So Long, Southeast Asia

I write this post from the lobby of the Phnom Penh airport, preparing to get on a plane and go home after the experience of a lifetime. I’m not sure if this is a post that I will publish, or if this is just something to get my thoughts in order. Regardless, writing my thoughts is and has always been therapeutic, so I’ll just go with it.

The past two and a half months have been nothing short of awe inspiring. In it I have grown, changed, evolved, challenged myself, lost friendships, gained friendships, loved, and most of all, found a part of myself that I never knew existed until I travelled like this. This experience has been vastly different from my experience in Georgia, and I feel much of that difference in my difficulty leaving and my fear of returning home. My departure from Georgia was easy—I was all too ready to leave the country and return home. It’s not that I had a bad time—it was amazing—but by the end I was ready. This experience, however, has totally turned everything around. I haven’t dragged my feet into the ground this much since I graduated from high school. I haven’t stopped crying in the past twenty four hours. I made Olly feel terribly uncomfortable from my emotional whims, as he tried to pat my back and pass me off to Dewi. It’s not that I don’t want to go home. It’s just that I don’t want to leave Southeast Asia. Georgie cried with me, but she left two days ago. It's been emotional, to say the least. This part of the world holds such rich beauty, such room for adventures and growth and good old fashioned fun….I just don’t feel like I’m ready to leave this. I know that all good things must come to an end. The gang split up—Scuba Steve left first, and then there were four—then we were joined by Georgie’s cousin Eve, and then Eve and Georgie left ten days after that (two days ago). Olly and Dewi are headed out to Singapore and then Australia on the 16^th. So no matter how much I wish I could keep going, I know that my experience would change because the people have changed. It was as amazing as it was because of the people I was able to share it with. While I could certainly hop over to Bali on my own—it would be a different kind of experience, a different trip, and what I am craving is a continuance of this experience, the one where I laugh every day with four Brits, get made fun of for my American idiosyncrasies, and feel as though I have lost all conception of day and time in the sweet lull of casual and comfortable banter, constant eye openings, and feelings of love and friendship. Any other experience—though it would surely be great—just wouldn’t be the same. I have to keep telling myself that as I sit at this airport, crying and looking foolish as the stoic Cambodians walk by.

In the past two and a half months I have eaten frog. I have ridden elephants bareback. I have meditated in Angkor Wat. I have ridden a motorbike. I’ve gone white water rafting, bamboo rafting, boating through an ancient cave and have gone drunk tubing down a river in Laos. I’ve realized that I’m not devoid of the capacity to love, a fear I'd grappled with before I left. I’ve also realized that time heals all wounds, no matter how gaping and incomprehensible they may seem. I’ve killed cockroaches and sang to others, been blessed by a monk and found a growing love of nomadic life. I’ve communicated with local hill tribes through a common human desire for interpersonal connection, took a slowboat down the Mekong, and have tried every kind of fruit known to Southeast Asia. I’ve learned how to say thank you in four languages and how best to compliment a person from this part of the world. I’ve laughed harder, cried more, and felt more intensely than ever before.


I've also realized that the title for this blog has been quite appropriate, as the more time I spend travelling, the more I realize that there is never any plan. I left thinking I would spend three months here, working/volunteering for three week stints on various farms and schools throughout S.E.Asia. I was distraught when the first placement fell through and felt like I had no purpose. The longer I stayed (and this really hit me when I met my travel group), the more I started to embrace my planlessness, to love it. I loved waking up every morning, eating breakfast and thinking about what we would do that day, where we wanted to go. There was never any planning or foresight--just like I couldn't have planned to have met these amazing people and to have had the experience I had with them. Nothing on this trip worked out the way I thought it would--and it was so much better because of it. I've realized that having a plan is--(gasp)--unnecessary...that life is spontaneous and that itcan be most enjoyed when we live extemporaneously, making decisions as we go. As much as I am worried about what will happen when I get home--where or if I'll get a job, where I'll live, what I'll do in the fall--I am trusting more that things will work out as they should, just like this experience has. Everything will fall into place. I love this new way of thinking.

I will never, for as long as I live, forget this experience. It has become a part of me, a part of my blood, its own Mekong running through my veins. To Georgie,Sophie, Scuby, Dewi, Olly, and Eve—sinkaman, au kon, kap jai la lai, kap cum kah. For everything. You have made this trip exponentially more amazing than I ever thought it could be.

I’m going to take a brief hiatus from my blog writing (though I have been doing that already in my negligence in updating this thing!) as my travels are coming to a halt until I go to Israel in June. But rest assured I will update them from the holy land, as I’m sure to have more stories to share, more love to give and receive, more growth to experience. Here’s to the journey.

Until next time,

Ali

Cambodia, Cambodia

Greetings from Phnom Penh, everyone!

I am writing this post from beside the pool at our georgeous guesthouse, which is costing us an unbelievable five dollars a night. i could really learn to live like this, i think. we got here yesterday morning, after spending four days in saigon (technically called ho chi minh, but no one there calls it that). saigon was incredible--i absolutely loved it. we were very cultural, and spent more of our time in museums, visiting galleries, and walking about, exploring the cities. soem of the highlight from saigon:
-the cu chi tunnels, which were built by the viet cong during the vietnam war as places to take refuge from the American and southern Vietnamese army. These caves are TINY....and they pop up in places near fellow rabbit holes (basically just a hole in the ground that a tiny Vietnamese person would sit in for hours at a time). We saw some of the methods of torture that teh Viet Cong had in place--trap doors that opened up to razor sharp spears of varying length and bodily aim. We went IN the tunnel, but not the tourist tunnel that they had enlarged--no no, we went in the LOCAL tunnel. the tunnel for teeny tiny Viet Cong. It was the scariest 25 meters of my life. I literally had visions of being trapped in there...claustrophobia majorly kicked in and i got out before the rest of the group did. still, though, i was quite impressed with myself!
-war museum--interesting and horrifically saddening. yes, there was a lot of anti-american propaganda in the galleries. but the most horrifying exhibit was that about agent orange. the realization of the effect that the toxic chemicals (sprayed by the US as basically experiments) had on the people there and the children of the people there was a dark one indeed. Physical deformations about, and there has been nothing done, barely much recognition by the US government of the deleterious effects of agent orange. Deformed fetuses, pictures of horrifically enlarged body parts, of people born without arms and legs due to exposure to these chemicaly--it was a rough exhibit.
-the first subway in vietnam, where i ate not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. my friends have named my alter ego Josie--they say that inside me is an obsese girl that needs to be fed all the time (which is pretty much true). With subway subs right aruond the corner, I got a little nostalgic for Western food chains and indulged in some tuna on honey oat. It tasted pretty delicious after two months of rice and noodles.
We stayed at a lovely hostel where the owners were this older couple, totally dedicated to providing us with the best service. They all hugged us goodbye, gave Georgie (who was sick as a dog) medicated tea, and walked us to our bus to wave us off. Just lovely. You meet the sweetest people traveling.

