In early March I dressed up as much as my wardrobe allowed for a rare evening of semi- glamour and sophistication. It was a special occasion; I had a theater date in Tbilisi to see a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in Georgian. I was eager and excited, unsure of what exactly to expect. I had no idea that the evening, although lovely, would morph into an experience straight out of the Twilight Zone. From the outside, the old Shota Rustaveli Theater was beautiful, an ornate stone façade with sleek theater advertisements along the prominent Rustaveli Avenue. Inside, it was more strange than beautiful. In a more decadent era, there had been runners on the stairs. Now the entrance halls were mostly barren, save for the standard touch of hardworking Soviet personages on the walls, brawny and subdued. The theater programs – one colorful page of actors and sponsors – were not complimentary. During intermission, the vendor offered to sell us Sprite when we requested bottled water and wine. The bathrooms, even more oddly, had no toilet paper or soap. The seating, on the other hand, was nice; we had wooden chairs in a small side balcony near the stage. And the performance, with all of its lights, colors, costumes, and outlandish characters, was dazzling. I tried my best to concentrate on the Georgian but all too often found my thoughts drifting distractedly. Quickly, I realized that the performance would be nearly entirely incomprehensible. I laughed at all the wrong times. The complex wordplay and double entrendes flew past me at light speed while the audience roared; minutes later, my bizarrely timed comprehension of simple comments – "why, it's a door!" – made me guffaw like an idiot and then awkwardly stifle my laughter when I realized that it was making a solo appearance in the crowd. I wished for guidance – background knowledge or a handy plot explanation – to help connect the dots. And then it happened. From a point in the audience, or so it seemed, a small seed of energy was planted. First there was a light, a whisper, a rustling. Irritated, I willed my displeasure to communicate itself through the darkness to the noisy perpetrators. But the seed grew, buzzing softly and urgently with aggravation. Body parts, dark shapes accented by the stage lights, moved jerkily as cell phone lights flashed on. I wondered, momentarily, if the audience was playing an unusual role in the performance. But it couldn't be – the actors were still engaged in dialogues, ignoring the low hum that penetrated the audience. The voices grew louder. And then, in all the confusion, the energy spilled over. The first person to stand was somewhere in the back – or was it towards the center? In a fraction of a second others stood and began to scramble for the exits. Somewhere, someone screamed. Appalled and confused, the actors stopped mid-dialogue and the lights went on. In the harsh light and the sudden pandemonium, the former Malvolio stepped forward, bizarrely out of place with his ludicrous face paint and costume, and yelled, "what is going on!?" The answers were lost in the drone of commotion. The rows were emptying, the panic mounting. All that was audible to us were the horrified hisses: Russia. It was precisely at that moment that the balcony doors swung open behind us. The box attendant, once professionally together with a smart suit and a tight ponytail, now stood pale and shaken, wringing her hands nervously with tears in her eyes. Her mere appearance terrified us. "What is the problem?" I asked, my heart heavy with anxiety. Words tumbled from her mouth, first in Georgian and then in Russian. Choking back sobs, she left us to put together the pieces of the story. A news report had just announced the assassination of the Georgian president. Russian troops, having already bombed cities to the west, were now advancing to Tbilisi. As we sat, tanks were rolling in. Combat had already begun. My thoughts went haywire – could it be? Was it all a badly planned joke? Should I stay in the theater or go to the streets, likely even more chaotic then this? What about my passport? I didn't have it on me – what if I needed to be evacuated? Where would I go? Where would he go? Would I go with him? We fumbled with our cell phones, like all the others. I called staff and other volunteers but all lines were busy. My heart thudded, panic setting in. What if I couldn't reach anyone? Thankfully, my date had more luck. "It can't be real," I heard his friend saying from the other line. "I think it's fake!" A second call to a person in the know confirmed the suspicion – we were in the middle of a reincarnation of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds. I wasn't fully comforted. My heart still raced as I considered what had been real: the way I had felt startled, completely unprepared, and reactionary. I had been totally energized by the emotions in the room and I had had no real chance to investigate or discuss. And then there was the explanation. Hardly a full year after a serious conflict with Russia, why would a popular and reputable news station – one called "hope," no less – create such a scare? Slowly, the fear was quelled and the air calmed. The actors made their way back to the stage and cracked a few jokes as those who hadn't entirely fled the theater made their way back to their seats. But later that evening as I walked out into the cool air, the city still felt a little eerie and disquiet. Related links: Eurasianet.org – "Georgia: TV Report of Russian Invasion is a Show-Stopper at Tbilisi Theater" by Giorgi Lomsadze: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav031510a.shtml The New York Times – "Panic in Georgia After a Mock News Broadcast" by Andrew E. Kramer: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/world/europe/15georgia.html WNYC, Radio Lab – War of the Worlds (a one-hour program on mass-media created panic): http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/03/07

I returned from Istanbul energized but not entirely relaxed. I couldn't shake the feeling that I had been duped. Less than twenty-four hours before I had left for Istanbul, I had arrived to my new apartment, excited and ready to move in, only to discover that the apartment was in no way ready for me. From my colleague's car on the street below, all my belongings crammed into the trunk and the backseat, I had gazed in horror at the rear balcony of my new flat. The metal bars I had paid for weeks ago – a Peace Corps requirement for my move-in – had never been installed. Worse, there was still no furniture or hot water. Enraged, I had crashed down three flights of stairs and, at my colleague's car, released a violent fury of curse words quite unbecoming of a lady Peace Corps volunteer in Georgia. Several hours and many phone calls later, I had returned to metal bars, the requisite furniture, and a plethora of promises to take care of the "final details," namely, the lengthy list of still-present signs of impending rental disaster: a missing window, a broken water heater, several missing wall sockets, a broken armchair, and a collapsed sofa bed. Begrudgingly – and stupidly – I had handed over the agreed-to sum. Many days later, as I made my way back to Rustavi from Batumi, I knew, though I deeply hoped otherwise, that I had landed a bum deal. When I walked in my front door and saw that nothing had changed, I crossed my fingers that another phone call would do the trick. When I made the sofa bed for the first time and realized that any pressure applied to the center made the end jut up suddenly like it intended to ensnare the sleeper, I thought that purchasing a real bed would not be the end of the world. When my landlady stopped answering my phone calls, I considered withholding the next payment and being my own handy person in the meantime. And when I thought I smelled a gas leak and discovered that the kitchen door locked from the inside on the same evening – a scare that resulted in an emergency rescue request to a Peace Corps staff member, although there was no apparent gas leak – I decided I probably needed to call it quits. Luckily, search part deux was remarkably easier than the first one had been. In less than a month from the time that I had handed over my first rent payment, I dropped the keys off with the binebi agent who'd found the god forsaken place and marched my things ten minutes down the road to my new residence on the second floor of a five-story Soviet bloc. Now, in lieu of white washed walls, I have walls covered in smoke-stained wallpaper peeling at the edges. I have older wooden floors, too, covered years ago in a dark red paint that's been chipping ever sense. And, to my complete chagrin, I have the former territory of a territorial cat that's putrid mark still wafts from a couple corners. Cleaning is now a regular hobby of mine; spray cleaners and bleach were among my first settling-in purchases. Still, the place has its charm. I don't have a pretty tree-lined neighborhood anymore, but I do have a cute old lady opposite me with a pet duck that follows her around. My new bathroom, once the grime was scrubbed from the Soviet pastel lime colored tiles, is remarkable clean and comfortable –so much so that legitimate baths are actually an option for me now. The furniture, although entirely uncomfortable in a rigid straight back Soviet way, is actually plentiful and fills the bedroom and the living room I now have instead of a bedroom/living room. The kitchen, although the fridge never really fully shuts, is perfectly functional, especially when it comes to the brand-new water heater. And to top, I have a nice landlord with a nice wife. So the living arrangement concluded, or so I hope. I still toss a bit in my new cocoon-like bed with its squeaky sagging middle, but all things considered, it's a cozy nest.

