In January 2012 I was invited to serve in the Republic of Georgia as a Peace Corps Education Volunteer. For the next four months, I spent closing accounts, paying debts, working my tail off at Nature’s, volunteering and making purchases. Saying goodbyes were not always so white and black. I had to say goodbye to my uncle who was suffering from a relapse in his battle with cancer. When I called him to say goodbye, we both knew without saying it verbally that it would be the last time we ever talked. He gave me his words of wisdom and he shared his stories of his life working in Hungary. He passed soon after I arrived in Georgia. Other goodbyes were bittersweet in their nature, but since all parties have been striving to reach their own aspirations. Especially my sister’s wedding which was in February. I had to say goodbye to my younger sister then given she had to go back to university in Arizona. Regardless it’s rather admirable to read about others’ successes at such a distance. I really appreciate those stories. Life is not put on hold while I am abroad, that is one thing I have had to learn.

In April I departed for Philadelphia for two days of orientation. Fresh off the plane and still American clean we all stared at each other and realized our journey was beginning whether or not we were ready for it. We began to form our bonds and had our last Starbucks guilty pleasures.

In May we arrived in Georgia with the world at our fingertips. I remember being on the flight and meeting a man from Iran. He is now an American citizen and he thanked me and my fellow-trainees for our service to his country. I felt so proud in that moment and knew I was not just doing this service for myself.

Through the next three months we endured the 4 hours of language daily (6 days a week), practicum (teaching) and technical training (at least 2 to 3 hours a day, 5 days a week).  Intensive does not even begin to describe the experience. On top of these classes, my fellow trainees and I were living with host families after a few days of being in Georgia. I still recall the words and the feelings expressed as the bus dropped us and our luggage off in our “training” villages. We all just stared out the window as our fellow trainees were told that this was their new village. The moment we entered the Atskuri village, my fellow cluster mates and I just felt a moment of complete panic as we barely had any Georgian to work with. I recall looking down at my family’s names and thinking… “Oh no- how do I even say this?”. The best feeling of relief is when in our little circle, our training manager named off families and their American volunteer who would be living with them. My host brother, Vano, came to collect me. I was so relieved when he spoke a little English with me. He led me to his car and the rest is history really. My time in Atskuri, though brief was living changing. I learned how to bucket bath, learned how to live with boys, learned how to deal with getting food poisoning, how to fit into my gender role and many other things. My family was amazing to me and cared for me. I could not have been luckier with my experience.

In July I was sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I left straight from the ceremony to my new village in Imereti. I fell in love with my village straight away. The quaint village atmosphere and the culture of farming are apparent right away and makes for a comforting and lovely experience. It is a bit off the main roads so it feels secure and sincere. I love my life in my village and thoroughly appreciate my host family, my community and my school here.

Since July I have been working in my village school as an English teacher. It’s been a challenge to understand my role here. However it has been an eye-opening experience to who I am as a person and the way I interact with others. I have learned a lot about my methods and my objectives.

With the help of numerous people, we were able to have our first English summer camp as well as a leadership camp in the village. We also started a Girls’ Club as a way to discuss various healthy lifestyle topics (hygiene, healthy relationships, self-esteem, healthy eating habits and etc) as well as leadership and team-building through volleyball. My girls are amazing and I look forward to next term to have more meetings.

We have also identified our first grant-funded project. My school and I have identified the need for technology in our school to be integrated into lessons for a more comprehensive approach. So for our grant we will also hold trainings for computer literacy and lesson planning for the teachers at my school. Another set of trainings will be held for my older students. These trainings will be job skills and professional development. Some of the trainings will be powerpoint presentations, resume/CVs in Georgian context, mock interviews and job shadowing with local industry workers. I am very excited for this project.

Since arriving to site I have also been selected (after applying) to serve as a permanent member on the Peace Corps Georgia’s Safety and Security Committee as well as the Youth and Volunteerism Committee. I am also assisting in working on our cross-cultural and language training for the next year’s incoming volunteers. I am really enjoying the work with these committees and doing other initiatives on a national scale. Currently we are developing curriculum to promote volunteerism as well as professional development curriculum to be available to all Peace Corps Volunteers in Georgia.

My students have also participated in the National English Spelling Competition and Future Leaders Exchange testing. It has been really great to watch my students try their hardest. I try to remind them, like my mother always told me, try your best.

