If You Ever See an On-Coming Georgian Wedding- DUCK. AND. COVER.

So I wasn't in Georgia more than half an hour and I got invited to a Georgian wedding! I had been expecting to go to a Georgian wedding last June. It was my fluent English-speaking host cousin's wedding. I had helped her with a bunch of her English classes at the university and we got along really well, but I didn't get an invite to her wedding... But hey, that's cool. I'm not bitter... much. (No seriously, I'm not bitter. I think it may have been a culture confusion mix-up. I never received a formal invite, but that's because Georgia doesn't have a formal mail system. So everything is done by phone. And I'm still not sure if it's common custom that I am part of the family, therefore I am obviously invited. Or I was snubbed. I'm not bitter, just confused.)

The wedding was for my host father's nephew. I was told it was on the 8th, but no one really gave me an exact time. First it was at 12, then it was at 3, then it was at 2. Then it was 1 o'clock and I was told we were going. Thankfully I had the foresight to get dressed early because I know how these Georgians are kind of liberal with their times. And as it turned out, all of the times I was given were correct. And how can this be? you ask. Well, apparently a Georgian wedding is a multifaceted event (or at least, this wedding was multi-faceted). So here's the run down...

First, the family of the groom all met at his house for some light toasting. There were a couple of champagne glasses that made the rounds for all the people in the groom's family. When it was a person's turn to toast they were given one of the glasses, made their toast, and the toaster, groom and groomsmen all drank. So basically it all sounded like an elaborate rouse to get the groom drunk (but that's just my take on the matter). And the groom and a couple of his groomsmen were wearing traditional Georgian dress. It basically looks like a Cossack, but without the hat. (Here's just a picture of the traditional outfit I found on google), but the bride was wearing a very modern white dress.

From there everyone piled into their cars and we drove to the bride's house where her family has been doing the same thing. Now this is the thing you should take away from this blog: If you ever see an on-coming Georgian wedding- DUCK! AND! COVER! (It's in the title. I can't emphasize this point enough, people!) When they all pile into their cars it's basically a giant race to catch up to the limo, and the limo drives like it's a race to get to the wedding first. Everyone is bobbing and weaving through traffic, cars are slipping between each other, driving on the wrong side of the road. It's madness. And I was in the car with the guy videotaping the whole shebang. So not only were we bobbing and weaving, we were also skidding 180s around corners so he could get footage of the whole car procession. At one point we drove right up alongside the limo nearly taking off the side mirrors of both cars!

So after we picked up the bride we went to the church. And this was one of the odd parts. We spent a good half hour milling around the church, which is very easy to do because Georgian Orthodox churches don't have any pews. If you've ever seen a Russian Orthodox church it's basically the same aesthetic- no pews, frescoes of saints and Jesus, candle holders, icons. At one point I thought the wedding began because I heard the wedding march, but it just turned out to be someone's ringtone on their cell phone. Finally the priest showed up and the wedding commenced. And maybe I could have appreciated it more if I spoke fluent Georgian, but I don't, therefore the entire hour of the priest chanting was kind of lost on me. But it seemed that I wasn't alone because throughout the ceremony people kept on walking around the church, chatting with each other. At any given point during the ceremony half the wedding party was outside in the church courtyard. And a couple of times my host sister asked if I wanted to go sit down outside. All in all, everyone seemed a wee bit underwhelmed by the whole ceremony. Not a tear was shed.

After the church ceremony we piled into the cars again and began the mad dash to what I assumed was the party (and I was starving by this time, so I sincerely hoped it was the party). And we pulled up to a big restaurant-looking building. Once again we milled around in the big marble lobby for a bit. Pictures were taken by all. My host sister told me it would be a ceremony with dancing, which I assumed to mean party. But it was, in fact, another ceremony. We were all brought into this very, very pink room with some large mirrors on the walls (that all of the women flocked to and checked their makeup). There was a little stage in the middle of the room with a podium to the back of it. A woman, wearing what looked like a waitress outfit of a plain white button-down and a black skirt, turned on a very loud rendition of the wedding march and the bride and groom walked in arm-in-arm. They stepped up on the podium where the waitress-looking woman said a few words and the bride and groom signed their marriage contract. This whole ceremony felt so contrived. It looked more like some drive-by Vegas wedding than an actual ceremony. And yet people were getting tear eyed! After they signed their contract the woman switched the CD player to some corny overly romantic song and the bride and groom had their first dance as one of the bridesmaids went up to a second level of the room and sprinkled large silver confetti on them. Now I thought that this was maybe a little thing that the restaurant did and from there we would go into the room where the party would be. But nope, this was the whole purpose of this stop.

