February 8th, 2012
Bakuriani was beautiful! and snowboarding was amazing! I love it! It was so much fun, and I somehow managed to come away from it with not even a bruise.  A couple of serious, but shortlived, aches and pains mind you, but not a single bruise. No one was injured, and we are all waiting to do it again in a couple of weeks, with a much larger group of people.


When I arrived home late Sunday afternoon, after getting lost in a taxi, and having the driver launch into a mild fit of rage when I tried to pay the 3 lari fare with a 20 note (breaking bills is a huge chore in Georgia, anything over a ten usually requires a trip to the bank),Tamriko and Lana were in the multipurpose room getting fancied up.  When I inquired as to why, I was simply told that they were going to a restaurant.  I asked Mirian if it was for a special occaision.  He didn't understand the question, so I left it at that, assuming I would hear about it later...after they got home.  Within 5 minutes however, I was rushed out the door and into Giorgi's Marshrutka, tattered jeans, oversized sweater, toque hair and all, and told we were going to a baptizm celebration.  The lesson here of course is that when operating on Georgian time, one must always be prepared...for anything.  


It was my first official Georgian Supra. I have never seen so much food in one place...ever. They piled the dishes 3 layers high over the entire table, 4 layers in some places.  There were Georgian versions of salad (grated vegetables with way more mayonaise and salt than is necessary or healthy), some type of pickled fish, eggplant with walnut past (one of my favourites fo far), sliced oranges and kiwis, three or four different kinds of pork, two different kinds of chicken, at least 5 dishes I didn't have space in my belly to taste, and instead of signalling the end, desert was followed by sausage skewers wrapped in some sort of pastry, which was followed by beef kababs, followed by fried fish and chips, and then another round of kababs!  That's when we left...probably for the best. 


Also worth mentioning, is the man who's job it was to refill the wine jugs. He was perpetually occupied, making trips betweeen the tables and the massive jerry can in the corner. The heavy drinking however, was reserved for the men only, who, more often than not, drink their full glasses in one go following every toast the tamada (ceremonial toast master) makes, and he makes a lot of toasts. It is customary in Georgia to drink only when a toast is made, and as the women weren't really taking part in this, I was left with a full glass of wine.  My host mother made me to chug it before we left.  
All in all a good and very interesting evening.   


February 16th, 2012
I write this as a sit basking in the risidual heat of my second showerbath since arriving in Khashuri. I'm in my usual spot mind you, about a foot and a half infront of my space heater, but both of my sweaters are buttoned down, and I'm not wrapped in my fleece blanket...yet anyway. AND, I can feel my hands! despite the fact that I'm using them! 
It took a while to get around to it - I've been gathering the courage since Monday - but those painfully cold first five minutes were so worth it! I feel as though I have just luxuriated in a spa treatment. I even moisturized! That hasn't happened since Canada! I made the mistake however, of setting the bottle of moisturizer in front of the space heater for a moment -thought it might be nice to warm it up a bit. It melted slightly, and then erupted upon opening.  


****************************************************************************


Monday night I made my first after hours treck to the bathroom. Although normally I wouldn't consider 10:30 after hours, everyone had gone to bed quite early for whatever reason, so after hours it was, and it didn't go so well.  I failed to bring my flashlight for the journey, a very grave mistake. I ran into a table and knocked over a vase of fake flowers about a quarter of the way through the trek, in the 'fancy' room (I call it fancy because it is never used, and it holds many old books and pretty dishes, and a piano and table with a vase of artificial flowers on it), which is situated between Lana and Mirian's bedroom and the 'top of the stairs' room where Luiza sleeps, and directly above the multipurpose room where Giorgi and Tamriko sleep.  So I effectively woke up everyone in the house. There was an 'ow' (actually it was a 'yuy' but very few people will recognize the Tignish/Acadian equivalent of 'ow') followed by a mild explitive, followed by a 'sorry' when the lights came on.  Luiza then accompanied me down the stairs, conceivably to see to it that I made the rest of the journey without incident. 


This has now taken the place of the yoga incident as the new favorite thing to be talked about.  Let it be known however, that I have since made two proper late night expeditions to pee, successfully  - that is without waking anybody up, or hurting myself in the process (I have a hefty bruise on my right knee as a reminderr of the first failed attempt).  


