It's been quite a while since our last post. January has come and gone, along with another New Year's celebration. As usual, tables and stomachs groaned under the weight of the dolma, blinchiki, cakes, cookies, fruits, and roast piglet.

Shaen got to play Santa Claus this year, throwing his little cousin and sister into paroxysms of joy. Lilit quickly learned the true meaning of New Year and promptly put all of her presents into a bag which she carried and around and wouldn't let anyone touch.

After the fireworks, the toasts, the visits, and the tripe soup to wrap up the season, we still had a little time to recover before the start of our last semester as teachers in Georgia. We took a trip to Tbilisi to run some errands -- I had volunteered to look over applications for Georgian students looking to study abroad in America, and Melissa was beginning to assemble materials for her library project -- but otherwise we took advantage of a little quiet before the storm.

Tbilisi Decorations

Then it was back to school, with lots of hopes for the spring. Melissa's library project is off to a great start -- thanks to everyone who has donated books, CDs, or DVDs! Melissa has The two of us are agreed that whatever Georgia's charms, it's going to be nice to be back in the land of Office Depot and Staples the next time we need to buy supplies in bulk. But the Language Resource Room Melissa is working with the library to develop is off to a good start, and staff trainings begin Saturday!

Almost immediately after starting school, on a snowy Wednesday morning, Melissa headed to Bazaleti to help conduct the Healthy Lifestyles "Training of Trainers" conference, which brings volunteers and their counterparts to discuss ways to implement projects and share information on health and well-being with people in their communities. The conference was a big success, and even more impressive because, with staff, guests, and translators stranded in the snow for the first morning, Melissa and the Healthy Lifestyles Committee managed to run the whole show by themselves.

Afterward, we met in Kortaneti for the first weekend in February, and, as usual, it was a really nice, really relaxing time. Kortaneti

We came back this week and headed to school, only to have a pleasant surprise waiting for us today: thanks to the snow and the cold, schools across Georgia have been cancelled through Monday! And here I thought we just didn't get snow days.

So it'll be a lot of hot tea and good books for the next couple days, and, come Monday, we'll be just about halfway through February! Hard to believe, but we'll be finishing up before too long. Stay warm, everyone!

Another Peace Corps Christmas has come and gone, filled with a fun combination of old traditions and new, odd substitutions from here and wonderfully appreciated authentic elements sent from home.

Sam fulfilled his Goal Two by baking tons of Christmas cookies. He made gingerbread boys, sugar cookies and peanut butter cookies, and sent our host grandmother off to spread the word of this mythical male who not only bakes, but bakes delicious, gorgeous cookies! Even though the cookies were gobbled up within a few days, her tales of Sam's superhero abilities continue to be related to any new guest who hasn't yet heard. Sam plans on tackling a few more batches before New Year's as well.

Here goes another batch...Some of the yummy results of Sam's laborsThat crazed look that only dozens of batches of Christmas cookies can inspire

Shortly before the winter break from school, our host brother's class had their Winter Program. This wasn't quite the same routine I'm used to seeing from countless holiday concerts in America. First, the dress code was a little confusing. In his class of about 18 kids, 6 dressed in costumes (including 3 Spidermen, 1 teddy bear, 1 musketeer and 1 kid in a cape with a cat mask), 4 girls wore fluffy white dresses and everyone else wore jeans and sweaters. Our host sister in the audience dressed in her fancy dress, complete with princess crown and jewels. Santa Claus and the Snow Queen (two kids from my 11th grade class) made an appearance, and the children sang songs, recited poems and played classic holiday games (like bowl over the party hat to win the candy inside, race around the tree and grab the bells first, and dance with a partner keeping the balloon between your backs without letting it fall).

Singing and dancing, in costume or notSome of the varied outfits of the classLilit, with Shaen-Spiderman (right) and a rather festive Spiderman classmate

My parents and Sam's mom helped make our actual Christmas day super awesome by putting us up at the Courtyard Marriott in Tbilisi for three nights. We swam, we watched English-language TV channels, we hot-tubbed, we showered daily, we slept in a ridiculously comfortable bed with real pillows... basically, we lived in amazing luxury for three nights and four days, forgetting for a few moments here and there that we were Peace Corps volunteers.

Tbilisi is a great place for the holidays for a lot of reasons. They go all out in their lights displays, putting up enough bulbs to make Clark Griswold blush. We were able to go to a Christmas mass in English, which was a nice treat as well. And, of course, there's all the food joys of Tbilisi. Per the Kuhlman family tradition, we ate pizza on Christmas eve. Then we ate donuts for breakfast and then had pasta and salad and ice cream on Christmas, and had supremely delicious Indian food for the day after.

The St. George's Column, transformed into a New Year's Tree, in Freedom Square, Tbilisi (the Courtyard Marriott is just to the right)Now we're back in Akhalkalaki, gearing up for New Year's (the holiday that's celebrated big time in Georgia). This week will include a lot of food preparation, last-minute cleaning and many, many repetitions of "Jingle Bells" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" by our host siblings.

Lilit shows off the New Year's tree

With only 3 more days until 2012 and 4 more days of the Holiday Running Streak, we wish you and yours a very happy holiday season!

One more time, for easy access to the instructions. Collect your magazines, CDs, DVDs, computer programs on discs, books or magazines and put them in a box for shipping. Please make a list of what you include in the box, and enclose that list in the box. Fill out this short, one page form (just the yellow-highlighted sections and sign at the bottom). Then scan the form and email it to me at mkuhlman AT gmail DOT com. After you send me this form, you can send the box to this address:Melissa Kuhlman8 McCullough DriveU49429, c/o TTLNew Castle, DE 19720USA

I'll email you when I receive your package. We'll start putting all your materials to great use as soon as we get them. Thanks!

Sam and I have successfully wrapped up our summer/fall grant projects, and I've been chomping at the bit to get started on something else. I had been in discussions with Akhalkalaki's public library to work with them on creating something of a language resource room, where the town's residents could go to brush up their language skills. We talked about what kind of shape the project would take, what we'd need to do and what resources we'd need to make it all work out. I wrote a grant proposal, working closely with the library's director, and submitted it at the beginning of November. Happily, the grant was approved and we'll be able to get started on the project just after the New Year!

The library is an odd combination of a pretty sad excuse for a library and a really well stocked, wonderful town resource that is underutilized. Most people in town, when I mentioned that I was working on a project with the public library, gave me blank stares and said "We have a public library in Akhalkalaki? Where is it?" The library is made up of one large room of stacks, with books in Russian, Georgian and Armenian, another room of children's books (with a similar smattering of languages), a reading room with a few desks and chairs and the main office where the director sits and the nicest books are kept. There are some really great books, and really a lot of books. Sam and I, with the help of another great PCV here in Georgia, were able to coordinate the donation of some English books and magazines, which have been highly appreciated and used a lot already. So there are some great resources available at the library.

The library did not have a computer or printer or any kind of multimedia technologies, however. That's a large part of what the grant money is going to purchase. We'll also buy some new, comfortable chairs. Also, we've got funds to purchase some grammar texts (English and Georgian grammars) and a set of the English textbooks used at the schools. All of these resources should (hopefully) go a long way towards helping people in town have free access to helpful, needed materials.

More importantly than the materials this grant will purchase, though, will be the series of trainings I've planned as one of the main components of this grant. The library already had a lot of great resources. No one knew about them, though. In talking with the library staff about how libraries in America differ from this one, I talked a lot about the interactive programming that most U.S. libraries employ to make them public spaces that go beyond just checking out books. The library's director was intrigued by the idea of holding weekly read-aloud sessions for kids or hosting movie nights for teenagers. She told me that she wanted to transform the library into a place where people meet and talk and volunteer. It's an exciting thing as a Peace Corps Volunteer to find someone who has big goals and dreams and is willing to work to make them come to fruition, so I'm really, really looking forward to implementing this project!

I'll be sure to take lots of pictures as we work and post about our progress, but in the title of this blog post, I promised a way for you to help. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that most of you probably have large collections of used CDs or DVDs or books or magazines that are just collecting dust in your houses. If you find that you have any you'd be willing or able to part with, send them to me! Donate your lightly used reading, listening or viewing materials to the Akhalkalaki Public Library--they could really stand to have some more English-language materials, and especially of the media variety. I'm not expecting folks to go out and buy tons of brand new DVDs and empty their wallets to make this possible, but I know that I had lots of underused or unnecessary books and movies before I left and I had a tough time finding a good place to donate them. If you find yourselves in similar positions, now you can easily unload your extra clutter! Send it all to me!

This request is really a two-parter, I guess. It's one thing to collect all your old DVDs and learn-to-type computer games. Shipping a box full of those things is a totally different issue, though. I realize that it's not cheap to send stuff overseas. The breakdown on shipping is thus: I've got a mailbox with a Georgian company that allows me to ship things to an address in the U.S. (in Delaware), and then couriers the stuff to me in Tbilisi. The pricing on this works out that when you ship a package to me, you pay postage as if it is shipping in the U.S. (and you should definitely just use the cheapest shipping option in the U.S., since it'll still take about a week or two to get to Georgia after being received in Delaware). Then, I have to pay for the remainder of the shipping once the package arrives in Tbilisi. The cost on that is $8 per 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds). If you are able to help cover the cost of the shipping, you can figure out the amount your package will be and send a check to my mom, who can deposit it in my account.

Still with me? Good! Here's the step-by-step of what you'll need to do if you're interested in donating. First, collect your magazines, CDs, DVDs, computer programs on discs (like typing programs or kids learning games) and books and put them in a box for shipping. Please make a list of what you include in the box, and enclose that list in the box. Then, before you ship the box, I need you to do a little paperwork. Peace Corps requires that all donations be documented, so I need you to fill out this short, one page form. You just need to fill out the yellow-highlighted sections and sign at the bottom. Then scan the form and email it to me at mkuhlman AT gmail DOT com. After you send me this form, you can send the box to this address:Melissa Kuhlman8 McCullough DriveU49429, c/o TTLNew Castle, DE 19720USA

I'll email you when I receive your package. We'll start putting all your materials to great use as soon as we get them. (Also, as far as I have been told by PC, if you donate this way and fill out the form above, you can use this as a tax deduction for charitable donations. Win-Win!)

If you have any questions, let me know! Thank you all in advance!

And speaking of projects that are the kick in the pants of motivation, since Thanksgiving, I've been following the Runner's World Inaugural Running Streak. The idea is to run at least one mile each day between Thanksgiving and New Year's, as a way to stave off the usual slump in exercise that takes place during this period of busy schedules, bad weather, dark days and crazy hectic holidays.

So for the past 19 days (actually longer, since the start of the streak overlapped with our usual rest day), Sam and I have been running every morning. (Sam, god bless him, has said every day "I'll run today with you, but I'm not actually doing the whole streak. I'll take a day off tomorrow." For 19 days now he's said that. Makes me think of the Dread Pirate Roberts.)

The streak has been a big enough motivation for me that we kept to it, even when the second day of the streak looked like this:

It's a great thing, finding your motivation. I definitely would have let running slip a bit during these past 19 days (and the next 20 that we're slated to run), had I not publicly said I wanted to do it. Having this goal has me going. I hope it will get you moving, too. But if running isn't your thing, don't despair! Go for a walk or jump rope or ride a bike or dance or just spin around in circles for 30 minutes. Watch this video if you need further inspiration.

I think one of the reasons I like to sign up for as much as possible, to join as many committees or clubs or activities or groups as I can, to commit to everything thrown at me, is that I know that once I give my word, there’s no going back. I need the possibility for public shaming to motivate me to do things sometimes. If not doing a task will be seen as a failure then I’ll do it so I won’t fail. (When I return to the States and someday get a smart phone, I’ll probably become one of those terrible oversharers of things like how many calories I’ve burned or what books I’ve read. Apologies in advance!) In any case, it’s a system that works for me, and thanks to my fear of looking a fool I do a lot more than I would otherwise be inspired to do. Exhibit A of this personal trait is my involvement in the Peace Corps’ Life Skills Committee here in Georgia. I consider myself a person with a strong interest in health, although it’s not a field I’d ever want to go into professionally. But if I hadn’t joined this committee, I’m sure I would never have done so many health-related projects during my Peace Corps tenure. Being part of this committee has made me feel obligated to be involved in health-related projects, and I’m sure glad it has. Don’t get me wrong; I love to exercise, I try to eat my fruits and veggies and I really get a kick out of reading the health section in online newspapers (the Washington Post’s Medical Mysteries series being among my favorites). I’m just not sure I’d be able to get out there and convince others to take a similar interest in health were it not for the committee. But here, in this place where no one receives any kind of basic health information, where old wives’ tales rule as medical advice and where the average person doesn’t have the tools to take care of himself, I’ve been sparked. With the rest of the committee’s members, I've worked to try to share what I’ve been fortunate enough to take for granted. I’ve been lucky in health. I’ve had the combination of good health and good education (you can debate the American education system all you want, but compared to other systems I’ve seen in other parts of the world, ours is light years ahead and American kids have huge advantages in terms of availability of information and training, options and equipment, and dedicated teachers). If I can share just the information I’ve had hurled at me my whole life, it could make a world of difference. And as I said above, the great thing about being part of a committee that is dedicated to arming citizens with the skills they need to be healthier and lead healthy, happy lives is that I feel obligated to do something. It’s the kick in the pants I need to get out the door. But realizing this, I also get a chance to really try to figure out how one can transfer those skills and knowledge and how to make it possible for other PCVs to do the same. I’ve already written here about the fantastic DVD series that the LS Committee created. We’re looking forward to making some other resources in the near future to continue to make things easier for PCVs. We will hold our annual Healthy Lifestyles Training of Trainers for PCVs and their counterparts in early February. And it’s rewarding to know that these projects are having an impact. On December 1, we marked World AIDS Day. This is a tough topic here in conservative Georgia. HIV/AIDS is a difficult topic to begin with, and then there are all the culturally taboo subjects to deal with. The Life Skills Committee has done an awesome job making this possible, though, by providing resources and support to make it possible. For a second year, I was able to teach an HIV/AIDS lesson in my school (I had over 200 participants for my full day of sessions!). I showed a lecture from the DVD series (I’ve never seen my 10th graders so quite and engaged) and held a discussion with the kids. It was such an overwhelmingly positive experience and felt like one of those big PC victories, where things go right. Yet I don’t know if I’d have even made the attempt if I weren’t part of the committee. Knowing this about myself is helpful, but it also encourages me to work harder to make resources for other PCVs, and to share information and best practices. And hearing about the successes other PCVs have had also makes it really worthwhile.The Deputy Director at my school made a display about World AIDS Day

The 8th graders listened better than I expected

My tenth graders were absolutely silent during the film, giving it their full attention

We could blame the end-of-the-semester drag, busy schedules, bad weather, dark days or any number of things for our infrequent blog posts of late. Instead of excuses, though, I'll just apologize for our delay. We have developed a bit of a backlog of stories, though, so I’ll try to bring everything up to speed soon, rather than just skip over the missed things. In the meantime, as I work on typing it all up, here are a few videos as appeasement for our updating negligence. A huge thanks to Brad, Holly, Matt and Rachel for the hours of entertainment that the Christmas Chicken Dance Chicken has provided in our household! (And if the poor chickens batteries go missing before long or it ends up with its musical component ripped out, we’ll just blame it on the neighborhood stray dogs, not the slowly-going-crazy-from-hearing-the-chicken-dance-every-5-minutes Melissa). So enjoy the diversion while we rustle up some more blog posts! (Lilit sure doesn't seem to mind the wait, as long as she can keep stomping around the chicken.)

Last week, Sam and I missed out on most of the school week (darn!) in order to attend the All Volunteer Conference. More than just a clever name, this is indeed a conference that gathers all of the Peace Corps Volunteers in country in one place. Surprisingly, we only have this once-a-year conference where we're all together. Other gatherings tend to be for smaller groups, so although we do see a lot of each other through the course of PC, we don't usually see each other in one big group. The AVC is great, though, for other reasons. We've got a full schedule: we go over our safety and security plans, we elect new members to PC committees, we have a half-day of PCV-led sessions, we spend a lot of time getting to know each other better, and, most importantly, since this conference is always held in November, we prepare and eat Thanksgiving dinner.

This year's safety and security section was interesting. It was very clearly and directly shaped by the "scandals" in the press over the last year, regarding PC's handling of sexual assault and rape over the years. We were sent emails and links to news stories from America by our country director when all this was in full swing last spring and summer (when there was lots of news about the congressional hearings Peace Corps had regarding how the organization has handled cases of rape or sexual assault). But even though we read these and we're in Peace Corps, it seemed far away; maybe we just haven't seen or heard as much as folks at home about it, or maybe it just seems unthinkable when it hasn't been my experience. It's hard to imagine a PC post being anything but extremely helpful, caring and serious in any scenario, but especially in these worst-cases.

The congressional hearings have had an impact, regardless on how connected I feel to it all, on PC operations worldwide. Over the summer PC staff from all over the world had to attend new training seminars on how to respond to rape or sexual assault, how to prevent it and how to ensure that PCVs are kept safe. Our safety and security sessions this year were handed down as a direct result of those trainings and orders from DC. The people presenting sessions to us had to read from a script to make sure that every post conveyed the same information. Our staff and safety and security council members did a great job keeping the information interactive and interesting, but it was an odd departure from last year's safety and security session, which was much more focused on Georgia-specific issues and concerns that our volunteers have. Don't get me wrong-- it's not that I don't support working to prevent sexual assaults on volunteers; quite the opposite, I think this is an important topic to discuss. Really, I mostly just found it weird that Washington was sending scripts around to posts to teach us about safety. Aside from maybe our mothers, I don't think there is any group of people anywhere that worry more about our safety and security than our PC Georgia staff, and I don't think anyone (including our mothers) has more realistic, feasible, Georgia-appropriate, actionable plans in place for keeping us safe or responding in cases when needed.

So that was the safety and security component of the conference. (Last year, we did a half-day simulation of how to respond if the various stages of our Emergency Action Plan are implemented, given different degrees of complication. It was, to say the least, a different atmosphere.)

All Vol isn't all somber and scripted, though. We elected new members for our PC committees. The Life Skills Committee gave our presentation on what we do and what sorts of members we were seeking. We got a lot of great applications for our open positions and had a tough choice to make in winnowing down to just the three slots. I think we got some great new additions, though, and I'm looking forward to all the work we'll do together in the coming months!

The last day of the AVC is spent working on what we call "Concurrent Sessions." These are PCV-led short sessions (45 or 90 minutes) in which we can learn about ongoing projects that PCVs are looking to hand off to new volunteers, share tips on teaching or working in the Georgian context, talk about resources we've created or just have some fun. Last year I attended all the concurrent sessions, getting more and more excited about all the projects I'd be able to get involved with and work on. This year, I was on the other end, presenting some of the sessions and looking to stir up interest among G11s in the projects I've worked on and would like to see continued.

The AVC culminated in the most important session of all: Thanksgiving Dinner. Sam helped head up the "Thanksgiving Dinner Committee" for the second year. He spent every spare moment at the conference in the kitchen, making friends with the Georgian kitchen staff at the conference center, stirring soups, peeling apples, making biscuits and supervising ingredients lists and organization. Last year's meal was delicious and hard to top, but this year's took the cake. Everyone loved everything. The Ambassador came again and specifically complimented Sam on the biscuits (that should translate into a future job offer, right?) and there really weren't nearly as many leftovers as there should have been, which means everyone ate well past the stuffed point. (I personally had a moment of glory when I ate a completely unnecessary extra piece of pumpkin pie with my hands when the plates and silverware had run out.) Especially considering the limitations in the kitchen (it's seriously worse than a Top Chef challenge), the food was fantastic and a really welcome change from the usual fare.

Lacey, working on some pieLots of cooks, not enough ovens or burnersMy plate(s) were well laden and deliciousNo small task, feeding the PC crew!

Now we're back to school, but a wonderfully timed Georgian holiday gives us a day off on Wednesday this week. It's almost Thanksgiving, and I feel like we've got a whole lot to be thankful for. We hope you all have a great holiday and can enjoy and appreciate your dinners as much as we were able to!

We’ve had a busy couple of past few weeks. We've been trying not to get worn out with the full swing of school, battling the full-fledged winter weather and finishing up the projects we started over the summer.Sam held a training for his teaching counterparts on using the new technologies he was able to help them get and set up as part of the grant he won for his school. (He even was able to convince his counterparts to come in to school on a weekend for the training!) His classes have been able to benefit from the new English classroom, gaining the joy of hearing all about Mr. Jolly, a major figure in the new lower-grade English textbooks. He has had some frustrations and setbacks in the project implementation, but even with these difficulties, it seems that all of his counterparts are getting into using the equipment. Further, it sounds like the ability to use the AV components of the textbooks (however diabolically evil some of the songs or jazz chants may be) has really been a boon for the students. Sam should be able to finish up all the final reporting paperwork for his grant project soon and be able just to work to see that it continues to be used and useful. I’ve been working to wrap up my grant-recipient project that started over the summer, too. Since late July I have been holding a series of training sessions on various women’s health topics for a group of women and girls who consistently came to my fitness club. The trainings were all based on the peer education model and with the goal of making all of the participants peer educators, so they could then in turn share the information with their friends, families, relatives and neighbors. I envisioned it as a fairly simple project. I’d get the women together, show them one of the lectures from the Health Education Lecture Series, run through an activity with them from our Companion Guide or one of the other resources the Life Skills Committee has and that would be that. Ten trainings would be no problem to just knock right out. Marianna, leading one of the training sessions From the very beginning this plan was a little flawed in its over-ambitious-ness, I think. I expected to start a training project right in the middle of summer vacation season, to keep the same 11 females interested and attending and available for TEN hour- to hour-and-a-half-long sessions. Sheesh.

