I love this job, but ah, good god/Sometimes I hate this business . . .
So, a month and a half into this Georgia thing. It's been - shall we say - interesting. Here is the extremely-lengthy and personal account. Feel free to skip for mental health reasons.
I live in the city of Telavi, which is what the Georgians term a "big city" and is actually about the size of an American small town. It's got one main street, a bazaar to buy fresh food, a bazroba which sells clothing and shoes, a bunch of little shops and stores, and you can hop a marshutka (a minivan in which you pay 6 lari if you're a foreigner and 2 lari if you're Georgian and you cram as many people as possible into) to Tbilisi or other major cities. I don't have a picture currently, but since the Greater Caucasus Mountains are visible from Telavi and I live on top of the hill, yes, in fact, I CAN see Russia from my house.
I'm "teaching" (the air-quotes are there for a reason) at School #4, which is the biggest secondary school in the city and fairly modern. By "fairly modern", I mean they have electricity, small amounts of heat, and enough desks for every student. This does not mean they have running water, books, or even chalk for the chalkboards. I work with seven co-teachers (which is technically, according to my contract, illegal, but it's better to break the contract in this sense than to cause ANOTHER series of screaming matches over who gets to work with me) - Maka, Mari, Inga, Nino, Nato, Tamuna, and Tamriko. Occasionally I sit in on Irma's third grade class, which I don't have to teach because I work for the secondary, not the primary school.
My students aren't too bad, ranging in age from fifth to tenth grades. I have eight-year-old fifth graders and nineteen-year-old tenth graders, because they basically just throw/keep you in the level you place into. They're very talkative, which is putting it mildly, just not in English. While the curriculum claims to be immersion, most of these kids couldn't go five minutes without a Georgian co-teacher to translate. Of course, that means I'm doing minimum interaction with them. In some classes (all of Maka's, which are 9th and 10th graders, Mari's 7th graders, Tamuna's 8th graders, and Inga's 7th graders), I'm allowed to conduct class myself, lead discussions and actually teach. In the rest, I'm resigned to either sitting quietly in the corner and answering questions, or checking the kids' homework.
Frustrating? Yes. Challenging? Not even a little.
What's also frustrating and driving me up the literal walls is living with a host family. I'm an only child. I've gone 25 years without having siblings, and host sister Tiko (while absolutely lovely and adorable and so awesome I want to take her home with me in my suitcase) occasionally works my last nerve. Playing "Do-Re-Mi" or Mozart over and over and over again on the badly-tuned piano that you can hear *outside*, let alone in the apartment. Baby-talking to her dolls (she's fourteen, but still plays with them) at midnight when I have to be up in 6 hours for school and so does she, for that matter. Singsonging that she needs help with English homework at the most inappropriate times (when I am freaking out and on the phone with two international banks, one travel agency, and my mother, NOW IS NOT THE TIME).
And augh, the smothering. Nino, my host mother, is in her fifties, a widow, and feels the need to constantly treat me as if I am five. If I walk from my bed to the bathroom in my sleepwear (t-shirt, shorts, and socks), I am clearly going to catch pneumonia and die. If I drink one 250ml (as in, smaller than the standard can) bottle of soda, I am going to become a fat whale and die, and I will be hearing about it for the next three days. If I have the slightest cough, I should be wrapped up like a mummy. If it is 60 degrees outside and I'm walking around without a jacket (BECAUSE IT IS GLORIOUS AND THERE IS NO SNOW THANK YOU GOD), I am going to catch pneumonia and die. If I have nausea and stomach pains as part of my period/birth control/whatever, it means I hate her cooking and she becomes offended.
The food is another issue, because dear holy God, I miss vegetables. See, in post-Soviet countries, you can only eat what's in season. In winter, that means bread, cheese, sausages, eggs, cabbage, and onions. I had a real salad with lettuce and everything in Tbilisi last weekend and almost cried because I felt SO MUCH BETTER. We've all had the same reaction to McDonalds, since you don't get meat-based protein or chicken out where we are (unless your host fam has chickens and your host-dad is a mighty chicken-killer). I'm seriously craving the kind of food I'd get at home - Italian and Chinese and sushi and Vietnamese and pizza without mayo (they have a weird type of pizza here, but it doesn't have sauce and has lots of sour cream/mayo on it) and salads and hoagies and cheesesteaks and gumbo and curry and EVERYTHING.
The other TLG-ers are the best part of this whole shebang, though. I'd heard reports from previous groups that they'd all scattered to the winds after training, but TLG 12 is superfuckingtight. They're 20 of the best friends I've ever made, most of the time, though I'm closer to some than others. Half of us are Rustavi (a city near Tbilisi)-based, some are Telavi-based, and there's a few poor souls out in the Signagi/Lagodekhi boondocks. Going down the list:
Anita - Rustavi. Deadpan snarking Canadian girl. We keep meaning to talk more than we do.
