Jamie Wonders...

How many pounds of grapes have I eaten since arriving at my host family's house in September? It would be interesting to know. Not only have I eaten them in their natural form, but I've also consumed a large amount of wine in my time here, in addition to churchkhela and tatara (a jelly-like think made from boiling grape juice and flour until it's thick). I'm guessing I've killed quite a few grapes. Good thing grapes are pretty much my favorite snack ever, so I haven't gotten sick of them and doubt I will. And I don't mind them in fermented form, either. 

How do they get mail here? The streets don't have names and the houses don't have numbers. I've never seen any mail, or any mailmen. Don't they get letters or bills from something? Phone bills? Electricity bills? How does that work?

Same for the trash. Where does it go? I've never seen dumpsters or garbage trucks in my village. Granted, people don't make a lot of trash since bottles are reused (beer bottle gets used to hold the homemade hot sauce, big Fanta bottles get reused for water or wine, etc.) and all the organic material is given to the pigs. But there's still some trash. I do see little fires on the side of the road quite often. Sometimes it just looks like they're burning leaves, but maybe trash too?

Why are marshmallows scarce or nonexistent in almost every foreign country I've been to? When they are available, they're a weird texture. Globalization would be much cooler if you could find Jet-puffs and graham crackers in every corner of the world instead of McDonald's and Coca-cola. In case you haven't put 2 and 2 together, I've been having a hankering for s'mores lately. 

How do you distinguish between skanky and conservative here? I was told dress was conservative, and in some ways it is. No off-the-shoulder tops. Skirts can't be too short. Necklines can't be too deep. I can't show my tattoos. At the same time, high heels are expected - no one wears flats, except me. Clothes can be much too tight. Women can wear way too much makeup (80's style, metallic blue eyeshadow, 3 times too much blush, and shiny pink lipstick). I've been asked by my host mom why I only wear a little bit of makeup, and by a 12th grader why I didn't wear any makeup (while I was wearing makeup). Shirts can be completely see through with just a bra underneath. What?? 

What does my host dad do for a living? He was always gone for the first few weeks here, and now I never see him leave? I have no idea if he has a job or not. 

And most of all I wonder....what are people saying to me all the time??

Jamie Watches TV

In the beginning, I would watch quite a bit of TV in the evenings with my host family. It was usually a Georgian news program, or a telenovela dubbed into Georgian. The telenovelas were frustrating to watch because I would be trying to pick out the few Spanish words that could be heard despite the dubbing in order to have an idea of what was going on. The news was extremely boring to watch, but did have the advantage of giving me practice with the Georgian alphabet, since I would be able to read and recognize the names of countries like Libya or Turkey in the corner of the screen. When the weather came on was when I would really test my skills at reading the names of cities before they would disappear in a few seconds, in preparation for future instances in which a marshrutka is barreling towards me and I have to quickly read the Georgian destination sign in the window to decide whether I should flag them down or not. 

A few weeks ago, my host family had some one come over and install some English language television stations, a very kind gesture on their part. Now I'd like to tell you about English language television in Georgia.

There are a few different stations that come in. The main ones that I watch are Russia Today (RT) and Deutsche Welle (DW). Besides that there's France24, which I watched once and was really bored by, a church channel, and a channel called Smile of a Child, which I've never watched, because it sounds weird. 

So let's talk about RT. It's based in Moscow, but has some programming coming out of London and New York, and most of the commentators are American, a few are British, and one lady has a really strange accent that I can't place. RT is mostly news programs. At first, it seems like a legit news station. It's got the really snazzy graphics and sets, but there's something that's a little off. The people. From what I gather, if you're trying to find work as a news anchor, but you keep getting turned down because of your lack of social skills, your obnoxious personality or your drug habit, try sending your resume to Russia. They'll probably take you. 

Meet Max Keiser. A former stockbroker, now hosting the Keiser Report, "a no holds barred look at global finance." During the first few minutes of seeing his show, he reminded me a lot of Norm MacDonald. He looks a bit like him, and has the same dry delivery and sarcasm. Then I realized there was a difference. Norm makes you laugh. Max makes you confused and uncomfortable. He never smiles, and he often goes on long rants that don't really make any sense. In one episode, he had a stuffed animal that looked like a sewer rat. I think it was a metaphor for Jamie Diamond or something. He used the sewer rat to talk about Jamie or whoever it was, at which point most sensible TV hosts (if sensible TV hosts would have the rat in the first place) would put it away. However, Max kept bringing it back. When the camera was on his co-host, Stacy Herbert (I'll get to her in a second), the rat slowly crept into the bottom corner of the frame. Hilarious, but also a little awkward. In another episode, he started talking in a robot voice. That, too, continued for much much too long. Stacy, is worse. Unlike Max, she is always smiling, in a weird, spacey way that makes you think she's probably taken a lot of pills before going on air. How does she deal with Max's crazy antics? By not even being aware of them in the first place, is what it looks like. Max will go on a 10-minute rant where's he's arguing with himself as two different characters in a very Gollum-esque style, and as soon as he stops, it will cut to Stacy, who with the same silly smile on her face, says "That's right, Max. And the New York Times reported today that...." YouTube it, it's worth it. 

