The Sunny Side of the Street

So, I'm now on a much-needed vacation. About a week has gone by since I left Georgia, and while I miss parts and people, it feels good to be able to relax. I had a bout of illness which landed me in the hospital, but I am out, feeling a ton better. I go in for my check-up tomorrow morning!

I hope to return to Georgia rejuvenated and ready to complete year 2! OMS-Peace Corps (Office of Medical Services) in Washington expressed some concerns about me going back to the same living conditions with the burning trash, exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke of the "big" city... I feel like that could be foreshadowing of some future drama, but it was necessary to tell them about my downturn in health so I could turn it around. My coordinator with OMS is so amazing. I was reminded of a cultural element of Japanese culture where you send gifts to those that help you. It's a great way to show appreciation to those who don't necessarily play a central role in your life but make it easier.

I've been able to spend some time with some of my favorite people so far, which has been good. Hopefully, this week goes better! I can say there are good people, good foods, and good times ahead.

A Bug's Life

So the cough from all the environmental things feels like it may be getting itself under control. Since I've been told I'm pretty good in the field of talking about nothing, I have a story for you.

The past couple of nights, there have been bugs crawling around on the floor of my bathroom (as if the overpopulation of spiders wasn't enough). I guess you have to figure that something needs to support these spiders if they are going to stay alive. I made the discovery about the unknown bugs when I turned on the light, and there were like 15-20 of them wriggling around on the floor. I freak out, they freak out, and they scatter while I'm attempting to kill them. I never said I was merciful to unknown house guests. This house is one in Georgia that doesn't exude hospitality. So, I think I'm done killing them. They behave like cockroaches, but kill as easily as silverfish. Maybe it's like a hybrid mutation?

So, I notice 2 huge spiders on either end of the bathroom, perched near the floor. I figure I'd let them stay there, because two spiders are better than 20 little unknown bugs. I start brushing my teeth but am careful not to disturb the spiders, as I already had enough spider bites on my legs after my last crusade to take back my apartment (While I had been away in the last month, spiders claimed my apartment. Needless to say, I sustained some injuries.). So I'm watching these two predators, and suddenly along trundles in my periphery of vision a huge daddy/momma big-ass (perdone mon Français) jumbo-nasty unknown bug (at least 50 times bigger than the little ones). I quickly squash this BAMF and leave its corpse there to rot (or until I could collect enough courage to scoop it up with a paper towel).

Yesterday morning, the bug carcass remained alone on my bathroom floor and the 2 spiders had taken up shop for the night. Then, this morning I wake up thinking, it's about time I cleaned up this murder scene, but only the smoosh-lines of the bug remained. Some creature that lives in my bathroom claimed it for a meal. The question is, was it a spider? or was it a scavenger? Maybe it was the little unknown (possibly cannibalistic) bugs. I'll keep you updated on the hour.

**This has been a Georgian reality check brought to you by jeffersonpeaches.blogspot.com.

Cigarettes and Burning Trash

OOOOK. This is going to be a mini-rant, and then I'll be done. So I have a terrible cough. A cough that has kept me from sleeping well the last 2 nights. I've been having trouble breathing because they have not stopped burning trash or smoking cigarettes! It doesn't matter what's in the trash, they burn it anyway. Almost all Georgian men (and a lot of women) smoke, so that's unavoidable. What's the result? A horrible cough and poor quality of sleep.

I can't have my windows and doors closed because I don't have air conditioning, and we don't get enough living allowance to keep a fan running all summer. So, I leave my doors open, and in comes the smoke. I'm sick of it already. I'm really glad I'm going to America to get a break from the heat and smoke you can't escape from.

Bimonthly :-\ Update

All-time highs in temperatures across the globe result in all-time lows in blog posts here on jeffersonpeaches.blogspot.com!

