Picture Update

It's been a while since i've posted pictures, and i realized that i never really posted many pictures from PST or anything so i'm adding them now. Less writing, more pictures.

*photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

-In Likani (Maybe three days after i first arrived in ROG) when our training sites are being announced:

-My PST host brother and I devouring strawberries:

-My PST host brother and I next to a calf:

-Kevin (who is now back in San Fran):

-Hard day at Hub (i look excited as you can see):

-My NGO trainers (Lana and Tengo):

-The main hall in my house here in Batumi:

-My counterpart (Natia) and I:

-Night train to Tbilisi--it was crazy:


ok, more updates later...gotta get back to work!

Uncle Training

I enjoy rainy days right now—just right now though. I don't know how I’ll feel about it when the temperature drops and I’ll have to walk home—wet jeans clinging to my legs—in the rain and try to dry off in a house that has no central heating. But right now, just right now, I really do I love the rain. Maybe I love it because it brings cooler weather along with it, or because it’s one of those natural patterns that happen every year when the seasons are changing, or because the sound of rain in the morning makes the perfect “sleeping-in” music. The way that it pounds down on the tin roof makes it sound like natural percussion—it’s kind of like that rain stick they used to sell at the Discovery Store in the mall. You know, the one that you’d flip upside down and it had all these beads in it that’d fall from one end to the other creating a faux rain sound? Anyway, I also love rain because it’s a great excuse to stay in and read a book. Go outside and get soaked? I don't think so, I think I’ll stay inside and read instead. The real reason I love rain here more than I did in the states, though, is because every morning that it doesn't rain the two kids and the baby that my host family shares a courtyard with—and the courtyard that my window opens to—start crying like banshees. It’s this horrible, god-awful, bloody-murder type scream that starts—like clockwork—from exactly 6AM to 10AM, Sunday through Saturday. I don't know if this is a testament to the fact that I should never,ever, have kids, but it definitely makes me appreciate a childfree lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong, I like kids—I like them a lot—it’s just that I like kids who get jokes which narrows down the age range to 12 and up, but because I’m a new and budding uncle I’ve been making an effort to tolerate little kids with almost every opportunity I get. Since I’m an NGO Development Volunteer though I don't have to deal with little kids all the time, so the little exposure that I get to them is a good starting point for my uncle training. During PST in Khasuri I had the pleasure of having a two year-old boy (my host nephew) live with me for most of training, and I learned many lessons on how to become a cool and tolerant uncle because of him.

All was going well in my childfree life when one day I came home from a long and hard day of training to find a two year-old boy doing his business in the garden. “Whoa,” I thought, “this is public space and you do not need to be fertilizing the garden—it’s fertile enough!” After finishing his business he clumsily ran up to me—dirty hands flailing out in front of him—as I quickly tried to back away when I suddenly found myself trapped with the gate behind me. He slowed down as he got closer, creeping towards me as a predator does to its prey, and with a toothy smile and drool running down his chin he violated my personal hygienic space and touched my forearm. “BLEACH, OH-MY-GOD I NEED BLEACH!,” I wanted to yell out for someone to throw me some disinfectant—hand sanitizer, shout wipes, pamper wipes, rubbing alcohol, hydrochloric acid, anything—but I was trapped with no one around me. As I cringed and tried to pull my arm back away from his toxic hands, my host sister-in-law popped her head out of the front door and rushed to get him. “This is Luka,” she said smiling, “he’ll be here for the rest of the summer!” “He went to the bathroom in the garden,” I said with an accusatory tone in my voice, “I just thought you should know that.” Even though I felt like I was in grade school again by telling on Luka, I felt triumphant because I would get retribution for being touched by his dirty hands. I couldn't help but wonder, “Do infants get grounded for not knowing where to go to the bathroom?” but when my host sister-in-law shrugged and laughed it off with a “boys will be boys!” kind of smile I was speechless. This was when I first realized that my unofficial Uncle training started with him. “New rule,” I told myself, “infants are allowed to relieve themselves wherever and whenever they feel like it even without diapers.”

The second incident happened when I was outside in the garden eating my dinner with my host sister. I was enjoying a peaceful, clean, delicious meal when I was suddenly hit in the head with a peach. I stood up and turned around to see what it was, and when I saw Luka standing about two feet away from me holding another peach in his hand I smiled. “He’s just trying to give you fruit, but since he’s an infant he doesn't know how to hand things to you so he chucks them at your head,” I thought, “or maybe he wanted to just feed you like he gets fed—right to the mouth.” As I started to ask Luka in Georgian if the peach was for me he hurled the other peach right towards my head. “Bastard!” I whispered to myself as I dug my hands into my pockets making them into fists of kung-fu-movie-type fury. My right fist still clenched in my pocket, I kept smiling and bent over to pick up the peach that was chucked with infant rage at my head to, no doubt, decapitate me. “New rule,” I told myself, “infants are allowed to secretly try to assassinate people with fruit.”