Then there's Lauren Lyster. She has her own show, too, although I can't remember what it's called. Lauren is a smart lady. Which means she probably wouldn't need to wear ridiculously short skirts (I get embarrassed for her when she's sitting on a stool interviewing someone without a desk in front of her) and super low cut tops with a push up bra. She also talks like a drunk cheerleader at a frat party when she's debating with someone. "These policies are sooo NOT going to boost the economy! Like, whatever!" - OK, that's an exaggeration, but it's otherwise difficult to express the kind of obnoxious tone she uses in writing. It's also my theory that she has a rocky romantic past with one of her commentators, Demitri, who seems like kind of a jerk anyways. Because they always end up in screaming arguments with each other where you can't understand what either is saying, and you wonder whether you're watching a news show or the Jersey Shore. 

Other than that, there's a British news anchor with fascinating eyebrows. He's like a real life version of Johnny Bravo, and a foreign woman, the one with the mysterious accent, who looks exactly like one of the women on SNL. One of the new ones, whose name no one knows yet. 

In between shows on RT, there are little interesting bits about Russia. I'm learning a lot about the place. Indigenous cultures, sled dogs, reindeer, mostly things that have to do with extreme cold....

And then there's Deutsche Welle, a network based in Berlin. DW isn't as news centered as RT, so once I've caught the 20 minutes of RT news that will just keep repeating itself for the next  2 hours, I switch it over. The programs on DW are really varied and random, but usually interesting. There was one about a Scottish guy who fell in love with a German and moved to Hamburg, where he started a very successful hand-sewn kilt business. Another was about endangered frogs in Africa, and the German scientist trying to convince villagers in the reason to stop hunting them for food and to eat pork instead. Another was about a woman who gave up her baby for adoption when she was a young girl in the U.S. She never wanted to but the father pressured her to do it and she felt she didn't have another option. Years later, the son, who had meanwhile been adopted into a Jewish home, finally was able to contact his parents when he was like in his 40's, and he came to meet them in Germany. This was very touching, and I'm sure I looked like I was about to cry because my host mom looked at me strangely and asked me what the show was about. I never told her, because of course I don't know how to explain that in Georgian. During certain hours of the day, DW has German program, and the rest is English. Usually it's the same shows, just dubbed one way or the other. I like watching the German programming, because it helps me brush up on my German, and it also makes me feel good to know that I've barely lost it, as far as listening goes, anyway - speaking is another story. DW makes me very homesick for Germany, seeing all the little things that distinguish the country. The green and yellow bus stops, the perfectly landscaped gardens, hearing the sound of the language. This was why, the other night, I spent about an hour researching job prospects for English teachers in Germany. Which brings me to my next topic: The EU is stupid. It would be smart if I could get an EU passport that would allow me to easily work in Germany, Italy, Spain...As it is, I can't. And it's stupid. 

Jamie Speaks British English

Like most countries in this part of the world, the focus is on British English. Being not British, this presents a bit of a challenge for me. First of all, my English teachers can't understand me because all they hear is "arr rerr grrr irr reerrrr." Then I have to remember to talk like a Brit in order to not confuse the kids. After they've learned the phrase 'Have you got...?' I can't mess with their heads by asking 'Do you have...?' When they're learning time prepositions, I have to remember to say 'at the weekend' instead of 'on the weekend.' When I sing the ABC song, I have to remember to end it with 'Zed' instead of 'Zee.' Which is just silly, because it messes up the whole rhyme. There's trousers and knickers and trainers. Sweets not candy. Maths not math. And let's not forget. An eraser is not an eraser. It's a rubber. 

Jamie Goes to Supras

What's a supra? It's a feast where the host is expected to serve at least 3 times the amount of food and wine that the guests would possibly able to eat, and the guests are expected to eat at least twice as much as one would on Thanksgiving. 

At a supra, there is a tamada, who is the toastmaster. Why do you need one? Because in Georgia, you're not supposed to take a drink until you've toasted something. And that goes for every drink, not just the first one. That means, over the course of quite a few glasses of wine, you've toasted quite a few things. You've toasted parents, siblings, children, God, the church, Georgia, the deceased, specific people at the table, peace, and then you can go ahead and get creative. Your wine glass never gets empty, because someone is constantly going around and topping off all the glasses. Which means you also have no idea how much you drank. 

