#2

"You will be sick all the time."

Counting backwards to the top, here are the worst (best) moments:

5. Gulnara's party "For the Americans".  Now, don't nitpick my definition of sick.  I told them I should have stopped drinking roughly 5 shots beforehand.  For those of you who know my drinking (in)capabilities, let the magnitude of that sink in.  The upshot?  I threw up out my bedroom window, the chickens ate it, and I didn't walk for a day.

4. Marshutka rides.  I never know where to put this "sickness", but it makes the list for sure.  At least I know I'm not alone.  The sight of a pulled-over marsh for a sick person is one we all know well here.  Sometimes I travel back and forth to Batumi every day for a few days straight and then the nausea just sort of follows me like a haze. 

3. That time I got food poisoning at site visit (when I visited my village for the first time).  Not the last time I'll have food poisoning in Georgia, but surprisingly it was the first.  It makes the list for the intense embarrassment that I felt.  I was so sick that I had to end my welcome dinner in Batumi and make my new host family take me home.  Everybody was all freaked out.  Then I went back to training, still sick.  Bad news all around. 

2. I made it through the first HALF of winter without getting sick.  I was, like, the SuperKali of Georgia.  Until I came back to my host family after break and walked right into a sea of people who cough and don't cover their mouths.  Because being cold makes you sick.  And then it began.  And continued.  And never ended.  For months.  And months.  And after a course of antibiotics and a slew of cough medicine, it persisted.  Maybe I was the cough and the cough was me and there was no separating us.  Ever.  And then I had to get my chest x-rayed in Tbilisi.  After which, it cleared up in a matter of days with no extra medicine.  Wtf?  Magical x-rays?

1. Because it's a law for me in Georgia that I always get the sickest when I have to travel long distances, it makes sense that #1 happened right before I left to go halfway across the country to job shadow another volunteer.  This was the monster disease, The Big One, the disease to cough and fever all other diseases away.  I remember feeling so faint and so determined not to complain that the entire end of the first day shadowing turned into just a series of moments where I was focused on staying upright and walking forward.  Then I gave that disease to like 10 other volunteers.  Because I should have stayed home.  Sorry guys!

My rating for this platitude? 7.  I can't give it a 10.  For as sick as I've been, it doesn't amount to the horror stories I've heard from other people (and my God the pictures Africa volunteers post of their parasites ...).  Guess I'll remember to take my vitamin today ....

#1

Our one year mark here in Georgia is creeping up on me.  To celebrate, I will write about a Peace Corps Platitude every day to see if I've measured up to the propaganda.

"You'll experience your highest highs and your lowest lows." - I don't agree with this at all.

A case could be made for the highest highs.  Off the top of my head?  The times I've spent laughing with my counterpart-- and the times I've spent with her getting schooled on the things nobody talks about here.  Watching my little host sisters do insane things and having them imitate me in ridiculous ways.  I started quite the trend carrying a water bottle around.  I've never seen a four year old protect a water bottle so fiercely before.  Successfully teaching something mildly challenging on my own.  The look on my partner teacher's face when she found out she was going to America.  And then hearing her complex take on it when she returned to Georgia. 

The lowest lows?  No.  Thankfully, I don't think that this is true.  I've hit a few serious lows here, mostly loneliness in one form or another, but not the lowest I've ever been.  I think you can feel just as lonely when you're surrounded by people in America as you can when you're physically alone in the village halfway across the world.  Sure it's hard to be here sometimes, but loneliness takes a certain commitment to the idea that you're actually alone, as opposed to accepting the fact that human connection is not always easy.

My grade for Platitude #1: 6 (or a 9 if you're living in the village and this platitude is your coworker's nephew)

And in other news ... also known as regular news ...

Okay, let's get honest here.  I watch the frogs.  That's right, I'm a crazy frog-watching person.

Every day, I walk up and down about a 1/4 mile stretch of my riverbank back and forth, back and forth.  The path is too rocky to run, the roadside is incredibly dangerous, and in the other direction is the weird neighbor who stops me to ask questions about my "village lover" and otherwise thoroughly creeps me out ... so this is what I do because I go crazy* in the house if I don't.  I can pace along the same path for hours.

