Today is December 9th and it is over a month since we last made an entry to our BLOG. Some of our friends update their blogs every day! Oh well!

No it isn’t December 9th. The phone wasn’t working when we prepared the text for this blog, so we have had to come back, make “chronological” changes and try again – on December 13th!

What we have done during the last month or so? Well:-

We had a couple more days shopping in Tbilisi which was fun. Tbilisi is pretty small as capitals go, but it has a lovely, if rather disheveled old-town. Some of the houses look as if they are about to keel over, especially if anyone were to go out on the balcony. A lot of them are being “done up” and there are some sort of landmark laws – we think mostly about retaining the original footprint and keeping the houses in the general style of the original. The houses are often built around courtyards and have cantilevered balconies with lots of wooden ornamentation. There are outside steps to upper balconies. They ooze charm, but, apparently, they have some rather quaint plumbing problems, such as one loo for several houses. However, it is nice to daydream about buying one and renovating it, even if such purchases are strictly forbidden by the Peace Corps (for obvious reasons). (We think Gill must still have something of the real-estate broker lurking somewhere in her.) The smallness of Tbilisi makes shopping relatively easy, as there are really only three places to go: the Old Town which is rather touristy, Rustaveli (Tbilisi’s Fifth Avenue) and the Dry Bridge Market (the local flea market). Perhaps when we are really familiar with Tbilisi, we shall know where the smart places to shop are.

Our Christmas presents are very “Georgian” and we bet nobody in either America or England will have bought the same things. This, in itself, is a real pleasure for us. We managed to avoid buying Russian officers’ winter hats at the Dry Bridge, although Bob was insistent that Abigail would like one. So, if he is right, and anyone wants one (felt lining, soviet insignia, earflaps and all), we can get them for next year. Apparently soviet memorabilia is very collectible here and at 50 Lari a-piece (bargainable we suspect), the hats are not cheap by Georgian standards. We arrived late at the Dry Bridge and only managed 45 minutes there. We would like to have spent longer. It was fun talking to people and seeing what they were selling.

The following weekend we had guests and so did our host family. At one point there were ten of us in a three-bedroom house (although the house actually has several small rooms and a big supra room, where most of the family slept). The kitchen is the warmest room, but we did not all fit in there, so the young people (hey - Bob and I are included in the young people) “removed” ourselves to the basement room to play Georgian scrabble, - which largely consisted of fighting for the Georgian dictionary. The basement room has a fireplace and the family told us that several years ago, when there were problems with both gas and electricity, the family spent virtually the entire winter in that room. It was very cozy.

School has settled into a routine. Bob has written an EXCEL macro that makes a domino word game (one side Georgian and one side English) and this has proven to be a great hit with the students. Gill has domino games once a week in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th grades, if the children do their homework. Homework submission has increased greatly since the introduction of dominos and she has no qualms whatsoever about the bribery aspect. Both our schools had visits from the Peace Corps Georgia Director and our Program Director. They visited Gill’s 2nd grade class – the first year of English. The class has only got as far as the letter ‘s’ in writing, but the children seem to mop up spoken English. They already know numbers up to twelve; they can use some simple sentences and they understand how to form plurals. They even remember words like elephant and giraffe (admittedly cognates). All this convinces us that westerners should start to learn foreign languages at as early an age as possible. Apart from being “brilliant”, the 2nd graders are delightful. After every class they give Marina (Gill’s counterpart) and Gill big hugs and kisses. The PC director presented them all with lollipops and key chains with zebras hanging from them.

Bob doesn’t get hugs and kisses, non-the-less he gets on well with the children. When the directors visited his class he had them join the class in the domino game (the one called “The First 16 English Irregular Verbs”) and they performed admirably. His students were given lollipops and key chains (but these were with gorillas).

These gifts and her big smile made her very popular in both schools.

Gill has started an English class for teachers. Many of them are quite good - just shy about making mistakes, which is rather surprising given our level of Georgian language ability. Georgian teachers use transliteration to help their students cope with English spelling. I think the method was originally developed in Russia for native Russian speakers. However, it is very useful and Gill is trying to learn it. Most of the teachers originally learned English by the old “reading and translation” method, so she tries to make the lesson more fun with lots of speaking, pictures, dominos, play acting, etc. It seems to be going quite well, but there is an enormous range of ability and the worry is that the better ones may get a little bored.

Two weeks ago, we had our first serious snow - very pretty, but, since all the roads to the house are steep and cobbled, access has been problematic. It has mostly thawed now.

