I am a performing monkey

Friday 2^nd December

Sometimes I feel like a performing monkey but then again am I a performing monkey if my audience doesn’t think of me as a performing monkey? Yesterday, the 4^th years (primary) performed a show for parents, teachers and any other pupils that were hanging around.  It was on the theme of “Is there another Georgian here?” but I think the true meaning got lost in translation.  It was a patriotic endeavour anyhow, with students stepping forward and reciting from memory texts military style.  This was followed by a rendition of the national anthem and then traditional Georgian dancing.  For some reason I am called up (completely sober) to dance with the children doing Georgian dancing.  Why?  I can twirl my hands and move about “Georgian style” but to the trained eye this does not resemble the real thing; I merely mimic what I can see.  This is an occasion I feel like a performing monkey.  Is it just a case of “Let’s get the foreigner up and have a laugh at her trying to be like us”? or is it something else?  It’s like when they deliberately force pints of wine in a variety of receptacles down Martin’s throat – “Let’s get the foreigner pissed so that he can fall over and vomit”?  Is it like that for them or do they see it differently?  I don’t know.  Everyone claps and cheers and enjoys me up there floating around like a nitwit but is it at my expense or do they think that it is great that I can let my hair down and don’t take myself seriously?  There was another supra in the staffroom this afternoon with khachapuri, stuffed chillies, boiled squash, red and white wine and a lovely syrupy juice made from redcurrants.  I ate a little and went off to class and on my return on opening the door to the staffroom I was greeted by claps from everyone and Georgian music playing.  So I had to put my bag down and dance again, presumably for those who missed my performance earlier!

When I went home I played connect 4 and cards with the host granddaughter Rusadan who is 8 years old and cheats at cards.  Eka, the daughter-in-law, wanted me to listen to her read in English and tell her the words on my flashcards.  I had given her an English lesson when we arrived there but she didn’t want to continue and she wanted our 3 hours of English lessons to be given to the children instead.  However, she obviously doesn’t consider this an English lesson. She then wanted me to give her a shoulder massage.  Manana (Host mother aged 59) came and sat with me when I went on the internet and shadowed me while I made some “Good Work in English” certificates because she wants me to teach her Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint.  She seemed satisfied to just watch which was ok by me.  Eka’s shoulders were too painful for me to work on as I had given her a massage on power-cut night for something to do so I could delay that request.  Rusadan clings to me (literally) at times.  There were a lot of demands made on me last night.  Oh and then Manana sees me as a drinking buddy as well.  I ate dinner with her in the kitchen and we gave me 3 glasses of red wine to be getting on with.  She then asks me questions about “first husband” “Martin’s first wife”  “is first husband dead?” “Do I see Martin’s first wife?”  She does this using 3 words and many gestures.  She tells me that Koba (her son and Eka’s husband) likes the women; much to Eka’s chagrin and she was told off.  3 glasses of wine loosens the tongue.

The thing is when you live with a family is that you cannot hide anything.  You can keep up a front for a little while, all smiles and sweetness, but the real dynamics of a family force their way through. Manana is a bit of a girl, a good laugh who gets on with the job and is quite earthy. Now that the kids have learned the word banana, she is now known as Manana the Banana.  She quite happily tells me I need to wash my lady bits and armpits and this morning was explaining that she has some problem with her waterworks.  I assumed cystitis but the dictionary said “diuretic” so I am none the wiser.  I left her today emptying the kitchen and pulling out the kitchen cupboards as it would seem that the floor in the kitchen is to be laid with tiles. (It would have been nice to have got the bathroom finished first but what the hell!) Last night she went out to milk the cows and laughing, showed me the hat she was going to wear.  A pair of girls knitted tights with stripy legs.  The body goes on the head and then the legs wrap around the head and are tied in a knot.  It looked quite good actually.  Eka is 26 and wears trousers.  This is unusual in the village as nearly all wear skirts or dresses.  She is mother to Rusadan 8 and Nico 6.  She is a great cook and works really hard cleaning, washing, cooking and also has responsibility of looking after the newly hatched chicks on the family chicken farm.  She is intelligent and can read English very well which she has seemly taught herself which is impressive as even the kids with trained teachers can’t read as well in the village! 

Everyone wants to give us Georgian products to take home to England!  I have been given a big jar of honey (it is VERY GOOD) and some chuchrellas.  These are home-made and consist of nuts threaded onto a string.  This is then dipped a few times into a thick mixture made from grapes and then left hanging up to dry.  It looks like a cross between a salami and a filled prophylactic and we all had a good giggle when we first saw them and were invited to eat them.  These are actually very delicious and you break off bits to eat and it is a mixture of fruit and nut.  My co-teacher has offered me a bottle of her cha-cha and I have had several offers of black wine.  This is very, very good and you would pay a lot of money for this wine in England as it is made just from the grape without sugar.  I think we are going to have to take a suitcase back with us rather than just our rucksacks as planned.

Nico is very intelligent and is a bundle of energy.  He is totally loved by all the family and is cuddled and kissed constantly by everyone.  Martin and I are told all the time that “Nico is Kargi, Yes” (good) and we feel awkward because they do not say the same thing about the girl, Rusadan, even when they have been doing the same task.  In fact, she doesn’t get praised at all, or shown affection in the same way as they do to Nico (maybe they are doing it in a different way only I can’t see it) and this makes me sad for her.  She is a stunningly beautiful girl in my opinion and although she is not so obviously quick and bright as the boy she is still clever.  But whenever she gets the chance, she will give the golden boy a little shove, and when we were playing cards she did a bit of attention seeking and kept taking the coins off the Kings in Newmarket to the point that I said she couldn’t play if she carried on.  So I have been making a particular effort to spend time with her.  It is not difficult as we are all confined to the same room and there is not a lot to do other than watch very bad Brazilian soap operas dubbed into Georgian.  (They really are very, very bad)  As a result this has led to her putting her arms around my neck and clinging to me very tightly a lot of the time.