In my defense, it gives me a lot of time to think about things.  Not in my defense, there's not always a lot new going on so I spend time thinking about ridiculous things.  Like, what I would be doing on Facebook if I wasn't out pacing a riverbank trying to scrape my sanity up out of whatever is left of my sanity.  Or whatever.  I think this blog is developing an alarming theme.

ANYWAYS.  The frogs.

They're pretty cool.  They give me a measure of time.  I watched all of the eggs hatch into tadpoles, I watched the tadpoles grow, and now I'm watching this unusually warm spring dry up all of the little ponds before the tadpoles can turn into frogs.  Looks like rain tonight, though!  Is it weird that I hope for the rain because I'm worried about the frogs?

In other news, I befriended a horse grazing in a field and fed him two old apples.  Here's to hoping that if I end this post by talking about cute ponies that I will sound less weird.

**crazier

Nope.  Not happening.

Dilam Mshvidobisa

Hello, it's been a while.  How is the life you're leading?

And that is how I feel lately about everybody who does not live in my village.

To the people in America: How was that margarita?  How was your drive to work in the morning?  How was that Starbucks latte?  Your paying job?  Your family?

To my fellow PCVs: How was that night of supra and cha-cha?  How did you get out of teaching those crazy 7th graders?  Ah, really?  You faked appendicitis?  And your bowel movements?

To other PCVs around the world: Are your jeans dry yet?  Now?  How about now?  Now?  Now?  Now?  Because I assume this is a question that we ALL have in common.

Long stretches of time in the village causes me to take up curious routines.  Take my morning one, for example:

Wake up in the morning, refuse to get out of bed.  Snuggle down the bed (literally lengthwise) as much as possible to reduce the "hammock" effect of the Russian springs.  Hit snooze but stare at your phone.  Don't sleep.  Just wait.

Get up, finally.  Easily 30 minutes after you've actually woken up.  Slip on slippers and fleece.  Wander downstairs.  Spend far too long mulling over tea.  This may cause your 3 year old host sister to ask you if you've "gone senile".  In response, stick your tongue out at her.  This is the adult way to react.  Really.

Get up, go into high-gear, dress as quickly as possible.  Fix hair and brush & floss downstairs.  Give a piece of floss to your 5 year old host sister.  Floss together.

Purposefully wait until everybody else has left for school so that you can walk on your own.  Call it Zen, call it antisocial, call it whatever you like ... just try not to get hit by a car careening around one of the multiple blind corners.  Walk as close to the guardrail-thing as possible and accept the potentiality of your imminent death.

Get to school.  Say hello to every student under the age of 15.  Go to your classroom.  YOU HAVE YOUR OWN KEY NOW.  You are still celebrating this and doing a mental happy dance every time you unlock the classroom door with YOUR KEY.  It's the little things.

Or the noticeable slippage of sanity.

Thanksgiving ...

How I spent my Thanksgiving:

I was having a pretty sad day when ...

Around 5 pm, my little host sisters burst in my room to inform me that their mom was milking the cow and they needed to come in and draw.  After that, Tako got my umbrella (she told me it was raining in my room), crawled in my sleeping bag with me, and opened it to protect us while we worked on my computer. 

Later, downstairs, Tako proceeded to take my socks off my feet and put them on hers.  Keti put my slippers on.  Because they were so big on her, she pretended she was a rabbit.  Then Keti crawled in my lap, laid down on top of me, and told me my belly was big (THAAAANKS!).  Tako then made an entire family of snakes out of the Play-Dough my mom and grandma sent her and lined them all up on my knee.  I ate mandarins, drank tea, and watched some kind of very poorly animated Barbie Nutcracker movie dubbed over in Georgian.