More trainingThe women were great, really, and the keeping-their-attention part of this project wasn’t a problem. They all seemed so interested and starved, actually, for accurate, reliable, easily available health information that there was no trouble getting and keeping them engaged. The training sessions themselves were admittedly a fair bit of work to prepare for, but I had an amazing, fantastic, remarkable counterpart, my friend Marianna, to help me present everything, organize everything and get through everything. The scheduling issue was an issue, but it was an issue in part because of my own decision to take a long vacation in August, as well as because of the usual hustle-and-bustle that September and back-to-school and potato harvest usually bring.

Everyone with their certificates at the end of training So it took us from the end of July through the end of October, but Marianna and I led 10 hour-plus-long sessions in which we taught our group about nutrition and physical fitness, emotional health and self-esteem, hygiene and communicable diseases, peer education, women’s health, reproductive health and STDs, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, and taking health peer education into the community. The women in the group shuffled around their busy schedules to attend, and all came to nearly every session. They all said they were sad to see the trainings end, but they learned a lot, and I’m really proud of them and grateful for their hard work and dedication. Their roles as peer educators in our town (the goal I had in mind from the get-go) got a head start and a boost through some luck and some leftover money in the VAST budget. I was able to get an addition to my initial grant to take a group of women to a health clinic an hour’s drive away, where women aged 25-60 can get free gynecological exams and those aged 40-70 can get free mammograms. The clinic’s facilities and equipment were paid for and donated through American and European organizations and donors and everything is state-of-the-art, and no one in Akhalkalaki had ever heard of it. As their final assignment for the training, the women had to run a peer education session on women’s health for up to three other women, then they had to bring those women with us to the clinic for checkups. I expected a group of about 30 (of which 11 would be the original program participants). Instead, I took 43 women on two days last weekend for a full day of screenings. It was incredible, to be able to see how the women from the training program stepped up and helped get enough other women over their fears of doctors or traveling to another town.

Director of the Democrat Women's Organization in Akhaltsikhe, Marina, giving a presentation to the group of women before the health screenings began The grant money made it possible for me to get a bus both days for transportation, to give the organization an honorarium for providing their services on days when they normally are closed (they usually only work Monday through Friday, but opened on Saturday and Sunday to accommodate the size of our group and to be dedicated just to us), and to buy coffee, tea, cookies and lunch for all the ladies. It was a small grant overall (the total budget for both the training and the trips was just around $1800), but I think it had a big impact. And as we get closer to closing our service here in Georgia (just under 8 months to go!), it’s boosts like these projects that really help us feel like we’ve been doing the right thing. The group of women, waiting for their health screeningsAnd even though the clock is starting to tick and our PC service is starting to wrap up, we're both excited about trying to get in a few more projects and activities. I think we've got some final bursts of energy (and enough time left) for another few initiatives. We'll try to keep you posted on what we're up to, and not get too caught up in the whirlwind of our last bit of Peace Corps.

A week ago, with winter closing in, we decided to act on a longstanding plan to visit fellow volunteer Kelsey Olson in Kakheti, Georgia’s wine country in the west. We had been in the region before, and Melissa had even been to Kelsey’s village of Apeni, but never in autumn.

It’s a long road out from Akhalkalaki, with some errands in Tbilisi (stacks of grad school application supplements, a bazaar bag full of books for my English resource room, and various materials for Melissa’s training project) in between. We got in about sunset and went straight to a supra for a departing TLG (Teach and Learn with Georgia) volunteer. Melissa and I joke that we’re about the only volunteers in Georgia who sit around saying, “You know, I could really go for some khachapuri right now.” So it was great to pull right up to a feast of khachapuri, khinkali, and all the other Georgian delicacies we miss up here on the Javakheti plateau.

The next day , we decided to head up to the Lagodekhi National Park, where we’d heard of a really pretty three-hour hike up to a waterfall. It was a gorgeous day for it, warm but not too hot, and we walked along a riverbed, gradually climbing and occasionally taking detours into the woods, with the hills around turning their autumn colors (a few weeks later than Akhalakalki).

A really nice hike, although our luck ran out at the third river crossing. A flood had knocked down the crossing, and all that was left was a nice round log precariously poised over the rapids.

We started to try (well, Melissa did), but we decided, in the interest of life and limb, to quit before halfway. We had lunch and enjoyed the walk down, wishing we’d made it all the way up, but not regretting the time.

In the afternoon we walked out in the huge garden behind Kelsey’s host grandmother’s house. All kinds of fruit trees, vegetables, and especially grapes. We were coming to the end of harvest time, and the wine would be coming soon, but in the neighbor’s yard there were still acres of white grape vines to be harvested, and Kelsey was volunteered to help the next day.

Unfortunately, we had to leave in the morning to make our long trek back (stopping to pick up my metric ton of textbooks to (mostly) finish off my English resource room), so after one more night of celebratory khinkali, Sporcle quizzes, and homemade root beer, it was time to bit farewell.

But Kakheti in the fall is the kind of place you want to go back to.

One of the biggest benefits (and, at times, one of the biggest downsides) of living here has been the shocking impact of seasons. While we may hear in America that it's better to buy foods in season or that fruits and vegetables taste better (and are cheaper) in season, I know that back at home I wasn't always in tune with what produce had its season when. Our reality of raspberries in January, apples in March and squash in June means that we don't really always see what foods are supposed to be in season at a particular time.

Here, we don't have the luxury of picking up a carton of strawberries imported from Chile in mid-winter. We get strawberries for a handful of weeks in May-June. They are absolutely delicious then, but blink and you miss the season. And, nice as it is to eat in season, I do miss eating fresh (or even frozen) berries whenever I want them.

Drying apples and pearsBut nature rolls on and seasons dictate most of what we eat here. (There are some imports and greenhouse-grown foods, so we can get tomatoes year-round, but most people agree that these aren't as yummy as fresh, in-season produce.) We have an interesting rotation of fresh fruits and veggies during the late spring, summer and fall, which is something I hope to be more aware of when we get back home. Late winter and early spring are the "lean season" for fresh produce, though. People have to stock up on "putting up" products to help get through this period.

Right now we're in the heart of apple, plum and pear picking seasons in Akhalkalaki (other parts of Georgia are just winding down the grape harvest and persimmon gathering is starting to get under way as well). Now that all the potatoes have been harvested, people have turned the brunt of their attention to these fall fruits. This means that we've had lots of really delicious crispy fruit in the past two weeks or so, and that canning season is in full swing.

Picking apples with our host family (and neighbor)

Two of the most common jams made here in Akhalkalaki each fall (as far as we can tell) are an apple-butter-like jam and a plum butter, called pelvar. Pelvar purists will say that it's best not to add sugar to the plums as they cook (since they're already an incredibly sweet plum variety) and because it's better to add a certain kind of sweet, green pear instead. Jams and jellies are often teeth-rotting sweet here, so a "small amount" of sugar is usually added even by those who say they don't add sugar (it wasn't much sugar! Only one kilogram!).

Sam spearheaded the pelvar making in our household this fall, thanks to some miscommunication, his push-over tendencies and pure, unadulterated manipulation. He enjoyed it (mostly), but it is excruciating work. Luckily, we found a slow-cooker recipe for making plum butter that we'll be more likely to try back at home.

Early on in the jam-making

After it got too dark and too cold to continue outside over the fire, Sam finished up insideSome of the finished product, getting packed up for storing

This year has been a banner harvest for apples and plums and pears, though, so we've seen lots of people doing the back-breaking work of slowly stewing fruit over a fire. Others have been drying fruits in the sun to save for winter (usually, they boil the dried fruits during the "lean season" for fresh produce to make a vitamin-rich compote). All the fruit has added to a generally beautiful fall atmosphere, even if the days and nights are getting a little colder and a little darker than we'd prefer.

Apple butter in its earliest stages, on the stovetop

A small plum called panda, drying in the sun

In addition to working on our primary project (teaching English and working with English teachers to improve skills) and secondary projects (our after-school and community clubs), PCVs have an opportunity to join a few committees and groups that are Peace Corps sponsored. It's probably the influence of working in an office for a while, but I like me some committees when the topic is interesting and the people on the committee are friendly. (Of course, I also like the demotivators take on committees.) For the past year, I have been working with two committees, the Volunteer Advisory Committee (which serves as a sounding board for PCV ideas or complaints and liaises with staff on issues of importance to PCVs) and the Life Skills Committee. I realized that I hadn't really written too much about the Life Skills Committee, and since a whole ton of the projects I've been involved in here are part of the work that Life Skills has done, I should write about it. (This way, too, when I want to update about some of the LS projects, it won't be quite such a big process to go through the back story that I've skipped until now.)

The official description of the Life Skills Committee is that it is a group to assist PCVs and their Counterparts in promoting healthy lifestyles and organizing education activities related to healthy living by providing and creating resources, training PCVs and Counterparts and giving support and encouragement. One of the biggest topics the committee works on is promoting HIV/AIDS awareness and education in Georgia.

Life Skills has done some really cool projects. We revised and edited one of our biggest resources, the Life Skills Activity Book, which is nearly 200 pages of suggested activities to use for teaching various health topics, broken down by subject and available in English and Georgian (and soon to be in Russian, too). We write monthly newsletters that we send around to PCVs, PC Staff and forward on to a few health NGOs and community partners. In February each year, we plan, organize and facilitate a training on HIV/AIDS and other health topics, teaching PCVs and their CPs how to teach life skills in their communities.

The 2010 Life Skills Committee probably came close to breaking records on projects undertaken, though. One of the coolest and biggest project was what we called the Health Education Lecture Series and Companion Guide. For an incredibly small budget, we created this new DVD resource that presents Georgian doctors and other health specialists lecturing for about 10-15 minutes on various health topics in Georgian. Since Georgia has no formal health education in schools, there is a huge information gap and old wives tales rule the day in explaining health complaints or prescribing remedies. We conceived of the idea to film health professionals giving accurate, reliable information that could easily be shared to all regions of Georgia, and to supplement these lectures by creating lesson plans for leading post-video-viewing discussions, doing interactive activities or researching further. The lectures are arranged on a 12-month schedule, with each month assigned a corresponding topic. Usually these topics line up with some sort of international or national health topic holiday. For instance, March is "Women's Health" month in the series because March 8 is International Women's Day and March 3 is Mothers' Day in Georgia. Our topics include things like Women's and Men's Health, HIV/AIDS, Nutrition and Physical Fitness, Hygiene and Communicable Diseases and others. (If you're interested in seeing some of the videos, they're also available on YouTube here. They're in Georgian, but this link has Russian subtitles as well.) The Companion Guide, about 70-some pages long, is burned onto the DVD copies that we gave out to all the PCVs, and we're getting hard copies printed as well. We've made this resource available in Georgian, English and Russian so it's accessible to almost everyone in the country.

All this work was done by a fairly small group of highly motivated, dedicated volunteers and PC staff members, whom I'm very fortunate and lucky to know and work with. Our committee has four permanent members and a PC Staff liaison. Funnily enough, all four of us PCVs during the last year were married women, so one staff member referred to us as the "married wives" committee. Now that the G9 volunteers are back in the States readjusting and moving past Peace Corps, it's just two of us (plus our fantastic alternate member!) working on the committee until the November election of new members at the All Volunteer Conference. We're looking forward to getting some new members, both to help us fill the big shoes our fantastic G9 members left vacant and to get some of the G11s involved.

We already have some plans for projects to work on in the coming year, but our big focus coming up is going to be on preparing for February's training. Lots of work lies ahead, but I've been thrilled to be keeping myself so busy and to get to work on so many projects, the impact of which can be seen so quickly.

Akhalkalaki's FLEX Round One Participants

This week, our Thursday and my Friday were taken up shuttling students from Akhalkalaki to the nearby regional center of Akhaltsikhe for the first and second rounds of the FLEX competition. The Future Leaders Exchange Program has been taking high-schoolers from the former Soviet Union to the U.S. for the past 10 years. When we first arrived in Akhalkalaki, we met two 10-graders who were just preparing to leave for their year in America. These two girls have now returned and begun their senior year of high school, with much improved English skills and a great appreciation for and knowledge of American culture, customs, history and geography. Another student, an 11-grader, made it to the final round of competition last year and was chosen as an alternate for this year's exchange. She didn't end up getting to go to America for the year, but she was offered a chance to live in northern California for 6 weeks this summer. She too has gained a lot of benefits, in terms of language and knowledge, but also in terms of confidence.

The 2012-2013 school year's competition opened at the start of October. Sam and I stumped for the program all around Akhalkalaki, talking with classes of eligible students, trying to rally some kids to go and take the test. In past years, a handful of the top English students from town have attempted the test. This year, we got a group of 17 students, grades 9-11, to travel the hour and a half to Akhaltsikhe for the round one test. Our local mayor supported the kids tremendously, getting a municipal bus to take them there and back. Sam and I rode along to help make sure no one got lost and that everyone had the necessary paperwork (birth certificate or passport and a photo). At the testing site, we helped herd kids through registration and into the test room, pass out papers, and generally keep order. About 250 teens came out to take the test at the Akhaltsikhe site (they offer tests around the country in different regional centers). As we rode back to Akhalkalaki later in the afternoon, we told the students how proud we were of them for trying--it's a tough thing for children here sometimes to put themselves out there for something that they aren't sure they'll succeed in.

On Wednesday night, the round one results were posted online, and we learned that 7 of our Akhalkalaki kids made it through to round two. After a whole lot of phone calls back and forth, we found two cars willing and able to take the 7 back to Akhaltsikhe on Friday for round two, a harder and much longer test. Sam had classes to teach on Friday, but my school was closed (a whole slew of teachers were invited to Tbilisi to attend a talk by President Sarkozy of France who was in town for meetings with President Saakashvili), so I squeezed into a car and went up too.

The test seemed like a tough one. It lasted 3 hours and contained lots of different skills. The group that makes it on to round three will only be informed in 4 weeks' time, after their short essay answers are sent to American Councils' headquarters in Washington to be read and assessed. We both hope that a few of our students will pass on to the next round and that at least one student will have the chance to study in America. It makes such a huge impact on the child who gets to go, and we're just now starting to see the way that these kids can change their towns when they return. So everyone keep your fingers crossed, and we'll update you when we hear anything back. Good luck, kids, and way to go!

As we work back into our autumn groove, as our summer/fall projects wrap up and we look excitedly ahead to new projects to keep our hands from falling idle in the winter months, I want to take some time to go back and fill in the gaps in our blog. Because I tend to be event-oriented in my updates, I have grossly overlooked and failed to mention some of the biggest things we do here.

The day-to-day, the meat of our work, the bulk of our time is spent in two places: school and our host family's house. Included in the time at school, I count the time going to and from school, time waiting in the teachers lounge between classes, time teaching classes, endless time greeting students all over town, time planning with teachers for upcoming lessons, time talking with different teachers and answering questions or debating about America or Georgia, time drinking lots of coffee and eating lots of sweets. At our host family's we spend time eating, sleeping, playing with the kids, chasing the kids away from our computers, cleaning up the food that kids have trailed into our room, talking with our host grandmother about grudges she holds, eating some more, talking with neighbors that come to visit, reading, watching DVDs of tv programs that we didn't watch at home, working on the computer, wasting time on the computer and drinking buckets of tea. We go out and do other things, but the above listed activities make up at least 90% of our time. This isn't just a PCV reality, though. The reality of community integration here seems to involve being really well integrated into the niche you occupy.

For school, Sam and I (like all the Education Volunteers in Peace Corps Georgia) are expected to teach at least 15-20 hours per week. This semester we each have 18 hours, teaching a wide range of ages and ability levels. At my school, one of my counterparts teaches 18 hours a week (she has 6 different classes, all of which meet 3 times per week). The rest of my counterparts teach anywhere from 6 to 15 hours of classes a week. Many of them supplement this work with other work. Teaching private lessons is the most common boost. Even those that don't have other paid employment, however, have round-the-clock engagements cleaning, cooking, taking care of their children and families and generally tackling the "second shift." So for every one of our counterparts, taking time to lesson plan with Sam or me means taking time away from some other thing. Sometimes this "time away" for required lesson planning seems to be seen as a nice respite for our counterparts. Other times, we're acutely aware of the imposition our lesson planning is on our counterparts' time.

Most days, we come home from school pretty much wiped out. I think the number of nights I've made it past midnight in Peace Corps (not including international departures from the Tbilisi airport) could be counted on one hand. If I get less than 8 hours of sleep, I'm a total zombie.

This is a funny thing to me, given the hours I kept working in DC and doing grad school or that Sam spent teaching, holding office hours and grading. I really think I could have counted my 7-8-hours-of-sleep-a-night nights on one hand for all the time we lived in DC (even though Sam always protested that he needed his 8 hours). Now, given how much sleep we get and the hours we keep, I feel almost sheepish thinking about how tired we both are at the end of a school day. Our "longest" school days are 5 class periods, about 5 hours. If you add in travel time to and from school, lesson planning and requisite socializing, we spend, at most, 6 hours any day "at work." We end up making ourselves busier by taking 2-3 Armenian lessons (an hour-and-a-half each session), teaching after school English clubs, leading an Ecology club (Sam) and a fitness club (me). But really, all told, we spend fewer hours actively engaged and working in a traditional sense here.

We do expend a whole lot of brain power and patience doing a whole lot of things that we wouldn't even think about at home. Realizing that I'd forgotten how to say "the pot has boiled over", or trying to understand what a two-year-old is saying in a language I've only spent about a year working on are clearly trying, but relatively small obstacles. Added up over an entire day, however, foreign languages tucker out a PCV.

More than language exhaustion, though, I exhaust my patience here a lot. Sam (the saint) is a whole lot better than me, but I don't think I'm exactly the least patient person in the world. (I mean, c'mon, I grew up with Jenny, Ben and Emily!) Some days I feel like I've got the shortest fuse in the world, though. A lot of this is because my brain still keeps thinking that things "should" happen a certain way. I look for, expect, a certain order of things. I fall into the trap of expecting rationality or logic. In a developing country. That was part of the Soviet Union. Sheesh. My brain gets upset, indignant, angry, frustrated that most of my students have no English textbooks in this, our third full week of school. That the scheduled minibus to a neighboring town has been canceled for no apparent reason. That cab drivers or merchants at the market try to overcharge me because I'm a foreigner. That people talk about me all the time in the street or right in front of me, believing I can't understand them. I meet these frustrations, searching for answers, for a responsible party, and usually find a lot of people who are similarly upset, but who are dissimilarly also resigned. Accepting. Expecting the eventual failure of things to work out or the lack of follow through, however simple it would (in theory) be. People shrug and tell me it's the way things are. It makes me go even crazier. I spend a lot of time trying to walk the line between falling into similar resignation that "things just go that way" and burnout of trying to take on way more than little ol' me is capable of. I think if I solved this problem, though, of knowing when to work and when to walk away, I'd solve the major problem of sustainable international development.

Other things that happen to tax me mentally are just kind of stupid or silly, but still get me when I think about them; these are the little differences that seem earth-shattering sometimes. Like lighting the stove. I'd previously always either used an electric stove or a self-lighting gas stove, so it took some getting used to and some odd fear of striking the stupid match (almost inevitably of a poor quality) and holding it down close enough to the gas to get my tea kettle going. After nearly 17 months in Georgia, I'm obviously not a novice at this and can do it, but I still have my moments where the just-lit gas flares up and momentarily heats my hand uncomfortably and I gasp and jerk my hand away, even though I'm nowhere near burning myself. The always fun flurry of confusion and awkwardness of "should I kiss this person hello/congratulations/goodbye" is another one. I'm not a toucher. I'm not a kisser. Georgia's chock full of folks that kiss on the cheeks for tons of varied reasons. My odd, awkward stance and body language seem to check a lot of unsolicited cheek pecks, but I still do the dance of do-I-or-don't-I at least once a week (if not more frequently). And these silly, easily forgotten awkward moments, at the end of a day full of not quite fitting in, make enough of an impression to make me worry or overanalyze or just rehash in my mind. All of which makes me sleepier.

But we've moved into winter blanket months here in Akhalkalaki, so at least I know I'll be bundled up well, wrapped in my nest of wool and ready for some sweet shuteye when bedtime comes. I hope the rest of you are sleeping well.

It has been far too long--and we've done far too much in the intervening period--to give a comprehensive update of all that we've been up to since our last blog post. Instead, I'll sum up:

Sam and I toiled away a bit more here in Akhalkalaki in August, working on projects that included his grant-funded English cabinet and my grant-funded women's health peer education program. We headed in to Tbilisi on August 20 to participate in a goodwill basketball tournament (Sam to cheer, me to play) held by the Georgian Ministry of Education. Then, on August 22 at 4am, we took off from Georgia for an 18-day vacation.