If you risk nothing, you end up risking everything…

What about 2013? I have many projects ahead of me, that is for certain. The Georgian language as well as French, Swedish and Arabic are projects of mine for my own personal entertainment. My journey on the faith path has also been developing and I look forward to seeing where the path will lead. As for journeys I am headed to Sweden in January to visit some dear friends. I also plan on having my mother and step-father visit in the summer and then going Tunisia in August (inchaAllah). I look forward to the year that is in front of me. I truly believe that as difficult as things can be sometimes, that this is the life I choose.

Well last month- Thanksgiving and In-Service Training! IST was phenomenal and full of Georgian lessons as well as safety and security discussions. Overall it was a great week. To finish the week off right, about 10 volunteers and our other part time volunteers (many thanks again!) cooked Thanksgiving dinner for 120 people! It was amazing. I mean we really went all out and it was a beautiful dinner and evening. Our new American Ambassador and his wife came to celebrate with us. They even served food with us for awhile. Anyways, here are a few photos from the whole week at IST:

Then: Project Design and Management (PDM) Conference:

Peace Corps held our Education PDM Conference at the Georgian Palace Hotel in Kobuleti Georgia. It is located right on the Black Sea… I think we all slightly died when we walked in the doors because it was so so so nice.

Anyways, I have so much to be thankful for. I reside in an amazing community in Georgia. My students for the most part like me a lot, even though there are some who don’t care for me- so be it. My Georgian is improving and allowing me to make many meaningful relationships with people from all different parts of Georgia as well as various villages surrounding mine. My host family is so giving and is always helping me. Really they are so wonderful. And of course the support system within PC Georgia, with my friends around the world, with my family and with my love. Really. I could not be any luckier with the way the cards fell for me. I am going to try to not take them for granted and work hard for what I have.

Last but not least, thank you all for taking the time to read my blog. It’s nice to see such a wide audience out there reading it. I am not the best writer and by no means claiming to be otherwise. However I really enjoy just telling my story, in my own way.

To all of you, thank you and I will write soon!

Day 11 goes to the kindness of others. Sometimes I feel like there is no such thing and other times I am reminded of it with subtle actions of others.

Day 12 goes to my amazing Peace Corps staff in Georgia. They are truly dedicated to their jobs working with us, constantly answering all of our questions and concerns, if there are any at all. I really cannot express the gratitude. I think with Peace Corps staff anywhere, there is no such thing as a 9 to 5 job.

Day 13 goes to my host village. I absolutely love my village here in Imereti. I am so lucky to be where I am and surrounded by the most lovely people. They are so welcoming and constantly trying to engage me in different activities. I really am thankful for it.

Day 14 goes to my fellow PCVs in Georgia. During our IST (In-Service Training) last week I realized just how much we all depend on each other to keep going strong. Also I realized just how lucky I am to have such an open training class. It’s refreshing to have that ability to talk with anyone you want about anything. I am also looking forward to getting to know the volunteers who have been here longer.

Day 15 goes to Georgian nature. As corny as it sounds I have been feeling quite refreshed lately with my hikes into the hills to see the sunset… to take a moment to myself and appreciate what I have.

Languages. I would like to give a particular thanks to languages. As a child I never fully grasped the importance of languages. Over my lifetime thus far we have all witnessed the importance of languages expanding to different parts of the world and the raise of particular languages. We have also witnessed (well apparently not literally) languages dying out and the world forever losing their secrets and all that they entail. It’s really such a depressing occurrence. Even the smallest languages (by smallest I am referring the amount of speakers) have relevance in the globalized world we have all around us. 

Now speaking about languages all together, I realize the importance of the challenge to learn the language. I might still have trouble reading in other languages, but I am proving to myself that I am capable of language learning. It’s also funny how in college I studied: Arabic, Swedish, and French. Yet I did not really see how all three would come together now for me when I am living in Georgia and speaking Georgian and Russian. Yet now I can speak Arabic with my boyfriend and his family, Swedish with one of his brother’s and his brother’s wife, and French with my boyfriend and his sister. It’s just so funny how you never know when the knowledge of languages will come into play for you. 

Take a chance. Learn another language. Move abroad. Soak in the language, the culture, the accent, the emotions, and the gestures. Challenge yourself..and then challenge yourself some more. It’s not easy, no one ever said it was. But I am dedicated now to becoming fluent or near fluent in the Georgian language, just because I want to. Challenge accepted.