We arrived in Phnom Pehn yeserday afternoon and spend the day relaxing. This morning we went to the royal palace which was stunning, and then the famed silver pagoda that had a life-size gold statue of the buddha with 2,086 diamonds. I drooled a little bit. Then it was on to the history museum, where we saw hundreds of years of statues of the Hindu and then Buddhist gods. It was beautiful.

Tomorrow we are off to see the Killing Fields, where thousands of innocent people were brutally murdered by the Khmer Rouge. A modern day Auschwitz, the Killing Fields are a potent reminder to us of the devastated past of Cambodia--of a massive genocide that happened only thirty or forty years ago, that wiped out an entire generation of people. From the Killing fields, its on to s-21, the prison in which cambodians were brutally tortured for Khmer enjoyment. It's going to be a rough, but very necessary, day.

My time here is slowly coming to an end. I leave to go back to the states on april 14th, which is way too soon. I have had the most unbelievable time here--have had so many transformative and memorable experiences. I can't believe that two and a half months will have elapsed since I left home. I feel like I'll be returning a new person, enlightened and alive after seeing a part of the world nothing like my own. But I still have almost two weeks left--with good friends, good food, and good sights, it doesn't get much better than this.

A

Clouds in Nha Trang

So I am coming to realize that I am truly horrific at updating this blog. There is just so much happening, I keep forgetting! Here is a brief synopsis since my last update:
-I am now traveling with a wonderful, fun, and loving group of people that I met in Chiang Mai, and with whom I've been traveling for about a month. Three guys and two girls make for amazing adventures, laughs, and a total and complete unawareness of time and place. I have literally no conception of what day it is, what time it is, because I'm so wrapped up in the present and what I'm doing with these wonderful people. I've never been this presently-focused. It's amazing.
-VIETNAM. It's amazing and beautiful. We arrived in Hanoi on the 15th (I think...?) after a tumultuous night bus that was 26 hours and had no bathroom. Can you say uncomfortable? Hanoi was lovely, but freezing, and none of us had the right clothes for the rain and cold. We were pretty uncomfortable and thought that maybe it was just Hanoi that was cold! So after a few days we set down for Halong Bay, a UNESCO world heritage sight and the place where they filmed some James Bond (or so the boys said). It was absolutely stunning and reminded me a lot of Krabi in Thailand, with the rocks jutting out of aqua blue waters. It was, however, still freezing and cold and we were all wet and wearing the same clothes that we'd been wearing for four days. We stayed in this crappy little hotel and all snuggled to try to conserve body heat, but to no avail. We left Halong Bay the next day, literally running away from the cold towards warmer weather and sun. We couldn't get there fast enough.
-We got to Hue, a beautiful little town right smack dab in the middle of Vietnam. It was lovely; we stayed in this beautiful hotel with a balcony overlooking the city. Several western bars and pool tables made the boys very happy, and the sun and picturesque views of the water made Georgie and I happy little clams.We did some touristy things--a river cruise, tours of two tombs of emperors that were stunning, a nationally famous pagoda, etc. and wrapped up our stint in Hue after about two days.
-After Hue, we took a van to Hoi An, which was my favorite city thus far. Situated about three hours south of Hue, it is a tiny, quaint ,town covered in multi-colored lanterns that light up the skyline at night. We rented bicycles, spent a day at the beach, biked around the city, ate lots of food from the best bakery in southeast asia, and went to My Son--another UNESCO sight famed for its 4th century ruins that were once the central feature of the Champa people. I got some amazing pictures (trying to upload them now...the Champa people were Hindu and thus there were some beautiful figures of the Hindu gods dotting the lush green hills that lined the various brick temples). I don't know whether My Son was the highlight of the third day or if the motorcycles we rented were, but either way, it was definitely one of the best experiences I've had on this trip. I hired a driver because I was too scared to motorbike myself (the drivers in Vietnam are CRAZY), and had a blast.
-After three nights in Hoi An (I could have stayed forever), we are now in Nha Trang, a beach town on the coast that is famed in Vietnam for its sunbathing and surfing. It's again been cloudy and rainy (Georgie is convinced she brings the rain), but we've made the most of it and haven't let the weather cloud our fun. Our friend Steve had his birthday yesterday, which culminated in a cake throwing fight and massive buckets of alcohol.

Thats it for now--I'm off to grab dinner before steve and sophie have to head off again, and then it'll be the four of us (Georgie, Dewi, Olly, and me) until georgie's cousin meets us in a week in Cambodia. I will hopefully write more before then!

Sending lots of love from Vietnam,
Ali

A Quick Update

Sabaidee, everyone!

This post is going to have to be short and to the point, as I have to order some food and visit the travel man before getting on a bus, because tonight we are going to Vietnam! We're taking a sleeper bus (should be interesting) that leaves at 6:30 tonight and gets into Hanoi at the same time tomorrow.

