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.