On this day I am thankful for my host family and my host community’s hard work during harvest and all the work they put into their crops. I can now appreciate the work of a farmer as every single person in my village is a farmer. I can appreciate the long and exhausting hours they work just to put food on their family’s table. I can appreciate the literal back-breaking labor of carrying heavy sacks of corn a mile down the road to the water powered flour mill. I can appreciate the hours of harvest and the supras (huge feasts) that follow to feed all those hands that helped. I can appreciate the fact that the food in front of me at dinner all came from our garden and our fields. I can truly appreciate that the people three feet away from me were the ones who made my food possible by planting seeds, caring for them throughout the season, harvesting, and preparing my food.

Day 7 for the 7th of November

On this day I want to give thanks to host family in Kakheti. My host family in Kakheti- I appreciate and I am thankful for them being my first host family in Georgia. They opened their arms and embraced me right away as one of their family members. They cared for me and even though my language skills were not strong in the beginning, they constantly loved me and laughed with me along the way. They welcome me back with open arms whenever I visit and I really appreciate it. Vano – you are so kind, so smart, and my best friend here in Georgia. I couldn’t ask for a better first host brother as you took the time to explain Georgia to me and your perspectives.

Day 8 for the 8th of November

On this day I want to give thanks to my host family in Chala, where I will reside for the next two years. Throughout Georgia, families have opened their homes and their arms to embrace, live with, and communicate with Americans for the next 2 years. That is a huge commitment when they had no say in who would be their volunteer (besides the mere suggestion of characteristics). As my friend Alex once said: Do you ever look around the dinner table and wonder why you are here? How is it that you and your host family agreed to live together for the next two years when there is neither a shared language nor culture….Words cannot fully express how much I appreciate everything you all do for me. During my site visit (which was only 2 days) I was so ill on the first full day. What an impression I made! They cared for me and made sure I was okay though I spent the whole day with my face in my pillow or my face in the toilet (graphic- I know). When I arrived back to Chala in the end of July to permanently reside in this village, I literally set my bags down and played with my host siblings in the yard. I chased them around the yard and we were laughing so hard. It was home right away. Nona, my host mom, goes out of her way to find new recipes online for me. She finds recipes and translates them when necessary to make food I may like. Since I rarely eat meat here in Georgia she continues to try new dishes that I may like. Sometimes we bake together and a week later she reproduces the dish to surprise me. She goes out of her way to make me more comfortable here. Truly the best host mom I could ever ask for. She is so patient with me and my Georgian language skills. She is so kind. My host family here is truly so patient and caring. They are so supportive of me and understand that I come from another culture. Sometimes I want to be independent and sometimes I want to be surrounded with family. They respect that and yet know I love them tremendously. I truly appreciate them.

Given it is the wonderful month of November already, I would like to dedicate the month to posts to giving thanks. I am a bit late- given it is already November 8th. So I shall write 8 thanks to play catch up.

However my I add that I do not mean to discount any of these by pulling them all into one post. Rather to address the eight as it would be wrong of me not to include them.

First thanks for the 1st of November:

Today I give thanks for the amazing family I have. Truly I am lucky to have a family who not only supports me nut encourages me to live my life. They have long since realized that I will live my life to the beat of my own drum. Therefore they encourage and support the fact that I live my live off the beaten path that is more frequently used.

Second thanks for the 2nd of November:

On this day I give thanks for the ground beneath my feet. It has remained steady, even if I have not been. I appreciated its steadiest throughout my rough teenage years. I appreciate the fact that I can always depend of the earth below me (even if there is a natural disaster- then figuratively).

Third thanks for the 3rd of November:

On this day, I give thanks for the friendships I have been afforded in my life thus far. I can’t say all friendships still exist as time has shifted us from place to place and assisted in drifting us apart. However I appreciate and I am thankful for the experiences I have been afforded, even if they were negative. You have all shaped the person I am today and for that I am forever grateful.

Fourth thanks for the 4th of November:

To different cultures and different beliefs. It is truly a beautiful thing. We all have a lot to learn from each other and we must appreciate our differences. Recognize that sometimes there is not such a thing as right or wrong. I appreciate my openness as it has allowed me to get to where I am today. I thankful for continuing to learn to be even more open and understanding.

Fifth thanks for the 5th of November:

On this day I give thanks to the astonishing man I call my partner in life. He is so supportive of me and my PC service. He provides a listening ear when I need to express my feelings. He brings me back down to Earth when he sees me getting above myself. All and all I am so lucky to have found someone I cannot see myself without. Ahbuka barcha habibi.

Looking out over my district from the old fortress that was on top of the hills of Sachkhere. This photo was taken back in August.