I missed home yesterday, but, God knows, I didn't miss it alone.  Thank you to my incredible (zany) host family.  This house is a zoo and I am proud not to be a visitor but an exhibit with the rest of you.  And thank you to my partner teacher who is quickly becoming one of the best friends I've ever had.  It's not lost on me how lucky I am to have the incredible Georgians around me that I do.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.  It's been a crazy 7 months here, and for that, I'm truly thankful.  Even more, I have an amazing (real) family, friends back home, boyfriend(!!!), and an incredible group of PCVs here with me in Georgia.  I am so lucky.

Love you all,
Ala, Allie, Al, Sis, Weesin, and Allison.

Who you know

"Ala, come over here," my host uncle calls me from across the street.  He is standing next to the pea-green Lotta that has just pulled up in front of my house.  "You're going to Batumi, right?"  I nod.  I know that he already knows where I am going.  I told him as I left the house five minutes ago to stand on the street and wait for a marshutka.  "To see my Georgian tutor," I clarify.  For his friends, I guess.  He nods.  "Where do you want to go?"  I tell him, and he is silent.  I pick another location, a little more central.  Silence.  Finally, I pick the biggest church on the biggest street in our regional capitol.  This brings a smile, "Ah, okay, that is good," he agrees.

"This is my girl," he tells the men in the car.  The driver is short and the passenger is thin.  They're both over forty and have the same Eastern-European droopy eyelids.  The driver nods, but does not respond.  The men in the car have salt-and-pepper stubble and tan, lined faces from the sun, from smoking, and from, undoubtedly, a copious number of days spent drinking cha-cha and playing backgammon on street corners.

My host uncle nods at me again.  "These are my friends."  I know now that I am waiting for protocol others wouldn't bother with.  "Get in," he tells me kindly.  And I do.

Wait.  Back up.  Allow me to translate this for you into America-speak.  Undoubtedly, if my father is reading this, he already has.

I just got into a car in with two middle-aged men who I did not know in Eastern Europe.  On the recommendation of another man who I have only known perhaps just upwards of a month.  In America, I would never do this.  In America, an intelligent man in my host-uncle's position would consider that his offer might look creepy.  I am stupid, maybe, for accepting.  Am I crazy?  Probably definitely, but due to the nature of the beast, that's a little difficult to self-diagnose.

However, there were four key words in the exchange above that told me what I needed to know:

"This is my girl."

This is my girl.

Once we started to get into the city, we took a turnoff that I was not familiar with.  I knew it was taking us away from the road where the church was.  A minute went by, and although I was confused, I was not yet concerned.  It was quickly clear, though, that my driver had an unusual route in mind.

"Where are we going?"

He replied, but I didn't catch the whole meaning.  Yet another shade of my life in Georgia.  However, I understood enough to know that he still planned on taking care of me.

Two minutes later, we pulled onto a busy little street, he parked the car, and motioned for me to get out.  We were still far from the church.  I looked at him, puzzled, but obeyed.  After all, we were in a very populated area that looked affluent enough by Georgian standards.

A city marshutka was waiting on the other side of the street and I followed my guides to it.  The Lotta driver held up a 50 tetri piece for me and made an exaggerated motion of giving it to the marshutka driver.  He was paying my fare.  He then spoke quickly to the passenger in the front seat and that man left and got into the back of the marshutka.  As directed, I got into the front.  The thin man, the passenger from the Lotta, got into the first row of seats in the back of the marshutka.  My Lotta driver nodded to me.  I nodded back and thanked him.

And in this way, I arrived at the biggest church on the biggest street in my region's capitol.  With a nod and a "thank you" to the thin man, I was able to get to my Georgian language lesson.

This is my girl.

So much meaning in four little words.  It's not the first time I've encountered Georgia's system for protecting girls, and it won't be my last.  Rather nebulously referred to as the patroni system, it gave me a lot of pause for thought on that particular windy mountain ride to Batumi. 

The rightful owner of my house is my host uncle's brother.  Who spent years as a police chief in my region.  My host uncle's son lives with us here, he's 14.  My host uncle himself is a very well-liked man, clearly socially connected.  His friends are at our house constantly.  He is recently returned to Georgia, and so in the midst of his looking for work, our house has become supra-central.  Not that it wasn't already.