I had a dilemma. To get to Istanbul, I could take a quick flight from Tbilisi that would demolish my Peace Corps pocket change. I could also take a flight from Batumi, the main Georgian city on the Black Sea coast, but that would require a night train to Batumi and it wouldn’t cost much less than a flight from Tbilisi. I could take a cheap bus from Tbilisi that would involve a day and a half in a miserably cramped space. Or I could go a creative way that would save both time and money but would likely foment a panic attack. I opted for the latter. Not immediately, of course. First I hit several walls during my internet search and realized that there was little to no reputable information about alternative routes from Tbilisi to Istanbul. Then I envisioned myself stranded en route in a derelict Turkish city because the train station or airport had been torn down long ago and no one had bothered to post an update on the internet. Or worse: stranded in a remote Turkish village because I had missed the last bus out. I questioned the worth of such an adventure. In the end, though, I was encouraged by a couple former volunteers and locals who reassured me about the legitimacy of some of these options. I chose the infamous Batumi (Hopa) Airport route. The deal was this: I would take a night train from Tbilisi to Batumi. Then I would fly out of Batumi to Istanbul – but not directly. I would take the cheap, i.e., hard way. It entailed a somewhat mysterious discount related to Turkish travel subsidies and/or a lack of international taxes – or both. Basically, my plan was to go to a small Turkish city that used the Batumi airport. Details aside, there was work involved. On the evening of my departure, I arrived several hours early to the Tbilisi train station and hunkered down on a cold bench next to two older mandarin saleswomen from the West. I pulled my coat tightly around me and cursed myself for the extreme boredom I was about to experience (if only I had realized how close I was to the end of that book …). An hour or so and several curious glances later, the mandarin women began to ask me friendly questions. In my halting baby Georgian speech, I gave them my story. Their faces brightened when they confirmed my alien origins. Before they left, they invited me to their homes in villages near Zugdidi. “You must visit,” said one. “I have a son!” said the other. They gave me their addresses, neatly printed in my notebook. I was relieved when the time came to board and pleased to see that I had a legitimate place to sleep on the train. I thought happily of curling up immediately to pass out for the entirety of the journey and began to ponder the logistics required to secure my bag and make my sleeping space. Before I could do anything, however, I was interrupted by a slyly flirtatious boy who had decided to camp out in the adjacent space. Convinced that I knew more Georgian than I had led on, he launched into a tirade of curious questions. An hour later I was thoroughly annoyed with my inability to be a meaner person. I stared out the window, tuning out. I nodded halfheartedly when he pointed to his cheek and smiled. A split second after I turned beet red, realizing that he hadn’t been talking about dimples but had asked for a kiss. #$%^! I reversed the head shake, glared, and told him that I was going to sleep. The night passed. There was the stupid 30-minute wait outside of an empty bathroom because the door had been jammed, the obnoxious bumping and rustling of the new passengers as they had boarded, found their places with badly aimed cell phone flashlights, and tried to get comfortable, and the nearly debilitating irritation from the “lights on, lights off” game that the men above me had played around 4:30 in the morning (note to self: had they even been drinking!?). I was barely rested and fully ready to be done. It was still dark when I clambered off the train. I focused on a voice screaming the name of the border town and made my way to his marshutka. I shoved my backpack in – that beloved bag twice my size – and settled in the back against the window. Batumi and its beguiling palm trees passed in the early morning darkness. At the border there was no line but the border guard raised his eyebrows incredulously when he opened my passport and saw how long I’d been in Georgia. “I’m a volunteer,” I explained, “for two years.” He ignored me. “I LIVE here!” I continued, getting impatient. I tapped my fingers against the counter as he made his phone calls. Finally he let me go. In front of me there were trucks. To my left there was a long gate with a short line of people. I hazily recognized one of the women walking down this corridor from the marshutka ride and followed her. After a brief wait I got up to the counter. I was anxious to be on my way so I pleasantly ignored the official’s jovial and somewhat bemused comments about my one day in Turkey. He stamped my passport and stared blankly when I asked about a Turkish visa. Suddenly it clicked: I had just followed a complete stranger right back into Georgia. “OH MY GOD!” I rushed, frantic. “Am I in Turkey? Did you just stamp me back into Georgia? No-no-no-no I want to be in Turkey! What happened!? Where do I go!??? I’m SO sorry!!!” His eyes twinkled, his face crinkled with hearty laughter. He motioned to a guard nearby to escort me back to the first border official. This time the border guard snickered but worked quickly. I followed the trucks. One very confusing half hour later, armed with an overzealously stamped passport and a Turkish visa obtained in a strange side building and stamped in a separate strange side building, I made my way to the end. There in front of me were taxis and vans and eager drivers screaming names of places I didn't know. Behind them was a lovely little mosque on the shoreline. And behind me, should anyone forget that the religious viewpoints of these countries differ, was a subtle reminder: a giant cross on a giant hill that glowed brightly at night. I found a shared cab going to Hopa. My neighbor passenger was a luminously kind Georgian woman who spoke Turkish and translated my destination to the driver. “He says the airport is not open until 10:00,” she relayed. “It is almost 6:00 now so he will drop you off at a café near the airport.” Of course, I had forgotten; there was a two-hour time difference between Georgia and Turkey. I was the last to be dropped off. I wandered into the café, empty at the early hour, and took in the new sights and smells. I gazed excitedly at the new foods, realized I didn’t have any Turkish money, and left awkwardly with my gigantic bag to look for an ATM. When I returned I ordered a strong Turkish tea and a baked cheesy buttery lasagna-like dish. I ate slowly, sipped through three teas, and stared blankly at the foreign news channel on TV. I decided to explore. An hour or so later, acting on extremely foggy directions, I stood outside an official-looking building in search for the airport. I’d followed the main road next to the sea and crossed at the fork to the big building on the shore but I didn’t feel like I was getting any closer to an airport. I wandered into the building and into a room of uniformed men to ask for directions. An English speaker provided my next steps: walk down the pier, turn right. In this way I found myself on a fishing wharf. The small dirty passageway that I had entered through was lined with trash and high fences; on one side there appeared to be a badly maintained flamingo exhibit. The harbor was filled with fishing ships. Further ahead was an extension of the pier that consisted of a sprawling lot of big trucks and tired old buses. The overwhelming stench of fish was everywhere. The only building in sight was to my right but it looked unoccupied. I walked slowly around it and knocked curiously at one of the doors, careful not to step in a pile of fishy muck. The panic attack was beginning to foment. What if I wasn’t appropriately communicating the term for airport!? What if I was miles away from where I really needed to be?? I walked quickly back to the big building with its official-looking men. The man who had helped me before was standing outside and chuckled when he saw me. He motioned to a friend sitting in a car near the building entrance. “He’ll take you,” he said. I protested a bit and then conceded. There was no way I was going to find this on my own. This time we kept going towards the trucks. We veered right down another pier, left where the truck pileup ended, and then stopped. There it was: Hopa International Airport. There was no one in sight. I thanked the driver and stepped out. I walked unnoticed past a metal detector and a screening belt. Casually, I set my backpack down and strolled up to the counter. Soon a young man with a friendly smile entered the room. He didn’t speak Georgian. He didn’t speak English or French either. He did, however, nod knowingly when I produced my electronic ticket number. He also brought me a cup of strong Turkish tea. My heart warmed at this casual act of kindness. The pleasant feeling gave way to discomfort as the time ticked by. I squirmed in the plastic chair, wondering why I was the only person waiting. The departure time for the flight from Batumi was nearing but there was no sign of a bus that would take me to the plane. With the help of a pen and a paper and lots of hand signals, the attendant finally communicated to me that I was not leaving at the designated departure time from Batumi by plane but rather from Hopa by bus. In other words, I was extremely early. I felt defeated. I was exhausted of waiting. I decided to explore again. I left my backpack with the attendant, navigated my way past the trucks, the fishing harbor, and the potent stench of fish, and started through Hopa. I passed several kebab stands, a couple modestly regal mosques, and a school where children in uniform were playing outside. I walked into a couple small markets looking for something to eat. I glanced curiously and cautiously at the business women in veils who came to my assistance. The call to prayer started as I left one of the markets and echoed off the modern brick buildings on the streets. The sound was hauntingly melodic, deep, and beautiful. By the time I returned to the airport, the room had filled with people. I propped up my backpack in the seat next to me and passed out awkwardly against it. I awoke several minutes later, unable to fully sleep, and groggily surveyed the room. A young Turkish businessman besides me struck up a conversation in English. He drew me a map of Turkey and highlighted the places that he thought I should visit. A slender young Georgian woman with long sleek hair and a nose ring joined the conversation in Georgian and Turkish. She spoke glowingly of her new beloved city of Istanbul then proudly showed me pictures of her baby girl and her Turkish husband. “Georgian men,” she said dismissively, waving her hand in the air. She clucked with disapproval. Finally the bus arrived. Relief flooded me; I would soon be done traveling. As the engine roared to life and the bus moved slowly away, I noticed “arrival” and “departure” signs hanging close together at the back of the airport with no planes. I smiled with resigned amusement. The departure bus paused at the border long enough for a Turkish policeman and a Georgian policeman to switch places and then continued unobstructed towards Batumi. At the Batumi Airport the bus passengers entered through a back entrance and filed through a screening process before settling in for another wait with the Batumi passengers. I was near ecstatic by the time we boarded the plane. I chatted with my neighbor, the sassy Georgian woman who I’d met in Hopa. I flipped quickly through an airport magazine with nervous excitement and then again more slowly to actually read the articles. I read, with growing eagerness, about the sites of Istanbul – the ancient baths, the soaring mosques, the colorful bazaars, the aromatic spices. I savored the airplane meal and noted with pleasure that that would never happen in the states. And then I watched, with bubbling anticipation, as the skyline neared. At long last, I had arrived.