Luka apparently liked my company a whole lot, and it became a habit of his to come sprinting up to me—dirty arms still flailing wildly in the air—whenever he saw me. Two weeks after my first encounter, though, I was shocked to find out that Luka was now being potty trained. As I opened the gates to my house one day, I saw him outside in the garden on his trainer toilet doing his business while waving enthusiastically at me. “Well,” I told myself as I waved and smiled at him, ”at least its not in the rose bushes.” He liked me so much, in fact, that the following morning after his first toilet break through I was woken up at 8AM by a buck-naked Luka. Looking utterly disgusted and shocked I exclaimed, “Go on, get out of my room!” Looking clueless and still smiling, I had no choice but to get out of bed, hold his hand, and lead him down to his room to get dressed. “New rule,” I told myself, “infants are allowed to go streaking whenever they like.”

After about three weeks with Luka in the house, I found that he was slowly growing on me. Not only was my Georgian at a two year-old level making him an excellent conversational partner for me, but he also did not mind that I spoke to him in English and even started to repeat words back to me in English. “Hello,” he would intelligently say to me every night as he went off to bed as he flashed his toothy smile while drool slowly trickled down his chin. “Hello,” I said every night as I waved returning the incorrect greeting while wondering if I was, in fact, reinforcing a bad habit. I eventually got past the obstacles that I found to be unpleasant. I sucked it up and got used to his dirty hands liberally touching my arms and bare skin by buying antibacterial hand soap and washing the contaminated areas immediately after hanging out with Luka, I taught him that fruit was food and not a weapon, and I solved the surprise wake-up calls by making sure that my door was locked every night.

I learned a lot during my crash course Uncle training. When all was said and done it hit me that I don't really have to like every two year old I run into, and that the things that I saw as obstacles can be overcome easily. With enough exposure to infants, I found that even the most bizarre and sometimes repulsive things suddenly become tolerable and, at times, even charming. I’m not quite past the morning banshee cries, but I think with enough time and rain those horrible, god-awful, bloody-murder type screams will start sounding like soothing music. Well, when pigs’ fly and infant poop starts smelling like roses anyway, but it’s good to be optimistic, right?

-> Picture of my Uncle Training Coach, Luka:

pic update of my favorite niece

->my mom is smiling, but emmy is looking, once again, mumified:

->Emmy looking regal:

->emmy looking absolutely frightened by the giant pigs next to her:


my niece is just so damn adorable! haha.

A good, old-fashion jellyfish fight

This weekend I was finally able to spend it at my site, and I had a good time relaxing, cleaning my room, watching old Futurama episodes, and cooking dinner for my host family. The summer crowd here has finally cleared out, and the park—also called “The Boulevard”—is now practically empty which is great. Saturday my host sister, youngest host brother and I decided to hit the beach, and I witnessed some interesting happenings while I was there. My host sister and youngest brother don’t swim very well, and as they waded and sat in the water as the waves softly glided in toward the beach I swam out about 20 feet so I could get some exercise. As I swam in place taking in my surrounding views—colossal freighter slowly drifting by, sailboats idly floating, and giant clouds just barely floating above the horizon—I suddenly kicked something squishy with my right foot in the water. My heart froze thinking that I had kicked some deadly sea creature and it would now attack me, and so I immediately began to swim back towards the beach as fast as I could. As I splashed about I thought about the possible creatures that could be in the Black sea: dolphins, herring, cod, and, at worst, jellyfish. There were no giant squids (not that I know of) or sharks, so I stopped to think about the last time I was actually attacked by something inside the sea. I was in the second grade at Hilton Head and when a jellyfish stung me and I remember that it hurt like hell. The thought of another jellyfish sting was motivation enough to get moving again, and as I started swimming faster towards the beach I kicked another squishy thing in the ocean. Starting to panic, I thought about Finding Nemo and how Marlin and Dory barely survived the jellyfish deluge in the movie, and I thought that my fate was sealed. “This is it,” I thought, “all those squishy monsters are going to kill me!”

I eventually made it back to the beach unharmed (I suspect my superhero senses kicked in and prevented any harm to myself), and I immediately told my host siblings about the death-defying event I had just experienced. I didn't know the word for jellyfish, though, so I was stuck trying to mime out how a jellyfish would swim. As I lay down, made a big circle with my arms in front of my body, and flailed my legs like tentacles, my host siblings looked at me as if I were mad. When that didn’t work I thought that I could draw it in the sand, but then remembered that I was on a pebble beach so I tried to draw it out with rocks—not so successful. After about five minutes of looking like a lunatic I went back in the water to see if I could spot one, and sure enough one was slowly drifting towards the beach. I pointed and shrieked with delight that I could show them what I had kicked (and also found comfort that my idiotic miming wasn't in vain). Once they saw it they laughed and told me that jellyfish were called “meduza”—which sounds like medusa—and that they were common right now.

