Time goes fast and days are intense in Georgia

It has been two months since I started my ESC adventure in Georgia. Time goes so fast! I tried to spend it actively and days are intense.

So, during these 2 months I traveled a lot! So far, Samtskhe-javakheti is my favourite region. The visit in Vardzia and Achalciche was really impressive, I loved Rabati castle and the city in caves. Apart from that, I have been to other parts of the country: Svaneti (Mestia and Ushguli), Racha, Gori and Uplistsikhe, Sighnaghi, Telavi and Kvareli, Borjomi nad Bakuriani, as well as Dashbashi and Birtvisi canions. Every weekend, I try to move somewhere out of Rustavi and explore Georgia... and there are still so many places which I would like to see! The more I travel, the more interesting destinations I discover. My favourite way of moving around is... hitchhiking! It works so well here in Georgia. It never takes more than 5 minutes until a car stops. People often give me a lift even if my destination is not exactly on their way. I find Georgians really hospitable and helpful! Once it even happened to me that I was invited for a Supra :D So much fun, and so much good food and wine! That's what I love hitchhiking for: you never know which kind of interesting people you are going to meet. That's the best way to meet locals!

So this is how I spend my weekends, now a bit more about what I do from Monday to Friday. I spend most of the time in GYE office and there is always something going on here. Five times per week I give language classes: basic and advanced Spanish, as well as basic French. There are still many places left in the groups, so if you happen to be willing to learn these languages or if you know someone who wants to learn them, just come and join us! It is not like a boring school class, we have fun, play games and learn in an entertaining way.

Once a week, I lead Psychology Workshop. I am really happy to run this club! Last year, I graduated from psychological studies but I have to admit that in Poland this university degree is pretty theoretical. We read many books and articles, have lot of discussions... but there is not much space for practice. That's why here, in GYE, it is the first time when I actually have the opportunity to run a real workshop and apply my knowledge in practice. That's useful! Every week I choose a different topic: so far we talked about unconsciousness, social influence mechanisms, the psychological explanation for evil, as well as about human brain, its possibilities and limitations. I am happy to have active participants and interesting discussions with them. Not only I teach them something every week, but they also share their knowledge with me and have already taught me a lot! People seem to be very interested in psychology.

To sum up, time goes really fast here Georgia! There are so many things to do, so many beautiful places to discover and so many interesting people to meet. I hope I will not slow down my daily rhythm until the end of my stay here!

Hanna

The dynamic adventures of a lazy volunteer

Hello, beautiful people! I’m writing this article, because my coordinator Nana is begging me for almost 4 days to write it, and I, keeping a real Georgian spirit, am being late with this task. As Georgians say: “Wherever you go, you have to wear the native hat”, or something along those lines.

The real reason I’m being lazy with it is that, since the last time I wrote something about my EVS(or rather ESC) experience, a lot has happened, internally and externally, and I really cannot express enough emphasis on the A LOT part. I really don’t know where to start.

Anyway, here we go.

Racha

Summer has gone by really fast. I took part in many scout centre and GYE projects, helped them with logistics stuff as well as organizing activities etc. Most of my summer time I just spent with my Georgian pals, skating, doing nothing and just basically enjoying my time. Shout-out to Patrick! I must say, that I have progressed quite a lot in the wonderful hobby of board on four wheels, proud of myself, yo. Did some travelling as well, have seen most of the country, but there still is enormous amount to explore and see. The worst part about summer and also reason to travel around and away from Rustavi was the heat. Never in my life have I experienced these degrees above 0 of Celsius scale. Let me tell you- it was HOT. Basically the entire city was dead till about 6 to 7 o’clock in the evening, when the sun is finally going down and you can actually go out of your house without burning to death and grasping for breath. I’m a little over exaggerating here, but still. One thing I didn’t do during the heat, that was actually on my bucket list, while being here, was frying and egg on a rock out in the sun and taking a video of it. Oh well, I fried my skin at least.

Hundreds of different cheap fruits, watermelon every day, heat, travelling and skateboarding- there you go, TL;DR, summer in one sentence.

Adventures in Racha

Racha, Shovi

September, October, November. The GYE season starts. Actually a couple of seasons start. One of which involve a lot of wonderful and tasty medicinal plants being finally available for use in salads etc. You know what I mean? Hehe. New season, new realizations, starting it full power and still going. I’m really happy to finally see new people coming to the office and actually attending the clubs, events and activities organized by the volunteers. It feels like you are actually doing what you’re doing for someone and something.