So, after the summer camp from hell, I went to help out for round two of Pre-Departure Orientation (PDO) with American Councils. There was a PDO intermission when we were able to see Hillary Clinton in the flesh! She was running on Georgian village time (even slower than Georgian time), approximately 2.5 hours late. It was a good time though! I got to meet a former PC volunteer and an embassy intern! At the end, I got to bump uglies shake hands with Madame Secretary, who I affectionately refer to as Hillary (we are like bff's). She asked me how I was and before I could answer, a woman of asian decent jumped between us for a picture, scared Hillary and secret service, and Hillary bustled on! I can only hope that next year will bear more satisfying experiences with the Secretary of State. I still need to tell her that we have the same birthday!

Then, post-PDO I finally was able to purchase a refrigerator! It's beautiful and in my kitchen right now, full of food I need to eat before I LEAVE TO AMEREEKA! That's right, I will be on a luxurious summer holiday in the sunshine state, kickin it back with my mom and friends for three weeks. My hope is that I will come back to Georgian in August renewed for the final stretch of the PC Experience.

Since the refrigerator purchase, I have made sweet tea, ice water, hummus, pita, brownies with caramel on top, grilled cheese, okroshka (Russian summer soup), among other various sundries.

Unfortunately, my blog has not been the only part of my life that has suffered. I also have had no energy for my Russian lessons. The truth is, I'm burnt out and need a vacation. Luckily, my hard drive is loaded up with movies to watch in the down time.

Saqartveloa...

Hello folks! Have I got a vacation idea for you! It’s called: Summer Camp with a private school! You will spend 10 days and 9 fabulous nights in a run-down camp site in the middle of nowhere! Your accommodations include sleeping on a thin mattress pad atop of not one, not two, but twelve glorious wooden bed slats! The best sleep you’ve ever imagined wouldn’t be complete without the decomposing, rock-like pillow. Your meals are fully included! You couldn’t be a full-fledged camper without malnutrition. Meals include: bread, margarine, and honey at every meal! You can expect a few side orders of vegetable borsch, room-temperature fried fish, and cucumber-tomato salad! No matter how much you eat, it will be difficult to break 2000 calories a day! Sounds enticing I know, but wait! There’s more!
This camp of a life-time wouldn’t be complete without a monster helping of disorganization! You will be teaching English classes to 106 5th-7th grade students for 2 hours a day! Students will not want to attend classes and will complain, but you can be guaranteed the camp supervisor will be dissatisfied with whatever lesson you planned!
Around day 6 you can be guaranteed to catch a bout of a burning throat, fever, common cold, virus, cough, or all of the above! Then on day 7, I hope you’ll be able to get some rest because you’ll be going on an excursion in 90 degree weather for several hours! All of our excursion options include a semi-grueling hike if you can fight to get a spot on one of our non-air-conditioned vans. Camp staff like to make it as difficult as possible to make anything work out, as you’ll probably appreciate the struggle you had to go through to get to the end. When you need to leave on day 10, you’ll be lucky if you can get anyone to drive you the 45-50 minute walk to the road to get back home! Sure you’ll be exhausted, but who could turn down this experience!?
A few final notes about this hypothetical experience: the kids are really smart, talented, slightly misbehaved but they’ll love you, the 7th graders will be your favorites, a few of the teachers are nice, the people you go with are great company, but the power may go off every day and the management staff of this school are the most disrespectful, inconsiderate, greedy, irresponsible people you have worked with in your PC experience and continue to amaze you in all negative regards.

The Shadows of Peace Corps Past and Present

Hey there boo boo! I think I had a picnic basket!

Yes folks, I had several picnics, but before I get to that story, allow me to recant tales of a volunteer lost at sea.

Let's start off with today and I will blend the present into the past.

