Two weeks ago, we had training in Tbilisi with our counter-parts. Actually, Gill went without any of her counter-parts. Her main counter-part, Marina, could not go because her uncle had died a few days before and consequently she was involved with the funeral. Marina has now lost an uncle and a brother in the space of a few weeks. Another counter-part did not want to go and the third was unable to go because of family commitments.

Bob too has three counter-parts. His main counter-part had a wedding to attend and number two counter-part didn’t want to go. So he went with Lea, his number three counter-part. (She is number three because he has fewer lessons with her than with either of the other two.) The training was interesting and Bob thinks Lea enjoyed it.

Also two weeks ago we had another snow storm. Laundry can be a trial under such conditions! But there were hints that spring was coming. During the daytime, the sun would come out in a cloudless sky and turn much of the snow and ice to slush and water. Admittedly, at night, it would get really cold again and the slush and water would refreeze into a bumpy skating rink and Gill says that she has fallen down four times going to school. However, she was so well bundled up against the early morning cold, and therefore well-padded, that she has not suffered any serious consequences from these falls.

Recently, we have had no fresh snow and even the nights have been warmer. Consequently, all the snow has now gone in Borjomi itself and the snow is melting quickly in the surrounding terrain. We are told that, because of the snow melt, the water supply is full of mud and sand, so the water has been turned off! I suppose that no water must be better than muddy water for someone, but I am skeptical. Laundry can be a trial under such conditions!

If winter is over now, as seems possible, it has been a rather short one and, although there was a period of intense cold, the winter was not as bad as we had been led to expect. Certainly, New York could provide stiff competition.

Last week we went to watch a football (soccer) match between Akhalsikhe (Georgian for Newcastle - a town further up-river) and a Tbilisi team. (It was held in Borjomi because Borjomi has a usable pitch.) Watching professional sports is not something we like doing, but we needed to get out for a walk anyway so Giga, our host-brother, persuaded us to go. He told us that some Nigerian player was on one of the teams. Giga has hopes of being a professional football player himself and would seem to be a pretty good goal-keeper. He might have a chance to play for a Norwegian team if things pan out as he hopes. Bob kidded him that he did not understand why the teams were named after towns and cities when the players seem to come from every part of the globe except the town or city for which they play. Why not name the teams after flowers or film stars? As it turned out, the Nigerian didn’t turn up anyway. It was a nil-all draw.

Last week I, Gill, went to three concerts while Bob was in Tbilisi being checked out by our medical team. It turns out that he is ridiculously healthy except for a little arthritis in his hip. It took them three days to discover that so I have no idea what else he was up to. Anyway, as last week included both Georgian Mothers’ Day and International Women’s Day, the school took time out to celebrate. The third and first grades had concerts, neither of which I knew about until the actual event (typical Georgian fashion). The kids were dressed up in miniature versions of the national costumes and looked absolutely adorable. As I did not know that these concerts were going to happen, I did not have a camera. Now I am taking one every day. The children gave speeches and recited Georgian and Russian poetry. They danced national dances and sang songs. They are natural performers, not in the least shy and seem to have a talent for recitation. After the concert, all the teachers were presented with bunches of violets, which has been picked in the woods in and around Borjomi. Intermixed with the violets were a few snowdrops. I was honored with a bunch of tulips also.

Last Thursday evening I (Gill again) went to a concert in the Borjomi cultural center. I think this was given in honor of some Ukrainians who had come to Borjomi to arrange tourist trips. The singing and dancing was exceptional and quite unlike anything I have seen or heard before. There were two nine-part male choruses that sang acapella. One of my students was in the chorus. He was very good. However, what I enjoyed the most was the dancing. In the dances from South Ossetia the men dance on point in soft leather boots with no soles. I must do horrible things to their feet, but it looks great. You can see why they make such good ballet dancers. The dances from Raja were particularly fun because many of the steps were with the feet turned in and incredibly fast. My host mother joked that it was strange that the people from Raja (a mountain region) are thought to be slow-witted when their dances are so fast.

Yesterday we went to a supra of the teachers from Bob’s school. It was held to celebrate the director’s birthday (yesterday) and the assistant director’s birthday (today). Bob was one of only three men present, so, with over thirty women there, it was essentially a "women’s supra". Women’s supras are a lot of fun. The women sing and dance and thoroughly enjoy themselves.

February 3, 2008


It is just about a month since we returned from our Christmas break and we have been living in a winter wonderland. It does look very beautiful, but it is very cold and several of the houses in our town do not have water (frozen pipes). In fact, the director of my school has not had water in her apartment for over a month. People go and collect the water from wells, streams and luckier neighbors. In Papa, where I work, I see old women carrying buckets of water every day and people dragging milk churns of water on sleds. As all the evidence of modern conveniences has been obliterated by the cold or covered by the snow, the landscape and many of the people have taken on a Breugel-like appearance and you really get a feel for what life must have been like several hundred years ago.

During the second weekend in January Bob and I watched a religious ceremony which took place in the middle of the night. Two local priests stood in the middle of a freezing river, with lumps of ice floating by, and many of the locals, the men stripped to the waste, one by one, submitted to being dunked three times into the frigid water. This is supposed to be the time when the water is at its most pure. Apparently nobody suffers from this experience, not even the priests who stood there for well over an hour. (Although, one did wear rubber gloves to try to keep his hands usable!)

There were big fires on the snow-covered river bank and people were wrapped up against the cold in all sorts of clothing. Again it looked like Breugel.

