Almighty Almaty

This past week has been a blur of excitement and exhaustion! After leaving the village on Sunday I met up with my fellow PCVs in Tbilisi where we spent the night before heading out early Monday morning and catching the flight to Kazakhstan. The plane was pretty empty and it was basically just us and some official Kazakh basketball team (surprisingly US jock stereotypes applied just as well to these guys). The flight was direct luckily, and we were in Almaty by early afternoon.

Big Almaty Lake near the border with Kyrgyzstan 

Flying into Almaty, the first thing I noticed were the mountains. It was really cloudy (ready hazy from pollution) so we couldn't see the city but there were some giant peaks poking up through the clouds which looked amazing. Once we dipped below the clouds you could see the whole city spread out. It looked quite large but officially it's only 1.5 million people or so with possibly just as many uncounted undocumented immigrants. Altogether it is the largest city in Kazakhstan which has a population of only 17 million but is the 9th largest country in the world (just smaller than Argentina which has a pop. of about 44 mil).

You know it's bad when you get really excited for real grass as well as the smell of fresh cut grass

After settling in we met up with Alex a friend of one of our Georgian travel-mates who was a former PCV in Ukraine and was now teaching in Almaty at an international school. He offered to take us to what was labeled as a Brazilian restaurant, I didn't need convincing. While the restaurant wasn't very Brazilian it was delicious and I ate things I only dream about such as key lime pie, black beans, a fried banana, and flavored lemonade (Georgian lemonades are actually sodas). Despite the small population Almaty has a large expat (oil business) community and a thriving international food scene unlike Tbilisi- that information was music to my ears (aka stomach). We talked all throughout dinner and were excited for the next two days before our conference started.

My "Brazilian" food

Our biggest problem in Kazakhstan was that Russian was the main language for both locals and tourists so there was very little English signage and even fewer people who spoke English. Unfortunately, we don't learn Russian in Georgia so we were really up a creek as far as language was concerned. Luckily we knew a smattering of Russian since it is spoken widely in Georgia and we were able to use that and our expert charade skills to communicate essential information to people like cab drivers.

The hotel with all its prized animals

On Tuesday we 3 PCVs headed out to explore and had a taxi take us to the beautiful Big Almaty lake near the boarder with Kyrgyzstan. We had a run in with some very serious boarder guards but other than that things were great. The lake was still frozen over which was disappointment since we hear it is usually a stunning turquoise color. After our morning in the mountains we got dropped off in town and made our way around the city. We rode the new and impressive metro and stumbled upon some delicious Korean food for lunch (which happened to be next to a Burger King, our next stop). That first day in the city really was all about food and satisfying any craving we could.

Get rich quick with a $1=335 tenge exchange rate

We also spent a lot of time in the Green bazaar where we tasted lots of interesting local foods and flavors but also found other delicious things like cashews and dried cranberries (some of my favorite snacks which are too expensive in Georgia). After hours of browsing and shopping we met up with Alex again for a more traditional dinner at a local restaurant. Per his recommendation we had a dish of horse meat served with potatoes and onions (a Kazakh staple) and another with noodles and hot spices (a staple of the Uyghurs, a Chinese Muslim minority from the border region) both dishes were very delicious. Who knew horse meat could be so flavorful!?

Us PCVs with Alex our amazing Almaty guide (also I am super jealous of Alan's awesome Kazakhstan jacket)

The next day was more cultural and we visited a war memorial park, massive orthodox cathedral, and the state museum. We also visited a massive mall (to feel like we were in America) where we found a delicious wok restaurant and then once again met up with Alex to get some authentic New York cheesecake. Alex was great to keep meeting up with us and teaching up all about Almaty and the local culture and customs. I won't even get started on how the bribing system works.

One of the only building in Almaty to survive their massive earthquake 100 years ago

Wednesday afternoon was the end of the tourist part of the trip and that evening we met up with the rest of the guests at the hotel to begin our training. We were in Almaty for a teacher training conducted by American Councils. We had people from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Kosovo with a few Americans (PCVs, Fulbrights, and American Councils staff) all in attendance. It was a great and very diverse group of people. We were brought together to be trained on how to conduct and teach the pre-departure orientation classes for the FLEX and YES exchange programs sponsored by the State Dept. In Georgia there are 80 finalists from 15-18 years old and they are some of the best and brightest in the country. I am really excited to get to work with them.

The war memorial to fallen soldiers 

The training was 3 intense 12 hour days of information overload and teaching practice. They kept us going from 9am to 9pm everyday to help simulate the training we'll be giving to students in July. We will each be paired with a Georgian FLEX exchange program alum and teach 8 session ranging from 1-1.5 hours each. It will be a lot of information for these students but it should give them a good idea of what their exchange year in the US should be like and preparing them for all the cultural differences they might experience.

