Ghosts of volunteers past?

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Tuesday’s a fairly standard day at school. We go to drink coffee after my first lesson and I’m fed cakes and pears in syrup and apple jam. I’m feeling quite ill by the end of it. I’m actually slightly concerned about my last couple of weeks at home cos I can see the quantities of food and opportunities to eat increasing on a daily basis. Things also seem to be getting more and more lax at school as the holidays approach. We sit in the kitchen for about ten minutes into the next lesson. The general attitude seems to be that someone else will be taking care of it. I’m supposed to give the sixth graders their extra lesson after school but only two of them turn up so Eka and I decide it’s probably not worth it. I guess the novelty’s worn off for them by this point! I sit and read while Eka conducts her extra class with the third graders but half way through we’re called away to go and eat cake. Thank god we don’t have lunch until 4.30pm! I bump into our director and pass on my and my friends’ thanks for arranging for us to stay in Kadlebi. We really did have an amazing time. She tells me there’s a place she knows of in Signagi we could stay this weekend and I’d love to but I think I’ll have to spend my last weekend before school ends flat hunting in Tbilisi since my plan is to hang around there for six weeks after my contract ends and use it as a base to travel from. The kids have extra lessons after school so Eka and I eat alone and then later Nino comes over and asks me for help logging into her Facebook account. I try to explain that the password she’s given me is wrong but she insists it isn’t and of course after three attempts it blocks her account. My advice to anyone asked to help with IT issues is to feign ignorance ‘cos you just end up looking like a fucking idiot anyway. I spend the rest of the day writing and drinking coffee by the fire. Later I’m called into Eka and Gala’s bedroom where everyone’s clustered around the computer because one of the kids from school has posted a picture of me and him on the Georgian equivalent of his Facebook page. At least now I know what they’re doing with all those photos of me!



I wake up at about 1am on Wednesday and I’m convinced someone’s walking past my window. There’s a shadow and I can hear someone outside. I’m properly freaked out and my first instinct is to text Ara. Why him? Fuck knows. I don’t hear anything else apart from the usual scratching from the loft above my room and after a while I go back to sleep. I wake up when my alarm goes off as usual at 7pm and the next thing I know I look at my phone and it’s 8.02am. Panic stations! I think that’s the fastest I’ve ever got ready to leave for anything in my life. I even have time for breakfast! It’s a pretty normal day at school. The classrooms are getting more festive by the day. Wednesdays are normally my favourite day but today the 4^th grade gives me a headache because we’re doing a gap fill exercise and they just point at every possible word until I say yes. After class we go to the kitchen and eat this yummy bean and vegetable mixture with bread and drink wine. After this I’m feeling particularly lazy but I need to pick up my boots from the market and use the internet to check on the progress of my house search so I make my way into Zugdidi. I can’t bear to stand still outside the school so I walk for a while and then grab the first cab that comes past. I do a bit of shopping and try to find a big Georgian-English dictionary for that school but it’s no longer in the book shop I originally found it in. One more reason to go to Tbilisi this weekend I guess. I check my email and I have one about potentially house sitting for a woman in Tbilisi in January. Then go to pick up my shoe and the guy doesn’t charge me, so it’s a good day all round, financially speaking.



I’m starting to think about leaving/Christmas gifts for my family. I really don’t want to spend the weekend in Tbilisi but it makes sense given it’ll be my last weekend to both shop and try to find somewhere to live before I leave Zugdidi, although as the weekend approaches the need to find somewhere to live is starting to feel less urgent instead of more, fuck knows why. I figure I’ll get Christmas in Armenia out of the way and worry about it then.



I see Eka on the marshrutka on the way home so at least I know I haven’t missed lunch. <span> Gala’s in a foul mood when we get back and shouts a lot; I’m kind of glad I don’t know what he’s saying but I know it’s partly cos Mari’s broken her violin bow. I’m just glad none of it’s aimed at me – he can be scary when he’s angry! Ally calls me cos he’s bored on the walk home and tells me him and Ara have been at football game but they spent the first half trying to work out which team was which. I’m still very jealous, I’ve yet to see a game here. He also tells me he left Ara in town cos he was so drunk. Ara then calls me, <span> as if to prove this point,<span> and drunkenly makes plans for the weekend but it’s only Wednesday so I figure they will probably change. When I get off the phone I am called into the kitchen to drink wine and eat with some of our neighbours. I’m aware I’m a little drunk but I realise how sorry I will be to leave these people. Also realise I learn the majority of my Georgian in these situations and then promptly forget it on account of the amount of wine we drunk. I’m invited to our neighbours’ house the following day and, in my drunken state, I readily agree.



I wake up the next morning and wish I hadn’t. What a sketchy day! I’m pretty hung over but make it through school ok and head home. Gala then tells me everyone’s going to Zugdidi so I jump in the car and we pick Eka and Mari up from school. I then spend most of the afternoon sitting in the car. This is what usually happens when we all go to Zugdidi. Gala and Eka go off to buy things or run various chores, and Mari and I sit in the car waiting for them to come back again. Eventually we head back home and this is where the day descends into madness. When we arrive back to the house Eka’s grandmother and aunt are waiting outside. I think they’ve come from Abhazia but I also think that Gala and Eka had no idea they were coming. We go inside and, not wanting to appear rude and unsociable, I sit in the living room with them. For one of the most uncomfortable hours of my life. Almost immediately they begin to have a screaming row. Grandma and Auntie versus Eka. I have absolutely no idea what it’s about but I do realise I’ve never heard Eka properly shout before. At one point she was in tears! It was horrible and after about half an hour I get up and slink off to my room. In the end, Gala and Eka drive off in the car with them, hopefully to push them off a cliff. I do not like these people. I also have no idea where they’ve gone or when/if they’re coming back but Eka and Gala return after about ten minutes. Eka comes in and tells me she’s sorry and that there’s a problem with the family in Abhazia, not here. I say it’s absolutely fine and check she’s ok. Funnily enough, she is. Everything just goes back to normal. Although the weird thing is, when we got back to the house the door was locked from the inside and nobody knows how. Spooky! By this point it’s about 6pm and none of us have eaten so a meal is very quickly thrown together. Gala tells me they bought some delicious fish in Zugdidi but that the women were yapping so long we won’t have time to eat it. Because we’re half starved everyone’s eating pretty quickly and then, literally as I put the last morsel of food into my mouth, Gala says (through the art of mime), ‘Anna, don’t eat too much, we’re going to our neighbours for dinner, remember?’ <span> Now you tell me! I had sort of assumed that that was off the cards after what had happened. But no, we grab the usual vat of wine and make our way over. And we had a lovely evening, sitting around with their family eating yet more yummy food and drinking wine. I actually manage to get away with sitting out the last two or three glasses for once. I know I’m going to have to sit on a marshrutka for five hours the next day and I really don’t want to do it with a hangover. On the way home Eka tells me that Jason, the previous volunteer, had once called her at 2am to tell her to go outside to look at the moon. What a fucking idiot.

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