The End of Pre-Service Training -- Yay!!

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.

 America's birthday cake at the PC 4th of July picnic.  LOVE these "candles".  Can we please get them in the US?  What? You say they wouldn't adhere to safety regulations for cake "candles"?  Bummer.  (By the way, the fellow in the hat is our training manager, Tengo.  He keeps us all in line during PST.)

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.  

Finally -- I Know Where I'll Be Living the Next Two Years

Wow.  Time flies.  I realize that it has been nearly a month since I last posted.  So much has happened!

A few weeks ago, about two-thirds of the way through our Pre-Service Training, we finally learned where we will be living and working in Georgia for the next two years!  I am delighted to report that, in July, I will be going to the city of Kutaisi to live, and I will be working at the organization RICDOG.

About Kutaisi:  It is the second-largest city in Georgia. In fact, it used to be the capital city -- it was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Colchis as far back as 2000 BC.  Jason and the Argonauts travelled to Kutaisi to retrieve the Golden Fleece with help from Medea. Medea, a Colchian (?) princess and granddaughter of sun god Helios, married Jason and returned with him to Greece.  But, when Jason left her another woman, she killed her sons and herself in a murder-suicide. There were various others killed in her revenge plot, too. (Some) Georgians view her as a sort of hero for being such a loyal, strong-willed wife.  (Not sure I entirely agree.)

Today, Kutaisi is hilly, hot, and relatively well-developed. There is 24-hour water service in most of the city (although not all), and there are some very nice, touristy downtown spots in which you (almost) feel like you're in a European country!

About RICDOG:  Please check out the organization's website at www.ricdog.org.  The NGO is called "Research Intellectual Club - Dialog of Generations".  I think that when the organization started, it was focused on bringing different generations together to share ideas to improve civil society in Georgia. That's still a goal, but it does sooo much more today.  Today, in my opinion, the organization functions as a sort-of meeting place/club/community center for (mostly) youth to get together and engage in different kinds of activities that build their civic engagement (& other) skills.


This is a picture of the building in which RICDOG's office is.  It is a house, actually, and we have the entire first floor, plus two rooms upstairs.  The upstairs veranda is very big/wide and a great place for mid-morning coffee!

Most of my colleagues are pretty young -- check out the Board page -- almost everyone is in his/her 20s. So, it's a youthful, energetic, and optimistic place.  I think it will be very interesting, challenging, and fun to work there!  I hope that I can keep up with them!  Here they are:


This is the Board of RICDOG, minus one member who happens to be my host brother.  They are cool, aren't they????

UP NEXT:
We have only two more weeks of Pre-Service Training now (yay!).  This week, the individual/organizational development volunteers will be doing practice trainings for their host communities. My training is called "Addressing Common Workplace Challenges".  Others are doing things related to personal budgeting, project development, defining needs vs. wants, financial literacy, employability skills, CV/resume writing, etc.  These are the kinds of trainings that most of us will do on a regular basis once we get to our permanent sites.

On Saturday, we will have a big 4th of July picnic at a nearby riverside -- volunteers, staff, and host families. PLUS, there will be a congressional delegation coming through GE this week, and our little picnic made it on the delegation's spouse's schedule...so there will also be some "dignitaries" there with us.  We have been asked to behave, and admonished to please NOT ask for references for getting DC jobs when we return to the State. (Apparently, this has happened in the past -- Imagine!  Some folks have no shame... even PC volunteers...)

I hear that there will be hotdogs, hamburgers, and cake.  American stuff! (Except, since it is an official event, there will be no alcohol.  The My cluster (five of us) is planning to bring chocolate chip cookies and maybe also oatmeal-raisin ones or snickerdoodles.

Next week, we have language reviews and our final language exams.  I'm hoping to achieve "intermediate mid".  When we had our mid-PST language exam, I got "novice high", so I'm hoping for two levels up next week.  We'll see...  Sometimes, I think I'm doing well with my Georgian, but some days, I feel like I have hit a wall.  I'm pretty sure this mostly has to do with how exhausted I am at any given moment.

THEN...on July 10th, we have our "Swearing In" ceremony in Tbilisi, where we officially become volunteers and are handed off to our new host families.