Audra - Rustavi. Married to Tony. Kind of distant, and I'm not young enough to form the mom/kid-type bond some of the other girls have with her.
Bruna - Rustavi. Sardonic, ballsy Lebanese girl. Super-glam, super-funny, and not around nearly enough.
Cort - Telavi-area, in Akhmeta. Campiest gay boy I've ever met outside a drag club. I love his snarky, bitchy self to pieces.
Elyse - Rustavi. Fairly awesome chick. Hadn't really hung with her before last weekend, but we braved Tbilisi pharmacies together in search of cold medicine. HUUUUUUUGE OSU girl.
Gina - Telavi-area, in Vardisubani. Gina and I would never have met, in the real world. She's a super-partying California girl and I'm a bitchy East Coast girl. But she's fabulous and fun and great to gossip with.
Helene - Rustavi. Kickass Norwegian chick, who can party like it ain't no thang. Knows Azeri, Russian, Norwegian, English, and a smattering of Swedish/Finnish. Wish I were going to Baku with her for Easter, but I'm saving money for summer vacation.
Iliana - Rustavi. Oh dear god. This girl is off her fucking rocker. She was my roommate during training, and she took four showers a day, had to sleep with every light off and soundproof headphones, and turned into a pumpkin after 9 pm. She was annoying as all fuck.
Joanna - Rustavi. Very tall, very blonde, very quiet. I didn't really talk to her, and I haven't seen her at the TLG gatherings in Tbilisi.
Tony - Rustavi. Married to Audra. A lot of fun to party with, but work-wise, he obsesses over silly little things and drives most of us up a wall. Very very Texan, too.
Kate - Signagi. One of my theatre-nerd soul sisters, from Oklahoma and not nearly as innocent as she looks. I wish she had internet/phone signals so we could talk more often.
Kristen - Signagi. Everyone keeps mistaking us for sisters, even though she's Canadian. We're both short, curvy, dark-haired, glasses-wearing nerdgirls who talk a lot. I don't mind, she's cool as hell.
Louise - Telavi-area, in Akhmeta. World-traveling ginger Scotswoman who's forgotten all the places she's lived in. I kind of want to be her when I grow up.
Lydia - Telavi-area, in Gurjaani. Canadian, taught in Vietnam for a year, which makes me crazy-jealous. Very laid back and great to chill with.
Maeve - Lagodekhi. Poor girl is out by herself in the boonies. Supercool, though, and braved the bitter cold and public transit in Warsaw with me for kebabs and Turkish coffee.
Phil - Telavi-area, in Akhmeta. Our resident Brit dorkboy footballer. Very helpful when you want someone to teach you naughty British slang or slag off on Wales. My favorite marshutka buddy back from Tbilisi, wherein we combat Cort and Gina's bubblegum pop with classic rock and some Bob Marley.
Ryan - Telavi. Quiet, but damn, will his sense of humor sneak up on you. Kind of a health nut, which drives me crazy, and a bit hard to talk to, but cool.
Sarita - Signagi. Probably the closest thing you can get this day and age to a flower child. She's apparently liking the boonies and they let her run around without shoes. Very fun to hang out with, though.
Shannon - Telavi-area, in Saniore. I see Shannon the most, due to her host sister being tutored by one of my co-teachers three times a week. Shannon is super-Southern ("ya'll" and "dangit") and is from the "original Georgia". Awesome to go out drinking with.
Shay - Signagi. Our favorite Aussie, who runs around barefoot and whose wardrobe I'm severely coveting. So much fun to hang out, party, and drink with. Is scary when you let her into a football match.
The Telavi gang is constantly hanging out, and we meet up with the Rustavi and Signagi contingent for weekends in Tbilisi. A bunch are going to Armenia and/or Azerbaijan for Easter, but sadly, I'm saving up for something more important...
LONDON.
That's right, bitches. I will find a way to make this happen, considering TLG is willing to fly us home from a different airport than Tbilisi. Flight will be $200, as soon as the stupid wire transfer goes through, and then I'm saving mostly for the hostel (5 nights) and hotel (1 night, the one before I fly home) and MUCH ADO TICKETS. Seriously, holy fuck, people, I may, possibly, be seeing Cat Tate and David Tennant as Beatrice and Benedick. I have all kinds of touristy shit to do (Phil even drew me a map of all the cool stuff, with impossible-to-read captions and big "FUCK OFF" X's over the dodgy parts of the city).
So that's my impetus to survive three more months. I can totally do this.