Last week, Bob’s school supervisor presented him with a bottle of her cha-cha (homemade “vodka”). Most cha-chas require a concrete re-enforced alimentary canal, but this one was as smooth as you-know-what. He is contemplating ways of getting her to part with another bottle!

Gill and Maia (her second counterpart) have split the ninth grade for English classes because some of them are quite advanced and some do not even know the alphabet. (Gill got the ones who do not know the alphabet.) It seems to be going quite well and the students enjoy the class, but the weather is getting colder and colder and sometimes they do not show up. (Having said that, now that the heating has been turned on in both our schools, the classrooms are really quite warm – we suspect warmer than many Georgian houses. Perhaps in the really cold weather, we shall see more students turn up for school.)

This month we had our All-Volunteer Conference. It was held at a lake resort about an hour outside Tbilisi. The place looked rather like a Floridian resort - but in the snow. There are over a thousand rooms. It is intended to be a conference site and I think we were one of the first groups ever to use it. It was very comfortable and warm. The volunteers from the very depths of the country admitted to having three warm showers every day and that using all the accoutrements (there were two kinds of soap, shampoo and conditioner!) as being a real treat. The conference gave us a wonderful opportunity to get to know the G6s (prior year’s volunteers) better and it was impressive to discover what they had achieved in their first year here. We picked up many teaching tips. Bob joined the group working on a new English text book for Georgian fifth graders and the group working on pod casts. Gill joined the GLOW camp team (summer camp to teach girls leadership skills) and the Mas Mas TEFL newspaper staff (“Mas” is short for “mastzavlabeli”, which is the Georgian for “teacher” and is what students call out to get teachers’ attention).

We also celebrated Thanksgiving at the conference. We all cooked together in the hotel kitchen (which was well-equipped, but the ovens had neither thermostats nor thermometers – so it was a bit hit-and-miss!) and Peace Corps brought in the turkeys from the Marriott in Tbilisi. Bob and I cooked baked onions and apple-crumble. We had very good sous-chiefs, but we still managed to burn the onions a bit. It was strange not to be with everyone in New York, but we were still with a lot of people (over 100). The American Ambassador and his wife joined us for dinner. It was, we think, the most enjoyable get-together so far.

Last Monday and Tuesday we went away for a two-day language training conference. It was another opportunity to see some fellow travelers and to unravel some of the mysteries of the Georgian verb. The training town was about 45 minutes away from us in Borjomi by marshutka and is a little bigger than Borjomi. We had hoped to have some time to do some last-minute Christmas shopping, but there was no time. The town is famous for hammocks and for wooden utensils. We saw our language teacher from our first three months’ training as well as some of the other Georgian Peace Corps staff.

Today we are in Tbilisi. We had not expected this. Bob got a “cold”, but it seemed to just get worse and finally we contacted Peace Corps doctors who told him to come here for a check up. After an examination, a blood test and an x-ray it was decided that he had bronchitis and nothing more serious. This has given us a chance to get on the internet and deal with a few emails and this blog. Then we shall return to Borjomi this afternoon and do one more day’s school on Friday, then Bob will take part in a play on Saturday (as a mouse-saver – don’t ask), then we pack…

…and then: it is off to London and NYC – Christmas and the New Year! We cannot wait to see everyone and catch up with you all. We will return on-line in 2008. Happy holidays!

It has been quite a while since we last updated the blog and so there is a lot to relate.

We had a second day in Tbilisi because we both had to go for a dermatological check-up. All is well for both of us on that front. We spent the remainder of the day looking around and trying to do some shopping for the holidays. We did find the British bookshop and managed to have a tuna fish sandwich and a cappuccino each, which set us back 18 Lari ($11), a fortune by Borjomi standards. There was a little gift store next door with some interesting enamels. We met the jeweler who is having a show at the American Embassy in a few weeks. We liked her stuff a lot and may go back for some Xmas presents. Tereze is more imaginative though. We did find some Georgian felt in another store. It is much finer than what we think of as felt and is the most interesting Georgian-made craft we have come across so far (apart from Bob’s hat). We also found a pair of socks for Susan!

The week after we went to stay with Bob’s school director in Bakuriani, a well-known ski resort. Bakuriani applied for the Winter Olympics after the ones in Vancouver, but lost out to Sochi in Russia, which ironically is just over the border from Abkhazia. Bakuriani was a huge winter sports destination during the Soviet era and still has a very big winter season. Keti, Bob’s director, has a friend who is a former world luge champion. He is now training two young women athletes who are going to compete in Vancouver. Apparently, part of the training regimen is to eat tripe for breakfast – just one of the many reasons that Bob and I will never take up the sport. Felix, the friend, is constructing a luge run in the Bakuriani hills. We spent quite a bit of time discussing the physics of luges which was interesting. We were rather surprised to hear that they cost over 6,000 euro each (after all it’s only a bit of plastic). We also toasted athletes, peace, America, England, Georgia and everyone everywhere with some rather good Georgian wine that Felix had brought back from Telavi, the wine growing capital of Georgia.

