August Rains Bring... Good Times

Ambiguous August is finally on it's way out but of course we couldn't part ways with out a few good memories. Here we go!

The beautiful sunset that came after days of intense rain

Just like Karen Carpenter, rainy days and Mondays always get me down. On that same line of thinking, I am pretty sure that there are few things worse than a rainy Monday; alas, that is what greeted me this week. As I mentioned in my previous post (refresher: some ice fell into a lake and now Summer is over) the weather in Georgia is finally changing. This was made apparent by the rain that continued from Sunday evening through Tuesday evening. I don't do well staying cooped up indoors due to rain, I get stir crazy. To alleviate my idleness I decided to venture out of the house and visit my site mate (fellow volunteer living in the same city). The rain started to slow down and I was looking forward to the human interaction. To my dismay the rain picked up and doubled its intensity before I made it to the corner to catch the bus. I was drenched by the time I made it to Randi's house. The only thing that saves this day from the not-worth-remembering pile was the peanut butter cookies that we (read Randi) made with the limited ingredients found in a Georgian kitchen (Someday I'll dedicate a post to the woes of cooking abroad).

Georgians sandblast the images of the deceased on their tombstones, they also create gathering
 places near the grave and often some to visit and eat a meal in the cemetery on various holidays 

Tuesday the ever present rains brought more excitement. I was out of the house most of the day with my regular Tuesday work and returned that evening to find my house empty. I wasn't surprised since my family regularly disappears in the evening, I just went about taking care of several things I needed to do. Not long after arriving home another storm picked up and this time knocked the power out. I set up camp in the living room with my computer and flashlight and continued to work. I later went into the kitchen for a snack and noticed some water in the bathroom, the floor drain was overflowing. After eating I went back into the kitchen to wash my dishes and noticed water on the floor, however it wasn't coming from the bathroom. The water was coming from the adjacent storage/all purpose room where there was water gushing in from both the front and back doors. On further inspection I discovered that the entire neighborhood had flooded. The drainage areas were full of water and had overflowed their banks, first flooding the street, and now coming into everyone's yards and homes. There wasn't much I could do. I picked up as many belongings from the floor as I could and tried to minimize any potential damages.

There were plenty of shoes floating around as the water rose

Overall about 5-6 inches of water came into our house, reaching just below the height necessary to have flooded the living room as well.  My family didn't arrive home until 1am and were surprised by the amount of water in the house (I'd called to tell them it was flooding, I don't think they believed me). It wasn't a big deal however because by that point the water was already receding. I was exhausted and debated staying up to help take care of things but opted to go to bed (don't think less of me), I'd done plenty of work already.

The water was at least 6 inches deep in the front yard

In addition to exciting rainstorms and flooding, this week also marked my first karate lesson. Bright and early Wednesday morning I met my new teacher at the local dojo (I am using the stereotypical karate language loosely here). He has one other student and my assignment was to just follow along as he shouted order in Georgian to the boy. I had previously told my Georgian tutor that I wanted to take up a new hobby and she had found some options for me- karate, wrestling, and boxing. For my safety I chose karate.

This first workout wasn't too complicated. It did involve a few tumbling moves like standing back-bend walkovers, which I can no longer do, but overall it was fine. We even got to practice a lot of karate kicks. There were a few complicated ones that I still don't understand, despite all the modeling that the other student did for me. I am sure it will take a few more rounds to get it all down.

After the rain storms had ended we visited the port side beach to watch the waves crash into the rock

My new teacher also doesn't speak any English and instead of texting my in Georgian has opted to having some mysterious kid send me messages (thanks karate kid) in broken English to tell me what he wants me to do. This set up lead me to be invited over to Zaza's (my teacher) 24/7 bar down by the port on Thursday night. The bar was tricky to find and was actually empty minus Zaza and some friends and relatives, I assume they probably constitute the "regulars", I'm not sure how profitable the place is otherwise.

I hung out for hours while various people grilled me on the same questions- where are you from (referring to my heritage and not nationality)? What is your religion, are you Catholic? Christian? What do you think of Georgia, it's people, the food? How long have you been here, what are you doing, how long with you stay? Whenever I meet new Georgians, especially men, these are the questions that I am berated with.

Local men erecting a cross for my neighborhood.

Georgia is an incredibly homogeneous place- 84% ethnic Georgian and 84% Georgian Orthodox. They strongly identify with the fact that they are ethnically Georgian with long lines of Georgian heritage. If you live in Georgia you must be ethnically Georgian and also Georgian Orthodox. When they meet me they are curious and want to see how we are similar too help build trust. By simply being Christian trust is already established. They definitely seem to look for common ground to build off of. It is worth noting also that due to the homogenous nature of Georgia, being a minority here would be very difficult. Many PCVs have shared their experiences with Georgians, and I will send a shout out to Angela who wrote two powerful posts on her experiences as a Chinese-American in Georgia. They are definitely worth the read- part I part II

Putting my Boy Scout skills to work, it only took three matches! 

After a somewhat exciting week, I was able to unwind and visit some fellow volunteers who had come out to spend the weekend at the beach in Grigoleti, the town just south of Poti. It was a great way to end our summer and celebrate how far we have come in our Peace Corps journey. September will bring a lot of changes and will really mark the beginning of our volunteer service as all of our primary project assignments begin to pick up steam. The last few months have been fantastic, but it's the next 22 months that I am most looking forward to. I'm ready to start working with my school and see what projects we can come up with.