What about the men?  They are quiet and keep themselves to themselves.  I think the old boy, Soso is not very healthy and has a bad chest.  He works on the chicken farm but also sits a lot around the house and gets drunk sometimes and Manana sends him to bed rather than sit in the lounge.  I like him. He is friendly and caring and seems to understand what we are saying, haha, always a bonus.  Koba goes out at night with his friends.  Not every night but he is out a fair bit and spends a lot of time on the computer playing games when he is in.  He has had some lessons in English but he is quietish and stays out of the way.  However, Martin has more access to him as a man and gets taken off to the kitchen to sup pints of wine every now and then.

After a drunken afternoon at school, Soso asks me and Martin if we want to go round his cousins for a bit of a piss-up and some more food.  “Ok” we cry and so we are taken to someone’s house after a precarious walk in the ice and snow through the village with no torch.  These people are amazing.  You could never turn up on spec with a couple of mates in England and get the service and respect that we do here in Georgia.  They rearrange tables and bring out food on little plates with serviettes and a number of glasses for cha-cha, lemonade and wine.  Nothing but the best for you and they propose toasts and make you feel so very welcome.  Martin fell off his chair being over-exuberant rather than over-intoxicated and out of courtesy to me, I guess, I was escorted to the neighbour’s outside loo 3 doors along through the snow and ice via the back gardens and holes in fences where they used a used exercise book as toilet paper.  I can only assume that they were embarrassed by their own lack of facilities and took me to the best available in the near vicinity.  Martin just peed under the tree.

Saturday brought its own challenges.  I hadn’t washed my hair since Wednesday and it was pretty nasty and I asked if we could use the neighbour’s shower.  Unfortunately we couldn’t until the next day so we went back to bed and stayed there until 3 o’clock reading and sleeping with the heat of our electric blanket to keep us going.  Shower-time wasn’t until 4 o’clock the next day and so we did the same thing on Sunday, finished the book and got up at 3:30 to eat and go for a nice wash.  I don’t think I have ever felt so rank in my life and I felt like a princess when I came home.  We had been invited to another supra that night which was very enjoyable – no dancing but good food and someone who could speak English!

St George's Day and Thanksgiving

Monday 28th November

This week we have celebrated 2 occasions, one Georgian, St George’s Day, on Wednesday and the other American, Thanksgiving which we celebrated belatedly on Saturday.   I love it when you see the similarities and differences in the cultures.  Sometimes here I find it is pretty much the same as at home even if it comes out of a different time period and other times very different.

The patron Saint of Georgia is funnily enough St George or Giorgi and we get the day off school.  I don’t understand why but I am informed that in Kvemo Khvedureti (the village where I teach and we live) does not celebrate this day but Zemo Kvedureti (the village where Martin teaches) does.  We celebrate the feast of St Maryam (feast of the virgin Mary) apparently in our village.  I am even more confused when at 9:00 that morning we get an invite to a supra (feast) at a house in the village for later that day.  Naturally we accept and look forward to what otherwise was going to be an uneventful day.

Our hosts were both doctors and relatively wealthy.  We were entertained in a party room which was separate to the main house which was fitted out very well.  Pine-clad with a roaring fire it was very welcoming, the men drank and the women worked hard to put together a very impressive meal.  Pork kebabs were roasted on the fire and those of us that were not men or part of the working party of women were left to talk to the children!  Much eating and drinking and dancing and singing took place and a good word to describe it was “Merry”. Me and Martin were declared “Kargi” (Good) and then we left so that the women could clear up and the men get off their faces.  Not of course before the inevitable toasting, that got rowdier and rowdier, standing on chairs and into the chandelier.

The Thanksgiving meal in Tbilisi was both a happy and sad occasion.  Happy because our TLG group 23 were getting together to eat good food and sad because some of us were going home in December and finishing their contract.  There were only 17 of us in our group that arrived together in the middle of August and although we were placed all over Georgia we have met up regularly and stayed in touch through Facebook, email and telephone. We are a mixture of mainly American (8) but with 3 English, 3 NZ, 1Australian, 1 Canadian and 1 German.  There were 2 sets of couples and 3 of us were around the 50 age group with the rest between 23 to 30.  We are an interesting bunch of people, at least 3 inches off centre and have been a good group and it is sad to see this first phase over.  Of the 6 people who are leaving, Greg is going to Japan and Melissa is going to China to teach English.  Irene, Adam and the New Zealand couple are resuming life in their respective countries and the German woman, Anna, and her Georgian husband is expecting a baby in February.The Hostel Georgia has been our refuge in Tbilisi where we escape the ravages of the village most weekends for 10 lari a night (£4) and it feels like home to us.  The owners are great and it was an ideal place to cook a communal meal and party.  I offered to buy, cook and bring the turkey and gravy and everyone else chose to bring cakes, salads, vegetables, cheese and beer.  The squash was a triumph as it was dowsed in maple syrup and butter and roasted!

Some arrived early Saturday morning and the rest of the group arrived throughout the day.  At 3 o’clock we started the preparations for the meal in the seediest kitchen you had ever seen and to get to which you had to go through the bar, into a bedroom which was separated from the kitchen by a set of curtains.  It was a fairly orderly process with people going in and out to help with chopping and cutting and supervising.  We had music and alcohol and then carols and it really felt like a family party.  We selected songs that were significant to us in our early teen years which meant they were subjected to a rendition of Donny Osmond singing “Puppy Love” (no apology).  Jake demonstrated the dance routine of “We’re on the Road to nowhere” and Ren being from New Orleans selected zydecho stuff (sorry I was a bit tiddled by then and can’t be specific).  Motown favourites for Irene who is from the big D (Detroit), Bartman, and ABC by Jackson 5 were amongst the others. We all wrote what we were thankful for on post-it notes and stuck it on the wall. It was a really lovely event and when we finally sat down for the meal we were hungry and ready and we were not disappointed.  Dessert was an eclectic mix of Apple pie, Georgian chocolate cake and Spotted Dick (much to the amusement of the Americans who had never heard of it) and custard from England.  After the inevitable smutty jokes about the aforementioned pudding we did a bit of clearing up, more drinking and more singing this time accompanied by Rob on an interesting looking guitar that probably has a name and Caitlin on her ukulele.  Mark did his stuff as well. ( I have a video but it is too big to load onto Facebook so may have to do some editing.)

