The End

I haven't been able to sort through my emotions this week (although they swung between contentment and crying at the Academy twice). It may be a month or more before I'm able to assess my near-year here. That may come out as a blog post. If not, thank you for reading. It's been a vaguely narcissistic blast.

                                                                      *   *   *

Things I'm going to miss about Georgia (an incomplete list):

• Marshrutkas. They're like buses, but faster and they stop wherever you want them to! Unlike buses,  the mentally ill, substance abusers, and punk-ass teenage boys don't get up in your face. Also, marshrutkas have a social code of conduct that is strictly abided by - no smoking, if you're standing and carrying bags someone who's sitting will hold them for you, children will be looked after, etc.
• Entreé. A French café chain that is super delicious, super convenient, and carries my (second) favourite English newspaper, Financial. If I was ever going to eat bread again, I'd want to bring all theirs home with me.
• The mountains and hills of Tbilisi. Tbilisi is snuggled between mountains, in the valley of the Mtkvari River. Having a a view of both those things outside my bedroom window made me feel incredibly lucky. (On top of all the other things that regularly made me feel incredible lucky).
• Nabeghlavi. My favourite Georgian mineral water and cure for most stomach-related illnesses - not to mention hangovers, if you're so inclined.
• The Messenger. It was a pleasure going to work most days, thanks to my fun-loving and generous co-workers. I learned so much about Georgian politics and society - this job was absolutely invaluable. 
• The Police Academy. There was heat and air conditioning, a pool and gym, internet, and good friends. I practically lived at this place.
• Black currant juice. The best.
• Payboxes. A paybox is a machine, found usually in convenience stores and Metro stations, where you can pay your bills, top up your Metromoney card, place bets, buy rail tickets, put credit on your phone, and do a million other things. I'm not looking forward to returning to my cumbersome pay-as-you-go phone in North America, which requires a credit card, the last four digits of my (now non-existent) social and a phone call to T-Mobile to top up.
• Luca Polare's hot chocolate. Basically a chocolate bar and some cream melted in a pot.
• Using Georgian words in text messages. Instead of writing the finger-cramping "tomorrow", I write kval. Instead of "the day after tomorrow"? Zeg.
• The jewelry at Kinos Sakhli. In between the souvenirs and questionable art on the steps of the old cinema house, you can find wonderful, eclectic and often handmade jewelry for excellent (and negotiable!) prices. 
• The feeling of bliss upon entering Batumi. The beach atmosphere is instantly calming - no wonder it's the most popular vacation spot in the entire country.
• Platinum Popcorn's creamy dill flavour. There's no better accompaniment to second-run movies and rock-hard seats at the Kolga English theatre.
• Roasted mushrooms with cheese, peasant salad with walnut paste, shotispuri, strawberries from Kakheti, Adjaruli khatchapuri...
• Maniacal dreamboat Giorgi Targamadze. Hellooo, nurse!
• Georgian hospitality. Of course. Of course! What else is there to say about the family that took me in for nine months, the colleagues who pay for my marshrutka ride without saying a word, the friends and students who force-feed me, the strangers who help me with my bags, the innumerable people who took me under their wing when I was an overwhelmed Georgia newbie... it's unparalleled.

And then there are the people. A few thank-yous:

U.K. - role model; recipient and source of awful jokes

T.H. - rival in a fashion cold war; sounding board for my girliest pursuits

H.G. - a source of strength when I had none; an unlikely kindred spirit

C.R.O'N. - muse for the goofiest aspects of my personality; unfailing listener

M.H. - force of nature; source of wisdom

R.E. - salvager of my 2012; intellectual font for a parched mind

P. (MLR) - sparring partner; blog encourager

And to my host family, my colleagues at both the newspaper and the Academy, my students - thank you for building me a new home.

How I pay the bills

I'm back from an extended absence once again, although this one was a little less intentional. I've had a surprisingly dark return to Georgia which, in concert with a broken laptop screen, has conspired to keep me away from my blog.

I've also been stupendously busy. And I don't mean busy in that, "SIGH, I AM JUST SUCH A BUSY PERSON" way, which implies an utter lack of time management skills and a disregard for other people, but in an "I work four jobs" way.

My second term in Georgia has been marked by a burst of ambition that saw me tell more than one person I was going to pick up yoga. I don't make New Year's resolutions, but I do tend to say stupid shit in January, which is essentially the same thing.

This ambitious kick has prompted me to add, in addition to my teaching position at the Police Academy, an editing position at an English-language newspaper, regular tutoring, and freelance English stylist work. Oh, and I'm a voice-over artist now, too.

