My eleven weeks of Pre-Service Training is (finally) coming to an end, and it's bittersweet. On one hand, I'm very excited for our "swearing-in" ceremony (tomorrow!) and for moving to Kutaisi and living with my new host family, and for getting started at my job at RICDOG (www.ricdog.org). I'm also looking forward to having more free time to just relax, read a book, watch some videos, and hang out.
On the other hand, I will really miss:
My wonderful Kareli host mom & sister, Lamzira & Khatia, who have graciously shared their home and lives with me over the past three months. Khatia will get her room back! I'll also miss my sister Nana & brother Giorgi, who I see on a fairly regular basis when they have time off from their work or studies and visit from the capital.
My extended family and neighbors -- the family birja clan, all of whom have been welcoming and willing to put up with my broken and limited Georgian.
Daily (Mon-Sat) lunches with my clustermates. I'm pretty sure we'll never eat this well again, on such as regular basis, in Georgia.
Daily contact with fellow trainees -- we were strangers when we met in DC, but many of them, especially my fellow IODs (indiv & org development) are like family now. Soon we'll be "alone" in our sites, left to our own devices.
At the swearing-in ceremony tomorrow, the US Ambassador to Georgia will be there. He will give a quick speech. Plus, there will be an education and a IOD volunteer giving a speech (we voted for whom we wanted). Some of the volunteers, myself included, will be singing both the US national anthem and the Georgian one. Of course, we're singing the Georgian one in Georgian! Those of you who know me well might know that my singing voice is crap -- I cannot carry a tune at all and have no real singing ability. But, I think I can lip-synch convincingly! Haha. Fortunately, there are a few new volunteers that have great voices -- I'm expecting them to carry the load.
We will also all be taking the official oath to become a full-fledged volunteer. It seems to be the same oath as the one that members of Congress take upon taking office. We swear to defend the constitution against "all enemies, foreign and domestic", etc. etc. This is somewhat intimidating, but, as it turns out, most government officials take it!
In attendance will be members of our current PST host families as well as members of our new, permanent host families. I'm pretty sure each will be curiously (and sometimes jealously) eyeing the other to check them out. The PST host families, in particular, will be wanting to make sure that our new host families are good enough for their Americans! (They have, for the most part, really taken us into their families and feel quite protective of us. We are their children -- I'm sure this is partly because we speak like small children, at best, at this point!)
After the ceremony, we're heading straight to our permanent sites, and then the real fun begins!
Here are some recent pics from recent happenings in and around town:
Tamuna (host cousin, on the ladder) and her father-law, picking cherries.
Tamuna's lovely daughters. I will miss them both when I move to Kutaisi.
Cluster-mate Bill and his host brother Giorgi (of course!) with Giorgi's pride & joy -- a painting of a bear fighting a wolf. Giorgi is awesome: he loves hunting, muscle cars, and superhero movies. He was a fabulous host brother to Bill, looking after him and making sure he was safe, well fed (but not salted, lol), and comfortable. Giorgi was on Saakashvili's security detail, we've been told.
As part of our training, all of us IOD trainees had to do a training practicum; doing training sessions on various topics is one of the most common work tasks we'll have at our permanent sites. Topics range from financial literacy skills, employability, using technology, youth development, gender issues, etc. I did my two-hour session (with a translator!) for the local library staff on the topic of "Addressing Common Workplace Challenges". It went pretty well, I think. Workplace challenges are universal, yet it was very interesting to see the different approaches that Georgians might take compared to those that Americans would normally take. We learned a lot from each other in this training session, I think!
Cluster-mates Kathy & Nate during our IOD training practica. Kathy's training topic was personal budgeting. Nate did a session for several local youth heading off to college on how to separate "needs" from "wants" and make a simple personal monthly budget based on their (probably) limited monthly allowances/stipends.
We had a Fourth of July picnic for PC G15 trainees and host families (and PC staff) -- plus we had a few congressmen's wives and one congresslady's husband. They were part of a Congressional Delegation visiting Georgia last week. In this picture, on the bench, center, is my host mom.
This is Khatia, my host sister, hanging out down by the river at the picnic. The picnic was held as a riverside park-like location near Kareli.
The olympic torch came through our small town last week! The 2015 European Youth Olympic Festival will be in Tbilisi this summer, so the torch has been traveling around Georgia on its way to the capital. It was a pretty big event for Kareli. This is the pathway made by the local Kareli school kids in their event t-shirts, flanked by Georgian flags. The fellow in the pathway in this picture is the school's sports coach/PE teacher. He is a very active and important guy in town.
This is a picture of the former olympic wrestler (from Kareli, I think) that had the honor of running down the pathway, up onto the stage, and lighting the flame. There was also music by semi-famous Georgian singers, a couple of speeches, and, once it was dark, fireworks! This all happened on the Fourth of July, so it almost felt like home -- hot sunny day, picnic, followed by town event, cappped off with fireworks.