You can see some pics of the gang, Telavi, and my co-teachers here, but plz to not post them anywhere else?
I live in the city of Telavi, which is what the Georgians term a "big city" and is actually about the size of an American small town. It's got one main street, a bazaar to buy fresh food, a bazroba which sells clothing and shoes, a bunch of little shops and stores, and you can hop a marshutka (a minivan in which you pay 6 lari if you're a foreigner and 2 lari if you're Georgian and you cram as many people as possible into) to Tbilisi or other major cities. I don't have a picture currently, but since the Greater Caucasus Mountains are visible from Telavi and I live on top of the hill, yes, in fact, I CAN see Russia from my house.
I'm "teaching" (the air-quotes are there for a reason) at School #4, which is the biggest secondary school in the city and fairly modern. By "fairly modern", I mean they have electricity, small amounts of heat, and enough desks for every student. This does not mean they have running water, books, or even chalk for the chalkboards. I work with seven co-teachers (which is technically, according to my contract, illegal, but it's better to break the contract in this sense than to cause ANOTHER series of screaming matches over who gets to work with me) - Maka, Mari, Inga, Nino, Nato, Tamuna, and Tamriko. Occasionally I sit in on Irma's third grade class, which I don't have to teach because I work for the secondary, not the primary school.
My students aren't too bad, ranging in age from fifth to tenth grades. I have eight-year-old fifth graders and nineteen-year-old tenth graders, because they basically just throw/keep you in the level you place into. They're very talkative, which is putting it mildly, just not in English. While the curriculum claims to be immersion, most of these kids couldn't go five minutes without a Georgian co-teacher to translate. Of course, that means I'm doing minimum interaction with them. In some classes (all of Maka's, which are 9th and 10th graders, Mari's 7th graders, Tamuna's 8th graders, and Inga's 7th graders), I'm allowed to conduct class myself, lead discussions and actually teach. In the rest, I'm resigned to either sitting quietly in the corner and answering questions, or checking the kids' homework.
Frustrating? Yes. Challenging? Not even a little.
What's also frustrating and driving me up the literal walls is living with a host family. I'm an only child. I've gone 25 years without having siblings, and host sister Tiko (while absolutely lovely and adorable and so awesome I want to take her home with me in my suitcase) occasionally works my last nerve. Playing "Do-Re-Mi" or Mozart over and over and over again on the badly-tuned piano that you can hear *outside*, let alone in the apartment. Baby-talking to her dolls (she's fourteen, but still plays with them) at midnight when I have to be up in 6 hours for school and so does she, for that matter. Singsonging that she needs help with English homework at the most inappropriate times (when I am freaking out and on the phone with two international banks, one travel agency, and my mother, NOW IS NOT THE TIME).
And augh, the smothering. Nino, my host mother, is in her fifties, a widow, and feels the need to constantly treat me as if I am five. If I walk from my bed to the bathroom in my sleepwear (t-shirt, shorts, and socks), I am clearly going to catch pneumonia and die. If I drink one 250ml (as in, smaller than the standard can) bottle of soda, I am going to become a fat whale and die, and I will be hearing about it for the next three days. If I have the slightest cough, I should be wrapped up like a mummy. If it is 60 degrees outside and I'm walking around without a jacket (BECAUSE IT IS GLORIOUS AND THERE IS NO SNOW THANK YOU GOD), I am going to catch pneumonia and die. If I have nausea and stomach pains as part of my period/birth control/whatever, it means I hate her cooking and she becomes offended.
The food is another issue, because dear holy God, I miss vegetables. See, in post-Soviet countries, you can only eat what's in season. In winter, that means bread, cheese, sausages, eggs, cabbage, and onions. I had a real salad with lettuce and everything in Tbilisi last weekend and almost cried because I felt SO MUCH BETTER. We've all had the same reaction to McDonalds, since you don't get meat-based protein or chicken out where we are (unless your host fam has chickens and your host-dad is a mighty chicken-killer). I'm seriously craving the kind of food I'd get at home - Italian and Chinese and sushi and Vietnamese and pizza without mayo (they have a weird type of pizza here, but it doesn't have sauce and has lots of sour cream/mayo on it) and salads and hoagies and cheesesteaks and gumbo and curry and EVERYTHING.
The other TLG-ers are the best part of this whole shebang, though. I'd heard reports from previous groups that they'd all scattered to the winds after training, but TLG 12 is superfuckingtight. They're 20 of the best friends I've ever made, most of the time, though I'm closer to some than others. Half of us are Rustavi (a city near Tbilisi)-based, some are Telavi-based, and there's a few poor souls out in the Signagi/Lagodekhi boondocks. Going down the list:
Anita - Rustavi. Deadpan snarking Canadian girl. We keep meaning to talk more than we do.
