Thirteen Hours in Poland

I am way behind on my blog and do not have a good excuse for keeping all of you in the dark except that I have been busy. I just finished submitting all of my graduate school applications, am still working on fellowship applications, and have tentatively decided to take the Foreign Service Officer's Test (FSOT), which means I am studying a whole heck of a lot.  After three weeks, if I feel ready, I will continue and take the test, if not, I will back out and wait for another time. I must say, though, it actually feels good to be studying again, I have missed being a student.

Anyway, to backtrack, on my return trip to Georgia from America, I had a long layover in Warsaw, Poland. Thirteen hours to be precise. Instead of spending all that time in the airport, I decided to go out and explore the city a little bit. The history of this city is a remarkable one, remarkable in the tragedies it has experienced and remarkable for surviving them, for not giving up. During World War II, the Nazis intended to completely eradicate the city from existence, and they nearly razed the city to the ground, but not before killing thousands of people destroying timeless cultural relics.

I did not have a terribly long time in the city and only had the chance to explore one area, Old Town. Here, in pictures, is my acquaintance with Warsaw.

I would include more pictures, but my internet is going horrendously slow. The pictures I provided above give the essence of my experience in Warsaw. It was a short visit and one I had not expected I would take during my journey with Fulbright. 

Exactly one year ago today I found out that my application for a Fulbright grant had been recommended…

An American Interlude

After the debacle that was December in Keda, I sat in a hotel room in Batumi brooding. The thought of spending Christmas alone was not sitting well with me for several reasons, so I decided to do something about it. On Friday, December 20th, I bought plane tickets back to Chicago and two days later, I was on my way! My parents said that I was the best Christmas present they could have received this holiday season.

Chicago greeted me in typical winter fashion - dreary and cold. Honestly, though, I did not mind; I knew that central heating was waiting for me! I was so happy at the chance to see my parents, my friends, family, my cat, and my dog. Whenever I am away for a long time and come home, I am welcomed by the "greeting committee" or better known as my cat and my dog. I received hugs and kisses from them both.

It is interesting the things one can take for granted living in the United States or the things you would not expect to miss. Central heating, adequate insulation, and double-paned windows definitely made the top of my list as my home in Georgia lacks all of these. Ever since learning that I received the grant, my biggest concern had been centered around the lack of heat indoors and I can say now, almost halfway through this grant, that my biggest complaint is the lack of heat. I have found ways to manage - I have an electric heater that I didn't think worked well before the power outage debacle of December but have since realized that it definitely takes the edge off. I have a mummy sleeping bag which I nestle into every night, under two sets of blankets and while sometimes wearing a lightweight sweater. It works.

I spent one week home, which was not very long for such a long journey, but I am glad that I did it. It was well worth the trip and very much needed!

Me and my cat, Maxie.

Oh, You Dark, Dark Night

Let me start off by saying that I grew up in Chicago, I went to school in Montana, and I studied abroad in Russia. Winters do not scare me. However, I had never before been more nervous about an upcoming winter than I was about this one despite living in a supposed subtropical region. All throughout autumn, the weather was beautiful, sunny, and warm. I kept thinking to myself, "I am going to pay for this, I just know it."

And I was right.

The snow started falling on the 8th of December as I was making the trek back to Keda from Kutaisi. It was wet, heavy, thick and as I crawled further and further into the mountains of Adjara, its intensity increased. By the time I reached the doorstep of my host family's house, my fall boots were soaked and toes cold - I made haste to change into some dry clothes and plopped down by the wood burning stove. I have become quite a fixture there, a stalwart figure, as sure to see as long as a fire roared inside. At that moment, I was not too worried, the lights blazed and I was cozy, not to mention that the previous weather forecast calling for a foot of snow had been horrendously wrong. It might be fair to say that this weather forecast was also horrendously inaccurate - it had called for eight inches of snow to a foot and by the time the storm cleared out on Friday, we had over three feet of fresh powder. At eleven in the evening, the power went out, but I was not terribly concerned, this kind of stuff happens regularly in rural Georgia, so I packed it up and went to bed.

