The academic year is coming to an end. And that means mass departure for Peace Corps, European Volunteer Service (EVS) and TLG volunteers. Of the 150ish TLG here, 125 are leaving within the next few weeks. Peace Corp is rotating out one of their groups as well. That means its time for another large scale departure of my friends. But this time, pretty much all of them. Out of the groups mentioned, only two my friends are staying with me.
That’s a sad thought.
No matter how good one is at meeting people, its hard building a community. My network of friends all over Georgia is about to be swept away in one fell swoop.
I just had a final beer with my friend in Oz, Rachael, from Peace Corp. She is leaving Oz in the morning and flying out of Georgia Monday. Once back in the States she will marry a great guy. Rachael was one of the people in Oz who came to Happy Hour Wednesday’s and Movie Night Sunday’s were held at her house. In talking to her, she was in the state of emotion like I was right before I left the States- ‘emotionally suspended’. She is concluding a major event in her life in which she committed two years. In a couple of days, she will be rejoining her friends and family back in comfortable surroundings that she is familiar with. But she is also saying goodbye to a community that she has daily interacted with for two years of her life. Although emotional in the inside, we talked about how it’s not manifesting itself like it should (tears, etc.)
When I left the States, I remember having the same feeling. ‘Why if I’m leaving all I know and love, am I not falling apart emotionally?’ Emotional Suspense.
Having this many great people leave at the same time, never to return, basically sucks.
Three new Peace Corp members are coming to Oz tomorrow. And TLG starts intaking new members mid August. Time to make new friends.
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Cheers to all my Georgian friends who journeyed with me this past year of my life. I wish you all future success and happy memories. Who knows… maybe we’ll see each other around the bend!
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And airports See it all the time Where someone’s last goodbye Blends in with someone’s sigh Cause someone’s coming home In hand a single rose
And that’s the way this wheel keeps working now
You can find me, if you ever want again I’ll be around the bend I’ll be around, And if you never stop when you wave goodbye You just might find if you give it time You will wave hello again You just might wave hello again
I love when life goes great. When all the goals and wishes that you have fretted over go exactly as planned. Life is stress free.
But then there are the opposite, stressful times.
I had planned on transferring to another town on the other side of the country, Mtshketa. But, I was recently told by the program that they could not find me a host home there. …Okay. No big deal, there is always my current host home.
I’ll just stay in Oz another year. I grew close to the current eleventh graders anyway. It would be cool to see them graduate. And I can help my host sister, Nino, learn more English.
Well I found out that my current host family does not want to host next year. (Which I translate to ‘we don’t want that guy living with us anymore’). Rejection. And to compound the situation, they are/were under the impression that I was to be done with them at the end of the school year- next Friday. My program says they will clarify that contractually I am to stay until the end of the month.
Now the program needs to scramble to find somewhere to put me for a couple of weeks AND find a permanent host family for next year.
And I’m still waiting to hear if I got a summer camp position at the Sea for July and first weeks of August. If that doesn’t work out… bummer.
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Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I think I’ll go eat worms! Big fat juicy ones, Eensie weensy squeensy ones, See how they wiggle and squirm!
When I was little, I used to hate tomatoes. I would NOT eat them. I don’t know when I started eating them.
As an adult and frequent patron of fast food burger places, I remember commenting on the weak look of the tomatoes on sandwiches. They looked… weird. Most times, especially Wendy’s or Subway, they are of a light yellow color bordering on white. White tomatoes? When did that become okay to eat? I learned way back in kindergarten that tomatoes were red. When did the older me abandon the truths of my youth? Why did I discard the irrefutable wisdom of the big picture books for the glossy pictures on the menu behind the counter?
I don’t doubt that Georgia grows lettuce; they just don’t serve it on anything- like salad. But I’m not mad. If we are honest with ourselves, lettuce is a useless, tasteless garnish. But silly me, last summer, I was a little ‘holier than-thou’ because Georgians didn’t serve salads with the leafy stuff.
Since this spring season started bearing fruit, salad has been served with all of our lunches at home. Simple sliced cucumber, tomato and onion sprinkled with salt. No oil. No vinegar. No dressing. So, so good.
