After spending a week being mentally prepared for the optimum experience (read:brainwashed) at the government training facility, the volunteers were taken back to Tbilisi in an excruciatingly hot bus, sweating profusely in our best attire that we had put on in hopes of impressing our host families.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Georgian driving, let’s just say that I’ll be buying a lottery ticket once I make it alive in one piece at the end of the year (I did!). It probably ranks on top of the world’s worst driving list- I would say rivaling India’s, if not worse. As our bus was driven through the narrow and perilous winding roads, we came across a burning bus, which emitted a disturbing amount of heat. Being thoroughly perturbed by the scene, I decided at that point that a heatstroke-induced voluntary unconsciousness would do my mental health good.
Back at the Ministry of Education and Science, we encountered our host families who seemed to be arguing clamorously with the programme coordinators. I was dazed from recently being awakened. I just sat there nervously, trying my best to get a grasp of what was going on around me. I was dazed.
Once everyone settled down, they called out the names of the volunteers and host families in rapid succession so I gave whoever was nearby awkward hugs and headed outside with my school director and host father, who didn’t speak any English. I was still dazed.
My host family consists of the father (52), the mother (43) the father’s older sister (54), two sisters (20 &18), and the little brother (7). After the whole financial arrangement fiasco during the training, I was a bit worried to see my host father’s jalopy in the sea of sleek foreign cars, only because I was afraid of becoming a financial burden to the family. The concern was amplified when I learned that the host father doesn’t work; in our ever-so-helpful cultural training class, we were told that in Georgia, men are viewed as the “bread-winners” of the family. They don’t really have the concept of “stay-home dads,” so the host mother works part-time as a seamstress and runs the household, although the host father cooks every once in awhile. The older host sister works as a customer service representative at the airport, while the aunt works as a pharmacist. The older host sister still attends university part-time, studying animation while the younger one just started this year, studying Business and English. To much of my relief, I learned that the two sisters speak pretty decent amount of English. The host father, mother and aunt, like most of the older generation, speak fluent Russian and some German but almost no English.
Apparently the residence is located in the “hood.” My host sister’s words, not mine. The first thing she told me about the neighborhood was, “this neighborhood, not so nice.” I just smiled awkwardly and nodded masterfully, hoping what she meant to say was “bohemian.”
The family has been living here for generations so they are familiar with many neighbors, some of who are their relatives. It's nice to see the family know so many people in the neighborhood as I’ve never had that kind of experience in my life due to my frequent relocation. They often have guests over and it seems that they tend to hang out at each other’s house rather than going out together.
The house itself consists of two floors with separate entrances and a small yard. In the typical Georgian manner, only the second floor is newly renovated. It’s very common to see only parts of a building renovated here, probably due to the financial matter. Basically, the idea is to fix one part at a time when there’s money.
The second floor consists of a small rest room, three bedrooms, a living room, and a dining room/kitchen. I stay in one of these bedrooms. My room belonged to the older sister but now she’s moved into another room with the other sister.
The “first” floor seems more like a basement as it is hidden underneath the second floor. Only a scarce amount of sunlight passes through as the result, creating a grim ambience, adding to its already ramshackle dungeon-esque vibe. There’s also a small kitchen/dining space, as well as an outdoor restroom.
One peculiarity that personally affected me was that there were tons of mosquitoes swarming around due to the lack of window screens, yet no one was getting any bites. I, on the other hand, was devoured mercilessly as usual and immediately upon releasing my bare skin free for all consumption. It wasn’t pretty. I ended up having to go to a hospital in my first week because of my allergic reaction to the bites. The insurance company told me that the doctor speaks English, and by that they meant her repeating, “I don’t understand” over and over again to any question I had. Great.
Among many of TLG’s brilliant deeds, was misinforming the duration of our stay. The Ministry of Education and Science apparently told all the host families and schools that the volunteers signed up for a year. It was awkward explaining to the family that the most of us signed up for only one semester and explaining that their government has indeed, misinformed them. This for some reason caused a lot more friction than I had expected-the host family kept on repeating “but the government told us this,” while I kept on repeating that it was a mistake made on their part. At the time, I didn’t realize the magnitude of this false “promise” that the government made to the host families regarding hosting us volunteers and ended up paying dearly for it later on.
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