Monday morning, my host mom burst into my bedroom to declare: "Грета, идёт большой снег! У нас нет светa и нет школы/Greta, idyot bol'shoi sneg! U nas nyet sveta i net shkoly!" (Greta, it is snowing hard [direct translation big]! We have no power and no school!" I repeated what she said just to make sure I had heard her correctly and promptly snuggled back into my mummy sleeping bag, closing my eyes.

That first day, I visited some neighbors with my host mother, went on a walk up the mountain beyond my house, and read. The first day, I found it all exciting, if not mildly horrified and in denial that the power could be out for at least ten days according to two of my Peace Corps friends. I spent that first day reading about a topic that I love, religion and politics, in a place that I love, Georgia. That first day, all was well if not a little cold.

The trees above my house.

My house.

I had not even bothered setting my alarm for Tuesday as I knew there would be no school. A call from the Embassy woke me up. Day two was spent much like day one with the added activities of solitaire on my iPod and snowman/snowball fights with Giorgi. Sunshine made a tease of an appearance in the morning until giving way to more snow by the afternoon.

As night set in, I started growing anxious. My host family had nothing but a couple of lonely candles to light the living room (the only room in the house to have heat, thanks to a wood burning stove). Darkness and cold seeped in through the walls, creeping through the room and around my body like tentacles. Luckily, I had brought a flashlight and headlamp with me and that made trips to the bathroom and getting ready for bed all the more easier.  I went to bed early, as there was little to do once it grew dark except to read, which was fine, but I had to conserve energy on my Kindle. This was the time I broke out my guide to English grammar.

The lonely candle

Wednesday morning came and the snow was falling down hard. By this time, at least three feet of snow had fallen with no end in sight. I walked into town and watched marshrutka drivers chaining up their vehicles as well as numerous awkward standoffs on the Batumi-Akhaltsikhe highway as the road had been narrowed to barely one lane.

By Thursday, my patience was starting to wear thin. I did Thursday what I had done the days before. That night, it was our neighbors' turn to schlep to our house (we had been swapping) for Turkish coffee and mandarins. I entertained everyone by dancing with Giorgi and by singing silly kid songs in English. It passed the time as did a shower by candlelight.

A very stranded marshrutka

The Batumi-Akhaltsikhe Highway

Friday, day five of no power and no heat in my bedroom, and I had pretty much snapped. The only good thing to happen was it finally stopped snowing and the sun had come out. I tried to keep my spirits up by going on a walk and playing a word game with Giorgi, but I could hardly focus. I tried reading, but a low battery message kept flashing on the screen of my Kindle. Of course, I also read actual books, which I do prefer, but there was nothing in that form I could use to escape reality. My day was spent either staring at the wall or biting my lip to hold back tears. I had contacted the Embassy the day before to ask the local power company on my behalf about when the power would come back.  The response had been: "We have no idea." My host mom remarked that it could be a month for the surrounding villages but then proceeded to unsuccessfully assure me that Keda would have power by Sunday.

It did not matter. I had had enough. You can take the girl out of America but you cannot take America out of the girl. Say what you want about my generation's dependency on technology, but my computer is a lifeline, especially living in a foreign country. I use it to communicate with friends and family; I use it as a window to the world. Living in a foreign country in a town surrounded by mountains, I felt sort of trapped. My host family is great and I have great conversations with them, but I had no idea what was going on at that time which made the situation all the more frustrating. Without my computer, I was stranded and in distress.

Keda Public School (where I work)

Saturday, I left Keda and made the long trek into Batumi where there was power and heat. Normally, the marshrutka ride takes about forty minutes, but Saturday it took about two hours. I checked into a hotel and had a conversation with the Embassy about the situation and my frame of mind. It was agreed that I should stay in the city, at least temporarily, until the power came back on and or school reopened.

