Here's a good blog/website about Georgia that I recently found: http://georgiaabout.com/ Check it out! Especially the recipes and photos...
Also, here's a great blog from one of my fellow PC volunteers in Georgia. He's a far better blogger than me!
http://loganwentdowntogeorgia.blogspot.com/
I'm a very unreliable blogger -- I think it has been at least three months since my last post. Sorry, folks! A lot has happened in the past few months -- I completed Pre-Service Training, got "sworn in" as an official Peace Corps Volunteer, moved to my permanent site (and in with my permanent host family) in Kutaisi, and started working at my NGO. I also had some fun here and there.
So, here are some random thoughts on some various subjects:
The Incredible Spectacle that is the Georgian Countryside and Nature, Chapter 356: Caves
As many of you probably know, Missouri, in addition to being the "Show Me State", is commonly known as the "Cave State." So, I've been in a lot of different caves in my life...Meramec Caverns, Fantasy World Caverns, Onondaga, Indian Burial, Bridal, Ozark Caverns, Mark Twain Cave, etc. etc. I've even been in a few "undeveloped" caves (although not as many as my brother, who was, at one time, a sort of amateur spelunker).
Georgia, like Missouri, is riddled with caves. Only a few have been made accessible to the public thus far. I've been to two different caves in my region of Imereti -- Sataplia and Prometheus.
Sataplia is a nice cave, not too large (the accessible part), with fairly standard formations. It is special, though, for its setting inside a beautiful, forested national park in the hills and cliffs outside of Kutaisi. It is named for the beehives in the cliffs from which locals used to harvest honey; today, the bees are mostly gone, driven away by the tourists, I suppose. But, you can still see the holes in the limestone where the bees made their hives. And, it is also famous for well-preserved dinosaur footprints, from at least two different dinosaurs from two different periods!
Here is a shot of the smaller dinosaur footprints found near the cave:
This is view of cliffs along the walkway to the entrance of the cave.
And...a view of the countryside from the walkway above:
On another weekend, I visited Prometheus Cave. This one was SPECTACULAR. The "developed" section for tourists was a at least 1 km long, and the cave was quite wide the whole way! No tight squeezes or claustrophobic moments, although I did slip and fall on the wet walkway at one point (embarrassing!). I have a nice scar (from a skinned arm) as a souvenir. The cave was filled with room after room of increasingly stunning formations. Here are just a few of them:
They used colorful lighting in the cave -- hot pinks, blues, greens, etc. You might think this would add a real cheesiness to the natural formations, but it was quite well done and beautiful, really.
Just a cow in the woods
Since Prometheus Cave is inside a national park, I'm not sure whose cow this was, or how it came to be grazing in the forest, but, you know, this is Georgia. So there are a lot of cows everywhere, just wandering around. (They do go home in the evenings, but they are out and about, on the town, during the day!)
There are cows on the highway, on busy city streets (sometimes), and, of course, rambling through neighborhoods and grazing in empty lots. I also saw some cows at the beach one day, just chillin':
Post-PST Georgian Learning -- Effectively HALTED
Sad, but true. Amazingly, once you no longer have intensive language classes with an expert language teacher four hours per day, six days per week, the pace at which you learn new stuff really slows down. I may have even regressed. Now is the time for discipline! Which, I don't have much of these days, it seems. I'm telling myself that November is a new month, and I will start studying on a more regular basis then.
I do have a Georgian tutor. She is sweet. She has some experience teaching English to adults, although not with teaching Georgian. So, it's a learning process for both of us, in some ways. We meet about twice a week for about one hour at a time. So, not that much. But, she's doing her best to give me homework, essays to write, etc. I just have to get better at actually doing the work. Here's a cute picture of us together. She also happens to be an important and active member of my organization, as well as the slightly younger sister of my director/counterpart, so I see her a lot).
We have now nearly completed a full review of the "Book One" from pre-service training. I was resistant to the idea of reviewing the whole book, which I had already gone through, but dear Lana was insistent. Now that we're almost done with it, I do agree that it was a good idea. Of course, I never really had it "mastered". I still don't have, even after a second time around. Georgian is one of the top ten most difficult languages to learn for English speakers, I hear! Next, we move on to new material in the form of Peace Corps Georgian Textbook #2...which means I really will have to study!
