Field Trip Take Two!

გამარჯობა მეგობარები!

Hello friends!

I’m so lucky!  I was invited on yet another field trip this past Saturday!  Wooo! A free trip to some of the loveliest places in Georgia!  It also helps that it was my host brother Luka’s class having the field trip and even Tamila, my host mom, was tagging along too.  Luka prefaced the excursion for me on Friday saying it was going to be really cold and we were going near some mountains in the Imereti region of Georgia, which is a good 4+ hours from Tbilisi (mind you that would make it a 6+ hour trip one-way from my village). 

Well turns out that none of that information was really true.  We gathered together bright and early in the marshrutka and set off for Tbilisi as the sun rose.  I realized we weren’t heading to the Imereti region when we turned off the main Georgian highway and started heading in the direction of the northern region of Kazbegi.  So, since I’m now pretty used to the randomness of life here, I just sat there and figured if things got too crazy I would ask what was going on and where we were actually going.  We eventually turned off this main road and drove along the side of a mountain with the beautiful Lake Ananuri below us.  We drove for about an hour on this road deep into the mountains before finally arriving at the small village of Chargali which was surrounded by mountains on all sides; it was beautiful and peaceful. 

A very famous Georgian writer named Vazha-Pshavela (1861-1915) was born and raised here and now his former two-roomed home is preserved and they’ve built a small museum in his honor.  We got a quick tour of the two places before sitting down in a picnic area to eat lunch (this field trip also had enough food to feed an army).  Here are a few pictures from there:

Beautiful scenery!

This is a picture of  Vazha-Pshavela and his family that is shown in his house.  He's the guy in the middle wearing what is actually a traditional Georgian hat that's made out of sheep hair.

The 7th grade class with their lovely teacher Andi.  Squatting in the front are Salome and Elene.  The second row is Lasha, Giorgi, Luka (my host brother!), Giorgi, Vika, Lasha, Mari, and Tamuna.  And Simon is in the back row with Andi.

The museum across the street from the house

Mountains everywhere!

Cool painting on the inside of the museum

All the adults on the trip!  My host mom Tamila is the fourth one from the left.

 After this, we piled back into the marshrutka and I found out we would be visiting Ananuri, the fortress/church that overlooks the beautiful lake we passed earlier.  We got there about 1.5 hours later and briefly went into the church for everyone to light a candle and to say a prayer before exploring the small fort that is built around it.  The Ananuri castle was built in the 13^th century and the church was built in the late 1600s.  The views of the surrounding mountains and Lake Ananuri were obviously beautiful!

The view!  Lake Ananuri begins here.

This is a picture of the two churches on the grounds as well as a tower in between them.

Towers like this are all over Georgia (a lot near the border with Russia in the mountainous areas) and they were used as lookouts during times of war.

Typically road blocks in Georgia on the way to Mtskheta: sheep, goats, cows, and horses.

Our final stop of the day was the small town of Mtskheta which I visited a few weeks ago.  We actually visited one church that my friend Kathleen and I overlooked last time.  Samtavro church was built in the 11^th century and contains the grave of the very famous Georgian Orthodox monk Saint Gabriel.  As with any other visit to a church in this country, everyone bought some incented candles to light and said a few prayers before exploring the yard which had many graves in it(some where the writing has worn away).  After that we went to the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral which was still just as big and impressive as last time!  There was also what seemed to be fifty weddings going on since everywhere I turned there was another bride and groom in the church, they were all dressed so beautifully!

Samtavro Church in Mtskheta

Svetitskhoveli Cathedral again

My host mom Tamila and my host brother Luka (what a goon!)

Weddings everywhere!

Most of the 7th grade boys (bichebi)!  From L to R: Simon, Lasha, Luka, Vika in the back, Giorgi and Lasha

It was yet another fun filled day with a bunch of kids who have so much energy to spare!  I’m hoping to have an adventurous and fun weekend ahead of me since it’s Thanksgiving on Thursday and Georgia celebrates St. George’s  Day this Friday (and the students have the day off school).

nakvamdis!

Kelsey

P.S. Some of you were curious about what countries have been looking at my blog so I thought I'd share this screen shot with you all!  These are some statistics from this week:

Click on the picture to see the numbers more clearly!