Friday November 12, 2010

Another week down. Yep, it’s only Friday, but my week is over. I love not having class on Friday.

Today I’m off to visit my friend Ben for the night and probably make some good food and watch a football game that I have downloaded. Andrew, what is this post about anyway? Well, I’ll tell you. It is about my day yesterday. On we go…

The day started off ‘normal’ enough. I got up, had some coffee and rushed off to work. I had to answer a thousand questions once I got there about why I had decided not to attend a wedding the night before. I told them I fell asleep while reading a book, but the truth was, I just didn’t want to go. It was one of the teacher’s sons that was getting married. He’s a guy I’ve never met and I’ve only spoken to his mom a handful of times anyway. The only reason I was invited is because they love having a foreigner on video attending their weddings. Like some kind of trophy. No thank you.

All of my classes went surprisingly well and I finished up the day with my little 5th graders. Love those little buggers. So much energy. Too bad not all of it is directed at learning. During one of my class breaks one of the male teachers challenged my to a 3-game set of backgammon. He was talking trash too like he was going, “to teach me how to play.” I beat him 3-0 to the delight of the other two teachers who were watching.

I got stopped on my way home by a drunken uncle asking me to relay a message to my host-dad. The message was, “Let’s drink tonight.” I told my host-dad once he got home, but he laughed it off telling me, “Oh, he’s been drunk for 3 days now. Better to let him sleep it off.” Right.

Besides, my host-dad had a ‘special’ treat prepared. “We’re going to have a great dinner. Nana is in there cooking it now. Go wash up!” Now I never like when he uses the words exotic, special or delicacy. But, I had my hopes up since for the three previous days all we’ve had to eat is bread and a soup that lacked anything anyone would call a flavor. And no, oil is neither a flavor nor a member of any food group. I didn’t smell anything like sheep wafting out of the kitchen so I was doubly happy. Be careful what you wish for when you wish for variety!

What came out was this giant bowl of… something. Grease was the main component I could tell right off the bat but the rest took some investigating. “Wait! NANA! Bring the Cha-Cha!” my host-father screamed. “We need to have a lot of cha-cha for this delicacy.” There was one of those key words again. And cha-cha for those of you that haven’t read about it here before is the home-made vodka. So as we munched on some bread waiting to make the first cha-cha toast my host-dad explained what we were about to eat. “Potatoes, and goat! Very young goat. Very best. Here is all insides. Very good for your health. Very exotic.” Now that he had covered all the key words that translate to gross and we had taken our first shot, it was time to dig in.

Now I hate liver of any kind or source. The taste is bad and I can never wrap my mind around the fact that I’m eating the filter of the animal who was eating God knows what. So naturally I scoop a piece of that on my plate first. To tell you the truth it all looked the same so I wasn’t sure what I was getting at first. There were also pieces of lung, heart and intestine. Lung; chewy but not bad. Heart; not as chewy and pretty tasteless. Intestine; not that bad of a taste but again there is the idea of what its function was. Not that I could have enjoyed it all that much anyway. Everything was coated in grease and the cha-cha has a tendency to overpower everything else anyway. Plus that damned liver taste. Now, was this the worst thing I’ve ever eaten? No. Not by a long shot. But it was bad. Good thing host-dad was in the mood to put back 7 shots of the home brew and have me there with him every step of the way.

Needless to say, we had a few laughs and I made it through the meal without any problems then went off and slept like a rock. However, this morning’s trip to the outhouse was a particularly bad one. I was about the 6th person to drag my hangover in there this morning and everyone had eaten what I had eaten… well we’ll just leave you there.

This morning one of my aunts was on the marshrutka to the capital with me and berated me as soon as I got on. “You look too thin! Are you not eating at home? Do they not feed you? What will your mother say when she sees you? You need to eat more!” I was laughing my ass off because all I could see was goat and home-made vodka and I was thinking, ‘amazing I eat at all.’

Today, like I said I’m going to visit a friend and am in the capital for just a few hours to pick up some documents from the office, take a shower and then head out. Have a good weekend everyone! And, eat something exotic would you?

It’s a Ukraine Thing

I have to admit that this was one of the greatest vacations I’ve ever been on. Ukraine, its people, nature, food and sights are simply amazing. I recommend a trip there to anyone. While trying to separate itself from Russia and its Soviet past, Ukraine and Ukrainians are still very much a part of that history. While this is viewed negatively by a lot of former Soviet Republics, in Ukraine, it’s just part of life. I found that to be very refreshing and a complete 180 from Georgia.

