4th of July Mustache Time!

Grey Warr must have called one of the guys in my group here because as of Saturday the 4th of July all of the guys in our group minus one or two have started a two month long mustache growing contest. There are too many rules to try and cover here, but let’s just say it should get interesting and ugly. We have the training staff in on it too, so the night before we swear in as volunteers in late August, there will be awards for: Best Stash, Hairiest Stash and Ugliest/Creepiest Stash. I personally was against the idea to start with, but any reason to have a competition and I’m in. I think I’ll try to go for the trucker style stash in order to win the hairiest category. Mainly we think it’ll be hilarious to laugh at one another and when they take our group photo at swearing in, all the guys will have ugly mustaches. Then, we can shave them of the next day before we go to our sites as to not scare our host families. You’ll notice in the photos below that I’m clean shaven as that was in the rules for the stash contest kickoff.

That wasn’t the only thing we got into on the 4th though. Peace Corps threw a picnic for all of the volunteers and two members from each host family as well. I brought along two of my host sisters Nino and Marika. We had a great time listening to music and playing games. The staff made us a big cake that had the numbered candles 233 on there. A few of us had to explain that 233 was America’s age this year to some of the locals and our fellow volunteers. And, instead of Happy Birthday, we sang the National Anthem. Kind of overly patriotic, but hey. We had a water balloon toss, 3-legged race (which me and my partner won by the way), jump rope, frisbees, football, and the Georgian version of dodge ball. The Georgians also sang some songs and put on some dances for us. Their feet move extremely fast like Riverdance except the top half of their bodies can move as well.

Me and my language teacher Maka

In the Georgian version of dodge ball, one team is in two lines on either side of the team in the middle. It works like monkey in the middle, except the monkey doesn’t want the ball. You work it down to one person and then that last person has to avoid the ball for as many throws as their age. I was the last person the last round and made it all the way to 20 before I was too tired to run any more. It was a fun game, but the Georgians were kind of confused as to why the Americans threw the ball so hard and as if we were angry the whole time. It was fun trying to explain the psychological damage that takes place with American school children and dodge ball and how we are way too competitive when it comes to pelting people with objects. Needless to say the small Georgian children screamed every time one of the American guys got the ball.

It was a fun day all around and it was good to get together with all the other volunteers and relax for an afternoon. I’m putting some pictures on here of the picnic and this one of the sunset from that day as well.

I start teaching practicum this next week, so I’ve got some long 12-hour days ahead for the next three weeks. We have language class everyday from 9am to 1pm, we teach from 3pm to 5pm then lesson plan with our Georgian counterparts for about 2 hours. It takes that long because we have to plan out 6 lessons between the three volunteers in my group with our two Georgian teachers. After you get home it’s about 7:30 or so, you eat and start doing your language homework and preparing materials for the next day’s classes. By the time you finish with all that it’s 10pm and time for tea a pee and then off to bed to sleep, wake up and do it all over again.

Everything seems to be getting easier despite the hectic schedule. I think staying busy has helped out a lot. No time to stress of the rest when there’s work to be done. Just the way I like it. And, the 1-year-old that was living here is now gone for a month. He and his mother Nino have gone to live with her husband’s parents in their village for the month of July and won’t return here till August. So, I’ll at least have some peace and quiet for the next month while I’m having to do all this work. Well, that is of course if the snakes don’t get too bad. They decided to cut the grass on our “road” Sunday and it scared up two snakes, one of which made its way into our yard and nearly gave my host-sister a heart attack. Here is one of me and the host sisters:
Nothing much else to report as of now…

Hope all is well people and I hope y’all had a great Independence Day!