I promise to write a much longer post when I get the chance. But here is a quick recap from my last entry:

-Luang Prabang, Laos. Unbelievable. I felt like we were going back in time, in this slow, lazy town on the Mekong. We spent about four days there, and the highlight was going to Elephant Village, this conservation organization that rescues female elephants that were abused in the logging industry. The Village works with the elephants and helps domesticate them while ensuring their health and physical activity. We did a two day elephant adventure program at the Village, where we rode elephants bareback through a river and washed them in the water. It was such a special experience...I didn't think I would ever have been as comfortable riding on the head of an elephant, my knees wedged between her wiggling ears (which means she was happy). I felt so in my element, so at ease washing her in the water, being totally submerged and wet as she filled her trunk and sprayed water everywhere. It was unbelievable and was an experience I'll never forget.

-Vang Vieng, aka the home of extreme tubing, Laos edition. Picture a river lined with bars, where you tube down, totally drunk, and hold your hand out for ropes that the Lao people throw to you to reel you in to the bars. We had two full days of tubing before I had to stop because my liver physically hurt. So many dance parties, mud wrestling, and floating down a river in the unchartered, mountainous country of Laos. It was incredible.

-Kong Loh Cave. We took a six hour bus ride down into the southern part of Laos for what was an unbelivable special experience, being in a part of the country that was totally untouched by tourism. We were literally the only white people in the village; every time we walked by the local people, we would get a chorus of hellos....kids would run up to us, touch us, take pictures. We went into this massive cave that went for what felt like a good mile and a half, full of huge stalactites and stalagmites. We sat in a longboat, immersed in total darkness--the only light came from our headlamps. It was actually like a descent into Hades, and being the dork that I am, I half imagined scenes from the Inferno happening above me. It was so creepy and so, so cool. I've never seen anything like it in my life.

-Vientiene. It's a crap town, really, and we've been here for one too many days. But we are leaving tonight, and I couldn't be more excited. So much more to write, but I have to go order a bread bowl so I can get moving. I'll write more when I have the chance, I promise.

Much love to all. xo

The Land of A Million Elephants

Hello from Laos, everyone!

What an unbelievable last week it has been. I feel like so much has happened in just a couple of days, it’s hard to keep track of everything we’ve done, of all the people we’ve met. Here are some of the highlights:

-A day trip of elephant riding. AMAZING. We even got to see a baby elephant, who was just three weeks old! Cutest thing in the world. I wanted to steal him, but his mother was hovering very protectively. We rode the adult elephants for about an hour, sitting on the little chair that most of these touristy places provide. It was amazing, but I hate how the elephants are shackled and chained up. I think we are actually going to go on a two day elephant-camping trek, in which we learn to bathe and ride the elephants ourselves, bareback. I might have a small panic attack mounting one of the huge guys, but they are so gentle and loving, I think maybe I can try to connect with them. When our elephant let us off, I thanked him and he raised his trunk to my hand. It was lovely.

-We then went on a hike up a mountain , swam in a waterfall, and then went white water rafting. The problem with the rafting and waterfall bit was that Thailand is in its dry season now, so the water levels were super low. Thus, there was a lot of “RIGHT!” “LEFT” and such directions being yelled at us by our guide, and I energetically was hurling my body in every direction, trying to get the boat to move. My rafting mates were not as zealous as I was, but they got a kick out of my energy. It was a great time, and then we went on a bamboo cruise (which was more like being dragged through a dirty river because this guy from Canada was driving…just kidding Ryan J). The day was one of the best I’ve had here. We returned to our hostel (which we loved and through which we met our newest travel companions). Two days later, seven of us (the original four, plus our friends Dewi, Georgie, and Olly) headed out on a long boat to Laos. Picture a house on a boat, with leather seats, and that’s exactly what it looked like. It was an amazing experience, cruising down the Mekong River, the heart of Southeast Asia, watching the mountains looming in the distance and occasionally fishermen setting out their nets in rocky coves. It was like a trip down a different decade, a different century. We arrived in Luang Pra Bang, Laos this evening, and checked into a lovely hostel/hotel where we’ll be staying for the next two nights. Friday we are hopefully going on the elephant trek, which will go into Saturday. From there, who knows?

Every day here I feel like I’m conquering some new challenge, some new issue. My first week or two were plagued by the fear that I didn’t have a plan and what could someone like me do with that? And I have come to beautifully accept this plan-lessness and have really started to embrace it. Hygiene has gone out the window, as has any desire to make myself look appealing. It’s Laos and it’s hot and I’m perpetually covered in sunscreen and bugspray. And I’m totally okay with it. Last night I discovered a party of cockroaches in the bathroom. My new tactic is to flash a lot of lights at them and sing to them, and then do my business after they scurry away. I think this is called growth.

Sitting in my seat on our houseboat, watching the mist clear from the palm tree-covered mountains, watching the fishermen cast their nets and the Laotian children play in the muddied water, I smiled, shook my head at the craziness of this all, and became overpowered with the feeling that this was all just so right.   

Reincarnation and Really Big Moths

Today was such an unbelievably weird day I really just had to sit down and write about it. I mean, really weird and kind of amazing!
Logistics first. We are in Chiang Mai now, this beautiful little chill city. There are amazing restaurants on every corner, and I think that here is where I wil begin the process of becoming a rotund little ball. Everything tastes SO AMAZING. today I got this chicken curry with egg noodles....it was so hot I was sweating and just about crying, but my god, did it taste good. I've been eating loads of rice, tons of noodles, and even vegetables (crazy, I know). I've also gotten into tofu with all these weird vegetarians around (just kidding, elana!) and am starting to branch out on new foods now that my stomach has calmed down and I feel healthy again.
We stayed at this really fun hostel upon our arrival in Chiang Mai, which was exactly like a hostel should be. Tons of backpackers, all just chilling out. It was so nice to be in that kind of an environment again, because for the past three weeks, we really haven't been in anything like that! All of the places we'd been staying at were for couples (something we didn't mean to do at all...we just sort of found ourselves in these type of places. Weird, as we're a group of single women.) Regardless, we made lots of new friends from all over the world. Last night we went to this barbeque, which was strange as we made our own food on personal grills. I got nervous and just ate a lot of spring rolls. Then we went bowling, and even though I protested, I secretly loved every minute of it. With my five bowling trophies from second to sixth grade, I felt pretty confident in my abilities and even thought I might have a chance at the much coveted prize of one free night at the hostel. However, I got tired at ten o'clock and blew the game and started to fall asleep on people's shoulders. So typical.
Today, however, was the most special. We went with a bunch of our new friends to this beautiful temple up in the mountains called Doi Sethep. It is Chiang Mai's pride and joy, and for good reason, as it was absolutely stunning. With views of the whole city and so many gold buddha's all around, it felt like a yogi's dreamplace. Caroline and I wandered into one of the many small temples in the larger temple area and sat in front of a monk who, wth water and some sticks which I'm sure have more significance than i can describe here, chanted prayers and blessed us, showering us with water. He tied white string around our wrists. It was so beautiful.

