Streets and Stereotypes

In my reading of numerous blogs, and talking to various people before coming to Georgia, several warnings stood out in my brain. The three that stuck with me the most were:

1) People are insane drivers, and take their cars up to ridiculously unsafe speeds on ridiculously unsafe roads and you will probably get hit by one if you walk in the road.

2) Georgians will feed you no matter what. They also will randomly drag you into their houses and make you eat.

3) Don’t friend them on Facebook, because the second you do, they will go through every picture of you they can and “like” all of them. 

These made me giggle, and I figured I would be spatially aware enough to realize there was a car coming and thus avoid it, and polite enough to refuse food, and that the whole “liking” pictures was one of those stupid stereotypes like “black people talk really loudly in movie theaters.” Clearly, since I knew everything about the world, I paid these no real heed.

Only, they’re fairly true (not the movie theater thing, just the general statements about Georgians). The streets here are in terrible shape. There’s no real reason that it takes almost 12 hours to get across a country that is the size of South Carolina, other than the roads are awful. The main thoroughfares in  Telavi are still riddled with potholes, and that’s to say nothing about the side streets, most of which are rubble or cobblestone. These roads have bred two very different types of drivers: ones who are arguably over cautious, and ones who think they’re F1 drivers. The F1 drivers are more numerous, and they avoid potholes and other obstacles at the very last second, often swerving several feet around it, bringing their thousand pound vehicle within mere feet, if not inches, of hitting you. Since I always walk as close to buildings as I can except in extreme circumstances (i.e. parked cars, leering elderly Georgians on a stoop, sketchy looking dogs, etc), I’ve sort of come to terms with the fact that if I get hit by a car while walking it will not be out of malice. Rather, it will be the driver legitimately losing control of their vehicle and thus obliterating me. And I'm pretty ok with that, honestly, because what use is there in worrying about this particular part of my day since I have to walk everywhere? 

As I mentioned before, my street is cobblestone, and is also on a fairly steep hill. People that go down this are generally pretty cautious, as they don't want to really mess up their suspension. The exceptions to this are the van drivers. There is a huge number of various types of vans here. Also, lots and lots of BMWs, Mercedes, and VWs. In the last few days, I've also seen a fair number of Jeeps, including one that was the same year as Nigel, which made me simultaneously happy and sad. It's stupid how heartbroken I still am over that car. But that's all besides the point. The point is that vans are really the only cars that haul ass down my street. 

I say this because last night, as I was walking down to the fountain at the bottom of our hill for water (my host mom scolds me if I drink a substantial amount of water from the tap, which makes me wonder where our water comes from, if street water is that much better...), a van came roaring down the street, and swerved to avoid a particularly jutting rock and almost nailed me. So after giving the driver a ridiculously dirty look, I started back for home, when my neighbor, T'ako saw me and came running out of her house. She lives two doors down, and threw open the gate to her yard and dragged me and my water bottle inside. After hustling me in past her grandmother, she sat me down on the couch next to her sister, and proceeded to feed me a shitload of fresh grapes, cookies, and coffee, even though I had just eaten back at the house. Her sister was watching Turkish soap operas that were dubbed in Georgian, which are super popular here. In typical social interaction fashion, there was a lot of hilarious gesticulating from all of us to figure out what the hell we were saying, although me laughing at a Georgian pad commercial was totally not understood by either of the girls, and no amount of hand waving would articulate why it was so funny. But trust me, it was wicked amusing. Anyway, T'ako herded me over to the computer once I was done with coffee, where she made me watch videos she had taped of herself dancing alone in her bedroom to really, really bad club music. She then friended me on Facebook, and we eventually struck a really good balance of talking via Google translate, and I think tonight we're scheduled to play some cards? Who knows what all I agreed to through Google translate. I guess I'll find out later!

After about an hour and a half of being force fed and laughing really hard, I returned home. Once I turned 3G back on the iPhone, my Facebook was instantly inundated with notifications of T'ako "like"ing every.single.one.of.my.pictures.from.ever. It was sort of ridiculous, but definitely made me smile.

