Border Lands

I was out to dinner with friends in Lviv, Ukraine when I checked my e-mail and found out that my new village in Georgia would be Tamariani. I quickly Google mapped it and my first thoughts were, I’ve complained so much about not having a real toilet that they have stuck me in Azerbaijan! By the looks of it, it looked like I was only two or three kilometers away. Since arriving back in Georgia I had been thinking about walking and looking for the boarder for a few weeks and over the weekend when I was in Tbilisi I was talking to some other volunteers. I told them where I lived that that I was basically in Azerbaijan. All of them wanted to know know what the boarder looked like and I had to give them the bad news that I still hadn’t been there yet.

On Monday it was a really warm, sunny spring day. I decided that I might as well try to find the broader and see if it was really that close. I walked through my village talking to a fellow volunteer on the phone about the past weekend and I came across a group of students and waved hello and kept on walking. I reached the end of the village and I had made it to a field. Out of no where my fourth grade shadow came running and screaming towards me, like she always does when I think I am lost and then walks me home. I sighed and looked down at her and tried to reason with her that I was not going to fallow her back to my house today, I was going for my walk. My Georgian is still really, really bad, but her English is worse. A few other students showed up and one was an 11th grader who has a decent grasp on the langue and I explained that I was going for a walk. It appeared that my shadow was not going to take no for an answer and if I wouldn’t turn around she was going to stay with me. We walked in a barren corn field and I started speaking to her in English, it was better then talking to myself and I might as well be good company. I asked her if she was going to fallow me back to America too and she said yes. I laughed because I know she has no idea what I said, but I can picture her really trying to run after my car when I go back to America crying that I am leaving her. I suppose I could adopt her, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

As we walked, we went over the alphabet and numbers up to ten. I felt like we were making progress on our English. Every once in a while she would point back to the village and say that we should go back. I would say no and that she could go back. She acted like she was going back a few times, to see if I would fallow, but she quickly caught on that I would not fall for that game. 

We came to a four way intersection of dirt roads, one was the road we came on, one road went over a bridge, one road lead back to town, and the other road went along a river. I went with the last one. I told my shadow that I was looking for Azerbaijan and pointed in the direction that we were heading in and she told me that I had it all wrong, that Tbilisi was that way. I told her I had looked it up on Google maps and I had been to Tbilisi the past weekend and I knew it was the other way. We walked along the river and stopped at one point to take a few photos. On our other side was a field with horses and I asked if we should go ride them. She shook her head no. (Swear to God this child knows English, but pretends not to just to annoy me.)

I saw two men approaching in the distance and assumed they were the farmers who owned the field and I didn’t want to be rude so I walked towards them. The closer I got, it became clear that they were in fact soldiers. Soldiers with big automatic weapons and binoculars. Oh shit.

They came up and said a curt hello and it became apparent quite fast that they didn’t know English and well my Georgian is again, crap. They tried asking what we were doing here and thank god my shadow started talking a bit. I used my crap Georgian to tell my student to tell them that I was her teacher, we were just going for a walk and taking photos. (It’s funny, but kids seem to understand me better. Adults just don’t listen.) They asked “Document?” I pulled out my cellphone and iPod and was like “no document, I was just going for a walk.” One pulled out his walkie talkie and the younger one pulled out his cell phone. They told us to wait there. There was some conversation and I kind of stood around kicking the dirt with my boots and looking up into the bright sun, thinking can we go yet? I turned on my camera and started to take a photo of my shadow and they said no photos and made me show them the ones I already had. I flipped threw a few and then realized I still had ones of me being silly to have a profile pictures with my new glasses on so I stopped. I was happy to see that they didn’t care, that I didn’t show them all to them. 

I pulled out my phone and called my co-teacher, like she said to do if I ever needed help, and handed it to one of the guys. He handed it back to me and she said, “Emily, listen, you are on the boarder lands. You should not be there. You see the river? Half that river is Georgia, half the river is Azerbaijan. You must stay there until the commander comes in 10 or 15 minuets. Ok, Emily?” The border lands? Where the hell is the “Welcome to Azerbaijan” sign? Shouldn’t there be a fence?