The next day many of us went to the Hangar Bar where the ex-pats hang out and had the best burger you can find in Tbilisi with thick cut potatoes chips plus beer and then went for a hot soak and a scrub in the Sulphur baths to combat the 4 inches of snow that fell during the night.

Final goodbyes and we went our separate ways again back to our villages and to temperatures of -9!

It's not like Emergency Ward 10

Monday 28th November

What happens if you get sick here?  We have health insurance through the TLG and we tested it out last week.  Martin had spent the whole night coughing and so he decided to ring to arrange a visit to the doctors.  Unfortunately, the appointment was at the hospital in Gori, a nearby city and when I told my co-teacher she said that I must go with him and I was sent out to meet him.  I have been really short of breath myself for a while and couldn’t catch my breath even when walking on the flat so fearing the worst I thought I might as well get checked out too as I was going there anyway.

It took 2 ½ hours to get there and we were ½ an hour late as the taxi driver did not know where the hospital was and drove all over the place duh!  I did not take any pictures but I wish that I’d had done just to give a visual as it was an experience all round.  You’ve seen pictures of our schools, well it is just like that but bigger and grimmer.  A corridor runs through the hospital with rooms off either side which means that the corridor is both dark and effectively a wind tunnel.  Electric lights were absent. The lino was in bits and every now and again an electric heater had been put into the hall way plugged in one of the small rooms with the wire dragged across the corridor.  People just hung around outside doors.  We have no clue as to where we have to go.  All we have is a text from the Insurance Company with the hospital name, address and the Doctor’s name. 

We ask young people who we think may understand English and old people but we spend another twenty minutes wandering around aimlessly in the bitter cold.  One of pleas was heard and a woman brings another woman in a white coat who speaks some English.  She explains that the doctor forgot her phone and she takes us to her surgery and tells us to wait.  There is already one old girl in the doctor’s surgery and we assume we have to wait outside but no, we are told to go in and wait.  We are grateful for the extra warmth but confused as to the system when a few more people join us in the surgery.  The doctor arrives and she deals with patients while we all sit there.  She makes telephone calls and writes prescriptions and bollocked one woman for drinking alcohol (even we could work out that one).  What about patient privacy?  Everyone could hear what was going on.  Presumably if you were going for an STD check-up they would make the rest of us wait outside but you never know!

It came to our turn and we were asked a few questions and then without an examination (other than my pulse being taken) we were both whisked off accompanied by the doctor to have blood tests (no gloves worn by the technician) and chest x-rays.  It is kind of like living in an alternate universe in Georgia sometimes, it is all very familiar but with a twist.  The x-ray department looked like something out of the science museum, but in the middle of several abandoned rooms was the warm hidey hole where the x-ray ladies hung out.  There were 6 of them all with varying shades of black and grey hair huddled around a huge radiator that they use to dry the x-rays.  It is all very intimate.  Plants, religious pictures and net curtains.  From this room they can look directly into the x-ray room through a small window and are protected from radiation because the metal walls are very thick.  It looks like the inside of a submarine.  I am sent in first (Martin is having his blood tests) and unsure as to what I am meant to do (nothing unusual there) but I hear a voice and I whip off my upper clothes – you have to leave this to the last minute – I say “Seeva Seeva” (Which means cold, cold) and I hear the ladies laugh from the other room.  The Georgians are always pleasantly surprised when you speak any Georgian and laugh like you are a child saying cute little words) and someone comes in and tell me to press hard against the plate and mimes holding my breath – and so I do and am done.

Martin comes in and makes the school boy error of removing his clothes before he needs to and stands there freezing.  When it’s his turn to press against the plate he yells “Eek” like a cissy and the old ladies laughed out loud at that one and I could detect sadistic tendencies lurking under the surface.  They dried the x-rays on the radiator and examined then and declared that there was nothing wrong with Martin but that I had a chest infection and I was then taken to the cardiology department for an ECG.  Some poor old boy was still on the bed when I came in and they unclipped him and sent him on his way while I was in the room.  I haven’t had this done in the UK but I lay down and they had big clips which they attached to my ankles and wrists and a couple of suckers under my heart.  They then snipped and glued the strips of paper together and sent me back.  They decided they want to do an ultrasound on my heart and I am sent to another department.

This room has 10 people standing around in it with many of the people sitting on the couch which is used for some kind of test and I am not sure what is going to happen here.  There is a room off this room where some tests are done so it would seem that there is some privacy but people wander in and out of it all the time.  The process is slow and my doctor comes back after an hour to see what is happening  and she explains to all the people waiting that I am an English teacher from London and I live in a village outside of Gori – what about patient confidentiality? But when she comes back ½ hour after that and finds I am still waiting just takes me into the test room and the cardiologist comes into the room and does the test.  My clothes are hoisted up but bits of me are still exposed so it is a bit disconcerting to find that patients just open the door and poke their head in to see if the doctor is there while I am laid out like a frozen chicken. 

