Jamie Makes Khinkali

Time for a recipe! Try it at home! (But don't blame me if it tastes like crap, blame your inferior cooking skills or poor reading comprehension.)

Note: This recipe does not really have measurements. Just go with your gut. Again, I take no blame for bad results.

Khinkali is a very popular Georgian food. They are dumplings that are usually filled with meat, but sometimes with mushrooms. Or probably other things. I'm not sure. I don't get out much. They have them at pretty much every restaurant serving Georgian food, and they're priced individually. Usually people order a giant plate of them for everyone to share. If you're an American who's only been in the country for a day, you might order one, just to try it. (You're on a budget, you can't be ordering entire plates of stuff you don't like.) If you do this, the waiter, already exasperated by having to match whatever item you're pointing at on the English menu to the similarly placed item on the Georgian menu, will look at you like you're an idiot and will walk away. When you get your individual khinkali, there will probably be spit inside. 

A good remedy for this situation is to make spit-free khinkali yourself in your own home.

How to make the dough:

When I've seen this made, it's been in enormous batches. The dough was made with a giant bowl of flour (find the biggest mixing bowl you own, then times that by 2). To the flower was added a couple of eggs, some salt, and I believe a little bit of baking soda. The dough was mixed until it was kind of a stretchy blob. 

On a well floured surface, roll the dough out until it is about 3/4 inch thick. Then take a water glass and cut out circles of dough. The circles will be rolled out until they are very thin. Then they are ready to form the dumplings.

How to make the filling:

Take your choice of ground meat (or veggies). We used pork, but I'm sure you could use whatever you want. Add some onion, fresh cilantro, salt, and pepper. 

Then take your rolled out circle of dough and put in about a spoonful and a half of the meat mixture. Here's the tricky part, folding up the edges. It's the blind leading the blind here. I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't good at this. Basically you lift up the sides and, one fold at a time, you fold the edges up accordion style until the whole top is closed, and then you pinch it to make sure it's sealed well.

When you have made several, put them in a pot of boiling water to cook. Spoon them out and drain them, and they're ready to eat!

Khinkali is usually eaten with pepper on it. This is significant, because normally they don't have pepper at the dinner table, but with khinkali, they bring it out and everyone puts it on their dumplings. They are eaten with your hands and you usually leave the top folded part on your plate and throw it away (or feed it to the pigs) because it is just a giant clump of dough. Khinkali is usually paired with some nice homemade Georgian wine, a giant plastic bottle of beer for the table, or some moonshine. 

If you have me on facebook, I've posted pics of this process if you need a visual. I won't post them on here for now because they will take about 3 years to upload. 

Enjoy your khinkali!

Jamie Solves a Mystery

When I arrived at my host family's house, I did not see my host dad for 3 days. No one really mentioned him, or his absence for the first few days, so I was left to wonder whether maybe he had died or they had gotten a divorce. According to our cultural training, divorces are common here, but shameful. Therefore, not something you would bring up to the foreigner who just started living at your house. 

The I broke my adapter, and asked where I would be able to get a new one. My host mom told me, "Mein hosbin, Tbilisi, am Morgen!!" This, in host mom language, which is a sort of pidgin German-Georgian-English, means "My husband is currently in Tbilisi. He can get one for you and bring it home tomorrow."

So he exists! Interesting. 

Two days later, he came home. I was not told his name, he was just referred to as "mein hosbin." And he looked exactly like his brother, my host uncle, who I'd already met, as we spend a lot of time at their house down the street and they at ours.

I tried to stay one step ahead of the situation, and on the next occasion where both brothers were in the room together, I made a quick assessment of their minute differences in appearance. I found that their hairline was the feature that distinguished them from one another the most. My host dad had just a little more hair on the top of his head than my host uncle. So every time I was in the same place as one of them, I would just check the hair to see who I was dealing with. 

