Halloween in Gori.

Halloween turned out to be awesome. I went to Gori on Friday, but met with a friend of mine, Laura, in Khashuri on the way there. She and I ended up hanging out at the hotel while we waited for everyone else to get in. I did not stay at the hotel, rather I stayed with my friend Lei who trained in Gori, so we (Lei, me and our friend Emily) had a free place to stay, excellent. Her host mom is great. She makes this tea that is literally to die for (I drink a lot of tea now, so I can actually taste the difference between - and within - homebrews, store bought, and whatever else may be thrown out at me). Emily and I agreed that it tasted like tea from the US, which we are not used to having. I will note that my new host mom brews her tea and it is fantastic.

This was an awesome weekend ’cuz I got to hang out with more of the G4s. I haven’t really had an opportunity to do that yet. A bunch of us ended up at the hotel bar to eat and drink a bit. A slew of G5s showed up that I haven’t seen a quite a while so that was fun. The hotel was great. There were parts that had been renovated from last year, which was a vast improvement, but not everyone was able to stay in those parts. There was a great area to have the party on the third floor, so food was ordered and music was played.

There was supposed to be a G5 v. G4 soccer game, but the weather in Gori did not cooperate with us and our plans. I just ended up hanging out with a bunch of my girls and having a low-key day. I went to the bazaar and bought matching themed sweatshirts with Lei and Emily. Not much to report, except that I was able to help Chris with his costume, which was a lot of fun! He decided to dress up as our Country Director (I’ll be sending out pics of this). Our CD is bald with glasses, so I got to help Chris shave his head; he did his beard on his own. It was awesome. I’ve never done that before. He looked eerily like our CD, to the point where he emailed a pic of himself with a couple of other vols to our CD. Excellent.

I dressed up as a soccer player from my town, so I painted my town name, in Georgian, on the front and Georg-ified my last name. ‘Shvili’ is a common ending to last names in this country, which means child, so since words end in vowels here my new name was bamstedishvili (it’s an ‘a’ in my last name because of how ‘u’ is pronounced in this language). I have a pic that has Dwayne (as Cornelius from Fight Club), Chris, and me in it, so I will email it. Chris took a lot of great shots, so I will finally be able to send more shots of my friends.

It was a rather low-key weekend on the whole. Chris, Emily, and I had a bit of an adventure getting home. Emily lives near Kobuleti, but she went as far as Khashuri with us. Chris and I tried to pick up a marshutka on the side of the road, but we were unsuccessful and had to get one from the station in Khash. Emily had a bit of a haul getting home, much less getting a marshutka, which should have been easier than it was for her. Ah, Georgian transportation. I could dedicate an entire entry to Georgian transport, needless to say the only constant within the Georgian transportation system is its lack of consistency. I will work on that. Chris and I made it home safe and sound.

It has started to get a bit chilly here so my new host family brought my heater into my room last night. It was heaven. I woke up this morning to warm, comfortable room. I have not done that for quite some time. My family has been great. My host dad has taken an interest in my Georgian language acquisition, which is helpful. I did not interact as much with my previous family as I would have liked and so far, my new family is different in this regard. My first family wanted me to hang out with them, but in terms of working on my vocab and speech, this second family has already done more for me. My room is great and I’m just really happy to be there. I will get a family shot and send it home.

Take care.

Sara