Here are some pictures of recent happenings here in GE:

Borjomi, Georgia -- a view from the cable car going up the mountain into Borjomi National Park (top) and a view (bottom) of the surrounding area from our hotel (super-super swanky!) during our "Supervisor's Conference", at which we met our future NGO (or school, for the education folks) directors.  The hotel was very nice; staying there, even for only one night, was a real treat.  It reminded me a little bit of what we all gave up to become PC volunteers, and also highlighted just how simply we are all now, quite happily and easily, living on a daily basis.

 

In Kutaisi, at Bagrati Cathedral, an 11th century GE orthodox cathedral in Kutaisi.  This is a picture of several priests who happened to be there when we were visiting.  I did ask them if it was ok for me to take a picture. 

In/around Kareli, my (current) town:

This is the family "birja", basically, a collection of benches in the neighborhood where everyone gets together in the evenings to hang out and talk.  The kids are playing (literally) in the street off to the right of the picture.  The ladies and grandpas hang out early, and later, it's mostly just (drunk) men!  Georgians (men, specifically) do a lot of drinking.  A lot.

One morning while I was waiting for the PC marshutka to take us to a nearby city for a meeting, I enjoyed watching neighborhood chickens in the city park in front of the government building.

Last Sunday, I made tacos for my host family!  I had taco seasoning from the US, but the rest of the stuff was readily available here.  I made homemade flour tortillas! We used Georgian cheese, which is pretty similar to Mexican farmer's cheese, so it worked very well.  Salsa was made from local tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, and cilantro from the garden.  They were great.

ERISIONI National Georgian Dance Company Concert:

We had the great fortune of being able to attend a concert of one of the top traditional Georgian dance companies in the country.  It came to a nearby city, and we got tickets, with a little help from PC staff. There is no such thing as Ticketmaster or StubHub here!  The process for getting tickets was hilarious -- it involved several calls to a guy at the theater, then picking them up from a third party in our village. We were supposed to go to the pesticide shop to pick up up (?), but were told when we arrived there to go across the street to the furniture shop to get them instead, from yet a fourth party. I'm amazed that they (1) didn't cost us more than the face value, and (2) they were genuine tickets. The theater was Soviet-era, crumbling, hot, and pretty uncomfortable, but the performance was spectacular.  Here are some shots.

This is my host sister Nana, at the theater as we waited for the performance.  She is a medical resident in Tbilisi and travelled to meet us for the concert.  She works at one of the only (maybe the only?) neonatal intensive care units in Georgia.

And... a selfie of me and my fabulous clustermate and friend Christine.

The performance:

Birthday Party in Gverdzineti!

Last Sunday, I travelled to a nearby village with my host mum for the birthday party of her friend and colleague, Guliko.  It was Guliko's 50th birthday, so it was a big one! (Imagine my surprise at discovering that she did most of the work cooking, preparing, etc. and didn't spend nearly enough time just enjoying the party!  Alas, that's the life of a Georgian woman...especially, I think, in the villages.)

There was a VAST amount of food, as is common for Georgian "supras".  It pretty fascinating how the table is typically set for one of these big dinner parties.  Everyone has small plates in front of them (sometimes two, stacked up, so that you can switch to a clean/new plate sometime during the dinner), and the table is covered with dishes. Empty space is frowned upon. If you ever been to a Korean dinner/res taurant, you have an idea of what I mean.  There is typically no passing of the dishes -- everyone should be able to reach everything from where they are seated.  If, for example, one of the foods being served is eggplant with walnut paste, then there will be as many small dishes of eggplant on the table as necessary for everyone to have easy access.   When the table gets too full, they just stack plates of food on top of each other.  It is very important to give the appearance of abundance; no serving dishes are ever left on the table empty!  They are constantly being re-filled/topped up from the kitchen. The upside is that the table always looks fresh and inviting.  The downside is that the lady (or ladies) of the house never have a chance to rest!

The party was a lot of fun.  There was much vino drinking! (Of course, not by me -- only a little!) In Georgian supras, there is a toastmaster, who constantly makes toasts, and asks others to make toasts.  It is taboo to take ANY drink without first toasting...hence the need for constant toasts by the toastmaster.  For men, the tradition is to "bottoms up" (i.e., drink the whole glass, about the size of a small juice glass) with each toast. Not surprisingly, this leads to a lot of drunkenness at these things.  Fortunately for me, women are able to get away with taking just a sip with each toast.  Still, it's a bit difficult to gauge just HOW much you're drinking, because, just as the food serving dishes are never allowed to get empty, the wine glasses are constantly being topped up.  Here again, the goal is abundance.

