Lettuce Leaves

While living in Georgia one will likely be surprised by a number of aspects of daily life in this tiny Eurasian nation.  A week or two back I found myself using the “restroom” at my host families house, the outdoor Turkish toilet.  After I got “comfortable” I used my flashlight (it was night and unfortunately this cozy little facility does not have a light) to make sure that there was toilet paper.  There was not.  Instead I found lettuce leaves hanging in the designated toilet paper spot, obviously meant to be a substitute.  I was not too disconcerted, as I had preemptively brought baby wipes along with me anticipating a lack of paper.  However, I thought to myself: “Why lettuce?”  Second of all, we have had absolutely no food with lettuce at all during all my time at my host families’ house.  That’s what bothered me the most, what a horrendous waste of good lettuce.   I have been on long runs in the woods before in which I was forced to use nature as toilet paper, but lettuce – never have I ever.

There are little things that happen every day that cause you to pause, laugh, and ponder; and the only option is to deal with it – there’s no use allowing things like this to get under your skin.  For example, on my first evening at my new abode I looked all over my house for the trash.  Finally, I gave up and asked my host mother where it was.   She quickly pointed at the fireplace.  They literally burn everything: plastic, diapers, Styrofoam, paper, bottles etc.   I couldn’t help but be bothered by this.  They were burning chemically infused products in a tiny room and inhaling all the fumes, not to mention doing a lot of damage to the environment (not that American’s are any less guilty of this in their own way- we are definitely more wasteful and have without a doubt done more damage to the environment).   I quickly realized that it would be ludicrous for me to expect my tiny village to have a trash collecting service; there are barely any quality roads in this country.  Imagining a trash truck driving down one of the bumpy and muddy village roads is comical; it would literally take weeks to complete its task.  This country needs to dramatically improve its infrastructure before a great number of services can be provided.  Daily mail delivery in this country is non-existent, also a result of a lack of infrastructure.  So you just have to suck it up and accept that there are many practices in this society that you might not be comfortable with, but tough- deal with it.  You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes… You know how it goes.

There are also a number of things that occur daily within the schools in Georgia that would likely raise concern among those accustomed to Western educational practices.  Don’t get me wrong, my schools director, co-director, and both of my co-teachers are all wonderful people and certainly dedicated to their jobs, but it is hard not to observe certain things without feeling bothered.  The first thing one would probably notice about my school is how rundown it is.  Schools in the most impoverished sections of the United States don’t hold a candle to this ailing edifice.  It has obviously not been renovated in years.  The floors are old wood, and completely uneven.  Most of the classrooms have light, but as power is so inconsistent in these parts light can come and go during lessons.  The school is also absolutely freezing.  There is no heat anywhere except for the teachers’ lounge, which is provided by a space heater mounted on the wall.  The first thought that came to my head during my initial tour of the building was “God, American’s are such wimps.”  We cancel school for the tiniest little snowflakes (in D.C. at least) and if there was no power or heat (or precious air conditioning) there is not a chance in hell that school would take place.  These Georgian kids go through school wearing their winter clothing all day without a single complaint.  Guess you can’t miss what you never had.  The classrooms aren’t so cold due to the fact that every single one is equipped with a tiny stove in the corner fueled by wood, but the hallways are frigid. That also made me think – those stoves would be considered enormous fire hazards in a lot of Western countries, but the concept of a fire-drill is as foreign to Georgians as running for enjoyment is to obese people (which is funny because Georgians do not ever jog and instances of obesity seem low in this country- guess a lack of fast food joints doesn’t hurt, there’s less than 5 McDonald’s in the whole country).  Not everything about the physical layout of my school is bad, however.  We do have a gym; in which soccer, volleyball, and basketball often occur.  I have had some great times playing indoor soccer in there, and I really enjoyed a volleyball match during school in which literally every male in the village seemed to be there- there was literally 60-year-old dudes chilling on the sidelines watching us play and sometimes randomly joining in.  The school is also equipped with a computer lab with decidedly modern equipment.  The computers have Internet and there is also a printer.  Unfortunately the Internet is slow and many of the websites are blocked – ESPN, Facebook etc. – but it is nice to go in there and send e-mails from time to time and chat it up with Dato, the computer technician.

