Become Georgian in 6 Steps

In just a few hours I will leave Georgia for a month long vacation in Israel. I’m excited to revisit a country I’ve fallen in love with so many times and catch up with old friends and meet new ones. But before I go I think it’s important to note that when I leave Georgia tonight, I will not be an American leaving Georgia- I will be a “real Georgian girl” (as Nini likes to say) leaving Georgia.

Over the past three and a half months I seemed to have transitioned from East Coast American into Western Georgian- and I will tell you how you too can fake being Georgian in just a few easy ways.

1) Master the “qkh”

There is no quicker way to fake being Georgian than to sound like one. The trickiest letter in the Georgian alphabet makes a sound like “qkh”. The noise comes from a very specific part in your throat and almost sounds like a subtle quack.

Nini and Eka made me practice making the noise so many times one evening that I ended up with a sore throat. Nonetheless, a cup of tea with lemon and honey later, my “qkh” sound making session was resumed.

You are not a true Georgian until you can correctly recite the tongue- twister about a baqkhaqkhi (frog). If I had a lari for every time someone asked me to recite it, I could probably afford my own flight home to New York.

2) Crack open 10 sunflower seeds in twenty seconds

Georgians love their sunflower seeds. It seems to be the snack of choice when watching TV, walking around town or even viewing a play. People seem to eat sunflower seeds as frequently as you might notice someone chewing gum. And they’re damn good at eating them too.

They can crack them open and eat them with one swift motion; some people can even crack several at one time.

I have no idea how people do this. First off, I think the seeds are tasteless. Secondly, it takes me like a minute to eat one seed because I have to spit out half the shell. The art of eating of sunflower seeds is a skill I’ve yet to master (but I have another six months in Georgia to work on that).

Nini loves it when I share a bag with her, because by the time it takes her to finish an entire bag of seeds, I’ve only eaten like twelve

3) Rock the knee-high boot

Sure, we all know Georgians love to wear black, but ladies- to truly fit in you need a pair of black-knee high boots (the higher the heel, the better). Everyone in town seems to own a pair, and Samtredia is not exactly fashion conscious so I can only imagine how high the average heel should be if you live in Tbilisi. My co-teacher Nona even has two pairs of four-inch stiletto boots.

I bought my own pair of knee high leather boots in Batumi the other weekend and I’ve felt increasingly more Georgian ever since.

4) “Vaime deda” is your go-to “I’m scared” phrase

When a balloon pops unexpectedly in front of your face, what’s your go-to phrase? In Georgia, that phrase would most likely be “vaime deda!” This is somewhat similar in meaning to the colloquial phrase, “oh my god” except that “vaime deda” pretty much means “oh my mother”.

I’ve been training myself to say “vaime deda” whenever I am spooked (which is fairly often considering every child in Georgia seems to be setting off New Years poppers every minute of the day).

It’s definitely not a habit. On occasion I do say the word “mother” when I get scared, but it’s less a Georgian colloquial phrase and more an English profanity…

Nonetheless, you can surely trick people into thinking you’re a true Georgian by uttering “vaime deda” at literally any given opportunity.

5) Wink, don’t wave

Winking here is not code for “hey you’re good looking” it’s as common as waving. Even some of my third graders will wink at me when I see them on the street. I mean really, why go through all the trouble of raising your arm when you can just shut an eye and it’s considered greeting someone? (That was sarcasm right there).

It seems as though most American girls have some type of vendetta against winking (me included). In the states, winking is synonymous with creepy men. But if you decided that every man/boy/toddler/newborn baby in Georgia who winks at you is creepy, there would be no men left.

6) “Hello” may not be universal but “I love you baby” sure is

There are very few words that seem to be universal. Sure, “taxi” and “radio” are the same in most every language but these words can only get you so far. (“Justin Beiber” also seems to be a universal phrase these days, but that’s a different story). While some people simply may not know the word “hello”, I’ve yet to meet someone who does not know the phrase, “I love you baby”. It seems to be more of a greeting than a statement.

