Life

I know it’s been awhile since I last updated, but a lot has happened since my last entry. Well maybe not a lot, but enough good and bad that I haven’t updated. A few days after my last entry I went to Beshumi with Duri and his family, Beshumi is a mountain resort village near the Turkish border. The houses aren’t really like houses, more like shacks lined up around each others. I was there for three nights and I met a lot of interesting people, but I also felt completely cramped in the house. There was no chance for me to sit alone, relax, and recoup my energy. The only chance I had alone was listening to my iPod while sitting on a Marshutka with 20 other people.

On the last day we went to Vardzia, a cave city built into the side of a mountain. Vardzia was a monastery built in 1185 by the famous Queen Tamar (who also built several bridges near me) to protect over six-thousand apartments from the Mongols. Though, 100 years later an earthquake destroyed most of the monastery and exposed it to the outside. In the 16th century the Persians took over the area and essentially ended the life of the monastery. Monks run it now and it’s a big tourist site in Georgia. There are pictures on Facebook for those that are interested. After Vardzia I continued my summer by studying Georgian, meeting Georgians, and just overall good times.

In late August I was in Tbilisi for a Peace Corps Wellness Event to get us ready for the upcoming school year. Tbilisi was a good time, and I had a few packages waiting for me, which made it 10000x better. It was also nice meeting all the other volunteers I hadn’t seen in a while.

When I returned home on Sunday there was a mini supra for my host father’s brother who had come in from Moscow. A supra here and there is nice, but it’s a little annoying ALWAYS being the center of attention. I know everyone is glad I’m here and I appreciate the hospitality, but I really am a much more private person. Oh, well.

At the beginning of that week I felt refreshed and ready to take on my summer camp, a seven day English camp for the students at the school. That was until I heard the news about my favorite high school teacher and friend, Brian Welsh who died as a victim of suicide. Mr. Welsh was always a great teacher, and a supportive coach. He knew what each of his students needed, whether a pat on a back, or kick in the ass. His classes were lively and discussion based. He was the reason I got into teaching in the first place and a man with many talents, but many flaws as well. I looked forward to maybe teaching with him at South when I got older. It’s hard to tell how much pain someone is really in, but also remember that nobody how messed up things to seem, life is long, and no matter how hard it is, life has its ups and downs. Here’s to the greatest teacher/coach West Windsor-Plainsboro South has ever had.

But the Peace Corps life doesn’t live you with much time to mope, and Georgians are always worried if you seem sad, so I quickly got up and went to work. The summer camp went really well. I had about 20 students show up, and we played dodge ball, Uno, Twister, capture the flag, and a variety of other children games. We also had a day where I talked about trash and waste; the children made signs and hung them up around town. It seemed productive, until I watched one of my students throw a Coke bottle in the river the next day… sigh… My Peace Corps friend, Alissa came to help out on my last 2 days of camp. We started it with the human knot, but then promptly moved to a relay race. By relay race, I mean we played beer pong, but with water! Pictures are on Facebook, but the kids LOVED it, and their excitement at every shot was amazing (of course I taught the adult version later that night to Georgian friends and neighbors). The last day I had a talent show, and a group of four girls sang song, danced, and put on the most amazing performance I thought wasn’t possible. So of course the won, and got Snickers as prizes.

School started the next week, and I’ve been observing my first two weeks, but now I’m selecting my classes and am getting down to business. I can already tell it’s going to be a huge challenge, but I’m already trying to use some strategies I learned from “Maynard” Welsh. Right now the kids aren’t used to my sometimes strange outbursts (they are used to the Soviet style teaching), but slowly they are catching on to me walking into doors to teach them the word “stupid”.

So that’s the news from this side of the world. Until next time (a month from now).

Oh, P.S. lock the door when you change OR use the toilet. Both my host parents decide walking in is much easier than knocking and have therefore succumbed to my uncontrollable laughter of embarrassment mixed with curse words.