I was staring at one of the cut tomatoes on my fork that was just picked from the garden not ten yards from where I sat, thinking… “This tomato is too red. This can’t be real.”
Graduating high school is a rite of passage. Not only for American teenagers or western nations, but also for high school students in developing countries such as Georgia. I have been a high school teacher for most of my adult life. So I have seen masses of teenagers come and go. I have seen them leave high school with a haste similar to if a building was on fire; determined to put the unfortunate and sometimes painful experience behind them. I have seen students cling to every last moment of their high school experience as if they would never again have life that good. I have seen trends come and go. I lived through and survived the sequined dress era… thank God. So it was really special for me to document and watch how they mark the event of high school graduation in Georgia.
Several weeks ago, Lado and Eka, my host mom, went to Tbilisi for the weekend to shop for an outfit for Lado’s graduation party. Tbilisi, mind you, is a 6 hour bus ride or an overnight train ride to the other side of the country. A couple of days ago, Eka, came home with her hair cut and colored. I knew from those two major ventures that this was going to be a special event.
Lado and his mother, Eka
The weekend of, I came home from an overnight trip celebrating a friend’s birthday in Batumi. I could hear the music from our house a block away. Lado and a friend of his were in the driveway washing his dad’s Jetta. They were intensely buffing and scrubbing to make the car shine. The plan was to go cruising the next day with several other friends with access to cars– the quintessential high school moment.
The afternoon the day of, the host dad tells me that the party starts at 8. And that was confirmed by a call from Lado that I was supposed to meet the other teachers a little before 8 at the church, which was only across the street from the banquet hall. (There’s only one Georgian Orthodox church in Oz. And it’s in the center of town.)
I brought a suit with me to Georgia. I have only been able to wear it once so far at the TLG End of Year event. I thought I would have the opportunity to wear it more, especially with all the weddings going on. But I have still not been invited to a wedding! …But I digress.
I put on the suit, which no one in Oz has seen me wear, which means they had yet another thing to stare at me for. I then walk through town to the church. Waiting there were the four other male teachers that work at the school. They were lounging under a tree passing around mineral water… pre-gaming. They were dressed in different phases of ‘dressed up’. The principal was the most dressed of the others by wearing a leisure suit. We could see the kids arriving at the venue across the street as 8 o’clock came and went. I asked why we were not going in and they said ‘not until 9.’ Ugh.
So we headed down to wait in front of the venue with the other teachers and early arrivals of kids. This I realized was the first phase of the tradition. All the teachers were to assemble first; hang out and take some pictures with the early arrivals.
Principal (right), assistant principal, and me
Teachers and parents assembling
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I didn’t really know what to expect of the girls, but having a pre-party look at Lado’s outfit and his friends’, it became apparent the trend for the boys was suit vest, tie and button down (no jacket). Okay, I can respect that.
What I was not prepared for was the variety of the girls’ dresses. Mind you we are in town of Georgia, a developing country no less. A country known for it’s conservative traditions. These girls were sporting dresses straight out of Vogue: Prom Addition. And they ranged from modest to flashy to … wow. And the hair styles followed suit varying from ‘My mom did it’ to ‘I had this done in Tbilisi’ to ‘I had my French hairdresser fly in from Paris’. These girls were FLY!
Dance teacher (left) and a Graduate
We, the teachers, were finally able to go into the venue. Inside there was a dance floor flanked by tables already set with food. And I don’t just mean set with salad. I mean the tables were loaded with food and wine. There was no space to even put anything else. And if that had been all the food, I would have remained impressed. But no, they kept bringing out more and better food! It was like a Georgian version of a seven course meal. And the wine just kept flowing.
The second part of the tradition I noted was the teachers were to come in and sit, followed by the parents. Then the graduates entered to the intro music of “We Are The World”. Yes, USA for Africa. Yes, ala Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Lionel Ritchie and co., circa 1985. I am not making this up. They entered escorted, which meant some boys had to escort two girls. They then made a semi-circle around the dance floor. They looked and seemed so awkward as the parents were proving to be more than adequate paparazzi for the night. But then the kids did something that was even more painfully awkward. They all started slow dancing to the tail end of “We Are The World”. Yes, the same Michael Jackson, circa 1985 version. I couldn’t look.