So right now I'm eating the pretzels I bought earlier today. I just ate a pretzel that had one of the pieces still in it. I never realized that they punch out the holes in the pretzels. Where do all of these pieces go? It's one of the things, like donuts that we can enjoy even if there is something missing from it. I know I could probably google it, and probably will, to find out where they go, but I kind of like living in mystery. One of my recent personal philosophies is finding joy in imperfection. I may have mentioned this before, but I have observed children, tweens, and adults in this country destroying things. But why? Do they find joy in it? But of course, that doesn't give everyone the right destroy anything, just because it's there. I think you should value things that are whole, but the A-type American mentality already values perfection and completeness. But what about incompleteness, imperfection, and making mistakes (like my lack of agreeing parallelism just there)? There should be value found in everything. So what if your counterpart is late? doesn't want to come to class? So what if you make mistakes while speaking? All of these imperfections can of course strive for perfection, but you should appreciate the relative progress and imperfection of things all the way down to spilling coffee on yourself or a cockroach in your kitchen. Because of this, it's difficult for me to accept all of the time and doesn't negate the stress situations can create. For example: the pretzels I bought. One could say a majority of things in stores here for packaged goods are already expired. That beer you're drinking? Yep, it went bad in 2008. Did you pay full price? Will you check the label next time? Yep.

I haven't had electricity for the past couple of days. Right now, my landlord is replacing the electric switch box. There is a live, exposed wire behind the little plastic case in my foyer, I was told not to open. Do I have electricity? Yes. I am happy.

I found a store that carries the extra large version of candy bars for 20 tetri (cents) cheaper than the cheapest store. I'm glad about this. Dr. Marina called this very day to tell me that my town is not a malaria region! Ergo, I don't have to take malaria medicine!

So at the beginning of the school year, I had rocks thrown at me for not answering to a herd of catcalling hoodlums... and now in one week I've had 2 instances of being yelled to by complete strangers. They yell, "HEY! AMERICAN! AMERICAN! HEY! PSSST! AMERICAN!" I'll turn and wave to not get enemies, they'll all bust out laughing and I wait for another day.

Earlier, when I had bought the pretzels and candy bar with ice cold water to sit on a bench before my Russian lesson, the bench I usually sit on to snack was near a car of men hanging out. They all stare at me and laugh, point, talk loudly about me in Russian or Georgian, because I don't understand, and continue to stare. The small town folk in Georgia are not at all subtle about staring. Today, I just wasn't in the mood for it. But, I'm glad I could have that experience.

This weekend was really nice, because I got to spend it with 5-hairs. We hung out, had some 1on1 friend time (my fav!) and I got to meet 5-hairs' host family. They are nice. I like speaking Georgian with Georgians that are sympathetic to foreigners speaking their language. Today I was complimented by a lot of the teachers at my school for my ability to say a couple words. I know when I speak, I sound like a child and make a lot of mistakes, but what do you expect only studying it for 1 year? For some Georgians when you speak, you're a god. Some Georgians don't care one way or the other, and the rest will be more than happy to tell you it's not enough for them. This host family loved speaking with me. :)

Then, last week was the last week of school. I finished my computer lessons today, wrote their final exam, and verified all of their quizzes they had done from the previous module. Last week was so scattered. No children came. Teachers were scrambling to put their grade books into order. And it was HOTTT. I bought a fan. It's a glorious thing when there's not air conditioning. It got up to around 93-94 degrees F, a little taste of what the rest of the summer might be like. It is cool now, with a light breeze. I talked with my neighbor last night, and she agreed to help me redo the balcony with tile.

A couple weekends ago, my shadows came to watch how I live for 3-4 days. I got to know them better, as they were practically strangers. Annnd I have been trying to think of blog nicknames for them ever since. I thought of one, but forgot it, and the other I couldn't think of one. I need time. They are still new, you know! We had a good time. The first night the site mate, his shadow, and me and my shadows all dined together. It was fun! The next night, my friend, Giorgi, and me and my shadows dined together. It was also very fun! Then we went on an excursion with my school for an overnight trip that Saturday.