Here are some fun pics:

 Before the party... The pitchers are full of house-made wine.  White, in this case.  

 Some of the ladies across the table from me.  They're all related...somehow.   The cream-colored dish near the center-right of the picture is one of my favorites.  It is turkey or chicken in a flavorful sauce made with ground walnuts.  Delish!

 This is my host mom, after she made a toast.  She's drinking out of a special clay bowl for this toast.  And yes, she drank the whole thing!

 This is my spot.  Notice how the plates of food are stacked on top of each other!

 This is the toastmaster, or tamada, at this dinner.  In this particular toast, he's using the ram's horn, which is a traditional Georgian thing.  The idea is that there is no way to drink from the horn without drinking it all, because you can't put it down! (Actually, I found a loophole.  You can always pour what you don't drink from the horn into your glass on the table, although I'm pretty sure that's a very girly and/or UN-Georgian thing to do!)

The birthday girl and her cake, with daughter and granddaughters.

Random Musings from Georgia

Have I mentioned that my host family is great?  I feel sooooo fortunate to have been placed with them.  It's a nice, low-key house (most of the time), and this really suits me.  It's usually just the three of us -- host mum, host sis, & I.  The other two siblings are working in Tbilisi and only come home sometimes.

In our house, there is a lot of the following:

Drinking tea
Drinking coffee
Watching Turkish and/or Indian soaps
Surfing the net
Visitors -- mostly relatives that live in the neighborhood, like Nini, who is six and adorable.  She was a bit afraid of me at first.  To her, I talk funny and usually don't understand what she says...but she has warmed up a bit.  Her older sister, Keti, is adorable, too.  And, Keti is super-smart -- sometimes, you can just tell, you know?  Here is Nini:

There is also a lot of cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, and light/moderate gardening.  We just got a new calf. Her name is Taplo.  She spends the days in a nearby field grazing. My host mom walks her over there every morning and then retrieves her in the evenings.  She is brown and moos a lot.  Here are some pictures of her:

 

One thing about cows here in Georgia:  Many families have one or more of them, and they usually just live in the yard during the night and go to a nearby empty field during the day.  An extremely common sight in the mornings and evenings is a guy walking/driving his cows out to pasture or back home, on the streets.   Fascinatingly, the cows know where they live.  If they get ahead of the "pack", they'll stop at the gate of their home an moo until someone lets them in!  Just like dogs.

We also have three chickens and a rooster.  Here are two of the chickens. I have named these two Henrietta (left) and Mabel (right).  Another day, I'll post a pic of Marge, the other chicken, and Steve, the Rooster.  Steve wakes me up every morning, and then pretty much crows all day long.  (Clarification: These are just my names for the fowl; I don't think my host family would ever consider naming them! Although...they did name Taplo...)

 

It has also become abundantly clear, just now, that we also have MICE.  There is a mostly derelict upstairs in this house, accessible only from the outside (as is common in the standard two-story dwellings here in Georgia).  As I'm sitting here in the living room, I can hear them running about upstairs.  I just told my host sister that we need to get a CAT.  She agreed...alas, probably only in principle, though, because I don't think she actually likes cats.  Obviously, this is because she hasn't met any awesome cats like Finn, Otto, Betty, Zed, Thongs, Nosy, Louis, Herbie, or any of the other spectacular felines I know/have known in my life!  I miss these two, right now, in particular.  Mom -- if you're reading this -- please send recent pics of kitties!

Week Three -- Trip to the Village of Gverdzinetti & the Surrounding Area

My host mother is a bookkeeper for a small, village school outside of our town of Kareli.  Mostly, she works from home, and the school's director/principal brings paperwork to her.  I think he drives back and forth (about a 30-minute ride) everyday anyway.    Well, they really wanted me to visit the school, and they arranged with the PC trainers/bosses that I could take off one afternoon and head out there after language classes. (This week, we had "self-directed planning time" in the afternoons, anyway, so I didn't really miss anything much anyway.)

So, yesterday, host mum & the director picked me up from school and we drove out to Gverdzineti.  The roads were good, then bad, then terrible, then good again, and then terrible.  I don't think there has been much road maintenance since the Soviets left (no $...or...the $ is spent in the cities, leaving the villages to suffer).  But, we drove through gorgeous countryside, basically through a valley filled with various farms and orchards. Despite the light rain, it was a good drive, and it was weirdly comforting to be in a CAR.