So I'm not dead, just really distracted!

I promise to make a real entry soon. In the meantime, I wanted to note that the PC office has moved. Any mail should be sent to the below address. Thanks! :)

Alison Kieler

29A Vazha Pshavela Avenue

P.O. Box 66

Tbilisi 0160

Georgia

In mid-December I start my search for a one-bedroom furnished place to call my own. I have no leads and no idea where to go. I inform my colleagues to keep their eyes open and pleadingly ask my good friend and trusted Georgian tutor, Salome, to help me, though she’s never done this before. We start by walking around to look for advertisements on building sides and lamp posts. There are none. Next we knock on doors in nearby apartment blocs to ask. I master the greeting and Salome follows with the inquiry. This method proves similarly fruitless, though it takes us longer to figure it out. Most people automatically shake their heads. Some think a few seconds first. One time we follow a lead seven floors up a bloc to find an expressionless woman whose face lights up when she finds out I’m American. Suddenly the drab empty place adjacent to her apartment skyrockets in price. We keep walking.

Determined and brazen, we stop and ask at a birja, the local hangout for the male sociable and jobless who like to drink. Amid the lackadaisical shrugs and head shakes, a fellow with a prominent potbelly and a few tufts of yellow hair protruding from his stocking cap steps aside, looks thoughtfully into space, and nods. We follow him into the bloc and stop at a front door with a huge gash through the center. My heart sinks as the door swings open and a musty scent wafts past us. The interior walls are dreary and dank, enclosing a claustrophobic space with broken windows, three recently-used dilapidated cots, grungy blankets, dirty clothes and diseased toys, and an ancient fridge with a precarious tilt that’s covered in small, grimy stickers of children’s fictional heroes and heroines. The bathroom, which I notice only from a distance, makes me think of a dungeon: it’s dark with a moldy musk and an eerie dripping sound.

My first thought is disappointment. My second thought is a desperate calculation regarding the possibility of this really being an option. Stunned in this thought, I fail to give Salome the appropriate signals. Seeing only a blank expression on my face, she breaks the silence by nonchalantly asking about the cost. He shrugs: "nothing. There are others here too. If you need to stay …."

When we’re finally out of earshot and I’ve snapped out of my trance, we break out in laughter. Salome, looking classy and refined in her black boats, her new long black pea coat, and her adorable black knit hat that covers most of her dark curly up do, asks, "Do we really look homeless!?"

Our third search method is more legitimate. We begin visiting the binebi (apartment) offices, mini real-estate businesses scattered throughout the city in the smoky side rooms and back spaces of the flower shops, the second-hand clothing stores, and the personal homes. The offices are minimal, furnished only with a couple seats for clients and a desk with a phone, an ashtray, and a small neat stack of notebooks filled with names and numbers. I realize soon that there are far more of these places than there are apartment possibilities.