Manny Buddhist visitors will buy a lotus blossom and incense and pray at one of the many buddha's. I've done this before and did it again today for my grandfather and my family. And this is where it got interesting. After my nana died last summer, I began to think about death and the possibility of an afterlife. I'm still not entirely sure on where I stand on the whole issue, but in reading Virgil and Dante, I started believing in the possibility of another world beyond the living, and specifically of the idea of an afterlife. Perhaps it was my way of dealing with grief, but I truly felt like my nana came back to the world as a dragonfly this past summer. I felt a strange connection with an insect (insect, right?) that I'd been scared of before, and it assuaged a tiny bit of my pain. Well, today, after praying for my grandfather to be in a higher, better place, wouldn't you know that the LARGEST MOTH IN THE WORLD planted itself right on my leg. Now, for those of you who know me well, you will know that the bug I am most scared of in the world is the moth. And this was the king moth. I don't know what my Poppie decided to come back as that animal, but come back he did, and he didn't want to leave. I just stood there, totally frozen, half out of terror, half out of belief, with Caroline snapping photos of the immense winged creature on my calf. "Transcend! Transcend!" she said to me, as I stood there with my eyes squeezed shut, trying to transcend and find inner peace and love the moth but all I wanted to do was scream and run away. After a solid five minutes of inner turmoil but calm surface, I called out to a man (there were several people watching at this point) to please get this moth off me, at which point it started crawling up my leg, wanting to get closer to me. Then I started screaming and running around the Wat, which was totally bad and innapropriate but geeze, the thing was huge.
The point of this rambling story is that my grandfather is a moth. Maybe he wanted to help me get over my fears, or maybe he just wanted to let me know that he was indeed in a better place, just like I'd asked. I'm not sure why the universe put him in that form, but I'm not going to question it. I'm just going to go with it.

It's ten o'clock at night now and obviously I'm wanting to go to bed. Tomorrow we are going elephant trekking and white water rafting in the mountains!

Sending lots of love and peace,
Ali

Alive in Chiang Mai

Sawadee ka, everyone!
I hope this post finds you all well. I certainly feel better about things than i did in my last post. While I am still dealing with many of the things that I was clearly struggling with in my last update, I am beginning to feel so much better--not just physically, but also emotionally and spiritually.
I'm into my second week here, which is bringing with it feelings of stability. I had forgotten how difficult the first two weeks in Georgia were--they were some of the hardest times in my my life, adjusting to a new country, a new lifestyle, a new language. The adjustment away from home is difficult in itself, and the added dimensions of change further alienate us during those first few weeks. Now, however, I feel more settled in. I've been religiously writing in my journal, recounting the events of the day not so I can remember them, but so I can feel a sense of closure as I close my eyes at night. No part of the trip is going the way that I had (or hadn't....ugh, not gonig to start that again) planned, but i'm learning to go with the punches.
Our week on Koh Phangan was absolutely beautiful. We stayed at this lovely little bungalow a few hundred feet back from the water, and spent every day at the beach...sunning, reading, eating, sleeping. lazy bums we were....and happy about it. Some highlights from our week on Koh Phangan:
-a stray dog got into Elana’s and my room. Yes, a stray dog. I was coming home from the local convenience store around 9 pm, and a cute dog that resembled a golden retriever was sitting on my steps. I chatted with him for a bit, persuaded him to come down by talking in a high pitched voice, and then when I thought he was settled next to me, ran for the door. Well, so did he, and he lodged his little face into the door and I just couldn’t close it on him. I tried pushing his head out, but he was strong and he just barged his way in with me screaming profanities and elana’s name like bloody murder. With the two of us forming a barricade, we created a wall so our flea-infested friend couldn’t penetrate beyond the first ten feet or so, and using all of our brute strength, we got the pup out the door. Locking it immediately, we screamed and ran to the bathroom to wash our hands.
-Full Moon Party. What is there to say about that? It’s the craziest party in southeast asia. Let’s just say lots of alcohol—buckets of it, really. A slow boat over from one side of the island to the other, thank goodness we were wearing bathing suits. Thousands and thousands of people miling about the island, getting wasted and sexually provocative. Think of a frat party gone awry, on the beach, with bathing suits and a bucket of alcohol sure to make someone like me drunk after a few sips for only 100 baht—a little shy of four dollars. People were peeing in the water, and apparently if you stay past four, you see people actually having sex in the waves. Lovely. Needless to say, I got drunk for about an hour, sobered up, felt ill (obviously)….got hit on by some pervy Australians (EBT, there was one cute guy from Melbourne, but to be honest I didn’t think he was straight and then the hitting on was just all very confusing). We ran around for a few hours, covered ourselves in body paint, and got back at 4 am, only to take a ferry out the next morning at ten. ROUGH. MAJOR ROUGH.

    A ferry, bus, and two overnight train rides later, we are now here in Chiang Mai, in what is supposed to be one of the best cities in Thailand. We got here a few hours ago, and are about to shower up (and wash the paint out of my hair…lovely) and scoot downtown to do some sightseeing.

I feel like our journey is really starting now that we’re off the beach, plunging deep into the country. I feel better about things and life every day….and I think its onwards and upwards from here. I’m spending a lot of time thinking (we have a LOT of time to think, between the various modes of transportation we take), and I feel like I’m already growing, already changing, already learning more about myself. We’ll see where it takes me. Will write more later….but the mixture of aloe, sunscreen, bugspray and sweat that covers my body is really starting to get annoying.