Case in point:
Person A: Hello
Person B: I love you, baby

Person C: How are you?
Person D: I love you, baby

Person Y: Gomarjobat, sad aris banki? (Hello, where is the bank)
Person Z: Kartuli itsi? (You know Georgian?)
Person Y: ki, tsota (Yes, a little)
Person Z: I love you, baby (I’m most likely an asshole)


So there we go, when you’re in Georgia, and you just can’t quite remember the word for ‘thank you’ (it’s g’madlobt) you can just utter the phrase, “I love you baby” and everyone will be on board.

Okay people, there you have it. As long as you can pronounce the “qkh” sound while you’re wearing your knee-high boots eating sunflower seeds and happen to utter the phrase “vaime deda” when you catch a fifteen year old boy winking at you saying “I love you, baby”- you will fool the world into thinking that you too, are a “real Georgian”.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday was my birthday! And thanks to all my adorable students, caring friends and loving family it was just a great day.

My celebration actually kicked off on December 14th when my seventh graders decided that because I wasn’t going to teach them on my birthday, they’d sing to me a day early. They thoughtfully added the word “tomorrow” (though they pronounced it ‘timaroo’) to each line of the standard birthday song. It was very, very cute. (Though I did have to go into teacher-mode correct their pronunciation of ‘tomorrow’).

On the night of the fourteenth, I stayed up pretty late with Nini as she filled me in on all the latest gossip from school. (I love having a fourteen year old sister). Once the clock hit midnight, I didn’t know if I should mention that it was my birthday so I kept that little fact to myself and crawled into bed around 12:30am. Just after I got nice and comfy in bed, Nini barged in and told to get up. In her grey kitty pajamas she sang me a birthday song (though she adorably forgot some of the words).

Back in bed and asleep this time, around 1:30am Eka barged in and told me to get up out of bed. After some kisses, some congratulations and a cash gift “to buy something nice” I was finally back in bed for my birthday sleep.

School on my birthday was just so much fun. I was a bigger celebrity than usual. Instead of everyone just wanting to say to talk to me, everyone greeted me with a hearty “gilocav" or "gilocav dabadebis dges” and gave me a hug or a kiss. I must have kissed at least eighty people yesterday and thanked at least three hundred.

In each of my classes my students sang to me in English and were just so beyond excited that I chose to go to school on my birthday (my director said I could take the day off if I wanted). My third graders were so wound up that they kept interrupting the main teacher to remind her it was my birthday.

But the cutest class that I had yesterday was with my eighth graders. The entire class chipped in and bought an adorable journal as a gift. They then asked me if it would be okay if they wrote wishes to me in the journal. (They gave it to me blank in case I didn’t want them to write in it, how sweet is that?) Of course I wanted them to write in it so throughout the lesson they kept passing around the journal carefully writing in their neatest handwriting. All the kids wrote their wishes to me in both English and Georgian saying that ‘by the end of June I’ll be fluent in Georgian’ (I teach optimists).

Some of my thoughtful eighth graders and my co-teacher Nona to my left 

I have a journal full of cute notes like this :)

After fourth period all the teachers had to go to a mandatory teachers meeting. Turns out, this teachers meeting was actually just a meeting in honor of my birthday. Everybody just talked about how great I was for twenty minutes. I was even given a huge bouquet of flowers and some cherry chocolates after all the teachers sang to me. They all learned how to sing the birthday song in English just for me. (It was for sure the best teachers meeting we’ve had yet)!

With Nini and my flowers (and my polar bear slippers)

After school I met up with all the girls and they took me out to lunch at our favorite restaurant in Samtredia. Walking to the restaurant the whole town seemed to hear it was my birthday (though holding a bag of gifts and flowers didn’t hide it) as everyone seemed to wish me a happy birthday. After a wonderful lunch of all our favorite Georgian dishes, Melissa and I headed over to my house to start baking my cake while Tara and Emily went to go “do a load of laundry”.

Well, or so I thought we were going to bake a cake. According to Nini and Eka, it’s tradition that the birthday girl bakes her own birthday cake. I was ready to bake and didn’t even really notice that Melissa was stalling, but then all of sudden Emily and Tara walked in with a beautiful fruit pizza cake! It was huge!

After blowing out 24 candles (one for good luck) we all enjoyed fruit pizza and lots and lots of wine. The whole afternoon was just spent drinking, eating, dancing and laughing. How wonderful does that sound?