I started my trip on the two year anniversary of the August War between Georgia and Russia (Aug. 8th) and flew out of Tbilisi on an early morning flight. It was nice to be in the air again especially knowing that I was on my way to a place that I’ve always wanted to visit; Kiev.

When I got there my friend Ben (another PC volunteer here in Georgia) was waiting on me at the airport. He had already been in Ukraine for a few days with another friend of his from the States. We took a cab from the airport that was way over priced, but quick and the taxi driver was friendly. I had arranged through my step-mom Elaine to have us stay at a really nice 5-star hotel in the center of Kiev. When traveling away from the village it’s nice to be in complete luxury. The Intercontinental in Kiev was amazing and Ben and I said a little thank you to Elaine everyday for allowing us to use some of her hotel points to stay there. We also had a lot of laughs at how spoiled rich people can be. This hotel was just over the top at times. The place had a spa, pool, workout room, free Internet, a tea hour, a cocktail hour, its own exclusive roof-top bar and a staff that would do anything to make your stay as comfortable as possible. There was a free stocked mini-fridge in the room, but what made Ben and I laugh the most was the pillow menu. Eight different pillows to choose from became a running joke throughout the vacation.

See video below for a look at our room.

We spent 5 days in Kiev exploring all the parks, churches and shops. It was really interesting to go into a shopping mall after being in Georgia for over a year. So that’s what choices look like? Wow. The churches however were the highlight of the trip. I love old churches and European architecture. Just being able to walk around in those old buildings and see all the art work and icons was a once in a lifetime experience. I even got to see the church I’ve been wanting to see my whole life; St. Andrew’s. It may not be the biggest, but it is amazing inside. Doesn’t hurt that it’s named after me either. Oh wait, that other way around. St. Andrew came first. Details. Ben and I must have walked about 10 miles every day in search of new places to explore, like the WWII memorial park, and there was no better way to end the day than to sit on a bench and people watch on Kiev’s main streets. I really need to get back there in a month other than August since from what I heard most people leave the city because of the heat. I was still impressed. Everyone there just seemed so much more relaxed, liberal and happy than do the people in Georgia. They were all so friendly and helpful and being able to speak Russian there just made the experience totally stress free. That is not to say that there were not some miscommunications or funny moments, but overall my interactions with people there were positive.

My average day there was: Get up in the morning, have coffee in my awesome robe, take my private elevator to the spa, go for a swim, hit the sauna, take a shower, go out for the day exploring and walk around, try to convince Ben not to eat at McDonald’s for lunch, sit in a park and relax during the heat of the day, explore some more, go back to the hotel and shower again, then go out for the night to either people watch or hit some bar/pub for dinner. It was a great five days.

But, I couldn’t spend my whole vacation in Kiev and 5-star luxury. So, Ben went to the airport on our last day there and picked up another friend of his from America so that we could all head off to Crimea. (Ben’s other friend by the way was also named Ben and Crimea in on the Southeastern corner of Ukraine, the most Russianized area and is very mountainous and is a peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. Also, I kept wanting to find another traveling companion whose name started with A so we could make endless ABBA and iambic pentameter jokes. But alas.)

Still with me? Moving on. We took the night train from Kiev to a city in Crimea named Djankoi where a friend of Ben’s from his time at Moscow University is from and lives with his family. He met us early the next morning as we arrived and took us back to his place to rest before showing us his town. There isn’t much to Djankoi, but I can say it’s far more impressive than any of the Georgian towns of comparable size or population. His mom was very nice and loved having us as guests. She loved having some American to speak Russian to and was a great cook to boot. Two days at her place was far from roughing it.

The next day we all took a friend’s car down to the coast (about 3 hours) and visited a few sights along the way. We ended up going through Sevastopol and then hitting the beaches at Balaklava. Balaklava by the way used to be a major submarine port for the Soviet Navy. You could see how too on the boat ride out to the beaches. There were huge caves in the sides of the mountains that could have easily hidden a sub from any satellites passing overhead. We all had an interesting time with our boat captain on the ride out and back too. He was truly a beach character and kept telling dirty jokes in Russian despite the presence of kids and old ladies on the boat. He loved us and kept trying to give us beer and advice on where to find the most beautiful women in Ukraine. His advice: Just look around. He was right too.

