He's like Herpes... Phil Collins is Everywhere

If I had to pinpoint one of my favorite aspects of this culture, it would be that it's a culture that forces you to talk to one another. Yes this can prove rather frustrating at times when all you want is to know what time your marshuk'ta is leaving, but it can lead to the most beautiful circumstances. There's no rhyme or reason to when a bus leaves or where it stops, there's no directory of hostels and they definitely aren't marked so you just have to hope you run into fellow backpackers to see where they're crashing for the night, the teachers have no idea what or where they'll be teaching whenever they walk in through the school doors, and the only street names I've seen here have been George W. Bush Rd and Stalin Avenue. Definitely makes for some great times and lots of strange encounters.

 A lot has been happening these past few weeks and I feel like time is just flying by. School has been going really well, it can be frustrating at times when I have 6th graders that can't read qartuli (Georgian) let alone English yet they're being pushed through the system, but overall it's just been amazing. I've been able to throw in a few phrases that I hope will infiltrate Georgia (i.e. neato gang, not even a big deal) and the kids in the 11th grade formally invited me to go on their class trip with them this weekend so that should be a grand time. All the teachers have been amazing and I'm showered in kisses whenever I get to school which is great other than this one older teacher that insists on going straight for the lips everyday.. awkward.

The grape juice runs through the pipe out to the other side
where Nata pours it into jugs to be kept in a hole
underground until needed :)

  After school's over it's nice to come home and hang out with the fam and it's been a busy couple weeks as this is prime wine making time. We've picked grapes for hours on end and then stomped the life out of them 'I Love Lucy' style in a barn. The whole process is entirely unsanitary but great fun nonetheless. The grapes (bugs and all) go straight into this rusty bin where you stomp on them forever with the boots that you've been stomping around the cow pasture in. The juice then flows through a rusty pipe into the same bucket the turkeys eat out of and then the juice goes into giant jugs that then go into a giant hole for safe keeping until you need it. It's pretty cool because Irma makes all the wine for her family, her brother grows potatoes for the whole fam, and her other brother has all the onions and beans so they just rely on eachother for all their food and wine needs. One of Irma's brothers came this week to drop off like 200 pounds of potatoes and pick up six bags of grapes and a bunch of wine for his fam and to sell in his village. I think he's the only one with a car in the family but I'm pretty sure it's on its last leg as it can't go in reverse and they've been working on it for hours on end. But I did get to milk the cow this week and learn how to make cheese and bread so that was great. Irma also taught me how to kill, clean, and butcher the chickens... not so great. Especially when she was showing me how to empty the stomach and cook the feet and organs.

Gelati Cathedral in Kutaisi

Political rally

  On the weekends the weathers been amazing here so we've been able to go and do some really cool stuff. Three weekends ago Carly and I made it to Kutaisi where we randomly met some other English teachers in the McDonalds (go figure) and got to hang out with them for the weekend. It's been an awesome time to be here with all the political changes going on and we got to see Ivanishvili speak at a political rally. We went to a few beautiful monasteries and ancient cathedrals and then went to a pretty cool cave a bit out of town.

Chilling on Stalin's front porch

The next weekend we made it to Gori which I was super stoked about due to it being the birthplace of Stalin and they have a museum from the Soviet Era dedicated to him there. We ate lunch on Stalin Avenue, got to hang out on Stalin's front porch from his childhood home that now has a museum built around it, went to War History Museum that was completely in Russian and Qartuli so somewhat worthless other than the 7ft Stalin statue and got to see a bunch of pictures from when Gori got

Cave City outside of Gori

attacked back in 2008. We also made it to a really cool cave city that dates back to like 2000 BC and got to run around and explore that for an hour or so while we left our bags with some random taxi driver. Gori really isn't developed as a tourist hot spot so when we asked a guy on the street about hostels he looked at us like we were crazy but then called up his friends to see if we could just crash there. So Max, Carly, Rob, and I ended up sleeping at some strangers house for 10Lari each eating homemade khachapuri and drinking beer with the grandma and two sixteen year olds.. priceless.

We were all joking about how if you would've told us a year ago that we would be getting smashed with sixteen year olds after hanging out on Stalin's front porch we would've called you crazy. Only in Georgia..

Carly and I dedicated this weekend to spending time with the host fams so I made the trek to her village yesterday. We went to a birthday party for a seven year old and I can't say I was even shocked to see her drinking the black current vodka right along with us for every toast. We also got to go walk around and explore her village a little bit so that was really neat. We attemped to make the 1 hour marshuk'ta ride to Kutaisi to get some wifi for the first time in weeks but ended up making a major detour. Some guy offered us a ride at our bus stop to Kutaisi for free since he was headed that way but we ended up running errands with him for an hour and then had to explain to his friend on the phone that we didn't have time to come over for lunch and that we were supposed to meet our friends over an hour ago. But we finally made it here a few hours later for free so that all worked out! Tonight we're going back to my village to go finish picking the grapes and visit with some of Irma's family's then I'm going on a field trip with the 11th graders tomorrow then it's back to the school week!

Some numbers for ya:

  2- The number of times I shower a week if I'm lucky
  3- The number of marshuk'tas it takes me to get internet at a town an hour away
  4- The number of English phrases Gia has learned and actively uses.
      -"Dancey Mancey" (with a dance to go along with it)
      -"Stop Russia"
      -"Gringo"- I explained that gringo was not an appropriate endearing substitute for the color 'green' and he now uses it as a bad word for people he doesn't like.
      -"Down with the Dictator"- He whips this one out whenever Irma tries to put the wine away or the kids ask him for money. Priceless.
  600- The number of pounds I'm going to gain here since Gia and Irma decided last week that I needed to "blend" better with the Georgian woman and insist I eat two dinners every night. The chocolate parents keep buying me doesn't help the situation.
  12- The number of roses some guy bought Carly and I for helping him with his English randomly on the streets of Baghdati
  20- The number of times people have tried to set with up with their sons, cousins, and uncles or insisted that I have my wedding here.