We were able to get a free frequent-flyer-mile ticket to anywhere in Europe, so we did the natural thing and went to Slovenia. It was spectacular (see below if you need pictorial convincing; we did lots of hiking, lots of eating of delicious foods and lots of general sightseeing, museum-going and general good times). We followed our brief tour of Slovenia with a few days in Vienna (for more eating, coffee drinking, museums and palaces), then bused to Budapest, from whence we hopped a plane to Cairo for our friends' wedding (and some time in the Egyptian museum, at the pyramids and on an overnight excursion to the White Desert in the Sahara), before coming back to Budapest to round up the vacation (with yet more eating, museums and fun). To allow us to indulge a bit on the length of the trip and the attractions enjoyed, we saved some money on hotels by staying (for the most part) in campsites. All of our European destinations had phenomenal campgrounds, with lots of room for tents or RVs, separate shower buildings and toilets, kitchens and laundry rooms. Really, our "roughing it" wasn't rough at all (all of the campsites we stayed at were more modern and filled with more conveniences than lots of Peace Corps sites). The weather was wonderfully accommodating to our choice in accommodation as well, and we only needed to swap our tent for hotels for one night in Vienna and during our stay in Cairo.

We landed back in Tbilisi at 3am on September 10th, a spectacular way for Sam to start his 28th year, and made our way back to Akhalkalaki later the same day, to finish up with some cake and food with our host family and friends.

Now we're getting back into the swing of things, mercifully a little slowly. The "First Bell" ceremony was held on Thursday, September 15 and book pass-out took place on Friday. Monday was our first day of classes, and after our beautiful, amazing adventures traveling, we're feeling ready and up to the challenges that are sure to lie ahead!

Sam, setting up our tent in SloveniaLake Bled and the town of Bled, SloveniaVintgar Gorge, SloveniaRadovljica, SloveniaBled Island, Bled, Slovenia

Lake Bohinj, SloveniaA statue to the first climbing party to scale Slovenia's tallest mountain, a peak in the Julian Alps (just visible at the right of the picture), and an old church in Bohinj, Slovenia

Picking blackberries after a hike outside of Bled, Slovenia

Downtown Ljubljana, SloveniaLjubljana, SloveniaLjubljana, Slovenia

Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna, AustriaCity Hall and Parks, Vienna, Austria

Vienna Ferris Wheel (we watched "The Third Man" for the first time in Vienna. If you haven't seen it, watch it! It's a great movie and Orson Welles gives a fantastic speech at this ferris wheel), Vienna, AustriaAlthough we did camp in Vienna, there is no camping allowed here in this busy street, apparently.

We arrived in Cairo just for the end of Ramadan, and the Eid celebrations outside our hotel window were intense. We were especially lucky to have the fireworks, which were being sold right outside our hotel, tested and demonstrated every 5 minutes until about 4am.

No horses were harmed in this trip to the PyramidsGreat Pyramids, huh?

Karl and Nayla at their wedding reception in CairoThe reception was gorgeous!The Sahara desert oasis of BahariyaMe and Sam in the SaharaOur trusty Sahara adventure jeepWhite Desert, Sahara, EgyptBeetle!

Our campsite in the White Desert

Rooster rock in the White Desert

The road from Svaneti passes by Georgia's second city, Kutaisi, which happens to be located a few kilometers from the Sataplia nature reserve. The Sataplia nature reserve is famous for honey, forests, caves, and preserved dinosaur footprints, and since traveling with me is a little like traveling with a six-year-old ("Dinosaurs!") and a little like traveling with grandma ("Oh, local honey!"), we made a stop.

The dinosaur tracks were of course the big draw for me. But Sataplia nature reserve itself is a really pretty stretch of hilly land mostly covered by "Colchian" forest and, when we went, shrouded in warm mist.

Our first stop was the dinosaur track pavilion. I'll admit to low expectations; someone had said you needed to use your imagination to see anything. But that made it all the more incredible. These were very clearly dinosaur footprints, so my imagination was left free to design a saddle for my pet dinosaur.

There were a number of signs making mention of some of my best childhood friends -Iguanodon, Stegosaurus, and so on - but I'm pretty sure they weren't the species represented. But then, I am, for reasons that can only be attributed to poor life choices, not a paleontologist.

Anyway, BP has funded a really nice, climate-controlled pavilion to protect the prints from further damage and decay, and I have to say that if a gigantic mega-corporation wants to mask the brutality and destructiveness of the market system, giving me a day with dinosaur footprints is a good (ahem) step.

From the pavilion, we walked through the Colchian forest (featuring very tasteful statues of dinosaurs), to a wooden walkway along a cliff side. The mists were covering what is usually a pretty broad panorama, but on the stone side of the cliff, the guide pointed out the dwellings of the wild honeybees who (he said) gave Sataplia ("Place of Honey") its name.

A bit further on, we came to the entrance of Sataplia cave. Perpetually cool and damp, the cave featured an underground river, semi-translucent stalactites, a variety of different formations, and a famous stone shaped by water to resemble a human heart. I'm a sucker for caves, especially those with glitzy artificial lighting, and this was a good one.

Sataplia is a world treasure. I know I'm 100% the target audience - forested hills, honeybees, caves, and dinosaurs - but this is the kind of thing that I wish everyone could see. It wasn't raw majesty on the scale of Svaneti, but you get something strange running down your spine when you see footprints made in soft mud in days when those mountains from the last few posts hadn't even been born.

After scanning through our pictures from our Svaneti trip once more, we realized that we still had a ton we wanted to show off. Hence, one more blog post, lots more pictures and a few more stories from our trip.

Our last full day in Mestia, August 2, broke once again with a brilliantly beautiful morning. We woke early to try our hand (and our legs) at one more long hike--this time scrambling up the mountain that hugs Mestia to an overlook point at the foot of a giant iron cross before following the ridge up another several hundred meters to a cluster of mountain lakes and views of the big giants from the Caucasus all around.

Just a fraction of the way up

One of the many beautiful mountain wildflowers

Headed the right way

We set out just before 8am, making our way slowly and steadily uphill. We had our moments where we couldn't tell if we were on the intended hiking path or just a cow path, blazed by an intrepid bovine hiker. Soon enough, though, we found our desired red-and-white trail blaze and continued up. There were beautiful flowers all around and not a soul to be seen (except for the cows that kept one-upping us with their feats of climbing).

More flowers

Hiking trail or cow path?

The start of the trail was steep--we climbed up a kilometer over the first 2.5 kilometers. Around noon, we made it to the crest of the first big hill, the overlook by the iron cross. We also ran into a few sets of other hikers who had come up the hill from the other side, our intended route of descent. (These fellow hikers were an interesting bunch. We had some nice conversations with the pair of Czech tourists, met two Poles with whom we jointly cursed the two Dutch girls who got a jeep ride to the top and were skipping happily down past us telling us that the top was only 20 minutes away, and listened to the exhausted panting of the Japanese man who had walked his mountain bike up the mountain upon finding it too steep to actually ride up.)

You can vaguely see the iron cross at the edge of the green hill; we came up from the right-hand side, then went back down along the visible jeep track on the left

I don't think the boys always appreciated my energy levels

A shepherd's summer shack

The views all around were, as was to be expected in Svaneti at this point, absolutely breathtaking and striking. Every direction, every view, everywhere we looked was like a scene for a movie poster or advertisement. We made it up to the mountain lakes (by August, a little smaller and less impressive, maybe, than the hiking tour book made them out to be) and had a picnic, watched over by the towering mountain peaks and a group of grazing horses. We stretched our legs once more and headed back down the mountain, grateful that the clouds had started to fill the sky and keep the strong high-altitude sun off our shoulders for the way down.

And more pretty flowers!

One of about a dozen or so mountain lakes

Another lake, with mountain-climbing horses in the background

Baby horse, making us look bad as we pant and puff our way to the top of the mountain

A beautiful spot for a much deserved picnic

We made it back to our guest house almost exactly 9 hours after we set out. We attacked our dinner with gusto and rested a bit before taking one more evening stroll around Mestia on this our last day in town. It was a good day, one where we went to bed feeling absolutely worn out and grateful for the chance to fall asleep. Our three days in Svaneti were fantastic and just the perfect way, we thought, to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary.

Happy 3!

Ushguli, a community of about 200 people, is claimed as the highest year-round human settlement in Europe, in the neighborhood of 2,200 meters. It stands 45 kilometers from Mestia on a winding dirt and gravel road cut by streams and rockslides and closed by snow six months of the year. We knew we wanted to visit while we were in Svaneti, but it proved trickier than expected. Gizo’s car, faithful as it had been on the miserable road up, just wouldn’t be a match for the Ushguli road, and private jeeps and marshutkas were asking prices that could have significantly impacted the U.S. debt ceiling.

So we went about it the old-fashioned way, lying in ambush for foreign-looking tourists and seeing if they would be willing to share a ride. We yelled at people on the street and bothered them at their hotel breakfasts, and, since the universe seems to like this sort of thing, it finally paid off. We met a group of Polish tourists going to Ushguli by minibus with a few extra seats and a guide willing to let us join in for a reasonable fee.

And we set off. Just outside of town we stopped at a mineral spring. The water here is carbonated and really high in iron – the local folks came with plastic bottles that looked like they’d been covered in rust. A few minutes later, we came to a beautiful view of double-peaked Mt. Ushba, one of the great mountaineering challenges of the Caucasus, and a ubiquitous symbol of Svaneti.

And then we settled in, enjoying some good conversation with our fellow travelers; the marshutka rolled over gravel and water, along cliff edges and through mud. The 45 kilometers took about 3 hours, including a brief stop at the “Lover’s Tower,” built, according to legend, for a Svan girl pining for her love who drowned in the river below.

Finally, in the early afternoon, we made it to Ushguli. It’s a kind of beauty that even pictures can’t do justice to, the blue sky and the hills greener than hills are in August, the towers rising under the white peak of Shkhara, Georgia’s highest mountain. Horses and cows on the hills looking healthier and happier than we’ve seen in a long time.

We were given a few hours to do what we would, so we struck off along the river in the direction of Shkhara. As we walked out onto the track, we could hear people singing in Svan over the next hill [Link]. We first went to a little church on the hill, then set off to follow the river for an hour or so, passing some tourists on foot, horseback, or jeep, but more often than not finding ourselves alone with the springs running down the hills, the cold river, and the sound of stones.

We came to a school-bus sized chunk of glacier abandoned by the summer retreat, and watched it slowly melting in the sun, before it was time to turn back.

I know we might well be singing a different tune under feet of snow in October and cut off from the rest of the world until May, but just then, we felt like we could have put down our bags and stayed there forever.

Sam and I have been working on separate grant proposals for projects in Akhalkalaki. Sam wrote and submitted grant proposal for the Small Project Assistance (SPA) program, a USAID-funded grant program for PCVs to support community development, to build and "English Cabinet" at his school in Akhalkalaki. This would be an English classroom, equipped with a computer, projector and speakers, English textbooks and cds, and some other necessary materials to make a more conducive, modern learning environment for kids in his English classes. I wrote a grant proposal to the VAST program (Volunteer Activities Support and Training Program, funded by the President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief, which provides PCVs with a pool of grant money for HIV/AIDS-related projects) to hold a Women's Health Peer Education program with some of the women and girls from my fitness club and to purchase some equipment for the fitness club.

We have both just recently gotten the good news that both our grants proposals were accepted! I have been able to purchase most of the materials I'll need for my training sessions and for the fitness club. I hope to hold 10 training sessions (with the first one scheduled for tomorrow evening!) on different topics, including physical fitness and nutrition, hygiene and communicable diseases, HIV/AIDS prevention, STIs and others. My friend and counterpart and all-around great person Marianna is going to help me facilitate all of these trainings and she and I spent a few hours today putting the final touches on our session plan for tomorrow. I'll be sure to update on how the training goes!

Sam hasn't had his grant money deposited in his account yet, but has been able to hold a meeting with his teaching counterpart to plan out their next steps. He and his school will have their work cut out for them! They will need to purchase their materials for the classroom, set everything up, hold computer training for the English teachers and create and give pre-tests to all the English students once the school year gets back underway, so they can monitor the effectiveness of the English cabinet in helping improve students' English levels. They hope to have everything up and running for the start of the school year in mid-September.

So we've cleared the first hurdles on these projects and gotten financing. Now comes the next step of hard work and actually carrying out the projects. Once we have some results (and pictures!) we'll post some updates!

We have been keeping ourselves busy, as we keep mentioning, but part of that business has thankfully been recreational. We had been chomping at the bit to get to a region of Georgia called Svaneti, located in the northwest of the country. Set against the backdrop of the Caucasus Mountains (highest mountains in Europe, depending on where you say Europe starts), Svaneti is famous for its defensive towers built to keep out raiders and as a safe haven for family clans seeking shelter during blood feuds with other family clans. When our friend and hiking buddy, Gizo, told us that he had some vacation time coming at the beginning of August and was looking to go to Svaneti, we decided that, despite our jam-packed schedules, we should jump.

Like any good trip in Georgia, this one began with lots and lots of car time. Thankfully (and thanks to Gizo) this was actually car time, though, and not marshrutka (mini-bus) time. This really makes a difference, too, since each hour of riding on a marshrutka is pretty darn near scientifically proven to shorten your lifespan by one year. We drove from Tbilisi to Zugdidi, a 361 km (225 mile) drive that took us just about 5 hours along a nice, civilized, paved road. After Zugdidi, the real fun began. We had a final 135 kilometers to go (that's a mere 84 miles for all of you without distance converters built into your cell phones) and figured we'd be into Mestia, the capital of Svaneti, in just a short bit of time.

Our trusty ride

Oh me of little knowledge and too much faith.

The first 70 km of road wasn't actually too bad. The road was mostly paved, although it's been a long time between patching up, and we got to stop at this crazy big dam, which a woman and her son who we picked up as fellow travelers showed us. I guess they were so happy to have gotten a ride to their remote village that they were only too happy to take a detour to show off one of the area attractions.

Dam!

Once we parted ways with our picked-up companions, though, the road got worse and worse and our hopes of reaching Mestia quickly were replaced by those of reaching Mestia at all. Where once a road in reasonably road-like conditions had stood there now was a pit being excavated by earth movers and diggers and dynamite. While our sedan wasn't necessarily the best choice in automobile for the "road", I don't think a tank or ATV or dirt bike would have been much better. We inched along, trying not to careen off a cliff or rip out all of the underbelly of the car or get stuck in a pit. After 5 more hours (remember, this was 84 miles), we arrived in Mestia, dust-covered and brains rattling inside our heads. (And, as a side note, it seems like the main reason for the awful condition of the road currently is that they are actually building a real road that will last, not just laying down some asphalt that will be washed away each season by snow and rain. So hopefully, in a few months, the trip will not be so much like driving into Kandahar.)

Some of the better road

But boy, was the journey it worth it. Here's a few of our first views of the main town in Svaneti, under construction to spruce it up and give it the infrastructure it needs to be the tourist attraction it deserves to be, but still beautiful and breathtaking.

Mestia, with its family defense towers

Keeps out the raiders!

They light all the towers at night

Lots of construction ongoing, but lots of working on it, too, so hopefully it'll be done soon...

On our first full day in Svaneti, recovered a bit from the long journey and aching to take advantage of the beautiful weather to go out and see some of this place, we loaded up on food from our guesthouse (lots of different styles of khachapuri, lots of good cheese and cottage cheese, lots of fresh bread, lots of coffee and tea... the theme seemed to be delicious and big for breakfast) and headed out for a hike. We chose an easy hike route that followed a jeep track 10 km before crossing a rushing river (via a shaky Soviet-era pedestrian suspension bridge) and heading uphill another 2 km to the Chaladi glacier. We had a faithful canine companion join us for most of the hike there and up at the glacier itself we ran into a few large groups of tourists from Israel and a handful from Georgia.

On our hike

The Caucasus were mostly encased in clouds and mist but started to come out as we walked

Our first glimpse of some tall mountains and the glacierGizo, contemplating the sturdiness of the bridge versus the velocity of the river

Almost up to the glacier

Glacier, up close

After feeling sufficiently cooled off from the icy breezes coming off the glacier and its river, we headed back into Mestia, past the airport that can only accept flights when the wind isn't too high. Despite the nearly 15 mile hike we had just completed, we were still feeling pretty fresh so we headed up to the Svaneti ethnographic museum, which consisted of a very confused and confusing tour guide and a typical Svan residence (complete with defense tower to protect the clan from raiders).

Maybe a little bit treacherous to climb up to the top level of the defense towers

...but once inside, the view from the defense tower ain't half bad!

Back to the guesthouse at the end of our first full day, we plowed through another huge dinner consisting of lots of food in big quantities of deliciousness before crashing completely and sleeping blissfully. Even after just one day, we felt like the ordeal that was the car trip to Mestia was completely justified!

One thing about Georgia is that it makes you want to be outside. In this spirit, and in preparation for an upcoming trip to Europe on the cheap, we bought ourselves a tent. A quick test run in the yard brought all the children within shouting distance to see, and led to two more setups in the next 24 hours. It was a big hit with our host siblings. Shaen helped put it up (asking lots of questions about who lived in tents and where you could put them), and once Lilit got in, she refused to leave. We eventually dragged her out under protest.

Look! A camera *and* a tent! All at once!

On Wednesday, July 27, Sam and I were invited to the official book release of a book called “Musings on the Cow, and Then Some.” This book was the brainchild of some of the PC Georgia staff and the U.S. Embassy in Georgia and is a compilation of blog posts and photos written and taken by PCVs in Georgia (from the G9 and G10 groups). This year is the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps worldwide and also marks 10 years of the Peace Corps Georgia program.

Inside the Palace of Youth in TbilisiThe blog book (as we all informally called it while it was searching for a title) is really a cool thing. Sam and I had three different blog posts (and lots of pictures) selected for inclusion. We’ll get copies and bring them home to show off to everyone, and if we find that they end up being available elsewhere (pretty unlikely, I think, but they do have an ISBN number, so who knows?), I’ll be sure to let you know. A pretty nice building, no?The launch party for the book was really nice. It was held in the Palace of Youth in Tbilisi, a very cool building that I had walked past several times but never been inside. (It also turns out to be the building in which the Republic of Georgia declared its independence from the Russian Empire in 1918, as well as where the Republic of Azerbaijan did the same in the same year.) The U.S. Ambassador to Georgia, John Bass, attended the event with several Embassy employees. The Ambassador is a really wonderfully nice man and extremely knowledgeable, but also exceptionally busy, so for him to take time out of his schedule to attend an event like this for Peace Corps is always really fantastic, I think.

L-R: Ambassador Bass with his wife, me, my friend Marianna and PC Georgia Country Director, Rick Record Each of the volunteers who contributed to the book were asked to speak a little bit about why they blog and what they write about. Afterwards they distributed books to attendees. Also invited to the event were several Georgian students and some other Tbilisians, who all swarmed us for autographs after the formal part of the evening was completed. It seemed a little funny, but I guess it’s something we’ll have to get used to as published authors.

It's really been turning out to be a supremely busy summer here for us. This is really good, generally, because last summer we had a whole lot of time on our hands as we got the feel of our permanent site, got to know people and got used to not having every second of our time planned for us as we did during training. Now we're the old veterans in Peace Corps Georgia; almost all the G9s have departed for their next adventures (we miss them already!) and the G11s are officially sworn-in volunteers (they seem like they'll be a great group!). The clock on our PC service is slowly ticking down, and now with each remaining day we pass the last of that date we'll spend in Georgia as volunteers. We just finished our last July in Georgia. Today? The last August 1st we'll spend here in this run.

But time is a weird thing. It rushes and yet it still moves slowly sometimes (for instance, we do still have a lot of English classes to teach in the coming year, which will undoubtedly be like molasses in January), but this summer we've been rushing through the days. And since we've been so busy and been working on a lot of different things here recently, we'll have a flurry of posts over the next couple of days--great summer reading for anyone interested in that kind of reading, I guess.

Last week, fully recovered from my bout with food poisoning, I was in Tbilisi working with fellow volunteers Erin, Kelsey and Kaitlyn on a summer camp for kids at the Koda community center. Koda is a small village just outside of Tbilisi that occupies the territory of a former Soviet military base, hastily remodeled to house the people living there. It has a small population, about 2000 people, and almost all of them are IDPs (internally displaced people, almost like refugees, but people who don't cross international borders).

Koda

I posted a little about the IDP situation in Georgia earlier in our blog, but here's a little more info on the situation. Georgia has a large IDP population due to its civil war after the break up of the USSR as well as from the 2008 war with Russia. In this small country of about 4.5 million people, about 300,000 are IDPs. That's nearly ten percent of the population. Forced from their homes and homelands by war, strewn about the country in settlements with others in the same situation.

The people living in Koda are those who were forced to flee their homes in South Ossetia or Abkhazia during the 2008 war. This week-long camp I worked with there was really my first experience talking with Georgian IDPs. It was really incredible, hearing how calmly Madonna, the office assistant at the Koda community center, could talk about how much she misses her gardens and orchards in South Ossetia. Or watching the children play and laugh and act just like normal kids, even though they were forced from their homes when they were just a few years old. It made war and its aftermath seem supremely real and the human impact all the more difficult to justify or accept. At the same time, seeing the normality, watching how life moves on, being able to talk with people about it--the experience made me really see the resilience of people, of the human spirit. And it also made me realize how fortunate people in this community are to have the community center and staff they have, helping them pick up the pieces.