The Black Sea was beautiful and despite a little rain that day, we all had a great time.
After another day of relaxing in Djankoi, we all decided to take a night bus to Odessa the major port city in the Southwest. This was (thankfully) the worst part of my trip. I couldn’t sleep at all on the bus and by 7 a.m. I was ready to get off the bus and shoot somebody. Needless to say, coffee was called for. I struggled through the day till about 3 p.m. and then took a quick nap at the hotel. After that I went exploring while Ben and Ben caught an opera at Odessa’s famous opera house. I’ve seen opera and I can appreciate it, but after a hellish bus ride, I wasn’t feeling it that night. So, while they listened, I walked around and saw some more sights. After they got out, we all got a snack and engaged in some people watching and beer drinking at an outdoor café on the central thoroughfare.

The next day I got up early and wondered around some more while Ben and Ben went to the train station to try and get tickets to either Lvov or Kiev. I already had my ticket back to Kiev so that the next day I could go back to Georgia. We ended up meeting for lunch and had some awesome pizza then went to see a few more sights before our night train back to Kiev. Unfortunately, I was in coupe (2nd class) and the Bens were in plats-card (3rd class) so we couldn’t make the trip in the same wagon. But, I slept most of the way anyway so I don’t know that it would have made much difference. I do love trains. They are like a cheap motel that moves you from place to place. The people are generally pleasant and you can see the country go by if you don’t want to sleep. I generally watch the countryside for a while, read then sleep as much as possible.

When we got to Kiev the next morning, we all dropped our bags at the train station then went off for some lunch and souvenir shopping. The Bens were headed for Lvov that night and I was flying out in the evening. So, we just goofed around, bought some stuff and then had a really good lunch before parting ways. I made it back to the airport in plenty of time and had no problems clearing documents and customs. Back in Tbilisi I had to pay for a cab to get me to the Peace Corps hostel that we use, but I was expecting that. So, no major issues in transit.

The next day however I was not happy to be back in Georgia. All the small things that get on my nerves here and that I’ve learned to ignore were brought back to my attention the very next morning. In Ukraine, people stop for you in cross walks, generally form lines, don’t yell for no apparent reason and… ok, I’ll stop there. And they don’t think that bread and cheese is the be all end all of food combinations! Ok, now I’ll stop.

Anyway, Ukraine is awesome! I had an awesome time there and I hope to go back soon. I posted up some pictures on Facebook for people to look at because posting them here takes forever.

Hope all of you are having a great end to your summer. Only 2 weeks till school starts back in Muganlo.

The Baku Blog Post

Yeah so I know I got back from Baku on July 15th and it’s now into August and I’m just now getting around to typing a blog about me going to Baku. Oh well. It was a cool trip and I had a lot of fun; kinda different than the vacations I’m used to though. Too much family fun time and not enough out all night doing crazy stuff. But, it was a cheap trip and it was nice to get out of Georgia for a while. The only major downside (aside from being with the family) was that the food was exactly the same as I eat here! Yuck! The next vacation I go on I swear I will not to eat any boiled lamb!

Overall I thought Baku was cool. In another 10 years it’ll be even cooler once they finish all the construction in the mid-town area. But, there is a lot of corruption in Baku and this kind of sticks out with the police and general government operation. Even the taxi drivers were worse than a lot of places I’ve been too and I’ve seen some creepy taxi drivers in my travels.
Here is a general overview of how my vacation went:

Day 1:
Drove 12 hours from Muganlo to Baku. These two places are about as far apart as Atlanta and Charleston, but it takes 12 hours due to the speed limits and corrupt police looking for anyone driving over it. For the 12 hours I figured out that we averaged 45mph. Yeah, it was a long trip. But the host-brother’s little 1-year-old boy was great for most of the trip and only had a few moments of screaming and crying. That was good. The border crossing was uneventful so that was cool too. The only trouble I had was the guy stamping me out of Georgia because he wanted to know why I hadn’t left Georgia in a year. My response: “Beats me man, you’re right I should hurry.”
Once we got into Baku, we stopped off at one of the famous mosques before getting to my host-family’s apartment. There waiting on us were a bunch of the host-aunts and cousins who had prepared a meal and drinks. We sat around all night and ate and drank and I got to see some of the relatives that had visited us here and meet some new ones as well.

