A little of this, that

Here in Georgia... on the way to the Zugdidi train station... around 10pm one evening, I witnessed the most selfless act I have ever seen. Before I get into the story I have to tell you a bit about the terrain in Zugdidi. First, there are lots of rocks…everywhere. It’s a running joke that all Russia left here was a bunch of rocks. Along with rocks there are lots of farm animals running amuck…cows, pigs, I even saw a flock of sheep on a main road once. It’s pretty typical for your speeding taxi driver (there aren’t really any speed limits and definitely no seat belts) to have to swerve and slam on the breaks to avoid cows and pigs on the roadway. ..Now that you have a little back ground, my story continues. We were walking down the road to the train station when I happened to kick a pile of poo (a cow patty) up onto my flip flop… I immediately started to scream (obviously) . But then, out of nowhere a man came and took my shoe and cleaned it off using a rock and water from his bottle. He brought back my sparkling clean shoe (not exactly, but you get the idea) and then walked off before I could even say thank you! He was my magical poo fairy! I was SO amazed by this selfless, random act of kindness. My friends and I were all laughing in amazement because this entire event (from kick to clean) took place in a matter of minutes. This is a funny story, but to me, it does sum up Georgian hospitality in a nut shell. People are willing to go out of their way to help you without any expectation of recognition or thanks. Cheers to you Georgia! :)

Our cows in the back yard

Our cow's poo on the street in front of our house

hot, hot, heat (this is long overdue...)

So up until a couple weeks ago, we were still having Texas style temperatures here. And with no a/c, nighttime was my worst enemy. There’s nothing worse than trying to sleep in stagnant, humid, heat…or so I thought.

Due to the stifling heat, I had to sleep with my windows open, which led to some fun, new problems. #1, mosquitoes…ridiculous, plentiful, and apparently only after foreigners. I had over 100 bites on my legs at one point. And that’s fine if you want to treat me like a buffet, I get it. But they take it a step further and insist on swarming my face. So I have a constant buzzing noise that sounds like a high pitch mini airplane. It drives me CRAZY. This then leads to some really serious midnight mosquito hunts in my room. It usually involves me running around my bed, t-shirt in hand, jumping and swatting. For some reason these mosquitoes are massive and ridiculously fast and surprisingly really hard to catch. This makes my mosquito killing sprees quite a spectacle for my neighbors, I’m sure. 

The second nighttime, sleep snatching culprits are the street dogs. There are gangs of street dogs everywhere here and its actually the only reason to worry about walking around after dark. They start barking and fighting nonstop around 10 pm and it continues until about 2 am. There have been times when I thought a dog fight was going to leap into my window. Now ordinarily, I would consider myself to be a pacifist; but if I had a sling shot I would have definitely been pelting some pups. 

Finally, once I am drenched in sweat, have managed to block out the incessant barking, and ward off swarms of mosquitoes…it’s inevitable that the roosters set in. :/ hahaha I think I’m doomed to sleepless nights while in Georgia.

Tbilisi, Turkish baths, & a Georgian-Vegas wedding

The majority of volunteers from my training group headed down to Tbilisi for a weekend of fun and adventure…and for Rob and Ashley’s Vegas-style, Georgian wedding. Rob and Ashley are two teachers from my group who are in a relationship back home in the states, and they decided to get married here so that they could live together on socially acceptable terms. Their wedding was nothing short of an adventure. There were about 25 people who came to the ceremony, which was held in a chapel/courthouse of sorts. The whole thing was a mini version (30ish minutes long) of an actual wedding with all the pizzazz and hilarity of a Vegas wedding: pictures, music, 1^st dance, toasts, champagne, confetti, bouquet toss, cheesy music, the whole shebang. 

We spent most of our weekend doing wedding related things; we did find time for some sightseeing and debacles around the city. My friend Raughley, who is living in Tbilisi, took a group of us to a Turkish bath for a scrub down and massage.  These baths are a very unique experience…We rented a room for the boys and a separate one for the girls. The employees tried to put us all in a room together, and in hindsight that would have been a veryyyyy awkward experience (just keep reading) hahah Each room was covered in bathroom tiles and had a hot tub, massage table, lounge area, and showers. You get completely naked, and depending our your gender, an old Turkish man or woman (who is also completely nudey) comes in a gives you a DEEP scrub down and intense massage. The scrub is ridiculous…I felt like a 7 year old who had just wrongly played in the mud in my Sunday dress clothes, and now my grandma was angrily scrubbing me down.  I won’t go into too much detail, but I will say that  body parts were everywhere and we laughed a TON.