Summer Camp and Summer Swarms

Tomorrow is my first day of school, it's been 4 years since my last first day. I am excited to really start working in the school, but I'm keeping my expectations low. I don't want to be an eager beaver and wear myself out too soon, I also don't want to shake things up too quickly. To soften the readjustment back to school, this week I helped run a summer camp focused on learning/practicing English. By no means was it a huge success, but it was a great introduction into working with the students at my school.

Each day I worked with a different teacher from the English department, together we attempted to teach the students some new English while also trying to balance out the boring and the fun- who know that Never Have I Ever could be turned into an educational game. You might remember my cluster hosting a summer camp back in June, it was rough and still turned out x100 better than expected. This time I was a lot more on my own, at one point I even had students shouting, "Hail Hitler." It took a minute to get the students to refocus their understand and agree not to shout that one anymore.

By working with each counterpart (my school's english teachers) I was also able to asses their English abilities and teaching styles. This will be important over the next few weeks because I will need to choose which three teachers I want to work with during the school year. Fortunately I don't think I can go wrong since they are all great people.

The real choice will be which classes I want to teach. PCVs working in education aren't given their own classes to teach, instead they team teach with their local counterparts. This helps to model different teaching techniques and also help the teacher to benefit from the presence of a native speaker in the classroom. In my school there are about 90 English classes taught a week. As a volunteer I need to choose at least 18 hours/classes to teach a week. Throughout the next couple of weeks I will attend and observe as many classes as possible in order to decide which ones I will choose. The debate comes down to quantity/quality of impact. Do I choose to spread myself out over many sections/grades and work with them maybe once a week, or do I choose 6-7 sections/grades and teach in all of their classes. We'll see if this week helps make that decision any easier.

Aside from my summer camp at school, this week didn't yield many other adventures. I did not have time for any karate lessons this week, but I did get taken to the local artisan school. The art school is for students to attend after school to be able to learn a trade/craft and start practicing the production of that skill. They had great clothing designs, paintings, weavings, wood carving, and ceramics. The only problem is the crumbling nature of their building. Now we are looking for a larger space where there will be more room for growth etc.

The best story/worst experience of the week comes from Thursday. In honor of the end of our first summer Randi and I decided to go for a swim, something of a weekly ritual for us. We took the marshutka to the end of the line and walked down to the large beach. It was later in the evening but there was still plenty of time before sundown. We set out our towels and headed straight for the water. After a while we watched the sun set and decided it was time to get out. Once we were back on the beach and beginning to towel off a swarm of mosquitoes descended upon us. It was AWFUL!

I wasn't in a state of mind that led to taking pics but this conveys the experience well I think.

We began to collect our things as quickly as possible in an attempt to leave the mosquitoes behind. They were coming at me so fast that I couldn't swat at them fast enough to avoid being eaten alive. After a short time my arms and legs began to collect the bodies of many smashed mosquitoes. We finally set off for the main road and I called a taxi to come pick us up, with the hopes of getting out of that area ASAP.

Unfortunately we were left waiting on the side of the road for 20 min. I was helpless and vulnerable. The only source of limited protection was my beach towel which I used to try and wrap my legs. After 10 min of this hellacious treatment, I was going mad. I can't imagine what the people passing by thought of the sight of me wildly swinging my arms, wrapping my legs in a towel, and the constant smacks to body. I don't think I have ever felt more frustrated or upset while in Georgia. Low blow mosquitoes, you should never attack a defenseless person.

When I finally made it home, I decided to briefly count the number of red bumps (bites) on my body. Without looking to hard I was able to quickly identify over 60 mosquito bites on me, from both my extremities as well as back. I don't think I have ever been that itchy nor that bite ridden in my entire life. Now I can only hope to make it through the week without scratching off more bites than is necessary for sanity's sake.

Peace Corp Volunteers in Kutaisi for the Race for the Cure event

One final note, this weekend was scheduled to be the Race for the Cure event in Kutaisi. A fellow volunteer was helping to put on the event and many of us volunteered to come and help out. Originally they were organizing a 5k run and 2k walk, however the plans were changed and the city was unable to assist in creating a race course. Our job as volunteers was then to move around the pack and encourage people to come learn about breast cancer as well as get free mammograms. even without the run the event was a great success, now the hope is that they will be able to pull off a 5k race next weekend in Tbilisi- so far all signs are a go.

Now I'm off to bed, with school starting bright and early that now also means that sleeping in is not an option and early to bed early to rise will quickly become my new motto. Have a great week everyone, and steer clear of those mosquitoes.

P.S. As I get more pictures I will add them to the post, all my summer camp pics are on my counterpart's camera.