Day 2:
Baku is hotter than the sun! So, me and the Aslan (host-brother) and one of our cousins went to the beach. The Caspian is cleaner than I’ve been told it was and the water was very clear. So, swimming was great and the beach was awesome. My host-cousin works for the life guards or Azeri coast guard, so we got to take a private boat tour of the harbor and even dove off in the middle of it to swim around in some of the really cold water. It was awesome! After we had a small lunch, we drove about 20 minutes over to another beach and went swimming there and spent the rest of the day lounging in the sand.

Day 3:
Spent the day with Aslan and one of his friends from University walking around the city center and taking in all the sites. Lots of fountains and shops. Other than that, not too much. That night the whole family went for a walk in the Bulvar Park. This is a park that runs the length of the city’s center right on the Caspian. Really cool, but a lot of walking.

Day 4:
I slept in late, went to the Internet café and then took a shower. We spent the day at Aslan’s wife’s mother’s house sitting under some fruit trees and eating. That night we went back to walk the other half of the Bulvar Park.

Day 5:
Not much happened. Hung out at the house because it was hotter than the sun outside. But, that night I met up with some Peace Corps volunteers from Azerbaijan and they showed me some of their favorite spots in Baku for nightlife. Really fun night and it was a nice break from the family.
Day 6:
After a taste of life in Baku without the family I decided to not go with them to visit more relatives and instead went and toured old-town by myself. It was a really cool day spent exploring and just walking around. Aeries are really polite for the most part and that was refreshing since if you speak Russian in Georgia most people get snooty. In Baku they are more than happy to help you. Hey Georgia, get over yourselves! Anyway, around 6pm I got kinda tired so I decided to sit on a bench in the center and relax and read a book. After about 15 minutes though the PC volunteers that I had spent the previous night with walked by and invited me to hang out with them again. So, I did. Another fun night ensued.

Day 7:
World Cup Final night. Aslan, the host-cousins and I did nothing but sit around and play backgammon all day waiting on the HOT SUN to go down. Once it did we started getting ready for the Final. We showed up to the bar we were going to watch it at 30 minutes late, but no big deal. We were late because one of the friends was across town placing bets on the game. He lost his money after the regular time finished 0-0. Congrats to Spain by the way. I was pulling for the Netherlands, but oh well.

Day 8:
Hangovers are best cured at the beach sitting at nice tables under umbrellas. So, that’s what we did. Too hot? Get in the water. Thirsty? Waiter! Another round please. Nice.

Day 9 and 10:
Spent visiting more relatives. Nothing to report other than I must have about a .615 winning percentage in backgammon. Not too bad.

And on the 11th day I boarded a bus and came back to Georgia. My host-brother was staying for another 2 weeks and I wasn’t going to burn up all my vacation time melting in the Baku sun and playing backgammon while drinking scalding hot tea. The bus ride back was actually a lot nicer than the private car because they don’t have to worry about cops. Only 7-hours for the trip back and no kids.

So that was Baku. I recommend it. I think you could cover all you wanted to see in about 3 or 4 days though. It was nice to get out of Georgia and it was cool to hang out with Aslan away from the family, but this next vacation will be a lot better. Starting on the 8th I’m going to The Ukraine with a friend of mine here and we plan on having a little more fun. Hopefully it won’t take me two weeks after that vacation to sit down and tell you about it. I probably could have done a better job on this one, but the vacation was a little too hot, a little too long and a little too boring… eh.

Peace!
Go Braves!

A showering of good luck

Well it’s not like this past week was that great, but it was the first full week out of school and an awesome one for sleep. I did manage to sleep rather well this past week but most of that was due to the fact that I stayed at a friend’s house for the early part of the week where it is nice and quiet and there are no animals or host-families making noise at the crack of dawn.

Basically Monday and Tuesday were spent hanging around and doing not a whole lot other than reading and playing cards. Wednesday two other volunteers and I went into Tbilisi to fill out a Peace Corps wide survey on their computers (no need to use up my Internet bandwidth) and then went for lunch and a shower. I went home to find my host-dad ready to drink and then went to bed soon after dinner. Thursday four other volunteers and I went to the Peace Corps office to help clean out and reorganize our garage there. Lots of boxes of books that needed to be sorted through and packed away. A lot of trash then needed to be thrown out. My favorite was one box from some volunteer in 2005 that just packed up all their old manuals and other loose papers and put them in a box for Peace Corps to deal with. I dealt with it by promptly moving it to the trash pile. But, after a few hot hours of moving stuff, I took a shower and headed out for a night with my friends. We watched the Netherlands v. Cameroon match at a bar and had dinner then called it a night. Friday we swung back by the office to use the computers before heading home and I grabbed another quick shower.