Then things started to get weird. My host dad was looking at something on the computer at our house, and my host aunt was standing behind him rubbing his shoulders. My host mom would sit weirdly close to my host uncle on the couch. What is going on here? Is this sort of touchy-feeliness between married-but-not-to-each-other adults acceptable in Georgian culture? Is there some sort of strange wife-swapping/brother-sharing arrangement? Gross. 

I don't see my host dad a lot. I have no idea what he does for a living, but he spends a lot of time working in Tbilisi, so I'll see him maybe a few evenings a week. Last week I noticed that my host uncle was spending a weird amount of time at our house. He was eating dinner with us, then staying to watch TV late into the evening, until after I had gone to bed.

One day my host mom was running through the house shouting and told me "Mzia, hosbin, doctor, Sagarejo. Movidivar. Shen, Mari [points to ground]." Translation: "I am going to the hospital in Sagarejo with Mzia (my host aunt) and her husband. You and Mari are going to stay here."

This meant that the neighbors were soon to show up at the house and tell us to come out into the street with them, where we sat on the bench and waited (until they drove 20 min to Sagarejo, visited the doctor, and drove another 20 min back? Yes, I later found out.) From the neighbors' conversation, I gathered that Mzia's husband, whose name I finally learned after 3 weeks, had an allergic reaction to something and had to be rushed to the hospital. 

Later that evening, my host uncle showed up at our house for dinner. He looked fine. Not like someone who'd been rushed to the hospital earlier. And then the lightbulb went on. I had spent the last 3 weeks thinking my host uncle was my host dad and vice versa. There was indeed no spouse-swapping going on. Just me, being an idiot. A perfect example, however, of how utterly clueless I am in my surroundings. 

Jamie Gets Shouted At

Georgians like to shout. At first I thought it was just my host mom, because she believed that shouting at me would give me a magical ability to understand Georgian. (In fact, it does not.)

However, I've discovered that it's just a Georgian thing. The school staff meeting that I went to was insane. It was just a bunch of women in a room shouting at each other. The principal was shouting loudest of all. I don't know what they were saying, but it sounded angry. But in reality, I don't think it is. I think people here just like to express their opinion passionately and loudly. As I was sitting there, I imagined what a staff meeting at Winner High School would have been like if my teachers behaved like Georgians and just shouted and waved their arms at each other the whole time. You should try to picture it. It's pretty hilarious. 

I was also watching one of the Georgian presidential candidates on TV being interviewed by a reporter. He was doing quite a bit of shouting as well. So much so that the reporter would try to ask him a question and he would just shout over her, much to her frustration. Again, I imagine Obama or Romney shouting and gesturing wildly during a debate. Or McCain for that matter (who, by the way, is kind of a big deal over here). I don't think it would go over well. Ask Howard Dean.

Jamie Hits the Road

The driving in Georgia scares the bejeezus out of me. 

To quote a well-known pirate: in Georgia, Traffic rules aren't really rules, they're more like guidelines. A Georgian road looks like an American road. Solid lines on the outside, and a dotted line in the middle. But in Georgia, the line in the middle means nothing. If you want to pass someone, but there's a car approaching in the oncoming lane, no problem! You just pass them in the middle because even though there are only 2 lanes, there's room for 3 cars. Hopefully. 

What if you're going down a one-way street and realize you passed your destination. Should you go over a block, go back as far as you need, then get back on the one-way? No sir! You just drive in reverse for 3 or 4 blocks, dodging the cars that are driving forward, until you've backtracked to where you want to be. Because as long as your car is facing the direction of the one-way, you're not breaking any laws!

Should you stop for pedestrians? Nope.

What happens if you're doing 50 down the road and there's a cow chilling in the middle of your lane, like they do? If there's no oncoming traffic, you're golden. If there is, hopefully the ditch doesn't drop off too far. Because you don't slow down, you just swerve. If the ditch does drop off, I don't know what you do. I'm guessing when I find out, I won't live to tell you about it. 

