Telavi Life

My host mom is a pretty impressive woman. She wakes up at about seven in the morning to get breakfast going and gets ready to work, then she puts in a full day of teaching at the preschool. When she gets home at four, she starts dinner, or makes a little snack, and then starts cleaning around the house. This has lately meant tidying up the construction area on the second floor. Why she has to do this, I’m not sure, but I do know that today it included not only bits of leftover wallpaper, but also a random hypodermic needle just lying on the floor. Cause you totally need that when you’re renovating upstairs bedrooms. Oh, and we also threw gigantic twelve foot long planks out the second story window. And threw a few doors out said window, also. And hauled a gigantic tarp full of wallpaper scrap down to the backyard so we could light it all on fire.  And then just left this huge pile of trash burning while we went inside and chatted with a neighbor. I guess when you don’t have a landfill system, or some kind of environmental bureau on your ass, it’s pretty much do whatever the hell you want with your garbage!

It’s funny, because Georgians make a lot of stuff happen with very few materials. They are the masters of jank. They’ve perfected it, and it is super impressive. Subsequently, having spent a large chunk of my life surrounded by Yooper jank, the Georgian way of doing things doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary. My mom and I walked up the road and went down a little trail yesterday to get some water out of a pipe in the side of the hill that spits out a really heavy stream (ha, period joke, boom) of ridiculously cold water. We filled up a huge jug with it, brought it home, and then she disappeared out back with it. What it’s for, I still have no idea, but I know damn well that it’s most likely essential for the house running, so I’m not going to question it. Our house has a seemingly unending supply of water out of the faucets – all the sinks and shower work, and we have a washing machine. What that jug was for I am at a loss, unless Georgians have secretly found a way of creating shitloads of water out of a few gallons.  Although, considering they are just now getting scientists and agriculturalists back in the country for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting “brain drain,” I find this highly unlikely.

I think my favorite part so far (I keep talking like I’ve been here for a long time, when it’s really only been like three days) is when my mom and I get some fruit and go walking down the street to Leah’s house, where we sit out front and they judge the everliving shit out of all the cars driving by and the noisy kids playing down the street. It’s nice to just sit and listen to them, and I’m finding myself able to pick out words here and there, but more importantly discern what some of the verbs are and how they’re being conjugated. Of course, that doesn’t help me at all, since I still have no idea what the fuck they’re referring to, but whatever. It’s progress, and I’m gonna chase that feeling! Although, if my brain could shut the fuck up with the Greek internal monologue I have going when I play the “what would I say to this question” game, I’d really appreciate that. However, the overall feeling - the camaraderie, the affection for each other, the loud talking and laughing and closeness the neighbors all have - reminds me a lot of being around the family in Chicago. It feels very natural, and very familiar. It's nice. It's made me really happy that I grew up with an insanely animated, loud, everyone-in-everyone-elses-shit family, because that's what these communities are. 

While I'm over the moon happy to be here, I find myself almost breaking down on a near daily basis. It's like I look at a tree, and am just so happy that this tree has figs that I can pick off the branches from the street, and it fills me with this crazy affection to this tree and I almost start crying out of happiness about it. And forget the mountains. Or the buildings. Or the people in general. It's all just making me so happy I can cry. I finally understand my mom and sister at the end of Homeward Bound, when Shadow comes limping over the hill and Peter runs over and they're reunited. I used to make fun of them when I was little, because why would you cry when you're happy? I swore up and down from ages 5-24 that I wasn't going to be that person that cried whenever they were happy, and now I'm totally one. Although, I haven't actually done it in front of anyone yet, because I don't want to be THAT person in the program. Bully for me, I suppose! Anyway, it's hard to really express how I feel about this place, other than it feels...right.

On a less serious and deep note, because whoa...

My house currently doesn't have internet, as a car ran over the cable and it's out (what?), so I've found a few places nearby that have free wifi. It's weird not being able to just hop online whenever I want, and it's doubly strange not being able to use my iPhone to look things up whenever I want. I resigned myself to not being able to have constant internet, and I figured it wouldn't be that bad to deal with. And it really hasn't been bad. But a few of the kids in the program thought ahead and brought unlocked smartphones with them, so they were able to get a micro SIM card from TLG. Know how much the data plan here is? You're all going to punch me, but for 15GB of data (so about 5 times what you probably have with Verizon or AT&T), it's 5 lari to set up (3USD about) and then 50 tetri a month (so like .26 USD). Yeah. I don't think I'm ever fucking leaving this country. Anyway, now that I know this is a possibility, it's just sitting there, tantalizing me. Every time I look at my iPhone it's basically just snickering at me, saying "Haha, you fool! How could you not even think to unlock me! I'm supposed to be a great international phone! What were you thinking!!" How's that for being a shitty First World Problem? "Wah, I went to a place that has an unstable power grid and didn't think to unlock my ridiculously amazing smartphone so I could have 3G coverage while there, all so I could look up pictures of cats whenever I wanted! Womp womp!" 

I'm trying really hard not to be a shitty American about things, and I think so far I'm doing a pretty good job. The smartphone thing, though, is a tough habit to shake. Especially since I never really realized just how MUCH I used it. It's making me slow down a bit, though, and not worry about what everyone else is doing around me, and focus more on what all is right here. I've been drawing a good bit, and reading some Emerson, cause apparently traveling abroad is also forcing me to go through a transcendentalist phase, which is something I never thought would happen. 

All that being said, I'm totally about to call Verizon and throw a shit fit about things until they unlock my phone, since apparently they were giving my mother a hard time about it. I figure with my iPhone unlocked, if anything, I'll be able to text fellow TLG volunteers with a normal keyboard again, instead of the archaic keypad typing that was popular back in 1999. That's really why I want to switch. Plus all of the lolcats. We can never forget the lolcats.

My little TLG-provided phone. He's awesome, and it's like doing a time warp back to being 18 and texting with the old brick phone we used to have, but damn. Go hug your touchscreen keyboards, everyone. Tell them how much you love them, and appreciate them!

Still a crap shot, as the Caucasus mountains are under a seemingly perpetual blanket of fluffy cumulus clouds, but this is about  four steps out from my front door. Rough life, eh?