Our first binebi office directs us to a bland place lacking in furniture and coziness, its walls being mostly cold concrete. We politely decline and wander to the next binebi place, only to be shown the exact same apartment (though this time we were given a far different description). When a third binebi office mentions the same address we decide to end our search for the day.

Later in the week I thoroughly disappoint myself by falling in love with a place I can’t afford; its price tag is in dollars and not the local currency. I imagine yoga classes and martini parties in the spacious well-lit rooms and briefly ponder the possibility of taking up charity from the states. I decide that that would be weird and bad in too many ways.

Some days later I pick up the search in another part of the city. Salome is with me again. We wander in and out of multiple offices, bemused by a general lack of professionalism. An agent, frowning, lethargic, says that she has a place but it’s not very nice – do we still want to see it? Once we wait for several agents to finish their conversation before we speak. Another time we interrupt a cigarette break outside. The agent grimaces, sighs heavily, puts out his cigarette, and tells us to follow him. Inside, he flips through his notebook a second or two and then throws it to the table. "Nothing," he says.

At another office a man and a woman lean intently over a backgammon board in the middle of a second-hand store. The woman looks up to tell us that she has places but that we’ll have to wait. First she wants to finish her game. Salome and I exchange looks but step aside and peruse aimlessly for a few minutes. When the woman is finished, she ushers us into a small side room. I take a seat on one of two benches and quickly catch myself when it lurches forward. Salome, wide-eyed at my near accident, tests the other bench. It too teeters precariously at her touch. Stifling laughter, we brace ourselves in our wobbling benches with our feet placed solidly on the ground. The woman, not noticing, chatters haphazardly. "You know I know another American. See, in this photo. When he returns to Georgia you should meet him. One room, you say?"

An absurdly long time later the three of us set out to see a nearby apartment. The flurry of chattering continues as we meander, slightly lost, through muddy lots around blocs. This time she has a specific motive. "Are you married?" she asks me. "I have a son your age. If you rent this apartment then we’ll be neighbors. Then you’ll be my daughter-in-law." What I can’t understand I read on Salome’s face, contorted and rosy with repressed laughter and pity for me. The woman continues: "After this you can meet my son. He’s a very nice boy. You’re a good girl; you would make a good daughter-in-law. I have lots of money so you don’t need to worry. We would take care of you. Would you teach me English as my daughter-in-law?" I manage some shrugs and smiles. My cheeks are flushed and warm with silent laughter. Eventually we arrive and enter a shabby flat with some missing window panes, an uneven floor, and a dirt problem. Salome and I thank the agent and leave. We speed walk to make some distance.

Later in the week I go to more binebi offices with my new friend Lali. Lali is warm, quiet, and colorful; she works at the local center for the disabled. She’s been on the apartment lookout for me almost since I met her. We wander into some duds and then find an office that seems particularly promising. Its staff, a dark-haired woman manning multiple phones, a bubbly lighter-haired woman chain-smoking over the notebook stack, and a pleasant man providing support beside them, seem friendly and eager to help. The lighter-haired woman tells us that she has a few places and begins flipping through the topmost notebook, her cigarette posed in the air. When she overhears me speaking to Lali she looks up from over her glasses. "Not from here?" she asks. I shake my head. "Turkish?" she asks. I shake my head again. She purses her lips. "Chinese?" She pulls the corners of eyes back. Flabbergasted, I shake my head once more and satiate her curiosity. "American!" she responds. She takes a drag and continues. "My daughter speaks English. You should speak with her. I’m going to Turkey soon. You should visit me there. I have a nice apartment." She looks down at the notebook again and gives the darker-haired woman some numbers. Soon her partner is juggling calls from two landlines and two cell phones, a veritable phone bank. One by one, possibilities appear and then die. Somehow, we spend nearly two hours there.

Eventually we get into the man’s car but instead of driving to apartments we only go to other offices that I’ve already been to. The lighter-haired woman dashes inside and Lali and I sit awkwardly in the back, burying our mouths and noses in the necks of our coats to shield ourselves from the cigarette smoke wafting to the backseat. When the woman returns from the second office she tells us there’s nothing. At first I don’t understand. We’re already in the car and there have been too many leads and phone calls for there not to be a place to go to. Lali spells it out in English: "We should get out of the car now. They have my number; maybe they will call me later. Do you want to come to my family’s house?" I decide to call it a day and follow Lali to her house. When I arrive, I find her mother on the phone, asking about a one-bedroom apartment. She shakes her head.

I start asking the binebi agents why it’s difficult to find an apartment in Rustavi.

"The Indians are coming," says one of the agents, referring to the workers of the newly-opened Indian plant in Rustavi but instead eliciting fleeting thoughts of an outrageous Wild West scene.

Another agent tells me it’s the IDPs. "They’re coming from Tbilisi," he says. I nod thoughtfully, not bothering to ask how the IDPs are able to afford this kind of rent.

A third agent tells me that it’s the economy. "There aren’t any jobs here," he says. "But people live here and commute to Tbilisi to work."

By this time I’ve mastered the appeal myself. My lingo is concise, the process a rough but manageable science: "I want a one-room furnished apartment. Do you have?" If the agents aren’t immediately excited or they don’t perk up after a quick glance in their notebook, I thank them and turn around. I find an agent who’s too eager. I think she has my number and a couple other acquaintances’ numbers on speed dial. She shows me a couple of flops ("well … I thought there was a stove and furniture") and I tire of her assistance. When she calls late at night to tell me I need to give her an answer ASAP I plug her number in my phone so I can avoid it. She starts calling from another number.

I continue looking. And then I find it. One old electric blue dentist office, two new host family offers, a persistent date inquiry, and a near mental breakdown later, I find it. At this point I’m looking with another volunteer who also needs a place. He’s at my side when we walk up the stairs and arrive at the landing to find a metal door, a safety necessity for the Peace Corps. We exchange hopeful smiles. The metal door has hardly swung open when I glimpse white walls and sunlight peering in from clean windows. "Dibs," I say. I’m not phased by his pretense of disappointment and I’m hardly hindered by the fact that there’s no bedroom furniture yet, the cupboard is missing a drawer and a hinge, the electricity isn’t turned on, and the bathtub is essentially a hurdle that I’ll have to clamber over each time I want to bathe.