Did you know that scientists have traced the origins of the apple back to the Almaty region?

One night we had a discussion panel where the program alumni with us talked about their experiences in the US. It was a great reminder of how important and powerful these types of programs can be. Many exchange students come on private company programs and pay a lot to study in a US high school, these kids are on a State Dept scholarship which has a 2% acceptance rate- they are amazing. One of my favorite stories came from a Kyrgyzstani boy who has cerebral palsy and was a student in the FLEX program a few years back.  The program really changed his life. People with disabilities aren't really treated as members of society in this part of the world so to go to the US and be told that you can do anything even if you have a disability was really empowering for him. His attitude has completely changed. His host mother helped him develop his writing skills (he hopes to be an author) and since coming back to his country he has organized events for other students with disabilities, received offers to publish his writing, and is going to be featured on Forbes Kyrgyzstan's list of young people to watch, This all started from his chance to study in the US and be empowered as an individual. His story had us all on the verge of tears.

The main entrance of the state museum 

I should note that despite having all the program finalists chosen (over 800 from all over the former USSR) they are still looking for host families. It can be hard to place so many students, but these are the cream of the crop. If anyone is interested in looking into hosting an exchange student from the FLEX program you can check out the information here. I can't wait to be able to host a student some day.

The inside of a yurt

I'm excited to work with the Georgian FLEX students come July. It's exciting to be able to work with some of the best and most deserving students in Georgia. Reflecting back on my own experiences abroad I can see the effect that they had on me. These students are going to go to the US and be exposed to a completely different way of life. The will assimilate into American high schools and learn to adapt to the many new values and norms. After their year abroad they come back to Georgia as different people. They don't lose their own perspective or culture but they still learn to incorporate the positive values they were exposed to. These students go on to become leaders in their communities and country, they bring a spirit of volunteerism and service back to a place that often lacks such ideas. The work they do after their exchange year is often greater than what they do while away.

Lenin keeping watch outside of the hotel

After 3.5 days of training we were exhausted and ready to return to Georgia. We had some spare time and decided to visit the Almaty mall and bask in the American feeling of being in a mall and having so many choices. To celebrate we ate food from Hardees, Burger King, and KFC. I even found a froyo station. Then we stocked up on a few niceties from the grocery store (chipotle BBQ sauce for the win!) and headed back to the hotel to catch our ride to the airport. We said goodbye to our new friends and we were on our way back to Tbilisi.

Hardees had curly fries!

Alex was getting into her Korean food

The restaurant I thought was the metro station

Inside the actual Metro station

Some buildings in the wealthy part of town

They really do taste like crab!

A pedestrian street with art vendors

Kazakhstan's own eternal flame for fallen soldiers

A close-up on the moo-lah

An Ode to the Village or How I Learned to Love this Country

Spring has sprung in the village

It's 6:30 in the morning, Saturday. I'm huddled in my bed for warmth. I don't feel like sleeping any longer nor do I feel like getting up. I just lay there taking in the familiar scenery. The green Soviet era wallpaper and the stained ceiling. This wasn't my bed but I'd slept here enough for it to still feel familiar. The last time I was staring at these ceiling stains was in January. Back then I could see my breath as I exhaled and I was scared to leave any part of my body exposed for too long. Now it is April the chill is more inviting, the feeling that a fresh day has arrived- crisp and ready to be experienced. 

As I lay still, imagining the coming scenes of spring, I can hear rustling in the next room. I shield my face to hide that fact that I too am awake. I know what the rustling means. My hosts are getting up and starting their day. If we make eye contact I'll feel ashamed that I plan to lie in bed for at least another hour while they go out to start their work. I sink deeper behind the covers as the bedroom door creaks open and footsteps on the wood floor cause the boards to creak. They close my door slowly trying not to wake me.

It's been almost a year since we first met. I miss it here. Life was busy then, but it was simple. I wasn't worried about students who couldn't care less about learning, and there weren’t deadlines and projects constantly swimming around in my head. Back then the only swimming I was doing was in the nearby river. We'd go to classes in the morning, eat an amazing lunch and then return for more classes or spend the rest of the day hiking in the mountains or resting by the river. I didn't have people tracking my whereabouts 24/7, I wasn't being told to eat something every five minutes, and no one asked me the same questions every day. It was a different life, in many ways it was a better one. Then again nostalgia is often better than the present, in the past all your problems have been resolved in the present the solutions have yet to appear.