At one point during the evening a dental patient knocked on the door and I tipsily opened the door. I meant to tell him that I was the birthday girl, the “iubilari” but I accidentally said I was “choti lari” (five laris). After Eka quickly explained that no, I’m not a prostitute, this man also wished me a happy birthday.

Dancing with my host dad Vakho!

The whole day was just so lovely and sweet. Plus after Nini and I walked the girls home at night, we somehow got dragged into a supra with all of Vakho’s friends at a restaurant in town. Nini and I managed to escape and went back home to enjoy yet more wine with more family and friends. The two of us ended up falling asleep together cuddling on a chair; a cute little end to a very sweet birthday.

P.S. Nini took lots of really cute photos yesterday on her amazing camera, but her USB cord is MIA so check back sometime later for cute birthday photos!

Even President Saakashvili sent me a birthday present! Well okay, maybe he sent this holiday gift to all the TLG kids, but you have to note the timing :)

Jingle all za Bells!

As the holidays are quickly approaching (unless you’re Jewish in which case they already past) the Christmas spirit is slowly starting to kick in around town. Shops are selling tinsel and lights, kids are walking around town wearing Santa hats and of course, holiday concerts are in full swing.

A paper menorah I made for my window.

 The first (but certainly not the last) holiday concert I went too was put on by the local Samtredia hospital. Many doctors, from pediatricians to gynecologists, performed a little something on stage. I guess you could call it a holiday variety show. Some doctors performed long (may I repeat: long) Georgian poems, others sang songs while most doctors chose to recite funny anecdotes from the workplace.

While my Georgian may be limited, I’m pretty sure anyone could understand the body language for a ‘women giving birth’; a theme that seemed to be a central aspect of many of these anecdotes. After all, nothing says, “Merry Christmas” like a story about a baby crowning.

Of course, the main reason that me and the girls even went to the show was to see our favorite sixth grader Koko perform a solo performance of Jingle Bells. Both of Koko’s parents work for the hospital (they drive the ambulance) and little Koko was asked to perform an English song.

Melissa had been practicing ‘Jingle Bells’ with him for what seemed like weeks. On Wednesday night Koko even called me and serenaded me to sleep. (Okay that might be a bit of an exaggeration but it was a cute phone call, nonetheless).

I was sure that Koko knew that song like the back of his hand so I was excited to watch him perform for a crowded audience. You can imagine my surprise then when Koko began singing Jingle Bells in a made up language. Yep.

Instead of “Dashing through the snow on a one horse open sleigh” he said something along the lines of “Dashem bang poo sheem, on a Santa klashen boom”. The entire song was sung in this sort of made up language.  

Melissa and I sat in the aisle to take photos and videotape the whole thing and almost burst out laughing. The whole thing was just so adorably bizarre. Koko had just practiced the entire song with Melissa and me maybe five minutes before he went on stage, and yet all of a sudden he was just making up his own jig.

In all honesty though- did it sound like English to someone who didn’t know English? Probably. Was it absolutely adorable to hear him singing on stage by himself? Absolutely.

Koko singing his little heart out on stage.

After his performance little Koko ran down the stairs into Melissa’s arms and asked, “What language was that?” (Potentially one of Koko’s cutest one liners ever).

When we were back in our seats I had this conversation with Koko:

Me: Koko, why didn’t you sing in English? Were you nervous?

Koko: No. The man told me that there are people from Belarus sitting here. So I sang in Belurussian.

Me: Koko do you know Belarussian?

Koko: no. but I thought maybe if I tried too, it will be Belurussian.

Me: Okay. So you didn’t sing in English, because you thought you’d try to sing in Belarussian, even though you don’t know Belarussian.

Koko: Yes. Do you think it was maybe Belarussian?

Me: No. But you are adorable (giggles)

Koko: Why you laugh at me?

There is no one more adorable (and audacious) than eleven-year-old Koko Bakaladze. I wish I had the courage to attempt to make up a language on the spot in front of a full crowd. Maybe I’ll volunteer to perform a Georgian poem at a spring concert and when no one can understand a word I’ll say, “I think I saw a Lithuanian in the back row, I was reciting the poem for him”.

Cosmo Magazine in the Classroom

My ninth graders are one of my hardest grades of students to engage. Asides from being rowdier than a cluster of jungle animals, most of them have only a very basic understanding of English. The government-mandated textbook for their age level is just too advanced for them.