Later that day my PST host brother called me randomly to tell me that he was in Batumi for the weekend, and that he was at the beach and wanted me to come to hang out with him. Even though I had spent about four hours at the beach earlier that day, I decided to go because it’s rare that I get to see my PST host brother since he lives so far away. As I made my way down to the beach my mouth dropped at what I saw. Six sixteen year old boys were picking up jellyfish from the shallow part of the sea and chucking them at each other while laughing like it was no big deal. It was my first ever jellyfish fight that I had witnessed, and I wasn’t sure what to think about it. It reminded me of the scene in Zoolander where the main character and his model friends were having an “old fashion gasoline fight” when one of the models lights a cigarette killing all of them—comic gold. “Maybe it’s cultural and Georgians have extra tough skin and they don't get stung,” I wondered in amazement as they continued to hurl white, translucent jellyfish at each other. “Or,” I thought, “maybe the jellyfish here don’t have stingers,” but I soon discovered that that wasn’t true at all. About ten minutes after I walked down I started to hear groaning and moaning from all the kids that had been throwing jellyfish at each other. I started to laugh hysterically, and that, my friends, is how I secured my place in Hell. I know it was mean to laugh at kids in pain, but thinking about when I was sixteen I know I wasn’t that dumb. I did a lot of dumb things—I mean, didn't we all?—but I wasn’t that dumb. Pretty soon I was looking at what looked like an outbreak of some deadly virus on the beach. All the kids were laid out on the beach, holding the part of their body where they had been stung, as adults went around trying to smother their pain with pampers wet wipes (does that really help with jellyfish stings?). I have never really seen anything like this so I wasn't sure what to do, so I sat on the beach and I took it all in to remember this momentous occasion of stupidity. After a while I went over to my host brother who was, once again, spread eagle on the beach. I knew he wasn’t pretending to be knocked out this time, so I asked him if he was ok and he painfully responded, “the jellyfish got me in the crotch and face.” Hearing this kind of thing would usually be enough to put me over the edge and absolutely die laughing, but I had to remind myself that I was a twenty-two year old adult and I needed to be sympathetic to occasional bouts of idiocy. “I guess jellyfish sting,” I said holding back a smile, “and who would have thought that throwing them at each other would be a bad idea?” He nodded in agreement and held a wet wipe to his face.

It was a very, very bizarre evening. I sat down next to my host brother and took off my sunglasses to take it all in again. A pigeon was pecking at a corn cob that someone had left behind, the Ferris wheel was lit up and looked like a giant Christmas ornament, the sun was sinking into the ocean making the sky pink, purple, and orange, the white pebbles contrasted with the dark ones on the beach making them stand out like stars on a moonless night, and six teenagers were laying down—side-by-side—groaning in pain. Who says you need TV to entertain you?

Some random things that I have seen/done in the past couple of weeks (in no particular order):
-I saw a monkey roaming on the sidewalk without a leash or owner
-One day after work I didn't feel like walking home or riding a cab so I took a horse drawn carriage instead and got to pet the horse after I got off. It was awesome.
-On one of my daily runs I was run over by a kid on a bike. It wasn’t an accident.
-The toilet seat that I bought for my NGO is missing. I suspect someone “accidentally” took it home for their personal use.
-I handed Not-so-homeless-Tom a ginger cookie. He took it and went on his way.

Superheroes have weaknesses too

After living here for roughly three months (give or take), I have come to the realization that my true weaknesses are surfacing little by little. Here is a list of what I think were my weaknesses in the states and how my weaknesses have shifted since coming here.

1. Chocolate – I would occasionally splurge on Godivas and that would be my fix. In ROG it is my comfort food and I probably have one chocolate bar a day—I’m like Augusts Gloop from Charlie and the chocolate factory.
2. The internet – I had wireless at my apartment and was always online. Subsequently, I blame the internet for some of my laziness. Here I have limited time on the internet so, instead, I find myself craving for information and nonhuman contact.
3. The Food Network/Rachel Ray– it’s been three months without 30-minute Meals or $40-a-day…I think I’m about to go insane! Back in the states I got my Rachel Ray fix everyday at 11AM (that’s eastern time) and I’d be set. Here I don't have any Rachel to cheer up my day. You can never have enough of a woman who says, “My mom and I eat like truckers!”
4. Luxury Goods– In the states shopping of high quality items was easily accessible. In ROG, going to the bazaar and haggling for prices is not as satisfying as I would like. I realized how shopping is no longer a hobby of mine after haggling down a handkerchief to 50 cents and thinking it was still expensive. Oh how I yearn for clean stores, organized shelves, customer service, and credit card machines. This weakness is therefore extinguished.
5. Hockey – Played almost everyday for two hours suppressing my cravings and allowing me to concentrate on saving the world. I haven’t heard or read about hockey in so long that I have been dreaming about it almost every night. The other day I woke up absolutely pissed after dreaming that I missed the winning goal—this is going to be a problem here.
6. Movies – In the states I would go all the time with Glenda and Bectar, but here it is such a tease. John and I are the only volunteers to have a movie theater at their site, but they only show American movies dubbed in Russian—what-a-tease!
7. Futurama/Family Guy – Cartoon Network, I miss you—nuff said.
8. Dairy Queen Blizzards – I think at one point I almost went everyday (equipped with my lactaid) with Glenda and Bectar. In ROG there is no soft-serve ice cream, and I can say that this is good and bad. Good because no matter how much lactaid I took I always had cramps afterwards so I wont have to suffer through that, but bad because I miss those oh-so-delicious Blizzards. I’m drooling just writing about it.
9. Martinis – Cosmopolitan, green apple, and dirty martinis I miss you so much. The glasses that always spilled when you carried them, the way some martinis have sugar on the rim, the way that the light reflects off the different colors in the martini glass…wow…martini, where art thou? ROG has wine, cha-cha (their homemade fire-water), and vodka (sometimes homemade). After being offered some vodka one night—and after drinking just one shot—I felt that there might be a hole in my throat because it burned so much. Although these drinks are readily available, I would say that oftentimes they taste like feet.