It is declared that my heart is working perfectly (I was very worried about this) and I am given some nice antibiotics (Russian strength) to sort out my chest.  I am not allowed to drink alcohol – oh dear.  While I am waiting for the documentation to print off a young woman is being laid out on the bed in the waiting room and the machine is being prepared.  I assume this is not an invasive test as it looks like it is going to be public viewing. The doctor lives in the village where Martin teaches and so we are family.  The doctor’s husband comes to pick her up and they kindly drive us straight to the pharmacy, but on the way there, she unwinds the window and in the blink of an eye, we stop next to a man by the side of the road and something is exchanged through the window and then we are off and the window wound up.  What was that about??

We travel onto Tbilisi for the weekend and we went to the ballet and had an over-priced under-spiced Indian meal in the only Indian restaurant in Tbilisi.  The Russian drugs work their magic and in 3 days I can breathe from the bottom of my lungs and feel better than I have done for weeks.

It's a lot like camping

Thursday 10th November

Well a lot has happened this week on the domestic front as we have moved host families and it has snowed.  It has been very stressful, firstly making the decision in the first place and then waiting to see if the school could find us another family in the village and then the packing and leaving the old family and settling into the new one.  For those of you who keep track of this riveting narrative, you will have already seen the signs of the dwindling relationship between us and the host mother Maia.  Neli (deda) and Beso were fine but Maia I think has a problem generally and is a bit on the depressive side with delusions of grandeur and a touch of control freak to boot.  We were always in her bad books it seemed and she was sulky, didn’t speak to us and gave us really dirty looks after we had tried to change the times of the lessons with her children.  Neli and Beso have no choice but to live there with that kind of tension but we don’t have to and when TLG asked us if we wanted to request a host family change we said yes. 

The school was anxious to find us another host family as if they couldn’t we would have to leave the village and both Martin’s and my school would be without a volunteer.  I was taken around by the English teachers to inspect a couple of places but they wanted time to think about it.  We were very fortunate in that the current host family  had indoor plumbing and a western toilet.  This meant that we had a hot shower every day and didn’t need to go into the garden for the loo.  We did realise how fortunate we were in this respect as we knew what the situation was for the teachers in other villages.  However we were more than happy to exchange this for the opportunity to be in a more friendly environment and to have a comfortable bed.  The school librarian was press-ganged into having us just until the end of the semester but we had to send an email to TLG to say that we agreed that we did not have indoor plumbing or a heater in our room and was fine with it.  Our fate sealed we moved the next day.  Naturally the previous family still complained that we hadn’t given them enough money. 

We have a big bed.  So big that I don’t even touch Martin at all which makes a change from playing Mr Tangle Man all night to generate maximum body heat.  But it is a bit lonely so we are going to work out a solution once we have got used to sleeping stretched out.  We are warm in bed and it isn’t damp and it is very, very comfortable.  The room is large with a big wardrobe and a table, plus rug on wooden floors. In fact with its high ceilings and chandelier it is rather like a hotel room.  It is internal room which keeps the heat in but even so it is SO, SO cold in there as the weather has changed and it is impossible to work in there.  We could buy a heater but we will see how much we feel we need to escape from the family before we do that.

The family consist of Manana and Soso who are in their 60’s and their youngest son Corba and his wife Eka (26) and their 2 children Nica (5) and Rusadan (7).  I teach both of these at school and they were very excited at us coming to live there.  Of course they think it is going to be an endless round of The Wheels on the Bus and me jumping around like an idiot.  Time to meet grumpy Jennifer Mastavlabeli.

Most of the people live like this in the village but I hadn’t really given a lot of thought to the practicalities of this.  The snow of course has added a whole new pressure to this for us.  The toilet is a little outhouse and we have to walk through the house, pass Manana and Soso’s bedroom where the door is kept open for warmth, unlock the back door and off you go.  Neither of us have mastered the correct position to adopt to use this facility and if I can, I take off my trousers completely so that I don’t have any embarrassment when I come out.  Better to be safe than sorry is my motto but I am seriously considering buying a she-wee when I come back for Christmas.  For those of you who still are not clear about loos like this they consist of an iron square in the floor which is pre-moulded with foot rests.  I have NEVER been successful with using the foot rests so either my anatomy is a little odd or they were designed for someone with a very different posture. There is no water, so you throw paper down the hole as well.  Martin had a go this morning and carefully followed my advice and had the foresight to hang his trousers round his neck but didn’t have enough time to get into position which was unfortunate.  To top it all he fell over in the snow when he came out of the outhouse.  For some reason I found this inordinately funny and haven’t laughed so much in a long time. 

I should say that we have been given a large green plastic bowl for our room in case we have a need during the night.  Manana demonstrated what it was for “Phish” with gestures.  Manana is very good at gestures.  We were kind of told to wash our bits and feet courtesy of these actions.  As always in these situations it is best to do as you are told as resistance is futile.  She gave us a bucket of hot water and took us over to the outdoor washing building.  This turned out to be a tiled bathroom with bath, sink and larger washing sink but with no taps connected.  We had a bucket and a bowl and a small jug for pouring.  It was ok.

The kitchen does not have a sink, in fact there’s no running water in the house at all.  There is a well in the yard which is operated by an electric pump (except during power-cuts when there is a convenient hand solution – a bucket) Water is pumped into a huge stone sink. To wash your hands or clean your teeth you turn on the pump and brush your teeth over the sink.  It’s as simple as that.  All hot water is boiled on the stove and the washing up is done in 2 metal bowls on the table.  Washed in one and put on the other to drain.

The lounge in warm and welcoming with seats arranged down one side and a TV table and wood-burning stove which gives out an incredible amount of heat.

All in all this is a new kind of experience for us and I hope we don’t find it too gruelling.  You just can’t just think “I’m gonna shower or wash my hair now” It involves getting and then boiling up the water, taking to the out house and then washing.  It also isn’t just our decision as it involves Manana and Eka too as they do the work.