At first, it was amazing. We were on an air conditioned bus, we had a picnic in the outdoors, and then the real fun began. We went to a church to site see. I sat on a rock which must have had some bugs on it, because I got bit up! After this we went to a park and road the ferris wheel (which I really truly enjoyed). It was a momentary escape. Then the 3 of us, some teachers from our school and the 35 or so other teenagers found a 3 bedroom house to stay the night. There we ate some leftovers from lunch and the teeny boppers popped bottles and wine was flowing! It flowed all night and not many slept. The teachers all slept in one room with my shadows. One of my shadows got sick and was up all night. I was the only person of age who slept with the teenagers. They told me not to fall asleep or they would do something bad to me. They were nice and let me have one of the beds, but they took the bedding off. So I directly slept laid awake waiting for something bad to happen on a metal frame. The students crept in giggling all night armed with toothpaste and shaving cream. It would've been a real hoot if they could cover the American English teacher from head-to-toe in something without him knowing. Knowing this, I was ready. They managed to get a dollop of toothpaste on my ankle before I woke up to tell them to please stop and get out. They would retreat. It was like controlling a tide of disorder, they ebbed and flowed all night, with my words and lack thereof pushing and pulling them away.

The next day, discovering my shadow's illness, we determined they should go back to site early to be more comfortable. I alone remained with the crowd. We toured along from church to church. One of the students bought me a souvenir model of a church that we took a picture at for me to remember. I have it now in my room, and I can't say I'll ever forget their kindness. Another student bought a stick with cherries tied around it with string. It was very beautiful and delicious. We sat on a bench, talked, listened to our surroundings, and enjoyed the cherries. The teachers commented to the English teacher (and my secondary counterpart) who organized the trip that I was not eating a lot and they were worried. My counterpart bought me popcorn to tide me over and satisfy the teachers. Even though I had eaten plenty, I was grateful and touched by the gesture. The students and I played games on the bus, and the students rotated around me, each wanting a turn to hang out with me. This was the first time I had been invited to do anything with my students. I was tickled!

The day finally wound down with another picnic with the leftovers from the day before. We got back that night, and I crashed to a wonderful night of sleep. The next day at school, I eagerly greeted the students. They were with friends who weren't there and wanted to play it cool. I understand that social dynamic and was happy that I could be their friend for a day. I look forward to the next day and the possibility of every day.

With the old and new volunteers, family and friends, my experience is starting to stabilize. I still have rough moments, but I'm feeling good! I hope that anyone having a rough moment out there can take a breath to reflect on the past, exhale to reflect on the present, and pause to think about what and where their next breath will bring them. Thinking of you all. xoxo

Gimme a Big Ole Bear Hug!

I am forecasting that this will be an unfortunately short post, but I wanted to get something down in writing.

I have 2 trainees coming to casa del Jefferson for job shadowing. They will be my shadows, and it will be a Georgian ol' time. I need to make cake and mop my floors before they get here. We are doing dinner tonight with my SM and his trainee: spaghetti, sauce, salad, garlic bread and cake of sorts.

This will be my second attempt to produce a cake in my giant cake pan. It's double the area of a 9 x 13 but 1/2 the depth, if that makes ANY sense?

There has been an interesting situation with the water: it has not been widely available on the water days due to power outages. If there isn't electricity, I can use my motor to pull water into my apartment, but luckily I was able to get enough today. The bad thing is that my water used to be brown/rust colored. The worse thing is that now it's tinted black. I think it may have something to do with the asphalt they just laid.

I FINALLY dropped off my dress shoes to be repaired at the shoe place, that way I won't have to wear my boots around town as much! WHEW! Then, in celebration of the guests coming, I bought some house slippers for guests when they come over. It's only taken me since February.

I've been having a lot of strange dreams lately (as usual). For example, one of the new trainees who shall remain anonymous was trying to drown people while they were swimming including myself and another trainee saved me (thank you!)! :) Then in another dream, a huge grizzly bear or something invited to give me a hug which I was precautious about, but then realized I wasn't a bear (you know how bears have poor vision) and then I was in danger of being mauled to death. She knew that I wasn't hairy enough to be a bear, and that's what gave me away. SO STRANGE. So any interpretations on those would be appreciated.

Off to make a cake! Until next time!