Wait, there's actually a word for "early" in this language?

Heather and I have been in Georgia for a month now, and the country has begun to feel more and more familiar with each passing day. I wake up in the morning to roosters crowing, dogs barking, cows mooing, and my Georgian grandmother single handedly causing the world to orbit the Sun. The mornings go a bit like this:

-Go downstairs

-Tell the family that I'm not hungry and that I'll be late for school if I sit down to eat

-Wash my face and brush my teeth

-Am forced to sit down and eat some bread and cheese and drink a cup of tea

-Attempt to leave the table

-Am cajoled into eating more bread and drinking more tea

-Look at the clock, realize we have 20 minutes in which to make the 35 minute walk to school

-Scowl at my host sister, who is taking her sweet time brushing her hair

-Finally leave the house with 17 minutes to go

-Argue with host sister the entire way to school

It's actually the most consistent part of my life here in Georgia, and I'd be lying if I didn't admit to enjoying this routine.

School is going well. I love my school. I love my teachers. I love my students. And I've found that I like teaching quite a bit. I also enjoy the occasional bottle of wine to myself and long Sunday drives, but I do not mix these two things for a reason. In a similar manner, I'm not sure that all the variables of my school should be mixed together.

Of course I'm saying this after teaching four solo classes yesterday (LOL contract violation), in which three of my classes were awesome (yay for the 3^rd graders, 6^th graders, and 7^th graders) and where my remaining class, my 2^nd graders, went absolutely apeshit, threw approximately 15 paper airplanes at me, and ran out of the room/school building halfway through the class period. I just let them go and prayed for wolves. That really is an exception to the norm though. Usually my kids are awesome. I think it was a mixture of my inability to speak teacher Georgian (see: “Sit down or I'll hang you in the well by your ankles”), their general restlessness at school (I mean, they are only eight after all), and, I don't know, maybe it was a full moon or something. Also, I've been here for a month, so I'm not really exciting to them anymore (which is great for me, because it was driving me nuts being introduced to every Tom, Dick and Giorgi in this village).

Oh yeah, my village. I don't think I've talked about my village. Well, my village is the best village, obviously. That's the general opinion in these parts at least, which makes sense, seeing as IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GET OUT OF THE VILLAGE. Actually, getting around Georgia in general is a novel experience. Though I imagine the same could be said for having a limb amputated. What can I say? Serendipity does not live in Georgia. But her sister Inconvenience does, and she's the Minister of Transportation.

What else is new? Well, a few weeks ago I attended a Georgian wedding, which was all sorts of fun and insanity. Think My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but with more drinking and yelling and gypsy dancing. Also, the entire wedding party is held outside in a tent. Also, some of the drinking is done from gigantic hollowed out animal horns. Also, there is so much drinking. SO. MUCH. DRINKING. I had to run away (actually run away) from multiple offered shots of wine and of stuff that would take varnish off of furniture. Also, you didn't misread that. Shots of wine. They do wine shots. “Shots”. Glasses roughly two inches in diameter and three inches tall. Filled to the rim. And it's all homemade. So, you know, it's moonshine. And tomorrow we have another wedding. Georgians are the marrying type. Actually, if Georgia were to make a profile on a social networking/dating website, it'd probably look like this:

Name: Republic of Georgia

Relationship status: It's complicated with Russia.

Looking for: Marriage to a lady Georgian who wants to do all things domestic while Georgia drinks with its buddies and maybe hits things with hammers/axes every now and then.

Likes: Drinking. Arguing. Drinking. Eating fried things. Drinking. Yelling at animals. Drinking while doing all of the aforementioned interests (including drinking while drinking).

Dislikes: Armenians, Abkhazia. Russia. Sobriety.

What else? Last week we paid a visit to the seaside resort town of Batumi, which was absolutely lovely. More lovely was our hotel's shower, which was something akin to Hadj for me. That's really all I remember about Batumi. There was a shower and it was a religious experience. The end.

This weekend I was toying with the idea of visiting a nearby nature reserve called Kolkheti. My plans changed when I went downstairs to ask my family the best way to reach said nature reserve. I was met with horrified looks, followed by my host sister fishing down the English-Georgian dictionary, flipping through a few pages, all before she handed me said dictionary and pointed at one word. Swamp. Apparently it's a wetlands preserve, which sounds like it'd be fun to visit, but which my family seems to think would end with me drowning in a Georgian bog. They're probably not far off, really.

Not much else to report on right now, but I promise to keep everyone posted on any new adventures and shenanigans and stay out of bogs for now. At least until the first frost comes and freezes the quicksand.

With love,

Mitch