Part of the delay in the restoration of power is due to the fact that the winter storm caused a significant amount of damage to the power plant and power lines in Adjara. For the first couple of days, the entire region was without electricity. Essential services ground to a halt and Batumi had to buy its power from Turkey to get those services up and running again. Much of the mountainous inland was rendered accessible only via helicopter due to all the snow and cold, making it very difficult to repair the extensive damage.

So, there you have it, the story in grisly detail. A cousin said that these were pioneer days, something I found to be fairly apt. Or, maybe, a little bit more developing world than I bargained for. It is day eighteen and as far as I know, there is still no power.

Kutaisi and Cathedrals

Last weekend I went to Kutaisi for the umpteenth time...actually, it was just my third, but the first with the intentions of seeing the local cultural sites.

Friday morning, after my first class, I departed Keda. On travel days, I have to give myself a lot of room because getting out of Keda is a bit of a hassle. As I expected, I arrived in Batumi and sat waiting in the Kutaisi/Tbilisi marshrutka for well over an hour while the driver and his friends tried hawking more passengers.  No dice, for them, and we left (after much urging from Georgian women) less than half full. This driver went particularly fast, but that is not terribly unusual...I just clutched the seat in front of me several times to keep from flying into the aisle.

I made it to Kutaisi in time for the Friday night expat "Happy Hour" where all four of us ETAs, Chase, and several other Americans and Georgians splurged on an excellent meal at Zedazeni Restaurant. After that, we all went to a club where a Georgian musician was making a music video and wanted us all to be in it dancing. The ETAs were not terribly impressed and we moved to a billiards establishment. I did not partake since, like with most sports involving the use of a ball, I am terrible, but I observed and had a nice conversation with a young Georgian woman.

Saturday morning, after sleeping in, the four of us ETA's met up with TLGer (Teach and Learn with Georgia) Melissia, and headed to Bagrati Cathedral. Shawn told us that Bagrati had been on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list but was recently downgraded after being renovated to its previous splendor. They used stones from the ancient structure, new stones made from the same material, and steel to represent the threats the Georgian Orthodox Church has faced over the centuries and how it has endured them. It was first built in the 11th Century and was devastated by an explosion from Ottoman Troops in the 17th Century. The renovation was completed in 2012.

Bagrati Cathedral (it is officially known as Cathedral of the Dormition)

The five us explored some of the ancient walls/fortress that surrounded the cathedral. We had beautiful views of Kutaisi and the surrounding mountains.  The trademark slogan of this came from Shawn proclaiming something along the lines of: "I have cathedral/castle dust in my beard."

View of Kutaisi and the surrounding mountains.

Shawn and Kenny exploring the ancient ruins. This particular section was a bit of a climb.

Afterwards, we bought shwarma. Shwarma is an Arabic meat wrap of sorts that uses a variety of different meats (just not pork) and roasts them on a rotating spit. Once in the wrap, vegetables are included. I was not particularly impressed, but I was told by the other ETA's and the TLGer that they all had had better. Maybe I will try it again sometime.

We then caught a marshrutka up to Gelati Monastery which is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) outside Kutaisi. It contains three churches, one from the 12th Century called Church of the Virgin founded by King David the Builder and the second and third, the churches of Saint Georgie and Saint Nicholas from the 13th Century. At one time Gelati was considered one of the primary cultural and intellectual centers of Georgia celebrating world renowned scientists, theologians, and philosophers. It is one of the few churches in Georgia to retain original frescoes and buried there is one of Georgia's greatest kings, David the Builder.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  The five of us did not spend much time there, though, only about half an hour.

Gelati Monastery

Gelati Monastery

The frescoes inside one of the churches.