In terms of discipline, and classroom management, there is also a multiplicity of things that many Westerners might find problematic in Georgian schools.  Number one, the hallways in Georgian schools are a war-zone – absolute pandemonium.  The younger kids are having races, screaming at the top of their lungs (these screams are difficult to take after a heavy night of wine drinking with my host Dad and could easily shatter glass), and fighting (playfully but rather physically).  It’s not much different for the older students; they often wrestle, chase each other, and scream at one another from across the halls.  I also hear “Hello Joni” about 5000 times as I meander through the hallways.  The teachers walk by as if absolutely nothing is going on, like Neo in “The Matrix” they navigate their way elegantly through the chaos.  My school has about 250 students, and includes every single grade.  I teach every grade (paired with a Georgian co-teacher), 1 through 12, so I’ve had the opportunity to see how the teachers interact with all the age levels.  One of the most common forms of behavioral problems in class is simply talking.  While this is also a problem in American schools it’s typically one or two kids chatting it up in the corner.  In Georgia you often find that the entire class is talking throughout the lesson, and not about anything regarding the subject matter.  It drives me insane when kids are talking while another student is reading a passage, struggling through every word, and I can’t hear them whatsoever.  The teachers rarely do anything about this, there seems to be no form of substantial punishment.  Sometimes my co-teachers will yell, and other times the most common form of punishment is to pinch the students or pull their hair.  From what I’ve heard this is fairly common throughout Georgian schools.  They aren’t beating the students, but physical punishment is occurring nonetheless.  You may call me heartless, but this actually doesn’t bother me so much.  I did find it troublesome at first, but it is a cultural thing, and it is not my place to tell Georgians how to discipline their children (I have witnessed it at my house families home as well).  On a personal level I do not agree with it and it is not something I would ever do, but to be honest the kids often laugh about it and it doesn’t seem to hurt them much at all – it really just lets them know they are misbehaving.  Sometimes it actually gets the students to behave like normal human beings in a classroom.  But kids here don’t get detention, don’t get suspended, and certainly don’t get expelled.  I never realized until I came here how much all of those practices really are an incentive to not be a complete pain in the ass during school.  This is not to say that the students are doing anything terribly wrong, they are all very nice kids, I am just trying to emphasize how lax the discipline seems to be.  Honestly, kids in Western society are typically up to a lot worse, so perhaps this is explains the disparity in disciplinary tactics.

Student’s cheat quite frequently in a few of my classes (particularly the 7^th graders). They literally talk at full volume to each other during quizzes and tests, blatantly pull out scraps of paper from their pockets, or have all of the answers written up their legs and arms.  Yeah, kids in America do this too, but it’s usually one or two idiots that stick out like a sore thumb.  My teacher likes to grade students quizzes as they hand them in, not realizing that while she is looking down all of the students are handing each other their quizzes, whispering answers, even getting out of their seats to go talk to other students.  As someone who recently taught in America I can’t help but feel pissed off when I see this.  Fortunately the other day my co-teacher began to be stricter about this, asking the students to bring their book bags to the front of the classroom before a quiz and monitoring their work while the quiz was in progress – perhaps because of a small comment I made to her about the cheating in a prior class.  These are all unfortunately things you just have to accept.  It’s all part of a much larger problem, and you have to pick and choose your battles while here.  I focus more on really helping the students with their English and building relationships with them rather than disciplining them.  Yes, sometimes I lose it and scream “CHUMAD” at the students, which means “be quiet,” but it often doesn’t work and they just simply smile and think it’s exciting or funny I’m speaking Georgian.  Stern looks are a lot more effective – I just happen to suck at them (you’d think I’d be better since I got them so often as a student).  One thing I must say is that while I don’t agree with a lot of the ways my teachers manage their classrooms I still believe they are dedicated professionals doing an effective job.  Most of the older students speak decent English and are well behaved, which is obviously a reflection of the jobs my co-teachers have done (they are the only English teachers in the school and teach every grade).  My co-teachers treat me incredibly kindly, and they truly care about their students’ welfare and progress – their practices are just a product of culture and one must be aware of that, but in no way a reflection of their overall character.