Children in the Koda Community Center

Khatia, the director of the community center, is a godsend for Koda. She has been working round the clock to put together great programs for children and adults in the settlement. The center has training courses for adults in various trades, helping people who worked primarily as farmers hone the skills necessary for jobs or trades in Tbilisi. There are lots of programs for kids, too, teaching the older students about leadership, computers and community service and giving the younger children a place to take music classes or do some art or just play with other kids. Khatia told us that more programs were possible last year because the center had more funding from a larger source, but currently the programs are doing a lot of good and helping out not only through training, retraining and education, but also by providing a lot of psychological assistance. One project Khatia told us about was an art therapy project for some of the younger children, recently completed, but with a follow-up to come. She and the staff at the community center (who are made up of both IDPs and non-IDPs) are really dedicated to helping people to move forward and heal and not be held back by the terrible circumstances that led them to this.

During a rousing game of Pictionary

Khatia was also the main driver of the Koda Children's Week, wherein she organized daily activities for children as a pilot run of a summer camp she'd like to keep organizing in Koda. Our part in the Children's Week festivities seemed relatively small. We met with the children in two groups, of "older" and "younger" kids for about an hour or an hour and a half each day, played games with them, taught them some English, gave presentations about America and just spent some time with them. They laughed at our Georgian, but appreciated when we tried and had a lot of enthusiasm (especially on the days when we brought in candy). Khatia and Madonna and the others at the center made it seem like we had done so much more, though. They kept showering us with thanks and making us feel really appreciated, when really, it was Khatia and her staff at the center that should get the thanks and praise. They do some remarkable work, and it isn't work that I can imagine would be easy to do.

Kids working on projects

...and discussing volunteerism

I'm really hoping that PC Georgia will be able to strike up a more formal relationship with the Koda community center in the future. We had a great experience working with the staff there, which is always encouraging. While my fellow PCVs and I are all planning to travel back to Koda in October (Khatia has organized a crafts fair of all the good produced by the adults in the training programs and has invited us), I think a permanent PCV posted to Koda could do a world of good and have a really positive experience, albeit a very challenging one.

Sam and I spent an unplanned week in Tbilisi right after our parents departure. We went into Tbilisi to see them off to the airport on July 11 and then headed back to Akhalkalaki for some R&R and project work before our next big summer plans and activities. Unfortunately, that week of rest and relaxation got hijacked by sickness.

I got pretty unpleasantly sick the night we returned to site and wasn't any better the next day (Tuesday). We called our PCMOs (Peace Corps Medical Officers, or Dr. Tamriko and Dr. Marina, as we call them) and they told us they wanted us to come in to Tbilisi for check ups to make sure it was nothing. The road isn't exactly a pleasant one to travel on when you're feeling your best, but at your pukiest worst, it's a real doozy. Luckily, they sent a PC vehicle to get us, which limited the bumps and definitely kept the grandmothers carrying large bags of unrefrigerated cheese to the lowest number I've ever had on a Tbilisi trip.

We're really fortunate at our PC post to have fantastic doctors who are, if anything, a little too cautious about our health and who mother us in a way that is really pretty comforting when we're sick so far from home. Drs. Tamriko and Marina took excellent care of me, kept me in Tbilisi for almost a week, and got me all back into shape, so I could tackle all of the projects and plans I have for the summer. Hopefully, with this case of "severe food intoxication" (as they called it) behind me, I can finish up the rest of service without any other issues!

We've had a busy, eventful few weeks since our last post. Just after the end of GLOW camp, my parents and Sam's mom came to Georgia to visit us. We tried to pull together a travel plan that took them to a lot of different, cool places while they were here without completely killing them with too much walking, riding and moving from place to place. (You can talk with them to see if we succeeded or not.)

Sam and I trekked out to the Tbilisi airport to meet our folks from the plane at 2:45am on Monday, July 4. Another volunteer, Alissa, was there too, awaiting her mom and sister, who happened to be on the same plane as our parents. Everyone got in safely, there were lots of hugs all around and all of the suitcases made it with the passengers (at least in our group--Alissa's family wasn't so lucky and had a day delay in claiming their bags). Our first experience in Georgia was getting a cab from the airport, which normally isn't any kind of problem or hassle at all. On this night, it wasn't too much trouble, but our cab driver was in a big hurry to go, so he packed up the trunk and shuffled us into the cab more quickly than things usually go here, all the while shouting at everyone to hurry up in at least 2 different languages that the majority of the people being rushed along didn't understand.

While the travelers were still fairly wired from jet lag and travel buzz, Sam and I immediately crashed back into sleep when we got to the hotel--we got to stay in the Courtyard Marriott in Tbilisi, which is super posh and felt like the finest quality hotel I've ever stayed in (such comfortable beds! An exercise room and pool! Fantastic shower with super great water pressure! Heaven!). A big thanks to my parents for using up their Marriott rewards points and pitching in the moolah to make that happen!

We spent the first three days of our trip in Tbilisi, wandering through the Old Town, going to some of the newly reopened museums, and eating delicious Georgian food at every opportunity. We rented out a private room in one of the sulphur baths to help ease out the kinks from longs hours of airplane travel and we took a day trip into the old capital of Georgia, Mtskheta.

On Wednesday night, we took a midnight train across Georgia to the Black Sea coast town of Batumi. We spent most of Thursday relaxing on the rocky beach, then went to the Botanical Gardens at the perfect time to watch the sun sink slowly over the sea. It was gorgeous, and I really think some of the views there are up there on my list of prettiest vistas.

About midday on Friday, we packed up again to head back to the middle of the country, to the Borjomi region to visit with our very first host family in Kortaneti. It was in Kortaneti that our parents got their first real taste of Georgia; Maia and Zurab (and all the neighbors) had the table all set for a supra. There was a lot of eating, toasting, drinking, laughing, talking, translating, and pushing to eat more and more throughout the night. It was really something that, although we've explained the supra to people and talked about it here in our blog, you really have to experience getting supra-ed to understand it. The hospitality and the genuine joy at having guests and the effort that goes into preparing the spread... it's hard to do justice to it all in words.

On Saturday, we spent some time wandering around Borjomi park, riding the cable-car gondola up to the top of the hill for some better views, riding the ferris wheel for an even higher-up vantage point, and hiking back down. We then set off to the south, in the direction of our permanent site, nestled between the borders of Turkey and Armenia. Since we were passing, and since any traveler to Georgia with the time should see it, we stopped at Vardzia, the 12th century cave city in our backyard. It was hot as we hiked up the hill to get to the caves, but the general consensus was that it was worth the toil. We came back down the hill through the tunnels and winding "stairways," which brought us ever so close to being disowned by our parents. Although we had assured them that the way down wasn't too difficult, they begged to differ. All survived in one piece, though, and at the end everyone was glad to look back up at what we had just done and exclaim at how "we were up there! And we made it back down alive!" So I'll just paraphrase everything else and say a good time was had by all.

After a long day of lots of hiking and climbing and driving (including a climb in the car up to the top of the plateau, to an elevation of about 1600 meters), we arrived at site, to our host family's house in Akhalkalaki. Although there are hotels in town, our host family insisted that it would be fine and more comfortable and easier and nicer for all if we all just stayed with them at their house. You really could say that for their last two days in Georgia, our folks got a chance to really see what our experience here has been like. We were again treated to lots of amazing food and drink (this time with more of an Armenian twist--no khachapuri, but lots and lots of dolma). During our time in Akhalkalaki, it was more about visiting (and being treated to an ever increasing amount of various foods and sweets and drinks) than site-seeing, which took its toll and tired us all out in a very different kind of way.

On Monday the 11th, we took our last long journey across Georgia all together, this time in the form of a marshrutka (mini-bus) ride to Tbilisi. We ate some last Georgian foods, bought some souvenir wine and then packed our parents into a taxi back to the airport. Then we headed back to site to unwind and settle back into our summer routine, grateful to our parents for making the trip, for putting up with our long and winding itinerary, for their patience in trying different foods and dealing with different languages and translations, for their generosity in taking us out to some nicer meals and hotels and sites than we usually manage and for all of their love and support that makes it possible for us to go off on such wild adventures. Thank you!

(And for those of you wanting pictures from this trip, you'll have to put pressure on the parentals... Sam and I gave our shutters a rest, since the three of them were snapping away. Or, do Moms or Dad want to do a guest post about your reactions to the trip and to show off some of your pictures?)

I spent last week in the Kakheti village of Apeni working as a counselor with four other PCVs and 4 Georgian college students to oversee 28 Georgian girls, aged 13-16, for a 4-day camp called Girls Leading Our World (GLOW). GLOW is an international Peace Corps initiative that had been active in Georgia prior to the 2008 August war. My fellow PCVs were really motivated to get it restarted and have been extremely successful in their efforts. I am extremely proud to have been able to work with such talented volunteers on such a great project.

In the village of Apeni

The idea of GLOW camp is to give girls opportunities to learn leadership and teamwork skills, talk about gender roles and gender issues in their lives, study some basic health topics, and exercise. In the mix is a lot of fun and a whole lot of silliness. Everyone learned a lot and the girls made a lot of new friends.

Girls working on a "Team Flag" for my small group

Playing "Human Knot" as an ice breaker for the teamwork session

Listening attentively to one of the opening presentations

We started each day off with an hour of exercise, with each counselor leading a different "class." Heather taught yoga, Lauren took the girls running and played some running games with them, Samantha also led some games and walked with the girls and I led a class we called circuit training, which was fairly similar to what I do with my women's fitness club. After exercising, we met as a large group for an opening, where our Georgian counselor-counterparts gave short presentations on famous and successful Georgian women. Then we broke into small groups to discuss topics like peer education, hygiene, gender roles, leadership, etc. On Thursday morning we had a guest lecturer from a women's health NGO in Tbilisi, HERA XXI, come to talk with the girls about women's health, puberty and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. Georgian schools don't include health education in the curriculum, so it's very hard to get reliable information on these types of topics, especially in villages. At lunch time, a local woman made tons of khatchapuri and lobiani and we ate cucumber and tomato salad before heading back for more sessions. In the evenings, we met back up for fun activities, like a scavenger hunt, talent show and dance party.

The talent show was a big hit!

I wasn't involved in any of the planning for GLOW, but just came in for the actual event to help lead one of the small groups (we broke the girls into 4 small groups to facilitate discussions when we weren't in the large group). The PCVs who did the planning (Kelsey, Heather, Samantha and Lauren) had been working on setting things in motion for the better part of a year. EVERYTHING was so well planned that I had no trouble stepping immediately into the role of counselor with no planning on my part. Each counselor was paired with a Georgian counselor counterpart (4 terrific girls who are all studying at Tbilisi State University). We worked as a team to lead conversations and discussions in our small groups, and our Georgian counterparts were hugely important to getting everything translated, clearing up questions and making discussion possible. Also, they were just really cool girls.

Writing compliments to one another during the self-esteem session

By the end of the week, when it was time to head home, our campers were begging us to stay longer, to add extra days to camp, exchanging phone numbers and email addresses and promising to friend one another on Facebook. We took that as a good sign that camp was a success. But even though GLOW was wonderful and went very smoothly, it wasn't nearly the kind of camp initially envisioned by the PCVs planning it.

Prior to the war, GLOW Georgia had been a big affair--more than a week long with 80 campers staying at an all-inclusive campground/conference facility of sorts, drawing in guest speakers like the First Lady of Georgia. GLOW in Armenia is similarly large scale and big budget. Our four PCVs shot for the moon in their restart attempt and were ready on the organizational end for such a big endeavor. Unfortunately, though, the funding just didn't come through. GLOW had previously been funded through U.S. Embassy grant money in Georgia (and continues to be thus funded in other countries frequently), so our PCVs were advised that they shouldn't have any problem also receiving funding. But cuts in U.S. foreign aid and changes in priorities for channeling aid money meant that GLOW's hopes were almost extinguished.

Thank goodness for the persistence and creativity of Peace Corps Volunteers.

Samantha, Heather, Kelsey and Lauren were not about to give up when their funding attempts fell through. They kept at it, writing different grant proposals, tweaking the schedule, cutting the size and length of the camp until it was finally possible to pull it all together.

Heather and Maka getting one of the large sessions startedWe had 28 campers who came to the village of Apeni. 9 of the girls were from Apeni itself and hosted other girls from other parts of Kakheti in a homestay-sleepover type of setting. Their homestays were each paid a small stipend per girl and were expected to feed the girls breakfast and dinner each day. The camp itself was held from 9:00am--10:00pm at the school in Apeni. We bought lunch and had it at the school each day. The initial grant would have covered housing the campers and counselors in a campground facility that would have taken care of food and everything else needed. It would have also allowed us to include girls from a wider portion of the country. As it stood though, the grant the they finally received was about a tenth of that originally requested, so homestays were necessary. In order to keep the camp completely free for the campers, we could only accept girls from Kakheti region (otherwise, transportation costs for bringing the girls would have spiraled out of control and above budget). The grant that ended up funding GLOW was a real life saver and allowed the camp to happen, but was more limited than the ones originally hoped for.

Lots of talented girls performed during the talent show

The PCVs working at the camp stayed with Kelsey at her host family's house, a half mile walk from the school. That doesn't seem too far away until you deal with walking back and forth several times over the course of the day in 90-degree+ heat carrying odds and ends of camp equipment. We weren't allowed to use any of the grant money we received to pay for anything for ourselves, so our transportation to Apeni, our food, and anything we needed for the week we funded ourselves. We were also sad that we couldn't use funds from this particular grant to get the girls t-shirts or some other giveaways (and really we wouldn't have had enough money for it anyway). But even though we had to pay to work at the camp, the girls (and our fantastic Georgian counterparts) all got to attend for free. Also, the main goal to restart this excellent girls' leadership camp in Georgia after a 3-year hiatus has been achieved, which is the most important thing for now.

GLOW was a huge success, even with its budget constraints, slashed numbers and shortened program. Right now we all are taking a big deep breath and sigh of relief that it's all wrapped up and finished for this year, but soon we'll start planning again for next year's event. Hopefully the base we've built this year will make it possible to go bigger and grander next year!

Last weekend, Sam and I traveled to the east of Georgia, to the region of Kakheti, to visit some other volunteers and see a part of the country we hadn't yet made it to. There's a pretty strong concentration of G9 PCVs in Kakheti, since it is one of two regions in close proximity to Tbilisi that was opened for hosting volunteers when the PC Georgia program reopened almost a year after the August 2008 war. (Most of the regions in Georgia are now reopened to host volunteers, excepting, of course, the conflict areas of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and a few regions that directly border these conflict zones. PC Georgia is super cautious for PCV safety, so we still have certain travel restrictions in place that seem odd sometimes to Georgians because things are so calm now.)

We stayed with two great G9s, Heather and Jeff, in Kakheti's biggest town, Telavi. I was really excited to finally be going to Telavi, which all you fans of Soviet movies know from the hit movie Mimino. I especially like this scene. If you haven't seen Mimino, you should watch it. It's pretty good and available on YouTube with English subtitles here.

Me, Heather and Jeff in Telavi

We were lucky to pick this specific weekend to visit Kakheti. When we first got in to town, we learned that G9 Barbara had decided to celebrate her final birthday in Georgia in style. She and the other PCVs were in the middle of cooking a big, American dinner for all the volunteers to share. They made grilled, marinated chicken, salad with blue cheese dressing, biscuits, flourless chocolate torte with caramel sauce, sangria... it was overwhelmingly delicious. By scouring the western-style supermarkets in Tbilisi, they had even managed to find fixings for s'mores, which we somehow or other managed to consume, despite the feast we'd just enjoyed.

PCVs living the life

Sam, with his triumphant s'more

The next day, we got up and took a marshrutka to a nearby town, Kvareli, where another PCV, Johnny, has spent his two plus years of service working with a winery, to take a tour and do some tasting at said winery. You can watch a short Peace Corps video that highlights Johnny's work here or you can go and see him talk about his experiences live and in person at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, DC, which will be featuring the Peace Corps this year. Seriously, if you're in DC, go to the Folklife Festival (June 30-July 4 then again from July 7-11)! It was always one of my favorite summer activities in DC. If you see Johnny, tell him Melissa sent you.

But, side notes and plugs for the Folklife Festival now done, let's get back to our trip!

We got into Kvareli a little early for the winery tour, so Sam and I had time to check out the Ilia Chavchavadze museum. The highlight, besides the swarms of school children on a tour, was the family's defense tower, where Ilia was actually born because the family had to take shelter there during a raid (by Dagestanis, possibly from Lezgin tribes).

Sam, outside the Chavchavadze Family's Defense Tower, watching out for raiders

Inside the family's wine cellar

The museum's grounds were beautiful

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this was not here in Ilia's day.

Later, we took our winery tour. Johnny likes to point out that his winery's namesake wine, the Kindzmarauli, was Stalin's favorite wine, which he ordered specifically from this winery. (Some of you lucky family members that got a bottle of wine from Georgia when we were home for Emily and John's wedding got just this wine!) We tasted a lot of wines and then had a short tour of the gift shop to allow the G9 PCVs to buy wine to take home when they finish service either later this month or next month. We topped the day off with loads of yummy Georgian food from the winery's restaurant before heading back to Telavi for a sleepy, hot, summer afternoon doze.

The Kindzmarauli Winery

Johnny, being a great tour guide

The Kindzmarauli winery is working on a project to start using ancient wine making techniques in kvevri, like those pictured below (currently they use only modern technologies for wine making)

Johnny, pouring out wine for the tastings

PCVs waiting patiently for their taste

One of the items for sale in the gift shop, chacha "for real men"

We capped the weekend off with a movie viewing session. We watched the movie Five Days of War (alternately called Five Days of August), which is all about the August 2008 war. It was really a pretty terrible movie (what the heck is wrong with Val Kilmer these days? I swear he just showed up drunk and ad-libbed his way through this one) but has some beautiful shots of Georgia and some really kitschy portrayals of Georgian culture. At any rate, this movie is supposedly being released in theaters in the U.S. in August, so watch for it (or just read the review that Eurasianet.org wrote about it)! It might not be worth the price of a movie ticket in America these days, but if you do go see it (if it is in fact released in America), maybe you can explain what the heck Val Kilmer is doing. Seriously.

We finished up our first school year in Peace Corps! We are quickly closing in on the one-year-of-service-left mark and it feels a little surprising and out of the blue to be already DONE with year one of school and to have been here now for way more than one year. Of course, these feelings of shock at how quickly it's all gone have been slightly influenced by the way in which our first Georgian school year all ended: three days earlier than we had planned.

School was supposed to let out on June 15, and teachers were supposed to continue going to school until the 17th or the 20th, depending on the school or who you asked. Everyone kept assuring us that we would indeed continue to hold classes and go, even if all we found there was the end-of-the-school-year party atmosphere that American schools also encounter as the weather warms. More seasoned PCVs, on the other hand, assured us that this wouldn't happen. That sooner or later the kids would mysteriously stop showing up for class and we would no longer have to plan lessons or teach classes.

We were skeptical of both sources, however. We doubted that we'd continue to have serious classes in school, since already through the end of May and beginning of June, certain classes would, as a group, somehow fail to show up for an English class held late in the day if the weather was nice. We also wondered about the PCV scoop, though, since our kids continued coming to school fairly consistently through the end of May and beginning of June (the occasional disappearing class excepted). So even though we'd had fair warning that maybe things would end abruptly, it still took us a little by surprise to in fact wrap up our final school days on June 10. I even missed the last day of school because I had to be in Tbilisi for meetings! Anticlimactic to the max (but, as I said, I'm not complaining)!

So now we've been on summer vacation for the past week or so. No alarms, not too much set-in-stone on the schedule front, fruit reappearing at the bazaar, salads reappearing on the dinner table... it's the life.

But what will we be doing with ourselves during summer vacation, you might ask? Officially, as Peace Corps Volunteers, we are still expected to stay at site and continue to work on community integration and secondary projects. We're "on the clock" 24/7 and they want us to be helping work on summer camps or other groups, clubs or projects throughout the summer months as well, especially on those projects that eat up too much time during the school to implement. PCVs accumulate 2 vacation days per month, and Education Volunteers aren't allowed to take off too much time during the school year, so a lot of volunteers do end up traveling some during the summer. But for right now, Sam and I are keeping busy enough that we can't really focus too much on vacationing.

First up on my plate is some grant writing for a project I'd like to implement in conjunction with my women's fitness club. More details on that as things (fingers crossed!) come to fruition. I continue to meet three (or sometimes four) times a week with these great girls and women and continue to be impressed and amazed at how dedicated they have been to the club.

Later this week, on Thursday to be exact, Sam will travel to Tbilisi to take the GRE for (hopefully) the last time. Even though he previously took the GRE and got good enough scores to go to Georgetown for an MA, then acquired said MA, he still has to retake the stupid test in order to apply for PhD programs. If that testing process ain't a racket, I don't know what is. At any rate, he'll be taking the GRE at a testing center in the capital and then launch into the application process to start a PhD in Anthropology when we return stateside (or so is the plan as it stands right now).

Next week, I'll be helping out as a counselor for a girls' leadership camp that some other volunteers have organized called GLOW-- Girls Leading Our World. The camp will be held in Kakheti, a region of Georgia to the east, and will have about 30 girls ages 13-16. It's really exciting to be helping out with this camp; in 2007 the PCVs in Georgia had a pretty big deal with this camp, only to have their 2008 edition canceled due to the 2008 August war. I'm really glad that our fellow PCVs have been able to resurrect this great program, and proud to be helping out.