GYE office memes

In the end of September a friend of mine- Saba invited me to the countryside of Kakheti region for the traditional Rtveli. It’s a grape harvest. And let me tell you it’s much more enjoyable than potato harvest in Latvia. You work all day, pick grapes, yell: “VEDRA!!” so someone brings you an empty bucket and you continue until the field of grapes is empty. There’s not just one field though, so the whole event happens for a couple of days, for some grape farmers it might even last for a couple of weeks, I assume. And, of course, at the end of it all, the traditional Supra (Georgian dinner).

Drying Churchkhela, Kakheti

There were a couple of things I noticed during this supra. First of all, it wasn’t like the Supras during projects etc. This was super-ultra-mega traditional and I was the only foreigner at the table to consume and absorb all of the amazing table culture goodness that Georgians have to offer. Oh, lucky me! Thank you, Saba. For example, Supra goes as supra goes, eating, drinking ONLY with toasts and ONLY wine etc. etc. And at one point of it all, I look at the table and realize- there are only men at the table. Only men- smoking, drinking, eating, talking and having a great time. Women, on the other hand, have their own little supra in the kitchen and don’t even seem to mind that they are not sitting at the table with everyone else; they are having fun separately from men, talking about and doing their own things. I don’t know about the toasts though, but I assume they also drink with toasts, although much less than men. No one is upset, no one is even thinking about raising the topic of gender equality or some other bull crap, everything is how it is supposed to be, everything is traditional and everyone is happy. There. Think about that.

Jungles of Birtvisi

Other than that, I have learned the language quite a lot. I can understand and catch the topic pretty fast. I can read and write a little bit. The problem for me is actually speaking. I don’t have nearly enough vocabulary to fully express myself, but for simple communication- no problem.  The language actually has some similarities with Latvian. They also have words that don’t really translate into English, one of these words is a swear, that translates perfectly into Latvian from Georgian, but doesn’t sound as good in English. I wish I could share this expression, but I guess you will have to ask me personally, since this article is kid-friendly. 

Black sea, Batumi

There are tons of experiences I have missed in these lines, since I have to finish this article due midnight and some of the experiences I can’t really talk about in an article like this, but they are well embed in my memory and will forever stay there.

For now, I will admit, that I am kind of ready to go home to Liepaja. A simple talk with a close person of mine made me realize a lot of harsh truths about myself and the life I am living. The Midterm meeting also encouraged some planning and reflection.

I have, more or less, a plan for what I want to do and achieve back home and being here, away from the place I really belong and come from, just makes me more eager to so. I am though; endlessly thankful and happy for all of this experience as whole, since it has had a huge impact on my perspective, my views, values and life in general.

Peace!

Martins ‘chuks’ Piebalgs

Goda about her experience- "Things usually happen unexpectedly here."

Two months passed since I arrived in Rustavi and many things already happened here. With the other volunteers we already visited some beautiful places in Georgia.

Mountains, mountains aaaaand again mountains, that is how Mikio described Georgia on the first

day when we came here. And its true, the first thing you fall in love with when coming to Sakartvelo is these majestic gorgeous mountains which attract your eyes immediately. I am from Lithuania which is known to be one of the flattest countries in the world, so maybe that the reason why I love mountains so much. So lets start my first blog about impressions which I already incurred in these two months.

On the first weekend we had an unexpected trip to “Pona” campsite in the north of Georgia with an exchange project of Norwegians and Georgians. And now guess where...in a place surrounded by huge and of course beautiful mountains. It was my first time to climb in the mountains and moreover reaching the mountain top where there was a waterfall! After 8 kilometers by walk we finally saw it and the view of the waterfall was amazing.

During the second week we went to On-Arrival-Training in Kobuleti for 5 days. The training was dedicated to volunteers. I met new people there from different countries and we became friends with them. Our trainers prepared many activities for us and I can really say that all of us got new knowledge and motivation to go forward on our chosen way to be volunteer. ...I almost forgot to tell you about my swimming experience in the middle of the night in the Black Sea under the dark sky with lots of twinkling stars above. It was really wonderful and it wasn't cold at all. It was September and then the weather was still warm, around 20 degrees at night. Such temperature in autumn is very unusually for me too.