Saturday was ‘do nothing day’ for me. I was tired and spent most of the day either napping or just reading in my hammock up on our porch. Nice day. Then the US played Ghana and I stayed up till almost 2am watching them blow it in extratime. Boooooo!!! Oh well, four more years of waiting for a good US team to make a deep run at the World Cup.

Sunday was a different story. As soon as the whole family was up, we started cleaning out our 7x7 “fish pond.” (See MTV below for visuals). Basically the morning started with me and my host-dad setting up the water pump and running 3 or 4 hoses out to the back of our garden. We then started the pumping process and it was my job to help my youngest host-brother scrub the crap off the sides as the water went down. This was not made easy since a frog appeared and my two host-nephews were running around the sides trying to catch it. Eventually I snagged it, threw it out of the water and they ran off to torture the thing. Once the water got low enough, my job was over and my host-brother and nephews had to get down in the sludge to catch the two remaining fish, all the scrap metal, buckets, rods, ropes and all the other crap that had sunk to the bottom. Once they finished pumping out all the water and scrubbing down the bottom, me and my host-dad just set up hoses to start filling it back up again. He says that we’re going to swim in it, but somehow I doubt that since the water we were pumping in wasn’t the cleanest.

After lunch, my real job of the day started. I had 'agreed' to give the dog a bath since he’s gotten fleas and they want him to not be scratching all the time. My family had bought some special shampoo and asked if I knew how to wash dogs. “Of course I know how to wash a dog,” I said. Well I didn’t know that I had agreed to actually do it. It wasn’t too big of a deal since me and the one dog have become buds and he trusts me. Took me about a half an hour and I was glad for the shower afterwards. The other dog though is mean as hell and was having none of my attempts to wash him. Oh well. One flee free dog is good enough I guess.

Today I had to come into Tbilisi to get all my forms and things done so that I can get ready for my trip to Baku next week. I’m off to the capital of Azerbaijan for a week or so with my middle host-brother to see the city and visit some of our relatives there. Since I had to go to the office anyway, I thought I’d take a shower and do some e-mailing. So, if you’re counting, that’s 5 showers in the last 6 days! More than I had for the whole month of December.

Anyway, I have to come back in on Wednesday in order to go to the Azeri embassy and get my $131 visa. (Another shower maybe?) Kind of expensive, but I figure I’m traveling with the host-brother, staying for free and eating a lot at their house, so my expenses for this trip shouldn’t be too much. I’m trying to save so I can have good money for my trip to the Ukraine in August.

So that was the week that was. Enjoy a few short episodes of MTV below and stay save people. Peace!

One Year in Review

Before I get started here let me put a little disclaimer on this post. This review is based purely on MY EXPERIENCES in Georgia and Kazakhstan and are not to be taken as a review of the countries as a whole or the Peace Corps experience as a whole in either country.

With that out of the way… I’ve made it through ONE YEAR in Georgia. And, I don’t know how I really feel about this place yet. I said that I would spend a year here and then decide if I really wanted to finish out the whole 2-year tour. I can say now though that I will be here for the whole service simply because while I’d love to tell some people here ‘best of luck’ and pack my bags, I just think that would be too easy. The two years in Kazakhstan were tough, but I’d have to say that the first year here was tougher than either of my two years there. But again that has to do with my experience there and here. So, let’s get to some scoring and see how they shake out.

I’ll do each category on a 3-point scale with a push giving each country a score of 1.5. Georgia will be GA and Kazakhstan KZ.

FOOD: GA: 1 – KZ: 2
The food in Georgia is bad. They have two or three national dishes and that’s it. Hot smelly cheese in greasy bread (khachapuri) is not the greatest thing on earth and boiled meat in a dumpling (khinkali) isn’t either. Georgians also believe that they invented both of these dishes. It’s laughable at times. Khinkali came from China and the first guy who came up with cheese I’m sure thought to put it in some bread and eat it. They do have something like Italian polenta a.k.a grits (ghomi) but they wait till is gets cool and hardens to serve it. Oh, and they also stuff un-melted salty cheese in there too. Yuck. The cheese here is bad, yogurt is hard to find and the milk… don’t get me started. Georgia scores one point here for their wine but the lack of variety and the fact that in my community, boiled lamb meat is a daily ‘treat’ is not a good thing. The wine here is not as good as advertised, but not bad, so that’s a plus. The home-made vodka (cha-cha) is on a different level than anything you’ll ever drink. This is not to be taken as a ringing endorsement of KZ’s food, but at least there I had access to different things and could be creative.

