Training is over..it is official, I'm a volunteer!

How do I feel about training being over? The drink and the shirts says it all!!

Georgian Folk Dancing at owr swearing-in ceremony. These folks are awesome!
Teaching, as is any endeavour, always a gamble.

Well all, just a quick post since the internet is running slow today. I have finished training and am now at my permanent sitr in Senaki. I am just chilling right now but am excited for the work ahead. Here's a few pics..and I hope all is well back in the states! Today is St Maria's Day in Georgia where thare are many supras as it culminates a 14 day fast. My family is taking me to one later. Garmajos! (to our victory!)

All the Best,

John

A Georgian language primer and other musings

Ellen and Erik with a typical reaction to a new Georgian language concept.
See how easy this is?
My LCF (language and cultural facilitator) Rusiko! She is really great and will probably be my Mingrelian tutor as well
Ryan, me, Maria, and Matt enjoying a cold one in Tbilisi.
Coffee! Glorious, brewed Coffee!!

Hello steady blog customers! (written 09 August)
Georgia, like most other places in the northern hemisphere, is hotter than all get out right now….this, coupled with walking about 5-6 kilometers a day has turned me into the smelly kid at school. Well, we are all pretty smelly out here in the village but when you start comparing your funk to the cows….well, let’s just say autumn can’t come soon enough! Erik and I had a serious discussion about what we would rather have: a sit-down toilet vs. running water. Running water won hands down! This time last year I was taking 2 showers a day, now, about two a week. When I get to my permanent site I will be able to shower daily, a fact that I pleases me to no end. Speaking of my permanent site, I can’t believe there are only two weeks of training left. The days are very long and the weeks are short during training. I really think I’m just going to sleep for about 2 days when I get to Senaki.
Meanwhile the Georgian language continues to treat me with the utmost disdain and contempt. It is a beautiful language and there are some things about it that are downright attractive to a new speaker. The two biggies are no articles (a, an, the, etc.) and no gender for nouns (something that always gave me fits in German). There are also no upper case letters. On the more difficult side is the concept of postpositions. These are suffixes that are added to nouns or pronouns and serve the same function as prepositions do in English. Take that last phrase “in English”, In Georgian, you would add the letters “-shi” to the end of the noun and it would be “Inglishi”. The phrase “for me” is chem (my) and -tvis (for)= chemtvis. One of my favorite postpositions is -ze. It can mean in, at, about, or to depending on the noun to which it is attached! Easy hunh?
Preverbs…Georgians love to dress up their verbs and take them out dancing. They all have a stem and they just start slapping things on either end…Example: ts’er (write), ts’er-en (they write), da-ts’er-en (they will write), da-gi-ts’er-en (they will write to you). Georgian can very daunting do to subtleties in pronunciation. The Georgian alphabet has 4 different ‘K’ sounds q, kh, k, and K. Mixing them up can really be embarrassing. For instance, I was trying to say “I am meeting with my friends” ( V’khvdebi chems megobrebiani) but it came out “V’Kvdebi chems megobrebiani”, which means “I am dying with my friends”. Yes, folks, one wrong k-sound and a friendly get together turns into a mass suicide pact. It’s not just ‘k’s’ either. Georgian has two sounds for ‘P’ , ‘T’ and ‘ch’. kari=wind, Kari=door and kali=woman, yes it’s all so simple. I’m sure some of the more astute readers have noticed the long unbroken strings of consonants in many of the words. One of the volunteers told me that a Georgian verb holds the record for consecutive consonants without a vowel at 13! I promptly forgot it. Well, I guess that’s enough language for today! Hell, in two years I’ll be able to say that I speak both Georgian and English poorly.
A big day yesterday as we headed into the capital city of T’bilisi to visit the PC office and spend a few lari in the big city. I had lunch with some of the G6’s (Matt (Portland), Maria (Pa.) and Ryan (Washington), the highlight of which was a my first Guinness in months! Yummm! I was happy to receive a care package from my friend Sue that had lots of goodies (some requested, most not). The crown jewel of the package was a French press! (see glorious picture above). Now I’ve had some great cups of coffee in my life: at sea in the Caribbean, after a midnight watch, lying on deck and stargazing. Saturday morning at Merlefest, sipping java while Alan and I argue about the great issues of the day; and of course coffee and backgammon with my dear friend Katie Mathes. But this here cup of coffee I had this morning is definitely in the top 5 (with a bullet)!
Next time we will present the softness challenge: Georgian Toilet Paper vs. 3M 120 grit sandpaper….the results will SHOCK you!
Til next time, Peace (Mshvidoba)
John

Just a random post

How many Peace Corps Volunteers does it take to open a juice box? Kelly and Ellen demonstrate.
Another Pic of Borjomi...I love that town!
Like Global warming, the evidence is overwhelming: I should NOT dance! Martha, Sigma, Johanna and I cutting a rug in Gudari
Dan's Birthday Supra (Feast). Amiran is giving a toast, which is very impotant in Georgia.
Me trying to give an eloquant toast. Results were mixed.

Hey All,

Things have settled down a bit and the days are long and hot with lots of language training. We are only about three weeks away from swearing in and we are all ready to head to our sites and get to work. I would love to post something witty and amusing but this week has been quite mellow....watermelons are in season so I have been eating alot of them lately. I walk about 5-6km per day and pretty much come home and study/pratice my Georgian every night. Heard about the bridge in Minnesota..finally. I keep forgetting how disconnected I am out here in the country. I honestly don't miss it but a little info from time to time would be nice. I'm thinking of buying a shortwave radio so I can get the BBC News. I tried watching Georgian television the other day.....Mexican soap operas dubbed into Russian or Georgian...they are called Novellas back home but here we call them "seriales". Needless to say I went back to my books! Hope you are all well. Happy birthday to Sam!!