Last Friday, Peace Corp’s country (Georgia) director, regional (The Caucasus) director and world (!) director came with their entourage to visit our host-family and us for breakfast. Our host-“mother” laid on a delightful breakfast for all ten of them and us and the event well very well. (The Georgian “supra” tradition ensures that most houses have a large dining-room and dining-table, so seating this number of visitors, the family and us was no big deal. By the way, the Georgian equivalent of “no big deal” is “it isn’t a market.”) After breakfast, they came to “view” our room. They did not come to Georgia just to have breakfast and see our room! They were on a regional tour for a few days and will visit a few other places in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

Needless to say, this visit prompted much scurrying around before-hand to ensure that the house in general and our room in particular would pass muster. The visitors made all the right noises, so I think they generally approved!

This morning we woke up to a thin covering of snow – the first Georgian snow we have seen. We are led to understand that this is a gentle hint of the snow to come later this year and early next. The weather is certainly much colder now and we are wishing that we had brought more of our winter clothes with us. Perhaps we can pick some up when we come to New York at year’s end. The cold weather prompts the family to either stay in bed (see the picture of Gill with her familiar) or congregate in the kitchen – the warmest room in the house – to watch TV or play! We have acquired a Georgian Scrabble set (called “Crossvordy”) and have been playing with Mako – our host-“sister” - who is studying in Tbilisi at the university there and is young enough to be our grand-daughter. It doesn’t really matter who “wins” because Mako provides 90% of our words for us – our vocabulary being so limited! Georgian is, like English, very suitable for Scrabble because it allows words to have letters appended (such as “s”, “ed”, “ing”, etc. in English) to create new words. There are more Georgian appendages because they do with appendages what we in English typically do with prepositions.

We have recently spent hours on the web trying to arrange our flights over the Christmas / New Year period. Times have changed! We found very few options and flights are much more expensive than was the case not long ago. We'll email our itinerary to interested parties soon.

Host-"sister" Mako and host-"mother" Marina.

Crossvordy

Gill with her familiar, "Won-won" (recently promoted to "Tutu").

Hi to everyone. We have now been "teaching" for about a month and find our days sometimes fascinating, often frustrating, mostly rewarding and, above all, exhausting. Bob has four counterparts (teachers with whom he teaches) and is teaching about three classes more than he should because he still cannot "work out" his schedule. Gill is teaching 18 classes but is giving three tutorials a week for the children who are entering the FLEX competition. The FLEX competition is for children throughout Georgia and from Soviet central Asia and winners spend one year in America with an American family and going to an American school. It is highly competitive and I am very worried about my three students who are longing to go. Of course, they think that America is the land of milk and honey and that everything will be wonderful. I am worried that they will be very disappointed if they do not get accepted. There are only 50 slots for Georgia and probably over a thousand applicants. The test is comprehension and the responses are multiple choice. The Georgian students are quite good at picking answers out of a text, but they tend to throw in every piece of information so that they can be sure to have the right answer in there somewhere. Getting them to be specific is something else. However, their enthusiasm is contagious and we are going to celebrate their attempt even if they do not get accepted.

This is our first full weekend in Tbilisi. Gill is here for the VAC (Volunteer Committee) meeting and Bob is going to try to buy a printer, as it will be very useful for school. Bob's school has an English section in the library, but Gill's has very few English books, so if anyone has any simple children's stories that do not weigh a ton, are in good condition and are not needed, please give them to us when we are in England or the U.S. over the holidays. Gill's school's librarian has already prepared a space for the books.

After the FLEX exams Gill will begin teaching the teachers at her school English. They seem to be very enthusiastic. They all speak Russian as well as Georgian. It will be interesting to see what it is like teaching adults rather than childen. Gill's youngest class is the second grade (7 and 8 year olds) where the children start English. Then, in the third grade, the children start Russian. So these 9 year olds have to contend with three alphabets. The teachers say that they actually get Russian and English muddled up, but somehow they manage to sort it out. Gill has made friends with the Russian teacher and would like to take Russian lessons next year, but first there is this huge Georgian nut to crack. There are eleven tenses in Georgian and each tense has 18 forms, because with one verb you can say the English equivalent of "he gave it to me". Also, Georgians, as in Latin, use declensions to express phrases for which English uses several words. For instance "what does she look like" is one word in Georgian. Help! Gill has an absolutely lovely Georgian tutor who spends hours preparing for the lesson and is prepared to beam with complete satisfaction if Gill manages to translate even one of her homework sentences into Georgian correctly. Bob is going to use the same tutor too.