PEOPLE: GA: 1.5 – KZ: 1.5
I lived with mostly Russians in KZ so I can’t comment on the Kazakhs themselves. My interaction with Kazakhs was limited and not all that positive, so… But, for the most part I had a positive experience there with the local population. In Georgia the same is true, but again, I live with a minority group here. The Azeris are very welcoming and I’ve had no problems. The same is not true for my experience with the very nationalistic Georgians, but again, I’ve had limited interaction with them and the negative experiences stick out more to me than the positive. I have met and work with some very awesome Georgians, but I’ve run across a lot in my travels that I would have rather have not met.
A sub category that I won’t count in the score would be women. GA: 0 – KZ: 3! Wow. There is a whole post on that subject somewhere. And, that score is not just based on looks; there are traditional aspects that keep Georgian women from even scoring 0.5 on this.

PARTYS: GA: 2.5 – KZ: 0.5
I do have to say that the people in Georgia know how to throw a party. They don’t get the full three points here because sometimes their parties just go a little too far. The Georgian supra can go on forever and after a while their toasting just gets annoying. The same is true for the Azeris I live with too. As my host-family would say, “It’s not a good party unless there’s a fight at the end.”

HOLIDAYS: GA: 2 – KZ: 1
KZ had some cool holidays, but Georgia’s are better. And there are about a million of them. Add on the Muslim holidays from my Azeri community and there is pretty much always something to celebrate. Georgia has about 30 major holidays every year, so pretty cool.

CAFES/CLUBS: GA: 1 – KZ: 2
Again, the variety of food hurts Georgia here. But there are a few places in Tbilisi to get a good hamburger and I’ve found one killer Club Sandwich there. I have a favorite coffee shop there too that has a good French press and some good sandwiches too. Clubs and bars on this side of the world are not the greatest, but each country has their ups and downs. Too many drunken Georgians out and about here to make a night out all that fun.

SHOPPING: GA: 1.5 – KZ: 1.5
I have to say that the bazaars in KZ were more fun and had more variety but Georgia’s central bazaar Lillo is a fun place too. Here though you don’t get the food and other things mixed together like you did in KZ. Food is at one market and clothes and other materials are at another. My village’s bazaar was fun the first few times I went, but now after you’ve seen one chicken tied to a string, a turkey in a box and a hanging lamb carcass you’ve seen them all.

LIVING SITUATION: GA: 1 – KZ: 2
I have to say that I love my host-family, but if I had the option, I would not be living with them. In KZ I had the opportunity to have my own apartment and live by myself. Here I don’t have that option and live with 10 other people. In KZ I had an awesome PST host-family, same is true for Georgia. KZ, I lived with one old lady for a few months at site before moving out and she was very nice. Here I live with this huge family and have no escape. There’s never a dull moment I’ll give it that, but some peace and quiet is hard to come by in this house. From all the people, animals, neighbors, neighbor’s animals and guests, it is never quiet.

SLEEPING: GA: 1 – KZ: 2
Between the animals and all the people, getting sleep for a volunteer in Georgia is tough. It’s not just me either. If you live in a city, you have people honking horns and yelling starting at 6 a.m. and if you live in a village you have animals that start at 4 a.m. and people that start at 5 a.m. The lack of heat and A/C hurts too because your either really cold or really hot and that makes it hard to sleep too.

POWER/WATER/GAS: GA: 0 – KZ: 3
Even during PST in KZ when I lived in a village, we had somewhat reliable power and water. Here, no. From the day I got here it’s always a gamble on which utility you’ll be without that day or week. Raining? No water. Wind blowing? No power. Sunny and calm? No power or water. Deal with it! After a while though it gets old.

COMMUNICATION: GA: 2.5 – KZ: 0.5
Peace Corps gave us cell phones and a calling plan that lets us call all the other volunteers for free. That’s awesome. Having a bad day? Call a friend or turn off your cell and escape. The Internet here, while I like to complain about it, is a lot better than I ever had it in KZ. It’s easier to stay in touch with other volunteers and with family and friends at home. The only thing that KZ was better at was the postal system. The KZ post was in some ways better than in America. Here… wow. What a Cluster F*#@! And I don’t get it either. This place is tiny. How can the postal system be so bad?

