School, then no school

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Monday was, technically, my first day at school. Neither myself nor Eka has any lessons on a Monday but we go in anyway to have a look around, meet the director and say ‘hello’ to the other teachers. I wake up early and we have breakfast before setting off. Since I didn’t do too much today now might be a good time to talk about the food in my house. It’s beautiful. Firstly Eka is a fantastic cook, and secondly we eat so many fresh ingredients, either from the animals or from the land. A typical breakfast for me will include a mug of hot milk that’s come from our own cow and a cup of Georgian tea with a slice of lime from the lime trees in the garden. We’ll have bread and cheese which Eka has made herself from the milk from our cow, or sometimes she’ll make Kachupuri and we’ll eat it hot from the oven. Eka also makes her own jam – fig or plum which I cannot get enough of. Gala takes the piss out of me for liking it so much because I take the piss out of him for adding so much sugar to his tea. And that’s just breakfast. All in all I’m spoilt rotten when it comes to food. When we leave for school with the children I realise it’s the first time I’ve actually walked through the village and it’s so pretty. The sun’s shining and as we cross the bridge over the brook I look to my left and see a horse and cart coming down the rocky path towards us and suddenly I feel like I’ve stepped back in time. I’ve seen the school a few times as we’ve driven past it but this is the first time I’ve been inside. It really is beautiful. It was completely renovated last year using USAid funds and still smells of fresh paint. Just inside the door there are pictures of what the school was like before it was renovated and the difference is incredible – just a year ago there were crumbling walls and holes in the floor. It’s a small school, just 180 students so only one class per grade (still trying to get my head around grades by the way). This year the students all have brand new ‘English World’ books from Macmillan which is an absolute godsend. I read in blogs of people teaching last year that often half the kids wouldn’t have text books or would all have different ones which must have been a nightmare to teach. We don’t have the teachers books yet so Eka and Maia, my other co-teacher, have kind of been flying blind but it could be a lot worse. Eka introduces me to Maia and a lot of the other teachers and everyone is very warm and friendly (with the exception of one sour faced old crone who I have chosen to ignore). However, every other sentence I hear seems to contain the word ‘Jason’. I get the distinct impression he was very popular here so I feel I have a lot to live up to. Eventually we go to see the director who’s very sweet to me. She says (through Eka of course) that if I need anything or have any problems I’m to come to her. It’s strange though, I don’t know what directors are like elsewhere but everyone seems to be terrified of them. There are whispers of, ‘the director is coming’ and everyone starts running around like headless chickens. Then, after Eka, Maia and I leave her office they ask me what I think of her and I say she seems very nice and they say, ‘Yes, our director is a very kind lady,’ which seems like an odd adjective to use. Do all the other directors in Georgia hold morning beatings?! Anyway, we go downstairs to the little kitchen to drink coffee and eat cakes. Most of the school day seems to revolve around drinking coffee and eating various foodstuffs. There’s much talking and laughing and we have to try to keep our voices down to we don’t disturb the class directly above us. Eka and I head home at about midday and I spend the rest of the afternoon reading and writing until Eka tells me she’s had a call from our director who’s had a call from the ministry saying I’m not to go to school until further notice! I speak to some of the other volunteers and find out we’ve all been sent an email about it. I check and find one saying we all have to attend regional introductory meetings on Thursday and none of us are allowed to go to school until then. Oh, and what I probably should have mentioned earlier is that we’re only allowed to teach grades one to six, which means I’m teaching a grand total of twelve classes a week, which amounts to nine hours. Eka keeps asking me why we can’t teach the older students and I would love to be able to answer her by I have no fucking idea. Anyway, Friday is a public holiday (can’t remember what for I’m afraid) so this now means I’m not at school until next Tuesday. Fucking ridiculous. I’m pissed off for two reasons. The first one being that I actually came here to teach. A lot of the volunteers came here because they saw it as a great opportunity to get a free flight to a country and to spend three months exploring it and teaching is the price they have to pay for that opportunity. I’m not judging, everyone has different motives for being here. But I actually intend to make a career out of this teaching lark and I’m only here for another 10 weeks so to find out I won’t be teaching for one of them is exceptionally annoying. Plus obviously I live with my co-teacher so Eka gets up and goes to work every day and comes home in the evening looking shattered and I just sit around doing nothing. So the guilt is rising on a daily basis. To be perfectly honest I’m hard pushed at the moment to see the value of us being here. The amount of money, time and effort that’s invested in having just one of us here for three months is out of all proportion to what they get out of us. Even if they managed to recruit the best teachers in the world (and bear in mind most of the volunteers have never taught a day in their lives) I still fail to see how it’s worth it when we’re teaching nine hours a week. I’m not going to start throwing out conspiracy theories (any other volunteers out there starting to feel a little like a human shield?) but I have never come across an English teaching programme that has such lax requirements for its recruits. It’s the first programme I’ve ever come across that doesn’t require you to be a native English speaker for example, or to have a degree (I think they ask for two years of Uni but I know at least one person who simply lied and only has one year of Uni under their belt). But I digress. I now have a long week ahead of me without very much to do so I decide to take another stab at independence and head into Zugdidi the following day. I ask Levan when the buses run and he offers to show me. I sit outside reading until he tells me its time and we go and stand outside the gate…and the first marshrutka goes straight past us. I decide to tell myself it was full rather than examine the alternative (that they just didn’t like my face). So I go back to my spot in the garden with my book and read for another hour and a half until it’s time for the next one…which goes straight past. I’m ready to give up by this point. It’s