By all accounts this is just the beginning of the winter and there is going to be a lot more snow as well.   So I guess it is a lot like camping but much, much colder.

The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round and Round and Round

Thursday 3^rd November

You will be pleased to know that I have introduced many old English favourites into the repertoire of the Georgians of the future.  The “Wheels on the Bus” is a winner as is “Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes”.  “One finger one thumb” is universally adored as it involves a LOT of moving around and falling over for some reason.  I use “Incy Wincy Spider” to quieten them down along with “Hickory Dickory Dock”.  I do a combination of these songs several times a day and am finding that my voice is strengthening as a result.  Or it could just be that my 6-week cold and throat infection combo is at long last clearing up.  Moving on curriculum-wise to counting has now expanded my list and now I do “10 fat sausages”, “5 little ducks”, “10 in the bed” and “10 green bottles” which I actually find a bit dreary but the kids love my impersonation of a green bottle falling off the wall.   Yesterday the “Hokey Cokey” was introduced out of sheer boredom from me.  Naturally the boys think this is a good opportunity to crash into each other and fall over.  My attempts at “The Big ship sailed on the Alley Alley O” was a disaster although they enjoyed being in excruciating pain in a tangle on the floor.  I have been pointed in the direction of the correct actions on Youtube and will now have another go on Monday.

I am trying to be a bit innovative in the lessons which means getting the children out of their seats and working as teams but it is not easy as the teachers like to follow the books to the letter.  They are SO rigid at times.  Giving children “Post-it” notes to match letters to images and past tense to present tense verbs.  A friend sent me some number dominos that consist of 2 pieces that join together like a jigsaw.  This has been really useful as each student is given a piece of the jigsaw and as they have to count the items and find the matching number.  Again this involved boys falling over and a lot of snatching.  I have also done “Story time” which was great.  The floor is too dirty for then to sit on so they have to bring their chairs to the front but we sit in a circle and I show and read a story book to them (courtesy of same friend) the teacher translates but they absolutely loved it.  Probably a story time rug would be a good idea.

We finally received almost a full set of teaching materials.  The red teacher’s book is the one we need the most plus flashcards but we didn’t get those.  We did receive the rest of the CDS, DVDs, Pupil books, work books and posters for the more advanced books.  Martin and I have been given our very own set each.  We have copied everything to our laptops and I use mine in the lessons to play the songs and the readings that are in the book.  The school does have a CD player but there are no sockets in most of the rooms so it is a problem for them.

Given that the teachers don’t use the teacher’s books for the upper school, I predicted that the arrival of the teacher’s books would not make a great deal of difference other than to stem the tide of “What can we do?  We have no books!” to justify why there is more Georgian spoken in a lesson than English and why everything has to be translated.  I cannot remember if I have shared this particular frustration but here goes again as I am sure it requires emphasis. They ask a question in English “How many horse are there?”  Then immediately translate it into Georgian but presumably grammatically correct.  The children answer in Georgian and then she says “Kho” (yes) and then “In English” and they say “Three”  So what they respond to is translate into three.  So If I ask “How many horses are there?” They say “How many horses are there?” And I say it again and then they repeat it.  They do not know what I am saying as they have only ever had to respond to the Georgian question. 

Similarly they do not understand anything they read as again they know it is going to be translated into Georgian and it is that that they respond to.  It has taken me a while to work this out.  When I say this to the teacher she says “Yes they don’t understand” but then goes for a Georgian translation with more fervour.  I have taken a few classes on my own at when they did this I thought at first they were taking the mick as I wasn’t their teacher.  I then had to go through a convoluted explanation of what a question is and what an answer is.  “What’s your name?” “My name is  ..” and then explain what “how many” means by counting.  Similarly in a class on my own I was trying to do hangman on the days of the week and they just kept say “Friday, Saturday” so I said “That’s a word, tell me a letter” “That’s a word, tell me a letter” they repeated back.  They got it in the end but if the teacher had been there they would have been bollocked and had it translated again for them.

My co-teacher does not read the teacher’s books.  She teaches 4 different levels and with 3 lessons a week it is hard going especially as it is in English and her English isn’t too good.  She prefers to follow the pupil book as usual.  The problem is that this means she misses out the important parts of introducing new vocabulary for the tasks, warm up tasks and in fact what the lesson is about.  So I have been looking at the lessons, planning what we will do and then leading her.  I prepare the flashcards that we need and write up the essential bits like this lesson we are looking at plurals or whatever.

It has been hard work to do this and I am also looking at the other material that is on the DVD such as words to learn and phonemes to practice and making up posters for the units.   I got a bit fed up of doing all this without any input from her as it is hard work and so have pulled back quite a bit.  I just follow the lesson in her teacher book and work on the fly during the lesson.  To be honest I don’t blame her.  It is unrealistic to expect her to quadruple her thinking time about the lesson ahead.  I expect she will slowly adapt.  She has also pointed out while their training focussed on group work (rather than the good students come up to the board  and write what she dictates while the rest of the class go wild) the lesson plans in the teacher’s books revolve around pair work.  What needs to happen as always is that the lesson is adapted to your particular students’ needs which means even more planning.  Kinaesthetic tasks and explanations (which I try to bring in as much as possible) are thin on the ground.  She is probably horrified at how I explain what “win” means and “first, second” as I had 5 kids run up the classroom in a race!  Surely that is better than a translation into Georgian?

Getting to Know You

Thursday 3^rd November

As you might imagine a school excursion in Georgia is not quite like one in England.  Firstly we were told to be at the school at half past nine for the bus.  So it should come as no surprise to find that the bus pulled up outside our house at 8:30 bibbing it’s horn.  We weren’t even up and dressed and had no time to eat anything which was unfortunate.  Evidently the English teacher has problems with telling the time.  The marshutka for the trip hit a new record with the highest number of cracks in one windscreen.