Damnit, this place is mine.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Georgian language. At times it makes me glow, like when a rather menial but nonetheless satisfying bazari purchase leads to the never tiresome comprehensible exchange – the question of where I’m from, the excited reactions to my response, the eagerness of the nearby vendors or family members who pop in from behind the scenes to ask the favorite questions: Do you like Georgia? Do you like khatchapuri? Are you married? Gogo, I think you should marry a Georgian boy. At times I’m completely befuddled by the lack of consistency, of syntax, of applicability beyond the Georgian borders. Then I think of leaving it for the burly omnipresence of Russian or the pleasant romanticism of French, both teasingly within my reach here. Still I continue to grapple (halfheartedly at times, no lie) with this proud, pleasant sounding, emotionally energized, utterly confusing language. And I’ve learned some useful things. I’ve learned that I should simply scream bloody murder if I ever need help in a dark alley, because the word for “help me” is one barely-discernable and easy-to-forget letter off from the word for “adopt me.” I’ve learned that it’s good that I’m not teaching because my way of saying “desks” sounds disturbingly like “touch me.” I’ve learned that there are two words for pregnant woman. One means “two souls,” another means “heavy legs” and, just to avoid confusion, there is a word for “person who is in the process of giving birth.” (Oddly, there is no word for baby. Babies are simply referred to as “small.”) I’ve learned to be careful with the word saKvareli, which, depending on placement, can refer benignly to “cute” or “favorite” or more scandalously to “lover.”I’ve learned to use babua instead of PaPa when referring to “grandfather” so that I don’t accidentally say “porridge” (papa) because I have not adequately emphasized the “P” sound. And I’ve learned, as a rule, that most important words are verbal nightmares. Take the word “important,” for instance. It has six syllables and nine consonants. M-niSh-v-nel-o-va-ni. Say that five times fast. Or one time correctly. Anyway, I’m still alive. Generally I’m burrowed in a quilt and a sleeping bag or two or breathing hot air into my cupped hands as I type out plans and projects (and I’ve long been rocking the long underwear and the thick wool socks) but I’m still here. And I’m still energized, between frozen and extremely frustrated moments, by many pleasant thoughts: new friends and friendly faces, secondary projects, the rumor of a fantastic dressmaker in town, renewed bathhouse plans, that coke bottle filled with delicious homemade wine, making my own khatchapuri, watching that Georgian film to learn new words AND being able to understand it because it has English subtitles! Ah. :)

In Tbilisi I decide to try out the hot sulfur baths. After investigating a few options, I veto the private room with a small pool and a shower – too pricey and way too creepy – and settle with the cheaper public option. To my dismay, the bathing process is not at all evident when I enter the women’s locker room. Two fully-clothed attendants talking heatedly at the locker room entrance and an older, half-dressed woman brushing her hair on a bench answer none of the questions running through my head. Where do I put my purse? Is it safe here? Where’s the door to the sauna? What about shoes? Where are all the naked women, anyway!? First thing first: I need a towel. I turn to one of the attendants and mime wrapping myself in a towel, adding “Please?” She looks quizzically at me for a moment and then nods, smiling, and produces a towel from behind her. She mimes back, holding up a finger to indicate that I owe her a lari. So my Georgian language skills are struggling but at least I got the towel. Next step: undressing. Hesitantly I start removing my clothes and placing them on top of my purse in the locker I’ve selected. I do so slowly, hoping that someone will walk by stark naked before I’m done so I don’t have to be the least clothed person in the room. No cigar. When I’m done I wrap the towel around me and start walking in the direction of what I think is the door to the baths. I don’t go far before my friend the attendant calls out to me, saying something really quickly. In response I scrunch up my nose and shake my head to indicate incomprehension. She sighs and tries again. This time I get that she’s telling me to leave the towel in the locker room. That’s weird, but ok. I put my towel on top of my clothes and set out again towards the door. I haven’t made but a few steps when she calls out to me again. This time she points to my feet and then to a bucket in the corner of the room, filled with big plastic sandals. “I need?” I ask tentatively. She nods. Of course I need. I grab a pair of sandals, realizing they’re all too big for me, and slip them on my feet. Then I begin again, flip-flopping clumsily, towards the door. But she calls out to me again. Dear God, what do you want now!? I think. I turn, flustered and concerned that this ridiculously awkward situation is going to get even more ridiculous and awkward. “Where’s your soap!?” she asks. “Soap?” I say. She mimes washing herself. In case I was wondering. “I don’t have soap,” I say weakly. “You don’t want soap!?” By the tone of her voice I get that it is not normal to not have soap. Still, I say, quite matter-of-factly, “No.” Then I add, far less certain, “Not now?” She shrugs, giving a “suit yourself, lady” kind of vibe. Completely confused, I turn once more towards the door. This time I make it all the way to the door. It is in fact the door that I want, though it takes some seconds to process this. There isn’t a sauna here, and there's no hot sulfur tub, either. It’s ten or so spouts of hissing water tumbling down from a ceiling pipe onto women scrubbing themselves vigorously with foaming soap suds. This is like a public bath for people who don’t have nice showers and want to get really clean. All the spouts are occupied so for a minute I just stand there, not quite amused enough to laugh and not quite embarrassed enough to turn around. It doesn’t take long before a woman offers me her designated water spout. I smile, manage a “thank you,” and step under the thick stream of warm water while she steps back to scrub herself. Aside from the mild rotten egg scent of sulfur I can’t quite say why I’m here. Today was already a shower day for me and even if I did want an invigorating scrubbing I would need soap and a cloth like everyone else here. I'm not the only one aware of my situation. As I stand there contemplating the absurdity of my unintentional trip to a public shower, two women smile and offer me their soap. Oh, Georgia.

