A Weekend in Armenia!

For my long weekend I decided to take a trip to Armenia. I had heard good things about Yerevan and reading the guide book intrigued me. I really like churches and historical places, and going there offered me the opportunity to see some biblical places and artifacts. I had Friday off for a church holiday so Leslie, Clare, Erica, and I took the overnight train to Tbilisi. We splurged and got a second class cabin which cost me 11 Lari, or about 7 dollars. We pulled into Tbilisi around 7 am with our minds set on some McDonalds breakfast. We got in a taxi and zoomed to the McDonalds and were crushed when it was closed for repairs. Leslie and I then said goodbye to Clare and Erica, but met a new friend dropping them off at the hostel. We then got on a marshutka with our new friend Dan and headed for Yerevan. On the marshutka we met a nice French guy (who spoke perfect English) who is working on his PHD in France, but was doing his practical teaching in Tbilisi. Driving through Armenia there were lots of huge defunct factories; the Soviet footprint is very evident in Armenia, much more so than in Georgia. We could also see evidence of the vast deforestation because of the energy blockade of 1995. 6 hours later we arrived in Yerevan. We walked to our hostel to find out we were all in the same room. There also happened to be 2 other TLG teachers from my group in my room. Then my new friends and I went on a search to find some good eats. We ended up at a nice restaurant, but unfortunately prices in Armenia are almost at American prices. Fortunately, for reasons beyond my comprehension carrot juice was dirt cheap and I drank copious amounts of it for the rest of the weekend. That night Clemont showed us the sights in Yerevan. The opera house is beautiful, and the city itself is very nice and clean. We walked/ took the escalators up the cascades, which is a huge monument with art galleries and an awesome view from the top. There were even 2 Botero sculptures there, the roman guard, and the fat cat! As little as 5 years ago the cascades were a depressing place, the escalators didn’t work, there was no art; it was just a giant unfinished bleak soviet monument. The government gave the monument to a very rich individual, who opened it was a free art galley for his personal collection. It is a wonderful place to relax, and get a good feel for the city. We ended up at a sheik bar and then turned in early for the night.

Holy day:

The next morning Leslie and I woke up early to go to Khor Virap. Khor Virap is a monastery and church on the Turkish border at the foot of Mt. Ararat. We got to the bus station a few minutes late, and we caught the bus just as it was leaving. It was at that point I knew that God had some pretty special things in store for me. When we got to Knor Virap Mt. Ararat was covered with clouds, so we decided to explore the monastery and see if it cleared up. Virap means well, legend has it that Gregory was imprisoned in the well for 12 years for practicing Christianity. King Trdates III went mad after stoning a Christian woman for not marrying him. Gregory healed him, and then converted the king to Christianity. Then Armenia became the first Christian nation, beating the Romans by 12 years. Gregory of course then became known as St. Gregory. Getting to the bottom of the well was a fun/scary experience, climbing down a rackety ladder that has been there since God knows when. When we got out of the well the clouds were still on Mt. Ararat. We wanted to get to Echmiadzin (the Vatican city of the Armenian Orthodox Church) so we walked 8km to the main road where he hoped to catch transportation back to Yerevan. About 1km into the hike I was feeling depressed, because I hadn’t seen the summit of Mt. Ararat. I happened to turn around and in the middle of the clouds was a hole, showing the summit in all its glory. The pictures don’t really do it justice and the thoughts about Noah’s Ark resting on top of the mountain are really intense when you’re actually looking at it. Back in Yerevan we got a quick bite to eat and we were of to Echmiadzin! We got there at about 12:30 and we wondered around a little bit. At Echmiadzin there is the main cathedral, the treasury, 3 smaller churches, a seminary, a large monument built to commemorate Pope JPII visit to Echmiadzin, gift shop, and the patriarch’s house. It’s a beautiful place, the buildings are very pretty and the grounds are immaculate. The best way I could describe it would be “Capaldos dream land”. The highlight for me no doubt was the treasury, which is located in the main cathedral. It houses in my opinion some of the greatest biblical artifacts. I felt surreal and very special the whole time I was in there. There are no signs; in fact it’s very un-touristy. Artifacts housed there are the spear head that pierced Jesus’ side, a piece of Noah’s arc, and what is believed to be a piece of Jesus’ cross. There were also various artifacts from saints, some very old “Bibles” and the scepters of all the patriarchs of the Armenian Orthodox Church. It is an awesome place if you’re a fan of Biblical Historical sites. We then headed back to Yerevan to see some of the sites we hadn’t gotten to see the night before. We first went to Mother Armenia, which is a huge monument of a lady holding a huge sword, scowling at Turkey. This was once a huge Stalin monument and the military vehicles are still there. Right next to Mother Armenia is Victory Park, an amusement park with a Ferris wheel that gave great views of the city and Mother. Finally we walked to Republic Square where we watched the fountains for awhile before heading back to the hostel for some well needed rest. The next day I traveled for 14 hours back to my village. It was a fantastic weekend indeed.