So I'm getting to know the marshrutka system really well, and walking a lot, and filling the time I'd otherwise spend surfing the internet or watching videos on my laptop. (Which isn't to say that there's not a laptop screen-sized hole in my heart. Because dammit, I was in the middle of season 3 of Scrubs!).

I had a delightful exchange with a cab driver last week. It was very Georgia. I had caught a taxi home from a friend's apartment, when he hit a big pothole and completely blew out a back tire. He tried to get me to wait for him to change it, but it was late, and snowing, and we were stopped in the literal middle of the embankment highway. So I hailed a new cab.

Normally taxi drivers like to test the limits of my Georgian, but this guy was silent. It wasn't until we got to my place when this exchange took place:

Me: რამდენი ლარი? (How many lari?)

Cabbie: шесть.

Me: шесть?

Cabbie: шесть.

Me: ბოდიში, ვარ ენგლისური. რამდენი? (Sorry, I'm English. How many?)

Cabbie: English? I thought you were Russian! Six lari.

The only English-speaking taxi driver in Tbilisi and we sat in silence the entire ride.

Normally, I would have taken a marshrutka from my friend's apartment home, but the last time I tried to do that I was mistaken for a prostitute. I was waiting by the side of the road (first mistake), looking absolutely ravishing in my winter coat and plastic grocery bag (second mistake), when a Jeep pulled up beside me and the two men inside asked me something in Georgian. Thinking they were asking for directions (sidebar: Obviously the blonde girl is the best person to ask in Tbilisi, oy), I asked them if they knew English. The younger one did, and asked if I'd like a ride. Thinking to myself that Georgians are such nice, thoughtful people, I politely declined and went back to waiting for the marshrutka. A few seconds later, the driver got out of the Jeep, and approached me, saying in broken English, "$100".

I didn't quite get it.

"Uh, no, no thank you," I said, a tad confused.

"$150."

"No..." It started to dawn on me.

"$200."

Now I got it. And I was pissed. I told him no again but he wouldn't leave. That's when I snarled "შენი დედა!" (literally, "Your mother", a vulgar Georgian curse and delightfully appropriate in this situation).

Now he was confused. Like it never crossed his mind that I wasn't a prostitute. I pointed towards his car and told him to fuck off. He ambled away.

Later, my host mother told me she had been propositioned at the same intersection.

Ho Hum II

A few more snippets from my everyday life...

I was at a party on Saturday night where I saw a 2-year-old drinking beer. Don't worry - it was his birthday.

I love the way that, when a parent with a small child gets on a marshutka, the other people on board grab the child to steady it, and often put it on a nearby seat or lap while the parent climbs aboard. This is completely normal, the parent never blinks an eye, and there are no howls of "THAT MOLESTER HAS MY BABY!". It's accepted that the people on the marshutka are going to make your child safer, rather than place it in harm's way. It is, I think, the sign of a healthy society.

A sign of an unhealthy society is the way some Georgians have concluded that the best place to count their change or check their cell phone is in store entrances or at the top of stairwells. No, it is not the best place to engage in those activities, so get the fuck out of my way. (I suppose it goes without saying that I walk much faster than most Georgians. I walk faster than most people, so obviously nothing is different here. To put it scientifically, if you and all Georgians and everyone you know under 6'4" walks at average pace - 5kph/3mph - then I walk at approximately the speed of sound).

There is a restaurant I frequent so often that all the staff recognize me. I'm a regular. I love becoming a regular of places (see also Osaka in Springfield, VA; Go Sushi in Milton, ON; Raavi Kebab in London, UK). Here's how often I'm there: one of the waitresses changed her hair recently, I noticed, complimented her, and she wasn't weirded out by this. (I also have a schwarma guy near work. Yeah, that's right, I have a schwarma guy. On a related note, I may eat too much schwarma).

The atrocious state of Tbilisi streets and sidewalks has nearly destroyed two pairs of my shoes (one, a pair of heels, may be too far gone to resole). That said, I have not, as of this writing, fallen down an unmarked sinkhole or hidden staircase.

I've gotten used to the toe-mangling speed of the Metro escalators; they seem slow to me now. I'm worried I'm going to have some sort of fit of impatience if I take an escalator in Canada. (Ha ha ha, I hear you laughing, when is Ashley not having a fit of impatience in Canada!).

The following video appeared in my facebook feed today, and it's reminiscent of the degradation of my own English. As much as I'm learning English grammar and sentence structure as I teach it, I'm also spending most of my time speaking slowly, simply and, sometimes, in a strange Georgian/English/Georgian-accent-in-English hybrid: I say "yes?" at the end of most questions I ask, I've picked up the Georgian habit of saying, "Of course, Eshli, of course!" whenever I say something obvious, I sometimes drop articles and pick up incorrect syntax in an effort to make new speakers understand me by using their own butchered English, etc. It's a dangerous habit!

