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!

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?

Georgian Hospitality

A recent article listed Georgia as the third most hospitable country in the world. All my research of the country echoed the recurring themes of "Georgian kindness," and "the warmth of the Georgian people." Yet upon finally getting here and actually interacting with people on the street, I found it was  just the opposite. The first few days were very strange because I noticed no one smiled. I'm a pretty friendly person to strangers on the street, and will at least shoot people a smile, or a head nod if they happen to make eye contact. But everyone here walks around with a very stoney face - no expression, no looking at other people, no acknowledging other human beings exist. I found it all a little disconcerting.

And then, after having a few phrases under my belt, I noticed that the second you actually initiate a conversation, especially if you try in Georgian, folks just light up, and become incredibly animated. Having made it to my host family's house last night, I finally understand the meaning of "Georgian hospitality."

My family lives up a cobblestone street off of another rubble strewn road off one of the main thoroughfairs in Telavi. The upstairs is currently under construction (I get one of the new rooms when it's finished!), but the rest of it is very warm feeling, very homey. Especially the kitchen, which is hilariously where I have spent most of my time. My host mother, Maghka, is this really vibrant woman who doesn't speak English - she only knows a few words here and there. Naturally, upon finally meeting her, I was so nervous and excited that any Georgian I learned over the last week just went straight out of my head. Conversations right now are a weird mix of me slaughtering Georgian, just straight up making words I think COULD be Georgian (adding an -i to the end of most things seems to work well), and lots of gesticulating. When I get back Stateside you will want me to be on your charades team. However, I have gotten a lot of bonus points for keeping a little notebook where I scribble down words I'm learning using the Georgian alphabet, even if I do need help discerning a few of the p's, k's and t's still. Ani, the 11 year old daughter, and her younger brother Goga, are currently at their other grandparents house in a different village until the construction is done, but I spoke a little with Ani on the phone, and it sounds like she has a pretty good grasp on English. It will be nice to have her around, especially for those times when elaborate acting is needed.

In the four or five hours after my arrival to Telavi, I had four meals, numerous hugs, and several cheek kisses, mostly from the neighbors who kept dropping in. Georgian hospitality is outrageous - we even ran into a Polish kid who is backpacking across Georgia and needed a place to stay for the night. He was asking us if we knew where a cheap hostel was, and Maghka instead invited him to stay with us. So currently this family, whose house is under construction, kids are in another village, and both parents work, have taken in not only one foreigner, but two, neither of whom speak their language. They've fed both of us full meals, and always insisted we take more. We both have numerous blankets, pillows, and I bet if we needed clothes they would help us with that, too.

It's strange to me that the private circles of Georgians are so completely different than the public face they put on. For a group who is so welcoming and open with their house and belongings, they look completely unapproachable on the street. In fact, we were told in training that smiling at strangers, especially girls smiling at boys, is considered "flirtatious." It was slightly horrifying to find out that the first few days I was in Tbilisi everyone probably thought I was some crazy loose woman who was trying to lure men into my bed with a smile. It also explained why a couple times some men followed us for a short ways, yapping at us in Georgian or Russian. I basically just ignore everyone now, which turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. Public outings, especially if I'm by myself, are way less stressful now that I don't have to worry about social graces on the street.

Telavi unfortunately is currently under some cloud cover, as are the Caucasus mountains to the northeast of the town. Hopefully it will clear up by sunset so I can get a picture of the view outside our door. It's sort of stupid how every time I turn around it's another perfectly picturesque scene. The Caucasus are ridiculously impressive. They basically just jut a straight 11,000 feet up from the floor of the plains. The front range, which we can see from Telavi, go above treeline, and the highest one around here soars over 18,000 feet. I don't think I'll be doing that much trekking around in the high mountains, but some hiking definitely needs to be in the future. A few fellow TLGers were talking about possibly taking a trip this weekend and exploring around Kakheti, so hopefully that means mountain adventure time!

Either way, pictures to come when the weather clears up a bit!