Basketball and My new home.

4 August 2005

I have a lot to cover in this entry. Before I get too far into this, I want to let people know that I have sent my parents some pictures of my life in Georgia. Please contact them if you would like them forwarded to you. I will be making reference to these pictures throughout this journal entry.

The first point to catch you all up on… I went to a basketball game on July 21st, in a neighboring small town, that featured Americans versus Georgians. I went because my friend, Matia, was playing in it and asked me to join her. I had not really left Khashuri, except to go to GLOW camp, so I did all that I could to get there. When it appeared that all was lost, my host family offered to take me. It did not hurt that my host sister was motivated by the fact that she has a crush one of the volunteers playing in the game (Clinton). After work on Thursday, my host Papa, sister and her friend picked me up and we headed out. I had only informed Matia that I was going in order to surprise the other volunteers. Needless to say, they were pretty shocked when I walked in. Peace Corps has a rather stringent travel policy in which the only exception is if the travel is done with a volunteer’s host family and does not conflict with the duties and responsibilities of said volunteer. Yeah, so we don’t get out much.

The game was rather amusing. Matia’s host father – Koba – who is the major of Kareli, was their coach. He was quite the athlete in his day and holds a few Georgian track records. He is the man with white hair in the picture (far right side) of the four basketball players. It was quite the game. There did not appear to be many rules. To the credit of the refs that was a rather difficult game to keep in check. Fouls were called if it was blatant. There were several stoppages of play at which time Matia’s host sister would come and interpret what her father, Koba, was saying to the Americans whose Georgian was not good enough to understand him. Koba does not speak English. It was rather amusing to watch. Travis did get hurt at one point, so another Georgian was added to the team, so that it would continue as 5 v 5. Though the Americans lost by four it was a great time. Matia was interviewed by the local station – Travis, Rebecca, and Clinton ever so carefully moved out of the way of the reporter. The final act was a presentation of awards for both teams and a trophy for the Americans although they lost (the trophy is visible in the picture). Each person received a small sword and a certificate. It was great. I had a made a few signs in Georgian and English. It was fantastic.

The second big piece of news is that on Friday, July 22nd, Peace Corps announced our permanent site placements. First, we went to a local school. Then we filed into the gymnasium, where our names were called and received envelopes with our name and a number on them. We were then instructed to get in numerical order (this all took place in a gymnasium). We were near a map of Georgia. We were told when we heard the key word in the song about to play, that we should “step into” the map. Yeah, so a little Ray Charles came on. We “stepped into” the map and proceeded to tear our envelopes open with our LCFs and a few current volunteers looking on.

I have been placed in Akhaltsikhe, which is in southern Georgia. It is about 90min. south of where I am training – Khashuri. There is another volunteer from G4 in the town as an English teacher. There will also be another NGO volunteer in town with me, Chris (He is actually in one of the pictures that I sent home). We spent the next twenty minutes sharing and figuring out where we all were in Georgia. I am about 2 ½ hours southwest of Tbilisi. Carole is about 40min. west of Tbilisi and Matia is about three hours north of me. My buddy Aaron (there is a picture of him as well) is in Kobuleti which is a Black Sea resort town, so he’s about three or four hours west of me. Another friend of mine, Shayne (in same picture with Aaron) is east of Tbilisi. There are very few people east of Tbilisi. There is a fair amount of us in sort of the middle of the country. I am actually pretty close to volunteers, but not necessarily volunteers that I have been hanging out with, so that was a bit of a shock. Matia was great about it and assured me that we would visit each other a lot. I was able to return her kindness this past week.

Then, suddenly, it was time to head back to hub so that us NGO volunteers could go to our supervisors conference in Bakuriani. This was where we would meet our bosses for the next two years. It was also the first opportunity we had had as a group to hang out and relax.

It was a beautiful hotel, the best accommodations that we have had so far. It was more than comparable to a hotel in the United States. Bakuriani is a resort town, where there is fabulous skiing, thus there is a concerted effort to maintain the town. This is accentuated by the fact that in the winter the roads in Bakuriani are immaculate whereas the rest of Georgia, minus the other ski town, is generally not as lucky.

We met our supervisors in a somewhat hokey fashion. They were waiting for us in the conference room and we were given our nametags as well as those of our supervisors. We then had to walk in as a group and read our supervisor’s name and find them in the room. Naturally all of this was in Georgian. Now at this point it is not a matter of not being able to read the names, but some of them can be quite difficult. I lucked out; my supervisor’s name is Marina Modebadze – only one set of double letters.

Note: I do not know if I have explained this, but in Georgian they have a series of double Latin letters, in terms of pronunciation. Another example of this is Akhaltsikhe, which has three sets, though one is repeating – the ‘kh’ sound. It just makes it more interesting in terms of pronunciation.

Back to the conference…We did a few ice breakers and then it was time for dinner. It was at this point that Tika, my Peace Corps NGO boss as well as my Master’s International advisor, pulled my aside. I had recently submitted the first part of my Master’s International project and for some reason was worried that I had offended, which would have been difficult considering that nothing that I had to write was offensive. Nonetheless I was worried because, Tika ‘needed’ to talk to me. She sat me down and told me that unfortunately my permanent host family in Akhaltsikhe had not worked out. Then she informed me that I would actually be heading back to Khashuri with my boss because she had to go a funeral. It’s all good. Since I have been training in Khashuri I was able to occupy myself. One of the really cool things about my boss is that she owns and drives her own car. This is pretty rare for Georgia, especially outside of the capitol.

I officially had my permanent site placement visit last week – July 24-29th. It was fantastic. Outside of Tbilisi, Akhaltsikhe has the largest number of NGOs in the country. Since I did not have a permanent host family I stayed with my boss and her 19 yr. old daughter. My boss had actually hosted a volunteer before so she was more than able to take care of me for a week. She would actually be ideal for the entire two years, except that she is my boss and that is really not a good idea. Tika, Marina, my counterpart, Lela (who speaks English very well) and a few other people are on the hunt for a new family. I am not worried it will work out. I, along with Chris, managed to meet the deputy governor of our region, who happens to be from Khashuri. We also meet one of my new Georgian friends, she is 24, who works for UNDP. We also met a former LCF who works for BP.

Akhaltsikhe is a decently large town (the only city is Georgia is Tbilisi). There is a lot of history. The most famous writer in Georgia, Rustavelli, is from our region – Samtsikhe-Javakheti. King Tamar, yes, a woman called king, at one point hid out in the mass of rooms built into the side of a mountain. Very famous story. Yeah, my town, region, pretty much rocks. Again, still have to meet the host family, but it’s all good.

Well I had better wrap this up. We went to Tbilisi for donor org. visits, but that will have to be the next post. Take care and I’ll be in touch. Nakhvamdis (good-bye).