What I'm trying to say here is that everybody knows them.  Thus, everybody knows us and me.  When I am in Batumi, people often ask me where I am teaching and living.  When I tell them the name of my host father, many people know him.  They nod and smile then, and it's a kind of relief on their faces, almost.  In their internal maps of their home, Georgia, I am placed.  I have a last name, and it is not my American one.  Anybody who crosses me crosses my host dad, crosses my host uncle, crosses my host nephew, even.  Once under my host uncle's care, any man in his circle must give me his utmost respect.  And in this way, I am safe.

Welcome to the patroni system.

It goes against everything I was taught as a child in America.  Don't talk to strangers.  Don't tell them your last name.  God forbid you tell a strange man where you live.  But here what is truly dangerous is to have no last name to tell.

I'm not saying that it's not dangerous to get into a car with two men that I don't know.  I am a girl living in a mountain village in a 2nd/3rd world country.  The world is dangerous.  Marshutka drivers drive like maniacs.  Half-wild dogs roam the streets.  Who knows what's in the tap water.  Taxis have only recently become safe under this government.  My partner teacher remembers days not long ago when she would never use a taxi.  She remembers days of heroin dealers on every street corner.  When everything took a bribe.

When it all came down to who you know.

This is my girl.

School Begins.

Listen up!  School has started!  You should show up, pay attention to the teacher, and do your homework.  Unless it's raining outside.  Apparently that is Georgian for "school is optional".

Oh, school.  I remember that adorable day when I finished high school and said "I'M NEVER GOING BACK THERE."  (Sorry, St. Margaret's).  Right.  Little did I know that not only would I be going back there but also back, back, back, back there.  That's right, I teach the 5-year-olds who don't know how to hold a pencil all the way to the 12th graders who only pay attention if they think it's worth listening to you.  So you better be worth their time.

And you'd better understand every age group.

Nowhere in Pre-Service Training did they teach us how to understand furious first graders.  Or the phrase, "He poked me!!" in Georgian.  This was instead accomplished by the first grader stating the crime, then lifting the edge of her shirt and poking herself emphatically.  Demonstration understood.

So, while my partner teacher and I have shuffled classrooms, planned beforehand (and then inevitably again on the fly), made our own materials, and wrangled second graders, these are the things I have learned so far:

1) If you plan any kind of activity where kids get to move pieces of paper around on a desk, you rock.

2) If you are 9th grade or above, it is perfectly acceptable to write your essay about your summer vacation on the topic of how drunk you got.  Hey!  It's in English!

3) If you make homemade Play-Dough on the stove for the younger children to model letters/words with, it will become sticky in the humidity before class and this will result in a classroom full of 2nd graders who are having way more fun than you originally intended.  And a partner teacher running frantically out of the classroom, hands covered in goo.

4) If chalk is gold, whiteboard markers are diamonds of an unparalleled degree.

5) When children are missing teeth, that is when they scream the loudest.  I postulate that there is a biological connection here, somehow.

6) Grading is not necessary.  Possibly it will begin next semester?  But don't hold your breath.

7) The activity you thought would take 10 minutes will inevitably take 45.  Conversely, the activity that you planned to take half the class will take your students 5 minutes.  Then they will look at you very expectantly as you scramble to look prepared.

8) The classroom that you want to use will be busy.  The classroom that you do not want to use will be 15 degrees hotter than any other room in the school.

9) Students will answer, "YES!" extremely emphatically to any question that they do not understand.  I have learned to immediately distrust any affirmative answer that a student gives me.  Also, the more enthusiastic the YES! ... generally speaking the less they actually understand.

10) In grades 4th and under, stickers are the highest form of currency.  If you have stickers, you are God.  If you do not have stickers ... wait, what?  There was homework?

11) The bus is full.  Walk.

12) Look, if you can just make it to 4th period, you get to go have coffee with the other teachers.  You will sit in another room, scramble to understand the conversation topic (screw the details) in Georgian, but you have 5 minutes relatively to yourself.  Just make it to 4th period ... just make it to 4th period ... just make it to ....