So back in the cars we all piled and off to Sameba Cathedral (here's the wiki page for it). This is the big cathedral in Tbilisi. And I must say, it is quite impressive. Just walking up to it is amazing. The marble walkway from the entrance gates up to the church steps is simply gorgeous. It almost makes you feel like you're walking on water. And there are gardens, which I only saw a small portion of. I would love to go back some time just to spend a leisurely afternoon and really enjoy it. And also take plenty of pictures. Being there really made me wish that I had a nice camera.

Finally we got to the party! As far as American wedding ceremonies go, I would say it was fairly similar. Except the songs were all in Georgian (except for one heavily Georgian-accented Spanish rendition of Shakira's 'This Time for Africa'), and the toasting was also in the Georgian style of no one drinks the wine unless there has been a toast made by the tamada (the 'toast master'). Oh and there was food. So much food. By the end of the night we were five layers deep in food because they just kept piling the serving plates on top of the last one- even though all the plates still had food on them! The food was very Georgian. And my host father's brother (I think that's who he was), kept piling food on my plate and he wouldn't let me pour my glass, even when I was pouring water! He would take the bottle out of my hand and our the rest himself, despite the fact that it was almost full anyway. That did start to bother me. I like to be a very hydrated individual (which is weird for Georgians because they never drink water), so I was refilling my water a lot. But he refused to let me do it myself!

Another difference with the songs was also that occasionally they would do a traditional song that required the traditional dancing, which I have only the vaguest idea of what to do. So I did not dare go out on the dance floor when I saw people's hands start doing the little twirly motions. The dance floor is also a dangerous place when they are doing the traditional dances- there is a lot of leaping and jumping involved. I'm not very well coordinated on a good day. But when there are people running and leaping around me, I know it'll end poorly for all parties involved.

A random cultural thing I noticed was that it doesn't seem improper for other women to wear to wear white! I saw the first woman in white and thought, "Oh, that's in poor taste." But then a couple other women were wearing white, too, so it must not be an issue.

Well, folks, that was my Georgian wedding experience! If you ever get a chance to go to a Georgian wedding definitely grab it. Just be well hydrated and maybe have a snack on hand.

Tourist for Hire

I received an interesting phone call today from TLG, the government program that I am working for. They were calling to let me know that they offering an excursion for volunteers this weekend which was leaving from Telavi, the town I live in. Alexander, the friendly Georgian in charge of these excursions, wanted to know if I was interested in joining this all expenses paid, one day excursion. Unfortunately, I had already made plans for the weekend. Alexander seemed a little disappointed, but assured me there was another free excursion next Sunday and he promised to e-mail me the information.

Alexander's call was very informative and I appreciated his effort to inform me of this complementary outing. But at the same time the call reminded me of a telemarketer calling to let me know about a free weekend at a ski resort, if I would only agree to an hour long informational session, or a free lunch for anyone interested in a real deal of a cruise package! But, no. Of course these excursions aren't gimmicks to get me to buy something... Or are they?

The teaching program I'm on is called TLG, Teach and Learn with Georgia. It is run by the Georgian Ministry of Education and its objective is to bring native English speakers into Georgian public schools and teach English alongside a Georgian English teacher. At its heart it is an educational program. But I can't seem to shake this nagging feeling that it is also some greater tourism ploy. And this suspicion is not unfounded. From the outset TLG has strongly encouraged us "volunteers" (because we are technically, legally, and contractually called volunteers, an irony that I will reveal later) to travel around Georgia. Although TLG is an educational program, it is also a cultural interchange program. We live with host families- which, as you may have inferred from my previous blogs, is a whole lot of cultural interchange. As a result of living with host families we get to know the culture of the area we are living in. TLG also encourages us to visit fellow TLG'ers around the country, which offers a chance to learn more about the cultures in different areas; and in a country that's only the size of South Carolina, there are actually significant differences between the regions. (Me? I'm in the region known for its traditional values and aversion to social change. Great.)

It is not surprising that TLG encourages us to travel. Most of us are under 30 and if we're willing to take a job in the tiny, little known country of Georgia than chances are we are a group of people not averse to travel. But what I was surprised by was just how emphatic they are about getting us to travel around the country. In order for TLG "volunteers" to be able to travel around we are actually paid more per month than our Georgian co-teachers. Yes, you read that right. We get paid more than our co- teachers who do this thanklessly day in and day out. And it is not a small difference. Volunteers working for TLG get paid 500 lari after taxes every month. The average Georgian schoolteacher gets paid 100-200 lari per month. This is an awkwardly huge discrepancy that I am often embarrassed of when people ask me what I get paid. And Georgians do ask what we get paid, often. I have met people and within five minutes of being introduced they have asked me what I get paid. The extra salary is not going toward our savings for flights back home, either. TLG pays for our flights to and from Georgia, including summer vacation. During our week-long orientation the TLG staff was quite open about the fact that we get paid this extra amount in order for us to travel around Georgia, and in part to compensate for some of the situations that people might be placed in. In a country where a kilo of fruit or vegetables might cost as little as 3 lari, 500 lari goes a long way.