The soldiers just kind of stood around smoking cigarettes, the younger one kept playing with his cell phone. I stood around a little bit more, but I felt a little stupid so I just sat down on the ground and picked at the grass. My shadow was unfazed by the whole thing and was playing with a thorny plant, pulling it apart. The young soldier asked my name and I asked his and he laughed when I said it wrong. It was clear this conversation was going no where.

In the distance we saw dust and a pickup truck speeding towards us. A middle aged man got out and I was relieved that he spoke decent English, at least it was good enough to interrogate me. He again asked for my documentation and I explained that I had just been going for a walk and was unaware I had stepped into the “Border Lands.” He asked my name, nationality, what I was doing in Georgian, when I came and when I was leaving. He didn’t badger me and could see that I was indeed a harmless American. He told us that he would drive us out of the “Border Lands,” even though I was sure we could walk the 500 meters there ourselves. When we reached the edge he said he could drive us home and I said that would not be necessary, I did not want my host family freaking out. We were greeted by a handful of my students when we got out of the truck. One girl gave me flowers, a welcome back to Georgia present I can only assume.

I walked my shadow home for once and headed on to my own house. When I got there my host family was sitting outside talking to a neighbor and I thought, yes they have no idea. I stopped at the picnic table to say hello and they said they had received an interesting phone call from the sheriff. My host dad asked if the army was good. I said yes. My host mom made a gesture that said she knew she should be mad at me, but found the whole thing really hilarious. 

Two days later my host family is still making fun of me every chance they get. I go along with it. I understand I am entertainment for these people. I wasn’t harmed in anyway and I am sure that if I spoke half decent Georgian I would have gotten a date from that solider. I also thought about baking them cupcakes and bringing them to them as a thank you for not killing me, but I am living in Georgia and the closest grocery story is two hours away in Tbilisi, because you know I can’t make cupcakes from scratch. I also would have to go back to the “Border Lands” to deliver them and I don’t want to do that anytime soon. I am however really tempted to go back with a hand painted sign that says, “This Is The End Of Georgia” and maybe some of that yellow cation tape and make my own fence, because really having another country a thirty minuet walk from your house isn’t all its cracked up to be.

I can see Azerbaijan from my backdoor! 

My silly photo that I didn't want the soldiers to see.

A Little Death Makes Life More Meaningful

A few days ago my co-teacher informed me that the sports teacher’s mother had passed away and the funeral was to be held this Thursday. She asked me if I would like to go and I kind of looked at her and sputtered out “Um... I don’t know.” Thinking inside my head, I don’t really know this teacher, let alone his mother. Won’t it be kind of odd me just turning up?  She then informed me that all the other teachers would be going and I should go as well, being a member of the faculty. I wanted to say that I would just wait for the next funeral, when I maybe knew the person a little better, but then I realized that would mean there was another dead person and stopped myself. I told her that I would go, since everyone else was going.

I worried about what to wear as I was not quite sure what one wears to these kinds of events. The morning of the funeral I tried on my go to little black dress, but it was a little too tight and short. Great for a bar, not a midday village death party. My second black dress was just crap. Again too short. I tried on my black and gray sweater dress that I normally wear with jeggins and just laughed. I settled on a floral dress that hit at the knee and was mostly blue, green, and yellow. I looked at my shoe choice and sighed. It is super muddy right now and I have just been wearing my L L Bean boots because they can take it. The only shoes that maybe were close to being appropriate were my six inch stiletto platforms, because they were black and dressy. They were not going on my feet. I put my Bean boots on and thought if anyone thinks badly of me because of it, I hope they will write it off as me being American. 

During school I asked my co-teacher how many people would be there and she said about 200, but this would be a small funeral. It’s normally about 500 and there will be a supra after. I just kind of looked at her and was like “All right then.”

I should admit right now I have not had to experience a lot of these events, thank God, back in America and I am terrified of them. I even took a class in college called Death and Dying to help me over come my fears of such things. I got a D and that was just because the teacher felt bad for me. I’m pretty sure she could see me having panic attacks in the back of the class, when I wasn’t crying. (I’m never going to die and neither is anyone I love.)