Anyway, comedy:

Ho Hum

I found an article from the New York Times Travel section that is the closest representation I've found to my life in Georgia. Read it here. (The caveat being that is was written in 2006, which is practically a lifetime ago in post-Revolution Georgia).

I was going to write something about how I haven't been doing anything exciting lately, so have nothing to share with you on my blog. But that undermines the honesty and purpose of keeping this blog - I have a job, and a routine, but those things exist in Georgia - and so the mundane is just as important as the spectacular when it comes to explaining myself.

So here's some of the mundane:

I experienced a couple of blackouts this week, which is unusual in Tbilisi (or, unusual in the central, important parts of the city - no offense Avchala!). If I still had a Twitter account, I would have tweeted: "Blackouts in Tbilisi. What is this, 1994? #tasteless #postrevolutionentitlementsyndrome"

Also, if I still had a Twitter account, I would tweet at Joss Whedon and ask him why he's thanked in the Acknowledgments section of my Cutting Edge Starter textbooks. That's an out-of-left-field mystery if I ever encountered one.

I had a disastrous Tuesday, that culminated in a hat trick of Tbilisi nonsense - not being able to find a specific store because of a lack of street signs, building numbers, and a strong enough command of Georgian; having to cancel dinner plans because the restaurant we had planned to eat at was shuttered, all online evidence to the contrary; and a taxi driver who ignored my directions and took me to where he thought I wanted to go, as opposed to where I explicitly told him to go. I've decided that if most cabs weren't stick shift, I'd just tell the drivers to get in the backseat because three months of living in this city has given me a better understanding of its geography than their qualifications (being Georgian, having a car).

It's possible that there is video of me shooting a modified M-4 on Georgian reality TV. There's a reality show being shot at the police academy, and they were filming some scenes in the firearms training simulator when a few of us teachers dropped by to check it out. Hopefully they won't use the footage of me because the "Hollywood" group is so much more attractive and melodramatic.

I found a fruit that looks like a lime on the outside and a tangerine on the inside, that's wonderfully bold and tart, and that makes the perfect addition to a gin and tonic.

...and now I have to catch the Metro, to go to tutoring, because that's Friday night in Tibs, homes.

Stage Two

Oh, Kristen. It finally happened. I'd been waiting for this, eyes closed, cringing, ducking for cover - stage two of culture shock.

I've been (mostly) needlessly grumpy for almost a week now, sleeping poorly, dragging myself to work, not wanting to leave the apartment or explore the city. Everything - from grocery shopping to being a pedestrian to the way Georgians get off the Metro escalators (for the record - like cold molasses) - is stressing me out and causing me to lose my temper. To quote the repository of all human knowledge, "Language barriers, stark differences in public hygiene, traffic safety, food accessibility and quality may heighten the sense of disconnection from the surroundings". Not to mention the heat and humidity are wearing me down, making me feel fatigued, ugly, messy and generally worthless. I am so tired of sweating through the same six items of clothing every week.

I forced myself out of the house today and wandered aimlessly around Marjanishvili square (which, unbeknownst to me, is under major, dusty, confusing construction). It was unpleasant. I popped into a clothing store, where a sales lady said to me, "We have your size! Big size!" (sidebar: Sigh.) I tried on a pair of navy trousers that fit nicely and were pretty cool - unfortunately they were 120GEL (72CAD). Now I understand why my fashionable Georgian peers order online from Forever 21, Next, H&M and the like, and have their purchases shipped from the Western world via a middleman; selection is poor here and prices are ridiculous.

Speaking of fashion, here's something that absolutely delights me. Harem pants are all the rage among Georgian women. Not horrible drop-crotch, MC Hammer harem pants - tailored, slim-cut, incredibly stylish harem pants. Like these:

I want some.

That said, I know one of two things will happen if I make this dream come true:
1. I will try on a pair of harem pants, see how terrible they look on me, and be cured.
2. I will buy a pair of harem pants, celebrate that I finally have something to wear in the heat, and autumn will arrive the second I step out of the store. (I actually hope this one works out, because I am desperate for fall and will even resort to ironic trickery to get it).

Speaking of dreams, I had one that I moved into an apartment with you, Kristen. My room was huge and airy and fully-furnished in a wonderfully feminine, rustic-chic style. It had a big, soft bed and lots of storage space and a TV. Clearly, being a couch squatter is getting to me. Word on the street is that I have a host family here in Tbilisi, but they're renovating so who knows when I can move in. (I also had a dream that a McDonald's opened up within walking distance of my parents' house, and a dream about Ron Swanson. None of my dreams require much interpretation).