Jamie Takes One for the Team

On Tuesday I have a 2nd period free, so I was hanging in the teacher's lounge. Some guy that I've never seen before was in there, and when I double checked with the vice-principal to make sure I didn't have class (I had forgotten my schedule at home), he overheard, and motioned to me to come with him and made the motion of kicking a soccer ball. Really? Some random dude wants me to go outside and play soccer with him during my free time while I'm in my skirt and tights? 

No, that's actually not what was happening at all. Let me explain. I did not think there were any men employed by this school. The principal and vice-principal are women, and so are all the teachers I had met so far. So I figured any guy walking around the school was one of the repairmen that were fixing things up. It turns out this guy was not. He's the P.E. teacher and he wanted me to go to his P.E. class with him, not play soccer. When I figured this out, I agreed. It was uneventful. The kids did nothing. He sent a couple of them off school grounds to go pump up the soccer ball because it was flat. Like 20 minutes later they came back. It was still flat. They argued with the P.E. teacher for a while, then they left again. Came back. Left again. Came back with a pump. They got the soccer ball aired up. There was 3 minutes until the bell. Fail. 

The next day, the P.E. teacher came into the teacher's lounge and told the English teacher to translate for him. She told me the school sometimes has sporting events and asked if I wanted to participate. "What kind of sports?" I asked. He pointed to a printout with illustrations of kids running through tires, going around cones, playing tug-of-war. So I agreed. Then, after school, I went with my sister to the store, and on the way back we passed by the school. My host cousin grabbed me and told me I was supposed to go upstairs to the computer lab. [Note: Any time I say that a Georgian told me to do something, it's not exactly as smooth of a process as I make it sound. For example, in this case, my cousin pointed to the top floor of the school, said something really fast in Georgian, made a motion of typing on a computer, and waved me to follow him.]  When I got to the computer lab, the P.E. teacher was there, along with a bunch of students crowded around the computer. They started playing a YouTube video of the sports competition I had agreed to. It was like that old Nickelodeon show I used to watch with the red team and the blue team and they slimed people and they had that cute host named Mark something. For those of you who do not know what I'm talking about, it was a bunch of kids doing weird stuff like bouncing on a bouncy ball around cones, climbing up mats, sliding down slides, and doing potato sack relays. This is what I had agreed to. Oh god. I told myself that at least I was getting involved and I should just pretend I'm 12 and am on Legends of the Hidden Temple. (I'm on a Nick kick now.)

After watching the video we had to have practice. I started to get a little grumpy. I was supposed to be at home eating lunch, and instead, I was hanging out outside the school trying to hold a soccer ball between my head and the P.E. teacher's head without using our hands while running around cones, with the whole school watching. 

I was told the competition was today, so I brought my gym clothes with me to school. When it was time to go, we all piled into a marshrutka (mini-bus, word borrowed from Russian) and drove to Sagarejo, about 20 minutes away. When we got there, a 15-yr-old girl who spoke good English became my new best friend, because she was the only one who could tell me what was going on. Some other teams went first, so we watched them. It didn't look so bad. The reason I was recruited for this, was because each team had to have an adult male and female. I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few in the school who is not old, limping, or pregnant, so they snatched me up. Plus they knew I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Easy prey. 

As it got closer to our turn, I got nervous. The German teacher figured out I spoke German, so that's one more person at school that I'm able to talk to now. Yay! The principal told her to ask me if I was fast. I think so? Compared to who? Then my English-speaking friend (she had one of those complicated Georgian names that I forgot 2 seconds later) kept telling me to run very fast. Jeez people! Pressure!