On July 2, Sam will take part in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Tbilisi (I'll still be tied up with GLOW camp, so can't participate). It will be the third year (I think) for the Race in Tbilisi and should be a great event. Maybe Sam will get to meet the First Lady of Georgia, who's rumored to be participating.

Following that, on July 4 my parents and Sam's mom will be coming to Georgia for a visit! We're putting together the schedule of things to see, things to do and things to eat. Hopefully we'll keep them entertained and not overwhelm them too much!

After that, we've got some other projects--summer camps, other possible grant proposals or projects to prep for and work on--that will keep us busy for a while. We're hoping to do some sightseeing around Georgia, do some more hikes and some camping and maybe after all that do an international trip to use up some more of our vacation days. In short, even though it's summer, we'll be trying our best not to be idle for too long. Of course, some idleness might not be too bad...

The weather has been getting better and better in Akhalkalaki. The days have been mostly cooperative in terms of their rain schedules and it's been perfect for running lately. We don't get as warm here as in the rest of Georgia, so it's still sometimes cool in the morning, which makes for a nice run. The bulk of the spring rain we've been getting has come in the afternoon or evening, so Sam and I have been able to get our 3 miles in most days. And, based on our host sister's get-up yesterday, it looks like she might be just about ready to start pounding the pavement with us!

Lilit has started taking a bigger liking to Sam's running shoes than my slippers

I was in Borjomi a few days this week to help with training for the 2011 group of trainees. After Friday’s session, Melissa and I met up with fellow volunteer Lacey to fulfill a plan we’ve been working on for a while – a hike up to Sapara monastery, in the mountains near the regional center of Akhaltsikhe. We’d heard good things about it, enough to make us brave a 12-mile round trip walk into the mountains on a day with heavy rain predicted. We set off in late morning with some lobiani, churchkhela, and fruit for a picnic, and after walking through a few villages, we came up to some beautiful views of the Akhaltsikhe valley.

It was sunny and hot, and, though the storm clouds were looming, we made good time and came around a bend to see Sapara:

It’s a place in which I think it would be easy to contemplate God and his works. The church of St. Saba was actually my favorite of those I’ve seen so far in Georgia. Maybe it was partly the walk up, maybe the quiet and the green all around, maybe the frescoes that seemed to me a little more alive than most I’ve seen, but it all added up to the perfect place of worship.

Hobbits like the place too, apparently.

After spending some time in the dim cool of the stone church, we scrambled up past the monks’ beehives to a ruined fortress on top of the hill before coming back down for lunch on the grass. We set off homework around 2:15, the clouds gathering ominously. About a mile down the road, a taxi bearing a single tourist rolled past us, and we didn’t have the presence of mind to flag it down. We joked that, 5 rainy miles later, we’d be sorry we missed it. Good joke. It started pouring as we crested the ridge and headed back down into the valley where Akhaltsikhe huddled under a downpour. We tromped and slid through the rain and rocks and mud and made it back down to the first villages just about the time the sun came out. Even with the rain, we would have done it again. Sunday was a good day to be at home, since it was the first khorovats – barbecue – of the season. Armenian-style summer barbecue is pork roasted on skewers, along with peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants which are blackened on the outside then peeled and served as something almost like a stew to go along with the meat, all to be picked up with and rolled inside the ubiquitous lavash. A great early-summer meal, especially finished off with ice cream.

And it really is starting to feel like summer – well, spring, at least – here in Akhalkalaki. The trees are blooming, the snow is almost gone off all but the highest mountains, and everything is greener than we’ve yet seen it. Not a bad time to be in the mountains.

For much of this past week, I was in Ozurgeti, a city in the west of Georgia, working with my fellow, awesome PCVs to host a women's health fair called Celebrating Healthy Women. The first such fair was hosted by volunteers in 2007, and a great group of G9 volunteers hosted a second fair in June 2010 in Rustavi, a city just outside of Tbilisi. These ladies hosted a great event and we in the G10 group wanted to keep CHW going. The G9s gave us lots of tips and advice, shared their contact list of health organizations in Georgia and all came to lend a hand on the day of the fair. We tried our best this Saturday to follow in their footsteps and host our own successful 2011 CHW fair.

Opening of the health fair!

Our main organizer was one of our BSE (Business and Social Entrepreneurship Program, which primarily works with different NGOs in Georgia) volunteers. Lacey, who lives in Ozurgeti (Oz, as she likes to call it) works with an organization that was the main sponsor and cooperating partner for the fair. Lacey (with some help from some other volunteers and me) wrote a grant and received funding through VAST (Volunteer Activities Support and Training, a grant program funded by PEPFAR, the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), to put on the fair. We held the fair at Lacey's organization's offices, where we had informational booths set up in the courtyard, presentations going on in the main presentation room and the theater and doctors appointments and consultations being carried out. Lacey's organization also gave us additional funding so that we could purchase give-away items (a no-no, non-reimbursable item under the VAST grant).

While we worked on the Health Fair pretty consistently from January on, the final big push for confirming the participation of organizations, purchasing materials, coordinating doctors to donate their time and services, advertising and pulling everything together took place all May. I went to Oz on Wednesday, lugging lots of stuff and ready to help get even more together. Lacey and I spent one whole day scouring the bazaar to buy soap, toothbrushes and combs to put in giveaway bags (which we planned to use to make sure attending women would fill out our short monitoring forms so we could get a head count and have some basic statistics for the event's final report). We spent another day making our gift bags, folding programs, ordering food and flowers and other necessaries and writing out our opening and closing speeches.

We bought 200 bottles of nail polish...

...and 200 combs

...and 200 toothbrushes and 200 bars of soap

Then we cleaned everything up and packed them into little gift bags

On Saturday the weather was beautiful (a big relief, given the plan to have the informational booths in the courtyard!) and we had 9 great health organizations show up to distribute information and pamphlets and talk to women about their specific health focuses. Six doctors donated their time and expertise to provide free consultations to women about prenatal care, raising healthy children and gynecological issues and to check eyesight and hearing. The presentation topics ranged from HIV/AIDS awareness and statistics, age-related health issues for women, giving self breast-exams, and reproductive health.

Final set up moments

The doctors' appointment signup table was pretty hopping as soon as we opened the doors

One of the informational booths

Doctors' consultations took place in several rooms in the offices

Women checking out the informational booths

We got a huge crowd of other PCVs to help keep order and run the event, and also had a crew of 30 schoolchildren from Ozurgeti who volunteered to help out as well (these kids were great; they are all participants in a youth leadership school that Lacey's organization runs and she held trainings with them ahead of time to teach the kids about the importance of community involvement and volunteering). The student volunteers were really helpful and enthusiastic and seemed to really enjoy getting all of the health information, which was a nice side benefit of their participation.

I staffed the "check your BMI" station for a little while

One of the presentations in the theater

Another presentation in the large presentation room

We were extremely happy about how everything worked out on the organizational front and were prepared for a completely successful event. We didn't get quite the turnout we were hoping for--I think our final count was somewhere around 90 attendees--but those who did come got a lot of useful information and seemed to really enjoy the fair. The concept of a fair is pretty foreign here, so that was clearly a challenge to overcome. Additionally, a lot of people here tend to be pretty afraid of doctors and of receiving bad health news. Lastly, a lot of the topics we covered are pretty difficult to talk about in this conservative culture, so that could have discouraged some from attending. We'll be regrouping and reevaluating the direction the Celebrating Healthy Women fairs should take in the future. For now, though, we're all happy to have finished up and pulled everything off. We'll do our final evaluations and reports after taking a short break to relax.

Me and Lacey, both making ridiculous faces, but the only picture I have on my camera of the two of us at the event. Hooray for a completed project!

May has been busy, busy, busy for us! A big part of what we have been doing has been helping out with PST for the G11s. (For those of you not yet thoroughly indoctrinated into PC lingo, that's Pre-Service Training for the new group of volunteers in Georgia, the country's 11 such group of volunteers. Sam and I are G10s, because we came with the 10th group of volunteers to Georgia. We just happen to be lucky enough in Georgia to have our arrival years and group numbers match.)

The G11s arrived in Georgia about 12 hours before Sam and I made it back after my sister's wedding. They arrived on the nice, civilized 4pm flight, whereas we got in at 2am. As we were a year before, the new volunteers were greeted at the airport by the Georgian press and the U.S. Ambassador to Georgia, as well as a crew of Peace Corps staff members to help shepherd them through and collect their bags. They had 3 days of orientation and vaccinations in Tbilisi before departing for PST, which is being held in the same region this year as our training was held last year. Now the PCTs (they don't get to be officially called PCVs until they have their swearing-in ceremony in the middle of July; until then, they're still Trainees) are in their "clusters," having daily language classes, technical training, practicum, some additional vaccines, safety and security training, health training and more other types of training than you'd ever like to read about (or go through, most likely).

Last year, during our training, we were pretty much busy and occupied and crazy every second of every day. We didn't have too much time to think about how the wizard made things work, but were amazed at how smoothly everything ran when we did pause to look up. This year, we get to see inside the machine a bit more, and have an even greater appreciation for how much work the PC Georgia staff put in to making PST possible.

G9 and G10 volunteers have been helping out with PST, attending technical sessions or sessions on safety and security or health or one of the other many topics I promised not to list in full detail. We try to give first-hand input that goes beyond what staff can tell trainees, and try to answer questions based on the experiences we have had. I thought it was indescribably valuable to have G9s help us out during our training, so I definitely wanted to help with whatever I could. Sam and I sent in various application forms to Tengo, our PC Training Manager, offering to help in various ways. We were both chosen to present at "technical sessions," me to talk to Trainees about lesson planning and Sam to talk about summer camps and non-formal education opportunities, to supplement the information the Technical Trainers present. I went to Borjomi to hold my lesson planning sessions at the start of May, and Sam's will be at the end of this month and beginning of the next.

Then last week, I got the opportunity to "mentor" Trainees in the village of Tezeri. I watched them all lesson plan and teach a lesson with their counterpart, then gave feedback and talked with them about classroom and planning experiences I've had in Georgia. I stayed with them for about a day and a half and had a great time talking with them, getting to know some of them a bit and sharing my two cents.

This week, Sam and I took part in PST "Job Shadowing," wherein two PCTs came to Akhalkalaki from their training village to live a few days in our shoes. They stayed with us at our host family's house, followed along as we lesson planned with our counterparts, sat in on our lessons and came to our after-school clubs. I loved job shadowing during PST because it gave me such a good picture of what to expect and really encouraged me try to do as many projects as possible and make the most of my time in Peace Corps. (We had an incredible couple to shadow; if you're interested in seeing some of what they've done, you can check out their blog here.) I can't say for certain what our PCTs thought, but hopefully their shadowing experience was as helpful as ours was last year!

It is interesting to be on this year-plus, veteran side of things in our PC service. We try to balance out the positives and the negatives when talking with the new trainees. Sometimes we all worry that we're being too negative and that maybe that just has to do with the long-term culture shock downswing we all hit just around and after the one-year mark (something we learned all about during our training!). I really do appreciate having the new trainees around, though, because it really has helped pick up my mood to hear them talk about how much they love khachapuri or how beautiful the scenery is starting to get or how wonderfully helpful and patient a host parent has been. I can also have a nice weathered-veteran laugh at their problems dealing with squat toilets or infrequent showers or not being able to communicate enough to refuse food. I remember how much the G9s helped us when we first came, but now I'm starting to feel like (hopefully), our arrival helped them out as well. I know the G11s have already helped me take a fresh look around myself with new eyes.

Now we're winding down May and looking forward to the summer. We'll still have some projects and keep ourselves occupied this summer, but it'll be nice to have a little more downtime (and hopefully, more sunshine and warmer temperatures) soon!

Last weekend, Sam and I were invited on a hiking trip in the Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park, near to where we had our Pre-Service Training and currently about a 2 hour mini-bus ride away. Our friend, Gizo, had been trying to plan this hiking trip for the better part of the year and weather or work kept intervening to cancel his plans. Even though the forecast called for rain and cold, he decided that the trip had been put off too long. He and his friend were going, rain or shine, and we were welcome to join if we wanted. Sam and I had been wanting to hike in the park and even though the weather gave us doubts, we decided to go for it.

Happy hikers

We met up in the city of Borjomi and bought our last provisions before going to the park's administration office, where we got maps, rented some sleeping bags (the ones we have from Peace Corps are gigantic and weigh at least like 15 pounds, so we decided not to take those) and hoped that the rain would slacken or cease before we actually started out on the trail. Our plan was to hike along trail number one for 15 kilometers, climbing from 800 meters of elevation to 1800 meters, where we would find a cottage to stay the night. On day two (Sunday), we would take trail one back to the intersection with trail 6, climb back down the mountain, and then depart our separate ways after the 13km hike.

This little guy marked the start of Trail 1

The intersection of trails 1 and 6

It was drizzling when we got to the ranger station and walked along the service road to the trailhead. After an unplanned river crossing right at the start, though, where we all got a little wet (Sam especially), the weather started to brighten and the rain stopped. We ended up with a pretty nice day for a hike.

Sam had to change socks after stepping into the road-turned-river right at the start

But then things cleared up for the hike

We had lots of pretty views as we climbed

The mountain meadows that opened up here and there were sprouting flowers

We came across this remnant of some past industrial pursuit in the middle of the forest after lunch

Getting closer to the top

More pretty flowers

Once we started climbing higher, we could tell that we might be in for a cold night and were glad to remember that the nice park administration lady told us that there was a load of firewood waiting for us at the cottage at the top. We saw some remnants of snow as we got higher up and as evening approached, we started getting some really eerie fog rolling in.

There was dream-like fog as the evening came on

We made it to the top of the mountain in about 6 hours or so, stopping for lunch and some breaks along the way. A small group of fellow park enthusiasts passed us on horses and were pretty confused as to why we would climb the mountain on foot when we could have rented horses to do the work for us. Just before reaching the cottage, we passed a group of 4 men, 3 sheets to the wind, riding 2 horses and managing only 1 near-fall from their mounts. We didn't really think too much of it until we reached the shelter, when we discovered that our promised firewood had been mostly used or scattered by the apparently raucous party that we could still smell throughout the cottage and its surrounding areas.

Reaching our shelter/cottage after a long slog to the top

Trying not to be too discouraged, feeling pretty awed at the amazing views and nicely worn out and tired from our slog to the top, we set about gathering up what wood was left behind by the just-departed drunken partiers and what other downed wood and kindling we could find that was dry enough to use. The cottage had a small pechi (a small, metal, wood-burning stove) and there was something of a fire pit near the picnic shelter where we could have a good ol' mtsvadi (fatty pork, skewered and cooked) roast. After eating our well deserved feast, we all collapsed in our sleeping bags on the not-really-beds-but-just-planks-of-wood bunk beds and slept contentedly.

Not too shabby a view from our shelter, eh?

Men making a fire for the mtsvadi

I think we all were awoken by pounding rain a few times during the night, which was a slightly worrying sign, but we were all exhausted, so we just rolled over and hugged our sleeping bags closer and went back to sleep. When we woke, it was still pouring. We went about stretching our stiff necks and sore legs, eating breakfast and packing our bags, hoping that the rain would let up so we could make it off the mountain. We coaxed the fire back up and the room slowly warmed and eventually the pounding rain stopped, but that was just because the rain had switched to big, fat snowflakes. After a while we decided we couldn't wait any more and that we'd just have to test out our rain gear. The rain/snow only held up for the first 40 minutes or so, and we did manage to stay mostly dry. We made good time getting back to the point where our trail number 1 connected with trail number 6, the way we'd decided to descend.

Snow in mid-May. Lovely.

Thank god the rain stopped by the time we made it to trail 6. It was a pretty steady downhill, but we had been warned by our park administrator friend that there was at least one kilometer of very difficult, very steep downhill that we'd have to face. She neglected to tell us that this was putting things far too mildly and that this downhill was in fact like loose gravel and dirt on a nearly vertical cliff face. We slid, slipped, grabbed at branches and trees and roots and anything we could to keep upright, but mostly found that sliding along almost on our butts was about the best approach to some parts.

Is Sam the only hiker to hike with an umbrella? Maybe, but it was a good idea considering Sunday's weather

Even though Sunday was a downhill day, we still had some slight uphills to work through

This picture doesn't do nearly a good enough job showing how steep this hill was. When we finished this steep part, we thought we had finished the "very difficult, very steep" descent, but the worst was still to come.

Right before posing for this shot, Sam told me that if any of us lost our balance and fell, we needed to maintain enough composure to remember to shout "As you wish!" while falling

We were rewarded for our work and the absurdity of it, though, by some gorgeous views (not on the steep slopes, though. There, we were only trying not to look around too much to avoid seeing just how far we could fall). The valley down below was filled with beautiful meadows and riverbanks and views of the cliffs we had just climbed down from. We finally reached the park exit and learned that we weren't too far off from an old church. Since the weather had fully cleared and we were feeling exhilirated by not falling and rolling down the side of the mountain, we decided to climb up and look at the church.

Almost to the end of our hiking trip, but the gorgeous views continued

We made it down, safe and sound and still smiling

We made it out! This is also an entrance to the park, but I wouldn't recommend taking trail 6 back up the mountain

If I had to name the thing Georgians know how to do best, I think I'd probably have to go with siting churches and monasteries. They always find the most beautiful, most difficult to reach, most incredibly awe-inspiring locales for their holy places. You'd probably have to be pretty motivated to go to church at some of these places (scaling a mountain every Sunday for service would get old quickly), but once you were there it would be hard not to be inspired.

Headed up to the church, we passed this tree. People tie pieces of cloth or plastic around tree branches for a prayer or wish when they visit

Our extra little hike up to the church had some uphills, too

Even leading up to the church, we knew it was worth it to hike up the extra hill

There were a bunch of goats near the church

The view from just outside the church was spectacular

We reached the church after scaling a not inconsiderable hill

The inside of the church, filled with icons

The main door of the church

Everyone was good and worn out after our 2-day adventure

Although we were all really tired after our 2-day, 28km hike, we were all a little sad to be parting ways. We all hope to do another hike together soon! (And if any of you readers are hikers, you should definitely think about a trip to Georgia sometime for possibly the best hiking and most beautiful nature scenes you can find.)

Almost back home, we were tired but happy with the weekend (doesn't Sam look happy?)

We hit the one-year-in-Georgia mark on April 28th, and though I wanted (and planned) to write a great summarizing account of that first year, I missed the mark by a few weeks. As most of you reading this blog know, Sam and I went home from April 17-April 26 for my sister's wedding. We had a great time, though too short a visit. Somehow, even though we were only gone 10 days, when we got back to Georgia we were up to our eyeballs in jet lag and work. So my big, exciting PC-Georgia-by-the-numbers recollection of our first year got shelved. It may be a little late and not quite as grand as I hoped, but here's a recapitulation of what we've done, what we've seen and what we've learned (in numbers) in year one.

-10,000 residents in Akhalkalaki (give or take) -6066 frequent flier miles gained on a flight from DC to Tbilisi-5178 new acronyms introduced to us by Peace Corps (or thereabouts)-4500 calories consumed (at least) every day during the New Year's celebrations-770 students at the Russian school where Melissa teaches-705 pictures taken by Melissa so far this year-530 miles run and recorded on my Garmin running watch -414 days left in our Peace Corps Service (from today)-400 students at the Armenian school where Sam teaches-378 days of Peace Corps Training and Service completed (up to today)-365 days between our first passport stamp for Georgia and the most recent one (4/28/10 we arrived in Tbilisi and 4/28/11 we returned after Emily's wedding)-100 total volunteers in Georgia currently (G9, G10 and G11 groups)-100 tetris in every Georgian lari-73 days spent in Pre-Service Training before departing for our permanent site-62 blog posts about our experiences written and shared with you brave readers-50 years of Peace Corps worldwide-41 attendees for my largest Women's Fitness Club meeting thus far-39 letters in the Armenian alphabet-37 days (on average) that packages have taken to get to us-33 letters in the Georgian alphabet-31 volunteers who arrived with us in Georgia-15 khachapuris and lobianis baked (and consumed) for my birthday-15 cities and villages visited in Georgia (for overnight trips)-10 years of Peace Corps in Georgia-10 pumpkins purchased and carried around Tbilisi in preparation for our big Thanksgiving bash-8 language clubs Sam and I host each week (combined)-6 cups of tea (on average) we consume every day-5 hours for us to get from Akhalkalaki to Tbilisi on the old road -4 hours of language classes, Monday through Saturday, during Pre-Service Training-4 Peace Corps trainings attended (Pre-service training, In-Service Training, Project and Design Management Training and Health Lifestyles Training of Trainers)-4 McDonalds in Georgia (and more are apparently in the works)-3 hours for us to get from Akhalkalaki to Tbilisi on the new road (yay new road!)-3 alphabets and languages learned and studied and used-3 host families lived with (2 in Akhalkalki and 1 in Kortaneti)-3 main goals of Peace Corps-2 attendees for the Women's Fitness Club when it got started (and for the first several weeks of existence)-1.68 Georgian Lari in every dollar at today's exchange rate-0 Starbucks in Georgia :(-0 days we could have lasted as volunteers without all of your support and the support of all the great people we've met here!

