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.