We started out with the obstacle course relay. We had to jump over a hurdle, crawl through a tunnel, run through tires, throw a ball at some bowling pins and try to knock down as many as we could, then sprint back and the next person goes. I was second to last to go. We were a little behind, but the adult female on the other team had about 20 years on me, so I felt confident. I took the lead, the last guy went and we won! Then came tug-of-war. Another win! Last, we had a relay race where each person had to do different things while zigzagging around cones. Bounce on a ball, kick a soccer ball, dribble a basketball, hop in a sack, and then me and the adult male had to hold a giant beach ball between our heads (we got to use our hands too) while running around the cones. When it was our turn, the other team already had a pretty good lead, and we ended up losing. But when the total points were tallied, we came out 1st place! Just 1 point ahead of the 2nd place team. This close call makes me feel better about the fact that my left knee is now sore and swollen because I landed on it while diving into the tunnel. Everyone was really excited about our win. 

Now we have another match tomorrow, and the finals on Sunday. Gives me something to do this weekend. And I"m hoping that we'll win and go to Nationals in Tbilisi, so that I can be on Georgian television. Oh, the glory! 

Jamie Goes to School

[My first day of school was Monday, Sept 17th...Just now getting a chance to post this]

It is a universal truth that the morning of the first day of school is complete chaos. 

The electricity had gone out the night before and still wasn't back on in the morning. My host mom had to heat her iron on the gas burner so that she could iron everybody's clothes, and she couldn't use any of her electric hair tools, so she was stressing about that. Tornike was getting yelled at because he wouldn't sit down and drink his tea. Mari slept in her french braid, then took it out and brushed it, so she looked like a little Georgian Diana Ross. She found this hilarious at first, but after trying headbands, ponytails, and trying to flatten it with her hands, all to no avail, she started to tear up when her mom was yelling at her to hurry. I was sitting in the living room, ready to go 20 minutes early (I only possess this ability in foreign countries for some reason) so I told Mari I'd rebraid it for her. 

School was interesting. It's a bit like pulling teeth to get anyone to inform me of what's going on, ever, but hopefully that will improve. I'm the first volunteer at this school, so I have a feeling they're not really sure what to do with me yet. I did finally get my schedule, though. I come in at 9:00 almost every day (one day of the week I start at 9:55) and am never there past 12:30. Monday's I'm only there until 11:30. So, not too tough at all. We're also encouraged to start an after-school club, so I'm going to try to start an English Film Club. Cartoons for 1st - 6th grade, and real movies for the higher grades. I started brainstorming films that have limited sex and violence and clean language, but couldn't come up with a lot. If you have suggestions, feel free to leave a comment. Also, I don't even know if I'll be able to do Film Club, because I don't think my school has a TV or projector, but I'll have to ask for sure. 

I am lucky that my class sizes are so small. Today I had 3rd grade with 13 students, 4th with only 8 students, and 5th with 17. Not only are the small classes easier to control, it will also make it easier for me to remember names, since a lot of Georgian names are long and hard to remember since they sound like no name I've ever heard before. I would give you examples, but I forgot them all.

Also, they brought liquor to the teacher's lounge and were pouring shots for people. Liquor and chocolate between classes. At 10:00 a.m. Yes, please.

Jamie Gets Culture Shock

Every time I go abroad, I am briefed on culture shock. They tell me about the stages: Honeymoon, Depression/Crisis, Adjustment, Acceptance, or something to that effect. They tell me what I will feel and how to deal with it. Every time I come home from abroad, they warn me about reverse culture shock. As far as I can tell, I have never really experienced either one. 

In Germany, I think I was so busy dealing with my first host mom's mood swings for the first 4 months, that culture shock got put on the back burner. I was only in Costa Rica for 1 month, so it was more like an extended vacation. I was able to coast through on "honeymoon" mode the entire time, because if anything did bother me (e.g. eating rice and beans during every meal of every day), I knew I only had to deal with it for a few weeks. In Peru, I was with a family who had housed several gringos in the past, and I had my fellow American Raquel right down the hall. Plus most of my classes had more Europeans and Americans than they did Peruvians. Moreover, in Germany, there was almost always someone available who spoke pretty good English, and in Costa Rica and Peru, I could speak their language. 

