The Low-Down on Georgian Food

გამარჯობა!

Hello! Hope everyone is enjoying the end of October!  I’m just under two months away from my return back to the States! It’s quite exciting to think about but there is still so much more I want to do and see before heading back. I was actually thinking the other day about what I should write about next on here since I haven’t visited any other cool places in the past two weeks. Since I’m currently battling yet another stomachache, I've decided it might be the time to talk about some Georgian food. 

A lot of people back home (notably my Dad) have been asking me about what kinds of food I’m eating since I got here.  Before I show you some different dishes, you should know about a few key characteristics to any typical Georgian dish: usually it includes some sort of carbohydrate, lots of sunflower oil and probably vegetables grown our host family’s garden (or some form of meat taken from a recently deceased animal also raised on the property).  So needless to say, Georgian food isn’t all that nice on the digestive system and most of the dishes wouldn't be recommended for weight loss or for lowest-calorie count, but food is definitely a huge part of the culture here, so I’m fully participating in it!  Here's a small list of the food I see and eat most often here in Georgia:

Khinkali (ხინქალი): this is a little hand-made dumpling typically filled with meat, yet sometimes potatoes or other vegetables.  With some black pepper liberally sprinkled on top, you’re supposed to suck out the small amount of gravy-like juice inside when you first bite into it and then proceed to eat everything but the top knob of gathered dough.  This is supposed to be bad luck if you eat it (or something along those lines) and it also serves as a tally for how many khinkali you’ve eaten.

khinkali

Khachapuri (ხაჭფური): You’ve already heard a bit about my adventures with khachapuri in an earlier post, but it’s worth noting that it’s different in all parts of Georgia. I’ve tried the three major kinds: Imeretian, Adjarian, and Mingrelian. I might say that Adjarian might be my favorite since the addition of the egg makes it taste just a little bit different than the rest (in a good way). Of all the dishes I’ve seen made here, I definitely plan on making this when I get back because it’s pretty simple and quite frankly, who doesn’t love hot cheesy bread?

This is Mingrelian khachapuri with cheese on the inside and on top.

Adjarian khachapuri. SO. GOOD.

Imeretian khachapuri.  This is the kind my host family makes with the cheese on the inside.

Mtchadi: this is the small snack my host mother Tamila likes to make for my host brother Luka and I. It’s basically just little patties of fried cornmeal.  You then eat it with cheese while it’s hot and fresh out of the frying pan.

Mtchadi

Lobiani (ლობიანი): Think khachapuri but with beans substituting for the cheese.  Beans are ground into a mash and then inserted into balls of dough which are then pressed into the flatten khachpuri shape.  It’s probably one of the better dishes I’ve had here, even if it’s a little dry at times.

Lobiani

Tsvadi: The Georgian barbecue.  This is meat speared on stakes that’s grilled over a small fire and is served at every supra with onions.  It’s not bad if you manage to get  a piece that’s not entirely covered in fat, but it would be nice to add some BBQ sauce to this to spice it up a little bit.

Need some Sweet Baby Ray's with this stuff!!

Tonis Puri (თონის ფური): Puri is the Georgian word for “bread” and Tonis (or Tone) is the Georgian word for the big cylindrical barrel fire that bakes the bread.  Basically you take balls of bread dough, flattened and elongated, and place them on the sides of this cylinder to cook.  What comes out is hot bread in a flat, oval shape (most of the time).  Many people in the villages make this from scratch, and it is really cheap to purchase (70 tetri or the equivalent of 40 cents).  Georgia hasn't really discovered the whole sliced bread phenomenon yet so everyone typically just tear a piece from the large loaf that is served at literally every meal. If you are what you eat, then I’m coming home as a loaf of bread from the amount I've eaten here.

This is how they make the bread.

Cheese: Also served at almost every meal is cheese.  Georgian cheese is pretty interesting in its taste.  I’m not quite sure how to describe it other than its more salty than a lot of other cheeses I’ve had in my life, but it’s something that I’ve gotten used to.

Bread! and you can see the chunks of cheese on the other plates.

Tomato and Cucumber “salad”: A pretty standard salad here in Georgia has been a mixture of tomatoes and cucumbers since I arrived here in August (tis the season!).  Since the daily vegetable count here is low (or mostly fried potatoes), I load myself up on this every time it’s offered at a meal.  Tomatoes here are actually really really good, and I might even say they are better than some I’ve had back in the States, but it might help that they are home-grown produce from the family garden!

