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.