This photo was take on a patch of good road.  We had to dodge these cows, which were being transferred from (I assume) the fields back to their master's home for the night.  Every morning, you will see folks driving their cattle from their back yards, where they spend the night, out to the fields to graze during the day. They drive them back home in the afternoons.  During our drive out to Gverdzineti, we also encountered the following animals in the middle of road:

• A donkey (No human around, so not sure where it was headed.)
• Lots of chickens (Most people have chickens, and they have pretty much free roaming rights, and they somehow know how to get home when that's where they want to go.  These are not small-brained Perdue chickens bred for short lives and giant breasts.  These are some smart, heritage chickens!)
• Two geese and their goslings, of the domestic sort
• Dogs -- always lots of dogs.  Side note about dogs in Georgia -- street dogs are EVERYWHERE.  The most common "incident" experienced by PC volunteers, especially the runners/joggers, in Georgia is dog bites.  Everyone keeps dogs as guard dogs, and it's pretty important that (a) you never show fear or look them in the eye and (b) the neighborhood dogs KNOW you.  They hang out in the street. In this picture, you can see one such dog just (far left, white dog) just lounging on the side of the road, without a care in world. Neither the cows nor the car will disturb him.  He seems to have found a nice patch of dry  pavement. Actually, most of the dogs are probably pretty friendly...but there's no way to know which ones are!  And I seriously doubt many (if any) of these dogs are, let's say, vaccinated!

The school was quite large and in very good shape.  (In any case, it was in way better shape than the public school in Kareli where we go for PST language & other classes!)  The amazing thing was that there were only about TEN students in the school (various ages, from maybe about 7 to 13 or 14) and at least as many teachers!  So, about one teacher per student!

Below are some pics of me at the school.  I felt a bit like a celebrity.  They were very excited to meet me.  I don't think they get a lot of foreigners.  All of the students had me sign their notebooks.  So, I signed them with my name in both Georgian & English, and then wrote something like "Nice to meet you" or "Hello".

In this picture, you see me, the English teacher (far left), my host mum (next to me), the school principal, and the kids (7 of them anyway).  The English teacher, Nana, is very sweet.  Thank goodness she was there to help translate! Although, really, she speaks German, and her English is spotty at best.  But, it's better than my Georgian, so we managed.

After meeting with the kids, we went to what I think was the teacher's lounge/office for a little get together with just the teachers & administrators.  Here is the director/principal and the table, set with cake, soda, and khatchapuri (delicious Georgian cheese-bread).  We also had coffee.  And then my host mom got out the (homemade) wine she brought.  She always brings wine!!  :)

 Here is a group picture of me with the various teachers.  There is an English teacher (the aforementioned Nana), a math teacher, a physics teacher, a Georgian teacher, and...some others.  And a school secretary/principal's assistant.  I think I got invited to someone's birthday party in about two weeks.  If host mum goes (and I think she is), I'm going! I'm sure there will be more wine (smile), and perhaps I'll finally experience my first "real" Georgian supra, which is sort of like a ritualistic Georgian dinner party with lots of toasting.

One month in -- A few things I DO miss...

Exactly four weeks ago today, I flew to DC for "Staging" and, shortly thereafter, to Georgia.  It seems like a lifetime ago!

I was thinking today about the things I do sometimes miss, and thought I'd write them down.  Of course, the only things/people I REALLY miss are my family and friends and pets.  But, occasionally, one does have thoughts such as, "xyz would be really nice right now."  So:

peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

privacy

guacamole

iced drinks

reliable internet (ha ha!)

driving

watching Jeopardy with my mom

variety, options, choices (of pretty much everything -- on the other hand, it's usually sort of comforting and, well, easy to have so few choices)

fabric softener, clothes dryers, and dryer sheets

central heating (soon, I'm pretty sure I'll miss central AC!)

grande lattes

That's about it!  And, like I said, these are just passing thoughts. As it turns out, I can live without these things quite comfortably/happily!

More Notes from Kareli

On one hand, I can't believe that we've had two full weeks of PST already (plus a few days). On the other, it feels a bit like we've been here forever!  I've been studying Georgian for ~3 weeks now (including orientation), and it's going well, I think.  At least, I'm generally able to follow what's going on in class!  But, when I get home and try to speak to my host family, or understand what they are trying to tell me, it's pretty frustrating.  We have the same conversation a lot, since my phrases are pretty limited:

Good morning. Today, I go to school in Kareli. Later we go to Gori.
It is cold.  Bad weather.
I like tea.
I love Lamzira's (host mum's) coffee.
This (bread, potatoes, beans, porridge, etc.) is delicious.
Where is Khatia/Giorgi? (host sibs)
Georgia is beautiful.
I miss my family.
Thank you!
Good bye!
Etc.