After school all the teachers who went, which was not all of them like I was lead to believe, piled into our large school van and was driven to a village that was about 15 minuets away. We stopped in front of the dead woman’s house and got out. There were people milling about everywhere and I stayed close to the teachers that spoke English. Some of them were going to go in the house to see deiced and asked me if I wanted to come along. I looked at them like they were crazy. No, I did not want to see her, I don’t like seeing dead people. You people brought me and I can pay my respects by not having an emotional breakdown.

We stood outside for a bit and then finally the funeral procession started. Some of the men from the family carried her out of the house in her simple coffin, with the top off so everyone could see here as we walked by. Small children led, dropping flowers every ten meters or so. The couple hundred of us trailed, walking about a kilometer and a half to the cemetery. One of the teachers asked me before we started walking if I wanted to go because we had to walk very, very far. I was like, really you can’t walk a mile on this glorious sunny day, in the memory of this poor woman who died? 

When we got to the cemetery I assume a little something was said and then she was buried. I didn’t get too close and couldn’t see or hear anything. I started to think about this woman and how she had probably lived in this village that we had just walked her through, for her whole life, quite moving really.

Our van had come to pick us up and drive us back to the house for the supra. When we got there we took our seats at a massive banquette table that was under a large tent. There were two rows, one for men and one of the woman. We ate cold food first and the toasts started up. Some women filled there glasses up with a little wine and drank it in gesture, with the first toast, but after that there was no more drinking from our side of the tent. The men went on and on toasting and drinking. When the wine bottles started to get low, younger men from the family came around with more, putting funnels in and pouring the wine out of massive tea kettles.

After about 45 minuets hot baked beans were served, fallowed by pork with mash potatoes, beef, and then sweet rice with fruit in it. One of the toasts came from a very emotional crying elderly man who was the brother of the woman. I felt really bad for him and how he lost his sister. One of the teachers wiped tears away during the speech and I was glade that I did not understand it, because I probably would have started crying too. What funerals I do have to go to I always want to cry and sometimes do, even if I don’t know the people.

I was asked what a funeral after gathering is like in America and I tried explaining and when I started failing horribly I apologized and stated that the last one I had been too was a while ago and I couldn’t remember. It was half a decade ago. It was in a church basement, there was food and crying people.

After about two hours or so of eating and drinking, for the men, the festivities wound down and I was put in a car to be driven back home. On the drive I looked at the landscape bathed in the setting sun and a feeling of contentment overcame me. I am living in this foreign land, that never seems to make complete sense to me, but it always keeps me guessing and wondering. Whenever I get overwhelmed by this I can’t help but look out a window and think above all this is one of the most beautiful places I have been and everything seems a little brighter, especially when I’ve just been to a funeral and I am not only happy to be alive but also living.

No Love for the Georgian Bromance

A running joke among my volunteer friends and I is that my host family thinks I am a man. I personally think it is hilarious, that we have come to this conclusion and for the most part they do have a point. My host father is quite keen on having me drink and for the first week everyday he would offer me different kind of alcohol, which I would also deflect with answers like that beer makes me vomit. I’m never a hundred percent successful at this. Last week I ended up having beers with my host dad and the region’s police chief. I hate to say it, but I was almost out drinking both of them, but then again they were were in a heated debate over some topic in Georgian so all I had to do was politely sip beer out of my “I <3 Georgia” mug, that my host parents bought for me in Tbilisi. (I cannot wait to take this bad boy with me back to America and use it for the Keurig machine at Gap.) The other night I also got in on the boys drinking action when we were having a supra to celebrate to delivery of about 5,000kg of fertilizer. I will admit it is fun for me to kick it with the village men, chugging wine, eating great food, toasting to everything, and trying to get me married off. Yes, that’s right I have a potential husband lined up. He seemed more interested in who ever was texting him, probably his secret girlfriend, then me. I am also pleased to report that I did not throw up after drinking all that wine, which again makes me a man. 

