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.
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!