Some typical foods that are usually at a supra include slices of eggplant folded over and stuffed with a walnut paste, onions and pomegranate seeds, khachapuri, some kind of potato salad, bread and cheese of course, tomatoes, different meats, etc. Most of the time you get all these dishes at one supra, and probably more. The hostess is busy refilling all the plates of food as soon as they start to run low (hostess, notice, for anything regarding kitchen duty is not a man's job in Georgia). Everyone else is busy eating, toasting, drinking and smoking. 

Supras happen on birthdays, weddings, funerals, during harvest time, etc. Basically any occasion that calls for merry-making. Last night, we had my cousin's birthday supra. For me, this was one of the most interesting ones I've partaken in, because it was a stark contrast to an 18th birthday party in the U.S. Here's why. His mother, (my mom helped too) was expected to prepare food for roughly 30 people. This was a 2 day process. And remember the thing I said about being expected to prepare way more food than your guests could possibly eat? When you have 30 guests, that's a lot. The guest list was my cousin's entire 12th grade class, plus me and my family, plus family from the other side, plus 2 of the teachers, plus the school principal. Yep, the school principal, at your birthday party. Imagine that. Now imagine drinking with said principal at your birthday party. That's exactly what happened. The 12th graders had their own table in one room with the birthday boy, and the rest of us were in the other room at our own table. The 12th graders polished off quite a few pitchers of wine. As did we. Then the principal went over to their table to make a few toasts to them and have a few toasts made to her. The best part of the night was the dancing. They put on some traditional Georgian music and a few of them did some traditional dancing. I got a video of it, which I will upload to some social media site at some point in time when I have internet that is actually fast. It was pretty cool. After endless amounts of food (you thought an hour into it, it was over, but then they bring out the dolma for the first time), it was time for cake and coffee. They brought out plates of cake and chocolate, and I had a piece, noting that it was not the birthday cake, but different types of cake. I figure that this was because the birthday cake was not big enough to feed 30 people, and it would be saved for him and his classmates. Wrong. This was just the pre-cursor-to-the-cake cake. Then they put candles in the birthday cake, blew them out, and cut the cake to serve everyone who had already eaten cake more cake. At around midnight the teachers and principal started heading home. That's when I headed home too. Of course I couldn't walk the 200 yards by myself. I had to be escorted because otherwise I run the risk of being attacked by a rabid dog, according to my host mother, who for some reason thinks I'm 7. This is the same woman who wouldn't let me shower after the previous supra, because I'd drank wine, and according to her "wine trink, shkapi NO! [makes X with arms]" Translation: You can't take a shower after you've been drinking. Why? I question I've asked myself a lot since then. Here's what I've come up with. Because you might slip and crack your head open and bleed to death. Because you might fall asleep under the faucet and drown. Because you might think the shampoo is a bottle of wine, drink it all and poison yourself. Because showering while drunk is another of the many mysterious ways in which you can catch a cold that don't involve actual germs. 

Jamie Talks Teaching

Since I'm over here teaching English, you might be wondering why none of my blog posts talk about teaching English. Part of the reason may be because it seems like such a small part of my life here. I am only in class 16 hours a week. Actually it's less, since I have 16 classes and the classes are 45 minutes long. Out of those 45 minutes, I'm probably only leading the activity for about 15 minutes. So they're not exactly working me to death here.

I assist with 1st through 6th grades and work with 2 different co-teachers. The 1st-7th graders took English last year, and for the 8th-12th graders, this is their first year, so everyone is at a beginner level, unless they've been taking private lessons. My job is to help out with the speaking and listening for the most part. I try to come up with fun activities and exercises for the kids that pertain to the lesson. 

So far it's going quite well. The classes are good sizes (6th grade has only about 7 students, while the others average somewhere around 15). Discipline is not really a problem. There are a couple trouble-makers in a few of my classes, but it's extremely low-stress compared to the class behavior of my 4th graders in Peru. Because of some issues I've been having with one of my coteachers, I've stopped going to the 5th and 6th grade classes and have started helping out with the 9th and 10th grades with my other teacher instead. This is only my 1st week of that, but I can tell it's going to be difficult because it's a class of mixed levels (like I said, some have had private tutoring and some are starting fresh) and they are working out of a book that is too advanced for a 1st year class. However, the teacher makes it work, and I am excited to start helping out with these grades.

In addition to teaching, we're encouraged to start or participate in some kind of after-school club. My first thought was a film club, but after trying to show "Matilda" after school one day and encountering numerous technological difficulties, which resulted in not being able to watch the film at all, I've decided to just try to do some different activities that the kids might like to take part in. My current project is to have a cooking week. The plan is to cook pancakes after school with the different grades, giving them some food vocabulary, and also giving them a taste of an American staple (although they unfortunately do not have maple syrup here). I'll let you know how it goes....if it ever goes. It's been in the planning stage for about 2 weeks, and I haven't been able to get a definite answer about when we're actually going to do it.