Overall, my experience at my school has been positive, it is just difficult to ignore the negative aspects.  But I was welcomed with open arms and I have been treated like family since my first day.  The director, who speaks maybe 5 words of English, treats me like a son and even told my co-teachers she sees me as one due to the fact I am so young.  My two co-teachers are also wonderful to me and constantly inquire about my health, my family, my weekend activities, and what I like and dislike about Georgia.  They are incredibly blunt with me, and that is also a product of their culture.  For example, in one class my co-teacher had no problem telling me the family backgrounds of various second grade students- “Her father is in jail” or “His parents are alcoholics and he is being raised by his older sisters” or “Her mother ran out on her family and her father struggles to raise her.”  Not sure how any of that information was relevant to the job I am trying to do here but that’s how Georgians are – they cut right to the chase (I should also note that she was saying this in front of seven-year-olds who barely know how to speak Georgian properly let alone English.  Thus the likelihood that they understood what she was saying is slim.).  Today my co-teacher had no problem telling me my own host father is an orphan and was raised by his uncle.  She also went on to say “this is why he is very poor and you are living in a house that is low quality.”  No disrespect was meant by any of this, she was simply stating the nature of things.  It’s actually very refreshing.

Having recently taught in a high school in the DC area it is hard not to compare my experiences there with what I have encountered here.  For the most part, I really enjoyed teaching high school students.  I was teaching history, a subject I am very passionate about, and I found that teaching teenagers was very stimulating.  Most of them actually appreciate the knowledge I was bestowing upon them, and that was a great feeling.  I did not enjoy every part of the job, however.  Honestly, my least favorite aspect of teaching in America was the parents.  Parents can make a teachers job absolutely miserable.  It seems that a lot of parents today are more willing to place blame for a child’s poor performance on the teacher rather than their precious little angel- because obviously it would be impossible for their offspring to be an underachieving pain in the ass.  Thus, many of America’s schools have become over -accommodating institutions in which students are walked through each grade by the hand learning nothing about operating independently.  Students also find a number of ways to take advantage of their accommodations, and in a completely dishonest way.  I’m not saying that schools shouldn’t accommodate student’s specialized needs at all, because many students do learn at different rates and need a specific environment to foster their growth and development.  I just worry that perhaps we have gone too far, and that this is part of the larger reason why our society has become self-entitled, lazy, and underachieving.  On the other hand, in Georgia there are no accommodations.  When a Georgian child does not perform well in school their teachers label them as “lazy” or “stupid.”  Teachers here seem completely unaware of developmental disorders, ADHD, dyslexia, and the concept of learning disorders all together.  Some of these kid’s are barely 6 and they are being expected to learn Georgian, Russian, and English simultaneously.  Mind you, all of these languages have different alphabets and characters.  It’s difficult to hear a child being called lazy or stupid when you can tell they obviously want to learn but something just isn’t clicking.  I guess what I’m saying is perhaps education around the world needs to meet somewhere in the middle, don’t over-accommodate your students but also be aware of their individual needs and learning styles.  If they are performing poorly academically place some of the blame on them, but also realize how difficult a specific subject may be for them (without automatically assuming the teacher has some personal vendetta against them and is failing them for this reason, proceeding to call them multiple times throughout the week and flooding their inbox with petulant and ridiculous e-mails).

One thing that I must note is that my specific experience here is in no way a reflection of what other foreigners may experience while living in Georgia.  The program I am doing is a government subsidized program known as Teach and Learn with Georgia, or TLG.  We (the participants or volunteers in the program) call ourselves TLGer’s.  No TLGer will have an experience exactly like another.  I have met TLGer’s whose living standards far surpass that of mine, as well as those whose living standards were shockingly destitute.  Some volunteers have fantastic relationships with their host families, while others face a number of difficulties in their everyday interactions.  I’ve heard of many Georgian families that demand the volunteer they are hosting return home while they are out for a night, or follow them everywhere because they are worried they might get lost.  Everyone’s experience is different, and that’s both the beauty and challenge of this program.  Many Georgians are not even accustomed to the various modes of living volunteers experience here.  While I was in McDonald’s yesterday, utilizing the fantastically free Wi-Fi, a woman approached me and asked me a question in Georgian.  Believe it or not, a lot of Georgians mistake me for being one of their own and I have been told by other Georgians that I look as if I am from here – guess being a generic looking white boy doesn’t hurt.  I quickly responded to this woman’s question with “Ver gavige, me var Amerikeli” my go-to statement in this country (which means “I don’t understand, I am American”).  Luckily, she spoke English, and just wanted to know if I had a good Internet connection.  We got to talking and she asked me what I was doing in Georgia.  I told her about the program, yada yada yada, bada bing bada boom.  She said she thought it was funny I chose to come to McDonalds and eat American food and avoid Georgian restaurants.  While it’s true I have consumed a shocking number of double cheeseburgers since my arrival in this country, I have also grown quite fond of Georgian cuisine.  I told her that I actually wasn’t there to eat (which was true in this instance); I was there to use the Internet.  She found it shocking that I had to travel 30 km to find decent Internet.  She was a city woman, and used to significantly higher standard of living than what one might experience in a small Georgian village.  All I’m saying is, even in a small country like Georgia, one should never generalize.