Back in the states I would say my one and only true kryptonite was dairy products, but I had an antidote for that there—lactaid. Sure sometimes I’d test my strengths and live on the edge by going to Mexican restaurants where I’d load up on queso and everything and anything cheese related, but since they don’t sell lactaid here I’ve been careful with what little supply I brought with me. One of the first phrases that I learned when I arrived in ROG was also my first survival phrase. During my first language class I made sure to learn how to say that I couldn’t eat dairy food, but the problem was with how to say it and not have to explain why I couldn’t eat it. So instead of learning to say “Hi, I’m Yuta and I’m lactose intolerant,” I instead learned how to say “Dairy is POISON!” This explanation is undeniably extreme, but desperate measures call for desperate phrases. This also created a couple of problems though. Telling them that dairy was poison for me was like telling them that I was extremely allergic to dairy and that my throat would close, heart would stop, and I’d fall over dead if I ate even a little bit of dairy. So when my host family first saw me eating something dairy (as I popped in a lactaid pill) they freaked out and were speechless. As I slowly swallowed the cheese that I had tasted they anxiously stared at my airway to see if I would start choking, and after a brief pause—their eyes still fixated on me—they incredulously looked at my skin to see if I’d break out in hives. After nothing horrifying happened they eagerly asked why I was able to eat the cheese. “Dairy products are poison to you!,” they said in shock, “are you going to be ok?!” I told them in my limited Georgian that I would be ok since I took a “cow pill,” but I think that just made matters a little more complicated. I was afraid they would think that this “cow pill” that I just took was, in fact, a suppository and think I was a freak, but when I showed them the packaging and how small it was I got a nod and a “kargia (ok)” from them.

The diet here, in my opinion, is pretty dairy dominant. Their national and, perhaps, most well known dish is Khachapuri (cheese bread), and it vaguely resembles cheesy bread from Dominos pizza. Now only if they had a national dish like cinnastixs I would be set—delicious!—but since they don’t I’m always having to deal with khachapuri being served at every supra that I go to. I have dubbed this problem the “cheesy bread phenomenon,” because whenever I go to a supra people always bust out the khachapuri and try to force it down my throat since it’s the national dish. I would wager that if you go to any restaurant here they would have khachapuri on the menu, but what’s more exciting is that they would most likely have a whole section dedicated to just khachapuri. Much like “Pasta,” “Chicken,” or “Seafood, has its own section on the menu, so does the cheesy bread called khachapuri on all ROG menus. At supras if I tell people there that I can’t eat khachapuri I always get a shocked “RAaAaaaAaAaAAAaaaaToomMMm~?! (WHY?!),” followed by an eager face waiting for a good reply. When I open my mouth to think of something to say, I usually resign to the fact that I can't speak the language well enough to explain that my body doesn't produce lactase enzymes to digest dairy and so I shrug, smile, and allow them to pile the khachapuri on my plate.

I also found a new weakness living here—the night train. There are two night trains that go from Batumi to Tbilisi and back, but one is a brand new night train equipt with air-conditioning and the works, and the other one is, put simply, scary-as-hell. You could say that the new night train is something that many students/travelers ride on when backpacking through Western Europe, and I was very happy to find out that this train would be an available option even if it were twice as expensive to take. The problem with having two trains, though, is that one is in service on odd days and the other on even days. This is a big problem because if you have an inflexible schedule when traveling to and from Tbilisi you don't have a choice of which day to travel. On the old train you pay 15 lari (about $7) for a four-person compartment where you get a sponge mattress (circa 1950), a pillow that looks like it’s been in a dogfight, and clean sheets/pillow cover. The clean sheets and pillow cover are nice, but the mattress and pillow are both frightening. Some compartments have windows in them that open—and some don't—and on my ride back from Tbilisi to Batumi my night train compartment had a window with a faulty spring so the window wouldn't stay open. The conductor was nice enough to find a coke bottle to wedge it open for the entire ride, but I couldn’t help but think about how nice it would be if we could just have air-conditioning and didn’t have to wedge a coke bottle there. When John and I first walked into our compartment John’s first words was “Oh-my-god, this is horrible! I didn’t even see anything like this in Russia!” Since I was beat to say the first complaint I tried to be the positive voice and said, “well, it’s not that bad…I mean, I thought it’d be something like this or worse,” but the entire time I was saying that I was lying. I was, in fact, thinking about how the compartment looked like no one had cleaned it since it was first made, and that instead of clean sheets I would rather have a body condom or a large human-sized ziplock bag with a hole to breathe through to wear to bed so I wouldn’t contract some unknown virus that might have mutated on the train. There was one dimly lit light bulb, curtains that were discolored with years and years of cigarette smoke, windows that were permanently stained, and walls that showed signs of many years of being sweat on, leaned against, and, at times, burned. Needless to say I didn’t sleep at all, and I arrived in Batumi completely exhausted. I was not able to do my superhero work that day.

Despite my newfound weaknesses I’m determined to keep at it!

Quick note:

I know that it has been a while since I’ve posted any entries, but I have been writing them on my laptop and I will be posting four of them today. Also, I’m aware that there are a lot of people that I have never met (or don’t know) that have been reading my blog, and I’m really glad that you guys enjoy reading it! It’d be really cool to know who you are, so if you could email me that’d be great! My email is yuta.masuda@gmail.com, so please tell me who you are and drop me a line! Comments and criticisms would also be much appreciated, and if you are a potential Peace Corps volunteer I’ll be happy to try and answer any questions you might have about Peace Corps even though I’m a brand new volunteer.

