Ba-Ba-BATUMI

Despite having such a bad start to last week, it ended rather nicely. My co-teacher and I planned lessons together, and I got to do more teaching than I usually do. Even some stuff that wasn't in the book, and my co-teacher seems to be very uncomfortable not using the book.

I really want to have a fun day for my last day next week, but the iii form and the ii-iv form classes are both approaching a three unit test so I don't know how well that will go over. Ideally, we could listen to and sing some Christmas music and maybe make some Christmas cards. Play a game or something similar. I will miss teaching, and will miss my students.

Saturday was another quiet day. I spent it at home, because the weather was supposed to be rainy.

Sunday I got up early, earlier than I usually do on schooldays and left the house, bound for a day in Batumi. Batumi is a city on the coast of the black sea, and it is a very popular tourist destination. I was lucky to be able to just hop on a Marshut'ka from the bus station a two minute walk from my house. The drive was two hours, and I spent a chunk of it making sure I would be able to tell when I was in Samtredia on my way home.

The weather was very nice, sunny and bright, without a cloud in the sky. I had a very rough map of downtown that I printed off the Lonely Planet website, but I barely needed to use it. The bus's route ended right by the ocean, so from there it was fairly easy to orient myself, and I just walked towards the pretty buildings. There are quite a few clock towers, and not a lot of high rise buildings so just going was easy. The map in my mind had the sea being north of the center of town, and west. So all I had to do to find my way back was go up.

Batumi is a beautiful town, still in the process of being renovated, but it is easy to understand why it is such a big tourist attraction. It has an old core, and along the sea an entire boardwalk park area stands and is being built up. There wasn't a lot open by the sea since it is December, and not peak tourist season, but by the early afternoon it had warmed up enough that there were plenty of families and couples out wandering the boardwalk, or visiting the dancing fountains. I took a lot of pictures, ate some khatchapuri, did a lot shopping. It was a very nice day, the most nerve wracking part was just getting back. I left Batumi at five, which meant we were in Samtredia about seven, when it was pitch black out...I'd never been out so late on my own before. I still managed to make it home alright though.

It doesn't feel like Christmas at all here. Aside from one snowfall early in the month, it hasn't snowed. A lot of the persimmon trees still have persimmons on them, they just don't have leaves. And in the hills as I was leaving Batumi I saw plenty of mandarin trees. With mandarins on them. And green leaves. Oh, it was probably about 50 or so in Batumi on Sunday. It's just not my typical idea of December, or approaching Christmas. Oh well. 8 more days until I'm home!

Heavy

Saturday night my host sister came home. She’s been in Qutaisi (also spelled Kutaisi) living and helping her relative that recently had a baby. I’m pretty sure that’s where she’s been anyways. It was nice to see her again. Everyone was excited to have her back.

Sunday was another quiet day. The most exciting thing that happened was watching the junior Eurovision contest with my family. It’s a yearly singing competition for, obviously, juniors. The Netherlands, Georgia, Russia, Belgium and Latvia were a few of the participating countries, there were 13 total. It was a lot of fun to watch, especially since they tallied the votes at the end and we got to watch as Georgia won! Their song was called Candy Music, and was certainly more age appropriate than some of the other songs sung by other countries. Most of them were sung in their native tongues, so I didn’t understand, but when the staging is like a love ballad, it’s probably a love ballad. One of the lines I understood from Candy Music was gemrieles Schokoladis. I don’t guarantee the spelling is correct, but it means delicious chocolate. Who can resist a song about candy?

Tuesday I taught the first form class. It more or less didn’t go quite that well. They didn’t understand me, and they still have trouble with their basic letters, even though we’ve moved beyond it. Things are very difficult when they don’t understand what you want them to do, and are still having trouble with their letters. Oh well. It wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t the best lesson.

Today was exciting however. I got to go visit Natalie’s school since she came last week to visit mine. It is quite different, most of the rooms have electricity, although the building is only a bit nicer. The classes are also much larger, most of them being about 20 students per class. (I forgot to count.) Natalie said their biggest class is 32! I taught part of the first lesson in the morning, and then the two classes after. Natalie works with two co-teachers, and their English is better than my co-teacher’s. I helped teach the fourth class as well. It was really nice to be able to teach. The lessons went fairly well, and both co-teachers encourage, or at least allow, stepping away from the book, and doing additional activities to help learn the material. After those classes, I sat in on an additional class, one of Natalie’s teachers had asked her to come to the seventh form and read a story for them.  It was interesting to experience.

After school, Natalie and one of the teachers at her school took me to meet a private English teacher in Samtredia. Both of the teachers are Jehovah’s Witnesses. We had some cake, and tea, and right after we started eating, it was time to watch a video in English. It was all about how Jehovah’s Witnesses had caused a change in the way the medical field did blood transfusion, and the move to not using blood transfusions. Of course there were plenty of surgical scenes. L Blech! It was informative, but boring.

It’s been a heavy week so far, although not a lot has happened. I fly home in 13 days. I am excited, but at the same time I feel like there are weights settling on me. My co-teacher and I are having some communication issues that finally just kind of fizzled this week, and talking through them is difficult due to her limited knowledge of English and my limited knowledge of Georgian. German isn’t helping that much right now. Then there’s the weight of parting. My host family is quite dear to me, and I will miss them when I’m gone. Add to that weight, money. It’s something I should avoid thinking about, but now that going home is nearing I keep thinking about paying student loans, and other things. It’s just left a heavy feeling.

On the plus side, I fly home in 13 days! Much love!

December

Wow, it's December already. My time in Georgia is almost over. It's been another quiet time for the most part. I spent last weekend sleeping and recovering from my cold. It was also a rather dismal weekend, gray and rainy, not very conducive to doing much. The highlight of last weekend was going to my neighbor's Suphra. It was a party for the neighbor's son, I'm not really sure why beyond that. There was, as usual, plenty of food and wine. Hajapuri and fruit were my food of choice.On the plus side, I'm mostly recovered from my cold. I only cough occasionally and my nose is just a little runny.

On Tuesday it rained. A lot. It was rain complete with thunder and lightning. Luckily the rain lightened up around the time I went to and from school so I didn't get drenched. Then on Wednesday it snowed. A heavy and wet and beautiful first snow. I got home and had to take some pictures, even if my fingers went numb. Thursday was just kind of slushy and ick, and by now most of the snow has melted. It doesn't stick around very long here. :(

Thursday as well, Natalie came to my host family's and we ate a lot of food. Veggies, and cheese and bread and cake things with apple jam in them. My host family made plenty of food since there was a guess. It was interesting though, to compare our two very different experiences again. Hers is a lot louder than mine...Natalie quite enjoyed the quiet of my host family. And we're both fans of Georgian cheese...that is salty. Good and salty with some good bread.

Yesterday, Saturday, Natalie and I went to Kutaisi again. This time we didn't meet up with her friend. Instead we walked around and went to the Georgian equivalent of the mall to go shopping. Stores there are certainly not like ours...no brand name stores and they're all small. We also took a taxi to Bargreti (not 100% on the spelling) Cathedral on the recommendation of one of her Georgian co-teachers. It was under construction so we couldn't go inside, but it was a church that was built in 1003, and you could still see the foundation. There is also more snow in Kutaisi and it was nice. After that we ate at a cafe, bean bread and cake, and then headed back.

Only 16 more days! I already know that I have no desire to return to a developing country in the winter ever again. Once is definitely enough.