My NGO -- "RICDOG" and "working" in August
Georgians mostly take off August. It's just too hot to do anything other than go to the beach, the village, or the mountains. So...I found myself the only person in my office for approximately eight days straight. So, you can imagine that not a lot of "work" was done. I organized my electronic files and photos, made some drafts of some ideas for presentations and trainings, and watched a lot of videos online!
Now that it's October, folks are back in the office and there is a lot of activity. Although...since most of my coworkers are college students, no one shows up until after 2 pm in the afternoon. I get it around 11 or 11:30 and usually have a few hours to myself, which is nice.
Side note: Since my organization is run by a bunch of very young folks, they have an appreciation for things like technology. So, even though I fried the motherboard of my MacBook and was without a computer for over a month, I was able to "take over" one from work. We have several. This is just another small example of just how fortunate I am to be here in Kutaisi and here at RICDOG.
The Benefits of Having a Bebia
Bebia = grandmother. My bebia is fantastic. She is a great cook. She takes care of me. She is very interesting and has a lot of good stories to tell. She was born in the house in which I'm currently living. She used to be an accountant or bookkeeper during the Soviet years. I'm really looking forward to learning more Georgian so that we can converse about a greater variety of subjects. Our current repertoire is basically food, family, and weather.
Babua (grandpa) is not bad either. They are a great pair!
CAMPS!
Never thought of myself as particularly excited about the prospect of being involved in a camp, but when an opening for a "Multicultural Camp" came up, I joined it. Of course, this camp was held at a (crappy) hotel about two blocks from the Black Sea beach, so it wasn't like I was sleeping in a tent on the ground! (My typical camping preference leans towards fancy RVs with air conditioning, running water, and a full kitchen. Also known as "glamping", I think...)
Well, this "camp" was great -- eight days and seven nights with 50 Georgian teenagers, three other PC volunteers, and five returned FLEX exchange students that acted as counselors/wranglers for said teenagers. The camp was organized by an NGO in our region with the help of its PC volunteer.
Although it was called "multicultural", a better name for the program would have been "Diversity". We talked about religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity in Georgia, Europe, US, and the world at large, and the goal was to promote awareness, tolerance, respect, and support for multicultural diversity. I'm convinced that most of the campers benefited from the camp and also had a good time. I was very inspired by the intelligent, dynamic, insightful, and talented young people who came to the camp and with how active and engaged they were in the topics.
It was a great opportunity for me. So great, that I've formed a new committee of fellow PC volunteers to start an annual "Diversity Camp" here in Georgia. Our new camp will join the growing list of great PC-led/initiated camps for Georgian teens -- GLOW (Girls Leading our World), BUILD ( Boys United in Leadership Development), LIFE (Leadership, Integration, Fitness, and Education), SELF (Self-Esteem Through Leadership & Fitness), etc. I guess we also need to come up with a clever acronym for the Diversity Camp! Any ideas...?
Here are some pics from the Multicultural Camp:
Waiting the arrival of the kids for check in. Yes, we took over the hotel's front desk...
Campers (in grey) and one of the PC counselors showing off their personal potato friend. (Groups were given potatoes to "meet" and then had to introduce their potato to the rest of the camp. This activity was used to illustrate individual diversity among seemingly homogeneous groups.)
And, finally, a camper and one of the FLEX counselors demonstrating the proper selfie technique. It helps to have extremely long arms, like this guy's. Georgians are mad for selfies.
Jesus and Transportation
...Because you just never know. Drivers -- of cars, buses, taxis, minivans, and even cable cars -- in Georgia usually have a little shrine. Sometimes, it has pictures of St. Georgi (Giorgi) fighting a dragon, but more often than not, one finds an image of Jesus in the Georgian Orthodox style. I particularly enjoyed this one, since it also included a little olive (?) branch. It was in the car of my host mom's sister's father-in-law (I think that was the relation...). Personally, I would recommend (a) having basic rules of the road and (b) actually following said rules as a better way to stay safe on the road. But, that's not the Georgian way. The Georgian way involves absolute chaos with a bit of praying and blind faith thrown in for good measure.