One of the most amusing things about being here is witnessing and hearing about Georgian reactions to Western culture.  One thing that seems to confuse Georgian’s unanimously is running or jogging for exercise.  They just don’t do that here.  They will stare, they will stop and ask you what you are doing, and they will even stop by your host families’ home to see if everything is okay.  One of my fellow volunteers literally had the police come to her house the other night while she was jogging to ask her family if she was okay – they probably thought she had gone completely insane and was running aimlessly around the village.  I went running today, and had similar reactions.  “Joni, what were you doing?” Asked my young neighbor Giorgi.  “I was seeing how many times I could run around the soccer field before getting dizzy,” I responded.  This elicited absolutely no response, so I said “exercise” and flexed my muscles as if to show him that running will make you stronger.  He smiled and started running circles around his yard.

It is also somewhat amusing, and somewhat unsettling, how little some Georgians know about the rest of the world.  When I told my class that America had a population of around 300 million people even my co-teacher was surprised.  Georgia has a population of about 5 million, thus my own nations population seems staggering and impossible to many of them.  Georgia’s knowledge of geography is quite lacking (at least this is what I’ve experienced in my school and I’ve heard similar things from other volunteers); ask them to point New York City out on a map and they would probably point at Florida.  One of my co-teachers seemed to think that geographically the United States is the largest nation in the world, when in fact their favorite neighbors (the Russians) live in the largest nation – something you would think they might be aware of.  Geography just doesn’t seem to be that important to them.  Then again, the majority of people I talked to in the United States prior to my departure had no idea Georgia even existed before I told them I was going there.  Many people would say, “Why are you going to Atlanta to teach English?” Study a map, open a history book – it’s good for ya and if nothing else it makes for good conversation.

Thus, I continue to survive and find this country and my experience here challenging, amusing, and exciting.  Yes, there are difficult moments.  Particularly when my host mother kills a chicken in the yard, I get excited for meat, and then she throws a bowl of meatless bones on the table and says “Chame Joni” (Eat John).  I attempted to chew on one of the bones but quickly gave up and moved on to bread and cheese.  Apparently they suck the marrow out of the bones, but that’s about as appetizing and filling as it sounds.  Most of the time the food is good, but we often eat the same thing for every meal two days in a row, or until it disappears.  Accordingly, eating as much of one thing as possible is to one’s benefit in this household if variety is desired.   These are little, insignificant challenges, however.  Negativity and self-pity are the two most worthless human abilities, and they won’t do anyone any good.  They don’t change a situation; they simple make it more depressing – and who wants that besides nihilistic morons.  All in all, life is good.  Spring is coming.  Here comes the sun, and I say – it’s all right.