Happy 21^st birthday to my little brother….I’m thinking of you, tools, and wishing I could ring in your big 2-1 with you.

Until next time,

a

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Untitled

Wow.

I don’t know what to title this entry because I am so totally overwhelmed by this experience and my emotions. The past week has been a microcosm of sorts for what I anticipate this experience will be. Caroline, Elana, and I have been through a spectrum of emotions and physical states and are trying to carve out the future of this adventure as best as we can. It is, however, difficult to plan an adventure with no end date in mind, with no itinerary—to create a plan with no plan. I guess that is the challenging part of this for me. Even though this blog is entitled, “No Plan, No Problem,” well, not having a plan IS a problem for someone of the likes of me. I love structure, I crave itineraries. It assuages my anxiety and helps me feel like I have a purpose, like I’m doing something productive in the world. The past week has been totally devoid of such plans, of such feelings of purpose—which is one of the many reasons that perhaps I feel so out of place.

It is ninety degrees here and my body is covered in sweat, sunscreen, and bug spray (so attractive, I know). I spent the last night violently throwing up, alternating with Elana in our cockroach ridden bathroom. Yet, this place is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I step out onto the beach, totally awed and amazed and feeling frankly pretty crappy about complaining. I guess what I am most reacting to is this feeling of intense vulnerability. I feel totally out of my element, being in this foreign part of the world that speaks a language I don’t, that breathes air I’m not used to, that eats food that gives me problems in the middle of the night (to put it mildly…). I am totally terrified of bugs. SO TERRIFIED. I used to be afraid of ladybugs…and the other day we saw what was undoubtedly a poisonous black and yellow spider that was, without exaggeration, the size of my face.

I think in trying to not have a plan, I subconsciously tried to create one out of its nothingness. I set a time frame for myself (a vague one, but even that has led to expectations), organized places that we wanted to volunteer at, and applied for jobs for my return. But nothing has worked out the way I planned, or tried not to plan, or planned nothing at all. Our time frame is totally different, and after a breakdown this morning at an internet café after discovering that the hippie organic commune “won’t be a good fit,” I had thoughts about coming home in a plane tomorrow with a british girl we met. But that would totally defeat my purpose for the trip—my purpose of further exploring myself and discovering the world and meeting amazing people. No, I’m not giving up. But I’d be lying if I said that this wasn’t hard. Not feeling well, still jetlagged, homesick, and concerned about my place in the universe add up to create a feeling of paralyzed overwhemedness (I don’t know if that’s a word, but I’m going to use it). Caroline and Elana bought me this cute little Asian-cartooned journal so I could write some of my thoughts and hope to assuage some of my concerns about life, and I started doing that last night before I got sick. I know that this is the right thing for me to be doing. There was nothing I was more sure of, that this was what was supposed to be happening. But now that I’m doing it and struggling in it, it doesn’t seem as clear cut. But then again, life isn’t.

My grandfather died the other day. He has been sick for a long time now. He started going downhill well over a year ago, and we thought he would have passed long before he did. I feel so awful for feeling so sorry for myself and for complaining when my mom has just lost both of her parents in the same year.  I feel so awful for complaining as I’m having an experience that many people would kill to have. I feel so awful for not being there with my mom as she has to deal with losing yet another person she loves. I am grappling with feelings of such intense vulnerability as I realize that we are not invincible, that we do not live forever, that we will inevitably lose the people we love. I prayed for him in Wat Pho, this beautiful temple of a golden Buddha who is peacefully reclining. I hope that my grandfather went in peace and that he is in a better place now, wherever that is.

To my beautiful family, I love you so. To my aunts, uncle, and mother, who just lost their other parent, my heart goes out to you.

With deepest peace-- even amidst fragility and uncertainty-- and always with love,

A

And We're Off!

Sawadee kha!

I am writing this blog entry from the other side of the world. We finally made it to Thailand after what seemed like an interminable affair with Delta. Here are some of the highlights:
-Caroline and I arrive at Logan Friday morning at 6:30. We fly to Detroit and arrive at 11.
-Flight out of detroit is cancelled. I have a brief freak out moment; Caroline maintains her cool and we snack on oreo's.
-Caroline argues with Delta on the phone, speaks with a woman who tells us we will get to LA and then Bangkok that night. Hooray!
-We check in. No such flight exists. The woman blatantly lied. Brief moment of freak out.
-Delta puts us up in a hotel, but not before Caroline and I indulge in frozen margaritas at Chili's, served by Daryl, who we believe to be our British/Floridian friend reincarnated.
-Caroline and I have a sleepover party and watch Celebrity TV.
-We fly to LA the next morning, have a seven hour layover, see a dear friend from College (thanks so much again for dinner, Mark!) and leave for Bangkok Saturday night.

We arrived in bangkok early monday morning and met Elana at the airport, where our journey really began. After taking a speedy, clean and efficient train (we all know I love efficiency), we got to Koa Sanh Road (pardon my spelling, I don't speak Thai!) which is backpacker's central. We finally found a hostel to stay at after two hours of walking and growing grumpiness, and checked in. We spent the rest of the day walking around, eating, drinking, and almost being run over by tuk tuk's-- open carts on wheels driven by small Thai men. After a late lunch, Caroline and I almost fell asleep on the street, and subsequently went to bed at 4:15. Cool.
Yesterday, Tuesday, we continued to walk around and explore...bought some really weird and hippie flowy pants that make us look like multi-colored genies, and continued to eat. I think i may become a rotund little ball by the conclusion of this trip...but with how good the food is here, I am totally okay with that. Fresh fruit on every corner, noodles and chicken and sauces and spices everywhere--this is my kind of place. We checked out and made our way to the hostel from which I am writing this post. We're planning on exploring the big temples here today and getting out of Bangkok (you don't want to stay here for more than a few days) tonight. We have a 6:00 overnight bus which will bring us to Krabi, which I hear is one of the most beautiful places in thailand. I will be taking LOTS of pictures and posting them up as soon as I get internet over there, so rest assured you will all be here with me! I just wanted to let you all know that I got here safe and that our adventure has officially started.