I also have lessons with my host family for 3 hours a week. These are the most fun for me, because it's much easier to teach 2 people than it is a whole class, and we can do a lot of games and activities that don't work well in a large group. Much to my disappointment, though, my host brother seems to be picking up German a lot faster. He's in his first year, and a lot of times he'll say something to me in German, and when I ask him to say it in English, he says he doesn't know, even if it's something I've taught him. So I'm pretty much Teacher of the Year is what I'm saying. 

I have found that teaching is growing on me. Which brings me to my next topic. The rest of my life. As of now, the plan is to go to South Korea (if I'm accepted) next year and make some actual money, and then hop around the globe some more with teaching English as the means to do it. I don't want to do that for the rest of my life, although when I think about all the places I want to go (Italy, Vietnam, Germany, Russia, Japan, Thailand, Argentina, Brazil, the list goes on...) it would pretty much take a lifetime to do it all. So for now I'll just take it one step at a time. There's no point in planning anyways, because in the end, plans always change. I mean really, if you'd have asked me a year ago, Georgia would have been one of the last places I would've pictured myself being, yet here I am.

Jamie Makes Apple Pie

One day, years ago, my grandma Ambur decided to pass down her famous apple pie recipe to me. This could not be done by handing me a recipe, but had to be hands on. So my grandma devised a sort of day-long pie-making boot camp for me in her kitchen in Presho, South Dakota. 

I don't know how many apples were peeled and sliced that day (although these days, says Grandma, some women just don't even peel their apples anymore, they put them right in the pie with the skins on! And you know, it doesn't even taste bad, and it sure does save a lot of work, but I still like to peel mine). I don't know how many pie crusts were rolled out and pinched together. I don't know how many tears were shed after grandma beat me on the head with a rolling pin after I accidentally got a piece of shell in with the egg. Just kidding, it didn't quite get that intense. I just know, that at the end of the day, with numerous pies cooling on the window sills, I had had grandma's secrets and techniques forever branded into my brain, so that I would be able to spread the goodness of "Grandma's Apple Pie" to the far-reaching corners of this earth. 

First, I baked it for my host family in Germany, and it held its own, even among the variety of delicious cakes that my host mom baked. I made it in Peru when the other volunteer teacher and I threw a Thanksgiving feast for our classes. And now, I've made it in Georgia. 

At this point, I must confess, it was kind of a fail. 

I'll begin from the beginning. A couple weeks ago my host mom asked me, out of the blue, "Why haven't you cooked for us yet?" 

["Well, because you will barely let me pour my own water without jumping up to do it for me, so I didn't think your strong notions of hospitality would allow such a thing."]

That's what I thought. What I said was "Uhh, ar vitsi." (I dunno.)

So she asked what I was going to make for them, and, because of their endless supply of apples, I thought apple pie would be a good idea. 

Then I caught a cold, and for 3 days I was not feeling like doing much of anything except laying in bed and playing Angry Birds. My illness did not stop my mother from asking "Why haven't you made your cake yet?" (Pie is not really a thing here).

["Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but there's been a pretty consistent stream of snot coming out of my nose lately, and I don't think that's one of the ingredients that really elevates a pie from good to outstanding."]

That's what I thought. What I said was "I'm sick! Give me a break!" But I said it in English, so she just nodded at my exasperated tone and let the subject go.

Yesterday, I was feeling much better, so in anticipation of her inevitable questioning of when I was going to make the pie, I suggested at lunch that I make it that day. 

After lunch, she went off to feed cows, or pour cement in the yard, or whatever it is they do when they're not in the house. Then, in late afternoon I got called to the porch for coffee. "Why haven't you made your cake yet?" said my host mom. 

This time, I said exactly what I was thinking, "Because you were off doing something else, and I need help, because I obviously don't know where you keep all your pans and ingredients and everything and your oven's probably in Russian, so you need to tell me when you want to help me make it." To which she responded "eeeeeh...okay."

Then I went upstairs grabbed my pie recipe with the translations I'd gotten out of the dictionary, came back down and handed it to her. She said they'd have to go to the store for the lemon juice, cinnamon and nutmeg (which she'd never heard of before, so it didn't sound too promising), but that they had everything else. 

So, by 8:00 pm my host brother had gone to the store and I had my ingredients. Or so I thought. 

My first problem was a pie pan. There wasn't one. The closest thing was about twice the size of a normal pie, shallower, and with straight edges. Good enough, I'll just double the recipe. 

So I started to make the crust. I had tried to look up 'shortening' in the dictionary, but it wasn't there, so I looked up 'lard' and thought she would get the idea. When I pointed to it on my paper, she said, "You don't need that, use this." and handed me a stick of butter instead. Ok, I'll give it a try. Unfortunately, the area designated for me to roll out the dough was significantly smaller than the pan itself, so my crust had to sort of be pressed together in the pan, with an end result resembling Frankenstein's face. 