After the song, everyone sat down. The teachers and parents to one side the students on the other side of the dance floor. I was sitting near the end of the teacher table with the principal who had the microphone and therefore served as Tamada. Which prompts me to mention two other things. 1. When I say ‘parents’ table’, there were only mothers there. No fathers were present. 2. When I say ‘…the wine flowed’, I mean flowed only by the males present. And that totaled the male teaching staff and the male students. I don’t think any female drank wine in any significant amount.
The principal then proceeded to toast to the elementary teachers, the high school teachers, parents, the graduates, and on and on.
***
Dancing.
A troubling trend of American pop culture dancing is that it has descended into nothing more than ‘bump ‘n grind’. Now don’t get me wrong, I can bump ‘n grind with the best of them. But dancing is so much more than that, and American youth are losing that perspective. It’s so bad that chaperoning high school dances is a mix of shocked older teachers and embarrassed younger teachers, neither of which knows where the ‘line’ of appropriateness should be.
Thankfully that assimilation has not reached Georgia yet…at least not to a small town like Oz. The dancing was started, as all dances are, by some brave but awkward students. The next dance was a rehearsed couple dance by some of the more talented students. There was of course some current pop (not a lot), Georgian pop and American oldies/ swing. The parents and teachers were often asked to dance by the kids and they obliged cheerfully. Interweaved with all that, there was of course the traditional Georgian dances. I had imagined that all Georgians knew and could do the traditional dances, but that’s not true. (Simialar to how all older people who live at the beach in NC and SC knows how to Shag dance. The same kids who did the dance routines were the ones doing the traditional dances. It was so fun to watch and see the joy they got from doing dances everyone in the room were familiar with from since they were babies.
Then Lado found me and asked if I knew the traditional dance to the current song being played…
For those who know me, I am a weird mix of exhibitionist and timid. I love being in front of a crowd. I get incredible energy from people simply by being around them. But I also get the most crippling anxiety and fear from the thought of performing in front of people. Lado started pushing me onto the BIG dance floor to do my thing. I almost started crying and pleaded for at least a shot first and to get my head together. (Lado and his friends brought their own bottle of whiskey to the party). The song ended before I could get ready… but they started it again.
My saving grace was a great dancer who captured the attention of the entire room when she danced. (She is the girl in the red dress in the video.) She is the type of dancer that makes others look good by simply dancing with her. Due to a head nod from Lado, she continued to command notice and solo status on the dance floor. I was surrounded by Lado’s friends, and they were ever increasing their push of me onto the dance floor. And so I went.
I didn’t do too bad. And again, my partner was simply amazing. Towards the end of my performance when I felt comfortable enough to look up, I noticed the other student dancers where flanking me doing their thing, too. The parents and teachers were unable to express their joy and excitement. Even my host mom came over and kissed me. Well worth the dance lessons.
Some of the boys found out I know how to break dance. I was pleasantly surprised some of them did, too. We had a couple of battles to the delight of the crowd. But an unfortunate habit of boys here is they are ‘close dancers’. Yes, there were some couples dancing, but I think they were as the Georgians call them, ‘sweethearts’. For the most part, people danced in same gender pairs or groups. And when the boys danced with me, they danced so close and intimately I felt like they should at least buy me a drink after. But all was good hearted and had none of the cultured nuance of questionable sexualized advances found in the States.
Another funny thing about dancing. I have chaperoned and attended proms and weddings on end back in the States. And what inevitably happens is that the girls will discard their heels when they ‘really’ want to start dancing. The higher the heel, the faster their separation from the shoes. Here in Georgia things are different… kinda. The heel size of the average Georgian woman is an easy 2 inch increase over the average heel wearer in the States. The more the occasion calls for them to be dressed up, the higher the need for a taller heel. Before the first song played, (sans ‘We Are The World- USA for Africa’, circa 1985, I saw a few girls bee-lining to a back room. They came out with flats on! Either they were getting ready to get serious, I thought, or they didn’t even want to risk breaking an ankle. Come to find out, they were the students that were doing the rehearsed dance. Immediately afterwards they put the heels back on. (And only took them off to do rehearsed dances again.) For the most part the all the other girls kept their heels on the entire time. I was in awe.