No seriously. She went a few years back, even!

Anyway. The whole point of this very roundabout post was simply to say that stereotypes exist for a reason, and in the span of two hours last night, I experienced three very prominent ones.

Sighnaghi, ho!

This past weekend I pulled a page out of the old book entitled “Go On A Trip With Almost Zero Planning And See What Happens!” Myself and three other TLGers decided to head down to Sighnaghi, a town a couple hours south of Telavi which is known as the tourist destination of Eastern Georgia. We figured we would go down early in the morning and come back that evening. Fool proof, right?

So onto a marshutka we climb. A marshutka is a type of van that acts as a share taxi. They have specific departure and destination locations, as well as routes, but no prescribed stops. Instead, you can get on or off anywhere on said route. They’re also very cheap and, since they’re driven by Georgians, relatively speedy. They can comfortably sit around fifteen passengers, but uncomfortably that number hovers closer to twenty five. Think of them as Eastern European clowncars, cause that’s basically how they function. For smaller villages, marshutkas are a lifeline to civilization. People go into town to shop, then bring their newly purchased items back onto these vehicles to transport them home. Sometimes there’s even a ridiculously calm chicken in a plastic bag full of children’s clothing, like there was this particular day.

After a marshutka change in Gurjaani, we started the subtle climb up to Sighnaghi. The city itself is perched on the top of a very large hilly plateau that overlooks the Alazani Plain and has a front row seat for the Caucasus Mountains. 

Sighnaghi on the hilltop.

As mentioned previously, Sighnaghi has recently undergone intense renovations and most of the buildings in the town proper have been redone. Subsequently, the streets are lined with building fronts that look like they walked out of an issue of the Most Quaint European City Magazine – colorful balconies, beautiful doorways, impressive wooden facades. But that’s what it is – a façade. A closer look at these structures reveals that most of them are completely abandoned on the inside, usually with broken walls, trash littered floors, and broken windows in the back. So while Sighnaghi looks brand spanking new (or as new as you can make a city which is surrounded by a medieval stone wall look) it’s really just like the rest of Georgia; mostly abandoned. This place is seriously an urban explorers wet dream come true. Sadly, no one else in the program shares my enjoyment of crawling around weird abandoned places, and I’m sure as shit not going in any of them by myself, so I have to just deal with looking at them from afar.

Anyway. We ended up sauntering over to the Bodbe Monastery, a sacred location for Georgian orthodoxy, as it is where Nino, the Baptist of Georgia, is buried. The chapel on the grounds is painted floor to ceiling to floor with incredible icons, panoramas, and scenes. All the churches in this country have incredible artwork, actually, and they also have that same orthodox incense smell. I’m not remotely religious, but that particular scent has always been comforting, probably due to all the weddings and funerals my family attended while I was growing up.

Fellow adventurers! From left to right: Sam, Sophia, and Chris.

Psychoanalytic breakdowns of my memories aside, the monastery and convent had numerous signs for a “Holy Spring.” 

I know we should probably have guessed what a Holy Spring is, but I've never been to one, so I didn't know what all to expect. Was it a spring like in Legend of Zelda, with a crazy, half naked chick living in some water in a cave? How was I to know!

Curious as to what this was, we followed the arrows down a seemingly never ending flight of stairs that were on the side of the mountain. After we ended up walking down seriously half the mountain, we came upon a small chapel which housed the spring, complete with a willow tree outside shading the tiny courtyard. People were lining up next to this chapel, because for the low, low price of seventeen lari you could be baptized right there! Lines in Georgia don’t really exist. In stores, and even at the medical clinic I went to before, there is no “line” per se. There’s a mass of people, and you push your way to the front, even if it means bypassing people who have been waiting longer than you. It’s pretty unabashed cutting, and it really cracks me up (except for when some damn kid cuts in front of me when I’m about to get some ice cream. Then I get upset.). However, under the judgmental and mean looking stares of orthodox nuns, everyone was orderly and polite. It was very impressive, and Sophia even remarked that this was the most organized line she’s seen since getting here.