-Kenneth

Is that the president?

Yes, it had been awhile since my last update. A series of events has caused the delay of updates. 1^st I’ve become significantly more busy since I last updated. I am now working at 3 schools and have started 3 levels of English club after school. Coupled with “coaching” my school to play in its first ever basketball game against another school. It might be the first “official” high school basketball game in Georgia. I’m pretty excited about it. 2^nd of all I’ve had some very exciting weekends which I will expand on later in this blog. Finally internet outages along with power outages have made it hard to update.

My Celebrity weekend!

3 weekends ago I planned on spending a weekend sightseeing in Tbilisi. On Friday as I was traveling to Tbilisi I received a phone call. TLG teachers were being invited to wine making as well as traditional food making in Kaheti, they also told us that the Minister of Education would be there, and that the president might make an appearance. That night Leslie and I arrived in Tbilisi and stayed with Leslie’s school director niece. She lived in your stereotypical Soviet bloc. The outside was pretty drab and dreary and the stairs had no lights and it seemed like a crap hole (for lack of better words). Once we open the door to her apartment it was gorgeous, nice hardwood floors intricate crown molding, the works. Talk about exceeding expectations. They even had a very small vineyard on their balcony. (they are serious about grapes here) The next morning we got on a few busses and headed to Kaheti. When we got there the security was intense so I figured the president would probably be coming. It was a huge vineyard we were at some kind of Agriculture College. The vineyard we were picking grapes had a sign that said it was sponsored by the US government. I felt at home in weird way. As I was picking grapes a large military helicopter did a really low fly-by of the vineyard and then landed followed by a luxury helicopter, that I got reprimanded for taking a picture of. It was the president, naturally the press was there. The teachers kind of made a semicircle around him. He then came over to me and asked me my name, where I was teaching and where I was from!!!! Needless to say I felt like a big shot for a good bit. Then I realized I was a teacher and not the prince of Monaco…. That has been the highlight of my trip so far, without question. He was there for maybe about a half hour and then flew away literally. The rest of the day I made and then proceeded to eat traditional Georgian food. That night when we got back to Tbilisi we went of with the women we were staying with to a night club. What they didn’t tell us was that it was a club opening, after a little haggling we got in. We had a great time; the band was from the late night show in Georgia and they were fantastic. The next morning I was watching TV and club opening was on the news. They interviewed the owner and I happened to be in the background scarfing down some pizza. Later that morning (Sunday) we went to the main church in Tbilisi, the patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church was giving mass, so it was ridiculously packed. It’s a beautiful place, but ill have to go back to really take it in.

The laid back weekend.

2 weekends ago I stayed in the village. I went to wedding, the amount of food was insane (check out the pictures on facebook) It was a great time, of course I got toasted and got put on the spot to say a toast in Georgian in front of 300 people. It was a great time, but definitely different than a Colombian, or American wedding. The next day a reporter from the regional paper stopped by and interviewed me. I got a nice half of page write up along with picture in the paper.

Ill be covering my Armenia adventure in my next blog... so stay tuned~

Blog 6, The long awaited entry!

A lot has happened since my last entry, too much to squeeze into one entry, but I’ll give it a go.