already early afternoon and I’m not sure if anyone else is still going to be in town so I resign myself to an afternoon pottering around the house. Then Gala tells me he’s driving into Zugdidi. I mime asking him when and he mimes having a shave and getting changed. Most of our conversations are like that if Eka’s not around. I enjoy then immensely. Gala comes out about ten minutes later all spruced up and we pile into the car. We drive into Orsantia and pick up a couple of friends, also very smartly dressed. We stop at the school on the way into town so that Eka can come out and translate that Gala will meet me outside the bank at 6pm and then we set off. When I get there I call Sam, a fellow volunteer condemned to Zugdidi and he says he’s at the bazaar, not a massive help since this stretches for approximately a square mile. I play a half-hearted game of hunt the westerner, give up and tell Sam I’m going to a bar and to come find me. I somehow manage to gravitate towards the only bar in town with an English name but it’s dark and cool inside and it’s nice to get out of the heat for a while. Sam and I chat and swap stories (he’s been horribly ill, poor little flower) and then go and sit on the pavement in the sun (we were told in our culture class that doing this will make Georgians think we’re insane but fuck it). Some guy comes up to us and proceeds to list every British or American music group or artist he knows and all we can do is sit there and nod dumbly until he’s finished. I’m glad Sam’s there because I hate being out in Zugdidi on my own. The stares really get to me. I know I don’t help myself with my appearance (for those of you who don’t know me I have very blonde hair and a smattering of tattoos and piercings) but even so it gets to me after a while. Sometimes, when the mood takes me, I like to pretend I’m famous, although given the kind of stares I’m getting the thing I’m famous for is molesting small children. Eka calls me well before 6 O’clock and tells me to go and meet Gala so Sam and I say our goodbyes and I head over to the bank. About two minutes after I get in the car we stop outside a shop and Gala’s friend goes in and brings me out an ice cream which was very sweet. It made me feel like a five-year old though so I reciprocated by smearing it all over my hand and face as I tried to eat it. Later Eka tells me that they had been at a funeral which explains why they were all so fancy. She said it was for a young guy of 24 but I’m unable to work out how he died or how they knew him. Eka’s English is fantastic by Georgian standards but I still have trouble sometimes trying to get her to understand what I’m saying. When I went to Kutaisi on Sunday I asked her if she wanted me to pick up anything for her that she couldn’t get in Zugdidi and she said yes to I asked her to write it down and she wrote down the name of the bus stop I needed to go to. Still, I’m fully aware of how lucky I am and I can’t imagine what it must be like for volunteers whose families speak no English. I spend the evening reading, as usual. A typical evening for us involves the family sitting around watching TV or using the computer to speak with their friends. I sit in the armchair next to my bedroom door and read my book. This way I feel like I’m at least in the same room as everybody but I’m kind of having my private space as well and I can interact with the family when the need or desire arises. One of my concerns during orientation was the potential lack of personal space but oddly I feel no desire to spend time on my own. I’ve spoken to other volunteers who say that in the evenings they go into their rooms and shut their doors for a couple of hours but I could never bring myself to do that…perhaps because there’s actually nothing to do in my room. I literally only go in there to sleep and that’s the only time my door is closed. I think I’ve found a happy balance and for the 100th time make note of how lucky I am to be in my situation.
On Wednesday I had planned to spend the whole day reading or catching up on my blog (confession time – with the exception of the first post I wrote on the plane none of these are being written in real time, I’m normally a good week behind.) I was sitting in the garden reading when Levan came out and said, ‘Zugdidi?’ I say no and intimate that I’m going to stay at home but he and Gala are fairly insistent I go with them so I grab my stuff and off we go. As usual I have no idea exactly what’s going on. I think they simply don’t want to leave me on my own and I have yet to discover a way of saying that I quite like being on my own without sounding rude. Suggestions on a postcard please. I’m actually a little worried that they think I have friends actually living in Zugdidi that I can call on any time and that they’re going to leave me on my own for a few hours like the previous day. This idea terrifies me for reasons I’ve already mentioned. Bu t my fears were unfounded because I never even leave the car. We drive around and every now and then we stop and Gala gets out and buys something. It’s absolutely sweltering in the car and Levan and I sit there gasping for breath while Gala makes his purchases, one of which is a huge bag of white stuff which I assume is flour. After the shopping trip is complete we drive to Gala’s sister’s house. I haven’t seen her since we first met in the car from Tbilisi. It’s nice to see her again and I realise I like her a lot. She’s like Gala – always smiling and quick to laugh. I can’t understand what she’s saying but I think I understand from her hand signals and facial expressions that she’s saying she wasn’t expecting us and she’s a mess – turns out women are the same the world over! We drink coffee and eat ice cream and I try fairly unsuccessfully to have a conversation with them but it’s fun. Back at home later I joke with Eka that the huge bag of white stuff Gala bought was sugar, meaning to make fun of how much he uses, but it turns out it was sugar and he’s going to be making wine – so excited! I decide to bite the bullet and have my first lesson with Gio and Mari. They’re still very shy around me so it’s been difficult to tell what their level of English is. As it turns out, not great. But we have a lot of fun. I drag Levan into the lesson and we practice an introductory conversation – hello, how are you? Nice to meet you etc. Then I teach them the ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes ‘ game which they loved (although when I revise body parts with them a few days later I discover that they think knees are called kneesan, thanks to the song). I see this as another important step in my bonding with the family. I get along great with the adults but the children still seem wary of me. I think a couple more lessons like this and they’ll finally be comfortable with me. It’s been a good day all round and I have plans to go away with my friends for the weekend so, once again, I go to bed quite content.

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