There are also rumours going around that I'll be staying at the Ministry for the rest of my contract (which would make sense if they're moving me into a home in Tbilisi). I heard about this from my assistant, who knows all. I, on the other hand, know nothing.

Photos II: Armed and Fabulous

I've updated my Tbilisi album with some prettier and more impressive photos, after a fantastic 3.5 hour walkabout on Tuesday. Link here.

I've been working a lot, meeting lots of fun, new people and generally having a great time. A few people from my orientation group were in town last night so we had a drink and caught up, which was great (although too brief).

There isn't a lot to report at the moment, as I'm in a holding pattern with regards to my work and home situations. I'm supposed to leave the Ministry on September 9, but yesterday this was pushed back to September 20. Presumably this means I'll continue to impose on the two amazing English teachers I'm living with, since the program has had no luck in finding me a host family in Tbilisi.

Ah, well. If there's one thing I've learned in Georgia it's that your situation can change dramatically without notice. And I don't have a problem with that.

* * * 

I had an awkward incident at work on Monday. My most advanced class derailed my lesson by asking me questions about Canada and Georgia. This derailment was entirely welcome until they started in on politics and religion. The program is clear and firm about teachers not talking about these things, and I explained this to them. I said I'd be happy to hear their thoughts on politics and religion (in fact, I'm immensely curious) but that I can't contribute to the discussion. They persisted, scoffing at the restriction and asking me completely inappropriate questions ("Do you believe in god?"). It would be one thing to have this conversation with a close friend in a private setting, but as a teacher in front of a half a dozen opinionated Georgian men... 

This. Exactly this.

Photos I

I've uploaded some photos of Tbilisi on facebook. I've been too busy to take a lot, or any that are really spectacular, but you can at least get an idea of where I'm living!


Here's the public link.


And here's a taste:

(NB: If we're friends on facebook, you'll be able to see the comments and tags by getting to the album through my personal page.) 

Wait, no, I mean Tbilisi

Hoo boy, Kristen. We have a lot to talk about.

As you read in my previous post, I was on the verge of moving to Telavi, meeting my host family, and then enjoying a month-long vacation. As of Wednesday night, that plan has been seriously altered.

On Wednesday, I was still at the orientation hotel. News came through that "one boy and one girl" were needed for month-long assignments teaching police officers, one in Tbilisi (me) and the other in the mountains near the Russian border. I volunteered immediately, not merely because I thought it would be fascinating, but because I'd originally been interested in teaching adults. Plus, as much as a month's "vacation" sounded nice, I did come to Georgia to work, and to contribute.

So on Thursday morning instead of being picked up by my host family, I was picked up by the police and taken to the new police academy compound in the west end of the city. There I was given a brief introduction to my new responsibilities, met my fantastic new American roommate, and shipped off the Soviet-style apartment we'll be sharing. My plans for Friday were to shadow her classes and prepare myself for my first day of work on Monday.

But at 8 o'clock on Thursday night I received a call asking if I could start Friday. I had no teaching experience, no books, and no clue. But I said yes, because that's what you have to do in Georgia - go with the flow, take opportunities as they come, and trust that the people around you will help you through. So yesterday I was taken to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where I taught four classes of three different ability levels. And I survived.

"Survived" is an entirely appropriate word in this context. Let me put this in perspective: When I woke up Friday morning I didn't know my address, my roommate's phone number, where I was working, who was driving me there, who my colleagues were, what I was teaching, how many classes I was teaching, to whom I would be teaching them, how I would get lunch, when my day started or ended, or even how I would get home. I'm a planner, an organizer; I'm a over-prepared Boy Scout. To be in the dark, to be out of control, to have to rely entirely on other people and to be OK with asking for help - this is so far outside my experience it might as well describe another person's life. But you know what? Everything turned out fine. I performed my duties well, I enjoyed myself, I made new friends, numerous people went out of their way to help me, and I didn't cry. Temporarily losing independence and control didn't cause me to self-destruct.

I have four more months of this fundamental challenge to my personality, including another upheaval in mid-September when I move to Telavi. But I'm proud of my (mostly) calm reaction to Friday, and I'm sure that I'll only grow more confident in my situation and my abilities. (I say mostly calm because I may have ended every sentence yesterday with "?!?" and a squeak).

That said, when I get back to North America, I'll probably double-down on being a control freak just to make up for letting go in Georgia. If any of you are late to a movie, so help me god...