Whenever they read something in class, practically every other word is foreign to them. A great majority of them are taking English tutoring lessons during the week at a beginner’s level. So in essence, they’re trying to learn English, they just need to be learning it from a sixth grade textbook.

I tried to talk to Nona and the other English teachers about disregarding a student’s age, and placing them in a class based on their skill level- but somehow, no one at my school seems to think this a worthwhile idea. Go figure.

Thus, I try to do activities with the ninth graders where they can use the minimal English that they seem to know in a way that correlates with their current curriculum.

Not too long ago the ninth graders were studying how to start their own business. Much of the text seemed to go in one ear and out the other for almost every student, but I thought it would be an opportune time to bring in some American advertisements and have the students try to decipher what the ads were for. A lot of their responses were really entertaining.

One advertisement showed a little girl in a tutu jumping on a sidewalk. In the corner of the advertisement was a photo of a Lunchables school lunch. My students noticed the word “Lunch” in “Lunchables” and agreed that the advertisement was for a type of food. They told me that the message of the advertisement was that if you eat Lunchables, even a puny girl like this will become strong like a man.

I’m not quite sure where they got the “strong like a man” part but the class seemed to be in agreement on this idea.

Another advertisement was for some Clearasail product, a type of freeze-away pimple cream. The advertisement showed a frozen Clearasail tube. The girls who analyzed the product told me that you can put this product on your hands when you’re too hot and it will make you cold. (Who needs an air conditioner when you have freeze-away pimple cream?)

It’s pretty interesting seeing how advertisements are perceived to a generation of kids that a) cannot fully understand English and b) are not exposed to creative print advertising.

Similarly, my eighth graders read a text that essentially talked about the ethics of cigarette advertisements. As a supplement to this text I made my kids a PowerPoint presentation of some of the most creative print ads I’ve seen that encourage people to buy things they don’t need. My kids had a real kick trying to guess the products (even the kids that never like to participate were shouting along in broken English). It was funny how some of the ads that I was exposed to almost daily in the states (ads that I don’t even process) had my twelve year old Georgian students hysterically laughing. One boy even fell out of his chair laughing at some silly shampoo ad!

All the print ads that I’ve seen here in Georgia are very basic and simply show a products uses. Many of my ninth grade students even confused the meat of the magazine with their advertisement. They mistook a page full of different pants as an advertisement for pants and not a spread on different fashionable pants.

I guess it’s important to note that the glossy, colorful magazines popular in America and all over Europe are non-existent in Georgia for all I can tell. Popular Georgian magazines like Gumbati and Tbiliselebi have one clustered, colorful cover and then feature newspaper-style, black and white pages with advertisements that barely take up an eighth of a page.

Sometimes there are funny, creative advertisements on television but often they’re just dubbed commercials from other countries. (There is a cute commercial out now for Dirol gum and my students talk about it as if they helped produce it). Commercials aside, my eighth graders told me that print ads in Georgia are just never funny.

I guess the day Georgia starts issuing glossy magazines, will be a day where it’s one step closer to becoming a fully developed nation.

Marshutka Madness

Sweet statue in Batumi. (I'm hoping it represents gay rights)

In just two weeks the fall semester of school will be over and with that means many TLG volunteers will be saying “nakhvamdis” (goodbye) to Georgia. In an effort to spend one more fun weekend with friends, many volunteers from my orientation decided to meet up in Batumi.

Our weekend was quite lovely. It was so nice to catch up with good friends from orientation and to just sit on the beach and chat. Plus, it didn’t hurt that there was a wine special going on in town (buy three get one free!) We even had our own driver on Saturday night. He took us everywhere we wanted to go (and for free at that). I’m practically getting used to being treated like royalty!

The real excitement of our trip (asides from finding a restaurant that makes delicious club sandwiches) actually happened during our marshutka rides to and from Batumi. On our way there, our speedy Gonzalez marshutka driver actually slammed into another car and pretty much totaled it. It wasn’t so much scary as it was eerie. Just as our marshutka crashed, a girl slammed a baseball bat into a man in the book I was reading. I was pretty glad to realize it was a car accident and not my book coming to life.

The poor little car we crashed into! Almost all the people in this photo were passengers on our marshutka.