TRANSPORTAION: GA: 1 – KZ: 2
There is a lot to say here but, I’ll just say that Georgian transportation is an adventure. I HATE marshrutkas! These little mini-busses that make you want to scream at the people around you and the driver and the road are at times the worst part of my service in Georgia. Again, the system in KZ was just more efficient and the roads were better. I never thought I would describe KZ roads in a positive light but, compared to Georgia, they were awesome.

SANITATION: GA: 0.5 – KZ: 2.5
The joke goes: What’s the National Flower of Georgia? The plastic bag. And, it’s in bloom all year round in every tree in a variety of colors. People here will throw trash any and everywhere. Again, I didn’t expect to portray KZ in a positive light but Georgia is dirty. Not only the trash situation, but toilets. The toilets here are just bad. If you’re lucky enough to find a sit-down style that flushes, mark that as a good day here. Otherwise, there’s a hole; go for it. Need to wash your hands? Sorry no water today. Thank you hand sanitizer. There are a few volunteers here who have flushing toilets and to those people I say: screw you! At least in KZ when I needed to go I knew I could sit down and enjoy it. Here, I dread that experience every time. And, the shower situation here is horrible. Once a week?! Are you kidding me? Thank you Peace Corps for having a shower in the office.

NATURE: GA: 2 – KZ: 1
With the trash situation in mind, once you get out of the populated areas, Georgia is beautiful. Really only the southeast corner of KZ had any decent mountains and most of it was just flat. Here there are mountains everywhere and a lot of pretty views.

MY SCHOOL: GA: 0 – KZ: 3
If you haven’t read my rants about the school here in Muganlo, then where have you been? KZ school was a college with cool kids who wanted to learn, power, water, heat, books and great co-workers. My biggest problem there was cheating. Here, well I’m not going to even bother typing out all the above again because it’s just the opposite.

WEATHER: GA: 2.5 – KZ: 0.5
Got to say: I don’t miss -40 degree winters. It didn’t rain as much in KZ, but then again, I like the rain. Also, too much wind out there on the steppe. I’m giving KZ a 0.5 here because the summer there was nicer.

PEACE CORPS: GA: 1.5 – KZ: 1.5
With Georgia being so small here I have a lot more opportunities to interact with my fellow volunteers and that’s cool. In KZ I hung out with 4-5 people and only rarely. Here I have some good friends who I can see just about every week and that keeps me sane. The Peace Corps staff at both posts are great. Here they are a little too involved in our lives, but I think I’m just spoiled from KZ’s hands off approach. Again, the country is small and there are only 28 volunteers here right now with a group of 30 about to join us. I will take this opportunity to say that the housing coordinator here in Georgia is probably one of the worst Peace Corps staff members I’ve ever seen. For our group he had a 12% success rate of placing volunteers with host-families and that was giving him credit for people like me who had no option to move out. I’ve already heard rumors of unhappy volunteers from the new group as well. These are our lives that we give up time to live in villages in his country and he can’t be bothered to do a thorough job or help volunteers find solutions. I’m also not 100% happy with my program manager, but I don’t have any issues there either. Really it was just the comment of, “Well, no, I’ve never actually been inside your school.” That got to me. Country Directors, doctors and safety coordinators in both posts are awesome though.

FINAL SCORE: Georgia: 21.5 – Kazakhstan: 26.5
So, kind of close on the scoring. Now, if only all those categories were equal. But, on the whole I would have to say that both of my Peace Corps experiences have been positive and I purposively didn’t rank what I thought my impact was simply because that is really hard to tell after only one year. Kazakhstan was a good time and so far Georgia hasn’t been that bad. Again, my site in KZ was awesome and my site here is not the greatest place on earth, but I’m dealing with those challenges every day.

So there it was. That was the first year in Georgia and some of what I thought about it. Peace!

I'm Back!

There is soooo much to catch you up on, and I just don't have the time to type it all out. If you're still waiting on an e-mail from me updating you on whats going on, sorry. You're in a long line and I'm trying not to just type the typical 'all is well' e-mails.

But, for this post I'm going to try and upload a few videos and pictures so that y'all can see the Muslim holiday of Byraham and how that all went down back on the 22nd of March. It was a blast I can tell you and despite being beaten with sticks as a way of forcing me to dance, it was a really fun day. Two of my Peace Corps buddies came over to Muganlo and stayed the night so at least I had some other Americans to offer up to be beaten rather than having to take all the punishment myself.