You see women here aren’t suppose to be drunk in public. A lot don’t seem to drink at all because of this, especially in the village. I have Georgian female friends who have been away to university and have lived a life away from their families and then after to come back and live with them. I had a friend tell me I like to drink a little and dance, but my brothers don’t like when I do that, so I don’t in front of them. If my older brother ever told me that I shouldn’t drink, I’m talking social amounts not black out amounts, I would tell him to go to hell. When I in my house my host mother is always hovering around to make sure that I don’t look too bad off or that the men aren’t too rowdy. If anything like this happens she pulls me out. If she thinking I am drinking too much she will try to cut me off, and normally my host dad shooters her down I am sure he says to her, “Just let her drink, she’s still in control. She is my American son I have never had. I mean half her head is shaved, so clearly she’s not a Georgian woman, there for she must be a man!” 

They have also tried to take me hunting for little birds with them. It’s quite a popular man activity here. They have this big riffle looking gun that shoots pellets. On the weekends they are always doing target practice, if they don’t have something to do like make Cha Cha. I honestly haven’t seen them kill a bird yet and I kind of want to take them up on the offer to go hunting and kill something so I can one up them. My host dad thought I didn’t want to shoot a gun and that is why I didn’t want go hunting. I really didn’t feel like being laughed at for doing something wrong again. I ended up pulling out my pictures of target practice from Ukraine. They were super impressed, it was either my sweet hat or the fact that I had l told them that I killed ten Russian spies with a sniper riffle, you decide. 

Ukrainian Rebel

They have also been really interested if I can drive or not. I explained to them that I have a license and my own car back home. There minds were f*ing blown. I drive and have my own car? They told me I could take the BMW for a spin, but it’s not an automatic, however the Mercedes SUV is. Again I think it was my host mother who ruined my fun and informed them that I could not drive cars when I am here. The men then had the bright idea that I can drive the tractor this spring. (Because yes boys, that is not a motorized vehicle, which again I am pretty sure that I cannot drive here. I will however pose for a photo op later on.) Many women here don’t drive, either because they don’t have a license, or because the men here just drive too crazy. They kind of have made up their own rules that they just seem to know, and I hate to say it, but I’ve heard that women driving causes a lot of accidents here because they fallow the proper road rules, not bro ones.

There are a lot of gender specific rolls here in Georgia and I am not completely against them. It is a very traditional society and awesome if the men want to be out in the fields growing the food that the women are going to cook in the kitchens. The issue I have is the double standards. We have a female friend of the family that comes over at least a few times a week, always brings some kind of food, and sits socializing with us, and oh smoking cigarettes. (Women here don’t smoke cigarettes in public incase you haven’t caught on yet.) She keeps a pack hidden in our kitchen and stays around for an hour or so and smokes a few. I do not know how her husband doesn’t know or better yet   why she should have to hide it. I understand that it is not the best habit to have, but I don’t think it spouses should be hiding things like that, I mean she goes off to a friends house so she can light up? I know she’s not the only one to be doing something like this. We were told during orientation to be aware that in the villages smoking women would hide it. I mean come on, people know you are doing these things, why not just do it in public if they all know? I’ve been tempted to walk down my village smoking a butt on my way home from school, with my bright red lipstick on and headphones in, just to see people’s reactions, but I am a teacher and I don’t need my students thinking this is good behavior. I just want to do it in spite so badly some days. The men can’t really judge, because most of them smoke and the village women already know that a select group smokes and they don’t beat them with sticks. Do it in public already! Stop hiding! 

The thing that I think pissed me off the most since being here was being at a supra with a friend and there were probably twenty or so people at it. The wife of the house hold that it was being held at was rushing around most of the time while we were eating, making sure that there was enough food, never really having time to sit down herself and enjoy the party. The table was split men on one half and women on the other. This seems quite common and I’m not horribly against it. The women can talk about women things like mommy and me yoga and guys can talk about the newest Apple product, oh shit sorry this is Georgia, those things don’t exist here. (Kind of off topic but I told my sixth grade boys how much I paid for my MacBook and they about shit their pants the other day.) 