That's the short summary, by the numbers, of our year. We'll try to keep up the blog posts and the stories (and the picture-taking) into year two!

Attending events of cultural importance in the pouring rain sounds like Calvin's dad trying to build character, but I had a lot of fun this weekend (a long one, thanks to WWII Victory Day), in spite of the rain.

On Friday my 12th grade class invited me to celebrate Tsaraton with them. It's a folk holiday whose origins are vague but seem to be connected with 7 martyrs killed on a mountaintop. On this day, pregnant women aren't allowed to do work (especially not work with knives or running water), and others climb to the top of the hill called Tavshanka outside of town, where stand 7 stone shrines (and a cellphone tower). They light candles and fires at the shrines, gather a kind of yellow primrose that is always just blooming around that time, and share a picnic lunch around a fire.

I forgot to bring my camera with me, but that's just as well, as we were soaked clear through by the time we made it to the top. We'll have pictures for you all next year. (And, I presume the 7,000 photos taken of me by the 12th graders will pop up on Facebook or its Russian counterpart).

I did bring my guitar, at the students' request, and played a little after we'd taken shelter under the pine trees that grow on half the hill. The kids lit a fire (in a fashion that would have rather displeased Smokey Bear), and we dried off a bit by it and had some cheese and sausage sandwiches, chicken, cucumber and tomato salad, and cookies. The kids then sang some patriotic songs, and, the rain again starting to soak us through, we headed home.

Bad weather can never really spoil good company. And the holiday itself was really interesting, feeling, like some of the other folk holidays and traditions I've seen, really very old, somehow existing outside the history of established saints' days or Federal Holidays or the kinds of things you go to Hallmark for.

A glutton for punishment, I took the rainy Sunday to meet up with fellow volunteer Christopher in Ninotsminda and hopped a taxi to the village of Gorelovka a few miles away, to see what we could see of the Doukhobors, a Russian sect of spiritualist Christians with very particular beliefs, traditions, and ways of life - they are pacifists, anarchists, and vegetarians. There's a large and well-known Doukhobor community in Canada, which is why I had only heard of them in a song by the Band.

Others, exiled to Georgia in the 19th century, made their home in Gorelovka, and we went to visit what we had been told was a sort of house-church-museum open to the public, the home of the former leaders of the Gorelovka Doukhobors, the Kalmykovs.

We got to the house in the rain, directed by some local kids who gave us conflicting information about how "open" it was, and met two old women in traditional dress - bright pink and purple skirts, embroidered vests, and white headscarves. They greeted us and invited us in to a big concrete common room with benches along the walls, saying the others would be coming soon. Not sure what to make of all this, we asked to take a quick look around the grounds.

Church/worship space

Meeting house

Probably the most distinctive aspect of Doukhobor architecture in Georgia is their sod roofs. A man told us that the tradition comes from the early days of their exile, when they had to survive their first winter with almost no building materials or resources. He said that they lived almost in tunnels the first winter, and afterward built houses and roofed them with the available mud and grass. He vouched for their efficacy in keeping the building warm in winter and cool in summer.

All the other doors in the complex were locked, and we retreated to the common room and waited. After a little while we heard a kind of singing chant, and a group of 9 women in traditional dress and 2 men arrived. They sang, bowed to the house, prayed, and recited from the Bible, then invited us inside.

Turns out, we had come on a holiday - the second Sunday after Easter, when the community finishes eating the eggs and cake made for the Easter feast and gives anything remaining to the poor. We walked into the dining hall through the left of two doors (the women went through the right), and they sang and prayed before sitting down to dyed Easter eggs, dry cake, and juice. We talked a little about their history, culture, and traditions, but we were feeling a little bit like intruders, there being no "museum" section in sight. Eventually we finished the meal, more song and prayer, a little conversation with one of the guys, and then the crowd dispersed, and we with them.

Awkwardness of the visit notwithstanding, it was probably a more valuable experience than shuffling around a museum, since we got to meet the people, hear the songs and prayers, and break bread together. I hope we didn't put too much of a damper on their holiday, but maybe crashing the "eat up the 2-week old leftovers before we give them away" holiday isn't quite the imposition that showing up at a family Thanksgiving might be.

And, though the house (and rumored museum) might remain, there might not be a long time left to meet Doukhobors in Georgia. The community is small and shrinking, many of the young people emigrating to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, and, for the most part, only the older generation remaining. So it was good to see the ones who have stayed coming and singing on a rainy Sunday, watching the old women crack their Easter eggs against each others', and talking (if only a little) with people kind enough to invite a couple of foreign strangers into their home for a holiday meal.

We've been back home for 4 days now and are just about back to normal sleep schedules. There have been some great surprises for both of us here: we didn't forget how to drive in the year without a car; American food portions still seem huge even though we thought we'd been eating tons and tons in Georgia; Walmart is even more overwhelming than I remembered it being; and the West Virginia DMV seemed like the paragon of fast, efficient, friendly service. A year away can really change your perspective.

Aside from these, I had another couple of return culture shock moments yesterday during a PC Goal 3 presentation. I went to my mom's elementary school to talk with her fifth graders about Peace Corps, living in Georgia and the like. Just walking into the school was an experience. I kept blinking at the brand-spanking-newness of the building (her school is only a few years old) and I was amazed at all of the computers and books and posters and the cleanliness of everything. It was such a warm, welcoming environment, and made me realize how fortunate many American school children are to have such facilities and resources.

My mom and I often talk about school and our students together when we Skype on weekends, and share stories of successes and bad behaviors. I've written her class some emails about Georgia and she tells her kids stories about what Sam and I have been up to. Since I was free yesterday afternoon, I agreed to go to talk with the 5th grade about my experiences so far. My mom had warned me that her class this year doesn't listen very well and can tend to be rowdy sometimes, but that they were really excited to have me come in to show them some pictures and tell them a little bit about what I've been doing and seeing. It might be true that her class can be difficult at times, but to my mind, they were a bunch of precious angels whose behavior couldn't have been better. They listened attentively, asked lots of questions and were all seriously disappointed when I wrapped up and they had to go catch their buses home.

When I'm asked about the differences between American students and those that I see in Georgia, I tend to emphasize the similarities. Really, a kid is a kid wherever he is. Kids in Akhalkalaki like a lot of the same things, listen to a lot of the same music and watch a lot of the same TV shows as kids in America. Their behavior in a lot of ways can be very similar, and especially given similar circumstances, I think the majority of kids will make the same decisions and act in similar ways.

Yesterday, it all hit home for me, how much circumstance and opportunity makes a difference. The way I see it, the American school system (although it has its own drawbacks and failings and is certainly far from perfect) has the human and physical resources to educate children well. I know that there are exceptions and problems, but in general there is an effort in America to work to give each kid a fair shot. Learning, developmental or behavioral problems aren't swept under the rug or ignored or undiagnosed, but are brought to light and then dealt with. We have technology and resources and facilities and teachers and principals and parent volunteers and coaches and other support networks that work together to make a conducive learning environment. It's a real shame, I think, that teachers and others in the education system here have come under attack lately in America. The majority of them are doing some amazing work and we should be encouraging educators to continue striving for the best possible results and development of children, not attacking them for shortcomings, real or imagined.

In short, seeing American schoolchildren in an American learning environment helped me realize again how much there is still left to be done in Georgia. Things are improving there, but there's still a long way to go. I think (and I hope) that I'll return to my school with renewed energy and patience to help my students overcome the disadvantages and lack of resources that makes learning even that much more of a challenge.

We woke up this morning at 6:30am (6:25am, actually, but I'm telling myself I got those extra five minutes of sleep) and shortly thereafter boarded a minibus with our bags to make our way to Tbilisi. After a handful of stops in some villages along the way to pick up an ever increasing number of passengers and bags of potatoes or boxes or eggs, we got to Tbilisi. Since we had more luggage than usual, we splurged and took a taxi to the PC office (it set us back a whole $3... but we're used to taking the metro or the bus around town for just a quarter, so this felt like some big-time cash to drop just for a trip across town). We dropped off our bags, bought some shwarma, went to a museum, wandered around town, got some dinner and some ice cream. Now it's 9:48pm and we're back in the PC office, biding our time and trying to stay awake until it's time to go to the airport. Our flight leaves at 4:05am, Tbilisi to Istanbul, a 2-and-a-half hour flight that takes us one step closer to home. Sam has heard there's an Arby's in the Istanbul airport and plans to spend our 5-hour layover eating roast beef and cheese sandwiches. I've heard there's a Starbucks and plan to camp out there, like any sensible person running on a sleep deprication schedule should. Next step, we'll board a flight for Washington Dulles Airport at 10:50am local time. In 11 or so short hours after that, we'll be back in DC, explaining the contents of our bags and the reasons for our just-shy-of-a-year-long absence from America to US Customs. We can't wait to see everybody (and eating some Chipotle again won't be so bad, either)!

One of the nicest things about Peace Corps (there are lots of nicest things) is that we volunteers really get a remarkable chance to learn a new language. Sometimes, some lucky volunteers get to learn multiple languages. Sam and I are two of those lucky few. Since being in Georgia, we’ve been working on Georgian, Armenian and Russian. One PC staff member informed us that PC Georgia is the only post that has volunteers learning three different languages that come from three different language families and use three different alphabets. Is this the post for Sam and me or what?

The Russian Alphabet

In Akhalkalaki, we mostly use Russian for our interactions. I teach at the Russian school, so instruction in classes is all in Russian (and consequently I have learned a lot of really ridiculous grammar terms in Russian). Sam’s school is one of the Armenian-language schools, so he has a lot more daily exposure to Armenian, but we both get an earful every day. Even though we could probably get by without studying any Armenian, it’s been a nice challenge and people in town seem to be genuinely happy and flattered that we are trying to learn. (We still try to study Georgian some, since it’s important when we travel to other parts of Georgia and for the above named reasons of us being fairly dorky and loving languages. Not many people in town know Georgian, though, so we don’t have a lot of chances on a day-to-day basis to speak or hear Georgian.)

The Georgian Alphabet

Since August, we have been studying Armenian. We’ve gotten pretty decent and can read and write and say a lot. The problem is, this Armenian we’ve been studying hasn’t been especially helpful in understanding folks in town. Akhalkalaki has its own unique dialect, which isn’t exactly like the literary Armenian we’ve been studying. In fact, it’s really incredibly different. Sam says that the difference between literary Armenian and the Akhalkalaki dialect is roughly on par with the difference between Modern Standard Arabic and the Egyptian dialect. The Akhalkalaki dialect incorporates a lot of words from Turkish, Russian, Georgian and Persian, and most people in town say that it is based on Western Armenian, as opposed to the Eastern Armenian that literary Armenian is based on. Everyday items are especially likely to differ in literary Armenian versus the dialect, so the things we are most likely to hear people talk about are the things we have the hardest time understanding.

The Armenian Alphabet

The Armenian dialect spoken in Yerevan is pretty similar to literary Armenian, although it, of course, has its own slang as well. I’ve been working to try to improve my listening comprehension by watching some of the Armenian soap operas that are shown each night. (This has, incidentally, helped me bond with our host grandmother. Now, whenever the theme music for our favorite show, “Anna,” comes on, she shouts to me to come gather round to watch.) It always helps pick me up a bit to know that, when it’s literary Armenian, I can hear it and understand. I have tended to get frustrated that even though we’ve been studying hard in our thrice-weekly lessons, I still can’t understand when people are sitting around talking in dialect. Moreover, it’s interesting for me to watch the show with our host family and see that there are times when they have trouble understanding—not huge problems, but words here and there that they don’t know. The other night, a main character was visited at home by two policemen who said, “You are under arrest.” These were the last words of the show, a dramatic ending for the weekend break. Only, no one watching with me understood what was said. They use the Russian word for arrested, so didn’t know the literary Armenian word. It took a bit of asking around to other host family members (ones who went to university in Armenia and know literary Armenian as well) to figure out what had happened.

Each day brings bits of progress though, whether it’s in the form of me understanding when a kid in my English class who never does any work says in dialect “why is she talking to me? I don’t know any English!” or in the form of being able to have a grocery store employee understand us as we ask for ice cream in literary Armenian. We get a lot of smiles and laughs and lots of people make fun of our mistakes and accents, but there has been progress. And at the very least, it’s nice to be able to give my students a hard time when they haven’t done their homework or don’t want to work in class by pointing out that I can say more in Armenian after 8 months of study than they can in English after 5 years. It’s the little things, really.

Another project Sam and I were involved in lately was the Writing Olympics. It's a Peace Corps project that was started in Georgia by a PCV in 2004, which has grown to include students in 11 Peace Corps countries. The competition is open to students in 6th-12th grades and essays are judged on creativity and content, not spelling and grammar. The goal is to encourage students to take some risks and chances and learn to think creatively. I don't think it's an overstatement to say that creative thinking and originality are rarely taught here and generally aren't highly valued skills among students.

More often in classes here, the emphasis is on getting the right answer, memorizing the grammar rules and not ever making mistakes. But unless you hope to have a future as a textbook, you need to make some mistakes in the learning process and open yourself up to express original thoughts. Creativity, which seems to be taught to Americans from just about their earliest days, isn't part of the learning process here most of the time. It's like pulling teeth to get my students to write sentences or stories unless I give them explicit directions on the topic and how the story/sentence should be constructed and what verbs and nouns to use in it (and this isn't just a lost-in-translation thing; even asking students to make up sentences in Russian can be a real challenge). One fellow PCV told me about how she asked her students to draw pictures so then they could practice describing them using all the adjectives they had just learned. None of them would put marker to paper until she gave more specific instructions about what to draw. Little kids! With markers and paper, told to draw pictures, but couldn't unless told what to draw!

At any rate, the Writing Olympics is one effort to combat rote memorization and encourage some new thinking. Students have one hour to write an essay on one of three topics chosen for each class. We only tell them the topic on the day of the competition (so they can't prepare in advance), and they are not allowed to use any dictionaries, textbooks, online translators or outside assistance. Just them, with a paper and a pen, writing their thoughts on one of the topics provided.

Sam and I hosted a full day of Writing Olympics fun one Saturday at the end of March in Akhalkalaki. We had a few English teachers from town come to help us (we were allowed to translate the prompts into the kids' native languages, so these counterparts were key for helping us translate into Armenian). We had 54 total kids, from 6th-11th grades, participate from 3 of Akhalkalaki's 5 schools.

Here are the prompts students received:

6th Form

- How would your life be different if you were the opposite gender?

- Which would you rather be: a bird or a fish? Why?

- If you were an architect how would you design the perfect school?

7th Form

- How would the world be different if everyone spoke the same language?

- If you could choose to be an ocean, a river, a lake or a stream, which would you choose to be and why?

- What do you think your village/town will look like in 300 years?

8th Form

- If you could have any superpower, what would it be and how would you use it?

- What one sound do you wish you could eliminate from the world, and why?

- Describe your favorite photograph, and why it is your favorite.

9th Form

- What makes a country a country, other than language, geography, and government?

- What is a smell that reminds you of a specific memory, and what is that memory?

- If you could fill the night sky with something other than stars and planets, what would it be and why?

10th Form

- What is the funniest thing you have ever done or that has ever happened to you?

- If you could design a new flag for your country what would it look like?

- What does a caged bird think about all day?

11th Form

- What was God like as a child?

- Whom do you respect most and why?

- Describe the personalities of different rooms in a house (bedroom, bathroom, etc.).

12th Form

- If hunger were a painting what would it look like?

- Describe the perfect marriage.

- If you could start any business what would it be?

Last weekend we went to Tbilisi to judge the essays from all over Georgia. We received almost 1500 total essays, so the 20 or so volunteers that showed up to judge had a full day of reading. It was a lot of fun-intentional and unintentional bits of humor from essays were shared around (one kid's essay was an ode to Jon Bon Jovi, the greatest man ever to live). The majority of essays were fairly uninspired; most students wrote sentences that they likely memorized from their textbooks at one time or another. They found it difficult to imagine "what if" and often wrote that they couldn't be a bird, because that wasn't possible or that a country is only a country because of language and government or something similar. The standout essays were truly standouts. Some kids were incredibly talented and wrote such fantastic tales that, indeed, spelling mistakes and grammar errors were completely unnoticeable. The kids who won (we chose 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in each grade, first from each region of Georgia, then from those winners, we chose national winners) will get some pretty nice prizes, but hopefully each child that participated will have learned at least a little bit about thinking differently.

One of the projects I have been working on here in Georgia is a fitness club for girls and women in my town. There aren’t really a lot of opportunities for females to play sports or run around and the fairly conservative culture frowns upon such actions, especially if undertaken solo. Interestingly, most folks here say the culture has gotten much more conservative since the end of the Soviet Union, a reactionary “return to our roots” that has seen women lose opportunities and rights. Soviet women were expected to play sports and study science and become engineers and doctors. Nowadays, though, it’s like being back in 1950s America (or so it seems to me).

Today's group

Even just being outside after dark alone is a big no-no for the XXs, and a woman walking alone through town will be talked about. So even though lots of ladies have been dying for something to do, it’s easier to go with the flow in this small town than to go against the grain. Women tend to spend their time doing housework (no small task), watching after children, working (due to high unemployment in the city, many women are the main breadwinners in the family), visiting with neighbors and generally staying close to home. Young women and girls get indoctrinated into these roles pretty early as well, although you will see groups of young women walking together in the park into the evening, and girls will play a modified version of “volleyball” or ride bikes when the weather is nice.

There aren’t many organized activities here for girls, though. There are some sports teams and clubs and classes for boys and young men, on the other hand. Akhalkalaki has a fairly nice gym that was built by the federal government not long ago. Although this gym is focused on boxing, it has two basketball hoops and plenty of space for other activities.

The Akhalkalaki Sports Complex

My friend, Marianna, and I, after talking about this imbalance, started planning for and working on pulling this club together. In October we talked with the manager of the gym, and learned that, since it’s a federal construction, we could use the space for free. We secured a time slot—Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:00pm-8:00pm and Saturdays from 2:00pm-4:00pm. Then all we had to do was get a group of girls together to exercise.

Some running (but that's not all we do!)

It sounded like that would be the easy part. But breaking cultural norms and asking girls and women to leave their houses in the evening, to try something new, and to put themselves in a position where others could gossip about them were difficult things to overcome. Marianna was able to help me navigate these cultural differences, though, and strong-armed a small group of her friends, relatives and students to come. She came up with the brilliant plan that we should meet 30 minutes early and then go door to door to pick up each girl and walk together to the club. That way, no one had to walk alone at night.

Jump!

We started off slowly, first meeting in early November. A solid group of about 5-7 women came from the beginning. Then, in January, Marianna suggested some strategies to build a bigger group. We bought an ad on the local TV channel for a week, advertising our club. More and more people started to hear about the group and get interested. The local news came and interviewed Marianna and me and played a 10-minute segment about the group. In short, we’ve started to grow.

Doing some toe touches

We now regularly have between 10 and 25 girls and women who come to the club, between the ages of 12 and 55. Everyone seems to really enjoy it and it’s gotten easier to get people to meet at the gym itself (they tend to meet up in clusters that live near one another and walk together). This has been a real community-driven project, and one that so far has required no money (other than the $10 I kicked in to buy the TV ad). I have big hopes that pretty soon the fitness group will start to really be seen by everyone as sustainable and will be continued after I leave in another year and a half.

So what do we do in the fitness club? I usually plan a circuit-based exercise routine that tries to hit all muscle groups while focusing on cardiovascular work, strength training, balance and flexibility. I take bits and pieces of all that I’ve learned from years of competitive sports, running, yoga, gym memberships and watching Biggest Loser like a freak. We have limited resources (a gym and a few mats), so we rely on lots of body weight exercises. Here’s what we did today:

Working to get the form right first

1-Run two laps around the gym, walk two laps

2-Stretches

3-Jump 4 ways: 10 jumping jacks, 10 lateral line jumps, 10 twist jumps (like doing the twist, only jumping), 10 high-knee jumps (jump and bring your knees up as high as you can), followed by 1 walking lap, 2 running laps, 1 walking lap (3 sets of this)

4-Modified pushups-hold in plank (pushup) position for 5 seconds, then lower as close as you can to the floor, then drop to the floor and push yourself up from there. Repeat 5 times. (2 sets)

5-Lying toe touches-lie on your back with your legs straight up, then reach up and touch your left foot with your right hand and return to start, then reach up and touch your right foot with your left hand and return to start (10 touches, 2 sets)

6-4 types of running-giant strides (full court down and back), butt kicks (full court down and back), high knee running (to half court), lunge steps (back from half court) (2 sets)

7-Superman swim-lie on your stomach and lift your arms and legs, keeping them straight, then move them up and down like your swimming (10 seconds) (2 sets)

8-Side planks (10 seconds on each side) (2 sets)

9-Bicep tables-with your hands under your shoulders (hands pointing towards feet) and feet under knees, push yourself up so your belly is flat. Hold for 10 seconds. Then do 5 tricep dips. Push back up to table position and hold another 5 seconds (2 sets)

10-Indian run-run in a line, slowly. The last person in the line has to sprint to the front of the line. As soon as she is in the front, the new last person sprints ahead. (2 laps)

11-Cardio relay-sprint from one sideline to the other, walk back to start, then skip from one sideline to the other, walk back to start, then hop on right leg from sideline to sideline, walk back to start, then skip on the other leg and walk back to start. Follow with walk one lap, run one lap. (2 sets)

12-Run two laps, walk two laps

13-Stretch

We always start and finish with running 2 laps, walking 2 laps and stretching. By keeping the exercises short and doing 2-3 sets of them before moving on to something new, it stays interesting and, while challenging, isn’t too much for anyone. You might see that there is a lot of running when all added up (I figure it’s about 2/3 of a mile of running and about the same of walking each session), but since it’s broken up it never seems like too much for anyone. And I always try to give modified versions of exercises that increase or decrease the difficulty (so people can walk instead of running, or do only every other repetition of an exercise or hold their legs differently to make something easier or harder). My only rules are that we should have fun, stop and tell me if something hurts and not to sit down during the club.