Then comes the filling. My host aunt asked me if I needed a cheese grater to grate the apples, and I said that no, they just needed to be sliced. This was met with some skepticism, which was basically the theme of their reactions as they watched me throughout the cooking process. (If I could cook well, I'd be married already, right? I mean, geez, I'm already 23, and still single with no kids?)

Brown sugar apparently doesn't exist in Georgia, so I just used white. No big deal. Then I asked for the cinnamon. "You don't need it," said my host mother, "They didn't have it at the store, or the nutmeg either."

Oh....

Also, the lemon juice was in powder form, as was the vanilla. The aroma of this powdered vanilla in particular had an uncanny ability to stick to my skin even after numerous hand washings. Which definitely made me second guess using the whole packet. 

I would like to note here that I didn't have any sort of measuring tools besides a coffee cup and a spoon. 

So lets review, pie crust with butter subbed for shortening, and apple filling with no brown sugar, cinnamon or nutmeg, weird tasting vanilla powder, and powdered lemon juice. Things aren't looking good.

Then comes the baking. Their oven did not have a temperature, it simply had an on/off switch. So I put it in and crossed my fingers. About 45 minutes later it looked done, but then it was time for an English lesson with my host siblings, and by the time I was done with that it was past 10:00 p.m. Too late for pie even by Georgian standards apparently. 

But just as I suspected, it was served for breakfast this morning. Because it's never too early for pie in Georgia. Or anything for that matter. My host mom tried to get me to eat candy bars and cookies for breakfast yesterday, which, much to her bafflement, I declined. 

Let me just say that the pie was not great. The crust was a bit soggy, the filling was overpowered with the taste of artificial vanilla, and it's just not the same without the cinnamon and nutmeg. I don't think my host family hated it. It's not like it was disgusting, and they told me it was delicious of course, but they didn't seem overly enthusiastic about it. 

The bad thing is now I really want a delicious, real, homemade apple pie. 

The good thing is they probably won't bug me to cook for them again. 

And Grandma, if you're sitting at the Presho Public Library reading this, I'm sorry I've failed you. 

Jamie Sits Down for a Meal

Here's what I typically eat at my host family's house. 

Breakfast:

My host mother prepares breakfast for everyone, so when I come downstairs at 8:00, it's already laid out for me. It usually consists of a (rather large) bowl of some type of grain. Most of the time it's oatmeal, with a ridiculous amount of sugar in it. Sometimes it's buckwheat with butter and salt. Sometimes it's this other sort of malt-o-meal type grain. Not sure exactly what that is, but it's yummy. I've also a few times had pasta cooked in milk. Like regular ziti pasta. Cooked in sweetened milk. Very strange, but actually not bad.

There are also loaves of bread laid out with butter and honey, but since it's hard enough just to finish my giant bowl of oatmeal, I never have room for that. A few times a week she puts out khachapuri too. Khachapuri in a general sense is bread and cheese, but it takes many forms. Sometimes it's lasagna, but with only cheese as filling, sometimes it's the bread that we always have with meals filled with cheese slices and grilled in the panini maker, and sometimes my mom makes the bread dough, forms it into a circle, puts cheese in the middle, closes it up, flattens it, and cooks it on the skillet, so it's like a cheese filled pita bread. Usually the morning khachapuri is made panini-style.

This is all served with a cup of tea, or every once in a while, a cup of instant coffee made with milk instead of water. I've never had black coffee served to me in the morning.

Lunch:

The things that are served at every lunch, and supper for that matter, are the following:

Bread loaves 

Cheese

Tomatoes cut up with onions and sometimes parsley

Besides that, it's usually fried eggs for lunch. They fry their eggs in about an inch of sunflower oil, which, while delicious, is also setting me on my way to a heart attack before age 30. 

Sometimes she also fries up some bologna, or puts out some kind of meat, but typically eggs are just an easy thing to make after a long day of school.

Afternoon coffee:

May take place multiple times, but usually happens right after lunch.

There's two ways they make coffee in my house, and from what I've seen, in general. The first, I think, is called Turkish coffee. I've been meaning to google this. I  had no idea what Turkish coffee was, but I think if I have my stories straight, it's what we usually drink. They cook the coffee in a pot on the stove, and I'm not sure what they use, but the result is a cup of coffee where the grounds stick to the sides and settle at the bottom, so that when you get towards the last few drinks, you have to be careful and drink slowly so as not to get a mouth full of grit. That gets left in the bottom. This was quite unpleasant to me at first, but I got used to it. Lately we've just been having plain old instant coffee a lot, which dissolves all the way. My host family drinks a lot of sugar in their coffee, and no cream or milk, except as I mentioned when now and then my host mom will make me coffee with just milk, but I've never seen anyone else drink this. It took about a week for me to convince my host mom to not put so much sugar in my coffee or tea. It's still too much for my taste, but it's all about small victories, right?