The supra went on for hours and it was a school night and I wanted to get home and go to sleep. It was close to 10:30pm and the guys kept drinking more and more, toasting away. They were making a racket and having a jolly time. I looked over at my half of the room and it was full of a bunch of the most tired, pissed off looking women I had ever seen. One of the wives was even pregnant and the guys were completely ignoring the fact that we were beyond over it. None of us had drank, which was probably a good thing in my case, because if I had, and known enough Georgian to get my point across I would have shouted at them for being so fucken rude and irresponsible. They are suppose to take care of their wives, keep them happy and protected, yet they were sitting there drinking more and then driving home at least somewhat intoxicated. They more then had their allotted amount of fun. I mean this supra started around 5pm and I didn’t get driven home until well after 11:30pm and that was only because my friend was able to use the excuse that I was an American guest who had to teach the next morning. If I was a Georgian woman, forget it. I would probably still be there. Unacceptable in my eyes. I have grown up around very strong women, who have taught me to stand up for myself and I know that if my dad ever tried to pull crap like, especially if my mother was pregnant, he better enjoy the couch, because he was going to be sleeping there. It is so hard at times to sit in a country where women don’t always have a voice, granted mine is a rather loud, strong one. I would never stand for a spouse that acted like a big man-boy. 

After this particular supra, I was on the phone with one of my friends and I said, “I’m pretty sure this year I am going to get into more cars with drunk drivers then I had in my whole life.” I don’t really make it a habit, to be driven around by drunks in the States, but it has happened a few times, when people were a little buzzed. I can probably count the times on one hand, if I really sat down and thought about it, like I said it’s not a habit I am into. Here however, when someone gets pulled over the first thing they do is breathalize you, wether or not you seem drunk. This happened on one of my marshooka rides and man was the driver pissed. That says something about a country when they check alcohol content in the middle of the day. My friend asked why I didn’t refuse to get into the car of someone who had been drinking. I told her I didn’t want to cause a scene. He also didn’t appear to be drunk. I know that is not an excuse and people reading this right now are thinking that I am in fact stupid as shit and that I make poor choices. I except this, however to it is a really hard situation if the driver doesn’t look clearly intoxicated and his family members are getting in the car. You will seriously offend someone by questioning their ability to drive and you will shame them, which is taken very seriously here. It’s one of those damned if you do and damned if you don’t things. I feel every volunteer is going to or has at some point and not just once but multiple times had to deal with this. (I might add the last time I left my village was over almost two weeks ago so I am not getting driven around that much to start with.) Also if the police just assume the drivers they pull over are drunk, even if your drive is sober, the one next to you on the road may not be. 

Things like these make me wonder why I am here sometimes. I shake my head and think, “I just don’t know any more.” This weekend I am most likely going to try to spend at another volunteer’s place, which he has his own mini-apartment. I don’t know how to exactly explain to my host family that I will spending a night sleeping over at a guy’s house without them freaking out and thinking I’m a whore. (Women in Georgia don’t have sex unless they are married and if you are sleeping at a guy’s house you are sleeping in the same bed as him and there is penetration. There is also no such thing as a guy and a girl being friends here.) Nope, it’s more like a sleep over with two ex-pats who want to be able to speak fluent English to someone in person, while drinking a little, making fun of this crazy situation so they don’t loose their minds and then passing out in separate beds in different rooms. I am just waiting for the shit to hit the fan with this one. It makes me miss America and my parents who accept that I have friendships with guys and I’m not sleeping with them, but then again I think they suspect that the majority of them are gay. (We don’t have gay people in Georgia.)

I just want to slam my head against a hard object and go, what the hell are you people thinking? There are so many things I don’t understand here and it bothers me a lot. It’s just so backwards, like the fact that my host father encourages me to drink so much and then the next morning asks why I was drunk last night and why I am hung over this morning. I don’t know. I guess it’s because I am in fact not a Georgian man? 

Emily Teacher!!!!

This morning I woke up in a slightly bad mood, that most likely steamed from me getting woken up from a deep sleep by my alarm clock at 8am. I got out of bed, had breakfast and made sure to have my morning coffee hoping that at some point my mood would clear.

