Because.

Saturday, May 24^th, 8:00pm

At the hostel, I chat with a former TLGer who is back in Georgia for a visit after a couple years away. We share stories with each other and others hanging out at the hostel about the craziness that is Georgia. His host family, for example, was an extremely traditional family full of men who very well could have been connected to the mafia. They had a stock pile of questionable weapons and assured him that if anyone in Georgia gave him a problem, they would kill that person. And their parents. And their children. Sounds like a good place to live. Why not?

10:00pm

After a while we head out to indulge in the small but potent Tbilisi underground, comprised of disgruntled 20-somethings who know that their country is backwards but can’t escape it. We end up at Dive Bar…a popular hang-out for us foreigners and the locals who enjoy our company. I see a Ukrainian guy my age who I’ve met here before, while he was hosting a crazy group of travelers from Barcelona. He tells me they were traveling in a caravan, but couldn’t take it to India, so they just left the vehicle and all its papers with him. He also tells me that he and some other friends are going to the wine festival tomorrow, and then camping tomorrow night. I’m welcome to join. Sounds like fun…why not?

 

Sunday, May 25^th, 2:00pm

A TLG friend of mine and I meet up with the Ukrainian and his friends, and he shows us our weekend home. As you might guess, it isn’t a usual sight in a country where black is the most popular color of clothing. She also hasn’t been used in a couple of months, and they didn’t clean her out before they left…but hey, our chariot awaits! We hop on board and settle in on the bed in the back. Looks like this could be an adventure…so why not?

 

 

9:00pm

We camp out at a lake called Lisi Lake. By the end of the night I’m sitting around a fire with two British guys, another American, a Ukrainian, a Turkish guy, and an Iranian girl. As it gets darker, the scenery around us gets more beautiful. In front of us is the water, dark and still. Part of the city is framed by hills to our right, and we can see large buildings with hundreds of little golden lights lined up in rows stories high. To our left are more hills, standing tall and deep purple, never minding the quiet lightening lighting up the sky behind them. I can’t help but think to myself that this is what being young should be like. No…that’s not enough for me. This what I want my life to be like. Spontaneity, companionship, beauty….I mean really, why not?

Seaside

Saturday, May 10^th

11:00 am

I’m settling down on the 11 o’clock train to the portside city of Batumi, where I’ll enjoy the weekend with TLG friends. There are two of them on the train, but in the next carriage, as they bought their tickets before me. The other two seats in my row of three are occupied by a couple of guys from somewhere in the Middle East. Across the aisle are a couple of young people from somewhere in Europe. Between the guy’s blue eyes, the girl’s blonde hair, and something about a Norwegian sandwich shop on the guy’s shirt, I assume that they are from Norway.

The guys in my row aren’t impressed by my presence, but I’m definitely getting “we should talk at some point before the ride is over” vibes from the Norwegians. As I listen to their conversation, I keep hearing words that sound Georgian to me. I guess that happens when you are constantly surrounded by a language.

Eventually, our ice breaker comes in the form of light pelvic thrusting. On their part, mind you. I laugh when the girl makes eye contact with me while attempting the “moves” her friend is trying to teach her. She responds with laughter as well. And thus friendships are born.

Despite the blue eyes and blonde hair and the audacity to engage in pelvic thrusting in public, it turns out they actually are Georgian. But it doesn’t take long before I feel confident that they are not typical tradition-bound Georgians. And for the first time, I’m able to engage in nerdy conversation. With Georgians. I even mention Lord of the Rings Online and am met not with “Seriously, you play that?” but with “What do you have? I have an elf.” So impress. Much amaze. Wow.

11:00 pm

I’m with American and South African TLG friends and a Canadian we know from the hostel, walking around Batumi, looking for a place to hang out. We end up meeting with the Georgians I had met earlier at a pub that’s popular with internationals.

As modern as they are, they still follow through with a special tradition of Georgian “hospitality” and buy me shot of cha cha. And despite being an American 21-year-old, I’m a baby and only do half of it. Then some Turkish guy comes and starts hitting on me….then some Ukrainian guy comes and starts hitting on the Georgian girl….it’s funny how pub culture is so widely homogenous.  

 

I totally forgot to take pictures while there so please enjoy these googled ones instead. I'll try to post different ones if/when myself or my friends get some.

Photo from www.levke.net

Photos from Wikipedia

Teach and Learn Orientation, Spring 2014

As I write about my experiences here in Georgia, I must confess, I’ll be giving you a censored version. Yes, this is my story, but the other characters involved are real people who do not want their names or lives plastered all over the internet. At the same time, I’m not going to fabricate an experience which isn’t the one I’m having, and I’m not going to leave out many (if any) situations which I find integral to it. So those who read my blogs from afar will have to excuse my being vague at times; and those featured in it (should they even know English or someone who does), will have to excuse my honesty.

Orientation Training Week:

By just a couple days in, it feels like this my life. It feels like I know these 20 people, but not like I just met them. It feels like I’m subject to this schedule, but not like it’s something different. This just….is.

We are learning way too much Georgian in our language classes to remember, but I know that only those of us who make the effort to study consistently on our own will get past the basic tourist-guide-book phrases.

Our intercultural training and methodology lectures have some interesting info but can be very boring. It’s funny how sitting in a chair all day can drain you.