I have again been feeling the urge to hibernate and I hop into bed with a hot water bottle and a good book as often as I can. However, work has begun to increase in pace. We are both now investigating various grants for our schools (new blackboards, English books and resources, and some sort of sustainable income source for our schools for after we have left). These things take a long time to write and it is difficult to find out the cost of various items, as this often involves going to Tbilisi or trying to get information from locals for whom it is not a priority. However, everyone here has to get used to “Georgia Time” as the G6s (the people who arrived in 2006) tell us. We have met some interesting people in the course of our investigations and talked to a lot of earlier volunteers, which has expanded our group of acquaintances and made life more interesting. We have not started our “English for Tourism” course for the local business people yet, because the No. 1 School, where we hope to hold the classes, still has frozen water pipes. But we have started to give our host family some English lessons and Valer has promised to help me when I start with Russian lessons. I don’t think this will be for quite a long time, as my Georgian is improving rather slowly, if at all.

We had another weekend in Tbilisi. I went the Volunteer Committee meeting and Bob was helping out with the Alternative Handbook for new volunteers (G8s) who will arrive in June. It is strange to think that by June we will have become veterans. Our local guesthouse near the Peace Corps offices was full to the brim – not surprising at 15 Lari (just under $10) a night if you stay for two nights. Bob and I stayed in a small hotel which caters mostly to German tourists and has an Italian restaurant. Their food was really good. They even had a decent tiramisu! I had it two nights running.

It is really difficult to get fresh fruit and vegetables at the moment, especially as the snow has made transportation so difficult. We went to the local supermarket yesterday and all we could find in the fruit line were a few frozen looking bananas, rather old lemons, oranges and, strangely, kiwis. The vegetable choice was small too: potatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, radishes and one lone pumpkin. Fortunately, there was plenty of chocolate.

Our host mother has been cooking up a storm during these lean times. She really is a fantastic baker and makes great potato and onion knishes, or possibly they are more like potato Cornish pasties. Her cakes are great too. We are certainly eating a lot of carbs, but so far I am not back to the fat self I was when we first arrived here.

I think our next vacation is not until Easter which is celebrated here at the end of April, so this is rather a long semester for us. However, it is moving fast and, looking back, we can see that we have accomplished a few things in our schools. The homework completion rate is certainly up (largely due to the domino game bribery I have going – thanks to Bob). The children are speaking more and not just reading and I think they are having more fun in their classes as I certainly don’t mind making a fool of myself for learning’s sake. I think my teachers have become a little braver also and seem to be enjoying their classes more.

We had one sad event last month: my main counterpart teacher’s brother died. He had been very ill with cancer and she had watched him suffer a great deal. I doubt they have the same access to painkilling drugs here in Georgia as we do in the U.S. Marina, my counterpart, was completely drained by this experience and is having a very hard time getting back into teaching. Bob and I, along with over 600 other people, attended the funeral supra (feast). There was a tamada (toastmaster) who toasted the departed and all the living family members. All the attending men had to stand for every toast and there were many. Women are allowed to sit during the toasts, apparently because we are weak and need to conserve our strength. This is what one of the teachers told me any way. The room where the feast was held was on the lower floor of an old Soviet-style marriage hall. It was unlit and unheated, although that did not matter with all those people crowded together. There was a huge amount of food. Must have cost a fortune. Apparently, there is a tradition that each person who attends the funeral leaves a small contribution to the expenses and it shows great honor to the dead when the attendance is very large. There were huge earthenware jugs of wine being carried around – again that Breugel image. Apparently, it is the custom for Georgian relatives and friends to bring food to the bereaved family in the days between the death and the funeral. It is also the custom for the bereaved family to make a small supra 40 days after the death and to deliver the food to the church for distribution among the poor. Georgian is such an old language with speakers who are so connected to each other that they even have special vocabulary for funerals. I suppose we do too, but theirs seems to be more extensive. For example they have an expression which means “I am sorry for your loss”, but the “I am sorry” part can only be used for funerals. I tried it out when someone was ill and was told with a laugh that they weren’t dead yet. You can see how my Georgian language skills are improving.

We would love to hear from everyone. It was hard to catch up fully at Christmas as there was so much running around. Hope all is well with our family and friends.

We arrived back in Georgia the day before yesterday. Peace Corps picked us up at the airport and transported us back to our site. It is freezing – minus 20 degrees Celsius. We don’t think we have ever experienced this level of cold. Thank goodness for all those hot water bottles!

Firstly, our apologies to everyone for not sending out greetings cards this year. It is virtually impossible to do so from Georgia and on our travels we simply did not have time. We will be sending emails now that we are back and snowbound.

The hot water bottles, gloves, headlights, etc. were a great hit with our family here. Many, many thanks to Jeannie and Diana for shopping for us.

We start back at school next week and are wondering how that will be with all this snow – ten inches so far and still coming. It does look very beautiful, but we hear that Gill’s site does not have water (some pipes froze and burst), so maybe the school will not open. In the meantime we will have to work on our curriculum for the “English for Tourism” course we hope to give here in Borjomi. Given our level of proficiency in Georgian, it presents some challenges. Send us your ideas on what you want to find when you travel. We know that friendliness, English ability and plumbing are good. However, our assumption is that most people would prefer the country to remain “Georgian”, i.e. no hot dogs, burgers, etc.

It is amazing to us that our dog and cat are out all day in this weather, but they seem fine and make themselves comfortable when they come in. We, on the other hand, feel like hibernating. We expect to be more energized after a couple of days’ acclimatization.

More news soon.

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.