The best case scenario of course is not to have to journey to the toilet at all during the night, and so all of this is really only proof of one thing: I have let myself go. I am not monotoring my liquid intake closely enough.  I did well with this the first week, but the problem now is that I have staretd teaching, and perhaps the only thing worse than having to tip-toe through every room in the house in the dark, to use an icy cold toilet in the middle of the night, is having to use the facilities at school.  All I can say is that they are outside.  Beyond that, well, I haven't had the audacity to look any closer.  In fact, I was told straight up by one of my co-teachers, "No, you don't want to use those." This means that my drink as I please hours have been drastically reduced.  I am left with only a few hours in the late afternoon to embibe at my unrestricted leisure.     
  
****************************************************************************


Tuesday evening Luiza sat beside me on the bed in the multipurpose room (the warm room where the wood stove is that serves as a family room, tv room, computer room, dining room, and Tamriko and Giorgi's bedroom) put her arm around me, and said "chemia gogo, chemia gogo," ("my girl, my girl"), and kissed me on the cheek. It was very sweet, but I have never smelled such vile breath in all my life.  It took everything I had not to cough, or gag, or simply recoil in terror. I don't think the elderly bother with brushing their teeth here, probably because they've only got one or two left. 


***************************************************************************


I've taken to balancing a tube of lipgloss on the plug of my electric blanket to ensure that the connection holds through the night.  The outlets in my room aren't quite up to par.  


***************************************************************************


On Tuesday I arranged a chair and a stool infront of the space heater in my room, wrapped myself in a blanket and began reading  The Picture of Doirian Gray.  It was a very cozy set up, and I soon grew quite drowsy.  When I awoke an hour and a half later, I found that I had just napped on four different pieces of furniture at the same time.  My head was resting on the bed, my rear stilll on the chair, my legs on the stool, and feet on the cabinet that holds the space heater (I may have roasted the bottom of my socks to a crsip golden brown).  Quite an accomplishment I thought, and also quite comfortable.  


On a similar note the burnt bits of the underwear that I tried heating up on the space heater last week fell out when I wore them on Tuesday as well.  There are now four grid like holes in the right rear side of them. No big deal really, except that all laundry gets hung to dry over the wood stove in the multipurpose room...for everyone to see.  


******************************************************************************       


We have a real feather duster! ...chicken feathers I'm assuming, but I'll have to ask to be sure. 


February 17th, 2012
Yesterday I went without wearing long johns or tights under my pants for the first time since arriving in Khashuri (I was doing laundry).  It was a strange and liberating sensation.  


February 23rd, 2012
TLG group 32 met for a 2 week reunion in Kutaisi this past weekend.  We stayed at a lovely guest house meant to sleep 10.  I think we were about 20 altogether. Our hosts were far too hospitable. We were force fed shots of cha cha and wine from horns starting at breakfast, and continuing on for the better part of the day.  As great as it was to see everyone, I'm pretty sure it's understood that that will never happen again.   


******************************************************************************


Monday I made mchadi (corn bread)! and that evening we had company over for dinner. Tamrico's sister, Nanuko, her husband Otari, their daughter Irina, and son Giorgi.  It was a jovial night, with quite a lot of wine involved.  Many toasts were made to me, my parents, my siblings, to Canada and Geoigia, to love an to family and so on and so forth and repeat (Giorgi and Otari have both now officially claimed me as their daughter), then Otari broke out his dance moves, walked on his toes, and did push ups on his thumbs while counting to ten in Japanese. Irina can actually really dance.  It was my first taste of traditional Georgian performance, and it is indredibly beautiful.  Perhaps the most graceful dancing I have ever seen.  


Wednesday after being forced to overeat at supper, as per usual, I was told to get my jacket and boots on., we were going to visit the neighbours.  The neighbours, it turned out, were none other than Nanuko and Otari, plus a bunch of other relations that were  invited over for the evening. I still can't underrstand why we ate before going, because I was forced to sit down and eat again when we got there. Anyhow, things played out in about the same fashion as Monday.  Otari, proudly showed me his in-house distillery - he produces both wine and vodka in a little room adjacent to the kitchen.  He couldn't think of the word for vodka, so he drew 75% in the dust on the carboy. I drank far too much, and upon arriving home immediately retired to my room, where when I turned on the space heater I heard noises that you never want to hear coming from an electrical outlet, which were then followed by plumes of black smoke curling out of the wall. The outlet melted with the plug still in it, and the whole thing had to be ripped out of the concrete.  I was without heat only until the following evening however. Otari and Nanuko came to visit again, and while Otari and Giorgi installed a new outlet and replasterd the wall (no big deal) Nanuko and Tamriko prepared dinner, and we did the whole thing over again...three time in 4 days.  I'm a little anxious to seee what the weekend might brings.