After another hour in bed I finally get up and go to find Irma. Zviad has left for work and probably won't make an appearance until later in the afternoon. Irma however is bound to be hard at work somewhere nearby. I find her in the kitchen. As soon as I step through the threshold she is placing a plate and cup on the table. The stove is being light and food beings to appear. Suddenly I am sitting at the table eating bread and honey while sipping on warm milk. I struggle to control myself, moderation is the goal but it seem impossible since everything tastes so good. I do my due diligence and try a little of everything before she can get upset- it isn't hard.

We discuss life. The village school is still being remodeled and won't be ready until September. Once it's completed they will be well off resources wise, however there are plenty of other problems to figure out. Irma explains how well her students are learning in the classroom but they forget it all when they go home. They don't practice with their parents since many of the parents don't understand the things their children are learning in school. A complicated cycle is formed and most students don't escape it. Due to the construction, everyone is being bussed to the nearby city to conduct school in one of their buildings from 2-7pm once the morning students have gone home. This has made the work life balance even more difficult, but the sacrifice will be worth it.



As we talk she moves over to the stoves and uncovers a pot full of what I assume is milk. While we continue our conversation she begins mixing the curds and kneading them together. Soon she has made a wheel of cheese and she places it in a plastic strainer to dry out. Next we get ready to make bread for the week. The dough has been made and is rising. While we wait we go outside to check on the chickens and corral them back into the barn area. The rooster has gotten possessive and territorial of late, I wisely keep my distance. I've never seen someone speak so lovingly of and to their future food- several chickens are missing from my last visit. It's a different world from back home where we often speak of animal cruelty in food production. Here they keep an interesting balance of love and respect for these animals and the role they play in their livelihood.

Now that the chickens have been corralled we head back to knead the dough and separate out the potions for bread. The tone (brick oven) is warming and the embers are smoldering. She will make 40 loaves of tonis puri today, something she does about every 5 days. The level of bread consumption blows my mind. I watch as she molds and flattens each loaf and smacks it onto the warm wall of the tone. Once the first loaf is done she hands it to me and sends me inside to eat, I happily oblige.



This is the village life. Later we'll take a trip to the orchard to do some work on the cherry trees which have begun to blossom. There is still laundry to be done and the house cleaning never really stops. Of course throughout the day there will be time for more conversation and neighbors will stop in to visit and we'll also go and visit neighbors and relatives. There is plenty of work to do, but as we work and converse village life seem less demanding and takes on more of a charm. Everything we do serves a purpose. In the village you live by the product of your labor. Of course you could purchase everything you need at the bazaar or a store in the city, but it isn't the same. You didn't make it, you didn't grow it. Even though you bought it, it isn't really yours.

I've come back to the village many times since I left last July. Each time I return I am greeted with open arms. However, now that I have been in Georgia for almost a year there is something different about my arrival in the village. I think I am finally seeing it for what it is and what life here might be like. I'm seeing it for the effect it has had on me. It's here that I finally realize that Georgia is slowly creeping into my heart and I am letting it in.

Cheers to April

 Another great pic Randi took of me. One day she will publish an album- Logan with pretty Georgian scnenery

April has finally arrived and for me that marks the beginning of Spring, I couldn't be more excited. Also April is bringing with it a lot of great things: 1st- I'm off to Kazakhstan in a week; 2nd- The new volunteers are coming, which leads to; 3rd- My one year mark in Georgia (21st). Time is flying.

Dry Bridge Market in Tbilisi, a flea market for soviet goods

Last weekend I took another week into Tbilisi- thus breaking my pledge not to go back until April. However, it was all worth it. While on the train I was finishing some work when I found out that my grant proposal for my school was accepted. This was a huge pain to work on back in February but now that my proposal was accepted I am hoping that it will be a source for some great opportunities.

From the concert the other night, you can see us center right 

My plan is to update our computer room by adding a  printer, 5 new laptops, and updating various connections and adapters for the existing computers. Along with the technology update I am going to start planning a computer training for the students and teachers. The goal is to start incorporating the use of technology into the classroom by encouraging students to use computers for research and typing and for teachers to bring in more interesting resources. We currently have 10 computers in our lab, but an average class has between 25-30 students. That means there is 1 computer per 3 students, with the new computers we'll change that to be 1 computer per pair of students which will make teaching lessons a lot more manageable. For the time being we just have to wait, the funds won't arrive until May but there will be a lot to do once they come.

Designated carver of the 22lb ham- that's a whole lotta pig!

