For whatever reason, the post I had previously written detailing the events of this past weekend as well as the last two weeks mysteriously disappeared. So, here I am rewriting it with the hopes to salvage from my memory what I had written for better or for worse. I think that I am going to have to save these on Microsoft Word from here on out.
At some juncture, I will share with you what it is like teaching, but for right now I will refrain. It deserves its own post. However, here are some anecdotes of life in Keda from the past two weeks:
- Seeing your entire host family and numerous friends break out dancing to "Gangnum Style" in the living room? Priceless.
- My window was left open in my bedroom and an infestation of lady bugs ensued. I am not really a bug person, but I surprisingly kept my cool. My host mom came in and started thwacking a broom against the ceiling and wall, saying: "I will find you and I will kill you all." Then, a curtain rod fell down and knocked me in the shoulder. I wasn't hurt. There is still a lady bug problem despite my windows being kept closed.
- I saw a shirt being worn by one of the students at my school that had the American flag emblazoned across the chest and listed several states below it. Montana was among them. Yay! But I seriously doubt this shirt came from America (not that much clothing does...) or was written by a native English speaker. Texas was Teksas.
- I am pretty sure I saw a spatter and pool of fresh blood on the street on my way to school today...
- Wandering with camera in tow around town only to see what I thought was a "strange looking Georgian" little knowing at the time that this individual was thinking the same thing about me. It turns out we are both native English speakers living two towns apart.
- I have thoroughly entertained my host family and Georgian friends in Keda by saying "Here kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty..." real fast. I don't know why, but they think it is hysterical.
- I quite possibly had the most delicious pomegranate that I have ever eaten. A sweet treat from Azerbaijan. Adding to this, I had wonderful homemade grape juice. It has been awhile since having grape juice, but I am sure it does not taste the same in America.
- The word "wine" is said to have Georgian roots...which would make sense. Georgians were some of the first to cultivate wine some eight thousand years ago.
- I have begun to spend a fair amount of time with one of my co-teachers. Her name is Natia and I think it is safe to say that we are becoming friends.
- My host mother took me to the village of Makhuntseti just down the road from Keda to meet a friend of hers. I also happened to meet her two daughters, both of whom spoke English very well, and was shown the village's two claims to fame: a waterfall and a thousand-year-old bridge.
Last weekend I stuck around Keda and did a whole lot of nothing. For two days straight, and of course it would be Saturday and Sunday, we experienced torrential rains that ended up flooding Batumi to the west and bringing snow to the mountain town of Khulo to the east. The rain did not stop my host mother from bringing me along with her to a friend's home where we drank Turkish coffee and gorged ourselves through an entire large bowl of chestnuts. I happily ate them until I discovered a live worm in one of the chestnuts I cracked open. I yelped and everyone laughed at me. Fair enough, I suppose. One Georgian girl who is learning English at a university and was present at this visit asked me why I was so quiet. Everyone else suddenly was very interested in this. Aside from the fact that I am naturally a quiet person, I don't speak much Georgian aside from "what time is it" and 'I speak a little Georgian." I explained this to them, in Russian, and that because of this, there is not much I could contribute in the way of conversation. Other than that visit, I watched movies, read, joyfully slept in, and made tests. It was a much needed weekend of relaxation.
This past weekend, however, was filled with both adventure and misadventure. Hence the title of this post. I will start by saying that this "misadventure" was not bad so much as it was disappointing and all things aside, I had a very enjoyable weekend. Friday, I ventured out of Keda and arrived in Georgia's second largest city, Kutaisi, where I would be spending the night. I met up with fellow Fulbrighters Destinee and Shawn, and Boren Fellow Chase, whose place I would be staying at. After taking a fairly sketchy gondola up to an amusement park of sorts, I was introduced to the expat community living in Kutaisi and we all went for a "happy hour" dinner. Afterwards, we schlepped over to a wonderful tea bar, drank tea (who would have guessed), and smoked hookah. The tea bar had a very Persian 1940s feel that I found to be very atmospheric. After Chase, Destinee, and I returned to his host family's apartment, I met the host father Gia, who I am told lives and breathes alcohol. After meeting him, I do not doubt it. Gia insisted we try his version of Georgian champaign...vodka topped with beer. I declined. Chase told me and Destinee that after we left the following morning for our excursion, Gia came in at 8:30 in the morning and asked Chase if he could borrow his alcohol. Several hours later, when Chase had gotten up, he found Gia wasted and that his host mother had hidden all the alcohol in the house...
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| Kutaisi at dusk. |
Saturday morning, both Destinee and I got up early to catch a marshrutka with Shawn to Borjomi. About three hours later, we arrived and met up with Fulbrighter Kenny and his expat friends, and the six of us headed to the ski resort town of Bakuriani to ride horses. Except there were no horses because it was off-season. Aside from pretty views, there was hardly a soul in sight. We ended up walking around for forty minutes before catching a marshrutka back to Borjomi. With it being too late to do anything else, we ate dinner and parted ways, with Kenny and his friends going back to Akhaltsikhe and us returning to Kutaisi. Despite our intended activity falling flat on its face and traveling some six hours total for a failed excursion, I was still able to see a part of the country I had not yet seen and saw it in autumn glory.
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Autumn glory as seen from a marshrutka on the way to
Borjomi/Bakuriani. |
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| A dilapidated ski lift at Bakuriani. |
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| Borjomi |
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| Borjomi |
Much to my relief, Saturday night was spent at Chase's apartment without his host father bothering us. Destinee, Chase, and I and a fellow expat named Tom ended up playing a pretty intense game of Risk. Risk is a board game that I find to be just as complicated as monopoly. It is a war game whose goal (at least this version) was to achieve world domination. Chase absolutely decimated us by conquering every single region on the board except Afghanistan, which was held valiantly by Destinee. It is ironic that the only region not to fall would be Afghanistan, no? By three in the morning, we finished, and I hurried to bed to rest my mind which had stopped thinking straight somewhere around one o'clock.
Sunday, the three of us most graciously slept in and then lazed about before Destinee and I had to leave. It was also election day in Georgia and Giorgi Margvelashvili from Georgian Dream won the presidency. Here are a couple articles on the subject:
So there you have it, a blog post retold. Let's hope I don't have to do it yet again...but I am good, I saved it on my computer this time. Until next time!
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