School: Last week was my first full week of school, we started school the Thursday before that. I teach at the ChochK’ati school. It is the hub school for the villages, so as kids get older they leave their village school and come to mine. In my first – third grade classes I have no more than 8 students. About half of the 1st grade parents come to class with them as education starts in 1st grade. My second and third graders are brilliant and I love teaching their classes. My 4th – 6th grade classes get progressively larger and I teach about 22 6th graders. 1st-5th grades are all in English 1 (same books) and the 6th graders are taking English 3. The school probably has about 200 students grades 1-12. On Monday I was asked if I wanted to teach in a more remote village on Tuesdays and naturally I said yes, and now I am also teaching at Guliani school, which has no more than 50 students. Grades 1-8ish? I would say there is about 5 students in every grade and I teach 2 combined classes, and one solo. For some reason my combined classes are 1st and 3rd graders, and 2nd and 4th graders. Also one of my co-teachers was sick on Monday so I got to teach 5th grade alone. They were more rowdy than usually but I corralled them, and I think it was a successful class. Most of my students now have books, but I have no teacher book, or audio CD’s, so I just make up the stories. Today I was asked if I wanted to play basketball against teachers from another village, needless to say I was ecstatic.

Batumi: 2 weekends ago. I’ll call it the Batumi weekend. Batumi is kind of like Las Vegas and Miami compressed into one in Georgia. It is the “it” place to be in Georgia. Knowing what I know now, the wealth in this country is definitely in Tbilisi and Batumi. Anyways on Friday night I was eating dinner with the host family and a commercial for Batumi came on. My host father then says Batumi go? I’m thinking yea it would be cool to go to Batumi some time. (Batumi is about an hour and 20 minutes from where I live) But no, he meant go then and there, it was about 8:30 when he said that. So we went to Batumi drove past some of the sights, and then we watched the musical fountains while drinking Turkish coffee and eating Hacipuri. We probably got home around 2 am. Then on Saturday I get a call from TLG saying the President would like to invite us to the opening of the Batumi Opera house which he would be attending. So on Sunday I was dropped off by my principal my regional resource education center in Lanchuti. There a bus picked us up and took us to Batumi to watch the play/opera. We had great seats, the president walked within five feet of me. I unfortunately didn’t get to meet him, but I did get on national TV. They interviewed one of my friends, and I was in the background. We also ate at really nice restaurants and stayed in some of the best hotels in Batumi. I stayed at the Intourist Palace Hotel and many of my friends stayed at the Raddison Blu. All of us ended up missing the third day of school. But I mean, would you really say no to the president? The best part about the trip to see opera, it was all covered by the Ministry of Education, and in total I think I spent 1 lari on a bottle of water.

Ureki: Last weekend I went to Ureki again, to go to the sea one last time before it gets cold. It was epic adventure, I met up with Riley, Clare, Erica, and Ruth-Anne. I got there a day after they did, and they had met a guy who was the GM at a nice hotel. He gave us the works, nice rooms, made us delicious food ect. Then naturally we ended up at a supra. Some guys were eating and invited us over to their table, got all our food, busted out their homemade wine. Typical Georgian hospitality, no occasion needed. By the end of the night we had taught 2 Georgian grandpas pong, and flippy cup.

Pictures from my adventures are up on facebook, at this link -> https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2330479217402.2132669.1112370002&l=bcaba308ee&type=1

Blog 5

Hello all!

