Saturday, February 16, 2013

B-I-N-G-O

I’ve now been here almost an entire month, that’s crazy!  Time seems to be going by at double its usual speed.  Of course with more passing time the more I come to miss certain things back home, food in particular.  I want to emphasize though, whether or not you mind or care that while what I write about may come across as complaining I don’t mean for it to.  I think everything, good and bad I’m dealing with here is all part of one grand learning/character building experience, which is exactly what I was signing up for when I decided to endeavor on this adventure.  Whatever I have to say is just relaying what my life is really like here filled with both the good and the bad.

Returning back to food, I want to take some more time to discuss (village) Georgian cuisine since when I was home I wasn’t able to do an adequate job of explaining it.  Granted, it’s also winter and so certain fruits and vegetables just simply aren’t available right now.  Occasional variety is introduced, but overall I’ve eaten just about the same thing every single day for the past few weeks.  Bread is huge in Georgia’s culture and while I’ve never been a huge bread person, with each passing day I seem to be eating more and more of it.  Bread is provided at every single meal, more often than not being your standard french bread style loaf bought at one of the stores - this bread I don’t crave so much.  We also occasionally get straight out of the oven, homemade bread which is always good and then there’s the khachapuri (cheese bread), lobiani (bean bread), and piroshki (potato bread), all of which are not offered very often so when they are I tend to over-indulge.  In case you didn’t know, eating a lot of bread, white bread in particular, isn’t exactly good for you so I’m not entirely thrilled with this new development in my craving habits.  As my co-teacher put it, ‘Georgians eat a lot of bread that is why they are so fat’.  Couldn’t have said it better myself.  While this bread is tasty it’s not over-the-moon amazing or anything like that, I just eat a lot of it when I can because like I said, I don’t see a lot of variety.  With the exception of maybe 3 breakfasts since my last post I’ve had good ol’ Ramen noodles every morning.  I know what you’re thinking, breakfast of champions, and you’d be right.  I’m not sure if it’s because I eat a lot of one particular stew so they always want to make sure I can eat it or it’s just the only vegetable dish you can really make, but the same stew has made an appearance at I think every single lunch/dinner for 2 weeks now.  It’s composed of green beans, potatoes, peppers, and beyond that I couldn’t say.  It’s cooked for a long time with I’m sure a lot of oil, or butter, or both mixed in.  I’m pretty sure a lot of our dishes also have duck in them, a mystery I was finally able to conclusively solve provided by the picture below.  Potatoes are provided often either in stews or oil fried in a pan.  I brought back some Sriracha with me which goes really well with the potatoes and my family seems to like it as well.  Apples are still growing, being the only fruit that I’ve seen however they’re very small and very mealy so I haven’t really eaten much fruit thus far.  I can’t wait for spring when everything comes back to life again including the different fruit plants.  The apples, pomegranates, persimmons, and grapes in particular are wonderful.  I’ve already begun thinking about and looking forward to the day I can tell my family that instead of Ramen noodles I’m just going to eat fruit in the morning, oh, that’ll be the day.    The few other dishes I’ve seen are beans cooked with herbs, grinded meat wrapped in cabbage, cabbage soaked in a vinegar/beet mixture, noodles cooked with onions, noodles cooked in a sugary-water soup mixture (not my favorite), cornmeal sludge (for lack of a better word, sort of an oatmeal like consistency) and a sweet rice.  There’s also occasional chicken dishes in a very delicious garlic-walnut sauce and some other kind of mystery meat that I can’t figure out what it is given that it’s translucent -- literally, translucent.  All I see when I look at it is fat, pure fat that’s been fried beyond that persistently chewy stage, but my family loves it.  Maybe one of these days I’ll give it a try, I just don’t want to risk it actually tasting good.  I not only think ‘fat’, when I look at it, but also ‘heart-attack‘ readily comes to mind.  This country is in desperate need of a health management/education overhaul.   I could very readily and enthusiastically take on a job like that.  They have a cooking show here I’ve seen 4 or 5 times and every single dish they’ve made has been deep fried in oil, literally, every one.  I will say on the positive side, one good thing about not really enjoying traditional Georgian cuisine is that I typically don’t over-indulge.  It’s difficult to even want to eat too much of it (the exception being of course the exciting moments when the bread dishes make an appearance).  I’m hoping to make spaghetti for them soon, since they’ve never even had that and chili as well, but I’m waiting until I can get more of the ingredients I need from our garden.
potato piroshkis