The other morning I woke up under bundles of blankets to a brisk, chilling autumn air and thought I smelled apple cider. In the ten seconds that followed the vague sensation, excitement flooded me. Soon I would be sipping spiced cider from warm, steaming mugs, sitting on some porch wearing some classic J.Crew-esque sweater, wrapped in a blanket, surrounded by shapely gourds and pumpkins, and looking out over the deep amber and golden hues in the trees. The internal fuzziness faded. Maybe the scent of breakfast had somehow misled me, but there was no doubt that breakfast would be the usual: bread, plain pasta, potatoes, or buckwheat. There are apples here, yes, but I don’t believe anyone has thought of squeezing the silly things. The trees around here are sparse, not the type to change colors. And the recent briskness, I fear, in mid-September, is an ominous sign of the cold to come this winter. It may not be the bone-chilling frigidness of Chicago, but it’s still freezing, and this time, it’s accompanied by occasional power outages. So it’s no lush hillside or tropical paradise. In fact, compared to the rich greenness of its neighboring Kakheti region, this new region of Kvemo Kartli, completely forgotten in my guidebook, is an open, semi-arid, Kansas-prairie mustard-yellowed green beginning of a desert. It’s from this undeveloped land that Rustavi suddenly and oddly juts up from the ground, a curious obstacle for the sheep and cattle herds around it. To be sure, it’s no surprise that many of the youth here have a blasé attitude about this place (but it’s SO uninteresting!). But it’s also difficult to deny that Rustavi, with all its contradictions and oddities, is an intriguing and surreal city. It is, for example, both old and new, though – to make matters confusing – Old Rustavi and New Rustavi are more or less the same age. Sometime around the birth of Christ, Rustavi was the site of ancient civilizations, fortresses, and production centers. Around the 13th century it was destroyed by invading Mongols and left in ruins. It wasn’t rebuilt until the 1940s, when Stalin made it the site of an important Soviet metallurgical factory. The newly built Rustavis were then separated by a rushing river, a twenty minute walk through a swampy sort of No Man’s Land, and an absurd architectural variance. Old Rustavi, primarily built by German POWs, appears Bavarian in places, with decorative trimmings and steeply angled roofs. New Rustavi, in comparison, is entirely Soviet, filled with tall and sterile bloc apartments. Remnants of the city’s ancient history – pottery, jewelry, tombs, etc. – were occasionally uncovered during its Soviet construction and sent piecemeal to the simple local museum or the indefinitely closed (since 2003) Tbilisi museum. Outside museums, the city’s past is visible in the carelessly kept fortress ruins, the pottery and bone shards strewn about these ruins (I’ll admit it; looking through the dirt for turquoise-glazed shards and other interesting tidbits is like a mini treasure hunt for me) and the findings that occasionally surface in the undeveloped landscapes. From a more recent history, Rustavi houses bizarre skeletal remains of a blissful Soviet era. In one of its more expansive parks, cages where zoo animals were once kept are now rusting, eerily dark and silent behind the overgrown grasses that rustle in the breeze. A Ferris wheel stands frozen in an overgrown field near the water’s edge. And the go-cart course, still stubbornly warding off the encroaching weeds with its rubber tired path, is sadly missing its go-carts. The people are also varied here. Since there aren’t generations of roots, many Georgians still remember that they come from a different region of Georgia. Many others, because of the region’s proximity to the lower Caucus countries, are ethnically Azeri or Armenian. There are also descendents of Indian or Asian factory workers, once recruited to work for metallurgical factory, and Abkhazian IDPs, still living together in two or more humanitarian sites that were once hotels or apartment buildings. And then there are the occasional Russians – most noticeably, the Russian girls with blonde hair who don short skirts and suck on cigarettes with cold ease – with whom I am occasionally advised, for cultural reasons, to be cautious in relating to. Few things make perfect sense here but it is what it is: a buzzing urban strip in the middle of nowhere with a big-city mindset and a hundred and one quirks ranging from barely noticeable to obnoxious to amusingly distracting. It’s challenging, no doubt, but simultaneously exciting. I mean, it must be …

Time flew. The chicks are now chickens; fruit seasons changed; the tiny swallow eggs hatched into ugly cheeping babies that fluffed, matured, and left. Training is now complete – I have successfully obtained my silly Intermediate Low language score, a level which hardly gets me around on my own – and I have officially been sworn in as a volunteer and carted off to my permanent site of Old Rustavi, the quainter and more antiquated side of a rather rundown city near the capitol of Tbilisi.

The move is exciting but challenging. I had just gotten used to my environment and suddenly I found myself packing up, getting ready to face another unbearably awkward new beginning. On my last night in Giorgitzminda I was disquieted by the puffy red eyes of my host mother and sister but comforted by the realization that I wasn’t alone in feeling accustomed to the setup.

Memory: my host mother Nana shaking up a cold coffee in an old plastic soda bottle– instant grinds, my special filtered water, fruit liquor – while grinning mischievously and shaking her own body to the beat of a song that would never originate from a Georgian – if I took you home with me, would you still be in love, baby?

Memory: my host sister Khatia giggling hysterically like only a teenage girl can, making me repeat difficult Georgian words and correcting my ts and tz sounds, my K’ and k and q, my T’ and t, because as you might be able to guess these are difficult if not impossible sounds to master; my host brother Lekso proudly reciting HOW MUCH CHUCK WOOD CHUCK CHUCK WOOD in the background.

Fast forward: my new family is Leila, a well-educated teacher’s union director of some sort, Zauri, a police officer, and Mari, my shyly sweet and adoring fourteen-year-old sister. My new home, in stark contrast to my former village home, is a small second-story apartment with a small kitchen that doubles as a living room and – drum roll – an indoor bathroom. (To my chagrin, a consistently warm shower is still out of my reach).

The organization that I will work for in Rustavi is a small but mighty educational development NGO called SIQA. SIQA staff and volunteers collaborate with a handful of other international and local organizations to provide numerous trainings and to facilitate camps and international exchanges, all with the intent of encouraging tolerance, empowering youth, and expanding minds. The office is three connected poster-covered rooms on the first floor of a Soviet apartment complex in New Rustavi, one of many apartment complexes that all look alike on this side of the city. To my delight, it is regularly filled with energetic, optimistic, often young and often English-speaking locals. Soon, it will also host exchange volunteers from Europe.

So there I am: a small speck in a city that’s nowhere to be found in my guidebook, feeling impossibly removed from my American life in both time and space, energetic about the possibilities and overwhelmed by the tasks ahead of me.

If there’s any chance you could send a veggie Pad Thai, I’d love you forever. Kidding ... but not.

Life in Georgia is, to put it succinctly, a total mind trip. Not a day goes by that I don’t have a moment of utter incomprehension, shock, awe, or humbled inspiration.

i.e. …

When I arrived it was cherry season. People chopped off entire branches loaded down with dark red and bright yellow cherries and ate them in the streets. The mulberry tree in my family’s yard sagged with the weight of the fruit; each time it rained the ground became covered in the dark mush and stains of the fruits. Cherry and mulberry season ended and now apples and peaches are plentiful. Watermelons are becoming sweeter and more abundant with time. The grapes are darkening slowly, a few grapes at a time in each cluster, and figs, which are at their peak in September, are already surprisingly delicious and plump, green on the outside but dark and sweet on the inside. This place is astonishingly ripe with produce potential …

At one of my first supras here I was guided by one of the matriarchs to the men’s supra room to meet the birthday man and hear some traditional Georgian song. Since a substantial amount of wine had been consumed at this point, I was also treated to a rambling nonsensical toast to the American PRESIDENTS, George Washington, Lincoln, Washington, Bush, Washington, and BARACK OBAMA. Chuckling and nodding her head wisely, my host mother tucked my arm in hers, patted my hand, said something along the lines of “thank you, we must go now,” and then escorted me outside. At this point, I take note of the brilliant stars above, beautifully unobstructed from artificial light. I ask my hostess what stars are called but she’s still laughing about the toast. When she finally speaks, apparently to tell me that the men are a bit intoxicated, I think she’s referring to the stars. It’s for this reason that at this moment, I gaze dreamily into the sky, smile, and say, “Oh! What beautiful drunk men!”

Transportation is wild. In rural areas many of the cars are antique army-like Soviet-made jeeps (Uaz?) that are meticulously kept alive and ingeniously held together. Public transportation happens in vans (renovated editions of the creepy get-away mega vans you see in bank robbery movies) that have benches screwed down to the floor. A significant number of the vehicles have at least one head imprint in the front windshield, a really scary and unfortunate result from the fact that no one here wears seatbelts. More than that, wearing a seatbelt is something of an insult to the driver, so most drivers just cut the seatbelts out. I’ve stopped reaching for them, it confuses people. Also, drivers are kind of like racecar drivers, they’re mostly men, really talented, and always in a hurry. Unless the car is on its last leg, in which case it put-puts with loving care to its final destination. And drunk driving is not illegal. So … driving is scary.