Eggplant and Walnut dish: This dish is one of my favorites here in Georgia even though I’m not a huge fan of eggplant to begin with.  You take eggplant and cut it into long strips and then fry it in oil.  After this, the eggplant cools before adding this walnut mixture to it and folding it in half.  Sometimes, pomegranate seeds are added to the walnut mixture that makes for an interesting (yet delicious) texture combination!  I think it would be interesting to try the eggplant baked instead of fried when I try to make this back home.

So really, this is actually just a small list of all the different kinds of food I’ve had while in Georgia.  Some of the other ones I’ve only had maybe once or twice or I just can’t remember the names.  While this food sounds appealing, I have to admit that I’m craving some American food like you wouldn't believe: Honey Bunches of Oat cereal, brownies, and sushi (technically not American, but I still want it!). Just one of the many things to look forward to when I'm back in time for Christmas!

Love and miss you all!

Kelsey    

P.S. Props to Google for having images of almost all the food!  I haven't been one of those "take pictures of every meal you have abroad" people while I'm here.

Halfway There: An Excursion to David Gareja

გამარჯობა! როგორ ხარ?

Hope you remembered some Georgian from my last post!  If you didn’t, I’m saying “Hello, How are you?”  So I went on a cool excursion this weekend that I obviously want to tell you all about.  There’s a Facebook group basically dedicated to English speakers in Georgia and some woman posted about an excursion to David Gareja and about 20 fellow TLG English teachers signed up including myself and several people from my orientation group.  We met up on Friday in Tbilisi and basically just hung out eating some really good cheese pizza and enjoying M&M McFlurry’s from McDonalds (Georgia has 3 McDonalds and I've successfully been to all of them now).

We got up bright and early on Saturday and headed out to meet everyone for the journey which was supposed to set out at 7:30am but since this is Georgia we finally left around the Georgia Maybe Time (GMT) of 8:45am.  The actual David Gareja complex of monasteries isn't that far from Tbilisi (maybe about an hour at most since the roads are really bad). 

Our first stop was the Ioane Natlismtsemeli Monastery which was about four kilometers (about 2.5 miles) from the main David Gareja caves.  The monk who was our guide provided some information (in Georgian) and the girl who organized the trip attempted to translate most of what he was saying; some of the information was lost in translation a little, but I’ll attempt to remember what stood out the most.  It’s a smallish monastery in the side of a mountain dating back to the 6^th century.  We went inside the church which was comprised of three main rooms and was definitely old; most of the relics and frescoes on the walls were all originals.  Even though the place is literally hundreds of years old and the original paint is still remaining we were allowed to take pictures:

Ioane Natlismtsemeli Monastery which was built into the side of this mountain/hill.

6th century church area

The blue paint is the original coloring.  The way to make the paint apparently just "came" to the monks in a message from God and it was the first time in which this color was ever used in a Georgian church.  You can apparently still buy some of this paint but it costs like $15,000 and you have to wait many years to get it.  Or something like that.

A bigger look at the blue frescoes 

There was graffiti all over the place that was carved by those who don't believe in the Georgian Orthodox church.

Bigger view of the church area.

Some of the little caves at the first monastery.

A view from the ground.

This first stop on the excursion was pretty cool but I think all of us were more eager to get to the actual David Gareja monastery.  It was built starting in the 6th century by St. David Garejeli who was a monk that had just arrived in Georgia.  Since that time, and particularly in the 11-13th centuries, the monastery grew in prosperity yet was subject to the many different takeovers the country of Georgia has experienced at the hands of foreigners in its history.  When Russia took over Georgia in 1921 the monastery was closed.  In the 1980s the Soviet Union used the area to train soldiers for their war in Afghanistan and obviously Georgians protested and eventually military exercises in the area stopped.  After the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, the area was eventually reopened and is now a religious tourist site.

There was an actual part that is still a functioning monastery with a few rooms/caves that are a little more modernized (we saw a solar panel on top of one of the buildings).  We basically just toured the main area that contained a courtyard and the church of the monastery.  As is typical in Orthodox churches, the women of the group had to cover their heads and wear scarfs wrapped around our waists if we weren't already wearing skirts.  After spending a short time here, we all went out of the monastery area to begin the climb up this huge hill (more like a small mountain actually) that would lead us to the famous 6^th century caves of David Gareja.  Here are some pictures of the monastery compound:

Towers at the David Gareja monastery.

The monastery part of David Gareja that is still functioning as a place for Orthodox monks.  This part is also built into the side of the mountain.