On my walk to school I listened to Brand New and an odd thick fog had settled in our village over night, I could only see a few feet meters in front of me at a time. It added to my mood and made everything seem a little creepy. I am sure the American English teacher, living in a village abroad getting attacked out of no where on her way to school would be a great film or maybe something with ghosts. I do enjoy a good ghost story.

Once I got to school I made my way to the teachers room and sat by the wood stove with the other teachers and warmed myself before going to class in grade four. One of my unofficial favorite students, seemed completely unfazed by my bad mood. Academically speaking she isn’t one of the best students, but she does give me a card about once a week telling me how much she loves me, in Georgian of course. She never wants to sit down and always has to be doing something that she shouldn’t be. She doesn’t have books, because she will destroy them I’ve been told, so she always borrows mine. I personally think she is super smart, but doesn’t apply herself. (I am positive my mother is reading this right now and thinking Hmmm, now who does that sound like Emily?) She has a desk right next to mine in class and is always jabbering along to me in Georgian which makes me laugh, because I would think by now she would know that I have next to no idea what she is saying. Today she had bread in her desk and would eat some when she thought I wasn’t looking and when I would catch her she would just give me an innocent smile mid-chew and make me smile, even though I was trying to look stern. (Students aren’t suppose to eat in class in Georgia.) By the end of the class my mood was much better.

We had grade three next and I went to go set my bag in there, and I took out my camera and headed outside to go take some photos. It was too cold and not that many students were around so I went back into my classroom. I went to go sit down at the teachers desk and wait for my co-teacher to come in after the break and I tried to photograph some of the students without them seeing me. I failed and they noticed right away, but they were over joyed to have my attention. This grade seriously is great. I just love everything about them. There is only one girl in the class, which I feel makes the boys try more because they know that they won’t be out shined by a bunch of girls, so they have a chance to impress the teacher. I just want to take all of them home with me and photograph an ad campaign for Gap Kids or something. They are a bunch of goofballs.

My last lesson of the day was in grade two. Again these kids just adore me. I even had coffee this past weekend at one of the their houses after their grandmother kidnapped me on one of my walks. There is one girl who just smiles at me for the whole lesson, every time. Today in class they were working in their workbooks, coloring so I took out my camera. I wish I could say that I was more sly, but again it was an epic fail. (I could never be a spy.) They too were over joyed to have me taking photos of them and even asked for a class photo which I indulged them in. After all it was just a small break from coloring. 

After that lesson I started to walk home and my certain unofficial favorite student from grade four started walking next to me. I kept my pace to match hers as we walked in silence, while she pulled a handful of sunflower seeds from her pocket and started eating them. The sun had come out during school and she would stop at the edge of a puddle and put her foot on the ice to break it. Having my trusty Bean boots on, I just stepped in the middle of a puddle and broke it with a huge cracking sound and then the splash of my foot hitting the water. She enjoyed this quite a bit, I am going to assume it is because no adult here just steps in puddles making huge messes. I always laughed at for having snow and mud cover my boots. They aren’t nice fashion boots, they are utilitarian so its fine. We made sure to crack every puddle between school and my house. When we reached my house she said goodbye and watched to make sure that I made it in ok, which is hilarious that ten year is making sure that everything is fine with me. I really should be the one walking her home.

I went up to my room and it being a Wednesday meant that I got to indulge in Glee. It is my 43 minuets, of musical bliss every week. I prefer to watch it in private, because most of the time I turn into a fourteen year old girl, this week was no exception. I think I almost cried at one point I was so full of emotion. I need a life.

After I went down to our kitchen and had lunch and did other random things. Making an attempt to connect and share culture with my family I let them in on my Glee addiction, by showing it to my fourteen-year old host brother. He knows next to no English, but my host mom said that he had to sit in watch it with me to learn English. I felt a little bad about having him be forced, but he did laugh at a few parts and I only made him watch half of it. I’m going to keep showing it to him every week, I’m sure if I can find it with Russian subtitles he would be completely into it. I know I am forcing things on him, but I am his older sister right now for all intents and purposes so I am going to treat him, like my little brother in the States. You are going to watch Glee and like it damn it and if you don’t I’m telling mom! 