I got to meet Mr. Joe Biden during his visit to Tbilisi. AND I got a photo of us awkwardly hugging. That’s right, we’re buds.

The other volunteers in my village came to my house one day after class to cook a meal for my family. Our aim was to introduce the family to an American breakfast, so we made pancakes (sadly flattened crepe-like things with chocolate smiley faces), homemade peach syrup (that’s called ingenuity), and a Spanish frittata (ah … it’s American-ish). My host father added a cultural twist by bringing out his wine reserves and launching into eloquent, near-tear-jerking toasts to peace, social justice, and friends lost in war. To top this tipsy emotional stupor he’d put us all in, he ended three or more of his toasts to his third daughter, yours truly, who he loved as a blood daughter, who he would never forget, who was always invited back, whose children must visit, who would always be family … etc. Cue waterworks.

The other day I past two African guys sitting down with a beer in Rustavi, a small city near the capital. Noting that they were not “from here” I walked up to them to see if they spoke English. I realize this sounds retarded but the fact is that I’ve become a little Georgian – there are absurdly few black people here and those that are here are rather celebrated (there’s an intense sense of curiosity about them, it’s as though they must all be star rappers and pro athletes). Anyway, they did. But they had thick accents so I, being deeply in foreign language mode, kept inserting Georgian into my English. This royally confused them and they were completely flabbergasted when they finally figured out that I was not Georgian but rather American. First, they asked me why the hell I was here (as though it was logical that they were here!?). Then they told me they were football players from Cameroon named Gogo (that’s girl in Georgian) and Bruce Lee. Seriously though, they weren’t kidding. I know football players named Girl and Bruce Lee.

Last, did I mention I know how to write and read simple Georgian!? Check this: მე ვარ ელისონი და ძალიან მომწონს საქართველო. Pretty sweet, no!?

That's all for now. More on placement later.

Cheers! ;)

I am SO glad I brought a Frisbee! It’s been a hit in the village and it provides a much-needed communication break for me. In the yard in front of my house the neighbors come in droves when it comes out. Playing circles grow to ten to fifteen young people and there are always a number of curious bystanders around us. My host brother particularly loves it – the first week he kept trying to make bucket lids do the same thing so he could have his own. They don’t.In Georgia, making a toast with beer is bad luck. Any toasts made are made to enemies. I remembered this tidbit too late, some minutes after I decided to accept an infrequent glass of beer with my family and my sister’s friends and several awkward seconds after I raised the glass to their family. To be fair, the story has gotten some serious mileage. When I see my family mocking a bad toast in front of others, I know it’s about me. I graciously accept the laughter as though I totally intended to get it.

As predicted, going to the outhouse in the rain just sucks.

Fun words: ‘girl’ in Georgian is gogo; ‘boy’ is bitchi. ‘Grand child’ is Shvili shvili and ‘great grand child’ shvili shvili shvili. But my absolute favorite thing to say is ‘one minute,’ in part because it’s the only thing in this language that rolls off the tongue with ease for me and in part because it makes people giggle – Erti tsuti!

One of my main concerns in life right now is maintaining my good girl (kargi gogo) status. When I am referred to as a kargi gogo, I rejoice a little inside because I’m still in good standing in my village. Then I die a little inside because I realize I’ve regressed to a painfully over-protected childlike mentality.

Driving in Georgia is kind of like riding a rollercoaster. It’s a really freaking sketchy thrill.

I am continually astounded by the number of people who have seen conflict here. The village policeman is an Internally Displaced Person from Abkhazia. My marshutka (public transportation) driver proudly told me about his time in Iraq. An older neighbor rambled about his years as a soldier. Another volunteer’s father spent years in the Georgian Special Forces in South Ossetia and Kosovo. My host father, a gruff and darkened man who emanates a profound sadness and speaks eloquently about the need for social equality, peace, and friendship, often while drinking a glass of wine or fiddling expertly with a hand knife, spent two years in Afghanistan with the Soviet army before fighting in South Ossetia and Abkahzia. For various reasons a few women mentioned lost or changed men and of thinking “it was over” when bombs fell last August. Nearly everyone comments about Georgia lacking freedom. It’s fascinating … and heartbreaking.

I oh-so miss REAL cheese – cheddar and provolone and mozzarella and Gouda, anything but these ridiculous blocks of intensely salted curds.

People here are bizarrely nice. In general, people love to force feed their guests. In Tbilisi the other day I say a man stop to ask a beggar how he was doing. Later, coming home from another village, two different cars stopped to see if a friend and I needed a ride, after which we were offered free apples. Sometimes it confuses me.I have no life but PST now. Hence the lack of postings and emails. My apologies!

To adequately describe Georgia I have to mention the supra, a traditional Georgian feast held to celebrate anything from a birthday to the end of a business meeting. I’ve been to three so far; my first supra took place on my very first night in Giorgitzminda for a family friend’s birthday. Through highly enunciated speech, many hand signals, and some partial translations, I was tickled to understand the cheerful toast that graciously welcomed into the family that night. Unfortunately I’m still not sure which family was being referenced.

Anyway, the scene: shoulder-to-shoulder seating around a several-foot long table covered with food and drink. Each type of food (eggplant with walnut paste, fresh tomatoes, khachapuri, etc.) is put onto several small dishes that are distributed around the table. More food arrives after the eating has begun via random appearance(s) of the hostess and her female helpers. These dishes are maneuvered in between the ones already on the table or simply stacked on top of them. In between the overlapping dishes are bottles of sweet sodas and wine carafes. Eventually the tabletop disappears. At the head of the table, a respected toastmaster stands repeatedly to give a toast – first and foremost to Georgian peace, then to family, ancestors, hosts, guests, God, saints, and so on. In response, the men chug. By chug, I mean that many down the glass. The women respond more sporadically and conservatively, if they’re drinking at all. More wine is poured after each toast. Fruits, sweets, and maybe a large white frosted torta with sugared decorations appear. At this point the kids run off on a mad sugar rush and a few designated individuals gather closer to sing traditional Georgian song – evocative tunes with overlapping, interwoven melodies. I don’t make it any further. I go home sleepy and stuffed, guided back by linked arms and the trusted lights of my host family’s cell phones.

Saturday we were bused to Sagarejo, a small town in the Khaketi wine-making region of Georgia about an hour from Tblisi, to meet our host families. When we arrived the families were already excitedly gathered in a small school gym. Forgetting most or all of the Georgian we’d learned at that point, we shuffled into the corner of the room like nervous kids at a junior high dance, sizing up our potential partners and joking with and prodding one another to ease the tangible tension.