Random musings...

My Cluster
My PST "cluster" is great, imho.  We had our first real assignment for organizational development training, and I think we did a fine job working together. We visited a youth-based NGO in a nearby town last week called DROA. The organization's mission is to increase civic engagement among local youth. We interviewed several members/board members in order to do a "capacity assessment" of the organization's programming and external relations functions. Then, we had to write up a report on our findings.  For those who have been wondering what exactly I will be doing in my work here -- that's one example!  I will be paired with a Georgian NGO somewhere, and one thing I might do is conduct my own capacity assessment of the organization's various functional systems (HR, External, Governance, Mgt, Programs, etc.), using a profiling tool based on interviews of & probing questions to key organization personnel.  Does that make sense? It's starting to make sense to me.  The idea is to identify areas of need versus strengths, etc.

Besides me, in my cluster are:
A recently retired CPA from Wyoming.  He is brave and hard working, and the PC is lucky to have him.
A retired (I think?) computer programmer from Spokane.  She is sweet and fun and social, and loves to knit.
And, two (funny coincidence!) 30-ish librarians. One is from Pittsburgh, and he is adventurous and funny. He describes himself as prone to calamities.  The other is from Texas but has lived in Hawaii (yay! HI!) most of her adult life.  She is very smart and is definitely the best student in our Georgian class!

This is Nate (the calamitous) and some of his fan club at the school. We have our Georgian classes every morning, six days a week, in a working school. During the breaks, the kids come to visit our room. They are very curious and adorable.  Interestingly, they seem to gravitate toward Nate the most.  Perhaps it's cultural -- he's the guy in the room, and, in Georgia, men (sons, anyway) are more valuable than girls. (Ask me what I think about that!)  The young man in the Nike hat lives near me, and I sometimes see him on my to or from school.  He always says "Hello!"

Our School
When I stop to think about the fact that our school is a working school, I get a bit sad.  The school is really in terrible shape.  The tiles are loose and broken, sometimes there is no electricity in the rooms, many windows don't close, and the bathrooms are horrendous. (Nate calls them "war crimes.")
And it's COLD.  Very cold.  Despite the fact that it is May, it's still pretty cold here in Kareli (highs in the 50s and 60s most days).  There is no heat at the school, so I usually bring a blanket to class!  I can't imagine what it must be like for the students in winter! Maybe they turn on the heat in winter. I hope so.  Here are a picture of one of the hallways -- notice the lack of any cheery decorations or lockers -- and a picture of Kareli from one of the third floor windows of the school.

 

Houses in Kareli
There are a LOT of empty/abandoned homes in Kareli.  Below is a picture of one of them that I think has a particularly melancholy aura.  I see this one on my way to school everyday.  It's leaning and looks like it might fall over at any moment.  My host mum saw this picture and recognized it as one of the homes left by a Jewish family.  Apparently, after the fall of the Soviet Union, LOTS of Georgian Jews emigrated to Israel and left their properties.

The Georgian Countryside:

Beautiful.  Really beautiful.  Of course, it's early spring now, so it's especially nice right now.  Here's a picture I took on a ride between Kareli & Gori.  You can just make out the Greater Caucasus in the background.  

Other Stuff:

This made me laugh -- "Passion Fruits Crispy Apple"

Marshutka Rides:
A VERY common activity for us PC Trainees -- marshutka (mini-van) rides.  Here we are on a trip between Kareli & Gori for either a technical class, field trip, or something.  I think we were actually heading to the Magti Store (like an ATT or Verizon store) to get mobile internet modems.  This fact explains the happy smiles.  After two weeks of minimal or no internet access, you start to feel a bit weird, especially if you're in your 20s!!  (And, the median age of PC Vols is 24, so they're all pretty much youngsters.)

The Beautiful Georgia Countryside:
We arrived at a really nice time in Georgia.  It's spring and stuff is starting to grow.  So far, in the markets, you can find cucumbers, hothouse tomatoes, green onions, and various herbs and lettuces.  Also oranges from Western Georgia (I think) near the Black Sea.