This is also part of my series on travelling, volunteering and teaching. So far, I have two parts to this series – Central America and Eastern Europe. For the Central America stories click here. For tales of Georgia and Eastern Europe click here.
When I was volunteering in the Republic of Georgia, I stayed with a host family in a tiny village three hours away from the big city. In fact, the closest next “town” was over an hour away and lays right smack on the Azerbaijan/Georgian border.
“This
street Georgia, next street Azerbaijan!” my co-teacher proudly told me.
As my village used to be an Ossetian village,
half of the houses were burnt down. You may remember in 2008 Russia invaded a little-known
country called Georgia. I think my first reaction upon hearing that was “why are
the Russians attacking the United States? And Georgia of all places?”.
Well,
turns out they were attacking Georgia – the Republic of – to gain control of a
region called South Ossetia (and another region called Abkhazia). My village
was just outside of this (still occupied) zone. The Georgians in the village
were afraid that the Russians would invade their area too, if there were
Ossetians living there so they literally burnt their Ossetian neighbors houses
to the ground.
What
a great, welcoming story to hear upon arrival!
Never
mind the fact that no one in my village spoke English, even my co-teachers could
hardly understand me. And they were the ones supposedly teaching the kids
English! I knew it was going to be a difficult semester.
Have
you ever tried to learn a new language? I speak French fluently, and Spanish
fairly well but Georgian was nowhere even close to either of those languages.
In fact, the root of Georgian is…Georgian (Kartvelian). The only known similar
languages are the ones spoken in the Caucasus Mountains. If you spoke Russian,
you could at least communicate with most people – after all, Russia has been a
huge influence on this area of the world. As for me, my French and Spanish got
me nowhere. Georgian lessons it was.
Don’t
get me wrong, I loved learning Georgian – the letters fascinate me and my
attempts at the guttural noises were a source of laughter for many a Georgian. But
I would be lying if I said it was easy. Now I know how those poor kids I taught
felt.
It
also made for some sticky situations. For example, I didn’t realize the extent
of limited hot water at my host-house. So of course, one morning I wanted to
shower before school. I came downstairs with all my washing needs, flicked the electric
heater on and hopped in the (freezing cold) shower. After about 10 minutes of
waiting, teeth chattering, I got dressed and went to ask my host father what
was up with the water situation.
His
English was limited to three things: “baby”, “sit down”, and “hello”.
Super
helpful.
I
managed to get it across to him that the shower was freezing (repeating “me gaq’inva
c’q’ali” while using spider fingers above my head to indicate shower – this roughly
translates to “I freeze water” What? That’s the limited vocabulary I had to
work with!) He finally managed to explain that it takes two hours to heat the
water. TWO HOURS!
Needless
to say, I did not get my shower that day. In fact, I wore more head scarves,
headbands and ponytails in those few months than I have in my entire life.
Showering was not a priority in the small villages. In fact, my house was one
of the only ones that actually even had hot water.
There
was also the problem of traffic jams. No, not of the vehicular kind. I’m
talking cows, ox, goats, pigs, chickens – even a horse or two. Most of the
animals just ran around doing as they pleased. It was not unusual, on my way to
school, for me to pass a few pigs grazing in the street, while a horse trotted
by, narrowly missing the flock of chickens stationed by a spewing water spout, while
a man on a goat-driven cart shouted Georgian obscenities at the herd of cows
blocking his route. And the problems that arose when more than one cart was on
the dirt roads – vy may!
I
learned a lot in those months; about Eastern Europe, about the Caucasus region,
about culture shock, about learning, about friendship, about
gutting rabbits and eating them for dinner (seriously), about traveling, about
adapting, and most importantly, about tolerance.
I
mean, I was a vegetarian for like 10 years and I managed to eat an animal that
I had seen alive earlier that day. If that’s not learning, I don’t know what
is.
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