Well I broke down and got the internet again, but only because so many interesting things have happened that I felt the overwhelming urge to let the 10 people that read my blog have a chance to know what’s going on. As some of you know, I am a big fan of the show Chuck. For those of you who do not know this show, it is about some regular guy who works at a Best Buy equivalent in California suddenly gets all the military secrets poured into his head and is forced to become a spy. He works with an unbelievably hot blonde that he falls in love with. This is not the point, though. Each episode is titled Chuck vs. *Insert interesting thing*, so I had the unoriginal idea of taking that concept for my blog.
Tom vs. Karma is well deserved for the past weeks adventures. It began last weekend when I was in Kvishkheti. I was visiting for what I thought was my friends’ wedding, but in fact only turned out to be his birthday, goes to show how much Georgian I understand. Well I’m at my former host mother sister’s house eating sunflower seeds and playing cards. I had a pile of sunflower seeds I was playfully throwing at everyone. Well I turned to throw the used seeds off the balcony, but the cactus next to me thought I was trying to pick a fight. So it decided to send about a dozen prickly things into my hand while I tossed the sunflower seeds off the roof. One managed to dig itself underneath my finger nail. I still don’t know if it’s out. So Cactus 1 Tom 0.
Then later we were playing Mgeli (wolf) and after getting my host sister really well, I was running away from her and managed to twist my ankle nicely. I limped home, but once again, Karma wants to fight me.
Then last Monday I was at the river with my neighbor (we’ll call her, Jules). I just got out of the water from an unsuccessful attempt at swimming against the current and sat down on a rock next to her. We were practicing some of my Georgian, learning words like “rock”, “tree”, “river”, etc. I see a wasp floating in the water and thought “poor guy”, but then he hopped out on the rock next to me. Despite my previous thought I didn’t want a wasp next to me, so I flicked him back into the water. Well sure enough, he comes out and walks up to me, so I flick him back, but this time into the current. I figured I had proven my triumph over nature, and bee. My mind floated back to learning words like “klde” and “khe” when I suddenly felt pain go across my leg and sure enough, there’s the wasp with his stinger shaking its venomous goodness into my calf. Before I could kill the thing it flew away. Wasp 1 Tom 0.
This has nothing to do with Karma, but the very next day I finished taking my shower and was relaxing in my room and slowly getting dressed. It’s unbelievably hot here, so if I can get away without clothes on I will certainly do it. I should have locked my door though, because sure enough my host mother walks in with a plate of over-cooked corn while I’m barely dressed. That was a fun conversation to have.
So on to the good stuff. On Sunday I went with my counterpart Duri, and his former volunteer Brian who was visiting, up to the top of the mountain near the Turkish border to see this mountain festival. Three months out of the year, villagers take their cows up this mountain so they can graze and what not, but they basically go drink copious amounts of alcohol and lay out in the sun. So that’s what we did for the day, oh and we climbed this mountain that Brian thought would be easy, but turned out to be rather vertical. I have some great pictures and videos. I should also mention that the road we took to get up this mountain was more or less a trail, and I spent a good portion of the ride convinced I was going to die, so I took a lot of video and pictures so the police would know what happened. But we lived, so now the videos will be good to show you people! Sweet!
What else have I done? Had a barbeque with some Georgian friends and members of the Batumi soccer club (they spend a month on vacation in Keda every year). Georgians can light some nice fires, better than most Eagle Scouts I would think.
Well, I’m tired and it’s time to be productive. Check out the new pictures on my Facebook.
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ReplyDeleteFacts 1 Tom 0