Anyways, who knows how long it will be until I shower, so I am off to get clean.

Much love to all. Poppie, I will pray in the temple for you.

Namaste.

In Preparation.

So the big day has finally come...I fly out to begin the next leg of this adventure tomorrow morning. I can't believe its already here. It feels like just the other day that I was wrapping up my time in Georgia, consulting with Caroline and Elana about where we want to go next...what part of the world we want to see. And here I am, just a few weeks later, about to embark on an experience that I think will be nothing short of life-changing.
For those of you whom I haven't updated recently (or for those of you whom my mom hasn't updated!), I am going to Southeast Asia with two of my friends I met while teaching in Georgia. We are flying into Thailand and plan on backpacking throughout the country, up into Laos, down through Cambodia, and back up through Vietnam. While backpacking is well and good, I felt strongly that we needed to do something to give back to the communities that were going to be providing us with such life-changing experiences. I didn't want to be a self-indulgent bum, and so we have picked three places to volunteer: a hippie, organic farm in Thailand, a school in Laos, and an orphanage in Cambodia. We are aiming to spend 2-3 weeks at each placement, and then spend the rest of our time getting from one location to the next--and of course sightseeing and taking in the beauty that is this part of the world.
While we certainly have these "plans" in order, we actually lack just that. We have no itinerary, no real destinations. Caroline and I don't even know where we're sleeping on Saturday night once we get into Bangkok. But I think that this is the beauty of this trip...to explore and to enjoy the journey...to not worry about or wait until the final destination.
I'm leaving an amazing support network of unbelievable friends whom I feel closer to now than ever and a loving, supportive and resilient family dealing with impending loss and the realization of human frailty. To all of you wonderful people--I love you dearly and will miss you. Skype me, message me, facebook me, visit me. You are all in my thoughts and when I meditate in ancient, Buddhist temples, I will think of nothing but your happiness. Thank you for being the beautiful people that you are.
I leave the country with a renewed optimism, a new faith in the universe thanks to a chance encounter (you know who you are). I have re-discovered my belief in the power of human connection, and I can't think of a better way to leave the country than with this faith in my pocket and all I need on my back.

Here's to the journey.

Namaste.

A Meditation on Change

I am predominately using this space as a travel blog—as a way to keep my family, friends and loved ones abreast of my adventures in the world. The concept of no plan, no problem was a completely new and different one for me to adopt. For those of you who knew me in high school (and for many of you who knew me well before), you remember how vastly different I was then—how terrified I was to even go to college, never mind begin a journey around the world. I feel as though this past year has been a transformative one. It has brought with it challenges, difficulties, and pain—along with tribulations, happiness, and, ultimately, freedom for both myself and for many of the people that I love. I’d like to take a moment to talk about it…to use this space as an outlet for many of the things that I’ve been grappling with and that many people I know and love have been struggling with, too. Don't worry--the travel blogs and fun pictures and adventure stories are to come. But I would be remiss if I didn't share with you readers the questions that sometimes plague me in the middle of the night...if I didn't explain to you my thoughts on life and love and change and growth and how these factors have helped gently nudge me onto this amazing path of self discovery.

I spoke with two very dear friends this week about some difficult things that they are going through. One lost her soul mate after over 30 years of marriage, the other is going through a divorce with the man she has loved for 17 years. It’s difficult to imagine this kind of loss, this kind of heartache, and it put the end of my three year relationship in some much needed perspective. My problems (or what seem like problems…they are really just little bumps in the road) seem suddenly so small and insignificant in light of what these strong, beautiful, independent women were and are going through.

I began to think about what it is that we miss when we lose something or someone we love. Yes, for much of the time it certainly is the person. Through the initial, middle, and perhaps ending stages of grief, that thing that we miss is most certainly the person—who they were, what they did, how they affected our lives in meaningful and transformative ways. But after a while, I feel as though we stop missing the person and start missing the space that that person would fill. We see a void, we feel a gap—and we mourn for that which once filled it. It is like being attached to a door that breaks. You miss it only when you are aware of the draft that its absence allows in.

I began to think about how we sometimes stay with people not because we love them, but because we are afraid of what else the world has to offer. We, as humans, are creatures of habit. Many of us hate change; many of us love constancy. To change would be unnerving, terrifying. Thus we sometimes perpetuate relationships not because we still love our partners, but because we are scared of putting ourselves back out there—of rejection. We are scared and loathe to go through the motions all over again. We don’t want to do it. While there are thousands of relationships that do work, that are grounded in love and trust, there certainly are some that simply break. It is not always about a loss of love. Sometimes it is simply a matter of change. If we are lucky in enough to be in the real deal—the real relationship for the long haul, we know why we continue to stay in it. Something is wrong, however, when it’s difficult to differentiate love from a refusal to or a hatred of change. Or at least it was for me, and it is for many of my friends.

These thoughts proceeded to lead me into an existential discussion about the meaning of life with myself. I found myself writing about what it all means, what this is all about, our purpose for being here. Perhaps it is to find someone with whom we can share the trials and tribulations of life. That, however, seems to be too dependent of a view…it doesn’t rely on the self nearly enough to account for the importance of independence and personal freedom. What is it, then? Perhaps that is what my impending trip is about. Which, by the way, I still need to tell you about. Expect at least one more entry before my departure on February 2^nd.

I came home from Georgia feeling altered, chastened. My experiences abroad had opened the door into a new part of myself, a part that I admired and wanted to explore further. I worried that upon coming home to the house in which I grew up that I would revert. This wonderful home houses so many memories--but that is exactly the problem. Regression is scary as hell. I worried that I would take five steps back from the two I had taken in Georgia. And for a few days, I did. I slipped into the past, into a part of myself that I had left for a few months. I mourned the loss of a relationship that had died, I mourned the loneliness that often accompanies transition. I felt like I'd lost something.

But somewhere in the past few days, I think I've found it again. I've entered into a new discussion with myself, a discussion about the world and what I have to offer it. I am beginning to realize the depths of my dynamics, of the solidity of my core and the rootedness I have discovered in myself. Suddenly I feel like there is an oak in my center and I am growing outwards, in a million different directions at once. But whatever way I go, I choose growth. I choose freedom. And believe it or not, I choose change. Would my nana be proud.