After we finish (we usually work out for about an hour or 70 minutes), most of the girls want to play “basketball” for a few additional minutes, and some of the older participants ask me to show them additional stretches or exercises. I use a lot of yoga poses for these smaller groups, since it’s easier to keep an eye on their form and make sure no one is doing something that will throw out their back or cause any damage.

All in all, the fitness club has become one of the highlights of my week and the most fun thing I do!

I'm on a roll here with blog posts, so I figured I'd write about one of my favorite parts of every day. I've written about running in Akhalkalaki before, but this time, I've got pictures.

It was a beautiful day as we set out this morning, if a little early and a little chilly still. We usually run along the new highway that leads to the Turkish border, as it's the easiest route and has relatively few dogs to worry about running into. Most days, we run (Sam usually passes on the Tuesday morning run, since he has to leave for school at 8:40am, and we sometimes skip a day with particularly bad weather). We run 3 miles, which we can measure thanks to the Garmin running watch my siblings got me for my birthday 2 years ago. Here's a look at our run.

The view as we walk from our house up to the road

This is where we start (only a slight uphill...)

Pretty soon we're out of Akhalkalaki...

...and we have our choice of running towards Ninotsminda (and the Armenian border) or towards the Turkish border

We get a lot of views of potato fields along the way

Doesn't Sam look thrilled?

When we get to this village, it's time to turn around

Our view on the way back usually includes a spectacular shot of Mt. Abul, the tallest mountain in our region, but today it was all covered up by clouds

We come back into Akhalkalaki and then there's only half a mile to go

Three miles! All done!

Sam is a real trooper to put up with my daily running habit

Although we have heard and seen the telltale signs of numerous weddings about Akhalkalaki, we were just invited to our first wedding on Wednesday this week. (These "telltale signs" include long processions of cars, often led by the stretch Hummer that is for rent, honking their horns incessantly for the better part of the day; hearing traditional Armenian music being performed on a clarinet-like instrument and drums outside the houses of the bride and groom; lots of cars/worse driving than usual near the church; lots of fireworks being shot off around 11pm.) Weddings in Georgia (and specifically Armenian-Georgian weddings in Akhalkalaki) are a big deal. There are some traditions that coincide with American traditions, while others are fairly different.

The bride and groom take the first dance

We met with one of my teaching counterparts and her husband (who are neighbors of the groom) at just about 5:00pm on Wednesday (weddings are held any day of the week here, and not reserved for weekends only) to walk to the reception hall. The wedding ceremony itself lasts the whole day, and since we had to work, we weren't able to participate in everything (and most guests actually only go to the reception). But we did have a chance to watch a video of our host parents' wedding, so I can retell most of it here. (Consequently, watching the tape reminded me of how Mom inexplicably used to have about 23 copies of the video of my Aunt Mary and Uncle Matt's wedding. Do you still have those?) When we get our next wedding invite (as I'm assured we sometime soon will), I'll be sure to better document all the ceremonies.

First, about a month or so before the wedding itself takes place, there's a wedding-reception-like party to celebrate the official engagement of the couple. It also kicks off the start of the wedding preparations, and is the real countdown to the marriage. Sometimes this is instead a mini-banquet or toasting session at the bride-to-be's house with close friends and relatives, other times it's a big blow-out.

The wedding cake

On the wedding day, the closest family and friends of the couple help get everything ready. They go to the groom's house and to the bride's house (I forget in which order), bringing gifts and followed by the above-mentioned musicians, playing traditional music. Toasts are said and snacks are consumed. As gifts are brought to be exchanged, the presenters of the gifts dance them around to the music, while everyone else dances around in the street outside the house (and there's lots of arm action in Armenian dancing). The groom then goes with his posse to the bride's house, where more gifts have to be given in order for her family to let him "take her." Sometimes money is paid to relatives as a symbolic gesture in exchange for them letting the bride go.

Next, everyone in this circle (again, close relatives and friends--usually about 30 people, I'm told) go to the church for the wedding ceremony. Everyone piles into cars that are decorated with balloons and sometimes with a giant pair of wedding rings (I'll get a picture of this sometime soon and post it) or led by the for-hire stretch Hummer that resides here. Another stop is sometimes made at the civil registry office (sometimes I think this is done on a different day, but I'm not sure) to make the marriage official in the eyes of the law. The ceremony done, they go back to the groom's house (usually his parents' house; almost always, couples live with the parents of the groom). More music and dancing and toasting is done. Also (I think it is at this point), the couple enter the house together and each step on a plate to break it. If the bride breaks her plate first, it is supposed to mean that there will be equality in the house and that she won't have to be subservient to her husband. If the groom is first, it means the traditional order will reign. Then the mother of the groom puts lavash (Armenian flat bread, almost like tortillas) on the shoulders of the bride and groom to ward off evil spirits and ensure prosperity and feeds them honey so that their lives together will be sweet.

The tables are already laden when guests arrive at the reception

Then, the whole wedding party meets with the rest of the guests (that's where we came in!) at the reception hall. Although the bulk of the wedding day is spent with a small group of 20-30 of the closest relatives and friends, the reception often includes 200-400 people--friends, relatives, neighbors, teachers, random Americans living in town--everyone is invited. The wedding we attended seemed to have about 250 guests or so. At the reception, tables are already spread with tons of appetizer-type foods (cheese, vegetables, fruit, bread, cakes, various cured meats... the usual) and each table has drinks already placed on it (no going up to a bar for your drinks! They come to you!). There is a head table where the bride, groom and their sponsors sit (they call them godparents, but they're like the sponsors or witnesses or best man and maid of honor). They introduced the parents of the bride and groom, the sponsors and then the bride and groom as they made their entrance. The bride and groom have the first dance, then there was a dance for their families. Then came the song for the entrance of the kebobs.

The drinks selection that was replenished at each table throughout the night

The first hot dish brought out was horovats, or grilled meat skewers, which has special music for its presentation. The waitresses brought this and a parade of other hot dishes throughout the evening (including fried meat cutlets with fried potatoes, steamed trout and a type of khachapuri called atchma, which is like cheese lasagna, minus the sauce). There was a lot of music and dancing throughout the reception (the musicians who played all day at various houses and locations come along and play traditional music, but are backed with a synthesizer and accompanied by a singer). There is a master of ceremonies-type person (they call him the tamada, the toastmaster, but he also just keeps things rolling along and makes announcements, etc.). Of course, there is a wedding cake and this is cut and eaten according to similar traditions as in America. The bride and groom both throw things (not quite a bouquet and garter, but same idea) to the unmarried men or women in attendance.

People give gifts during the wedding, but gifts take a whole different form. Most of the gifts (or what we saw, anyway; other gifts are exchanged at times outside of the reception) are in the form of gold jewelry, and they were presented during a special dance with the bride and groom, wherein all the guests with gifts came up and danced around with the jewelry boxes before then opening them dramatically and then putting the jewelry on the bride. She ended up pretty laden with bling by the end of the dance.

The reception started right around 5:00pm and we lasted there until about 10:30pm, but the party was definitely not on its last legs at that point. It was a lot of fun and a lot of eating. I'm sure I've missed some of the traditions in my retelling and I wish I had more pictures (especially of the pre-reception festivities), but as we go to future weddings in Akhalkalaki, I'll update my information.

And since we're on the topic of weddings, it's only 9 more days until Sam and I will be back in America for my sister's wedding and only 15 more days until that wedding takes place! I hope that gives us enough time to find the appropriate band of wandering minstrels to add to the festivities...

Sam and I bought ice cream today in Akhalkalaki! If there's a surer sign of spring, I don't want to know what it is. More than robins, ice cream is a marker here of the approach of warmer weather, since most folks swear that eating ice cream when it's cold will bring certain death by cold, flu or other ailments. It was heartbreaking when, in late fall, all the ice cream freezers in town started to disappear from sidewalks, and stores cleared out their ice cream stocks to make way for frozen chickens.

I noticed the appearance of the first street-side ice cream freezer yesterday and sent Sam the following text: "Ice cream! :) It's spring!!!" Five minutes later, though, I had to send this follow-up text: "Well, strike the spring part. Now it's snowing. At least there's still ice cream!"

But the snow and ice are melting and the ice cream vendors can't be wrong. Before long, we'll be out of our sweaters and long underwear and on to less bulky clothing choices!

(Looks sheepishly at the date of the last blog update.) I guess I’ll make this a long post, because 1) we’ve had a lot go on and done a lot since last post and 2) if it’s a long post, maybe you won’t see the date of our last post and be reminded of our slacking.

It has even been a long time since I’d uploaded my pictures from my camera to computer. Good thing I had photographic evidence, though, to remind me of all the things we’ve been up to.

First, on March 8, we celebrated International Women’s Day. We had the day off from school (my school was rounding out the end of its long holiday, combining this day with the March 3 Mother’s Day celebrations) and were able to relax and spend time with our host family. All of the females of the house got presents, including an adorable new outfit for Lilit. At one point during the evening, our host family decided that it would be best to dress our host father’s nephew, Narek, in Lilit’s dress. He’s only about a year older than Lilit and so was easily convinced that this was a great idea, totally unsuspecting our host family’s sinister plan to hold on to the subsequent photos of him decked out in his cousin’s dress and accessories until he starts to date, then springing the pictures on his girlfriend. All Narek had to say about the ordeal was “What a pretty girl!” when he saw himself in the mirror. Ah, the things we can dupe children into doing!

Narek strikes a pose

He does look quite dashing in Lilit's togs!

After finishing up a grueling 3-day week at school, we headed off to Kortaneti to see our host family from training. Last time we visited, Maia and Zurab made us swear to come back so they could celebrate my birthday with us. We got to the village at about 11:30am, expecting to sit around the pechi (the wood-burning stove that serves both to heat the house and as an oven to bake bread and khachapuri) and talk for a while. As we approached the house, though, we could smell the overwhelmingly delicious aromas of Maia’s cooking. She had been baking all day, producing several stacks of khachapuri, lobiani (same idea as khachapuri, only with beans and spices inside), fresh bread, soup, pigs in a blanket and a super fancy chocolate mousse cake. (A side note on pigs in a blanket; one time during training, Maia made these—hotdogs, wrapped in dough, then fried—for lunch for us and we told her that in English, we often call similar things pigs in a blanket. She loved this name and now tells everyone in the village that this is the name for this very tasty, very un-dietetic dish.)

The table was all set...

This was the leftover khachapuri and lobiani

We were immediately ushered to the table, where we began slowly to consume large quantities of all these delicious foods. And wine. Oh, the homemade wine of Kortaneti. Zurab and Maia grow the grapes, harvest the grapes, smash the grapes, make the wine, store the wine and then, boy, do they drink the wine. Wine culture in Georgia is fascinating, and something we don’t think too much about in Akhalkalaki, because the high elevation and harsh climate aren’t kind to grapes. Very few people here make their own wine, and so very few people drink wine like they do in other parts of Georgia. We went through the traditional series of toasts (to God, to friendship, to children, to parents, etc.), then we had a series of toasts for me, celebrating my birthday, special toasts to my parents in honor of my birthday, special toasts for all birthdays… Other folks from Kortaneti floated in and out to drink a few toasts, sample some of Maia’s lobiani, and give kisses all around. When we finally got up from the table, some 6-and-a-half hours later, we were all so full of food and wine and good cheer that there was a general consensus that the sensible thing to do was to pull up chairs and fold out the couches near the pechi and sleep for two hours. What a happy birthday!

A toast!

The cake, with me and Sam

Priorities: Zura pours wine, I cut the cake

On Sunday, we spent some more time in Kortaneti, watching the snow start up again and remarking at how many trees there are.

Snow in Kortaneti... just for me!

Then we headed off to Tbilisi to meet up with a few other volunteers to continue the birthday celebrations and in order for me to go to a meeting for a PC committee that I’m part of on the next day. The weather in Tbilisi was the first spring-like weather we’d seen, so I rung in 29 by making Sam go for a run with me in the warm sunshine (we didn’t have to wear hats! or gloves! or 13 layers of clothes!). After a refreshing run in the sun, we went with the other volunteers to get cake and coffee at a place called “Chocolate” (can’t go wrong with a name like that!) and then went to dinner at a Georgian/Ossetian restaurant in the old town that’s quickly becoming my favorite place to eat in Tbilisi. They make delicious Georgian food, but it’s spicier than normal (that’s the Ossetian touch, apparently), and to top it all off, the restaurant is also a brewery and makes a pretty good beer. So we ate some khinkali (meat dumplings) and more khachapuri (the Ossetian kind also has mashed potatoes mixed in with the cheese) and then waddled back up the road in the warm evening air.

On Monday, after my meeting at the PC office, we piled into a marshrutka (minibus) with the other Education volunteers and headed to the west coast of Georgia, to the Black Sea resort town of Kobuleti. We had a training all last week with our counterparts to talk about designing projects. Our usual training site is in Bazaleti, about an hour north of Tbilisi. By some stroke of unbelievable luck, it ended up being cheaper to hold this training, however, at a 5-star resort hotel on the seashore instead of in the conference facility we’ve become accustomed to. This is Peace Corps?! I can deal with this. The weather in Kobuleti was incredible, and even though we were inside all day for our training, the leftover minutes around lunchtime and the few remaining hours of sunshine at the end of the day were enough for us to really enjoy it.

Our super swanky hotel

The view from our hotel room balcony--do you see the sea?

The Black Sea at sunset

Me and my counterpart, Marina

Fishermen on the Black Sea

Once the training was over, Sam and I decided to take advantage of our position in the west of the country to do some exploring and site seeing. We traveled to Kutaisi, Georgia’s second city, about an hour away from Kobuleti. The big draw for us (read: Sam) was the chance to go to Sataplia park just outside of the city; it’s a big natural reserve with cool caves oozing stalactites and stalagmites, and also happens to have some fossilized dinosaur footprints. We went out to the park to see all these wonders, but unfortunately the park was still closed for winter (it opens April 1! We were so close!). We still had a great time, however, wandering around the city, heading out to a cool old monastery clinging to a cliffside and hiking through some very green (already!) forests (with dog companions picked up along the trail) on the outskirts of town. We checked out the Kutaisi museum, which was fantastic, even if it did make Sam start up again with his “awww, I should become a bronze age archeologist!” We stayed in a homestay recommended by our Lonely Planet guidebook. The owner of the house, a lovely older woman named Mariko, was so tickled that we knew some Georgian that she rattled on at us for hours, plying us with her homemade pickles, cheese and wine and then sadly sending us off with bottles of tkemali sauce (a sauce used all the time by Georgians on meat or potatoes, made from sour plums). We will definitely go back again sometime soon!

There were FLOWERS! GROWING! In Kutaisi!

One of our hiking dogs, near my new favorite graffiti: Magda, you are my lafe!

Sam and our hiking dog companion, overlooking someplace outside of Kutaisi

Me and Sam, with Gelati monastery in the background

Inside Gelati monastery church

More from Gelati

Sam, looking suspiciously at a Kutaisi statue

A park in Kutaisi

Another church/monastery in Kutaisi

On Sunday, we returned to Akhalkalki, tired but happy after a long time away and a lot of marshrutka travel. Our luck with the weather held out and we came back to find almost all of the snow melted away, lots of sunshine and warmer temps than we’ve had in a long time. All good things must come to an end, though, I suppose. Here’s a shot of the street outside our house this morning. Sigh.

Good while it lasted...

Although we were warned before coming to Akhalkalaki (and subsequently by locals upon arriving) that winters here were nothing to sneeze at, we’ve ended up with a pretty mild run by local standards. We didn’t really get any real snow to speak of (other than a few early dustings and one or two real coverings) until New Year’s Eve, when the world finally turned white. According to most folks, the weather was milder this year in honor of our presence, not wanting to scare us off too quickly. Usually, they assure us, there’s snow on the ground in October, or at least by November, and it lasts until May, sometimes even until June! These stories could be fish tales, but everyone has been adamant that this year has been unusually warm and snowless, something we’re inclined to believe.

Since our New Year’s white stuff, though, we’ve had a pretty consistent covering of snow and ice every day. We usually get snow at least about every other day. It comes about 2-3 inches at a time, just enough to make running a challenge (it’s not as much fun when it comes up over the edge of my shoes), and just enough to make everything seem peaceful and beautiful and clean and calm again, if only for a little while.

Sometimes we get a peek of blue sky through the snow clouds

Our street after a snow

The stadium has become pretty un-runable lately, but sure does look pretty

Lots of people here say that because of the elevation (remember, we’re about a mile and a quarter up), the sun is a lot stronger than it is at lower elevations. I don’t know about this explanation from a scientific standpoint (any of you sciency folks care to weigh in in the comments?), but we definitely do get some bright, strong sun. So in between our bouts of snow, we have full blast rays that, even if the temperature seems too low to allow melting, thaw all our pretty snow and create a lot of ice (as soon as it melts, it freezes again). We’ve had a few days when the temperature is slightly above freezing for a few midday hours, but as soon as the soon starts to go down, the temps drop and we get messes of slick ice all over. When it snows again, our 2-3 new inches help make the ice more navigable, but can also play a real number on an unsuspecting walker, who doesn’t realize the ice beneath. One of the teachers at my school apparently fell victim this week, slipping on the ice outside our school, falling and breaking her arm.

This past week we really thought spring might be on its way, though. We had so much sun and got above freezing several days in a row without any additional snow. You might be thinking this sounds lovely, but in fact it had us wishing for another drop in the mercury. See, snow removal in Akhalkalaki (and much of the rest of Georgia, from what I’ve seen and heard), is virtually nonexistent. No, that’s not fair to say. Mostly, snow removal strategies here center on gravity: eventually the snow will melt and roll downhill into the river. In the meantime, cars drive and slide through the streets, which progressively get higher and higher as the snow accumulates and gets packed down through pressure and melting-refreezing. This week we had full-on lakes in lots of the roads, mixtures of slush and dirty water that caused us to walk, jump and skip our ways across town, weaving like drunk people. More than once I’ve sung the praises of my waterproof boots after stepping onto what looked like solid snow, only to be a cruel trick of an ankle-deep puddle.

I remember when I was in St. Petersburg in the spring, watching the ice break up on the Neva River and in the canals, being struck by the idea of what the word “thaw” means in different languages. In Russian, the noun “thaw”—оттепель—comes from a combination that directly means “from warmth.” I like the sound of it better than the English word, that just makes me think of sticking frozen chicken breasts into the microwave.

Just as in Russia, watching the thaw in action here in Georgia makes more of an impression than thaws in the U.S. ever did. In addition, seeing melting here, watching a thaw, makes me feel like as an American learning about the thaw in U.S.-Soviet relations in history classes, I never fully understood or appreciated the symbolism behind the calling the period “the thaw.” I generally took it to mean that relations were icy and were slowly becoming warmer. Maybe even like the artificial heating of a frozen chunk of chicken in the microwave. It didn’t really have an impact on me, talking about the thaw. Seeing a literal thaw in action, though, I’m struck by how much more apt the term is than I initially credited. You see the sheer force warmth has in breaking up the ice and changing the terrain, for sure. That in itself has an impact. But you also see downside of thaw: the dirt and the trash and the things lost or left behind that were suspended in the ice come to light again. In many ways, it’s much uglier than it was during the freeze, and people are just as likely to wish the thaw to turn back into freezing as they are to wish it further along. Also, as was the case here in Akhalkalaki today, one period of thaw that looks sure to lead directly to the warmth of spring can be followed by another freeze and snow, the beautiful result of which canceled our run today.

Some streets in thaw this week

Last night’s and this morning’s snow has solved our problems for today of getting through town without slipping or falling into puddles. And it has delayed, at least for a little while, the threat of spring and warmer days. It’s a bit of a relief that we’ll be able to walk to our Armenian lesson and across town on some errands today without dealing with quite so much slush. But the slush will return, the thaw will continue. In the cycles of weather and literal warming and freezing, you can always count on spring to follow winter. Before you know it we’ll be shedding our many layers of long underwear and sweaters for warmer wear, whether in March, April, May, or god help us, June.

This was part of my complete and balanced lunch yesterday:

It's okay. I know you're jealous. Maybe you too will eat a food with a similarly wonderful (and shockingly apt) name. Hopefully it'll be tasty, too.

Since our last posting, we've had a slew of love-related holidays celebrated here in Akhalkalaki. We tried our best to witness/participate in some of these holidays, and gathered snatches of information about what these holidays were, where they came from and why they are celebrated as they are. Lots of this information from people in town was interesting, but left us looking for more detailed explanations. I'll try to combine those stories with what the internet (yay internet!) has to say as well.