Holla!

Yuta

September 11, 2005

“Where were you on Septemeber 11, 2001?”

That is the question I was asked this morning as I first entered the kitchen. CNN world was blaring loudly on the TV and was advertising that it would be featuring a number of specials today about 9/11, and my host family wanted to know more about my experiences in America and what I had been up to the morning of September 11. Trying to be a good host son and good representative of America, I divulged my experiences to them about that day…

I was in Snelling Dining Hall getting my usual breakfast after skipping out early from my 8am Japanese class. I vividly remember that I was thinking about how annoying the new short story that we were assigned to read in Japanese was because it was a sadistic, dark, and depressing story that only a professor bent on making his students unhappy would assign. I was trying to neatly spread my cream cheese on my blueberry bagel (I used to hate it when it got over the edges for some reason. Since then I have gotten over this OCD habit.) as I played with my eggs that I always got, but never really ate, as CNN Headline news was blaring on all the TVs in the dining hall. As the first plane struck the building I remember the few people in the dining hall began to murmur and immediately pull out their cell phones. What was going on? I continued to play with my food when I saw live footage of the second plane hitting the other tower. I slowly bit into my bagel as my brain slowly processed what I just saw. I felt the cold cream cheese and my toasty bagel in my mouth spread and crunch as I slowly and rhythmically chewed over and over again. “This has got to be a joke,” I thought as I kept chewing, “is it April 1st? Is this some sick April fools joke?” I looked down at my watch to check the date, “damn, it’s September 11th not April 1st, I mumbled to myself, and when I looked up again at the TV CNN was showing a clip of lower Manhattan in absolute chaos. Huge chunks of building debris fell, the towers billowing with smoke, people looking up, screaming, running for their lives, crying, I still wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Feeling that the bagel was turning into mush, I finally remembered to swallow as I got up to take my tray to the dishwasher belt…

I told my host family that I was eating a blueberry bagel as I sat watching the entire thing unfold on September 11. Hardly the exciting story they wanted, I’m sure, and they recollected for me exactly where they were when they saw the planes hit the towers. “Well, you know that we are eight hours ahead, so we saw it on TV the moment it happened and we were shocked!” “You and me both,” I thought, but even though they knew that I was from Georgia, I could sense that they were expecting me to say that I was one of the people that was helping victims out. I think a lot of the time people in ROG think that if you live in the same country you must know through some sort of relation most of the people living in that country. I remember one volunteer being asked if he knew a former volunteer who served in ROG three years ago because he too was from California. “Well, you both live in California,” they would say in disbelief, “surely you know Chris! He had blond hair, blue eyes, and his nose was very prominent…you know, Chris!” Since ROG is about the size of South Carolina and because people here have such close relations, it’s not surprising to think that if someone is from the same state/region they are sure to have met at some point or another. It took me a while to understand how big America was. When my brother and I drove from Atlanta to Los Angeles and after three days of driving it hit me at how big America is, and how Japan, the UK, and most countries are dwarfed by its size.

I think everyone remembers exactly what they were doing, where they were, and what they felt on 9/11. Lots of people felt fear, disbelief, shock, but I felt complete numbness that day. It all felt so surreal when it happened that I felt like I was stuck in a bad movie watching scary clips on TV. Like everyone else I was glued to the TV, and I remember getting updates from my friend Glen during the entire day as I kept reloading cnn.com and msnbc.com. We were all desperate for more information—any information—and when it was slow to trickle out we were all frustrated. It is amazing to me that people half way across the globe were getting coverage about 9/11 as it happened. It hit me during my conversation this morning how the world is so connected now. I have a cell phone and I’m in the Peace Corps, and it is really mind-blowing to think that if and when I really want to call home it is just one click away. What’s more amazing to me, though, is that these people—who didn’t know anyone in America—cared so much about what was happening. Of course they couldn’t send billions of dollars in aid, but I think it says something about the nature of people to feel sympathy and shock when people they don't know are in distress. I thought about the devastating tsunami that happened right around Christmas last year, and I remembered how everyone in America was stunned at the devastation and felt sympathy and shock at what was happening all around the world. Reflecting on this fact, I came to the conclusion that no matter where you go in the world people are the same. We all care about each other and feel pain for each other when someone is struggling, and I’m pretty sure that no one ever really wants to see anyone in emotional or physical pain. The more I thought about this the more I began to realize that maybe it wasn’t so strange that people here think we should know everyone in our state or country, and that maybe it is a testament to how hospitable the people here really are because they think we should all have some sort of relation since they care about others. As these things swirled around in my mind, I realized how incredibly glad I am to be in the Peace Corps. Today I decided that to have a chance to help people who felt shock and concern for people they didn’t know is a great privilege, and hopefully I’ll be able to show them that people they don’t know—after all, I’m not originally from this region/state—also cares what happens to them.

Street Kids: I will know your mysteries!