This little spring has a pretty decent view of the Caucasus Mountains, eh? Also, pretty jealous of all the people that got to just drive there. I do believe our way was much more...pure. Or something. Much sweatier, that's for sure.

Since I’m already baptized, and Sophia didn’t feel like shelling out the lari for her soul, we filled our water bottles up at the fountain that was there and started climbing back up the stairs. These stairs were reminiscent of Half Dome all over again, minus the sheer granite rock face, and impending death if you end up falling. Lack of imminent doom aside, it was just like Half Dome. At least it felt like it. I don’t really appreciate things that make my being so vastly out of shape super obvious, and that’s what walking up stairs that span half a mountain will do. At least I was slightly better than the ancient Georgian women who were making the ascent.  We even exchanged exasperated looks and desperate laughs as I [barely] passed them on the way up.

It looks much more steep in real life. Also, it's never ending. 

After our mini pilgrimage, we decided to secure lodgings for the night, since we had discovered that the last marshutka home had left about three hours prior. We ended up asking a random woman on the street who was drinking coffee and having a snack if she could help us find a cheap hotel or guest house. Next thing we knew, she was on the phone, then motioning us to follow her. So there we were, four super obvious American twenty something year olds and a Georgian woman leading us through the streets of Sighnaghi to a woman named Dodo.

Dodo’s guest house makes me want to get back on Foursquare and write a rave review. It was cheap, clean, had great bathrooms (Western toilets, even!), got a delicious breakfast cooked for us the next morning, and she let us dig into her homemade wine. Dodo is a tiny, vivacious little Georgian woman that resides in a small room in the large complex she owns and uses as a hostel as her means of living. She had piles of blankets for us if we wanted them, gave us our choice of what beds to sleep in, and was more than happy to show us a delicious restaurant right up the road from her. We ate a lot and drank even more before settling in for the night on the balcony with our beds and homemade wine. While the concept of a bed on a balcony is amazing, in a world where Lada Niva drivers go about fifty million miles an hour on cobblestone roads at four a.m., they are not exactly conducive to a restful nights sleep. Still, I would not have changed anything about that night for the world, since we woke up to a [relatively] sleepy, cloud covered Sighnaghi.

The view from our balcony, over to other balconies. I'd be pretty happy living in any of those buildings, honestly.

In true Georgian fashion, there were no marshutkas from Sighnaghi to Telavi that day, so we had to go south to Tsnori in order to catch one heading north. Because what is a trip in this country without it being slightly circuitous and nonsensical?

All in all we saw beautiful places, visited old ass churches (my sister really wasn’t kidding when she said I’ve been to more churches in the last month than in the last ten years), ate fantastic food, drank great wine, and laughed a lot.

Mighty fine shindig!

Sneaking

If, one day, you are sitting in your room chain drinking coffee when all of the sudden you hear a lot of caffuffle downstairs, a few things being knocked over, and general exhasperated sounds, don't worry! It most likely is not someone breaking into the house and stealing things in a very unstealthy manner. It's probably just your 4'8" Georgian grandmother trying to carry an 8' ladder up a spiral staircase. And then she points at 6 watermelons and a bag of cucumbers that have magically appeared by the house and tells you to bring them in as she walks back to her home.

They just don't make 'em like they used to, I suppose.

And speaking of the older generations and being sneaky, here's an old man sitting on the bench with his dog. Totally snapped this uber stealthily with the iPhone as I was doing my best "I'm a lost, stupid foreigner" face. Gotta hone those street photographer skills! 

P.s. Unsure why it's all blurry and crappy rez. I'm having some issues with photo quality lately, and I'll try to suss it out. A.k.a harass and incessantly annoy my tech savvy friend until he tells me what's wrong and how to fix it.

