I was going to do a one year post in April, but life has been none stop for the last few weeks and I just haven't had the time. Tonight is the first time in what feels like forever I've had the time to sit at my computer and write to you all. A year of Peace Corps. A year of Georgia. A year of ups and downs, of never really knowing what's going on. A year of just going with it and trying to make things work. A year of amazing things and sad things and laughing my way through it all. Last year when we landed in Georgia I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. I didn't know anyone in my group, I didn't know the language or culture, I didn't even know what I was doing here. Some of these things have changed. The people on that flight have grown to be some of my best friends. There are days I couldn't do without them. So thank you to everything one and everything that has made my first year in Georgia what it was and here is to another 13 months of being a PCV!
April was all about the Technovation for me. It's a coding competition for girls. This is the first year there were teams in Georgia. I had a team in Poti and also helped with the national camp. We had 7 teams come to camp and most finished their projects. We had to have 5 finish to do a national pitch competition and we did. Because of this we have a team in the semi-finales. Each team had to make an app and write a business plan. They then had to make a video about their project and give a live pitch. It was a lot of work, but it was so cool to watch these girls learn how to do everything and finish a project that was hard for them. I was so proud of my team for finishing on time. We might not have won this year, but watch out for us next year!
The end of April was Easter break for the teachers, so a group of us went to Armenia for three days. We drove down in a shared taxi. Capital to capital is only about 5 hours. We took a tour through our hostel on our full day in country and had a great time see all the churches and just enjoying how pretty Armenia is in the spring. We went to the National History Museum the first night in town, so we had a working knowledge of the history and could ask really good questions on the tour. We might have monopolized our guides time. There is no way of telling at this point. Like good Americans we found the Mexican restaurant the first night and the Chinese restaurant the second night. I just want everyone to know how much I love Mexican food and how much more I love it in Armenia.
The day after we got back from our trip was Orthodox Easter. For part of Easter I went with my family to a few grave years to honor deceased family members. Many people bring food and wine and have a supra at the graveside. We just brought wine, eggs, and cake. You leave them on the grave so that even the dead can celebrate. We also played a game where two people hold eggs and smash them together. If your egg breaks you loss. I won the first time I played and then never again.
The next week I went to a camp in Borjomi. It was a camp for girls focused on fitness and leadership. Each day had some class work, team building games, and working out. We started every morning with a hike in the national park next to our hotel. One day we tried to teach the girls kick ball, that didn't really work out so we ended the activity with them running lines and doing push ups. We had camp rules and if a girl didn't follow the rules she had to do squats. One of the rules was to be on time, there were lots of squats done because of this rule.
I left camp to meet up with Melody, Logan and there visiting friend for a weekend in Mestia. Getting to Mestia involves hours on a marsh and driving over a few waterfalls that covered the road. It was cloudy the first two days we were there. You couldn't see the mountains much and it rained a little. We still had a fun going to the ethnographic museum, driving out to Ushguli (the highest continuously inhabited settlement in Europe), and eating kubdari. Our last day in town the sun came out and we could see everything. It was so beautiful, We took a ski lift to the top of one of the mountains and took a 1000 photos each. We then headed home to Poti for a day before I had to head to Gori to help with PST.
I tried to to the whole trip to Gori and back in one day, but it didn't work out. I missed the last marsh to Poti by 15 minutes and ended up staying with a friend. So I had to be on the 7 am marsh home the next day to make it to my office in time to help with that days project. We spent the day taking much needed furniture to 13 different families in Poti. The furniture ranged from kitchen chairs to wardrobes. It was a hot day and we were all very tired by the end, so we ended the day at a supra.
I had a meeting in Tbilisi Monday morning, so I went in a little early to spend the weekend with friends and go to church. I had no responsibilities on Saturday so I went with some friends to David Gareja Monastery complex. It is a Georgian Orthodox monastery that is partly carved out of caves located in the Kakheti region. From the top of the hill the monastery is built into you can see Azerbaijan. It is in the middle of the desert and we saw a few lizards and snakes.
So there you have it. Everything I've been up to. It's been a lot of travel and I've put in something like 48 hours on the road in the last month. It's been crazy, but a lot of fun!
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