The climb up the mountain was a perfect example of differences between visiting national monuments in the United States and visiting national monuments in Georgia.  Back home the walk to the caves would've been a full set of stairs or a paved path right up to the caves (and maybe an elevator or something to accommodate physically impaired guests).  However, in Georgia, young and old alike scale the dirt path leading up the mountain that has been outlined by countless visitors before us (I did indeed see several old women attempting to successfully come down from the mountain, I’m not sure how far they went up, but I was scared they were going to break a hip the entire time).  There are no guard rails or guides along the way to keep everything in order or to assist in case one should become injured.  It’s just another part of Georgia that makes it unique and makes the experience of climbing a mountain to find some ancient caves all the more exhilarating.

It actually wasn't that bad of a climb overall, and I think I’ve actually come to really enjoy these hiking adventures I’ve done in Georgia, it’s certainly helping to make up for the lack of exercise I’m getting in the village on a daily basis.  If nothing else, it was worth it to make it to the top since when we got reached the summit we found ourselves facing Azerbaijan.  Yeah, it was that close and obviously super cool.  David Gareja is basically on the border of Georgia and Azerbaijan and has been a source of dispute between the two countries since the early nineties.  The sky above us was a picturesque blue and the weather was perfect as we spent a good twenty minutes or more enjoying the view and taking pictures.

This is me at the top of the hill/small mountain (one of the only ways to reach the David Gareja caves).  Behind me is Azerbaijan, or what I imagine Mars or some planet in outer space looks like.

The caves that would mark our final destination of the day were to the left of this view, so we continued along the journey which again proved to be a little frightening since the "path" was merely a foot-wide patch of dirt that had been cleared for foot travel; there were stakes where guard rails of some kind could be erected but, once again I've found myself literally on the side of a mountain exploring.  The caves really varied in size and I'm not quite sure if some of them had a special purpose or not.  Judging by the remaining frescoes and sizes of some rooms, several had to have been meeting places or bigger religious ceremony rooms used by the monks that have previously inhabited this place centuries ago.  Here are some pictures of the hike:

The caves lined this wall of the mountain.  This obviously wasn't the safest hike I've ever done but the view was amazing.  Some of the caves were numbered 51, 52, 53 so I believe there are other parts which contain caves somewhere else that are still be uncovered and explored (there are supposedly hundreds of caves!).

In some of the caves some of the original frescoes remain.  Some people have placed money and religious icon pictures here.

An example of some of the caves

This area had really big frescoes that were still pretty much intact

A view of the caves from the other side

When we got to the other side, we found ourselves at the top of the mountain again in a place where Georgian and Azerbaijani guards patrol (read: stand around) together.  I'm not quite sure of their purpose being isolated up there, but the Azerbaijani guards were definitely more friendly even though they knew little English other than "Hello," "California?" and "Michael Jordan."  We didn't spend much time up here before heading back down the mountain to end our day-long exploration.

So, I’ve had another adventure to add to the Georgia life chapter!  I’m officially half-way done with my experience here and there are still times that catch me off guard here in Georgia that make me pause for a second and just think to myself, “I live in Georgia right now.”  How surreal is that?  And it happened again this weekend as I found myself on top of a mountain looking at Azerbaijan, a country I never thought I would ever be this close too, and I was about to climb all up in some 6^th century caves which people typically only read about in history books.  This whole experience has been such a roller coaster where some days I feel like crying and then there are others in which I’m saddened by the fact that I’ll be leaving this crazy place.  But I honestly can say I’m in love with my life right now, both here in Georgia and with everyone/everything I have to look forward to back in the States come December.  Here’s to the second half of the journey!

გაუმარჯოს! (cheers!)

Kelsey.

3 Weeks in: Teaching Difficulties and Supplies

gamarjoba! rogor khar? (გამარჯობა! როგორ ხარ?)

Hello! How are you?  I’m trying to include a little more Georgian as I continue my blog posts since I’m learning a little more every day and I think it’s pretty cool to share with you all back home!  In other news though, I’ve completed my third week of teaching at my school in Apeni!  This week however was a little different since I only went to class on Tuesday and Thursday since Georgia had a very important Parliamentary election on Monday which called for a day off school for everyone. 

Now that I have a few weeks of school under my belt and everything isn’t quite a culture shock as it was at first, I’ve come to a very stark realization about this teaching experience that will undoubtedly affect how I carry out my future career as a teacher:

Teaching is hard.