The good thing was that nobody got injured in the accident (accept for a few spooked passengers) and we didn’t have to pay for the ride. As soon as we stepped off the marshutka we were herded like sheep into a passing marshutka and ended up having to pay just a lari and a half. It cost about half as much to ride from Samtredia to Batumi (about a two hour journey) than it does to ride one stop on the New York City Subway (about a two minute journey).

Our marshutka ride home had its own excitements. Asides from a soundtrack of late 90s Backstreet Boys (amazing) there were a great number of interesting characters on our bus. A man named Ganuri (or something along those lines)came onto the bus holding a tree branch full of mandarins and sat between Emily and me. He fed us mandarins throughout the ride and ‘talked’ to us in Georgian from the moment he got on, to the moment we got off. He didn’t seem to mind that we don’t speak Georgian- he seemed to like talking at us. I alternated randomly saying “ki” (yes), “ara” (no), and “ver gavigeh” (I don’t understand) just to please him. For all I know, I could have agreed to bare his twelve children.

Ganuri’s little brother also played a nice role on our ride. The poor little guy couldn’t handle the bumpy road and tossed his cookies (or on closer inspection- tossed his lobio) all over the place. He narrowly avoided vomiting on Tara by mere inches. The funny thing was that the boy getting sick didn’t seem to faze anyone; I’d imagine events like that happen all the time.

Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) the marshutka did not smell like throw up at all. Ganuri’s natural body odor was so potent it masked any other scent.

Next time we travel I may just opt to take the train.

Romeo, Juliet, and Michael Jackson

It must be theater season because over the past week Melissa, Tara and I have been to two Georgian plays. Both were equally, well… you’ll just have to read to find out.

Instead of having a traditional Thanksgiving dinner to celebrate the American day of giving (or whatever Thanksgiving symbolizes) the girls and I decided on the less traditional option of going to see a mimodrame (I like fancy French words) of Romeo and Juliet.

We figured Shakespeare would be a safe bet. Plus, who wouldn’t want to see a group of Georgians miming on stage wearing tights? (In retrospect- the answer to that question is me).

We arrived at the old theater in Kutaisi and purchased our three lari tickets. (Can’t get deals like that in Manhattan!) As we were sitting and chatting in the balcony we began to attract the attention of all the other play-goers for speaking the mystical language of English. In fact, when the manager of the theater found out that there were Americans present, she personally came over to greet us and gave us our own box on the first level of the theater. Just another perk of being a foreigner in Saqartvelo!

Right as the show began I had a feeling we were going to be in for a painfully long treat. Melissa even turned to me during the first minute of the show and whispered, “I may have just spent three lari to take a nap”.

The show opened with a giant white ball being thrown around a stage that was set with black lights. I couldn’t tell if this was supposed to represent the moon or unrest between families or if the director just felt like opening with a giant white ball.

I think the play only got more bizarre as the show went on. None of the characters were really defined so we couldn’t tell who Mercutio was or who was a Montague or a Capulet. Plus, all the scenes were just agonizingly artistic to the point where you probably had to be tripping on drugs to make sense of why the characters were dancing with buckets, flying on magic carpets, or doing backwards somersaults (all actual events in the play).

The best part in the whole show was when Juliet drank the poison and the entire cast took on the role of her stomach. That’s right- they were the insides of her stomach. Another winner of a scene was when the characters went to the masquerade ball and an extended version of Michael Jackson’s “We are the World” was played as cast members pranced around for six minutes.

Asides from the fact that the whole play was distractingly tacky and ridiculous, we got such a good laugh out of so many of the scenes that I’m pretty sure it was well worth the three lari. It’s definitely an example of something that’s so bad, it’s good.

The next day we met up with some TLG friends who live in Poti and told them detailed accounts of almost each and every scene. Our friends were so entertained by our outrageous descriptions of the show that they’re making it a mission to come to Kutaisi to catch the next performance!

Our other play-going experience was equally as awkward and bizarre. Again, the three of us girls (Emily was the only one smart enough to say that she didn’t want to come) decided to check out a play at our local Samtredia theater.

Even though we went into the theater knowing it would likely be hard (if not impossible) for us to follow along (the play was entirely in Georgian) we made no efforts to find out what the place was about beforehand. Not one of our brightest ideas.