-Also here are some photos from my first grade class that I didn't really have a blog for:

There's A Wocket In My Pocket

On the last day of January I was very excited when my texts from the bank came saying that I had been paid. I am sure my co-teachers were just as excited when they were informed that they had also been paid. The teachers I work with make about $100 a month, yes that is not a typo I meant to write $100 a month. There was one small issue, some of the teachers at my school had been over paid by about $50, from what I gather. I know that may not seem like a lot, but think of what you make a month (unless you are a bum, that doesn’t have a job) and imagine half of that is in your bank account randomly. 

The teachers got paid on February 1st, and by the 2nd someone had realized that the teachers had been over paid. This would not have been an issue if some of the teachers had not already with withdrawn the money, spent it, and now the bank wanted it back. Most people in this country live on very little money, so coming up with this extra $50 that was already spent on things that were necessary to live, naturally caused panic and a few pissed off teachers. I do not blame the teachers at all for being upset. Whoever was in charge of their pay should have known better then to make this mistake, granted I don’t know the whole story, but this is also Georgia so issues like this always seem come up in one form or another. It would be like the average American being asked to come up with between $500-$1,000 oh a day’s notice.

My English co-teacher was one of the teachers who had to go to the bank and deal with the money matters, along with her sister who teacher history at my school. She asked me if I wanted to go to Lagodekhi (the nearest town which is about 15 or 20 minuets by car) that afternoon after school with her, her husband, daughter, and sister. I am course always up for a trip into town, even if it did mean just going to the bank.

After my lessons for the day ended I went home to drop my school bag off and grab my camera. When I came back to school some of the students in fifth form where out playing in the snow. I think it was gym for them. I stood there for a bit taking photos. I then went up and collected my teachers and we made our way through the snowball fights to my co-teacher’s car. Her daughter was super excited to meet me, which naturally meant when I got in the car and said hello she was shy and would not look at me. Fare enough, I’m a big scary American. I understand. 

We drove into town and I was told that if might take a while at the bank so I could go off on my own if I wanted to. I spent my time walking into random markets and ended up buying some clementines and pastries. It had snowed earlier in the day, so walking on the street was very much a game of slipping and sliding over the slightly hilly town. I made my way back to the car and we pilled in and went off to get some food.

We went to three different restaurants and they were all busy and had about an hour wait and we wanted food then. In the mean time someone had called family that lived in the town and they said that they would be more then happy to have us. I was slightly hesitant, because all I could think was, Oh god I am in for another supra, I don’t know if I can handle this. I also have that fear of meeting new people. 

We were greeted by a lovely older woman, two young girls, and a male that was most likely in his thirties. They got to work cooking khinkali, meat filled dumpling like things. Other food was brought out as well and my co-teacher is a vegetarian so I was pleased to see a healthy representation of fruit and vegetables. 

When everything was being prepared some of us went upstairs to get the traditional drinking horns. They were quite impressive, especially when put on someone’s head so they look like a creature out of a Dr. Seuss book. The sun had also come out and made everything look like a winter wonder land.

Eventually we did get on to eating after being hungry all afternoon. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my co-teachers had a rather liberal attitude toward female drinking (perhaps it was those few years they had spent living in Ukraine when they were young?) and I was offered vodka and wine. I stuck to the wine and I can’t not even begin to guess at how many glasses I drank, it was also almost two weeks ago now. We toasted to everything; God, family, dead loved ones, American and Georgia, children (I dedicated that toast to my students), and I think there was even a toast to me being the most amazing American ever or something along those lines. 

During all that drinking, there was just as much eating going on and I almost died. I sprinkled some pepper on some of my khinkali and you see when you are eating these you have to bite in and suck out the juice at the same time. I accidentally inhaled some of the pepper that was still dry and had a small coughing fit as everyone watched. I tried to assure them that I was fine, which worked well until about three seconds later when I took another bite and inhaled even more pepper and started coughing even more. I also had gotten some in my right eye, so it started watering uncontrollable. I was so embarrassed and was ushered into another room to die in peace, or get the pepper out of my eye and lungs. You pick.