First, on the evening of February 13, they celebrated Derendes at the Armenian church. Everyone in town was telling us about how this was a must-view holiday celebration. It is a day of celebrating newlyweds, which includes a blessing at the church followed by a good old-fashioned bonfire and leaping over fire by said newlyweds. The favorite story told to us revolved around one enthusiastic new bride who, in her efforts to show her love for her new husband, jumped the bonfire in her wedding dress, only to get a bit caught up and not completely clear the flames, setting her white birthday-cake-of-a-dress aflame.

Sam and I went with our friend, Marianna, to try to witness this year's bonfire-jumping, but went too early. There was a pile of planks in the churchyard, but no fire yet. It was cold so we went home to warm up and wait for dusk to return to the church. When we went back to the church, alas--there was a nearly burned down fire and the last of the lovebirds had already cleared (at least we hope they cleared) the fire.

Though we were sad to miss the spectacle, Marianna filled us in on some additional interesting explanations to the bonfire jumping. The idea, she said, was that young couples should try to jump over the fire when it was still burning high. The higher the flames, the more passion and love one ensures his or her marriage to be blessed with. So people try to jump over the fire when it's high. But even if they can't jump the bonfire when it's first set alight (or don't want to risk jumping over flames too high lest they set themselves on fire), it's still okay to jump over the remaining embers of the bonfire. Jumping in general guarantees a degree of passion in the new marriage. Hopefully next year we'll get to see the jumpers in action and capture some leaps on camera.

Doing a little research on Derendes, I found this to be the official explanation of the holiday: "The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Dyarnuntarachor (Derendes as it is sometimes called), is celebrated every year on February 14, the 40th day after Jesus’ birth, marking His presentation at the Temple. Because of the significance of this important milestone in the Savior's life which we know from the Gospels, it has become a tradition that at the end of church services, newborn infants in the congregation be taken up on the altar and presented to the Lord. Part of the tradition of this celebration is the lighting of a bonfire after the church service. This practice is a remnant of the celebration of the birthday of Ahura-Mazda (Ormizd in Armenian), the chief God of our pre-Christian Zoroastrian ancestors who worshipped fire as the manifestation of the one true God. After Christianity came to our nation, this ancient custom continued, but with a shift in its emphasis. The great conflagration came to be associated with Christ, "the living fire" who is also the "Light of the World"."

(On a side note, according to people in town, and confirmed by our observations of how people celebrate holidays here in Akhalkalaki, the Armenian church tends to consider a holiday to begin after 6:00pm on the day before. So, although this has the holiday listed as falling on February 14, it was celebrated on the evening before. Also, the 40 days after Jesus' birth presumably counts from January 6, Armenian Christmas.)

Next up we had Valentine's Day. Really, Valentine's Day has only recently begun to be celebrated here in Georgia, and isn't filled with the same kinds of overly commercialized virtues as its American counterpart. At my school, most of the kids spent the day cutting out red paper hearts to glue to the windows (to replace the remaining New Year's decorations) and drawing new love-themed pictures for the school display cases. At the end of the day, I believe some of the students might have put on some sort of performance or production or something, given the very loud music that was blaring from the performance hall. I didn't stay around to catch the show, however, since Sam and I had an Armenian lesson scheduled.

(Sam and I celebrated Valentine's day in what I consider one of the best possible ways--we went for a run in the morning! My first run post-possible-toe-breaking. It went well, although slowly, given the snow and ice and slush. We're both getting ready to have some warmer weather and no more snow. We also ate some chocolate, since everything should be celebrated with chocolate.)

The biggest and most exciting of the love-centered holidays, though, fell on Friday-night-into-Saturday, February 18-19: Saint Sarkis Day. Everyone in town knows all about the traditions surrounding this holiday, but few could say much about the origins. Again, I turned to the trusty internet for some more information. Turns out St. Sarkis is an Armenian saint who served as a captain in the army and was martyred in 449 AD by the Persians for "refusing to worship fire and sacrifice to heathen gods." St. Sarkis is the patron of young people and their intercessor in finding love. Some legends about St. Sarkis include: he and 40 of his soldiers defeated an army of 10,000; he destroyed a (presumably Zoroastrian) temple to the fire gods after refusing to denounce his Christian faith; he appears on his horse to help those in need of assistance in getting married; his remains/relics were brought from Persia back to Armenia by founder of the Armenian alphabet Mesrop Mashtots. My favorite might be the legend that he and 39 of his soldiers, after a celebratory post-battle drunk, were ordered by the Persian king to be killed. The king sent 40 virgins to kill the soldiers as they slept. 39 of them carried out the task and killed the soldiers, but the woman sent to kill Captain Sarkis saw him sleeping and fell in love with him. Instead of killing him, she kissed him. He awoke and saw what happened, and took the young woman with him as he whipped up a storm and escaped on his horse.

Nowadays, St. Sarkis day is celebrated in by Armenians in Georgia and Armenia (and other Armenian communities throughout the world) as a day for young people to find love. Many people fast for 7 days before the holiday, and on the day before, people are supposed to eat salty foods (especially a salty pastry which is specially prepared for the holiday) and drink no water. When they go to sleep, they are supposed to have a dream in which their destined future spouse with bring them water to quench their thirst. (Freud would have a field day with this one.) Our host grandmother has told us a few times about her own story of seeing her future husband in her dreams, although she didn't know him when she dreamed him and despite the fact that she had been courted by another boy that she expected to marry. Another friend in town told of how her sister dreamed of a man with blue eyes and light hair. Although she found it impossible that she would ever marry a man with blue eyes and light hair (most Armenians tend to have black hair and dark eyes and complexions), indeed, she did meet and marry a man with blue eyes and fair hair.

Other people will put out a plate of a special kind of flour below their bedroom windows on the night of St. Sarkis Day. If, upon waking, they see the imprint of a horseshoe in the flour, it means St. Sarkis has visited and will intercede for them. In other words, they'll get married soon.

Here in Akhalkalaki, people follow these traditions as well as making a trek to the church named for St. Sarkis in a neighboring village. People are supposed to go on foot (it was about a 3-4 mile walk each way). When they get to the church, they should walk around it three times before going in. Inside, people light candles (and unmarried people are supposed to exchange candles with one another, preferably with someone who has qualities you'd want in a spouse). Along the road, people sell candles and doves. The doves are to be carried around the church three times and then either released or sacrificed. We saw a fair number of released doves (and the released doves seemed to either be stunned by being handled and carried around and so often seemed to basically hang out in easily recapturable spots; we presume that many were later re-sold to others coming to circle the church and wish/pray for love). We also saw one sacrificed dove. We still don't really know what one would do with a sacrificed bird, though.

It was pretty amazing to see the numbers of people walking to the St. Sarkis church. Sam and I went with some of the teachers from my school at about 8:00pm on Friday night (earlier than most people in town set off; most try to go closer to midnight). In a town were people (and especially women) aren't exactly thrilled about walking long distances or exercising, I haven't ever seen so many people walking around. I was surprised that it was as far as it was to the church as well (usually when we're told something is very far away, it turns out to be about half a mile). On the following day, we started hearing the stories of how crowded the church got by midnight and how difficult it was to breathe, let alone move, inside. We were very glad for the early start.

On Saturday (officially St. Sarkis Day), we went to a birthday party for a friend in town and everyone asked about one another's dreams. They spent a good part of the party relating stories of relatives or friends of acquaintances who had eventually married their St. Sarkis dream water bearers. Then they moved on to various types of fortune telling. The most widespread and commonly practiced fortune telling is reading coffee grinds, but other methods were also discussed.

For now, though, we'll have a little break from the love holidays. We'll just have to sit back and watch to see if St. Sarkis brings more weddings through Akhalkalaki (but the weddings here will deserve a separate blog post altogether).

Our lazy days of winter break wound down and we worked to get geared up for the new semester, which was set to start on January 20. Our schools ended up getting back into having classes only on Monday, January 24, however, because there were some necessary meetings and discussions about changes our schools would be undergoing this semester and next year.

Georgia’s Ministry of Education has been unveiling a number of different changes and reforms, many of which have been extremely positive and productive, some of which are well intentioned but maybe not entirely thought-out before being implemented, and a small number that have been difficult for us and our local counterparts to understand the reasoning behind. On average, they seem to do a pretty remarkable job bringing up the standards of Georgian schools after nearly two decades of education being underfunded (or non-funded), underdeveloped and overall under-prioritized. That said, there is often a lot of feeling that their reforms and changes are really ambitious but lacking some of the follow-through or direction to make them entirely successful.

My school held an all-hands teachers meeting on January 20 where a lot of the newest reforms were discussed, argued and complained about and railed against. The main difference this semester has to do with a fairly complex funding system that Georgia uses. This has led to a cut in funds for many schools, which school directors are supposed to manage to make sure that students still have all the required classes. There wasn’t, it seems, really a lot of direction from the Ministry, however, on how to “make it work.” What my school did to match the gap in funds was fire teachers and staff (about 20 people lost their jobs) and combine classes (we went from having classes of about 20-25 to having some classes with up to 48 students). Sam’s school managed not to lay off as many (or possibly any) teachers, but cut down the number of hours that all the teachers have (and thus cutting the pay for all of the teachers, instead of having a few lose out entirely). His classes have gotten larger as well.

Everyone was really upset about these changes, understandably, and the semester started off on a sour note. Adding to the troubles is a change in the rule about students that lack Georgian citizenship. Previously, these kids could study at Georgian schools alongside Georgian citizens. Now, however, children with foreign citizenship are supposed to pay a pretty hefty fee to continue studying at Georgian public schools. At my school in this minority region, about 10% of the student body has foreign citizenship. This is causing a huge problem. Lots of families are being forced to make the tough decision of sending their children with Russian or Armenian citizenship to live with aunts or uncles or family members in Russia or Armenia to finish school or trying to come up with a sum that is equivalent to about 4 months’ of a schoolteacher’s salary per child.

All these factors have combined with the cold, wintry weather to make going back to school pretty rough. As the administration of my school tries to clarify details and get exceptions and exemptions to make things more bearable, we’re still without a permanent schedule for classes (this three weeks into the spring semester). It’s going to be a bit of a slog as they work everything out, but I’m hopeful that things will be made a little pleasanter soon.

We got a nice break from all of these school bureaucracy problems this week thanks to two back-to-back Peace Corps trainings. The first training was one that I helped work on and coordinate as part of my work with PC Georgia’s Life Skills Committee (a PC-wide initiative committee that works on health-related topics, and specifically on HIV/AIDS issues). We held a two-day Training of Trainers for any PC Georgia volunteers and their counterparts to discuss ways to introduce and teach healthy living topics in the classroom or in after-school clubs or community organizations. The other committee members and I (funnily enough, the four of us are all married volunteers; one of our PC staff members refers to us as the “married wives committee”) had been working hard on getting things together for this training. It’s a nice feeling of relief to been done with this initiative, especially since we’ve got a lot of other projects that we’ve been working on. One big project done!

After the ToT, all of the Education volunteers and their teaching counterparts had two more days of training to work through issues of how to team teach more effectively and efficiently. It was another very helpful training and nice to see how the other volunteers have worked out strategies to have good working relationships with their counterparts. We’re all very fortunate to have a lot of dedicated, hard-working, patient counterparts, and it was really nice to have some chances to think about ways to make our working relationships that much better.

The trainings were also a huge success on the room-and-board front. We stayed in a pretty swanky training facility in Bazaleti, about an hour north of Tbilisi. Our rooms had tvs with BBC news in English! The facility “restaurant” served lots of tasty food, too, too much of which was eaten on a regular basis. But I just couldn’t pass up the chance to have coffee with milk and bliny and cheese and yogurt and salad and lots more delicious. Who knew that PC service would have so many luxuries?!

Just prior to the trainings, Sam went to Tbilisi for an extra day. He had an interview to be a cross-cultural trainer for outgoing high school exchange students from Georgia to the US as part of the FLEX program. He’s hopeful that he’ll be selected, not the least because his training for the program if chosen would include a week-long trip to Ukraine. Several other volunteers applied, though, so he’ll have to wait to hear back once they’ve reviewed all the applications.

And even though we spend almost all of our time together, while Sam was away (we were apart for slightly over 24 hours), we were given some reminders of why we’re better together. Sam spent a cold night in Tbilisi at the guest house because he didn’t realize there was a blanket in the room. He says that if I had been there, the blanket probably would have been found. I, on the other hand, was tasked with turning off the light to go to bed on the night Sam was away (his side of the bed is closer to the light switch and usually he’s the one reading so he’s the one who’s in charge of turning it off). I hadn’t realized just how ridiculous this was until Sam was away and I, in making my extra lap around the bed after turning off the light, kicked a chair with all my might in the dark. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten the right language training to say the words I really wanted to say at that point. I figured I’d be fine by the next morning, but instead I had a black-and-blue, swollen, painful toe. It was still bothering me some when I went in for the trainings, so I talked with one of the PC doctors (our doctors are amazing!), who gave me lots of goodies to take care of my toe and got me an appointment for an x-ray after the training if my toe was still bothering me. Luckily my toe is on the mend so I didn’t have to get any x-rays, but I’m still supposed to take it easy for another week (no running for two weeks! I think I might go crazy). Sam was extremely sympathetic when we met up in Tbilisi just before the training, remarking that we really will be one of those old married couples who dies at just about the same time. Not because we’ll be so heartbroken that the other is gone, just because we’ll forget to eat or electrocute ourselves or something similarly stupid without the other there to remind us.

So with all these stories and way too much text and no pictures as yet to reward you for slogging through my way-too-long blog post (I could never do twitter), I’ll leave you with two videos of what has become my new favorite pastime: watching our host sister, Lilit, trying to walk around in my slippers.

We decided to take advantage of our last week of winter break to take a trip to our next-door neighbor to the south, Armenia. One of Melissa’s teaching counterparts, Gohar, was going to visit her son and daughter in Yerevan, and kindly invited us to go along. So Monday morning we hopped on the marshrutka and set off. We’re about 15 miles from the border, and even with the stop to get a visa, the trip was not much longer than that to Tbilisi. That afternoon and evening, we walked around the city with Gohar to get our bearings. The central square (hraperak) was in full holiday regalia, with a big New Years tree, dozens of Santas, kiddie cars, and horse carriages.

On Tuesday, we went to Echmiadzin Cathedral outside of Yerevan, the center of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The cathedral itself is beautiful, and in its museum are all kinds of relics and treasures from the whole of the Armenian Church, including, for example, the spear that's said to have pierced Christ's side.

The grounds were also really nice, and we particularly liked these sculptures, carved into the trunks of still-standing dead trees:

Afterward, we saw another church and convent nearby, and then went to visit Gohar’s sister in the district of “Bangladesh,” so called for its crowdedness and distance from the center. There we had some delicious Armenian food (ishli kufta) and spent a really nice time talking and visiting. Wednesday morning we visited the Genocide Memorial that crowns a hill overlooking the city. The museum itself was closed, but an eternal flame burns for the victims and a small forest of evergreen trees has been planted by heads of state, governments, organizations, and individuals who have recognized the genocide.

Afterward, we walked around the city some more, visiting the nearly-finished Cascade, a waterfall fountain with a variety of museums and exhibits inside. The water was off for the winter, but I’m sure we’ll be back sometime when the flowers are blooming and fountains flowing. Chihuly pieces from a gallery inside the Cascade:

From the top of the Cascade, we walked through a park to the statue of Mother Armenia and her rather oversize sword staring protectively toward the West. In this photo it appears that she is about to smack some Ferris wheel riders:

We then made our way to the matenadaran, the Armenian manuscript library. One of the really fascinating things to me about Armenia’s sense of self is the great importance placed on writing and literacy, and the matenadaran is a monument to that value. Afterward, we headed to the famous Grand Candy shop and cafe for some ponchiki. I don’t know if they were as good as the ones Melissa made, but it was still a fun time.

On Thursday, we went to the Armenian State Museum, which featured a really interesting exhibit on Bronze Age Armenia before marching on through the centuries to almost the present day. On Friday, it was time to go. We went back to Tbilisi, rather than to Akhalkalaki, so that we could do a little more domestic traveling over the weekend. It happened to be Old New Year (according to the Julian calendar), so we decided to go to visit our first host family in Kortaneti. They have a tradition that will be familiar to my family members of hiding a coin in a loaf of bread – the one whose piece has the coin will have good fortune that year. Looks like 2011 will be grandmother’s year. On Saturday, we decided to take a day trip to Gori, the birthplace of Stalin. A big statue of old Joe used to stand in the center of town. It was taken down last summer and now there’s a New Year’s tree in its place. We visited the palatial Stalin museum, which included the house where Stalin was born (itself now housed in a huge stone and marble pavilion) and a hall of gifts to the leader.The Stalin museum:

Stalin's office recreated:

A gift to Stalin from the workers of an accordion factory:

We also managed to visit the cave city of Upliltsikhe outside of Gori, an ancient site where pre-Christian temples, churches, pharmacies, and the royal residences of the kings of Kartli piled on top of one another. We had the place almost to ourselves (save for a policeman chasing a runaway horse around and looking very like a Keystone Kop), and it was fun braving the high winds and tromping in and out of the caves and marching down the long tunnel to the River Mtkvari.

We were back in Kortaneti for the night and spent some good time with our host family (once again promising ourselves that we’d brush up on our Georgian) before heading back home on Sunday. School was due to start today, but it looks like for pretty much everyone that date has been pushed to Monday. So it’ll be back to work and a new semester of challenges and (hopefully) accomplishments. We’ll keep you posted!

Akhalkalaki rings in the New Year with gusto. The market is jammed in the weeks before with everyone in town and from the surrounding villages stocking up on candy, fruit, drinks, decorations, fireworks, presents, produce and the obligatory whole piglet. Our central park was turned into a meat market, and you could hardly turn a corner without finding a box of live geese or a cow (in whole or in part) waiting to be served up as part of the New Year’s feast. Meanwhile, walking the streets was a nerve-shattering experience as the local youth made full use of the truckloads of cheap firecrackers being sold like chewing gum at every store counter and stall in town. Decorations popped up everywhere – a big New Year’s tree in front of the town’s Culture House was the focus, but lots of people had lights or other decorations up.One of two New Year's trees in our house

Every woman in Akhalkalaki was busy cooking in the last days of December, a feat made more impressive by the lack of electricity for 4 of the 5 days leading up to the New Year, and every family lays out a kingly table for the guests. We had (among other things) a whole piglet, chicken, ham, Canadian bacon, cabbage rolls, stuffed grape leaves, half a dozen different salads, two kinds of cake, scads of fantastic (and beautiful) pastries, a wide range of cheeses, nuts, candies, and dried fruit, bottles and bottles of wine, champagne, vodka, champagne, and soda. Our Family's New Year's Table (more was to come)

2011 is the Year of the Rabbit

On the 31st, people tend to go to the church in the evening to light a candle, then go home to greet the New Year with their families. All day long the Russian, Armenian, and Georgian TV channels are showing their own Rockin’ New Year concerts and holiday movies with the same standing as It’s A Wonderful Life or a Charlie Brown Christmas. Shaen and I had been working on our renditions of "Jingle Bells" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," with me on guitar and he on drum and (English!) vocals. We gave a lot of concerts over this holiday season, and I think it went really well.

At midnight, there’s the champagne toast and then a general rush for the doors to witness the sometimes alarming and altogether dramatic spectacle of every single household in a city of 10,000 people simultaneously setting off a month’s accumulated fireworks, bottle rockets, screamers, fountains, smoke bombs, sparklers, M80s, and various other pyrotechnics. Not quite to the scale of a DC or Boston Fourth of July, but with a kind of immediacy that a display put on by trained professionals with a fire crew standing by just can’t match. Then, an hour later, we did it all over again, this time on Moscow time.

Father Winter brings New Year's presents to kids just like Santa Claus on Christmas in America, and Shaen was really excited to find a card game and a miniature foosball table. (He had persuaded his grandmother to give him his present early, so we had already met the laser-blasting, missile-firing, walking, talking robot). A few days later, Melissa coming back from Tbilisi was able to surprise him with a gift from her mother, which he wore for about 4 days straight (when his parents made him take it off for bed, he got up at 3 am and put it back on).

Lilit was likewise happy to show off her new outfit from the Kuhlman household:The next day, January 1, the visiting began. Fortified by a hearty breakfast of grape-leaf dolma, we settled in to receive guests, and then set out on our own visits. The next four or five days were a food and visit-filled blur. It was a great chance to spend time with our friends and acquaintances here in town and celebrate with them. We managed to stumble through a few toasts in Armenian, and somehow survived the week without exploding a la Mr. Creosote. It’s a really nice tradition, though by the end everyone is exhausted. It’s expensive, too; even people who really can’t afford to feel like they have to lay out a lavish table. People shake their heads over the amount of food that goes to waste, and more than one person said that they would prefer a one-day celebration with family and close friends. Still, we were really glad to be here to celebrate the New Year with new friends, and as usual words can’t even express how kind and hospitable everyone has been to us. Another milestone: today marks 6 months since our swearing in – we’re officially 25% through with our service as Peace Corps volunteers! Tomorrow we leave for a week-long trip to Armenia with one of Melissa’s teaching counterparts. We’re excited to see our neighbor to the south and we’ll be back with stories and pictures before school starts up again on the 20th. Happy New Year to all of you reading this, and we hope 2011 brings you all the best!