A Conclusion and a Beginning

Hello, hello! And happy new year to everyone!

This post is so long overdue I can't even tell you. I meant to update this before I even got back to the States, but the last week in Georgia went by so rapidly--and add flight changes, jetlag, christmas shopping, and a vacation to maine and nyc...and you get a long overdue post. But fear not my friends...we're back on track! I want to wrap Georgia up before telling you of my new adventure...stay tuned :)

The finale of Georgia was both happy and sad. We went to Armenia during what turned out to be my last weekend. I went with two of my best girlfriends and a fun, great new group of people. We took a seven hour marshutka ride through the mountains to get to Yerevan....it was a long day, for sure. Yerevan was a very interesting city. What I was most aware of, however, was how austere and barren it was. Yes, it was winter, but everything about the city felt hushed, serious, and bleak. It is a country of war and pain...a series of genocides decimated many thousands of people, and it has a terrible relationship with many of its neighboring countries (namely Ajerbaijan). Its relationship with Russia is complex, given that the Soviet rule both helped resucitate a suffering economy and devastated landscape but also chipped away at what was left of a national identity. Everyone was quiet and somber. We actually were yelled at by a patrol officer as we stood on the street chatting at 11:30 pm. It was quite different than the colorful, vibrant, and alive Istanbul. Nonetheless, it was certainly still interesting, and was definitely worth a visit. The second day we took a marshutka tour through the countryside which was nothing short of stunning. We visited two UNESCO world heritage sights....talk about breathtaking. You can't believe how old the world is.

We arrived back in Georgia on a Sunday, and I had three days of work before leaving the country forever. My last few days were marked my saying goodbye to my students (there was much crying), goodbye to my friends (my crying), and goodbye to my family (their crying). It was definitely sad to leave a country that had helped me grow so much. Georgia was the first country I had ever traveled to...and I feel a kind of connection because of that. I was so uncomfortable during the first month there, and then I experienced a kind of freedom because I adjusted to a culture and could feel like I was really a part of it. That was growth...the epitome of it. I miss parts of it already, though I am happy to be going on my next adventure.

This leads me to the present, where I am sitting on my couch in Massachusetts, planning a trip to South East Asia with Caroline and Elana--the two girls I traveled with to Istanbul and Yerevan. We are trying to put an itinerary together to travel from Thailand to Laos to Cambodia to Vietnam. If it works out (fingers doubly crossed), it will be unbelievable. I'm sure it will bring with it many challenges of its own, and undoubtedly many rewards as well. While I love the States, I just feel like I can't be here this year. I need to be out in the world, learning, growing, discovering myself and what exists beyond the United States' walls. There is so much to learn. What better time is there to discover it than the present?

Anyways, please keep posted...I will update this frequently on my next leg of the adventure.

Until then--happy new year, and did madloba (thank you very much) for tuning in,
Ali

An Overdue Post

Gamarjobat!!
I am so sorry that this post has taken so long for me to write. I feel like this is the first free time I have had in the past two weeks; things have been dzalian giji (very crazy) on this side of the world. I hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving with your loved ones. I was so sad I wasn't able to attend my family's thanksgiving; it is my favorite holiday and it broke my heart a little that I wasn't able to be with them on that special day. We celebrated thanksgiving here, though. A few of my friends and I went out for a nice dinner, had a few bottles of delicious georgian wine, and ordered many, many chocolate cakes. We went around the table and each said something we were thankful for. It was no thanksgiving at home, but it was enough.

Anyways, where to begin, where to begin? Istanbul was totally incredible. I went with two of my closest friends, Caroline and Elana, and we flew into Istanbul last Saturday morning. We spent the evening before our flight camped out in the airport, snuggling under artificial trees, looking up at the escalator. Not exactly relaxing, and we boarded our plane at four after the security guards had to wake us up from the other side of the glass. We got to Istanbul at 6:30 in the morning and made friends with the somewhat creepy man sitting in front of us. Dave (the creepy man) pursuaded us to come with him because, as he said, he knew his way around. Four hours later, we had taken a taxi, a marshutka, a subway, a ferry, and a tram and finally made it to Sultanahment, the region of Istanbul where we were staying. We bid Dave kargad (goodbye), and checked into the Metropolis Hostel where we would spend the next three nights. Our hostel proprietor was actually the biggest jerk in the whole world, so we didn't spend much time in the hostel because he was all negative energy. This was not a problem, however, because istanbul was AMAZING. We spent the four days shopping, being touristy (Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Underground Cistern pictures to come), eating an offensive amount of doners/shwarmas, etc. One of the highlights was the Turkish bath we went to, in which we, not only the only american girls in the place, but also the only CUSTOMERS in the place, were ushered into a room of about 130 degrees and ordered to strip and lie on a heated slate of marble. after leaving us there, sweating for 45 minutes (elana and caroline looked at me and wondered why i was so much sweatier than they were....i was actually a waterfall), four naked, obese turkish women came in with scrubs in hand. They lathered us up with soap, scrubbed our bodies clean of dead skin, and basically whipped the blood into our limbs. It was interesting. Painful is a word that comes to mind. But also hysterical. The three of us were dying as we left there, trying to piece together the reason that people do this but also relishing in how truly clean we felt being doused by such an ancient method of bathing. It was an exerience. Our trip to Istanbul concluded with an amazing four hour jam session on our last night with some truly cool backpackers from the UK, hookah, and some great friends. It was a trip I'll never forget.

We got back from Istanbul at five o'clock Wednesday morning. I naturally called in sick to school (I actually really was sick though), and finished the week out just fine. This weekend all of us teachers went on a government sponsored trip to Signaghi, this beautiful little village about an hour and a half east of Tbilisi. It was a big festival with lots of food, dancing, and singing. We walked around the city for the day, buying little souveneirs, eating, and taking pictures of the beautiful wall that surrounds the small city. It was a lovely day, and we got back early enough to grab dinner, go to a bar with some friends, and to a nightclub where we danced the night away!