With the coffee, they usually set out fruit or these Russian bite-size candy bars that are like Snickers, just not as good. The fruit is usually grapes (with seeds) from the vineyard, apples (from the apple tree) or leghvi. Leghvi is a Georgian word, which I'm using because I have no idea what it's called in English. It's this fruit that's green on the outside, but you peel the green off, and are left with a white ball. When you break it open the inside is hot pink and looks like it has tentacles or something. It's really strange, and gives the granadilla in Peru (which we nicknamed alien fetus) a run for it's money when it comes to strange looking fruit. However, it is very delicious. 

Supper:

As I mentioned under lunch, there is bread, tomatoes, and cheese. 

This is usually accompanied by a meat. A lot of the time I don't eat the meat, because I am really picky about my meat and the meat here gives me the heeby-jeebies sometimes. It's usually just chunks of beef or pork that is more fat than meat, and a lot of times it has what looks like the kind of tubes and valves that would be in a heart. Is it a heart? Or a spinal cord? Or a nasal passage? I will probably never know, but I do know it's not something I want to eat. 

One time, my mom brought out tripe stew and gave me a giant bowl. In the dim light of the porch where we were eating, I thought it might be morrell mushrooms or something. Then I took a bite, and I knew. Intestines. I tried. I really tried. But I just couldn't do it. But now my mom knows, so she always makes sure there's something else for me if they're eating tripe.

Let's talk about fish. I like fish. If it's not too fishy. I like sushi, salmon, fish sticks. I love tuna. But I've informed my host mom that I don't eat fish, like, ever. I did this because the fish here frightens me. First off, they don't cut off the head. the just take an entire fish, head, fins, everything, and fry it. I've also seen little silver fish that look like they haven't been cooked at all, being served whole. Tonight, for example, my mom served fish that had been cut into segments (some pieces were just the head) and lightly battered and fried. They've also had dry fish, again whole, that is like some sort of fish jerky, and smells disgusting. So I've thought it best to steer clear of any marine life set out on the table. 

On special occasions they usually make khinkali (see previous post) or mtswadi (I know this in America as shishkebabs - meat on a stick grilled over a fire).

Some other things we've had are: stuffed peppers, hot dogs (this is a great comfort food if you're far from home), pinto beans, green beans, fried potatoes, chadi (fried corn cakes) and pizza. The homemade pizza was not like a regular pizza. The crust was thick and made from bread dough. The sauce was the kind of ketchup-ish spicy sauce that they eat with other stuff here. The cheese was the homemade cheese that we eat with everything and use to make khachapuri. And the toppings were fresh tomatoes, peppers, bologna and mayo. Yes, mayo. This was put on before the pizza was cooked. It was quite odd. It tasted good, it just didn't taste anything like any pizza I've ever had.

Supper (and sometimes lunch, if my grandpa eats with us) is usually accompanied by the family's homemade wine. My grandpa and I are usually the only ones that drink. As is customary, he makes toasts throughout supper. He toasts to mothers and fathers, to brothers and sisters, and to Georgia and America. He also toasts to other things, but usually I don't know what they are, I just clink glasses, say "Gaumarjos!" and drink. He's gotten into the habit of trying to teach me Georgian at supper, so he always has me repeat his toasts. Or he'll grab the salt, point at it, and say "Marili!" Then signal for me to repeat. We do this about 10 times until he's satisfied that I have committed it to memory. That is actually how I learned the word for salt. The difficult part of this process is that my grandpa basically has no voice left. I'm not sure if it's from years of smoking (almost all men are smokers here) or just because he's old, but everything comes out as a screechy whisper, so a lot of times when he's asking me to repeat something, I have no idea at all what sounds he's actually trying to make. 

A note on eating habits:

I can only speak about what I've observed in my family, so I don't know if this applies to all of Georgia.

The bread that accompanies every meal is homemade bread made by my grandma. It's long loaves that are torn in half and then piled in the middle of the table. Each person grabs the loaf, tears a piece off, and sets it on the table next to their plate. This is used throughout the meal to wipe up the juices from your plate. 

At meals in America, we usually pass the different foods around, put servings of each on our plate, and then start eating. In Georgia, we use tiny plates, which means you don't have room for servings of everything, so people usually eat one part of the meal at a time. First you'll put some tomatoes on your plate, eat them, sop up the juice with your bread, then serve yourself some eggs, finish that, then put some beans on your plate. The plates of food don't really get passed around. You just grab what you want when you want it.

It's not rude to start eating before everyone's at the table. I'm usually sitting at the table alone waiting for everyone else to sit down, because they call me to dinner while they're still setting the table, and refuse to let me help with anything. So once the food is out, and I'm still waiting for everyone to sit down before I start eating, my mom usually yells "James! Tchame!!" - "Jamie! Eat!!" and gives me a look like I'm an idiot for not realizing that I'm supposed to eat all this food sitting in front of me. As someone who was raised in a culture where you don't touch your food until everyone has food on their own plate, this makes me really uncomfortable.