So why the expense? It's not like the Ministry of Education and Science couldn't use the money somewhere else, like making sure every school has heat and electricity, basic supplies for schools such as chalk and proper chalk boards, repairing the rooms that simply can't be used because the floors have been torn up and the windows have been broken. The list could go on. Perhaps the government hopes that by bringing enough foreigners into this tiny Caucasian country- they're goal is to have 1,000 volunteers by the end of the school year- that word will spread about what a wonderful vacation spot Georgia is. After all, when the program started they placed volunteers in the west of Georgia, on the Black Sea. I don't know how familiar you are with Soviet-era vacation spots, but let's just say Moscow is still green with envy that they don't have easy access to Batumi any more. The program has been moving eastward. My group, which arrived in January was the first to be placed in the Kakheti region, the last region in the east of the country. Despite the fact that the TLG program is being run out of Tbilisi, Georgia's capital and about an hour and a half car ride from Telavi, they started placing people in the west. The west of Georgia not only has beautiful beaches but it is also a lot more socially progressive. And it is in Batumi, the biggest town in the west, that Donald Trump will have another tower in his name. This latest mammoth of gambling and western "culture" (any dictionary with a definition of culture including Donald Trump should be sent back to the editor) is the product of a friendship between Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president, and Donald Trump himself. Clearly, the president has high hopes for Batumi to become the latest summer hot spot.

I might be thinking about this too much, but I simply can't shake the feeling that this is all part of a greater desire by the Georgian government to propel itself back to the "first world" or the "developed world" (which ever term is no longer politically incorrect). I had a conversation with a Georgian man not much older than myself today and he told me that Georgia used to look at countries like India and Pakistan (those were his countries of choice, not mine) and think how nice it was to not be in the third world. But now Georgia is behind. After independence in 1991 Georgia went through a few civil wars, which left a majority of the nation without electricity, even Tbilisi had regulated blackouts at night. This electricity crisis lasted several years. It was probably this period that caused Georgia to slip "out of the top." As other countries in the world were quite literally powering forward- advancing technology, incorporating computers into daily life, developing this little thing called the world wide web- Georgia didn't have any power. And to this day there are stop lights in Telavi that have not worked since Georgia became an independent country. If there are any Georgian political experts in the audience, please correct me if I'm wrong with this theoretical summary of modern Georgian history. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that is is a bad thing for a country to want to improve its status in the world and bring in foreign investments, but I do want them to be up front about it. If I'm being used to promote Georgia, just give me a heads up, and maybe a bumper sticker or something. However, before Georgia uses all of this energy and money, they should sit down with a mirror and see what needs to be fixed internally before they focus on external opinion.

Perhaps the Georgian government hopes that these several hundred volunteers will spread the word about this sleepy little country with high hopes. Perhaps I am simply a pawn, part of some plan thought of during some governmental financial planning meeting. All I know is that no matter what ulterior motives may lie behind my being here, I am here. And I will enjoy my time here while I have it, even if I am playing right into their hands...

Welcome!

Hello, friends!

Welcome to the blog of my year in the Republic of Georgia.

The reason for my latest adventure is employment! Yay, employment! I've been employed by Greenheart Travel and Teach and Learn with Georgia to be a teaching assistant in a public school in the country of Georgia. Now, I won't know exactly where I'll be teaching until I arrive in Tbilisi in a week's time (Eep! Less that a week!). Once I arrive I'll go through a week of training and basic Georgian language (coolijous, as the Georgia kids would say [it means 'cool']). Then I'll be assigned to my school and host family. I wish I knew now where I'll be going. If I'm to be stationed in the mountains in the middle of nowhere I'd bring warmer clothes and more DVDs. But it's all part of the adventure, I guess.

I should tell you, for those out there who don't know, I've been to Georgia before. When I was studying abroad in England I volunteered with a charity organization called TravelAid. During the year we raised money for TEMI,  a community for the socially vulnerable, in the town of Gremi. Then, during the summer, we stayed at TEMI for a month, living and working on the farm. I met some amazing people and can honestly say that was the most exciting and unique month of my life. I really can't wait to return to Georgia and hopefully visit my friends at TEMI.

And I won't have to wait long. I'm leaving Boston on Friday, January 28. And after a day and a half of travel I'll arrive in Tbilisi.

Exciting things are just around the corner. Stay tuned!

                                          

Some links to the organizations I mentioned:
Greenheart Travel, Teach in the Republic of Georgia
Teach and Learn with Georgia
TravelAid
TEMI