The hotel feeds us three times a day, and it’s all REAL food. Bread, cheese, and meat seem to make an appearance at every meal. Which is great, but does get monotonous. But oh well. We are told that there won’t be a huge variety of menu options in the villages either, so I suppose we might as well get used to it now.

We also explore Tbilisi in the evenings. We ride a tram up a mountain to a small amusement park. It’s covered in snow and abandoned for the winter, and in the dimming light it’s wonderfully eerie.

Another day, we explore a park. It’s modern and artistic, with the brick path coming up in swirling mounds every here and there. But at the back we find a very post-soviet feeling block of concrete. Like, seriously, it’s a huge concrete cube with many openings, including two huge circles on opposite sides, and slits on the floor through which we can see that the ground is far enough away to make for a deadly fall.

Another time I’m able to meet up with a skype friend I met online. Yes, he turned out to be a real 19-year-old Georgian university student, just like he was on skype. We walk a ways down the road and stop in front of a monument erected for those who died in the 1989 protests. His parents were there. They took part…saw the tanks, heard the chaos. It blows my mind to think about. The biggest protest I have been a part of was a counter protest when Westboro Baptist came to my uni. We stood across the road and sang happy songs at them.

On Valentine's Day, a bunch of us head to a bar/restaurant on the same block as the hotel for a traditional Georgian dance. When we get there, it’s almost empty, and although there are some young men with instruments, there is no dancing. We end up asking the waitress if someone can show us….and to our delight, a young man and young woman who work at the restaurant come dance for us. And then to our further delight, a guy dressed in a weird woman-suite (I have no other way to describe. Look for the video and you will see!) comes and joins the dance, and even dances with myself and another tlger. They give us a bottle of wine after 10 because we “won a game,” aka are the only people still there; and they light two heart-shaped lantern candle things. Already jolly from wine, all but the Irishman head to a club for some dancing. Its great fun, but we end up leaving when we’ve had enough of this local guy who seems to know English with the exception of the phrase “she doesn’t want to dance with you.”

The last note-worthy excursion is a trip to a local bar…the artsy bat where the stoners hang out. A VERY unique look at a VERY small part of Georgian society. I’m there with a few guy friends, and although I’m ready to go back at midnight so I can get up for class in the morning, they are in the mood to party all night. I can’t go into details for their sake, but I want to give you a taste of the real-life intercultural training we received that night by giving some quotes from people we met:

~

“I do NOT need a Georgian man. I know Georgian men. When I was seventeen, I was married to a Georgian man. He is in jail now. My father is a Georgian man. My brothers are Georgian men. I do NOT need a Georgain man.”

Here I will also note that in a culture where women are expected to be virgins until they are married, shooting for a one night stand may get you into an uncomfortable situation with a drunk girl who thinks she is your girlfriend.

~

“That was my mom calling me. She wanted to check on me.”

“At 2:30am? How old are you?”

“I’m 21. It’s just the way Georgian moms are. If I am with a friend of a friend of a friend, she will call HIM. And I am like, how the f*ck did you find me???”

~

”Weed grows wild here. You’ll find it everywhere. It’s really easy to get. But if you get caught, you can go to prison for 8 to 9 years.”

~
”I am traveling from Turkey. I translate for Greenpeace. But I just wanted to go out for a while. There are protests there now because the government shut off the internet. They claim it was because the people were using it to watch porn!”
~

So yeah. That’s over  a week of TLG and Tbilisi smushed into one post . I hope the pieces I’ve given you are poignant enough for you to get a good taste!

(Dark) and Early

February 5th, 2014, Hawaii.

3:20 am

My alarm finds me and my cousin practically spooning. Even half awake, I it find amusing and fitting, considering that for the past month I’ve been poking fun at her for taking up so much space in the bed. Sometimes she would cuddle in her sleep, other times I barely escaped an elbow or hand to the face. I allow myself to hit snooze once, knowing at 3:30 it’ll be time for a quick shower…my last chance to feel fresh before my 32 hour trip.

4:00am

Taking care of me until the very end, my aunt fixes me breakfast while I pack up my computer and gather up all the layers that I know will suffocate me when I walk out into the warm Hawaiian night, but that I’ll be glad for when I’m freezing in Tbilisi.

5:00am

There is a man assigned to weigh bags before passengers head to the desk to check them. Good thing, too, because one of mine is 57 pounds. Thankfully my smaller bag has room to shove in a few things, though I have to sacrifice a water bottle. I hope some hobo picks it up.

5:30am

I see a rucksack sitting in front of a seat and a head of long dirty blonde hair sticking up over its back. I wonder if they belong to the adventurous type who might be headed to teach in Georgia. Then I notice two fedoras in the seats next to it, which lead me to think I am simply looking at a group of adventurers who came to enjoy Hawaii. When I come back from the bathroom I sit where I can see them from the front and feel that my second assumption is valid.

Rucksack guy has a tattoo sleeve down his left arm and a very distinct “I don’t give a %$#@” expression. The two fedoras are smiling about something. One has black hair to his shoulders and looks like he could be in a band with rucksack guy, and the other kind of reminds me the people I met at college who were known for playing Magic the Gathering for hours on end in the student center.  I notice that the fedoras both have red passports. I can’t help but wonder where they are from, but I don’t feel like making an excuse to strike up a conversation. After all, when you’ve been up since an ungodly hour of the morning and will be traveling until another ungodly hour of a different morning, you don’t feel like making much of an effort for anything.