Its been an exciting few days! The TLG meeting in Urek was pretty pointless, I knew all the information already, and we didn’t get our books, in fact I still don’t have my books and school starts on the 15^th. Lesson planning without the material or a schedule is pretty difficult, but I am trying. After the meeting my school principal took me to the Black Sea to walk around for a little bit, and get ice cream! It was a swell day indeed. The next day I went to Poti (a port city about 20km from my house) where my host father works. We went to the propane distributing facility and then to the market which was comparable to something you would find in Kenya or Colombia. Then Erecle and Ana (host siblings) and I walked down to the port and watched some ships come in. The city of Poti itself is nothing to write home about, but it was nice change of pace. That night I was part of my first supra. It came out of nowhere; I was about to go to bed and then some cousins showed up and boom it happened. Copious quantities of food came out of nowhere and so did the wine. A supra is a series of toasts that range from toasting presidents to the family deceased. It was quite an experience to see one in person! The next day the whole family woke up early and we drove about 2 ½ hours to Kutaisi which is Georgia’s second largest city. We went to the market to get school supply, clothes, and miscellaneous items. We then drove about 10km to Gelati which is a church and monastery that was built in 1106! It was awesome. The academy and the church are just great. The church is perched up on a tall hill and the views are wonderful. There also was an active archeological dig site of the monastery’s wine cellar. Finally before going home we visited Monsameta monastery! The nearest road gets you about 1km from the church and then there is a nice path to the monastery. It is perched over a gorge of the Tskhaltsitela River which means red river. There was a massacre by the Arabs there in the 8^th century where bodies were thrown into the river. The legend goes that lions brought the bodies of two Dukes up to the church. The bones were later taken by the KGB, but unfortunate consequences followed them and the bones were promptly returned to the church, where they still are today, in a casket where you can see them. Yesterday was pretty uneventful, I hung out around the house, lesson planning, reading, studying Kartveli, ect. Last night though, we made wine. We started by picking grapes, de stemming them, putting them though a masher, and finally adding water and sugar. We ended up making about 20 liters worth. I also tasted the best grape I’ve ever had. It actually tasted like grape flavoring. Way better of course, it was just fantastic. I hope everyone is doing well, hopefully I get my books soon!

Click on this link for pictures of the previously mentioned!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2330479217402.2132669.1112370002&l=bcaba308ee&type=1

-Kenneth

My house!

Village life!

Hello everybody!

I have a good amount of free time, so I thought I would update. Life in the village is definitely a different pace then it is in the city, but so far I’m liking that. After I got home from school I spent the day playing soccer with my host brother and friends. We also got a big net and dragged through the water (fishing). It was an experience to say the least, but I had fun.

Today I took a walk with my host brother and sister to Leslie’s house. Her house is about an hour away walking. On the way we stopped at a shop and got some pepsi. We also walked past another lot of land my family owns, and it has corn and mandarin trees on it. I also met the family cow, of which my family makes milk, cheese, and butter from. We also eat the chickens that walk around the property. They also grow tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes, nuts, pears, and lemons. Almost everything that we eat is grown and made in house. All that being said I think were a decently wealthy family. Im not sure what my host father does because he works weird hours. My host mom is a history teacher at my school. There are also a couple of home businesses, one of them being selling propane, and the other one being selling nuts. As I write this there are 2 old women are cleaning nuts and putting them into buckets to be sold. My host family has 3 vehicles, A large propane truck (that I’m not sure runs, it might just be used for storage), A old 1970’s? Russian car, and small 2000 Mercedes sedan. The power is a little flaky here, as it just went out, which makes it the second time in as many days.

Tomorrow I have a meeting in Urek where I will meet the regional representative for TLG, and formally meet my school principal and co-teachers. Hopefully we get our books tomorrow so I can start lesson planning and preparing for my teaching debut!

Tata for now

-Kenneth

Home!

Hey all, I am writing you from the school I will be teaching at in Chochkhati Georgia! The has Internet yay! Last night I met my host family and they are very nice. I'll have a host dad, mom, 2 sisters, and a brother for the next four months. They have a nice house in the country side and it reminds me of where knob creek, Kentucky... The landscape, not the town. The drive yesterday was long, but the scenery was beautiful. Naturally because we are in Georgia we had to stop twice for drinks, and countless other times to buy fruit and other food items. I got to my house at about 9 pm and my family had made a feast. kinkahili (meat dumplings), kachapuri (cheese bread) , normal bread, fish, chicken, homemade wine, tea, a dessert bread of kinds and Coca Cola. It was a great meal! The family had a soccer game (Georgia vs. Malta), so I was pretty excited about that. The house itself is very nice. My room has hardwood floors and a double bed and 2 electrical outlets!!!! Yes, the little things in life make me happy. My house also has a toilet, and a shower (with hot water!) I'm sure ill be posting pictures of it later!

-Kenneth