The 12^th graders at Kenneth’s school are finished with school and are now sitting for their exams. The 1^st graders are also finished with their lessons as of last Friday but they were still at school today. I don’t know why they “finish” early. It doesn’t make any sense especially if they are still coming to school.  This is just one of many confusing things in Georgia.

I finally got my plane tickets home. I’ll leave Georgia on July 10^th but I have a week layover in Turkey so I’ll be arriving in Ft. Lauderdale, FL USA on July 18^th! I’m excited to be coming home but I know I’ll be sad to leave and I’ll cry. No maybes about it. I just hope I can hold it together long enough so my family doesn’t have to see me. I’ve only seen Georgian children cry when fall down and hurt themselves and the adults only seem to cry at funerals. It doesn’t seem to be something they do here.

My time in Georgia has overall been really great. Of course there are good times and bad times but that is just life. My experience is different from other teachers that I’ve talked to but then again I’ve yet to meet anyone with a truly similar story to anyone else over here. We all come for different reasons and we all stay for different reasons. This is my life and I wouldn’t change it for anything. The time that I spend alone (more than I’m used to) I try to use for reflection and self-improvement. I know I won’t ever regret this decision and I can only hope that I continue to grow and improve during the rest of my time here.