Ah, to be young…

What can I say about Georgia?  That’s a very difficult question.  I believe an even better question was posed by my close friend and confidant, Brennan Davis, early one morning as we awoke in the comforts of a hotel in Zugdidi, a city in western Georgia- “WHO INVENTED THIS PLACE?!”  Well put my friend.  It is an absurd country in a lot of ways, but also incredibly hospitable, beautiful, and amiable.  I live in a small village in the Imereti province known as Rokhi (pronounced Ro-key, gotta get that phlegm going too, phlegm is crucial whilst speaking Georgian).  I am about 2 hours from the beach, which will come in handy when it finally get’s warm here.  Everyone in Rokhi treats me like gold and I am a virtual celebrity.  It’s difficult to walk anywhere without someone screaming “HELLO JONI HOW ARE YOU?!” from across the street.  Everything you do in the village also seems to be monitored.  A few days ago I went to the local maghazia (shop) to buy some American comforts (Snickers bars and a Coca-Cola) as well as some ludi (beer).  I spoke to no one on my short walk back to my host families house, yet somehow all of the teachers at my school knew the next day that I had purchased beer.  They were not upset, they were excited.  “Joni, you like to drink?!”  Drinking is the national pastime in this country and if you don’t like to drink, you can’t drink (well), or you have any type of liver problems, stay very far away.  Every family makes their own wine and they will be very upset if you don’t drink it with them.  My host father, Aleko, loves his wine and we frequently speak garbled English and Georgian to each other as we literally chug an entire jug (about 3 Liters) over dinner (and sometimes lunch).  The men in this country drink like God’s and I challenge anyone to attempt to keep up with them.  On a cold day they believe fervently that it is necessary to consume as much alcohol as possible – in order to keep warm of course.  A few weeks ago we got quite a bit of snow; so much that school was cancelled for 3 days which is quite rare in this country.  My host sister’s, Lile (6) and Ilene (9), woke me up screaming “Joni, ara skola!!”  Meaning of course, “John, no school.”  To be honest I was just as excited as they were.  I slept in til’ lunch and woke up to a wonderful home cooked meal from my host mother, Khatuna.  My host father immediately whipped out a bottle of cognac and pretending to shiver he grinned at me like a 5-year-old in a candy shop – this is his way of saying “It’s cold outside so we must drink,” we do a lot of pantomiming in our house as the 9-year-old is the only one who speaks any English (very basic) – I will be a master at charades by the end of my time here. Who could resist his enthusiasm?  We finished the bottle within the hour (it was a small bottle, don’t worry Mother dearest) and I slept the rest of the day.  That’s a typical day in the village for ya.

A lot of things in this country are very backwards, and I believe that is a generous way of putting it.  For example, my family has an indoor toilet but they don’t use it, it simply sits there untouched.  Instead, we go outside and use the Turkish toilet, which is a fancy way of saying a hole in the ground in a wooden shack covered in cobwebs.  Like in any sport, positioning is key, and my quads are getting really strong from frequent visits to that lovely and accommodating facility.  Perhaps I will take up softball upon my return to the States, play some catcher, I’m really getting that squat down.  Moving on… We also have a refrigerator in our kitchen, but they never use it – they put everything in a cupboard next to the fridge and leave it there for days at a time, whipping it out for lunch or dinner whenever they please.  Thus, one’s stomach does have to take some time to adjust to this routine.  It can be quite frustrating the way things are done here, but you constantly have to remind yourself that every culture has it’s own traditions and one must be understanding.  Things are very traditional here, women stay at home and raise the kids, cook, clean, and take care of the animals in the yard.  Men are the bread winners, and in a village they often disappear for days at a time- typically working in a city nearby.  My own host father is a policeman, working in the nearby city of Kutaisi.  It would be strange for a man to cook in this country; in fact most of the time they won’t even let men near the kitchen.  I stayed at a homestay a few weeks back, owned by an adorable old lady named Leila.  It’s much like a bed and breakfast without the breakfast.  My friends and I asked her if we could use her kitchen to cook our own breakfast and she was happy to let us do it.  Scrambled eggs are not a common dish in Georgia, so when I began to mix the eggs together she screamed “No! What are you doing to them?!”  As if I had committed some terrible crime.  I quickly replied “Amerikeli style” (American style) and she seemed confused but satisfied enough to let me continue.  One might think that this style of living subjugate’s the women here, forcing them into the lives of homemakers, but in fact the women perpetuate these traditions just as much as the men do.  Marriage is incredibly important here and if you aren’t married by 30 you’re basically a worthless old spinster.

It’s hard not to laugh at a lot of what one see’s over here.  I wake up every morning to turkeys, roosters, chickens, and a type of bird I have yet to identify.  The other day a rooster wandered into the “bathroom” as I was taking a shower.  I asked him if he would like to join me, he squawked and quickly ran out.  We have an incredible number of fowl in our yard.  There are random cows wandering the streets, as well as pigs, dogs, horses, and pretty much any animal you may find on a farm.  I was very confused by this at first, wondering “Who own’s these animals?”  I quickly found out that their owners simply let them out in the morning, they wander the village during the day, and at night return home.  It’s common to see 5 or 6 cows waiting patiently outside of the front gate of a village home in the evening.