The train into Tbilisi takes about 5 hours so I didn't arrive until 10:30 and it took another 30 minutes to reach the hostel. There were many events going on that weekend, so I wasn't surprised to be greeted by a hostel full of PCVs. Since I hadn't been in Tbilisi for about a month I hadn't seen many of them for quite some time. After settling in I joined a few volunteers who were sitting out front. They were already having a conversation about politics and slowly the topic switched to religion. What made it interesting was that we were collectively a Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, and Jew. We each had different views and experiences with religion but still had a great conversation. This is something I didn't expect coming into the Peace Corps, but has become one of my favorite things. The diversity and mutual respect among volunteers creates a wonderful space for the sharing of ideas and experiences which creates a lot more understanding and respect.

The whole spread, enough for a us plus all of the missionaries

I needed to come into Tbilisi to help out with a volunteerism fair that was taking place on Saturday. It was being put on by a local NGO and turned out to be a great success. I was able to meet a lot of volunteer minded Georgians and local organizations and we also started to advertise this year's BUILD camp (our boys leadership camp). We have big plans this year to expand the camp to support more campers for a longer period of time. We've applied for funding which would cover the costs for 2 one week camps with about 30 campers at each. It will be some time until we find out if our funding request has been approved, but we are moving forward with planning anyway since there is so much that needs to be done (please remember this post come June if I am panicking about camp because our funding request has been denied- knock on wood).

Me looking real cool. Randi captured this gem when I crashed her photography class Friday

An added bonus of heading into Tbilisi last weekend was that I was actually able to celebrate Easter. According to the Orthodox calendar Easter isn't until May 1st. That meant that no one in Georgia was really celebrating on Sunday. I went to church with Melody and then the embassy families invited us over to celebrate Easter with them. Spending time in an actual home is always a nice break from Georgian life, and this was no exception. We prepared all the Easter standards, and the kids even hunted for eggs. I was floored to see funeral potatoes and did my best to eat as much as I could. We ate all the same foods that I knew I'd be eating were I at home with my family so it made the holiday all the better. I even got my own Easter miracle and was able to take a car back to Poti rather than the typical death trap on wheels also known as a marshutka.

The Petra fortress I've been waiting to visit

This week at school was a tough one for me. I've been working with my students for over 6 months and now we are at the point where I feel like they should be showing some improvement but rather they seem to be worse off and it is so frustrating. On Tuesday two of my classes had tests and neither one did very well, I also had to spend the entire period patrolling for and getting mad at students for cheating, it was SO frustrating. They aren't even discreet about cheating- UGH

The view from the top with the remains of two churches

Luckily for me I was able to spend two days with my program manager Ia visiting schools which had applied to host one of the incoming volunteers. We visited schools in Poti and some smaller mountain towns. It was interesting to see so many different Georgian schools. It is crazy how the quality of the schools (physically speaking) can vary so much. Some schools were huge and had lots of resources where others were old buildings falling apart and lacking modern teaching resources. However, everywhere we went there were people who were really excited about the possibility of hosting a volunteer and to some degree had caught the vision of what the Peace Corps work is here in Georgia.

A stairway leading to the top of the fortress- photo cred Randi

After two days away from school I was a lot more relaxed and ready to see my students on Friday. It was also April Fools day so I planned a simple trick for each class. First, in the 9th grade we had the school's vice principal come in during the lesson to tell the students that because they had been poorly behaved all school year they were going to have to attend an extra month of school- to say they freaked out would be an understatement. They were giving presentations that day so we let them think it was real until the end of the class period. When we finally to them it wasn't true several rushed up to hug us- hilarious. Next, in the 7th grade we told the students that since they hadn't done well on their test they were going to have to keep taking English lessons 3x a week in the summer and if they didn't attend they would have to repeat the 7th grade. They took the news just as poorly as the 9th graders. We almost forgot to tell them the truth at the end of the day which would've been hilarious since they were so convinced. Finally, the last prank was on my 5th grade class where I conducted everything as normal except I didn't say anything to them. I would mouth woods but not actually say them. They were so confused and after quite awhile they really wanted to figure out what was wrong with me. When I finally started to speak again they were so happy they actually cheered. It was awesome!

The old truck and the sea

I was so happy when Saturday finally came, it was an exhausting week! The weather was so nice that I didn't want to be stuck inside all day. Instead Randi and I took a trip down south towards Batumi and explored an old 6th Century fortress and some of the surrounding areas. It was a beautiful area with sweeping views of the sea and near by towns. While I don't always understand the history of all of the places I end up visiting, I can at least appreciate the fact that it is all so old and that these places have seen a lot in their day. A time machine could really come in handy here.

The final stop on our Saturday excursion. (We got escorted off of the hotel property, but I vow to return)