Nomadic Amateur-Teach and Learn With Georgia-part III

A typical Georgian public school consists of grade 1 to grade 12. They don't have separate buildings for Elementary/Middle/High School. The building itself is a typical Soviet-era edifice. It looks sturdy and imposing on the façade, but crumbling to pieces inside-perhaps an apt representation of the Soviet Union during its last years. Electric wires are hanging out of the ceiling, lights don’t work, chalks are usually unavailable in most classrooms, wall paint is chipped everywhere, the hallways/stairwells have random potholes, and the bathroom visits are best saved for dire emergency cases only (even then, think it over again), etc. At least my school has heaters that actually work. Some of the fellow volunteers have told me that in their schools, the heaters were never turned on even in freezing weather.

My co-teachers are all women, in their 40s-60s. I think the youngest teacher at school is 37. Most schools have very few male teachers because, as men are the “bread-winners” in Georgian culture, they can’t afford to be teachers since the salary is quite low.

In my school, most grades start at 9 in the morning, while the younger students (1st and 2nd) come later in the evening for a shorter schedule.
Not everyone can afford books, and apparently their families don’t care so some of them just come in and sit there without doing anything the entire day. Most students who speak English pretty well have either taken or are taking private lessons. The teachers' unabashed display of favoritism and casually hurling disdainful expressions at the others-"he is very lazy"/"she's very weak in Georgian, too"-can be quite shocking, to say the least. Perhaps my mind has been poisoned with the encouragement-based American education system. The wasted years thinking that I could do anything I wanted...

One thing I found quite interesting is that the other volunteers were horrified to see the students go ape within a few seconds during the 5/10-minute breaks between classes. I guess I should mention that during my Elementary school years spent outside of the U.S., I was one of the buffoonish monkeys. We had no recess so I allocated my time very wisely during the breaks to innocently beating up boys, non-homoerotically lifting up girls’ skirts and running away, and/or being chased around. Let's just say I busted my face open a few times in school.
I, however, feel like it helps releasing the extra physical energy that kids have, and focus better in classes-when I came back to the States at the age of twelve, I was shocked to find kids acting out during the class with complete disregard for the teachers. Well, at least we had the detention system in the States to keep kids in line. Here, the teachers have very little authoritative power over controlling students’ behavior since they don’t have a strict enforcement system. It mostly has to do with the fact that school grades don’t matter when it comes to entering universities and neither does a teacher’s recommendation. The college entrance system changed while I was there, which I will cover in details later on.

The students routinely, even during a completely unrelated lesson, ask a few rhetorical questions: Do you like Georgia? Do you like Tbilisi? Do you like khinkali (boiled dumpling)? Do you like khachapuri (cheese-filled bread/pastry)? The answer is, whether you mean it or not, always a yes. Then to produce a few giggles, you throw in random Georgian words/phrases you know. Write a few Georgian alphabets you can remember and you got yourself some adoring Georgian fans. To my defense, it was done unintentionally on my part.

To give you an idea of how brilliant their learning materials can be, I present an excerpt from the 11th grade textbook, a very flattering comparison between the British and the American:

Britain and America
1. Americans aim to do three things in life: 1. Look after themselves; 2. Live forever and look beautiful and young for as long as possible; 3. Make lots of money and/or become famous. They will do anything to achieve these goals.
The British are very different. They would like to be quite rich, but are happy to accept their life as it is. They would never dream of putting themselves before others and this is why they like to queue so much and allow people to go in front of them in all kinds of races.

2. Americans love food in large quantities and endless varieties. American plates are very big, but many American meals don't even fit on them. Americans buy food that is already prepared and ready to be cooked in the microwave. This is true unless of course they are Californians, in which case they eat what they call "raw energy food," and which the rest of the world calls salad.
The British only eat food to survive and would never dream of enjoying it. They prefer to cook their food for twice as long as necessary just to make sure it's done, and they don't have too many choices on menus as they find it difficult to make up their minds about which ones to choose.

3. Both British and American parents are proud of their children, but here the similarity ends. American parents publicly admire their children, and they like to tell everyone about their successes because they assume that everyone else is interested. If they don't like the way they are, they change their children by, for example, straightening their teeth or boosting their self-confidence by organizing extra activities for them.
British parents think that, if they gave their children too much praise, this would make them overconfident. British parents are happy to accept their children as nature wanted them to be, even if it means their teeth look terrible.

4. America has thousands of TV channels because most Americans have a very short attention span. TV and film companies won't film any one who isn't blonde and beautiful, who's slightly overweight or who doesn't have perfect teeth, unless they are appearing on a talk show.
Britain is well-known for its comedy, drama and award-winning commercials and the fact that it has only five TV channels. However, as most British people would never want to appear on TV, they don't need more than five channels.

Nomadic Amateur-Teach and Learn With Georgia-part II

*I wrote a part of this post back in September, along with some other aspects of the program but I finished the program as of 19 Dec 2010.

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. 

Brief Update

I'm currently in Baku, Azerbaijan where things are quite pricey, including the Internet Cafe & being as skint as I am, I'm not going to get a lengthy post done anytime soon but:

First order of business: Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays & Happy New Year to all.