They rarely drink water with their meals. This drives me nuts. Wine is great, but it doesn't quench my thirst. I don't know how these people survive on coffee, wine, and coke alone. I barely ever see them drink water! And I always have to ask if I want water, because sometimes they keep it in little crockery pots, sometimes in recycled bottles. Sometimes these bottles are in the kitchen, sometimes they're in the fridge in the bedroom (yes, the fridge is in the bedroom) and sometimes they're outside on the steps. And I never know what water is for drinking and what water is for whatever else they use it for. 

The salt is not in a salt shaker. It's in a little tiny bowl and you just pinch it out with your fingers. I never do, because everything is already salty anyways, and, if you eat salt you get thirsty, which means you need to go on a water hunt. They never set out pepper, except when we're eating khinkali, but the pepper is in a pepper shaker. 

Other condiments consist of a homemade ketchup type thing, which has a little bit of a kick, or a homemade purplish salt that tastes really vinegar-y. We did have mustard once when we had hot dogs. 

And that's what the food's like.

Jamie Learns Georgian

So far, I have only dipped my toes into the Georgian language, but I have discovered some interesting things.

Their counting system is quite interesting. It seems pretty normal up til 29. This is how the direct translation would go:

Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten, twenty-eleven, twenty-twelve, twenty-thirteen, and so on, until you get to 40, which is it's own word again, not twenty-twenty. Fifty is forty-ten, 60 is it's own word, 70 is sixty-ten, and so on. 

I found the most difficult part of learning German to be the 4 cases. I had to figure out what case a noun was in (nominative, accusative, dative, or genitive), based on its function in the sentence. However, this information was useless unless I knew whether the noun was feminine, masculine, or neuter to begin with. If I knew that, I had to try to remember what sort of ending that gender of noun took in each case. This was much too much work for me, so usually I just added whatever sort of ending suited my fancy as I was talking. A couple years later, after turning in a paper in German on Berthold Brecht's The Life of Galileo, I was informed by the overwhelming amount of red on my draft that my fancy was usually wrong.

In Georgian, there are 7 cases, but, mercifully, no gender distinctions. I am aware that there are 7 cases, but I have no idea what most of them are. I am also unaware of how to conjugate most verbs, or how to form anything beyond the simplest of sentences. For that reason, I decided to buy a book that I saw in the English bookstore in Tbilisi called Teach Yourself Georgian. Hopefully, it would explain these things to me. I soon found that I may not learn anything useful from this book, but for entertainment purposes alone, it was worth the 25 lari. 

Here are a few of the useful phrases it teaches you:

"Mother, here is a rowing boat." 

"he/she caresses somebody/ is caressing somebody"

"sunny rain"

"If anybody says something bad about us, let the knife rip his heart out."

"What could  you make blossom?"

"one-eyed"

"I began to twitter" 

"are you not ashamed?"

"from afar I was kissing (your eyes)"

"what are we to make the dowry with?"

"How much longer shall we have our sister unmarried?"

"Why don't you mention the donkey any more?"

"I shall crow."

"Only my stupidity is to blame for what has happened to me!" -this will probably come in handy for me

"We will not let them trample [our motherland] under foot"

"he/she/it is whizzing/dashing here and there"

"strip them naked!"

"bind their hands!"

"smear them!"

"cover their bodies with honey!"

"he/she sat with grand airs"

So as you can see, once I start putting these phrases to use, I will fit right in!

Jamie Makes a Friend

After getting home from Kazbegi on Monday night, I was told we were going to my host mom's sister's house. My host mom was not there, because she was working at the poll booth in Badiauri, but the rest of us headed about 15 minutes down the highway to another village. A lot of family from my mom's side was there, most of whom I was meeting for the first time. It involved many instances of getting stared at by preteen girls while they whispered to each other behind their hands and giggled. Everyone else talked about me as if I weren't even there. They all thought I couldn't understand a word of Georgian, but they underestimate the power of living for a month in a family that doesn't speak English. You pick things up here and there.

They were also talking about one of the English teachers (TLG like me, I assumed) who lived in whatever village we were in. At one point when they were talking about her, someone got out their cell phone. I was thinking, "I really doubt they would put me on the phone with some random person I've never met." Next thing I know, a phone was shoved at me. Let me remind you, since they thought I know no Georgian, they gave me no sort of indication as to who I was supposed to be talking to and why. So if I could actually have understood no Georgian, as they thought, did they not realize this would be even more awkward?

Here's how the convo went:

Me: Hello?

Hello?

Who's this?

This is Liz....Who's this?

This is Jamie. I'm an English teacher, too. I was brought to some village to visit relatives. I'm not sure if it's the one you live in, and I guess my family decided we should talk because they just called you and handed me the phone.