A new pool near us in the park. We call it "The Annex".

Well, we have just finished our second week of school and it has been a very interesting experience. On our first day, the children arrived dressed in their Sunday best. The little girls had bows in their hair and many of the first grade boys were wearing suits. The local bishop came to bless the school and pray for a good year. Gill’s school had a cheerleader performance and one of the senior boys sang a folk song in a strong tenor voice. One of the older girls was dressed in the Georgian national costume. She represented Mother Georgia. Many of the pupils gave their teachers bunches of flowers. Even Gill received bunches of flowers. We both made short speeches in Georgian. However, we doubt anyone heard our many mistakes, because there was such a din. In the afternoon Gill’s school had a teachers’ supra and in the evening Bob’s school had one.

The supra is a big party where the tamada (host) makes lots of toasts. Our tamadas were the school directors, ably assisted by their Georgian literature teachers who recited long poems. Every time you toast you are expected to drain your glass. However, the rules are not so strict at female supras. The dance teacher at Bob’s school entertained everyone with Georgian national dances. There were some Israeli tourists in the same restaurant. They must have been a little overwhelmed at the sight of 40 teachers (all but one female) dancing and singing. Bob's school director made a toast to the tourist. We then danced the hava nagela (spelling) with them and eventually arranged a link between Bob’s school and one is Israel. I think the Israelis had a very good time. They did not realize that we were not Georgian. They thought we just spoke English very well!

Gill seems to have her time table straight now and she will be teaching 18 classes along with the Georgian teachers. One of them speaks excellent English – very English English and rather upper crust. The other two speak fairly well and one of them is also a Georgian teacher and so she will be Gill’s tutor. They certainly teach English English in these schools. We suppose it is because they want to join the European Union. We have had to remember our English spelling and punctuation. We try to explain that it is OK to use either form of English, but better to be consistent in whatever you choose. Actually, in many instances American English is easier and makes more sense – especially the spelling. However, British English is still the flavour of the month here.

We are posting this rather short entry because we have not written anything for a while. More soon!

Our "Welcome to Borjomi" cake

Hotel in Tbilisi

Tbilisi's new church

Icon in church

Bob's "official" certificate

The Kareli and Gori teams.

We had our swearing in ceremony on August 24. We had to leave our training sites at 5:00 in the morning. I was sick on the bus, which was a good start to the day!!! However, the ceremony went very well. Bob sang the Georgian and American national anthems along with 9 other volunteers and two volunteers gave speeches in both English and Georgian – quite impressive after 9 week of language classes. We stayed in Tbilisi with our training host family’s daughter, Nino, and her husband for the night as Gill still felt sick. The next day they gave us a tour of Tbilisi. We have included pictures of the hotel built into the cliff over the Mtkvari River and the new cathedral which was built in the classic Georgian style during the Shevardnadze period. There is also an icon from the church in which Nino will have her wedding service. We expect to go to the wedding next Sunday and it sounds as if it will be a big affair.

Gill was voted in as a member of the volunteer advisory committee, which means she will be travelling to Tbilisi once a month or so to attend meetings. This should be interesting.

We are now at our permanent site, Borjomi, which is a spa town in the mountains. The surrounding countryside is very beautiful and we are quite near Bakuriani, which is a ski area. Gill has now met the three English teachers at her school. They are all very friendly, as are all the teachers. Lots of gifts of fruit. The main English teacher speaks very good English with a strong British accent. Gill noticed that the children did not know what an apartment was, but when she said “flat” everyone understood. Bob will be having a meeting with the teachers at his school next Monday.

We have started our summer camp which has a design theme. The first day we designed pasta necklaces and paper airplanes. The second day we designed tourist maps for Borjomi. The tourist center has run out of maps. The maps – some accurate, some less so – are now on display in the tourist center. Next week we are doing masks, word games, and any design of buildings that the students would like to see in their town. Otherwise we have been setting up our room, buying extension cords, more hangers, etc.

It looks as if email in the house will be very, very slow, but there are a number of internet cafes nearby and we can use the internet at the tourist center until it closes.