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Photos.
The picture poses that Georgians take. It makes me giggle. There are three major categories. 1. “Blue Steel”. They don’t crack a smile… at all. To the point where it seems they are afraid someone will make fun of them for smiling in photos. And they learn this at an early age. My elementary students rarely smile either.
2. The “Hooker/ Facebook Look”. When they get into the mood to do these poses, they have no shame or sense of embarrassment. They will take them over and over until they get it right. In the park, in front of the church, wherever. The more seductive and sensuous the look, the better. All the while not smiling. 3. “Posers”. These are poses and shots they have seen on pictures from magazines or iconic photos of friends, i.e., the photo of friends’ feet in a circle, or posing in cool stances in front of swing sets. Smiling is allowed in these photos it seems. It just cracks me up!
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Continuing with tradition, they later went outside to light the lanterns and fireworks.
The food was still coming and the wine still flowing when I had to force myself to leave at 1:30. I was spent due to a crazy, undocumented weekend in Batumi a couple of nights before. I guess after living here for almost a year, I still can’t go Georgia hard.
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“We are the world, we are the children We are the ones who make a brighter day So let’s start giving There’s a choice we’re making We’re saving our own lives It’s true we’ll make a better day Just you and me”
May 26th is Georgian Independence Day. The day they celebrate the break from the Russian Empire in 1918. On this day they celebrate with festivals and concerts in all the major cities and towns.
It was a rainy Sunday but that’s no reason to not go out and see the celebrations. Lado’s friends came to the house to get us to go to the town square. The concert was to start later, so the majority of the crowd was there to see the military’s gadgets and vehicles.
Lado has a great interest in military planes, vehicles and guns. I don’t know which interest takes precedence; cars or military stuff. He knows the names of tanks, planes, and guns. And not only the Georgian ones, he also knows American military statistics. Maybe that’s what boys do. I vaguely remember being obsessed with the Porsche 911 and the F-14 jet plane growing up. Hmm… now that I think about it, I remember making model airplanes.
So when we got to the guns on display, he looked like a kid in a candy store. Nika, like me, doesn’t really like guns and such. But he did let me photo him in an armored vehicle.
Nika
They had various arts and craft stations out. The local community college apparently has a culinary class. They displayed some Georgian dishes with a modern twist. I really wanted to sample the caviar, but didn’t want to wait around in the rain for it. Lado was willing to wait in the rain, however. He only relented to leave when he recognized the ingredients of one of the finger sandwiches and resolved to come home to make it himself. Unfortunately none of the ingredients he needed were at home.
The concert part of the celebration didn’t start until 5 that afternoon. This time the stage was outside in front of the theater. Which meant that we could see all of the dancers and singers that were to take part in the concert. There were a LOT of kids in a rainbow array of costumes lined up and ready to take part in the parade of performers. What I quickly noticed though was I had seen all of these performances before at the Oz kids’ Concert.
It was super hot outside, so I went home.
When I got to the house, the host dad was preparing to take Nino out to the festivities. She was in her cutie pie clothes. And was more excited about that than going to see the concert. The concert lasted well into the night and was concluded with fireworks… from what I could hear.
Happy Independence Day, Georgia.
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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Georgia became part of the Russian Empire in 1800. On May 26, 1918, shortly after the collapse of the Russian Empire and in the midst of the Russian Civil War, it declared independence and The Democratic Republic of Georgia was created.
Independence was short lived. Unable to withstand an invasion by Soviet Russia the Democratic Republic of Georgia collapsed in 1921 and a Moscow directed communist government was installed.
I like eating the homemade jam with my bread for breakfast and dinner. They can 6 to 9 different fruit jams. When one is finished, they go to the pantry and pop open another. The pantry is slammed full of canned fruits and vegetables. We just ran out of the jams canned from last summer. It’s amazing how they calculate it out. (I think I through off this winter’s estimates, though. I love that jam! I was killing it!)
The first fruits are becoming ripe; cherries and a mini plum- bali.
I came to Georgia on the tail end of last summer. So I didn’t really get to see the full production of canning the summer fruits. But now they are cranking up the process.
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Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles to-day To-morrow will be dying.
To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time, Robert Herrick