Kenny was determined to walk back to Kutaisi and none of us objected. However, he did not want to get back to Kutaisi on the main road and instead wanted to follow an obscure sign that would lead to a "monument to architecture." A Georgian woman begging for money by the monastery gates told us pretty resoundingly that there was nothing that way, but Kenny was sure and it was Kenny that we followed. We started off on a "road" but this "road" was so badly pockmarked and rocky that Melissa and I both assessed that it had been quite a while since anyone had driven on this road. The "road" totally disintegrated and pretty soon we were just hiking through the forest, fending off bare branches and thorny bushes at almost every turn! The only sign of civilization came from the sound of chainsaws, to which Destinee remarked: "This is how a horror film begins..." After finding what must have been a muddy cow path, we followed that for a short distance before we hit a fork in the road. The best way, Kenny and Shawn decided, was to head to the top of a mountain/hill where there was a road that looked like it had been used recently. Somewhere along the line, that road also disintegrated and we came into rolling open meadows that overlooked patchy villages. In the distance, there was an actual road that looked like it would lead to Kutaisi. We followed this road for quite awhile, singing Christmas carols and making up our own Georgian rendition of "12 Days of Christmas". It was quite fun and amusing...and drew quite a bit of stares from Georgian villagers. I would stare too if I saw some random foreigners emerge from a forest in rural America singing songs.  Eventually, while slogging up a hill, two older Georgian men were kind enough to give Destinee, Melissa, and I a lift (Shawn and Kenny refused) and dropped us off at the edge of Kutaisi. During the short ride, the drivers offered their sons to us for marriage.  All in all, it was about a six or seven mile hike! We never did find that monument to architecture...

Hiking through the meadows.

For the entire journey from Gelati Monastery to Kutaisi, we had a dog follow us. He looked like a brown labrador mix and had a docked tail. He hiked with us for the entire journey, following the boys into the city and then proceeding to wait for us outside the Mirzani Restaurant for about forty-five minutes before finally disappearing. He was given three hotdogs and Khinkali nubs for his efforts.

Kenny dubbed him "William J. Dog" after William J. Fulbright,
the US Senator who founded the Fulbright Program.

After a conveniently beautiful day Saturday, the weather turned on Sunday and that will bring me to my next adventure...

Castles and Cave Monasteries

I awoke this Saturday morning cozy under my covers, all too aware of how cold it was in my bedroom despite a (lousy) electric heater standing in the center of it. After finally gaining the courage to get up and get dressed, I slipped on my glasses and walked to the window.  It was snowing! No wonder why it was so cold. My host brother promises me that if we get enough snow, he will engage me in a snowball fight whether I like it or not.

A snowy Keda!

Last week, the Fulbright ETA's were called to meet with the State Department's regional education director (of Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan) visiting from Kiev who oversees the Fulbright program and all other government sponsored education programs in the small city of Akhaltsikhe. It just so happens that one of the Fulbright ETA's, Kenny, lives in Akhaltsikhe and so we all decided that this meeting would provide the perfect excuse for a mini-vacation!

On Wednesday, I set off from Keda on the real circuitous route to get to Akhaltsikhe by going via Batumi and Kutaisi. There is a road that goes from Batumi directly to Akhaltsikhe, for Keda is situated along this road, but past the village of Khulo thirty miles east of me, the road disintegrates and becomes one of the most dangerous in Georgia. What Google Maps says would only take three hours is really at least a nine hour mountain pass trek at best with a jeep. I was not about to do that at this stage of November.  So, six hours, three marshrutkas, and a taxi later, I arrived in Akhaltsikhe.

A picture of myself at Rabati Castle.

Thursday was gray, gloomy, and cold - the perfect day for a meeting! First, though, the four of us taught Kenny's 8th grade class with such activities as "two truths and a lie" and "I have never" (much like "never have I ever" just more appropriate). With four teachers plus Kenny's counterpart - class went swimmingly! If only all our classes were that easy. After class, the four of us headed to Akhaltsikhe's American Corner (a small library of English-language materials and the like that are situated in many foreign cities) for the meeting. There was nothing too exciting to report there...the usual things were discussed. I did learn that the Foreign Service Officers Test might be offered in Tbilisi in February, so that is something in which I may take part, after all, I like having a plan and it has been a lifelong dream to be in the Foreign Service. Why not?