Audra - Rustavi. Married to Tony. Kind of distant, and I'm not young enough to form the mom/kid-type bond some of the other girls have with her.
Bruna - Rustavi. Sardonic, ballsy Lebanese girl. Super-glam, super-funny, and not around nearly enough.
Cort - Telavi-area, in Akhmeta. Campiest gay boy I've ever met outside a drag club. I love his snarky, bitchy self to pieces.
Elyse - Rustavi. Fairly awesome chick. Hadn't really hung with her before last weekend, but we braved Tbilisi pharmacies together in search of cold medicine. HUUUUUUUGE OSU girl.
Gina - Telavi-area, in Vardisubani. Gina and I would never have met, in the real world. She's a super-partying California girl and I'm a bitchy East Coast girl. But she's fabulous and fun and great to gossip with.
Helene - Rustavi. Kickass Norwegian chick, who can party like it ain't no thang. Knows Azeri, Russian, Norwegian, English, and a smattering of Swedish/Finnish. Wish I were going to Baku with her for Easter, but I'm saving money for summer vacation.
Iliana - Rustavi. Oh dear god. This girl is off her fucking rocker. She was my roommate during training, and she took four showers a day, had to sleep with every light off and soundproof headphones, and turned into a pumpkin after 9 pm. She was annoying as all fuck.
Joanna - Rustavi. Very tall, very blonde, very quiet. I didn't really talk to her, and I haven't seen her at the TLG gatherings in Tbilisi.
Tony - Rustavi. Married to Audra. A lot of fun to party with, but work-wise, he obsesses over silly little things and drives most of us up a wall. Very very Texan, too.
Kate - Signagi. One of my theatre-nerd soul sisters, from Oklahoma and not nearly as innocent as she looks. I wish she had internet/phone signals so we could talk more often.
Kristen - Signagi. Everyone keeps mistaking us for sisters, even though she's Canadian. We're both short, curvy, dark-haired, glasses-wearing nerdgirls who talk a lot. I don't mind, she's cool as hell.
Louise - Telavi-area, in Akhmeta. World-traveling ginger Scotswoman who's forgotten all the places she's lived in. I kind of want to be her when I grow up.
Lydia - Telavi-area, in Gurjaani. Canadian, taught in Vietnam for a year, which makes me crazy-jealous. Very laid back and great to chill with.
Maeve - Lagodekhi. Poor girl is out by herself in the boonies. Supercool, though, and braved the bitter cold and public transit in Warsaw with me for kebabs and Turkish coffee.
Phil - Telavi-area, in Akhmeta. Our resident Brit dorkboy footballer. Very helpful when you want someone to teach you naughty British slang or slag off on Wales. My favorite marshutka buddy back from Tbilisi, wherein we combat Cort and Gina's bubblegum pop with classic rock and some Bob Marley.
Ryan - Telavi. Quiet, but damn, will his sense of humor sneak up on you. Kind of a health nut, which drives me crazy, and a bit hard to talk to, but cool.
Sarita - Signagi. Probably the closest thing you can get this day and age to a flower child. She's apparently liking the boonies and they let her run around without shoes. Very fun to hang out with, though.
Shannon - Telavi-area, in Saniore. I see Shannon the most, due to her host sister being tutored by one of my co-teachers three times a week. Shannon is super-Southern ("ya'll" and "dangit") and is from the "original Georgia". Awesome to go out drinking with.
Shay - Signagi. Our favorite Aussie, who runs around barefoot and whose wardrobe I'm severely coveting. So much fun to hang out, party, and drink with. Is scary when you let her into a football match.
The Telavi gang is constantly hanging out, and we meet up with the Rustavi and Signagi contingent for weekends in Tbilisi. A bunch are going to Armenia and/or Azerbaijan for Easter, but sadly, I'm saving up for something more important...
LONDON.
That's right, bitches. I will find a way to make this happen, considering TLG is willing to fly us home from a different airport than Tbilisi. Flight will be $200, as soon as the stupid wire transfer goes through, and then I'm saving mostly for the hostel (5 nights) and hotel (1 night, the one before I fly home) and MUCH ADO TICKETS. Seriously, holy fuck, people, I may, possibly, be seeing Cat Tate and David Tennant as Beatrice and Benedick. I have all kinds of touristy shit to do (Phil even drew me a map of all the cool stuff, with impossible-to-read captions and big "FUCK OFF" X's over the dodgy parts of the city).
So that's my impetus to survive three more months. I can totally do this.
You can see some pics of the gang, Telavi, and my co-teachers here, but plz to not post them anywhere else?