Streets

Cobblestone winning: six inch platform stiletto pumps without so much as a misstep. 

Cobblestone failing: rollerblades. 

Security

Our house has a big metal door. This door is never shut if we're home, except for when we're asleep. It also only has one doorknob. It's not on there with any bolts or other securing measure - you can slide it out one side and put it on the other really easily. 

So my family's version of "locking up" when we're not home in the daytime is taking the doorknob out of the inside, using it to close the door from the outside, and then "hiding" (I use this term loosely, since it's just sitting on some scarves or whatnot) it in the glass door cabinet we have outside next to the entrance of the house. 

Awesome. 

What's In A Name?

I really, really love how my host family all calls me Julie, since apparently Johanna is just too much. 

Also, here's a gratuitous mountain shot.

I'm mobile, bitches!

I've finally gotten my iPhone all hooked up to Georgian cell towers, so check my badass self out! Subsequently, this might become more like a Twitter feed, with numerous smaller posts, but I'll still do big uploads every few days. Gotta keep things interesting, after all! 

I'm currently sitting in the teachers lounge at school. This is the fourth day so far, and I've a break between classes, so I figured I'd give some first impressions on being a teacher. 

First off, English is stupid. I've known this for a while, but having to teach all the rules and stuff to kids, and watch their tiny heads explode from definite articles, prepositional words, and messed up spelling, has only solidified this opinion. Especially coming off a language like Georgian, which fundamentally is logical, simple, and whose alphabet is specially tailored to it. Also, these kids start learning English and Russian in first grade, on top of Georgian. So that's three different alphabets, three different grammatical structures, and three different pronunciations. Georgian kids are badasses, and I am officially done complaining about how hard it is to learn a language. 

Secondly, the staff here has not disappointed in terms of hospitality. They all are very welcoming and nice, and always try to talk to me either in broken English or my ridiculously bad Georgian. I think it's funny that no matter how hard you try and inevitably slaughter the language, they will laugh at you, but then help out. Being from a supportive, somewhat mean family (I say "mean" because we all make fun of each other a lot, and that's how we show affection...), this isn't that out of the ordinary. I also really like it when they make fun of my abysmal Georgian and then hand me a cup of chacha and make me eat dumplings and cake. 

My coteachers have also asked me if I like Georgia every single day. It's like their go to "we should try to talk to the retarded American" question. This question also, every day, inevitably leads to "do you like Georgian men? Do you want a Georgian husband?" I've found that men here know one English word - "boyfriend." Any time I try to use an excuse like "Oh, I have a boyfriend in America," which I totally don't but I don't feel like being endlessly courted by men here so I lie, all the men in the room erupt in ridiculously hearty laughter. They then tell me they've heard that before, and since Georgian men are the best I will soon change my mind. Given that I can't cook, and they sure as hell can't either, if I ever did end up with a Georgian man we would shortly starve, so I think I'll stick to non Georgians for now. 

Finally, the school itself is...if I said rough shape that would be giving it way too much credit. It would fit in well in Detroit, lets say that. The walls are fucked and cracking, I've yet to find a light that works, the stairs have holes in them, the railing is messed up, and some rooms have that musty "haven't had a breeze blow through in 40 years" smell. But none of that matters. The kids don't notice, and neither do the teachers. All the rooms have drawings on the walls, and posters and flowers and curtains and tablecloths on the front desk. After I initially noticed all of these negatives, I stopped seeing them. 

The kids are all very bright, very enthusiastic, and they pick up on things incredibly fast. One of my co teachers called this school a big family - she meant it literally, as we have several pairs of mothers and daughters, sisters in law, brothers in law, etc. But it also functions as an extended and unrelated family due to it's size. My biggest class is 10 kids, the smallest is 4. The kids all know, respect, and generally like their teachers, and there is a level of familiarity present that you don't really find Stateside. 