ROG is a strange place when it comes to poverty. It exists—I’m sure of it—but you never really see homeless people sleeping and begging on the streets outside Tbilisi. I think it is because the culture here is so family oriented that if you are remotely related to someone you are obligated to take him or her into your home when they are having a hard time. Sure you’ll see people dressed shabby and looking as if they haven’t bathed in months, but they could just be people that have been working in the field who are not necessarily homeless. Anyway, what is also strange, though, is that there are tons of street kids who come up and harass you for money, and everyday you see them they are wearing different and sometimes even new clothes. A couple of weeks ago I was coming back from the German supermarket and I had my first encounter with the street kid who I now call “Not-so-homeless Tom.” Not-so-homeless Tom had short dark brown hair, came up to my waist, and was wearing light blue shorts, an orange t-shirt, and brand new Nikes the first time he came up to me. To say that he wasn’t pushy during my first encounter would be a lie, and, in fact, he would probably make an incredible Cutco sales rep if he lived in America and was fifteen years older. I had just bought my snacks for the week—pretzels and dark chocolate (if you eat them together it tastes like chocolate covered pretzels!)—when Not-so-homeless Tom jumps out of nowhere and grabbed my shirt and started putting his hand out asking for money. I feel uncomfortable giving money, so I tried to sound stern and say “Ara, me var mokhalise da me armakvs puri (no, I am a volunteer and I have no money!)!,” but despite all of this he continued to grab my shirt and ask for money for three city blocks. Yes, that’s right, three city blocks. By the time I reached the end of the third city block I had tried many different strategies. “Maybe he is hungry,” I thought, and I even offered him my dark chocolate bar—something I would never ever usually do—as a peace offering and thought that would solve the problem. When I handed it to him he just dropped it on the sidewalk—my eyes widening to the size of golf balls—and I gasped at the insulting gesture. What kind of demented child would refuse dark chocolate (especially Belgium dark chocolate from the German supermarket!) and keep harassing me? “If I were a hungry kid,” I thought, “I would be amazed to be holding a delicious, beautiful, dark chocolate bar and leave the kind Japanese man alone.” Seeing that I had no other option I pulled out my Taser and electrocuted him—no, just kidding. Eventually I had to run into a store and have the store clerk help me out with getting Not-so-homeless Tom to leave me alone. Since then I have seen him about fifteen times around Batumi, each time wearing something different and, perhaps, even new. I finally asked my host sister about street kids during dinner the other night. Apparently most of these kids are working for an adult, and they are, basically, pimped out to different parts of the city to beg for money. These groups are said to be very organized, and it is the jobs of these kids to get money for the adult who—in theory—disperses it back out.

Since my first introductory case with Not-so-homeless Tom I decided to never really give him money, but instead I decided that it would be interesting to try and talk to him. The second time he started to ask me for money—sounding like a broken record—I told him that I didn’t have money, and instead of getting a store clerk to scare him away for me I asked him “ras aketebs (what’s up?)?” He looked at me weird, and I repeated it again thinking that he didn't understand my Georgian. Not-so-homeless Tom ran away that day, and even during our third encounter instead of asking me for money he ran away before I even got the chance to approach him. I began to think that my willingness to talk to him was creeping him out, or maybe he thought I was so hideous that he couldn’t stand to look at me. I decided that if I saw him again I should consider executing operation “Japanese Thunder,” and in doing so utilize my superhero Asian powers to approach him at breakneck speeds. During my fourth spotting I saw him asking for money from someone else and so I snuck up (like a ninja) to Not-so-homeless Tom and asked him when school started for him. Looking stunned at my sudden presence, he looked at me a little puzzled and ran away as I yelled out after him—hands stretched out as if I could grab him—to stop. “NO~! Don’t go Not-so-homeless-Tom, I just want to know your mysteries!,” I yelled out after him in English. I have since been devising strategies to talk to Not-so-homeless Tom because I want to know why he is asking for money, what he wants to do with the money, if he lives in a home, how long he has been begging, and who he is begging money for. Different ideas have crossed my mind about how best to approach Not-so-homeless Tom. Maybe I should give him monopoly money, drop my decoy wallet (yes, I carry a decoy wallet in case I am mugged) in front of him, attach a dollar bill to a fishing hook and reel him in (just kidding), or maybe even entice him with different kinds of foods (dark chocolate didn't work, but maybe he is a fruit kind of guy and wants peaches instead!). Street children are a problem and I know that lots of NGO’s are working with them, but I feel that they are enigmatic and there is a lack of statistics on them. It really is sad that they are begging for money all day, and the more I think about it the more it upsets me to see them begging. Surely there is a better way for them to grow up than to beg for money all day.

Not-so-homeless Tom, I will know your mysteries!

Of Mice and Men (that’s me!)

I had my first freak out moment last night when I was abruptly woken up by a rustling noise. I looked over for a minute towards the windowsill and saw something dark scurrying quickly along the moldings on the floor, and I just assumed it was a bug or something that I could ignore. Following my M.O. (modus operati), I eventually dosed off reading a cheesy, poorly written, and sometimes even suspenseful mystery novel that a fellow PCV recommended as a “good read” from the Peace Corps Lounge Library (I later found out that this PCV has a penchant for romance novels and other “quality” books—nuff said). My windows were open to let the cool night air in and the lace curtains were drawn to keep the bugs out—everything was as it should be. I was peacefully sleeping for about 3 hours when I felt something moving in my hair. Opening my eyes—still drowsy and my eyes full of sand—I combed my fingers through my hair thinking that it was a mosquito or maybe, at most, a moth. Feeling something bigger move, I opened my eyes fully and turned sideways to be suddenly face-to-face with a mouse. Something squeaked—wait, no, that was just me squeaking like a mouse—and I jumped out of bed like a superhero ready to jump into action. Instinctively I grabbed a sandal thinking that I would be squishing a tiny bug, and then realizing that this was not a bug I grabbed one of my shoes reasoning that this was not a regular-sized enemy I was facing.