“Hi girls, we have a trip with Latvian project tomorrow to visit the countryside school and see

canyon, do you want to join us? We leave at 8.30 a.m.” - Nana (our leader and mentor of GYE

organisation...actually she is like an older sister for us) This is the offer we got around 9pm the day before the trip and of course we accepted it. That night I was thinking: yeah, I am in Georgia now and things usually happen unexpectedly here so I will need to get used to this part of the Georgian culture. In my country we normally plan with a lot of time in advance and how I already found out Georgians love surprises.

Of course we cant forget Tbilisi. It would be a shame to go to Georgia and not visit Tbilisi, so I've seen it already. That is where I fell in love with the second thing here: the Chronicle of Georgia,

which is I guess one of the calmest places in Tbilisi. It was a peaceful and magical place.

Rustavi has a hill with a cross on it that shines green during the nights when its dark and now I can

proudly say that I saw this cross up close. Not long ago I climbed to it with other volunteers.

I have my clubs in GYE a few times per week. I work with children to improve their English

vocabulary and also I continue living out my passion for dancing in preparing training for girls who are interested in it.

These two months here were challenging and full of new experiences and impressions and I am sure it will definitely be more.

Goda

Impressions about Georgia "I am glad that I took a gap year between my studies."

I am Erika, a new volunteer from Lithuania. I have been in Rustavi for 2 months now and I can tell with confidence – I am glad that I took a gap year between my studies. You learn so much in such a short amount of time! I mean, there’s no way I would have been able to gain so many different experiences just in 2 months if I didn’t choose to go abroad. I feel like things that I learned aren’t easily describable. Before coming here I definitely didn’t know what to expect, but I am pretty satisfied with the current situation.

The food here is very delicious and weird at the same time. Especially the cheese, it’s so salty. I guess we should get used to it. My favorite dish (I think I would manage to feed on this every day) is khinkali with mushrooms. This traditional dish (many countries have very similar looking dumplings, but who cares) is so so so good! Khachapuri isn’t my favorite, but if you know a good place to get it, it’s pretty good. In general, I love how Georgians buy most vegetables in bazari. It sounds like a healthy diet, but when supra time comes, you can’t not overeat.

Talking about supra… I love how Georgia has deep traditions for it and how accurate are they until now. I guess every supra is different, I have only participated in 3. So many more coming! What I noticed (and what is completely different from Lithuania) is that Georgians have this very warm way of greeting people. A simple handshake apparently doesn’t

do the job. :D It’s really heartwarming to come to a country and actually feel welcomed. We had this fun (and of course educational) experience of grape picking. The owner of the place took pictures of us for memories and after all the work gave us some wine to taste. It was made from the grapes that previous volunteers picked. So you get the idea –Georgians know how to show hospitality.

But I think the most important part is the people that I get to hang out with. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel like everyone more or less understands that every volunteer is different and accepts those differences. Most of the time I feel positivity coming from people and that just gives me inspiration. No pressure, only your own initiative, no strict deadlines (Georgia in general is pretty chill country when it comes to tome management). And a lot of free time for your own improvement. Travelling, learning Georgian language, simply exploring Rustavi, whatever comes to your mind, whatever you desire.

I usually spend my free time hanging out with flatmates and other volunteers. A movie night is not a rare event in our flat. We even made a movie list that many people who come over fill out. We pretty often keep in touch with our fellow volunteers from on-arrival training (which was great by the way, both educational and partying parts). I didn’t have a lot of chances to travel yet, but we have big plans ahead! I had a chance to explore Tbilisi a bit with some of our fellow volunteers. What left the biggest impression so far was the monument called “The chronicles of Georgia”. It’s huge and very detailed! Basically, you can see the entire history of Christianity in Georgia.

In GYE office I lead a self-expression and English conversation club. I also take care of monthly newsletter called “GYE bulldozer”. I’m still wondering who thought of that name. :D I spend my days researching ideas for this beautiful initiative that me and Goda (another Lithuanian volunteer) are responsible for. It’s called “Humans on Rustavi”, go like the page on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/humansofrustavi. To me, a pretty closed of person from a small town, this responsibility was challenging at first. You know, coming up to strangers and starting a conversation in a foreign language isn’t easy. But since I’m very into learning about human communication, that’s a perfect practice ground for me.

So, after spending 2 months in Rustavi, I started to seriously like it. Some say that it’s a boring city, but with the right people you can make it fun. Now all the confusion that you get when you first arrive is fading away, so I basically feel like home more and more. I’m sure so many more experiences are awaiting and so many more people to meet. I’m exited to learn and share my own experiences with Georgia!

Peace, love and best wishes,

Erika