We were given pride of place in the front of the bus for which we were grateful.  See how many people they managed to squeeze in? 17 plus the driver.  There were 2 teachers, 4 mothers, 1 granny and us volunteers and 10 children from classes 4 and 7.  Everyone made and brought food (and drink) to share and we were going off to visit 4 monasteries / nunneries / significant religious establishments in the mountains.  It reminded me of the retreats that Nita used to do.  In her younger days the only acceptable outings that the ladies could do was to go on retreat and visit somewhere religious.  So Nita used to make up picnics and a group of them would go off in her sports car and have a jolly.  Well we were all very virtuous today and we did 3 religious places.  It was pretty spectacular at this early autumn time with the leaves falling and the golden autumnal colours in the landscape.  We revisited one place that we had been to in the summer with Maia and Beso and want to come back in the Winter and Spring to see all the seasonal changes.

We visited 2 places and then sat down at some picnic tables and began the feast.  It was just like how we would do it in England really but with a twist.  Everyone got their bags of food and put dishes on the table which had table cloths laid out first.  They put out plates, serviettes, cutlery glasses and bottles of home-made liquid disguised in innocent looking water bottles.  Khachapuri, chicken, obscure fried birds that had been shot by their husbands, rolled up pancakes stuffed with meat, apples, cheese and Georgian pizza (don’t ask - it is nothing like your traditional pizza) And so we ate, drank, ate, drank and took photos.  Juliet told me that I had to taste everyone’s food, that this one was a very good cook, that this one makes very good cha-cha and this one makes the best khachapuri.  “Tchame, Tchame” (eat, eat) is the war cry of Georgian women.  And so we did. These women knew how to party.  We were pissed in no time (we should’ve had breakfast ….)   The ladies were up dancing to their mobile phones and naturally we joined in.  They loved Martin as he was a man and joined in and they all wanted to dance with him and have their photos taken with him.  The granny showed us her trick with rotating her arm with a full glass, not spilling it and knocking it back in one.  So we all had a few goes at that.  We all sang songs, got kissed a lot and hugged a lot. The children ran amuck having the time of their life running up and down hills.  Then we cleared away and went to the next religious visit.  The 4^th visit involved a long walk up a hill and so we left that one to the dutiful teachers and the children and the rest of us stayed by the marshrutka.  “Wine?” said Sopa (the blonde – well it’s a little blue actually – half-Ukranian) “Oh ok then” and so we continued.

When the others returned Martin went down to the river with the kids and threw huge rocks into the water and the women had yet more photos taken with Martin and then we made our way back home.  But the day wasn’t over yet as we stopped at the restaurant in Kareli, put all the leftover food on the table supplemented by Khingalle and continued to party.  We had such a good time.  I say it again but the kids absolutely loved Martin, especially the boys.  Martin did the drink twisty arm thing and taught the boys to do it (they did it with pepsi though!) and was up dancing with the boys.  Everyone loves to dance and sing here.  The granny surprised us yet again, nay stunned us, when she suddenly threw herself on the floor in front of Martin doing the splits!  OMG it was hilarious.

Like all good days it had to finish and so we went home.  But we had such a laugh.  I think it’s the first time we really chilled and enjoyed ourselves.  Sopa also invited me and the other ladies around to her house for the following Friday to eat and drink and dance.  I was told by Juliet that some of the teachers at the school had an old fashioned mentality and they would not approve so I had to keep it quiet.  As if anything could be kept quiet.

It also turned out to be Khatia’s birthday on the same Friday but no-one in the family had said anything which I thought was strange and there was a little party for her (she is 14).  Maia had set out a table for 6 in the huge lounge and she had made a cake.  I also had to sit there with 6 14 year olds who can’t speak English and who are trying to behave like adults which meant they just giggled a lot.  Maia sat in the arm chair watching.  I made my escape and went to Sopa’s.  What was so nice about that evening was that I felt like one of them.  I didn’t understand a word they were talking about but at the same time understood everything.  We were just women and I just felt accepted and not the outsider.  We talked about children, family and relationships with the help of Juliet.  I said that I had met Martin on the interneti and asked how they’d met their husbands.  Irma was from Batumi on the black sea and had met her husband when she was 15 on the beach and thought he was gorgeous.  Nato from another village, had an arranged marriage.  She used to visit her Aunt in this village and so a match was made for her.  Keti from Tbilisi was also visiting family in the village when she met her husband.  Sopa was from another village and was very beautiful. She hoped to find a husband in Tbilisi as she was very beautiful but her parents had other ideas and she had an arranged marriage with a fat man from this village who was from a wealthy family.  She wasn’t very happy at the time but he is a good man and gives her a  lot of freedom.  She can wear trousers and short skirts and he doesn’t object.  So that’s ok then. She took to her village life well and makes fantastic cheeses and all the other stuff she is expected to.  Keti works in the hospital in the town and is married to an engineer.  Nato doesn’t work.  Irma hangs around the school all day and in the 5 minute break after each lesson sells biscuits in the tuck shop.  All these women are in their 30’s and unlike the majority of women I knew when I was in my 30’s say they are happily married.  The secret of their success is that they don’t worry that they don’t have loads of money.  I assume this means that as long as they have enough to eat and pay the bills they don’t worry about having the latest cars or appliances or more probably indoor plumbing.

The evening went well, drinking and eating and dancing and singing.  Daryjan (the other teacher) played the piano.  Fun was had by all.  I rang Martin and asked him to bring a torch and come and collect me.  He had been drinking with Beso in the basement with some other blokes as Khatia’s party was upstairs and was a little squiffy.  As you could well predict, he had to drink and eat and dance as well.  Georgian women combine traditional dance with disco with much vigour with result that they move from queenly to sporty spice in seconds and back again.  Very interesting!  In the end we didn’t have to face the unlit, muddy, shit strewn paths in the dark as we were given a lit back, much to our relief!