[We talked about where we were living, when we arrived in the country, etc]

My Uncle Giorgi interrupts my phone call: Jane! [My name morphed from James to Jane at some point] We take... see...teacher?? Yes??

Me: Umm.....I think they're taking me to visit you. See you in a few, probably?

We got in the car and drove to her house. One of my mom's nieces goes to her school, so she knew where she lived. When we got there, they invited her to come back to my aunt's house, where we were eating. The night improved a lot, since I had someone to talk to, and someone to share half the stares with.

And now I know there's another American, only 15 minutes away!

Jamie Visits Kazbegi

Due to the elections on Monday, we had a 3 day weekend. A bunch of TLGers took the opportunity to get some traveling in, and for a few of us, the destination was Kazbegi. 

We left Friday for Tbilisi. As I was walking to the main road in my village to grab a marshrutka to the city, we saw a bunch of police cars driving through town, and some people gathered at the school. One of my brother's friends told him that the President was on his way, and he would be stopping in Badiauri! The president's doing some last minute campaigning in my little village, and I miss it. What luck. 

In Tbilisi, we went to a concert of the International Symposium of Polyphony. Georgia is famous for its polyphonic music. If you want someone to explain this concept to you, ask a musicologist. If you want to hear what I mean, consult YouTube. You can find plenty of great Georgian music there. The symposium was interesting. Most of the groups were really good. The Australian Georgian music group decided it would be wise to remix a traditional Georgian song by randomly adding in a verse from Wannabe by the Spice Girls. I'm sure you can imagine how bad of a decision that was. 

On Saturday morning we grabbed a marshrutka to Kazbegi. Kazbegi (technically Stepantsminda) is a small town famous for the Tsminda Sameba Church perched high on a hilltop next to the snow-peaked Mount Kazbek. The ride took about 3 hours, and when we arrived we went into the nearest restaurant for some tea, and found out they were also renting out rooms upstairs for a decent price. We booked a room and headed out for a hike. 

We headed up to the Tsminda Sameba Church. It was quite a hike for a girl who's main source of physical activity in the past few weeks has been lifting bread and cheese from her plate to her mouth and fending off offers of chocolate and coca-cola. But we made it to the top, and it was gorgeous. To get into the church women had to wear skirts and scarves over their heads. Luckily they provide both. I've heard that in Georgia, a lot of girls find their future husbands in church. So I was a little disappointed that I didn't get asked on any dates when I walked in with a frumpy blue skirt pulled on over my jeans, with my tennis shoes sticking out and a bright yellow scarf over my head. Maybe next time. I couldn't take pictures of the inside of the church, but it was very beautiful. Made of stone, with a dusty beam of light coming in through the windows, and paintings on the walls. A cute little baby was in there getting baptized at the time. 

One of the guys in our group is quite the tea drinker. So after visiting the church, we walked over to a nice spot on the hill, where he proceeded to start a fire, whip out a pot, some water, some tea leaves, and a few cups, and brew some tea for us, which we sipped while gazing at Mt. Kazbek in the distance and discussing the similarities between Georgia and Middle Earth. 

After the walk down, we grabbed some supper at one of the restaurants in town. Then we headed back to the hotel to drink the giant plastic bottle full of homemade wine that my friend had brought, so that those not lucky enough to be placed in the Kakheti region, would at least be able to try the wine. We sat out on the porch and toasted everything we could think of, because we're in Georgia, and that's just what you do. The church was lit up at night, and the moon lit up the snow of Mt. Kazbeg in the distance. It was a beautiful night, if not a little chilly. Thankfully, Rudolph the guy that runs the hotel and restaurant (in our Middle Earth scenario, he was Gollum, if that gives you an idea of his personality) brought us some fleece blankets. After our supply of vino ran low, we went inside, bought one more bottle of wine, and called it a night.

The next morning, we went down for the breakfast that was included in our stay. Gollum, who was well aware of the wine hangovers we had, decided to blast Middle Eastern techno music in the restaurant at 10:00 a.m. while we ate our eggs. Great start of a day. 

We decided to hike up to see a different church on the hill opposite Tsminda Sameba. When we got there, we had a little tea party with the tea and cookies (or bescuits, if you're from New Zealand) that we had bought earlier from the Google Market. (What is Google Market you ask? A tiny market with the google logo on it's sign, that is bound to get sued at some point in its future). It was a perfect day to just lay in the sun on a hillside and take a nap. So that's exactly what we did. 

We caught a marshrutka back to Tbilisi in the afternoon, and checked into a hostel. After having been in the back of a poorly ventilated, hot marshrutka driving down windy dirt roads and getting bumped and jostled for 3 hours, I was feeling like 10 kinds of crap, so my night ended there. 

On Monday we just chilled in the city. We were hoping to see some excitement going on with the elections, but it was quite uneventful, so we walked around the city, then grabbed a marshrutka home.