When I came back no one laughed too hard and we continued to eat and drink some more. I banned myself from pepper. Drinking horns were brought out. These bad boys were wooden and could hold about two glasses. The men wanted to see the American try to attempt this and I knew that sooner or later in my year here I would have to give these a go and then seemed like as good as time or any. I knew my co-teacher’s family would not make fun of me too much for failing, that is if I did fail. The men went first and then I had my turn. I didn’t drink it all in one chug, but I got it down and felt like I had accomplished something in my life. (Got to love thinking you rule the world when you are drunk.) I then ate some more pepper free food to off set all the wine.

We soon wrapped up our small supra, which as much as I enjoyed it, at that point in time I knew I was going to enjoy getting home to my bed just as much. Before we got back into the car they made sure that they got one parting photo with me, which I honestly think is amazing. Looking at it, reminds me of Christmas card pictures with my brothers, if both my brothers were older then me and more Georgian. Looking at it almost even makes me miss my American brothers and Maine... almost.

Please Mr. Postman Look and See, Is There a Letter, A Letter For Me

I know there has been a lot of interest in sending me things in the mail to Georgia. I have also got quite a few requests for postcards, letters, and such. A few weeks ago I decided to send a card to Ukraine to a friend. How hard could it be to post something from here, right? 

First I asked one of my co-teachers if there was a post office in Lagodekhi (The closest big town to my village), you know to mail a letter? She looked at me like I had three heads and then asked, you want to send an e-mail? You can use the computer lab. I tried explaining over again a few times and she still had no idea what I was talking about. You see in Georgia, no one gets mail. There is no reason for them to get mail, no magazines, catalogs, credit cards offers. Chances are all of your family lives in the same village as you and no one ever really leaves Georgia, so why would you ever need to send anything? 

A few days after I asked my co-teacher about mailing things, I went with my other co-teacher to Lagodekhi to pick something up at one of the Teach and Learn with Georgia offices. We got there early so we had nothing to do for about a half hour. I asked this co-teacher if she knew where the post office was here. She also looked at me like I was crazy, I was starting to think that I was. I didn’t have the time to play games and make her guess what I was talking about, so I dialed up my regional representative and asked her to explain. After a minuet or two the point had come across to my teacher and she understood what I was trying to do. She question why I would even send something physical to a person in the first place if they had e-mail or Facebook. I tried to explain the joy that friends get with receiving letters and cards from me and the fact that when you mail something now a days it shows that you put some thought into things and that you care and are trying to go above and beyond to show that. Anyone can spend 20 seconds writing on your Facebook wall I miss you.

We trudged through the snow covered town, stopping to ask people along the way, just where the post office was. Some people had no idea, but finally we got to what we were told was the building with the post office in it. We walked into a big room with a massive wood counter and some tables. Everything was empty and no one looked to be around. My teacher suggested that we try upstairs. We climbed to the second floor and went into a random office and they told us that we did indeed have the right room and we went back down. 

When we went into the room again there was someone there this time. We explained that I needed to send my homemade card to Ukraine and were ushered into a smaller room that had a wood stove, desks, but still did not look like a post office. She pulled an envelope out of a random draw and I stuffed it in. I wrote my friends address on the front and then they instructed me to write my return address. This is where things got tricky. In Georgia, unless you are in a big city, people do not have actual addresses, everyone just knows where you live. My co-teacher and the post worker bantered back and forth about what I should write. At one point they wanted me to write my passport number on there. (What?!) I said I could just write my return address in the States on it, but this also would not do. It ended up coming out like this:

Emily

Tamariani Village

Lagodekhi

Georgia  

It was one of the moments I just think Oh Georgia. The post person hand wrote my receipt, stamped it and I handed over my 5.20GEL (a little over $3) to send one card off to Ukraine. When I left the post office with my co-teacher she told me that it would take two to three weeks for my card to get to Ukraine. She then said I don’t understand what you didn’t just send an E-mail. It’s so much faster.