*********************************************************************************


I found out on Wednesday that the reason the desks are arranged so oddly in my grade 3 class, is because it's not safe for the children to sit under the massive crack that runs across the ceiling as it tends to spit out chunks of debris every now and again.

February 2nd, 2012 
Hey guys, so I arrived at my host family's yesterday. Right now we have no running water, and my breath crystallizes in my bedroom.  I wore thermals under my long johns under my pjs last night, 3 pairs of woolen socks, a thermal t shirt under 2 long sleeve sweaters under the heavy woolen sweater I got just before I left home, with a scarf around my neck and another around my head. Also,  I actually have to walk through every room in the house (including 3 bedrooms) to get to the bathroom. Interesting. 

My host sister Lana, 26, speaks a bit of French, which is helpful.  As far as I can tell she keeps house and doesn't do much else (i.e. she is currently watching Spanish soaps dubbed over in Georgian, and she plays a lot of farmville). My host mother, Tamriko, works in the local market selling clothing,  host brother, Mirian, 13, goes to a private school in town, and host father Giorgo drives a minibus to and from Tbilisi (about 2 hours one way). Oh and there's also a grandmother, Luiza.  From what I've seen so far, Luiza doesn't really talk much, she just takes care of stoking the fire and baking bread. 


From what I have heard many of the other volunteers had supras held in their honour last night (a supra is basically a banquet feast where you are force fed food and alcohol until you either pass out or somehow manage to effectively communicate that you simply cannot have any more). My family didn't even eat together. They were present mind you, but only Giorgi and myself had dinner. He toasted me with a shot of cha cha (Georgian shine) and that was about it. Later Lana and Mirian showed me a bunch of photos on the internet of different places around the country, nothing from Khashuri however, which I m assuming means this place hasn't really a whole lot to offer. 

I just got a text from my English friend Andy, asking if anyone else had vodka for breakfast, and Merishka called earlier and told me that she opted to pee in the snow last night instead of using the boxed in hole in the ground. The other English Andy was thrilled upon realizing that his family has not 1 but 2 cows, and that they killed a pig especially for his supra...he also reckons he drank about 15 glasses of homemade wine last night.

February 9th, 2012

We have running water! And it's hot!!! It happened two nights ago, and was met with much cheering and applause by the whole family. Tamriko took advantage of the occasion to do about 5 loads of laundry, and we all bathshowered! Except for Luiza of course. I don't think she does that kind of thing (she also has a beard, but then, so do many Georgian women). 

So yeah, I got to bathshower. I say both because happened in a bathtub but with a shower head, except the shower head was of the hand held variety, and didn't attach to anything.  Thus, as it was necessary to have the water on me at all times so as to not freeze, I found myself holding the shower head between my knees in order to free both hands to wash myself. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Skip back to before even getting into the tub. The bathroom is a tile box of a room that holds steady at about 1 degree. I was the fourth person to wash so you can appreciate that it was basically an icy steam room by that time. I get in there, get undressed and the last thing to come off is the slippers. The floor is frigid, so a start in a frantic tip toe to the tub, slip, and end up flat on my back, narrowly missing upsetting two pales of water on the floor. The whole family is in the next room over, so they obviously heard the whole thing...awesome. 

February 11th, 2012

This morning I melted the elastic on my underwater and burnt my socks trying to warm them up on the space heater in my bedroom before putting them on. 

School was cancelled in advance country wide for two days (Thursday and Friday) on account of the weather (it's really nothing trust me) so four of us took the opportunity to check out a Georgian ski resort called Bakuriani. We just arrived about an hour ago. It's beautiful! Tomorrow I'll try snow boarding for the first time! I'm with two South Africans who have never even been in snow before, so I'm feeling quite confident. 

A quick word on my most recent success: my host family now understands that it's not that I don't like bread, it's that I can't eat wheat! Tamriko made me corn bread last night in the wood stove! And I was toasted twice for being a 'good girl'. Mom and dad, you were also toasted for being 'good parents'. 

Jessica, I split my pants teaching my Lana yoga a couple of days ago. They retell the story to everyone that comes over to visit. I know this because yoga is the same in every language. Also because they look at me and laugh. Andy would also like the world to know that he killed chicken yesterday, plucked it, cooked it, and of course ate it...then got to fire multiple guns. And the other Andy continues to have vodka and jam in his tea for breakfast.