“Wait, no, this is my Kenneth Cole shoe…I can’t use this to kill a mouse,” I thought as I put down my shoe while the mouse swiftly escaped under my bed. “What if blood gets on my sheets, my shoes, and then if the mouse is still alive and escapes my entire bed and wardrobe might be contaminated with a dying mouse smell!” Clearly Peace Corps had forgotten to train us on what to do in case there is something bigger than a bug in the bedroom. Sure we’d gotten mosquito nets, but a mouse would laugh at an obstacle like that and then bite a hole in the net proceeding to penetrate the perimeter. Was I overreacting? Well, no. Hadn’t the black plague spread by mice? Or was that rats? At this point of panic it didn't matter, mice were rats and rats were mice. In fact, I was starting to panic so much that I mistakenly combined the two words so when I ran into the living room to tell my host brother that a mouse had been in my hair and bed I blurted out “there are RICE in my room!” (Rats + Mice= Rice). As he looked at me a little puzzled about why I would possibly be complaining about rice in my hair and bed, I realized that I didn't know the word for mouse or mice in Georgian and ran back into my room to grab my dictionary. Sprinting back to the living room clutching my dictionary I was finally able to say “TAGVI TAGVI!!!,” and my host brother immediately jumped into action—he grabbed the fly-swatter. As we both entered my room, me holding my dictionary as I nudged him in first and my host brother trustily holding the flimsy fly-swatter, we immediately saw the mouse run on top of my bed and onto my backpack. It was tiny, probably about the size of my thumb, but instinctively I blurted out “KILL IT!” and chucked my dictionary at it. Realizing that I was overreacting—and also that I would not be very useful in the army—we both became aware of how absurd the situation was and just laughed about the problem and decided that I should sleep in the living room for the night instead.

As I was falling back asleep on the sofa—images of a thumb-sized mouse mockingly sleeping comfortably in my bed—I thought about how grateful I was that it wasn't a rat that was on my bed. The next morning the entire family knew, and by the time I woke up my entire room was turned over and cleaned. We postulated that the mouse was acting alone in his treacherous act, and that it must have come in through my window smelling my secret chocolate stash in my room. On my walk to work that morning I decided that this was one of those rough life lessons, and if I didn’t learn something from this incident it was sure to repeat itself.

Here are the highlights and important life lessons learned from this incident:

Lesson 1 (in Japanese this would be called Kyoukun 1): Mice are evil because they go straight for your secret chocolate stash (i.e. comfort food).
Lesson 2 (Kyoukun 2): no matter how small the enemy, a sandal is not big enough to kill it.
Lesson 3 (Kyoukun 3): If you can hear it moving it’s not a cockroach, it’s a mouse.
Lesson 4 (Kyoukun 4): No matter how good the night breeze feels when you sleep, always keep the window closed.
Lesson 5 (Kyoukun 5): Disney has been misleading kids for years. Mice are not cute.

Help! I am tired!

My latest adventure starts out last week when my host brother and sister from Khasuri were in Batumi visiting me. We caught up on a lot of things, went to Sarpi (literally right on the border of ROG and Turkey) where my host brother almost drown because of his lack of swimming skills and the massive ten foot waves. The question that I commonly get asked since arriving in Batumi is, “can you swim?” After being asked this for the tenth time on my second day in Batumi I asked my host sister here why everyone kept asking me that, and if, by looking at me, I vaguely looked like an Asian anchor. I think most people in America learn how to swim and it is actually rarer to find someone that cannot swim rather than someone that can swim. In ROG, however, it seems to be the case that the majority of people cannot swim very well, and if they can swim it looks something more like a doggy paddle. After talking to a fellow PCV about this, he pointed out that most people will only go into the sea if there are no waves, and even then they will not swim out more than ten feet. After hearing this I remembered that the first day at the beach most of the people in the sea were idly standing in the shallow end of the sea splashing water at each other, and seemed scared to venture for a swim. I also remembered the time I went swimming in a toxic lake in Khasuri (of course I was unaware at the time that it was, in fact, heavily polluted) with my host brother when I lived there, and at that time I saw him doggie paddle his way around the water but I thought it was only because the water was incredibly cold and he was swimming like that out of panicked instinct.

When we arrived in Sarpi I was surprised to find that it was, quite literally, on the border between ROG and Turkey. Sarpi is famous for its beautiful, clean beaches, and its lush surroundings, so when I was taking in all of my surroundings it was a little bit of a mood killer to see border guards holding machine guns. Seriously, it was such a mood killer. It was really interesting to see across to turkey though. Obviously the landscape looked the same, but the first thing that you see when you look across the border is a giant, white, gargantuan mosque standing erect next to the ocean. It seemed like it was intentionally put there as a way to clearly illustrate one of the main differences between Turkey and ROG—religion. Anyway, the day that my host brother and I went to Sarpi it was raining heavily, but being stubborn and unwilling to accept that the waves would be huge and scary, we decided to go anyway. When we got to Sarpi, there was still a sliver of hope that it’d be nice because the rain had started to momentarily die down, but when we saw the giant waves crashing against the beach—both of us speechless and our eyes wide open with shock—neither of us was still ready to admit defeat. It was one of those awkward situations where you know that you don't want to do something, but with someone there you don't want to be the first to admit that you’re uncomfortable and that you don't want to do it so you end up going ahead and doing it anyway.