Yesterday we had two Peace Corps volunteers from another town visit us and we took the narrow gauge train to Bakuriani. About ten minutes out the second carriage derailed and we all had to move to the front carriage – see picture. We rattled on eventually. The scenery was spectacular. The journey there took 3 hours and it took us 30 minutes to get back by marshutka!

Jura asked about the food here. Obviously, meat is pretty expensive and the diet tends to be heavy on carbs, fruits, cheese, beans, and cereals. The national dish is khatchapuri, which is a kind of cheese bread. It has different incarnations in different parts of Georgia. Some people put an egg inside and some people make it with flaky pastry – this is Gill’s favorite. Other national dishes include lobiani, which is a kind of bean bread. It can also be made of potatoes. The Georgians make a very good vegetable stew with potatoes, eggplant and tomato sauce. The grilled eggplant with walnut sauce is also very good. Fruits are seasonal and can be very good indeed. They also make a lot of natural fruits juices as well as wine. These tend to be a little sweet. Georgians love sweet foods and adore salty foods. They also love mayonnaise. The local beer is quite good – like lager. Coca Cola is all over the place.

Our new host mother is a great baker. She makes napoleons to sell in the local shops. She also makes the flaky kind of khatchapuri. By the way, khatcho means cottage cheese in Georgian. We have included a picture of our welcome cake.

We have been taking a bit of a rest here as we were so exhausted after our training. Gill did well in her test and Bob did so-so and will be tested again in 3 months. We both will get Georgian tutors here. At the moment we are having lessons with our host sister who is studying English at Tbilisi University. She keeps on telling us off for not doing our homework.

Congratulations to Chelsea, Sam, and Oscar on the new addition to the family. We look forward to meeting Mac. Please post pictures. Would love to hear from everyone.

The grapes in our garden are turning dark red and we can imagine what a stunning site it will be when the grapes are ripe in the whole town of Kareli. Our family has a grape stomping bath - it looks rather like a deep sitzbath - and they put on special boots for grape-stomping. Apparently this is the busiest time of the year for them, because, apart from the grape stomping, there are several foods to be preserved for the winter. Zoia, the housemother, makes grape juice, sour plum sauce, fig jam, and various other preserves, and apples and potatoes are stored in the cellar. Koba, our host father, produces 500 litres of wine (red and white). This is his estimate. Some of the wine goes to family members in Tbilisi, but most stays at home.

Host family's budding birja.

Doors in old Tbilisi.

Four volunteers and bebia (in the rear) waiting for dinner with two cows, a dog and, if you look carefully, a pig.

Gill, two other volunteers and "host mother" (far left) making khatchapuri.

These young ladies took part in Gill's survey of Georgian girls' aspirations for the future.

August 19, Sunday

Well, well, this will be our last post from Gori. Next week is our final week of training and we will then take wing into Georgia and become fully-fledged English teachers and Georgian speakers - ha, ha! Actually our language ability seems to have regressed during the last week, probably due to exhaustion. So very many reports and tests. I can't speak or write in either language (English or Georgian) now. We have our final Georgian language test next week. We are expected to be able to form past progressive, present, and future tense sentences with complex subordinate clauses, e.g.:
"I found Georgian very difficult yesterday, I find it very difficult today and I am sure that I will find it even more difficult next week when I am in Borjomi and have nobody to help me."
I could just about say this sentence but figure it might taken me about 45 minutes.

Last week, we went on a picnic with our present host family. We piled into a small and old Russian car and headed off to the hills. High in the hills we came to a mountain monastery, apparently built in the middle of nowhere as a fortress against the moslem invaders of from Turkey, Persia, etc. The oldest building was from the 8th century. The 12th century church was in great need of repair. However, one could see how beautiful the frescoes once were - the eyes had been erased by the moslem conquerers. One crowd picture (Bob will post soon) was particularly pleasing as it was obvious that the image was of real people whom the painter knew. Italian restorers have been consulting with the restoration work in Georgia. The task is on the same scale as the "ruinas" in Mexico. The priest at the church welcomed us and blessed us both. We then had a picnic of salad, khatchapuri and water melon and our host family toasted world peace, christians everywhere, everyone everywhere and Americans especially. Absolutely stunning landscape - apparently even more stunning in winter.

Next Friday we go to Tbilisi for our swearing in ceremony. So far we have only lost one trainee and that was right at the beginning of service, so, so far, we are a record making group. Two trainees, one from the NGO program and one from the TEFL program, are making speeches in Georgian and Bob and a group of ten other trainees are singing the national anthems of Geogian (in Georgian) and America (in American). After the swearing in we go to our new site - Borjomi. You can look this up on the web. We suspect there is quite a bit about Borjomi, as it was a major destinations for Russians at one time and it is still a major summer destination for people getting away from the heat of Tbilisi. The Georgian president goes there frequently. We will miss our garden and the pig, but Borjomi has a great deal to offer, including acres of national park and, hey, just maybe, better internet access! We hope to return to Kareli in September for a family visit and for grape stomping - if it is allowed.