This theater experience was awkward even before the play started. We somehow sat down right behind Lasha (yes, GeoCell Lasha) and he happened to be on what looked like a very uncomfortable date. And next to Lasha sat Nini who also seemed to be on a date with her non-boyfriend ‘yet-he-totally-is-her-boyfriend’ boyfriend. I totally felt like I was chaperoning my little sister and my computer technician on their dates.

Understanding the play was a lost cause for all three of us girls. There were drugs, aliens with magic powers and some type of love between a heroin addict and a paralyzed woman. I’m actually not making any of this up; this is what the play was seriously about. Even Nini and her friends who actually know Georgian found the play bizarre and hard to follow.

The funniest part of the show actually happened after the actors took their bows at the end of the night. One of the women in the audience called out to Melissa and then said something to the entire cast along the lines of, “Look! It’s Melissa!” And would you believe that right then and there the entire cast and crew of the show began to give Melissa a standing ovation. None of us had any idea what was happening. Melissa just curtsied and thanked everyone for their applause while Tara and I almost died laughing at the bizarreness of the whole situation.

Even now, Melissa has no idea who that woman is and why the entire cast gave her such a hearty, over-the-top welcome. (Talk about Melissa stealing the actors’ thunder). One would think that after being in Samtredia for three months our celebrity status would die down. Nope, not a bit! In fact, the other day in class I even signed autographs both in English and in Georgian!

Farmandia: a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship

Ironically enough, the reason I’m able to blog fairly often is because I basically never get to use the internet at home. While my family and their friends are busy using the internet on the family computer, I tend to sit at my internet-less computer and write blog entries on Word. But why can’t I get to the computer? Two words: Russian Farmville.

Russian Farmville (Farmandia) sadly has a huge presence in my home. Eka is, for lack of a better word, obsessed with it. She spends countless hours each day working on her cyber-farm. She tends to her garden, plants trees and fruits, and even has several factories that make things like pizza, perfume, and jam. (I hate that I know all this).

It’s actually ridiculous how much time Eka dedicates to her farm. She even plants flowers in such a way that they spell out words in Georgian when they’re in full bloom.

Eka plays so much (these are beginning to sound like “yo momma” jokes) that she even refers to the little red-headed gardener in the game as her husband. Sometimes I get confused which husband she’s referring to: her Farmville husband, or her real husband.

Once in a while she’ll call me over and ask where I would theoretically like to go in her farm. I usually prefer sitting by the lake eating fruit before heading into the geisha house for tea. (Though lately there have been many scary-looking geese in her pond, so I’ve strayed from this general area). Clearly, you can see that this game is constantly being played in my house when even I have somewhat of a theoretical routine on Eka’s farm.

Eka is not alone though. Half of Samtredia has a farm on Farmandia, and this half of Samtredia is always at my host family’s home tending to their farms.

I don’t mind not having internet, I just can’t stand that everyone and their mother (that’s not an idiom, that’s a literal statement) spends so much time on virtual vegetable planting. Like seriously, who knew cyber cotton plants would be such a sensation.

But the worst part about Farmville is that even though I hate it very much I think it’s actually somewhat educational. You read correctly. Nino, the fifth-grade teacher in my school learned all about the holiday of Halloween from Farmville. (They had some special pumpkin seeds and haunted houses available during the Halloween season). She stopped me in the hallway to ask me some questions about American Halloween traditions. There you have it; Farmville is an American cultural ambassador.

Then there’s Irakli, Eka’s twelve-year-old godson, who has actually learned the Russian names of all sorts of fruits and plants. He often requests that I sit by him when he plays and he tells me all about his farm in English. He always asks me to tell him the English words for all sorts of things on his farm, and because he loves Farmandia, he remembers all the new words I teach him.

Irakli even made up a song in English about Farmandia which occasionally gets stuck in my head.

It goes:

I have many factoriiiiiiies
My farm is very boo-tiful
I have a good farm! I have a good farm!

I have many cotton plaaaants
Tractors dig in the grouuund
I have a good farm! I have a good farm!

My godparent made my farm boo-tiful
So I say to her, Thanks! Thank you! Thaaaaanks myyyyyy godpareeeeent!

[Those last three words are sung opera style in a high octave]

The song is actually pretty cute when Irakli sings it, but all in all, I curse this damn cabbage-planting game.