Secondly, I noticed that many have been coming to the site to find out more information about TLG...well, I'm still working on my "review" of the program since there are so many aspects to be covered. To quickly sum up my experience-my students & teachers were lovely and supportive but the position is quite useless in the current Georgian education system. Host family arrangements didn't really work out for quite a number of people including myself. I'll try to elaborate soon to help some of you who are planning on coming for the spring semester...

Thirdly-get the gag reflex ready, I'd like to thank people that I met through the program(you know who you are)-it would have been completely unbearable had it not been for your company. Despite all the abusive, non-PC comments I hurled in your way, I really cherish our friendship & the time we spent together. I was jaded from the previous traveling and I feel that spending time with you reminded me why I had fallen in love with traveling in the first place-meeting great people along the way. I know it's been less than a week since I left, but I'm having a blast so far and feel that I owe it to you guys for restoring my faith in humanity; Ok, probably not, but at least you recharged my spirit enough to enjoy the moment. Thank you for everything and I hope to see you guys soon.

Nomadic Amateur-Teach and Learn With Georgia-part I

It's been almost 2 months since I arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia but I have put aside updating since, as the story of my life goes, I've been distracted by a plethora of drama and general good times.

Before I left the States, I had asked on numerous occasions for a tentative orientation training schedule during the first week. Not that it would've done any good, but I figured at least I could mentally prepare myself for a potentially arduous schedule. Well, now I realized why they hadn't told me about the schedule beforehand; I, along with a few volunteers, arrived in Tbilisi International Airport around 3 a.m. after spending 11 hours zombie-walking around Munich. We waited for a few hours for a few more to arrive, and then were informed that our presence will be required for breakfast and check-out by 9. We arrived at our hotel at 6. Sleeping has never been so overrated.

In my jet-lag delirium, I was herded along with other volunteers to the Ministry of Education and Science, where we found ourselves in a small press room full of media personnel who were still eager to film us, even though there had been three groups already previously. Afterwards, I was driven to a lab for various blood tests to make sure that Georgia hasn't just let in a diseased junkie. If I remember correctly, I'm pretty certain that the building bore a sign "Maternity Lab/Fertility Center." I think I'm fetus-free.

The training itself took place just outside of Kutaisi, the second biggest city in Georgia 3 hours away from Tbilisi, at a sterile-looking government training facility. A few days before our departures, we were informed that most of us will be placed in Kutaisi, which, according to the Greek Mythology, was the last destination of Jason and the Argonauts. Being a huge Greek/Roman Mythology enthusiast (read:nerd), I was ready to let my not-so-secret inner nerd come out and frolic. Once we arrived in Kutaisi, however, we were told that most of us will be heading back to Tbilisi for our placement after the training.

Apparently the previous group had wreaked havoc on the program's reputation so we were under a lockdown, save for brief outings to the nearby bar and market. The training schedule was quite gruelling; we had an intensive Georgian language crash course(useful), cultural learning class(useless), and methodology class(utterly useless). In my futile effort to work off excessive energy and remain (relatively) sane, I ran across the hallways and went for a walk in the evenings. By the end of the week, I was used to the schedule. Funny how easily human beings can be conditioned. 

One major drama occurred one night during the training due to a change in contract clause. I had taken some Benadryl, which consequently knocked me out for good, so I missed the post-dinner meeting where, apparently, all hell broke lose. The pandemonium was caused, well, basically by the false advertisement: the free housing isn't really free-the host families are not contractually obligated to feed us and we would be expected to make a financial contribution. I should mention that the host families are not getting any financial assistance for hosting volunteers. The administrators assured that the host family will probably feed us and will be hospitable, but the volunteers are expected to give them 100 laris a month. I don't think some volunteers(myself included) were necessarily upset at that one clause specifically, as oppose to the fact that many things have been changing since we had arrived: the actual contracts (one in Georgian-call me selfish, but I'd like to keep my kidneys intact, thank you very much), placement location, on top of the fact that we were under a lockdown-what else was going to change? The following few days, the administration became more flexible, granting us more free time, probably in order to compensate for the chaotic night. In the end, everyone was too exhausted and reluctant to bring up the issue again so we didn't really reach any solution. 

Some volunteers from previous groups came to share their experience so far; I figured it would be quite inutile since they had been here for only two weeks by that point, still enjoying the welcoming-phase. Surprisingly, some of them had been already told to pay up by their host families, only a week in their stay. It was the exact situation that had concerned me; in Chile, some host families(who were being paid by the government for hosting volunteers) asked the volunteers for money because they assumed that he/she must be loaded in order to volunteer in a developing country. Well, guess what, after 2 months here, I can confirm that it is the same situation with my host family-they were expecting me, an American, to bestow them with money. 

I think the concept of volunteering is foreign in many developing countries and people don't realize that you don't have to be wealthy to want to help others. Speaking on the phone with my mum, she confirmed that most people volunteer when they have money. I'm a victim of the typical American Saviour Syndrome(not an intentional acronym), what can I say.