Gori Stalin and Ink

Thursday 3^rd November

We had planned to got Borjomi and Vardzia for the 3-day long weekend in the middle of October but Beso’s face kind of dropped when we said we were yet again not going to be there for the weekend so we decided to cancel it and take the girls to Gori for the day on Saturday and go on the school excursion on the Sunday.  The language barrier is huge to be honest as you never really know what people are thinking and unable to check it out. 

Gori is a fairly non-descript city, similar but more sprawling than Romford it is known as being the birthplace of Stalin and that’s about it.  It took a bashing in the 2005 2008 war with Russia and you can see the bullet holes in the buildings where the Russians drove down this wide street randomly firing.

 The day in Gori was expensive as we paid for both girls as well and we went to the Stalin Museum and to a restaurant.  We also took them to a trendy café that is a bit arty for drinks and cake.  I thought Nino said she wrote poetry and I know they do readings there and I thought it might inspire her a bit but as it turns out she doesn’t write poetry at all. I must have been confused when I said to her “Do you write poetry?” and she said “Yes”.  It is so darn annoying, they all do it, they answer a question with “Yes” or “No” even when they have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.  The Stalin museum was impressive in that they did not mention a single bad thing about the man who was responsible for a zillion deaths.  We saw the house he was born in and could walk in part way and his bullet proof train that he went in everywhere.  The restaurant we chose had meat on the menu which was the main attraction however, it was a cruel trick as anything with meat in was off the menu and when we said that we would forget it we were told we had to pay for all the other items as they had started to cook it.  So that was that. 

The other reason to go to Gori was to get ink for the printer.  If only I hadn’t said the previous week when we were in Tbilisi “Let’s not bother walking over that road to buy ink.”  I naively assumed that we could get ink elsewhere but this was not the case.  I had been to Kareli on the previous Thursday to try unsuccessfully and then TLG found us a place in Gori that sold ink.  However it was a refill place and did not sell cartridges and they failed to mention that we needed to bring the cartridges to get them refilled!  I had asked her to make sure they had 2 colour and 2 black inks but she ignored that obviously.  Martin had to make two further trips to Gori to get the ink sorted out properly and then it run out after about 20 pages.  We had to wait for another 2 weeks to get cartridges in Tbilisi.  You sure have to plan carefully in Georgia.  It is very frustrating that you cannot just get on a bus or a train or drive somewhere to go get something you want.  Everything is a military operation almost.

Maia was happy anyway that we had taken the girls out.  She has been a bit miserable the last couple of weeks and we had been thinking that it was because we hadn’t been at home much and therefore not engaging with the girls much.  She has already said to me that the children learning English is her highest priority when I had offered to teach her English.  There had been a powercut the previous night and we sat in the kitchen with candles for a while.  Martin found the lyrics to “Yesterday” by the Beatles and we were teaching the girls this song.  When the power returned we carried on playing music from the laptop and looking at stuff on Youtube and it was a bit of a laugh.  We thought we had now found a way to interact with the family more but it didn’t prove to be enough in the end.

Positivity Amidst the Adjustment

Saturday 15^th October

Three nice things in the middle of the delicate adjusting as we acclimatise to our life here.

The elementary school have a 10 minute break after each lesson and are sent out in the playground to run around and let off steam.  I was sitting outside on a low wall in the playground during a lesson and when the year 1 class were all let out the most delicious little boy came right up close to me.  Automatically, and still with the phone to my ear talking, I put my arm around him pulled him to me, almost distractedly and gave him a kiss on the cheek.  This started a frenzy as all of them wanted to be kissed and I had to do it to all of them as they presented themselves to me.  How funny!

During lesson 2 in the afternoon, I was told I had to go to the library, and the librarian had set out a supra (feast) for herself, the director, the PE teacher me and Juliet.  It was really yummy and she had made it all herself. Eggs, khachapuri, battered fish (bigger than whitebait but that kind of thing) and the aubergine in a nut sauce.  Delish!  Not forgetting the cognac, which was reputedly made of roses but actually tasted more like benelin. I am sure it was good for my cold anyhow.

On the way home, I have to walk down this very long cow shit route which serves also as a road.  I heard a bunch of “hello”s behind me and about 10 year 3s and 4s were running towards me.  “Come on” I shouted to them and they caught me up.  It was obvious that we all had to hold hands and sing “Heigh Ho!” as we walked along and they absolutely creased up when I did the whistling bit.  They all trailed off on the way and in the end I was escorted home.  I left 2 boys at the crossroads who put a new twist on the ageold gae of pushing your mate into a puddle.  One shouted “hello” and shoved then the other shouted “Goodbye” and shoved.  Excellent!  I will have to try that in class

Family Life

Saturday 15^th October

There is an issue, apparently, with the way we are teaching our host children.  Maia has been speaking to the school director again about it.  Juliet doesn’t know the details just this.  She asks me what arrangements I have made and she says that Maia has also spoke to Martin’s director about it.  I am livid.  More than livid.  I ring Martin and he said that he thought it was funny that his school Director had said that he shouldn’t go into the upper school lessons and just stay in the lower school lessons.  This, we decided, explained it.  Always ready to calm down his hot-headed wife he tells me we will talk about it properly later, we will sort it out, and it will be alright.  I am depressed.  I have this horrible feeling that this is the beginning of the end of a deteriorating family relationship we will have to change families and move to new schools.  Disaster.  The mother is just too demanding. 

She had been up to the director before because we hadn’t started teaching the girls yet.   I had explained to her my intention to do this as soon as I had worked out my timetable as I have potentially long days and wanted to choose the best days, but the language barrier is a big thing.  Either way she went and saw the director about this.  I was told the director wanted to talk me and I think no matter what age you are, a trip to see the head is always a stomach-churning prospect.  That night I had sat down with Maia and agreed a schedule of teaching for the girls and at her request it was from 8 to 9.30, four nights a week, shared by me and Martin.  We had been working to this schedule for 2 weeks as agreed, so what could be the problem?  The director wasn’t in until the next day and so we could not find out any more information until then.

