30 August 2012

I finally got to see the school that I will be teaching in for the semester, and I am excited. It is a large cinderblock building that looks as though it was built during the soviet regime and then bombed to pieces when the Soviet Union began to crumble. They are going through a large reconstruction project, and the spackling and fresh coats of paint are already making worlds of a difference. With two weeks to go before classes begin, things are looking promising for my area to mold young Georgian minds (or at least teach them “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes). I met my principal, who seems overjoyed to have another American volunteer here to help teach, and promised a sharp improvement in my Georgian through a course I get to take for free while I am at school. I found this very exciting, seeing as how she did not speak a lick of English, and something tells me this will be status quo as I meet other teachers in my school.

After the classroom tour, I saw my first dead Georgian. I hope that sentence comes as quite a shock to most of you, because the entire experience caught me very off guard. My principal caught me by the elbow as I was leaving to go back to the house, and insisted that I go to the funeral of a man I had never met (perhaps as an ice breaker exercise, the efficiency of which I did not fully grasp). Georgian funerals are huge. It seemed as though the entire town of Chkhorotsksus was in attendance, people spilling in from every village close enough to hail a marshutka. It was a rapid tour through the prayer line, past the long line of wailing women, and then handshakes for the men (the brothers and close friends or relatives of the deceased). I was then escorted through the masses to a long picnic table for traditional Georgian funeral nibbles, including wine and tarragon soda, bread, cheese, and various vegetable dishes. The staple funeral chow is a refried beans-esque dish, a vegetable paste known as labia (labia is Georgian for vegetable. There were plenty of jokes to be made, but stop it. My parents read this blog).

My work as a teacher officially begins on Monday for a teacher conference and picnic. We have various meetings throughout the next two weeks (classroom orientations and professional development days) and then the kids come in on the 17^th. By that point I will be better than a month into m

My work as a teacher officially begins on Monday for a teacher conference and picnic. We have various meetings throughout the next two weeks (classroom orientations and professional development days) and then the kids come in on the 17^th. By that point I will be better than a month into m Georgian experience, and I imagine the days and experience will take off from there. I am itching to finally get into a classroom and start earning my paycheck, rather than merely getting paid to sit at the house and eat food, working 3 hours a week to give English lessons to my host family. I am beginning to see why people are so excited to be on welfare, although the process of sitting around relaxing all day is beginning to drive me nuts. Thank god for my host family and neighbors, who are constantly on the lookout for something to do, as long as it is not raining.