Sunday, March 30th, 6:00pm
I’ve spent the weekend in Tbilisi and now it’s time to head
back to my village. My host father is a marshutka driver so I get on his bus. About
halfway home, a rather sociable (and possibly tipsy) woman from my village gets
up and starts dancing. She motions for me to join. The next thing I know, I’m
having a dance off in a moving vehicle and at least half a dozen camera phones
are pointing at me. Our audience laughs and claps us on and a couple of boys
from my second grade class even bust a few moves of their own.
Wednesday, April 2nd, 1:00pm
I have a break during 5th period on Wednesdays. I
decide to spend the time outside chatting with students who are gathered
outside, also enjoying a class off. Among them is one of the high school boys
who attends English club. But doesn’t really know any English. He tells the students
some story about his friend’s belt, then tries to translate to me, despite not
knowing English. He keeps motioning to his belt, but I’m still not getting the
story. So eventually I make a joke out of it and cover my eyes and say “me
mastavlebeli!” Meaning, “I’m a teacher!” Everyone laughs, except for him. He
then proceeds to apologize profusely throughout the rest of the day. That was
probably not my smartest move.
5:00pm
The Irishman has come to visit and my host siblings, the
director’s granddaughter (who can speak English well enough to
communicate with) and a few other kids walk us to an old house in the village
that has actually been excavated by archaeologists, and then to an old tower
and church in a cemetery. It’s all cool to me, since I’m an aspiring
archaeologist myself and I love old broken stuff. But in conversation, I learn
that the kids weren’t outside because they had a break. They were just
skipping. Furthermore, the other teachers assumed I knew this. Don’t get me
wrong, a couple of them yelled out the window at a couple of the high
schoolers, but teachers yelling at students is exhaustingly commonplace in
Georgia, so I had believed the students when they waved it off and said “oh,
nothing.”
Thursday, April 3rd, 11:00am
When I arrive at school that morning, the boy who was
telling the story about the belt is at the door. I at once try to confront him
about the skipping class issue, and communicate that the teachers think I am a
bad teacher because they think I was encouraging the students to ignore them.
2:30pm
As I prepare for English Club, he asks to speak to me
outside of the classroom for a minute, and hands me a mislead (albeit adorable)
letter that he made the director’s granddaughter write for him, apologizing again
about the belt incident and explaining the story more fully, because he doesn’t
want me to think as if he’s really rude and bad gue. And he is sorry for the
yesterday’s happen and hopes the letter will give me the right opinion about
him.
It makes me smile, but still…..it feels like my life is
defined by language barrier right now.
6:00pm
The twins are turning eleven today. I’m at a table with them
and a few of their friends. Some homemade liquor is brought to the table and we
are all poured a shot. Yes, all. We take turns making toasts, but don’t worry,
no one gets drunk. To their credit, one refuses refills multiple times just
because he doesn’t like liquor that much, and another because he still has
homework to do.
Everyone heads outside after dinner to watch the twins
light heart-shaped paper lanterns. I’m still upset and frustrated by all of
the misunderstandings from the past couple of days, but I force myself to drink
this in. Because moments like these-seeing the light from the lanterns flicker
over the smiling faces of my host siblings, running around with the kids to see
if a lantern is going to land on the roof, and watching each drift further and
further until it’s just another star twinkling in the sky-these are the beautiful
moments. And they’re a lot easier to miss than the ugly ones.
Tuesday, April 8th, 8:00pm
The weekend was kind of relaxing yet kind of exhausting. I went
with some friends to the seaside city of Batumi. It was beautiful, but a couple
of freshman at their first party got too drunk and needed a lot of
taking-care-of. And by freshman at their first party I mean adults who should
have known better. But I still got to see my friends and the sea. And was able
to speak in English and have people actually understand.
And tomorrow I leave for mid-semester training, which means
I get the rest of the week off from school, AND I get to see my friends.
But now I get a call from the director’s granddaughter, the one
who speaks English. She was a friend and more or less the English life-line of
the volunteer before me, and she understands some of the differences between
American and Georgian culture. She warns me that some of the things she has
heard the other children and teachers say don’t line up with her perception of me, and
that my outgoing behavior is read differently by Georgians, especially in
regard to the high school boys. And the one mentioned by name isn’t even the
one I made the belt joke to.
Right, I thought this wall seemed really thick. I guess I
should have realized it was actually two walls…language barrier AND cultural
barrier. Of course.
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