I didn’t have any lessons until the afternoon the next day so ventured into Kareli all by myself.  It is the first time I have been anywhere on my own since we arrived.  I was on the search for cartridges for the printer.  You have no idea how much of a task this was.  There are 3 stationary shops in Kareli and the first one sent me to the one across the road.  Next thing I know, the first shop owner is there and when I have no luck, walks me to the third shop.  This shop is closed so we wait a while and then I suggest we find out the marshukta times out of town.  I am excited by this as you know, I am always looking for the great escape and in particular the times to Borjomi.  My co-teacher had given me a list of destinations that go through this spring water town and told me I could get one in Kareli.  This is not the case after all.  FFS!  Anyway for good measure I get the times to Gori and Tbilisi so I am happy.  Shopkeeper goes back to his shop and I wander through the little town looking for something exciting.  I wander through the Chinese shop (owner is Chinese) and look at small back packs which I think will be useful for our weekend jaunts.  (At the moment we pack minimal overnight stuff into an A5 size carrier back and put it into my handbag haha).  I resist the urge to buy another scarf just for spending’s sake and then go back to the first stationary shop and spend quite a bit of money on a large Georgian / English dictionary and some large bits of paper to make a display.

Money is tight in the family, we have been on rations of fried spam omelettes and frankfurters, plus the staple of cheese, tomatoes and khachapuri of course.  My mind turns back to the family problems again.  We’ve all been there with the money thing, it is a misery when you just don’t have enough, so I bought a dozen eggs, 2 chickens and a box of fairly expensive cakes.  No idea if it was value for money, but the chickens were on the scraggy side and smallish at £3 each.  Expensive by Georgian salary.

On my way back to catch the marshukta home I am reminded that without the luxury of a car, you just can’t buy any volume of items as you have to carry it and walk for half an hour to catch the bus.  On the way I stop at the third computer, using my newly purchased dictionary to aid comprehension but there is nothing there.  I am advised to go to Tbilisi.  I pop into the ERC which stands for the Educational Resource Centre.  This is a gross misrepresentation as the day before I’d heard a rumour that you could print at these places and get materials for school displays, but they don’t actually have any stock!  So with my new enquiry “How do I get ink for the printer I have just bought without going to Tbilisi?” I go in person.   If you can imagine a Town Hall that was built in 1930 that has had no maintenance work done on it for 20 years you will have some idea of what this looks like.  It has the feel of an abandoned building, but after trying a couple of doors, I am lead to a modern office on the other side, well it has a computer and a couple of desks – expectations are low here!  After an hour, google attempts, 4 people, (one who also happened to be in the 3^rd stationary shop),  4 phone calls I finally am put through to the co-ordinator who will find out if there is anywhere available in Gori, I just have to text her the printer number.

When I arrive at the marshutka stop there is an empty minibus with no driver.  I wait for 15 minutes and no-one shows so I catch a taxi back to the village straight to the house.  I leave my food offerings on the table and go to school.  It is such hard work to do the simplest things.  We should’ve got the ink when we were in Tbilisi, just couldn’t be arsed to cross over a busy road to the shop.  I have learnt my lesson!  What it means is that we cannot make the resources we wanted to without the printer for 2 weeks! We can write stuff by hand but that defeats the whole point of buying the printer in the first place.

At school, the first thing I do is to go to the director to see what the problem is with the family.  I explain that I have set up lessons 4 times a week for an hour and a half but that the children are often too tired to study after 9 o’clock and want to finish after the hour.  I stress that it is not us who are too tired but them and that is the reason we stop early.  Nino and Khatia are called down to the office and I am none the wiser as to the conversation that is had other than Nino says she isn’t tired.  Khatia looks sheepish.  I suspect what is happening is that when Maia asks why they are finished at 9 instead of 9.30 they are saying it is because we are tired and not them.

Discussing this with Martin later that evening we went through the reasons why Maia and Beso (well Maia let’s face it) is unhappy as it is clear it cannot be just because we have finished the lesson a bit early and we conclude it is because we are not mixing with the family enough.  This is a really big issue in Georgia and one which is a problem with many host families and that is the amount of time that is spent with the host family.  In Georgia, they don’t like to be alone at all and do not understand why you would want to.  We of course like to spend time on our own and with each other on our own and since we started at school a month ago we have tended to spend time with the family only at meal times during the week and have been away at the weekend.  This isn’t all down to us, in fact we have felt increasingly unhappy about it ourselves.  The problem is that there is no communal area to sit other than the dining room table.  The lounge is 40 feet long and divided into two by an archway, with one part with a settee and chairs and a piano and the other room is Beso and Maia’s bedroom which serves as the TV room with 2 small armchairs.  No-one uses the lounge room.  In the summer we sat on the porch in a much more informal way but with the cold weather and no heating in the house we have come home from school and got into bed fully clothed because we were that damned cold.  With seven of us in the house it has been difficult to find a space we can all sit comfortably and warmly together.

They have now installed a gas fire in the kitchen and so we cancelled our weekend trip, blaming it on the weather and as there is also a powercut, spend the evening in the kitchen teaching the girls how to sing “Yesterday” with the laptop on battery and Martin wrote out two copies of the words for them.  When the power is returned a couple of hours later we carry on listening to music on the laptop.  Martin and Beso watch dubbed episodes of the “A” team in the unheated lounge on the two arm chairs while Maia lays in the bed. I sit outside in the kitchen with Khatia going through “Now 72” and “Now 76”. Neli and Nino go to bed.  Peace reigns once more and everyone is happy.