Actually, it’s really hard and to be honest, this is said having come to the conclusion that I don’t do a whole lot while I’m in the school to begin with.  There are many things that have led me to this conclusion, some of which I already knew from previous experience and others which have become illuminating through this particular situation in Georgia:

Planning each lesson ahead of time takes some thought and effort, and is completely necessary: First of all, you don’t want to look unprepared and let the kids think this is a free-for-all and secondly you want to think about how to present the information successfully so that kids can actually learn.  My co-teachers and I are still working on this planning concept and I want to eventually do some of my own creative activities with the kids that aren't just exercises in the textbook.

Some kids just don’t want to learn English: Even the allure of bringing in an American girl to the classroom doesn't sway some kids to learn English so what do you do with them sitting there in the back of the classroom?  Forget about them?  I personally can’t do this, so I’m still struggling with what to do about it whether it’s going to be taking them aside individually to teach them or something else.

English is a hard language to learn to begin with: Not only are some of the grammar rules annoying and include a bunch of exceptions that you just have to remember.  Sometimes even I can't remember the name of the present progressive -ing ending for verbs (ex: I am reading.).  Another thing that compounds the difficulties associated with English is that for the most part, the only time these kids speak in English is in English class. What I've learned over the years is that in order to become better speakers (in any language) you actually need to use it more than just the forty-five minute class periods 2-3 times a week. There are a few kids who study and use it outside of the school walls, but the number is still pretty small.

Georgian language and English really just don’t mix: There are a lot of differences between Georgian and English so explanation of English concepts takes a bit of time, several examples and a lot of repetition.  And this all has to take place in Georgian for the majority of the kids to understand, hence, time spent talking in English during class is cut short.  One big example is that Georgian doesn't use any capital letters (everything is just written at the same height) so there has to be reminders to capitalize certain words a lot. 

Lack of resources and unexpected hindrances=improvisation: Even something as simple as bringing different color chalk with me has been a life saver.  But, even some of the resources already available to me have needed to be improvised.  The textbooks we use come with CDs for listening activities but when the electricity isn't working at the school how are kids supposed to complete the activities?  Most of the time, I just read the dialogue aloud for the students but no amount of planning ahead can account for things like a loss of electricity for a few hours.

Aside from all of the difficulties that make teaching here frustrating at times there are great things happening every day in my classes.  For example, in the first grade when we offer a prize of a sticker for talking in English all the kids suddenly start talking in great English and look super cute while doing it too!  And when some of the older grades are able to talk about their Georgian lives in English (They have two sisters, Their birthday is on October 13^th etc.), I get to learn a little more about each of them in return.  And, I’ve been making due with the resources I’ve brought with me and the textbooks we use with the kids.  I’ve included some pictures below so you all can see what I’m using to teach with!  While they might not be overly interesting to some of you, hopefully this will help future volunteers who read this blog think of resources and teaching supplies they might bring along with them as well. 

One of the textbooks/workbooks the kids use.  Currently my 5th and 6th grade classes are using this book.  There are six levels for grades 1-6 and ideally each grade is supposed to advance one level each year.  The textbooks change once students get to 7th grade and above.

One thing I would change about these books is how they teach grammar.  A lot of the grammar explanation is left to the teacher to explain and the kids learn how to apply it in the exercises.  This page shows how to talk about hobbies and likes/dislikes.

This page covers clothes and colors.  Also these books teach British English so I've been calling pants "trousers" and tennis shoes "trainers" all week.

This is way later on in the book, but this is just one example of the dialogues that  we have the kids listen to on CD if the electricity isn't out.

A page from the workbook the kids use for in-class exercises and homework.  

Some of the supplies I brought with me.  I haven't used the Bingo cards yet but hopefully it'll be as fun as this little girl makes it look

Flashcards! Thank you Target for the amazing $1 deal before I left!

I'm trying out this new thing I like to call "mini posters" with my host brother to explain English concepts whenever we have our lessons together.  I think they are easier to comprehend than some of the instruction in his textbook (which is different than the one shown above).

Mini poster talking about time

I really think I made a breakthrough with this one.  Georgian only has one pronoun for He/She/It so I think this helped to clear up any confusion my brother has been having with it.

And you get to see how my Georgian writing is coming along!

With all this stuff happening everyday it's hard to believe that I'm almost half way done with this experience!  Definitely more tales to come as teaching and the Georgian experience continues!  Onward to Week 4!

didi madloba (დიდი მადლობა) for reading! (Many thanks for reading!)

gaumarjos! (გაუმარჯოს!) (cheers!)

Kelsey