So these are just first impressions, and I'm sure they'll change and that come mid semester I'll be frustrated by something. But for now I'm gonna just chill and suss out my place in this crazy chaotic workplace. 

Stop being such a Diva!

This is going to be kind of a weird post, so I’m going to hide it and you can click and read at your discretion.

Men, and women that don’t feel like reading it, today’s topic is about periods. Sorry! But I am on a crusade to help women everywhere in dealing with that stupid time every month where we want to burn the world down while stuffing our faces with chocolate! Especially for girls who are going to be travelling a lot, and haven’t thought about this particular issue yet, I’m hoping this can be a helpful point of view!

Ink'd

Today I was finally brave, and walked around the house in a short sleeved shirt, thus exposing the giant nerd tattoo on my arm. I’ve been trying to tip toe around this particular subject with my new family, since a lot of people, in Russia especially, only have tattoos if they’ve been to jail. TLG even warned us to not really advertise our body ink, since most people in Georgia have never seen them, and they have a lot of negative connotations associated with them. However, I ended up talking with one of the guys who has done TLG before, and he has several very large and visible tattoos on his arm, so we delved into how Georgians actually feel about them.

Ken put it very well. He basically told me that I shouldn’t hide it because this is a cultural exchange – my tattoo is a part of me, a part of where I come from, and they have to deal with my culture as well. He’s right, of course. This is an exchange, meaning I am thrown into the deep end of their life and they have to just deal with sticking a toe in my pool. But even with this empowering mindset, I still was nervous about showing it to them. Like more nervous than I was with my actual blood parents. My own parents have to love me. It’s a mix of me sharing their genes and them dealing with my charming self for 26 years that ensures I can do whatever dumb shit I want and at the end of the day they’re sort of stuck caring. This family, however, doesn’t know me, doesn’t have any fealty to me, and I wanted to make sure I got off on the right foot with them.

So out of the bedroom I walk with a short sleeved shirt, Boba just staring at all of them. And no one even cared. No one did a double take, or even looked at it. No one said anything until Ani, my sister, came up to me and poked at it, telling me it was very pretty. My grandmother and grandfather both still even hugged me when I tried saying an entire sentence in Georgian. My host father didn't scream in Russian and Georgian and then throw me out of the house. I got all wigged out and worried for nothing. Shocker, right?

Later that night, Ani and I were sitting in the kitchen, and she was asking me about it. I really enjoyed tonight – it was the first time she and I have gotten to hang out and talk. She is hilarious, and super animated, enthusiastic, and adorable. She has the absolute best laugh I’ve ever heard, and she calls smiling too much “pain in my face.” We ate a lot of fruit, she talked about  how she is going to be going on a diet (all women in Georgia apparently diet constantly. It’s part of the reason they’re so annoyingly drop dead gorgeous), and I showed her an Ansel Adams book of photography, which she really got a kick out of. Anyway, amidst her and I talking in very broken English and Georgian, and her laughing ridiculously hard when I kept trying to make various sounds in Georgian, we got onto the subject of tattoos. She was asking if it hurt, what it was, why I picked my arm, etc. And then she admitted to wanting two of them; one on the back of her neck, and one on her wrist. It was kind of awesome to hear this little 11 year old Georgian girl talk about getting tatted up, not gonna lie. So dad, if you’re reading this, just remember that if a family in the middle of an ex Soviet country can like my tattoo, you can, too!

I think TLG gave us a lot of “worst case scenarios,” which is great, considering the last groups didn’t get any kind of cultural warnings or language training. And while I think they went very, very overboard in this respect (they should’ve summed it up with “don’t be a dick” and we probably would’ve been ok), I think they wanted to let us know that in some cases things will be vastly different for us. I’ve been lucky enough to be in a larger city, with a family that’s already had a volunteer, so I’m living the easy life comparatively! Like today, the weirdest “Georgian” thing I did was scrape off moulding and plaster on the stairs with a steak knife since we didn’t have a razor! Tame day in Telavi!