Friday morning started off foggy and cold but would later turn sunny and warm. After Destinee and I grabbed breakfast at Smarty's, a grocery store chain that is the finest in all of Georgia and most reminiscent of any I have seen in America, we met up with Shawn. The three of us headed to Rabati Castle, which had recently been renovated with shops and a spa in the center, losing its ancient splendor. Nonetheless, it was still beautiful and fun to explore. Destinee and I gushed over some of the Middle Eastern architecture there and over the prospect of visiting Turkey (and maybe Jordan) over winter break. Afterwards, we met up with Kenny and climbed to the top of a hill just as the sun was beginning to set.  The views were stunning!

In the evening, the four of us went to the Rabati spa in the castle for two hours. We experienced several different steam rooms of varying temperature, a pebble foot bath, a lukewarm jacuzzi, and much more! It was equally gratifying and delightful to feel so warm and so clean. It was also a blessing because when I got back to the hotel, I decided to wash my hair.  That shower ended up being one of the worst I have ever taken...no water pressure, the temperature was either scalding or freezing, and the spout would not stay on the wall. Needless to say, the shower was quick and filled with periodic expletives.

I think this may have been a mosque at one time. Inside Rabati Castle in Akhaltsikhe.

Inside the mosque.

The Georgian flag.

Beautiful Middle Eastern architecture.

The castle really does look like the Western concept of a castle.

Rabati Castle

View of the surrounding mountains in Akhaltsikhe.

Saturday was much like Friday, warm and sunny, perfect for visiting Vardzia Cave Monastery! I have now been to three of Georgia's top cave-city attractions (the others being Davit Gareja and Uplistsikhe in 2012) and while all beautiful and special in their own right, Vardzia was by far the most elaborate. Vardzia was built into the cliff face/slopes of Erusheti Mountain along the Mtkvari River (which also runs through Tbilisi) in south central Georgia about an hour outside of Akhaltsikhe. The Church of the Dormition, built in the center of this grand structure, is still active and just as with Davit Gareja, there are still monks who reside in the caves.  The sections where they lived were roped off from tourists.  Soviet-era excavations and research determined that people had been living in Vardzia since the Bronze Age (somewhere between 3600 - 12OO BC) and records state that it was largely abandoned during the Ottoman takeover in the Sixteenth Century. Today, the Georgian government is working hard to try and have Vardzia declared as a UNESCO World Heritage site.  As for Kenny, Destinee, Shawn, and I - we had a grand old time exploring the various rooms and caves and tunnels that made up the site.

Vardzia!

Frescoes at the Church of the Dormition

Vardzia featured some of the most questionable stairs I have seen
in Georgia. They were uneven and weaved haphazardly through
dark tunnels with no lights!

Stairway from heaven to earth!

Sunday it was time to head back to Keda. There is nothing too interesting to report here except for that when I arrived in Batumi, a middle-aged taxi driver followed me for a good ten minutes shouting in Russian: "You and me drink wine! I live alone! No wife!" I swear, I am not good at keeping away the creepers.

This past week, I again started feeling pangs of homesickness. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and this will be my first time I will spend Christmas without my parents.  Thanksgiving here in Georgia was very low-key, I ended up having my students draw "hand turkeys" and write about what they were thankful for. I also explained to them what Thanksgiving was. I shared with them the unfortunate "tradition" of Black Friday and said, much to their amusement, "Only in America could you be thankful one day for all that you have and then the next rush out to buy even more stuff."

That is all I have for now! I am just wrapping up grad school applications and considering where to go for winter break.

Between Kutaisi and Batumi

As usual, I have not updated for awhile and feel as though it is time I should. Life has been busy. There have been classes to teach, lessons to plan, tests to grade, people to visit, sights to see, and graduate school applications to write.

Where to begin? Halloween fell on a Thursday this year and nobody in my school did anything to celebrate because they all thought the holiday fell on the 30th despite me telling them otherwise. They didn't do anything on the 30th either, that I could tell. However, on Thursday, we had debate club where talented students (and lovers of English) from Keda and surrounding villages come to practice their spoken English - which is actually pretty good. Afterwards, I met up with a couple Peace Corps Volunteers and headed to Keda's only cafe for our weekly rendezvous. I am pretty sure the three of us are what keeps that cafe going; we have never seen anyone else there.