::huge crashing wave hits beach::
Me: “…so…yea, that wave is pretty big, cool, huh?”
Host Bro: “yea, that is cool, I guess. Can you swim?”
Me: “of course I can swim, I think that these waves look exciting!”
Host Bro: “yup, exciting. Yea…really exciting…ok, so let’s go in!”
Me: “after you!”
Host Bro: “no, I insist, after you!”
::I sprint into the ocean like it’s Baywatch and go out about twenty feet::

All was well and the water was really not that bad out there. The waves were big—real big—but since I was far from the beach it just felt like I was at the wave pool at Whitewater Theme parks again. I somehow convinced my host brother to swim out to where I was, but after about 10 seconds swimming in place he started to breathe harder and a look of panic spread across his face and gasped out in english, “Yuta! Help! I am tired!” Looking at him for a second to see if he was kidding (these things are lost in translation sometimes), I realized that he was, in fact, doggie paddling frantically and that he could not swim very well. As I pulled him in closer towards the beach—waves crashing in—I got to the point where I could stand up and saw that he was still frantically doggie paddling. “Adeki (stand up!)!,” I yelled, and to his surprise his feet touched solid ground and he finally looked relaxed and calm. We started to nervously laugh at what had just happened when a giant wave came crashing in knocking both of us over onto the beach. When I finally opened my eyes—scared that he had been swept back into the sea—I saw him laid out, spread eagle, as if a linebacker had knocked him out cold. I started to panic, scared if he was dead, unconscious, or still alive. I went over to him, slapped his face a couple of times, and then he opened his eyes and started to laugh—he had been joking with me. Needless to say we didn't go back into the sea (even though I could clearly handle it cause I can swim), but instead we got on the first bus back to Batumi.

On the ride to and from Sarpi to Batumi, it is inevitable that you pass through a small seaside town called Gonio. I was sitting on the right side of the bus facing the ocean on the way to Sarpi so I didn't get much of a view of the town; however, on the way back I was facing inland and I noticed a giant fortress when we got into Gonio. It was as long as the town—probably half a kilometer in length—and I was baffled about how I missed seeing this structure passing through Gonio the first time.

I have learned from past experiences that just because you live somewhere it doesn't necessarily mean that you will go visit all its sites sometime later. I remember living in Abyerystwyth and putting off exploring the castle next to the pier because I ran by it everyday and I figured that I’d visit it and explore the underground caves later on. Everyday when I’d run past it I’d think “wow, it’s really nice, but I’ll go see it later when the weather is nicer,” and excuses would always be made. Despite living there for nearly six months I never did end up seeing it, and I attribute that to my laziness and lack of motivation. Even living in Atlanta I haven’t seen a lot of things because I just keep telling myself that I will go see it later, but realizing that I have missed out on seeing a lot because I keep putting it off, I have made a conscious decision to go out of my way to explore things even if I have to tough it out through monsoon-like weather (i.e. here in Adjara).

So when I spotted this huge fortress I immediately started nagging my host brother to get off the bus with me to explore. Yelling “gecherdi (stop!)!” to the bus driver (in ROG there aren’t any bus stops so if you want to get on one you flag one down like a taxi, and if you want to stop you just tell the driver to stop), the bus immediately screeched to a halt jerking everyone forcefully forward and making them desperately grab the closest seat or post to prevent flying down the aisle. The abysmal weather made the fortress seem even more rustic and weather beaten, and after asking a few locals about it I found out that it was, in fact, a roman fortress. Rome is far, far away, and I knew they got as far as the UK during their conquering days, but I had no idea that they made it all the way out to ROG. So that puts the count to five conquering empires that have penetrated ROG that I know of so far: Persians, Ottomans, Mongolians, Russians, and the Romans. What is more amazing, though, is that this Roman fortress is almost totally intact despite centuries of wars and conquest—crazy.

Seeing things like the Roman ruins really makes me think about—and even appreciate—how young America really is. Traveling through ROG you see old Soviet Relics, ancient fortresses, weather beaten churches on top of mountains and hills, or even see ancient artifacts randomly lying fields, and I can’t help but think that ROG’s long and difficult history is probably why change, and maybe what we call development, is slow to catch on. After centuries of invasion, genocide, political strife, economic difficulty, and countless other difficulties, it is probably impossible for people to not to be at least a little jaded. I know that it is often said that “if it doesn’t kill you it only makes you stronger,” but I wonder if maybe if the saying shouldn’t sometimes be “if it doesn't kill you it makes you more cynical.” There are optimists everywhere in ROG, obviously, but I have had the chance to talk to many people who are very cynical, and who can blame them for feeling like that? I’m sure some of them feel like my Khasuri host brother who was struggling with the waves in the sea, wanting to say, “Help! I’m tired!” I just hope I will be able to say that by the end of my two years here that I pulled at least some people close enough to the beach so they could just stand up and not doggie paddle frantically—we’ll see.