When I came to Georgia six months ago I kept reminding myself that anything was possible here, I just had to give things a chance. My grandfather told me right before I left, that if I didn’t like it over here, then I come right back home and no one would think less of me. I’ve used that advice this whole time, but I’ve modified it to if I don’t like a situation, then get out of it or change it. I have grown in my time spent over here so far. Physically I am still pretty much the same, but I have a different outlook on life that will probably only be intensified when I return to the western world. I will be leaving my village and Georgia next Friday and won’t return until late August, except for about 48 hours in late June when I get home from Armenia and then go to Denmark and less then 24 hours in mid-July when I go from Denmark to Australia. It is safe to say I don’t want to leave.
Georgia has become this cozy crazy little bubble, that I am in love with. Last Saturday morning I was sitting around the breakfast table in my new apartment in Tbilisi, talking to a guy who had slept over and one of my roommates about the ‘bath salts’ drug in the States and all the zombie cannibal people. They hadn’t heard much about it and I explained it to them, after some Googling, and the guy started talking about how he was glad that if stuff like this was going on in Ohio, he could always come back to Georgia where he knew what to expect. I agree with him on that front. Sure Georgians aren’t the healthiest people, they like to drink, smoke cigarets, and eat food that gives them diabetes and makes their teeth fallout, but you won’t find a nation of pill popping addicts for every little hick-up. They value family and children more then any nation I have ever been to. You can have a million dollars, but if you are single with no children your life is not complete.
This country is also really confusing sometimes. My host family will comment on the size of my butt and say that it’s gotten a little big lately and maybe I should do some sport to get rid of it in the morning. At lunch they will be shoving food and sweets down my throat. The best thing I remember when I told my host mother that I was on a diet, she would even put me on the scale every few days to make sure I was loosing weight, and one day she asked if I wanted strawberries and came back with some covered in heaps of sugar and ice cream. I just shook my head and ate them, and promptly got a sugar headache. I also was told not to drink at school because my host mother did not want my director to think less of me, well it’s a little hard to say no when he is the one pouring you shots of liquor. Drinking in school, while working is also another conundrum, but when it Georgia, do as the Georgians, right?
I’ve had my moments where I broke down crying over silly things, like squat toilets. I’ve also had my moments of breaking down crying over thinking that I was a I was a bad teacher because I couldn’t make students care or learn English. In that moment I had to remember that I was not just there to teach English, but teach about my culture. One of my best teaching moments so far was when my co-teacher had to leave early one day and I watched Katy Perry’s “Firework” music video with my fourth graders. A student who never speaks, because of how shy she is in class started using her limited English to talk to me about the video and share her personality with me. I also have a third grade boy who two months ago wouldn’t even look at post cards of Maine that I was showing him, but again my co-teacher was absent one day, and I had him participate in all of our activities that day. (My co-teacher normally ignores him. It’s common to do this with “slow” children in post Soviet countries.) He now looks at me and says hello and goodbye when he sees me. It may not seem like much, but it is huge for him. Now in school I want to stop and give all my students hugs, as I only have a week left with them, most still don’t know I will be teaching two hours away in Tbilisi this fall.
This morning at breakfast my host mum wanted to get my schedule for the last week here straight and I started crying and have found myself crying all day at random times. Just like any family I have had my issues with them, but I can safely say that when I came back this April from two weeks away in the Baltic it was fantastic to see them, despite all the jet leg and just wanting to sleep. I even let my host dad drunkly stroke my hair and tell me how I was his “American girl,” in a completely drunk proud dad kind of way. I have had my moments where my host mom opens the door for drunk me at midnight after a night of beers with the village guys my age, and just like my mother back in America, she tells me to go to bed and then makes fun of me for it for the next week.
I’ve fallen in love with someone that was completely off my radar, until it had happened. Relationships aren’t meant to last in the long term here in my eyes. They are meant to be savored and relished in every way in the long moment we have shared. I find myself enjoying small things with him. A day gone awry can be fixed with a bad joke or an immatation. The first weekend spent in a new apartment is made a little less lonely, even when getting nudged awake for have fallen asleep, because I was sick the day before, and had started snoring. Through him, I have gotten a deeper look into who I am, what I want in life, and I am able to laugh at myself. I know next semester without him will be hard, not being a free phone call away, but everything works out the way God, or the flying spaghetti monster, wants it to.
I know this next week will be filled with hard goodbyes and tears, but I am ready for it. I have already cried in the rain at 3am, in the middle of a street closed for construction in Tbilisi to one of my friends about how I didn’t want this semester to end and it is true. I do not want this semester to end. I know I have at least one more here, but this is an end to an epic chapter in my story. I also know that if I don’t continue to take chances, like coming to Georgia, experiences like this would not be possible and I can’t let the past hold me back from enjoying my future.
For the past six months I have had people continually telling me how proud they are of me and everything I am doing, but in all honestly I am proud of my family and close friends for caring enough about me to let me go and support me during this time. I’ve gotten enough Facebook messages and texts demanding that I come back to Maine to know that I am not only missed, but loved. I also know that anywhere in the world I have a friend singing Snow Patrol’s You Could Be Happy to me and I am happy, despite all the tears and goodbyes. Life is about living, and you can’t know how happy you truly are unless you have some sadness to measure it against.
Do the things
That you always wanted to
Without me there to hold you back
Don't think, just do
More than anything
I want to see you go
Take a glorious bite
Out of the whole world
No comments:
Post a Comment