გამარჯობა მეგობარები!
Hello friends!
There are officially 17 days remaining on my Georgian adventure! SO
CRAZY RIGHT? Sometimes when I think about it, it feels like I just
got here really. But since things are settling down I’ve decided to spend
more time with my host family in the midst of my immediate departure so no real
awesome adventures of climbing mountains and exploring caves to retell for you
all now. But I thought I would share some little random tidbits of life that’s been
happening here in Apeni:
I was walking home from the marshrutka stop last Saturday and as I
turned the corner to my street a small second grade student of mine, Goga was
walking with two other kids (who probably go to the other school in my
village). As soon as he recognized me he lifted up his arms (mind you
he’s about 3 feet tall) and yelled “KELSEY!!” It put a huge smile
on my face. As I got closer we exchanged “Hello’s” and as I walked
away I heard him saying to his friends, “chemi mastsavlebeli” or “my
teacher” in Georgian. It always warms my heart a little to hear my
students speaking English to me outside of the classroom (and being super
excited to see me on the street!).
Ever
since Luka found out I played soccer for one year back in 5th grade
he’s introduced me to the computer soccer game he likes to play with his
friends. He always lets me be either Madrid or Barcelona and
corrects my mistakes in placing the players on the field (“Kelsey, Kelsey,
no, no, no” before grabbing the controller).
After
beating me soundly on the computer version of soccer Luka and I have advanced
to playing a very simplified version in the living room. We use our
house slippers as goal posts and make a ball out of paper. When you
live in a developing country you gotta make do with what you’ve got! He’s
a pretty good player for a twelve year old, and once again beats me every
time.
Not
to mention the fact that Luka also beats me in chess and checkers almost every
time. I have him beat in Backgammon though (called “nardi”
in Georgian). I've learned how to play the game while being here and it's really fun! Not at all an "old person's game."
The
weather is getting colder over here so the wood stove (a pechki)
has been placed in the kitchen area. It’s nice and toasty in there
and apparently I’m pretty good at keeping it going (a new life skill if you
will). Tamila complimented me with an “ocha, Kelsey, ocha”
the other day when she noticed how great my fire-tending skills are. Nobody
gettin’ cold on my watch! (I’m not sure what “ocha” translates to
in English, but the teachers always say it to the students who do a great job
at something).
Speaking
of heat, the host parents have given me a space heater for my bedroom. I heat that baby up for a few hours before I go to bed and now I'm not shivering when I go to sleep!
I’ve already talked about this with some of you back home but my host family is also currently raising
about 20 pigs in the backyard. Their main hangout place
is right below my bedroom window. They mainly spend their time wandering around the grape vines and burrowing into the dirt with their
noses. Sometimes I swear there are about 30 pigs out there (where do
they come from?), but they aren’t really that noisy or smelly (granted I never
open my window on account of the cold now). Apparently we’re feeding the
whole village for New Year’s Eve dinner.
More
awesome Georgian food: Tamila has started bringing out some
canned fruit juice lately and it’s really good. So
far only peach and raspberry juices have made an appearance at the dinner
table; the little pieces of fruit after drinking the juice are a nice
treat. Going to try and find some sort of recipe for this so I can
make it in the States!
Another
new food Tamila has introduced is muraba. This is like
candied fruit and nuts in a sugary water/syrup. Sounds great
right? It’s actually pretty good. I’ve tried a cherry one
with a pecan-type nut in the middle, a big black nut muraba whose
name I can’t remember and I’ve had a watermelon muraba which
was…interesting (the watermelon is a weird greenish-yellow color and doesn’t
really taste like much other than sugar). There’s also a variation
of this that can be put into tea which is really good! The raspberry
and cherry ones are the best so far!
Finally
got around to telling my co-teachers Nino and Margo when I’m leaving
Georgia. They both were pretty sad to hear the finalized date of the
23rd (they’ve known the whole time I would be leaving in
December) and Margo even exclaimed, “Oh don’t go, I love you!”
When
I told my host family when I would be leaving I think Tamila took it as
20 days left for her to feed me. After she found out she
proceeded to give me mtchadi and cheese and tell me how skinny
I am.
Random
Thing of the Week: My school has decided to change the school day start time
to 9:30am and has shorten each class period from 45 to 40 minutes. No
real rhyme or reason was given (other than it becoming dark earlier), but at least I get to sleep in a little more
now.
My
5th grade class is on the Level 3 English book and we’ve
finally arrived to the unit in the book that begins with a story about
American pioneers. It’s a bit random and it’s missing a bit of
the proper history concerning the time period, but I guess they don’t need to
know in-depth American History when they have like 1000s of years of Georgian
history to understand first.
In
an effort to start the first graders off right when it comes to learning
English I made them all a set of homemade alphabet flashcards to
use at home! I cut index cards in half, wrote the English letter on one
side and then drew the picture from their textbooks that correspond with each
letter. I may not be the greatest artist but if it helps them learn their
letters more quickly, then AWESOME. They seem to love them! They
bring them to class every day and we do exercises with them (like, “Hold up
letter H!”).
.jpg) |
| My flashcards! |
When I have some spare time I've been frantically searching
for jobs online for when I return to the States and to Ann Arbor. I can’t really do much while I’m still all
the way over here and 9 hours ahead but at least I’m getting a heads start!
Can’t believe the end is so near! Hopefully I will have a few more posts for
you soon!
kargad! (“Bye!” in Georgian)
Kelsey
I love how excited Luca is about your extensive soccer skills. I also love that you guys have been playing it in the living room with a ball of paper. It reminds me of playing mini sticks, sort of like mini hockey, in the living room at home with shoes as goal posts.
ReplyDeleteI'm excited to see youuuu!