lobiani

khachapuri


School I am happy to report has improved a lot since last semester.  I feel more like a teacher this time around and less like just an accessory.  Returning was easier from the start because I was familiar with everything this time around, it wasn’t all new and overwhelming.  Of course, after the initial excitement of seeing my students wore off a lot of the same frustrations set in.  Plain and simply, neither of my co-teachers are very good teachers with the younger students.  Marina teaches majority of the older grades and then 1st, 2nd, and 5th.  Magda teaches 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th.   So many times in Magda’s classes I have repeated over and over in my head ‘you are such a bad teacher, you are such a bad teacher’.  I think she’s very sweet and I know she’s a new teacher so she’s still learning her own teaching style, but I know, even with my very limited teacher knowledge that her teaching methods, her approach, everything related to teaching English at least is entirely lacking.  Class isn’t fun, it’s not interesting, it’s mostly composed of the kids being drilled with vocabularly and basic grammar and reading and memorizing the same passage over and over again then having to listen to the 14 other students in the class read the exact same thing, all the while words they stumble on she yells out in a harsh manner as if the volume or severity of her voice will somehow program them to not make the mistake again.  Like I mentioned in my previous post, I’m trying to create more games and generate more ideas to try in class so that the students don’t have to sit through these ineffective lectures anymore. ‘Bingo’ has been introduced to practically all my classes 1-6 and it has been a huge success!  It has never been more clear to me how much a difference can be made when you make class time and learning fun. My co-teachers also see the students enthusiasm and so I think they’re both starting to see more and more the effectiveness of introducing games and activities.  Creating these games takes time without a doubt, but seeing my kids enthusiasm during class, seeing them learning English and actually enjoying it, AND paying attention makes it so worth it.  My 6th grade class told Magda in Georgian they think I am the best teacher, which she then translated for me.  While I know that isn’t true, I was really glad Magda heard that just because I want it to register for her the effectiveness of making learning fun.  It’s a concept that has been lost, or else non-existent up to this point, and I would love to see it make a prominent appearance, for the students sake.

Last weekend I spent my Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on our back porch in a tank top and shorts - I was in heaven.  Weather since is on a downward spiral but at least I had those 3 amazing days in February to enjoy.  What a difference sunshine and warm weather can make.  My free time at home shifts between an intense desire to be alone and also time with my family.  As time goes on I will say I spend more time alone, mostly because watching Georgian TV and hearing Georgian conversation gets really exhausting after awhile.  It is such a nice relief to escape to my own room and watch a movie or TV show in English, or listen to a podcast about the news.  These times are often interrupted with my grandmother coming in telling me to get to the peshi because it’s cold.  It’s a fine line trying to balance on between family time and solitude.  I don’t want to offend them, but I also need for sanity’s sake time in an environment where I can understand what’s going on around me.  I hope to to cook something soon that I can share with them, and on the weekends baking is one thing I’ve grown to really enjoy.  Thus far I’ve baked banana bread and chocolate chip cookies.  It’s hard for me to understand how chocolate chip cookies have not made their way into Georgian society yet.  My family loved them.  With the exception of a few glitches here and there I love the time I spend with my family.  It’s weird, but sometimes I find myself forgetting and subsequently remembering that they don’t speak English and that we’ve never had a conversation in English.  I forget because I feel like I know them so well, obviously not the specifics, but I’ve seen each of them in their daily lives now for 4 months and you can learn a lot about people just by observing.  After only 4 months I feel very close to all of these people and also very comfortable around them.  I think I’ve rambled on long enough.  I finally took my camera with me to school and the kids loved it so I’m happy to at least be able to show all of you my kids!

At the relatives home in Kutaisi for the weekend

Tiko and I taking a shot together

Gorgeous sunset view from our porch 
My house - that door/windows closest in view is my room, the door open at the end leads to the kitchen, and then if you walk down below that's where our laundry/shower room is located.

My backyard - the pig and goat live in the hut on the left and the ducks and chickens on the right

Mystery solved, ha

Tiko mixing up a batch of homemade brown sugar

Manana...still don't like her =) but she is cute


Making friendship bracelets together on the back porch 
In terms of comfort I can't say it's ideal, but I'll take any porch in the sunlight I can 
Taken from my English classroom, that building is our gym

I have no idea what this is but it's right outside our school, just below my English room and abandoned along with about 3 other buildings on the lot, one of which is the old school

The weather post-sunny weekend =(

My 1st graders - (left to right) Giorgi, Martin, Onise, Rolandi, Tiko, Amico, Mari, Salome


They got really excited every time I pointed a camera at them

Very sweet girls.  Mari and Tiko


My 2nd graders - Lizi and Nanuka

Lekso and Toma

Luca, Saba, and Giorgi

Tako

 The most beautiful little boy in the world - Tornike

Lizi, my host niece, Saba, and Lizi #2

Mari. -- Gosh all my kids are adorable I have to say


Gurami - one smart kid.  Note the Bingo cards =)



My 3rd graders - terrible but I haven't yet learned all of their names, hopefully soon though. 
Giga, on the right I work with a lot with his reading skills.  One of my first projects you could say.

Alexi in the middle is quite a handful

Irina and Nini

Irina and Anna -- 3rd grade is probably my favorite class of them all, such sweet and adorable kids

Lana

Tekla


My 4th graders - trying to learn all of their names as well 
Giorgi and Veronica

Nini and Kati





Taken from my school, my house is one of the furthest on the right 

Our English classroom/my escape from passing period madness


Gotta love the quality posters. 'This is hear' ha. 
My 6th graders

Christina, Anna, Veronica, and Veronica #2

Tamuna 


My 5th graders - they're a handful.

These 3 I have sort of a love/hate relationship with.  They are the biggest handful of all.  Zura, Luca, and Nika