Today is August 5. Last week was the second week of our English teaching practicum. The PC asked us to sequence our lessons so that they built on each other and so that the children had ample opportunity for revision. Some of the problems we faced: We had children ranging in English ability of zero (we got her to drawer pictures and other class members labeled them) to university level (we got them to translate); different children showed up every day (we guess the looking at funny Americans wore off after one day); and the weather was in the 90's. Actually we managed pretty well and feel we can manage anything with a good group of fellow workers, lots of humor, and plenty of ice cream. Georgian children are natural actors and all of ours were eager to try out the games we suggested - charades, drawing, simon says, hangman, singing, etc. They even let Gill sing! I am staying here. Georgians have a special type of three part harmony - a copy of their singing was actually put in tube launched into space. So if they appreciate my singing - what's wrong with all my friends and family?

To celebrate the end of English teaching practicum, friends came to Kareli from Gori (remember Gori, Stalin's birthplace) and we all cooked "American" food in one of our family's summer kitchen. It was a fun experience. We managed a pretty good spaghetti bolognese and we had an awesome Thai cabbage salad. I made cucumber and yoghurt which I love when the weather is hot and Bob made a hazel and peanut praline, which looked wierd but was a big success. Gill had her first lesson in making Khatchapuri and got covered in flour. The family grows its own wheat, grinds its own flour, makes its own cheese and yoghurt, and grows all its own vegetables. They were a little mad at us for buying from the market when their foods is "upro gargia" (better), but we wanted to buy for them as they have all been so generous. We got to feed the pigs and milk a cow. Gill was not too successful with Khatchapuri and needs several more lessons to become adept, but the dough felt great. We were all impressed at what wonderful food they manage to produce with so little equipment. Nana, the host mother, also makes wonderful james and fruit juices.

We have to run now or we are going to miss our last bus home to Kareli. We have to be home by seven.

Much love to all. We would love to hear from you.

Last weekend we heard about our permanent sites. We all met at the Peace Corps hub in Gori and we stood around a large map of Georgia drawn in chalk on the basketball court. As our names and destinations were called out, we moved to our sites on the map (see picture). It was actually quite emotional.

After having received our postings, we left for the mountains for a conference with our future principals. This was particularly interesting as our Georgian can be exhausted in about 10 minutes and our principals’ English is likewise limited. However, the PC had devised a lot of games and activities to oil the wheels and we managed pretty well. The conference site was in Gudauri, one of the major ski resorts in Georgia. There was a helicopter pad for extreme skiing and, apparently the hotel can cost as much as 500 Lari per night ($300) in the winter. However, I think the summer rates are much lower, as the Peace Corps generally tries to live low on the budget. To us it was all luxury. We had good rooms, hot showers, a swimming pool, a Jacuzzi and a sauna! Gill went swimming with her principal to be. Bob took a rest as his leg was not quite healed.

Re Bob’s leg: It was really quite an ordeal, but finally the leg is healed over and he can go swimming, etc. He is going to have a lovely scar, but it will be a great talking point. Not everyone can lay claim to an injury in the baths in Tbilisi where Pushkin and Lementerov relaxed.

Bob and I will be posted to Borjomi, a spa town in Georgia which was established by the Romanovs in the 19th century. It was a major destination for Russians during the Soviet era. Now, the town is trying to find other tourist opportunities. Our host family runs a B and B in the summer season – price 20 Lari (about $12) per night and 25 Lari for full board, so we hope to have many visitors. The town is in the largest nature preserve in Georgia which covers about one percent of the country. There are all levels of hiking trails and some huts where you can stay overnight in the preserve. Apparently, it is absolutely gorgeous in the Fall. We have included a picture of the former Turkish official’s house. At the moment it is occupied by refugees from Abkhazia. We thought the satellite dish was a good touch.

We spent two days with our future school principals (pictures included) and they showed us around Borjomi and introduced us to thousands of people. They seemed to know everyone. Bob and I will be in different schools. Bob will be working at a school in Borjomi itself. The school has already had two PC volunteers. They have a room full of computers donated by someone from The States. They are hoping that Bob will get them all going. Gill’s school is in a village close to Borjomi. She will be the first PC volunteer in her school. The English teachers all speak pretty well, but are rather shy about speaking. We kept on reminding them that our Georgian is absolutely terrible.