This time I'm feeling the shock. After the first week of training, where I was cooped up in a hotel all day long with 65 other English-speakers, I got driven an hour away from Tbilisi to the village of Badiauri. According to a source I found on the internet, the population is roughly 1,600. 

My honeymoon phase lasted roughly 2 days. I was fascinated by everything. My house has chickens, ducks, pigs, cows, a donkey, and a dog right in it's backyard. The men bring the cows home at night, and they herd them right through the street in front of our house (3 of them are ours). I look out the window of my bedroom on the top floor and I see the rooftops of the houses in the village nestled between the trees, with the mountains in the background. Okay, they're not actually mountains, but when you grow up in Winner, South Dakota, any hill that would take you longer than 10 minutes to climb seems like a mountain. Now and then you see men hauling hay around in their donkey drawn cart. As you drive around the countryside, you're bound to see a fortress or cathedral on one of the hilltops. The weather is nice. The people are overly nice. I haven't had my cheek pinched this much since I was 5 years old. If you need an ego boost, come to Georgia. All you have to do is smile at people and say the 3 words you know in Georgian, and they'll think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread. (Note: I've never actually seen sliced bread in this country. They'll think you're the greatest thing since khachapuri?) 

These, amongst other things contributed to my excitement about my new home during the first couple of days. Then I hit the crisis stage. "Crisis" sounds a bit extreme to me, so I shall instead refer to it as the Stage of Constant Frustration. I will not go into a list of all the little things that contributed to this frustration. Instead, I'll just go through a few of the biggies. 

The language. Don't get me wrong, I find Georgian to be a fascinating language and fun to learn. The problem is, I haven't learned it yet. Therefore, there is very little that I can communicate to my host family. I know a few nouns, about 4 verbs, and the rest is left to hand gestures. Hand gestures only go so far. I feel like I am in a constant state of misunderstanding with my host family. They never have any idea what I'm saying, and I never have any idea what they're saying. I'm surprised at how often I can figure out the gist of a conversation that they're having, based on the vocab I know, and I can get most of the simple things they try to tell me. The big problem lies in the verbs. I know that my host mom is saying something to me about dogs, for example. But what about them? Do I like dogs? Do I have a dog? Do they have a dog? Should I stay away from a dog? Do I hear a dog? Are we having dog for supper? (Just kidding, they don't do that here...that I know of). Point being, verbs are important things. Unfortunately, the resources available for learning Georgian are really limited. So I don't know how to learn new verbs. Hopefully I can find a tutor soon, but until then, it's all a guessing game. I never know what I'm doing, what other people are doing, what I'm supposed to be doing, or why.   

Village life. When I was a kid, I was totally a farm girl. I used to run around and play in the barn (the floor of which was composed of mostly horse poop and a little bit of dirt), I used to pet the poor dead pheasants that my dad shot, I used to swim in the nasty dam at the farm. Then I spent a couple years working at a daycare, where I was constantly disinfecting everything in the room and washing my hands every 5 minutes. I also watched a lot of episodes of House, where I learned that the tiniest bit of mold that entered your blood stream through your paper cut when you grabbed that rag that had been sitting in the sink too long can be the death of you, unless a handsome but emotionally scarred pill-addicted genius has an epiphany while making a snarky comment to his oncologist friend and injects you with life-saving medicine just as you were about to flatline. The combination of these two developments turned me into a bit of a germophobe. I'm no Howie Mandel, but I definitely obsess about who's touched that stair handle before me and I keep my anti-bac on hand at all times. This makes village life quite difficult for me. 

Independence. Practically gone. Because I have the language skills of a 2-year-old and have only been in the country a few weeks, there's not a lot that I can do without help. And there's even less that they trust me to do without help. 

That said, I've been in my village for a little over a week, and the frustration is slowly waning. I am reminding myself that I am having an amazing experience, and it is only just beginning. I know that what I see and do in the next 3 1/2 months will be unforgettable, and when I'm looking back, my little complaints will not be important, compared to the sights I've seen, the work I've done, and the people I've met.