Village life can be tough.  We have no heating in our house and it is incredibly cold in my room.  I would guess that it is typically around 40 degrees Fahrenheit inside my living quarters.  I sleep in 3 to 4 layers, often wearing a hat and gloves.  I bought a space heater a few weeks back, but to my great dismay it broke a few days ago.  Luckily spring will arrive soon, and I can’t wait.  We also have no internet and often lose power as well as running water.  Recently, we were out of running water for about 2 weeks.  I am lucky if I get one shower a week, but being the dirty and gross young man that I am that’s not much of a problem for me.  I try to think of this experience as one big camping trip.  Things move slowly here, and exercising patience is key to one’s sanity (patience is a quality I have never really possessed, as my dear Mother often reminds me).  There is a concept here known as GMT, Georgia Maybe Time, and it rings true each and every day.  Don’t ever expect things to happen on time, because you will be sorely disappointed.  Relax, take it slow, and let the good times roll.

All in all, Georgia is a wonderful place.  It is a country very much trapped by its tumultuous past, desperate to move forward and acquire the comforts of Western society.  To call Georgia a developing nation is somewhat generous.  It is decidedly third world in a lot of places and there is little to no infrastructure.  The sidewalks are typically rubble, and bumpy dirt roads are commonplace in villages.  In some ways I feel somewhat guilty being here.  Being an employee of the Georgian government I am in a lot of ways being offered a paid vacation during my time here, when their money might better be invested in rebuilding their country and improving the living standards here. Georgia struggled quite a bit during the Soviet years, and things only got worse after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.  They experienced a civil war which lasted until 1995 and the rest of the 90’s were extremely chaotic.  While I was watching Ninja Turtles and eating Froot Loops children here were doing their homework under candlelight.  It certainly puts things in perspective.  We live very privileged lives in the West and if you aren’t aware of that open your damn eyes.  It’s inspiring how friendly and hospitable the Georgian people are, they’ve invited hundreds of random crazy Westerners to live in their homes for 6 months to a year.  Beautiful, unadulterated cultural immersion – it’s one hell of a time over here.

It’s not only in my home that I have experienced the amiable disposition of the Georgian people, it’s everywhere.  Last night, for example, I went to a restaurant in Kutaisi where my friends and I are always welcomed with open arms.  Before I could even sit down at a separate table a large group of Georgian men insisted I come over and drink wine with them at their table.  They offered me some of their food and I chugged delicious ghvino (wine) out of a huge clay bowl with them for hours.  We screamed “Saqartvelos Gaumarjos,” (Cheers to Georgia) and “Amerika Gaumarjos,” (Cheers to America) all night.  There was a large group of Georgian girls sitting at the table across from us.  In broken English one of the Georgian men insisted I go dance with them due to the fact that I am not married and must find a wife as soon as possible.  I found out that the men were prison guards, and they were easily the happiest and most inebriated prison guards one might ever encounter.  In that very same restaurant, about 2 weeks ago, I made great friends with a large group of Georgian rugby players.  These guys were absolutely nuts, we danced the night away with them and a Georgian family sitting at a table in the corner.  Whipping out ridiculous dance moves and laughing hysterically the entire time.  At one point, I was sitting with one of the rugby dudes at his table.  He looked at me with a toothy grin and smashed a glass on his forehead – and this was a very solid little glass.  He grabbed me by the back of the head and locked my forehead to his, screaming at the top of his lugs and laughing a deep raspy laugh that reminded me of a pirate.  The most amazing part of witnessing this was that he had no cuts or marks on his head whatsoever.  After the glass smashing we proceeded to dance to loud techno music playing from his car in the middle of the street with all of his friends.  They attempted to kidnap me for the rest of the evening but my friends quickly came to my rescue.

Positivity is contagious, and Georgia is an optimistic and energetic beast.  It’s hard not to become captivated by the beautiful mountains in the distance, which I can view quite easily from my back porch.  Waking up to those epic peaks every morning makes living in a frigid room completely worth it.  Georgia is full of natural beauty, particularly in terms of its female population.  I love women, I have all their albums.  But, sadly, it is very difficult to love Georgian women, due to the fact that dating implies interest in marriage in this country.  Thus, one can only glance at the menu, but never order (unless you want to stay here forever or be beaten/stoned to death in the streets by the women’s brothers and uncles).  There are many things that make up for this, however, and in my short time here I have made lifelong friends from all over the world- Syria, Canada, Iran, Uganda, South Africa, Poland, England, Ireland, and from many of the states in that lovely little nation we call America.  I am kept very busy between school, weekend adventures, and phekburti (soccer) games with the students at my school.  Time has flown by, as it often does.  I look forward to all the coming months have to offer – skiing, hiking, warm weather, beach excursions, shenanigans in Armenia and Turkey, and random spontaneous adventures.  Ah, to be young.