Our host family in Borjomi has two children, one 18 and one 22. Both speak English very well, but they will be leaving for Tbilisi in September to work and to go to the university. This will be good for us. The father speak Russian and so does the mother. Not that this will help very much, but might be useful. We will be dropped in at the deep end. Probably the best thing that can happen to our Georgian. During three days we were in Borjomi the family had six paying guests, all of them Israelis. Apparently, the bulk of the tourists in Borjomi are now Israeli. We asked our family about this and they said that there is absolutely no history of antisemitism in Georgia, even though the country is very orthodox. Georgians respect all religions. In fact, it is not uncommon to find mosques, synagogues and churches on the same streets in Georgian towns. So Georgia is up there with Denmark as belonging to the good guys. Israeli tourists say they have never felt more welcome than in Georgia.

Some of the mistakes Gill has made so far:

• 
  The Georgian for yellow and cheese are somewhat similar and I keep on asking for cheesy M and M’s. By the way, I have become addicted to peanut M and M’s.
• 
  The German for “just a minute” is Moment, so I tried “momentsi” as most Georgian words end in “I” and they use quite a lot of German words. However, “momentsi” in Georgian means “give me”, so I have been saying give me, give me to my Georgian family for the last four weeks.

Fortunately, they are very good natured.

Cave city Uplis Tskhle

Turkish house in Borjomi

View on the way to Gudauri

Bob with his principal, Keti

Gill with her principal, Nino

View on the way to Gudauri

View on the way to Gudauri.

Bob in local headgear.

Map of Peace Corps postings in Georgia this year. We are dead-centre.

Family's grandson and grand-neice, Guga and Salome.

Stalin's coach used to go to Yalta conference.

Garden of our host-family in Kareli.

Language class.

Gill with Stalin in Gori.

We still do not know where we will be posted for our two year service, but we will find out next weekend and will spend a few days with our "permanent" host families. Next week, we also start our teaching practicum. We are working at summer school with about 15 children in each of two classes - 5th and 7th grade. Their parents have paid a small sum for their children to go to summer school. This is the first time our teacher counterparts have taught summer school also, so we will all be experiencing something new. Our TOEFL teacher has given us many ideas for teaching techniques and we will see how it goes. More on that next week.

This weekend the Peace Corps paid for us to take an excursion out of our villages. We decided to stay fairly close to home because it is very hot and humid and the thought of 3 hours in a marshutka (the mini-buses that people use to get around) did not appeal. So we moved into the main town of Gori and took a hotel with mod cons. We went out to a famous site called Uplis Tsikhe - an ancient cave city on the southern silk road. The city was founded appoximately 1000 BC. At its peak, in the early middle ages, it had a population of 20000 and an area of 9.5 hectars. Now it is down to about 5 hectars and of course nobody lives there. In the 13th century, Tamerlane destroyed the city and its environs and subsequent earthquakes have added to the damage. We were told by our guide that there was a 9 point earthquake in the 1920's. This does not seem possible and we are going to check. The city had theatres, temples, palaces for "King" Tamara, who was actually a woman, but Georgian refer to her as a king, because she was so strong and because her reign was a high point in Georgian history - sounds like Queen Elizabeth I. The rooms have carved stone decoration and faux wooden beams which are actually sandstone. The theater has recently been used in a movie and the walls were painted blue so that they would show up on the screen! There is evidence of wine making all over the place. The method was to have an upper pressing room (actually foot stomping) and a lower capture basin for the grape juice. Our guide told us that there are over 400 varieties of grapes in Georgia and that 25 of them are found in the small region around Uplis Tsikhe. Our guide's name was Stalbe. He was 70 years old and had been named for Stalin and Beria. He looked pretty good and scrambled over the rocks while Gill puffed her way up them. He attributed his health to a litre of red wine a day and tea for breakfast. The first church in the stone city was erected in the 4th century, but all that remains is a carving of a Georgian cross which looks a little like a celtic cross. The "new" church was built in the 9th and 10th centuries on top of a pagan temple. Interestly, the pagan temple was to the sun goddess and men used to be sacrificed to her - as in the Renault book "The King Must Die." The church is still very much in use and Gill and Ruth (a Peace Corps friend) went inside. It was very plain with a few icons. Many women were praying out loud and it was possible to make out the Lord's Prayer in Georgian. There was a monk praying quietly in the corner. Monks, by the way, are the only Georgians to have beards. They can be married, but the rule is that they have to be married before entering the priesthood.

