Enjoy Deliciously!

And just like that almost 2 weeks can go by...

Come tomorrow I will have completed my second full week of work since early December, let's all take a moment and be proud of me. It wasn't easy ok.

The biggest news I have is that I was selected to help with the FLEX pre-departure orientation (PDO) trainings in July. FLEX is a State Department funded exchange program for high school students form post-Soviet countries. It was started during the Cold War and is still going strong. This year 80 Georgian students were selected to be apart of the exchange program and will depart for the US in August. My role as a PDO teacher will be to help prepare them for the cultural and lifestyle adjustment they will experience in the USA- sort of like what the Peace Corps provided us. The trainings will take place in early July and should be a great opportunity to work with more Georgian youth. 

Yes, you still need to learn English

Another highlight of this opportunity is that I get to go to Kazakhstan in two week to spend a week in Almaty attending a training with other PDO teachers. There will be three of us coming from Georgia, and will meet up with others from various countries. I am super excited for this experience. Visiting another country and meeting new people always leads to a good time.

Another week in my soviet paradise

The biggest event of last week was my attempt to teach several classes by myself. One of my counterparts had to stay home with her sick son so I offered to pitch in and teach our classes by myself. That didn't go over well. You know that things aren't going to be easy when your students ask you if you are going to be alone and cheer when you say yes.... I would like you to just imagine me alone in a room full of 25ish 1st graders, trying to get them to stay in their seats and stop talking so I can teach a lesson- it was a mess- but I am sure it would've been hilarious to watch. Classroom management is probably the biggest difficulty that I face in teaching here. It's rooted in a number of things and progress is bound to be slow but we are making progress. 

Captionless

As for the rest of the past week and a half I don't have much to report on, such is life when the weather takes a turn for the worst and we all hole up indoors. It turns out that the weather in March is just as volatile her as it is back in the US. Luckily the weather did clear up some on Friday and Saturday I took advantage of the sunlight to stretch my legs and go on a long way. Friday I walked along the coast by the port and watched the waves crash into the rocks, then on Saturday Randi and I went out for a walk on the beach and stumbled upon several surprises. 

A depressing find or a dead dolphin, it probably got caught in a fishing net during a storm

This weeks has been more of the same routine. 

Monday I helped to teach one of my English clubs with the advance level students. My counterpart decided to create the lesson around the theme of graduation. The students various english exercises and learned about American graduation traditions in contrast with the Georgian ones. The teacher had wanted to show them what an American graduation ceremony looks like so she found a clip of one online. She pulled up the video clip from the AP and hit play. The video started and the title "Columbine High School 1999" came up on the screen. The name and date immediately rang a bell with me but meant nothing to the students. Needless to say there was a different mood to the speeches and the entire event. I decided against giving them additional context because I didn't want to even begin to try and explain gun violence and school shootings to these kids- nor could I. At the end of the video the teacher asked what they thought of it, which event did they like more- Georgian or US traditions. They all voted in favor of Georgia, they thought the US was too serious. 

The river Rioni which divides Poti, and some say it is also a marker between Europe and Asia

Now for one last highlight, The Exchange. About a week ago I got an email from the PC office in Tbilisi telling me that the embassy was planning a stop in Poti on Wednesday as part of their tour of Western Georgia. They would be giving a brief presentation on student exchange programs and then there would be a concert by the US acapella group, The Exchange who had competed on the Sing-Off and toured with the Backstreet Boys. The State Department does a lot of cultural exchange events through embassies all over the world and these guys would be touring through several post soviet countries during the next month or so. I was pumped, heaven knows I wouldn't have anything better to be doing on a Wednesday night in Poti. 

While they did sing some Backstreet Boys they didn't do any Beyonce...

I met up with two other volunteers as well as our Peace Corps director and his wife and we attended the concert. It was a great time. The theater was full of high school students from across Poti, many of them my own. They had never heard of the group before, but since they were an a capella group that meant that they performed lots of pop radio hits that of course all the kids new. I wish I could share the excitement that let loose when they started to sing Uptown Funk. That song has been immortalized on the radio here. 

The must stop restaurant for every person to visit Poti

Following the show we made sure that the group was headed out to meet their newest adoring fans and then headed to the ever popular pirate ship restaurant for a nice dinner with the director and his wife. We made sure to introduce them to all of the regional delicacies including ელარგი (cheesy corn grits) and ჩქმერული (roasted chicken served in a dish of garlic), Georgian food on the pirate ship never disappoints!

Now since you made it to the end I thought I would include a free recipe for ჩქმერული: the https://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/recipes/georgian-garlic-chicken-chkmeruli/14547/

Bon Appetit! or as we say here გემრიელად მირთვით! (enjoy deliciously)