Friday, I headed to Kutaisi for the second weekend in a row to attend a Halloween party that was being thrown by some Peace Corps volunteers.  I ended up crashing Chase's place (he is a BOREN Fellow), and we were both sleeping in Saturday morning after having been out late the night before. What finally got both us on the move, or at least me, was Destinee showing up unexpectedly Saturday morning (needless to say, Chase and I both kind of startled her because she didn't know I was going to be there and Chase was supposed to be in Tbilisi). The two of us met up with Shawn and we went to a Chinese lunch at some sketchy compound in a hotel that had no guests. This was all designed by the same Peace Corps Volunteers who designed a giant game of Assassin, which I did not really participate in, and the party to come that evening. After lunch, several of us strolled the city, had dinner, and then went to the party. What can be said about the party other than it was like a typical college/undergrad party where there was drinking and dancing and drinking and dancing.  Sunday, I slept in for far longer than I normally do but I will not apologize for it.

Kutaisi Theater

Here I am striking a pose in Lover's Park in Kutaisi.

Central Kutaisi.

Last week, on Wednesday, Keda had Kedaloba, a festival celebrating the local traditions and foods of the region. There was plenty of food, wine, dancing, and singing! It was a gorgeous November day in the upper 60s/low 70s, sunny, and pleasant. The weather has been so nice lately and I will take whatever I can get for as long as I can, because come winter, I suspect a perpetual chill will set in. I am a northern girl, I should be used to it. While at the festival, I ran into two volunteers from the Teach and Learn with Georgia program and after the festival, we decided we would have a late lunch at the cafe. Before we could get out of the park, however, we were stopped by a host of Georgian men who immediately gave us their phone numbers, told us we should be guests in their homes, and that they would give us tours of various sights in Adjara. This kind of thing seems to happen a lot. They were happy I was able to speak Russian with them and strangely hounded one of the TLGer's for not knowing Russian (his Georgian is better than mine, though)! Anyway, one of the men kept speaking to me in a blend of Russian and French despite me telling him at least five times that I do not speak French. An interesting side note is that I have been living in Georgia now for about two months and still barely know a lick of the language (I have mastered the alphabet), but the sounds and the looks of it have become less foreign to me. I more or less "recognize" it now, kind of like Spanish, I suppose...there is a certain familiarity that I have with it.

I was going to post a video, but it isn't working...technology is killing me today. Here are pictures instead. You will be able to watch the video if you follow this link: Kedaloba 2013

Wonderful fruit.

Traditional Georgian dancing.

Terrific spreads.

I've been told to include more pictures of myself on this blog so here I am at Kedaloba!

This past weekend I, along with my host mother and brother, journeyed to Batumi. The intention of their visit, I am really not quite sure, but we stayed at my host uncle's apartment. Saturday morning I spent Skyping with a friend whom I had not spoken to in awhile. In the afternoon, after my host mother returned from an appointment (she had insisted I wait for her), she told me she had no time to show me around Batumi so I ventured out by myself.  Camera in hand, I took pictures, of course. I spent much of that outing exploring the giant waterfront park that is one of Batumi's claims to fame. I caught a whiff of the Black Sea, bought a shirt with Russian cupolas and martroshka dolls on it (because I am not obsessed), and looked out at the sea.  It was interesting - the Black Sea was always this place I had heard about and to finally see it was and is special. Despite the weather being warm, it was slightly overcast and there was a certain strange air to Batumi, as if the city's energy had been drawn into a pair of lungs, waiting to be expelled.

Batumi

Central Batumi. Classical architecture meets Soviet meets modern!

The Black Sea.

The Black Sea and the mountains of Adjara.

Now it is Thursday and I just finished up debate club and the expat get-together. So there you have it - short and sweet.

Note these Georgian men in traditional costume!