By the time I was called I had thankfully watched enough matches to avoid a kissing incident (single kiss, right cheek!) [Note: I have since then gone for the left cheek and embarrassingly landed lips on my sister’s girlfriend’s mouth]. My host mother, Nana, a glowing and exuberant personality who loves to teach and learn, welcomed me with eager words, a generous smile, and warm embrace before I met the others – Khatia, my spunky, always smiling fifteen-year-old host sister, Lekso, my mischievous ten-year-old host brother, and Zakaria, my host father.

After hugs came a half-day of sheer awkwardness, exhaustion and humiliation. A translated sample of my first demonstrated communicative abilities in Georgian is as follows: “Hello. Hello! Helloooo. Good to meet you?” -Awkward pause, smiles-“Thank you? Thank you! Big thanks!”-Awkward pause; continues to smile-“I am Alison. I am well. I am from America.”-Awkward pause, smiles more-“I am from Kansas?”-Still smiling-“Hot water?” (An amusingly difficult phrase).-Bursts of laughter-“One minute!” -More bursts of laughter. Searches desperately for dictionary. Face hurts from smiling. Gives up on dictionary and signals sleepy instead-Headache.---

In the few days I’ve lived here I’ve learned that it is far better to communicate your linguistic ignorance through laughter then through dumb stares (though both will inevitably happen). The harder you laugh, the more infectious it becomes – and there is nothing quite as amusing as making a crowd of villagers laugh hysterically because you started chuckling when you had no idea what anyone was asking you.

---

So. The basics. My village, a short drive from Sagarejo, is called Giorgitzminda. It’s a quaint farming place – everyone here has a farm of some sort, grapes and cherries grow everywhere, and at any point of the day I can find chickens, cows, horses, and sheep grazing or wandering at the side of the road. Sometimes I nearly run into them. I’m fairly certain nearly everyone knows everyone here. I’m frequently being introduced to someone who wants to meet “the American” and overhearing tidbits of gossip regarding the other volunteers through so-and-so who knows so-and-so (though I can’t really understand anything short of the names and the laughter). It's rather hysterical - in a painful sort of way. The attention is fun and I feel quite safe knowing that I’ve got quite a few protective figures around me but I totally miss the alone time I had back home.My host family lives in a traditional Georgian home at the top of a hill – whitewashed concrete exterior and two stories, though the family (as is also traditional) occupies only the first floor. My bedroom is upstairs, a small room tucked behind a spacious Romeo-and-Juliet type balcony. The kitchen and washroom extend from the main living quarters, making the home an “L” shape that wraps halfway around a large square concrete patio. Across from the home is a gate to the garden and vineyard, a chicken coup filled with clucking hens and a rooster that defines the term “cocky,” a small cage with a yappy dog and its two squeaking one-month-old pups, and a deliciously fruitful mulberry tree. A little path behind the gate leads to the outhouse, which is, sad to say, a hole in the ground. On a positive note, the bathhouse is quite nice and has running water that can be switched from sink to shower (though water is limited and not always heated). This is home for the next two months!

My group of 30 arrived in Tbilisi yesterday around 4:00 PM totally exhausted. Most of us had slept badly the night before in Philadelphia and were already sleep deprived from last minute preparation leading up to Philly. The overseas flight from JFK to Istanbul had been rough – I was disappointed to realize that my seat had neither working head rest nor recliner – as was the wait in Istanbul – THREE gate changes! – AND I arrived in Tbilisi sans luggage (fabulously bad luck, no? I am currently borrowing clothing; the hotel manager has kindly donated her brand new underwear to my pity pile). Needless to say I was thrilled to be done with the getting here part. Immediately after getting our passports stamped we were warmly greeted (by name!) by a smiling Peace Corps Georgia staff and then ushered to a local media swarm, where ministers and the ambassador waited to speak. We had our little moment of fame (happily I forget my groggy commentary to reporters, though it may be in the news) and then dragged ourselves to a bus outside where we received another warm welcome, bottled water (tap is a no go!), a token candy bar, our cell phones, and our first allowance. From there we headed to our first Georgian meal. Verdict: the food is fantastic! We arrived at a restaurant near the city center already prepared with tables piled high with food and drink options. The most notable item is called khachipuri, which is essentially fried bread with lots of cheese and a buttery glaze. Delish! There are also local cheeses, spreads made of spinach, leeks or beets and walnuts, stuffed veggies (eggplant is popular), fresh fruits, spiced stewed mushrooms, fresh tomatoes with basil and cucumbers, assortments of pickles, fried potatoes, cold salmon, and other meat dishes. Common drinks include pear and tarragon sodas (“limonades”), the latter of which is an eerie (but tasty) bright green. We haven’t had wine yet but have been warned repeatedly to drink cautiously, as in addition to being very tasty and popular it is extremely strong here! More on that later, I guess … After dinner we piled back on the bus and headed to our final destination – a quaint little resort hotel in the hills overlooking the city. The showers here are apparently a luxury, though the water pressure becomes suddenly nonexistent for some seconds at a time and the hot water turns cold rather quickly (but luckily comes back after a 10 second break). We will stay here for a couple more days for orientation and initial language training before being assigned host families in nearby villages.I’m definitely excited to see more. The countryside is beautiful and Tbilisi looks fascinating - a mix of dilapidated nostalgia and impressive architecture with a scattering of statues and well-lit monuments. And it's true - the people are extremely friendly!

I'm finally going!! I arrive in Philly for staging tomorrow (Monday) and leave for Georgia on Tuesday. I know I packed too much of something and not nearly enough of something else but I don't care anymore. I am sick of lists and sticky note lists on top of lists and, generally speaking, over-thinking. I want to get started!

For the first three months (while I'm learning this: საქართველო) snail mail can be sent to me at:

Alison Kieler

110b Burdzgla Street

0194 Tbilisi Georgia

SANS Peace Corps reference, as that might cause delay.

I'm not sure how much internet I'll have (sadly, I'm sure I'll be going through withdrawal regardless of availability) but I will do my best to keep in touch through blogging, Gmail, and Facebook. Please write, I'd love to hear from you!

I nearly cried when my Peace Corps recruiter told me my best bet was to go to the Caucuses. I'd studied French! Spanish! I wanted to become fluent in a gorgeous romantic language or two - tu sais, les langues qui on rendent attractive et intellectuelle! - and instead I would be working with ... what ... Azeri? Armenian? I mean, what do you DO with those!?

Upon reflection the situation was far more promising than I'd immediately anticipated. Georgia had been evacuated after the 2007 Russian invasion so it looked like I'd be placed in either Azerbaijan or Armenia - and both seemed like pretty exciting places. As part of "Old Persia," the countries, quietly perched over Iran, are predictably loaded with rich cultures, ancient sites, and beautiful landscapes. Armenia apparently looks like this:

Not bad. On second thought, I had done pretty well. Fingers crossed for my final acceptance, I awaited the final word.

And landed in Georgia. OK, I can roll with this ...