We learned that the Georgian for capital is dedakalaki which means mother city, so everthing is a little different here. Mama = father and Deda = mother. They probably think we are equally strange.

Our host mother, Zoia, is in the midst of the annual juice and jam making season. She picked 20 kilos of cherries last week and this week the small apricots and raspberries have come into season. She has put up 20 liters of juice. Gill did offer to help, but it is difficult as we are always so busy. She did help her to make stuffed cabbage one time. Zoia spends a lot of her time up trees picking fruit. She says she enjoys work. The garden is amazingly fecund and seems to be mostly bugfree (Susan eat your heart out) despite the fact that they do not use insecticides. We keep on asking about this, but have received no explanation except perhaps that the Caucusus are a barrier to bugs!

The groupings for language classes have been changed. Gill remains with her wizkid colleagues and I have joined the remedial group where I might become a big fish in a small pool. The one good possibility is that I might be able to get on the internet more often, but apparently the teacher is very strict and does not allow much time off.

Bob, like many others, is having a bit of a problem with this language, which is certainly difficult. However, he is brilliant at the teaching of English part of our job. He seems to have a natural talent for pacing the lesson and for making it fun at the same time.

We will end now. We are off to have lunch with friends at the coffee shop opposite the Stalin statue. Our favourite meal is mushroom blinis.

By the way, the Georgians frequently use English English terms and spellings. We have been told to use the terms "full stop" and "Zed." We also received information about English English and American English usage and some of it had never occurred to us. More about this later.

We miss everyone and would like to hear your news.

This is our first post since arriving in Georgia. We have very little access to the internet, so this is our first opportunity.

We arrive in Tbilisi at about 5 in the morning after a day and a half journey. The Peace Corps took us to the famous baths in the center of the town for a group photo. Unfortunately, Bob fell and hurt his leg quite badly. However, we have had fabulous treatment by the Peace Corps. In fact, it has become one of our jokes: How many Peace Corps staff and Georgian medics does it take to look after an injured volunteer? Bob has at one time or another had five doctors in attendance in the new hospital in Gori (I think I was the first person to use the loo in his room (outpatient)). The doctors are amazingly attentive and the Peace Corps staff brought chocolates and diet coke!

Anyway, the first five days were spent with the whole Peace Corps Georgia 2007 group (46 of us) near Tbilisi in a rather sorry run-down hotel (used to be used by Russians for conferences I believe) where we were given preparatory information about what was to come. I must say that this was an eye-opening experience. All the staff, Georgian (the majority) and American (just a few) are fabulous and the "initiation" business was very impressively done by these folks.

We then split up into about 9 smaller groups in different places but all within an hour of Gori, another large city (and Stalin's birthplace) about 2 hours from Tbilisi. Gill and I are with three others in a village called Kareli about 30 minutes from Gori. Here we are getting our language and teaching training and the language is really grueling. Gill is mopping up the words easily and is doing well. The others in our little group are doing well too (their brains are only 23 years old) but I, Bob, am undoubtedly the dunce of the class. I just cannot seem to remember all the new vocabulary. It wasn't so bad when we were learning Spanish where there was a reasonable arrangement of consonants with vowels and many cognates to hang your hat on, but Georgian is fiendish.

Gill and I are the oldest in Georgia 2007 group, but there are a few others close to us (a couple and two single men). There are four couples altogether.

Our "host family" consists of mother (Zoia), father (Koba), son (Otari), daughter-in-law (Bela), and grandchild (Guga), and the dog (Jessica). Koba's brother (Lari) also has a small country house in the family compound and he is frequently there with his wife and two grandchildren, Salome and Georgi. Salome, who is ten, speaks very good English and generally acts as our translator when she is around. Otherwise, we get by with pidgin English and Georgian mixed with some Georgian (Zoia speaks some German). All this makes for very interesting sentences.

The family home is quite elegant, but has fallen on hard times. The family, who were, like many other Georgian families, quite prosperous during the Soviet times, now has little work (infact Zoia is the only one who presently has a job), are now having a hard time economically. The same applies to the town of Kareli as a whole. It used to have five factories and now they are all gone. Everyone relies very much on their gardens, which are fabulous here. Everything seems to grow in this country. It has lots of sunshine and lots of rain. We are in the middle of the cherry season and the red and white cherries taste delicious. They also have sour cherries from which they make a great drink. It looks as if raspberries will be next!

We will post again next week if we can get to an internet cafe between lessons and lectures. We are certainly being kept busy, but it is all very interesting and great fun, if very challenging.

At least it's tidy.

We leave for Washington on June 12 and for Georgia on June 14.

We must be mad!

Getting ready!