Blogs from Georgia, Asia - page 26

The past three weeks in Shilda have been both challenging and enjoying. The temperatures have dropped and the snow has continued to fall at varying rates. Electricity has been intermittent and water has been non existent within the housing pipes. Water does come on for around an hour every second day...most of the time. This is enough time for us to fill up the many water bottles, pots, pans and buckets that the family have. We have had a total of three showers since returning as we were lucky enough to not be at school when the water decides to run, actually Mikaela is having one as I speak, this is an exciting day! (False alarm – the water ran for 10 minutes and then decided to stop)We get by having hot water boiled on the ... read more

What a week it has been.. We attended Supra after supra ...drank and ate...drank and ate. We toasted to the gods, children, women, family, and peace..Have put on a least 20Kg..And Aaron‘s kidney is surely crying. We slaughtered a pig which we ate for the rest of the week (breakfast, lunch, second lunch and dinner). Aaron had to take part in this along with the other males of the house hold mean while I sat in our house horrified at the pigs screams. Every part of the pig was eaten including the tongue and intestines which I did eat, they were not delicious! Our family hosted the New Years supra so there was a lot of food preparation happening in our household which I really enjoyed (see pictures below). Our week ended with New Years. Georgians ... read more

I get myself up pretty early on Monday and manage to get the Metro by myself for the first time, so I’m feeling pretty smug. I take a marshrutka to Zugdidi but, as usual, things happen that are outside my control and beyond my comprehension. At Senaki I’m told to get off the marshrutka and to get on another one, where we sit and wait for a while. I once again realise that if a Georgian guy wants your phone number there’s really nothing you can do about it. Saying no makes no difference. Saying you’re married makes no difference. If that guy wants your number, he’s going to get it. Eventually we drive to Zugdidi and by the time we get there it’s just me and two guys on the bus. We arrive just in ... read more

A question we seem to be asking ourselves a lot lately. Every day we think we know the plan or have a vague idea of what is in front of us and then bam, one of the family members will say its time to go and we are off herding sheep or going for a walk to the villiage ending in cha cha at some random persons (to us anyway) house. Today we departed our house thinking we were going to a church service, instead we visited the villiage of Gremi and its royal citadel and the Church of the Archangels, as well as a Khaketian museum. Our family insisted we have a tour guide to take us around the palace at their expence without our input. It was very interesting seeing how they use to ... read more

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 ... read more