After the holiday, life pretty much went back to normal. We had a PC conference for a week and that was a nice break from being in Muganlo (hot showers every day) where it has just this week started to warm up. There were several weeks in March and so far in April where we have gone 3-4 days without power and 2-3 days without water. Fun times to be sure. I've also figured out that I will no longer asign quizes or tests to be given to my students on Mondays. I thought that giving it to them on Monday would help since they would have 2 and in some cases 3 days to get ready for it. But, as I've come to figure out it just gives them 2-3 days to either forget that I told them about it or to just forget the information. Go figure. I'm working on writing a grant to remodel one of the classrooms and turn it into an English room. That way next year I'll have my own classroom and be able to stock it with English resources. Priority number one: new windows. I don't know if I can make it another year in freezing cold classrooms. School is the low point of my service here so far.

My birthday on the 29th was uneventful which was fine by me. We went to a cafe and had a huge meal and plenty of wine. You'll see some of that once I get done with all the holiday stuff below.

But, rather than all the boring details, I'll just move on to some picture commentary:

This first one was a weekly Tuesday tradition during the month of March. What you do is: drink some vodka, go find an old tire in the barn, roll some gasoline around in it, stuff it with hay, add some more gas to make sure, then light it on fire. Once the tire either falls or blows over, you jump over it 3 times for good luck in the Spring to come. Let me tell you a whole village burning tires lets off quite the smell and nobody other than me seemed concerned for either the environment or their health. But, hey. Whatcha' gonna do right? Here's to hopping my jumping over flaming toxic fumes pays off this Spring.

And to start off this MTV marathon, I thought I would show you some of the prep work that went into making our holiday feast! I mean, what kind of MTV marathon would it be if I didn't show you something being killed right?



My host-brother with the head of one of 10 chickens killed that night.

And that led us up to the actual day of celebration. Don't be afraid of the men in masks. They're supposed to be beating people with sticks. MTV on the scene:

In this next clip you'll see the Master of the Day up on a platform dressed in white. The area below him is where the men in masks would drag people to dance for him and continue to beat them with sticks until they were either tired or gave them some money. Keep in mind that EVERYONE was out for this celebration. The 'center' of the village was packed.

Now the moment you've all been waiting for... ME getting drug down the street and beaten, kicked and knocked around. Ahhh... Muganlo.

Also, here is a picture of my host-brother, a cousin that was in town from Azerbaijan and I with one of the dancers who was also a cousin of our family here. I was lookin a little rough by this point having been drug down the street several times, beaten and kicked. And, the wine combo was not helping much.

The dancing and festivities in the center ended around 2pm and my two friends and I spent the rest of the day visiting homes of relatives who had made sure that we stopped by for wine and food. We went to one of my student's houses (the one from a previous post about the academic olympics) as well because his dad loves me and is a really nice guy. We wrapped up the day back at my house in time for my two friends to witness my 4-year-old nephew take down a horn of wine and quickly pass out for the rest of the night.

With all that done, we move on to my birthday. All went well. My host-family bought me my very own set of wine drinking horns which I will let anyone in America try once I get back next year. You havent lived till you've taken down a horn of wine. (It is what it sounds like it is). Like I said before the day was uneventful, but I did get two cakes. One from my co-workers and one from the family.

The time at the cafe was fun. A band showed up at some point and played a few traditional songs. Happy Birthday among them. I never thought I would have an acordian, claranet and drum banging away at me on my birthday, but so it was. And, to wrap up this blog, I'm posting one more video for you. Sorry for the bad lighting in advance, but it's more for your ears than eyes. This is a video of one of my school's PE teachers singing a traditional Georgian song for me on my birthday. Sort of like his own special gift to me. Now, it may sound bad, but it really wasnt. And, like all gifts, its the thought that counts.

With all that said, I leave you with the musical stylings of Pata! -Peace!

Here They Come to Snuff the Rooster

I just knew something was going to happen this morning since my host-brother is coming back today from Baku. So we have/had three roosters in our yard. Fighting and a lack of new baby chickens caused my host-mom to decide that the big boy in the yard needed to be changed since he was fighting with the two smaller roosters and dominating the sex market. I think really it was him just getting old and not being able to produce more chickens and not letting the other guys get a shot at all the hot chicks in the yard. Really? Did I just make that joke? Yep.

Anyway… without further delay, here is how it went down. Don’t worry; I cut it off before the blood starts flying. Get it… chicken; flying… yeah I’m not on my game today.
Enjoy!