My experience in Georgia has been amazing, rewarding, frustrating, and difficult. This country is so new, yet so old. It is torn between a past of Soviet rule and consequently an outdated education system, yet it so wants to be considered a part of Europe. It is rooted in traditionalist beliefs about genders and races, yet it seems stubborn to welcome new ideas. It has been interesting to be a part of this culture, but it wears on someone like me. I feel as though the country is stuck in a rut, like it has to either committ fully to its Russian past or give itself completely to a new, European identity. If it doesn't move in either of these directions, it will continue to be stuck in the position it is in, and this stagnance is a large part of my reason for leaving it in three weeks when my contract is up. I don't feel like any of the things I am doing are getting anywhere, because the country maintains such ideologies as to not let it. It is frustrating to want to introduce new literature, new games and ideas to my students, to see them struggle with it and give up because they just do not have the drive or the discipline to learn. It is frustrating to be their teacher when they are so unbelievably disrespectful in class. While I have a few good classes, my students are largely horrible, and they create a  negative atmosphere in which their more driven peers are incapable of learning. It is such a shame and has become very difficult for me, for the more I invest in teaching and in providing my students with new, progressive methods of learning, the more they seem to lose interest. What can one person do in a country that is stuck in a rut between the past and the future?

Frustrations aside, however, it has been an amazing two weeks. Istanbul and Signaghi were two of the highlights of my time here for sure. I have three weeks left here--I'll be sure to make it count!

xx

My Life as a Georgian Movie Star....Well, Sort of

Hello, Hello!

Well, big and exciting news. I am officially a Georgian movie star. Well, kind of. I was on television this past weekend. The local news channel came to my school and did an interview with me and my kids, and then they came to my house to watch me interacting with my host family. Here is the link: http://www.myvideo.ge/?act=dvr&chan=rustavi2

Click on the 14 of November, and set the timer to 11:14. I have my own little two minute segment! My kids were all like, "Ali! You were on television!" And the ones who couldn't speak English just mimed television. Oh, Georgia.

Not a whole lot has happened other than my television appearance. My children continue to be challenging, as do the lack of resources in the school. The kids' behavior is abysmal; they do not know the meaning of discipline and they never listen. Some of my friends here have taught in Korea in a program kind of similar to this one. My friends Caroline and Amanda are seriously considering going there next!

In other news, I am going to Turkey this upcoming weekend with two of my closest friends. I will have more updates for you in my next blog post. I apologize that this one is so short--but my computer battery is dying and I have to send a few more emails. Will update when I get the chance, but I wanted to share with you the link to the television segment. Kargad!!

Marshutka Friends and Other Thoughts

I am going to update my blog a day early because tomorrow is bringing a real treat: I’ve been asked to be on television! Yes, that’s right. A news crew is coming to my school tomorrow to tape me teaching, and they are coming back to my house tomorrow afternoon to film me at home, interacting with my host family. I don’t know why they picked me, but I OBVIOUSLY agreed. I will let you all know how it goes and will send you a link to the segment if it airs.

This week brought with it many adventures, namely a hilarious trip to a suburb of the city. Last Tuesday, my friends and I went on a trip to Rustavi, a city about 30 minutes outside of Tbilisi. We picked up our marshutka on the outskirts of Tbilisi, in the town in which my friend Amanda lives. We thought we were really suave because we were able to read the marshutka sign that said “Rustavi” in Georgian script, and we piled onto a smelly bus whose upholstery resembled a grandmother’s living room. To make a long story short, we obviously got on the wrong marshutka and ended up in the backroads of god only knows where, passing sheep, chickens, cows, and horses roaming in front of us. We passed village women with mounds of flour to bake their weekly food…and we were unable to ask about our whereabouts because no one spoke any English—and our Georgian is really not that great. We somehow made it into Rustavi, but definitely not the way we were supposed to. When the marshutka stopped at what appeared to be its final destination and all the passengers got out, we played charades (our favorite game here in Georgia) with our marshutka driver and his friend. They decided that they loved us, and then they took pictures with us and gave us fruits. They became our personal cab drivers for the next twenty minutes, communicating with our friend’s Georgian host brother until they dropped us off at the bar where we were meeting our fellow Rustavi teachers. What an experience. Needless to say, the ride home was much more normal, and we actually went on a highway without chickens.

On a serious note, one of the most difficult things that I am experiencing is the task of trying not to judge the people I meet as ignorant and prejudiced, specifically as racist, sexist, or homophobic. The other day, my host mom told me that TLG had initially offered her and Dato a black girl, and she told me that she “didn’t want a black girl living in my house.” When talking about attractive people, she told me that Caucasus people (the people living in the Caucasus region of the world…Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, etc) were very attractive, but that Chinese people were not because of their eyes. The racist nature of these remarks were difficult to swallow, as are the numerous instances I see and hear in which other Georgian people make known that they do not like those who are different. Stories of host families kicking their teachers out of their home because they are “too fat” or gay or “weird” abound here; and the gender binary is stronger here than I have ever seen it in the states. My host mother waits on my host father hand and foot—he doesn’t even put his dishes in the sink, never mind help around the house. Women are expected to be virgins until marriage, but men are expected to be experienced sexually before they wed---I’m still trying to figure out how that works out. These ideologies are germane to Georgia, and I can understand and try to respect that. But it is difficult to swallow comments that display a culture rooted in extreme dislike of the different. While I understand that it may not be “intolerance,” it often seems that way, such as when one of my students told me that it is bad that I am not Christian Orthodox, because that is the only way to live. The traditional nature of Georgia and its stark contrast to many things I believe in make for very frustrating interactions. Each time I hear a racially insensitive comment, I struggle to not judge the person as racist—and try to better understand the culture that created these racially/sexually/disability/etc-insensitive ideologies. But make no mistake, this task is not easy. I often find myself wanting to yell at the parents, the teachers, the taxi drivers who use the n-word, who talk about gay people as abominations, who dislike anyone who is not of their religion. But how do you explain to someone that these ideologies are exclusive to many wonderful people, that maintaining such ideologies prevents them and the rest of the world from attaining peace---when you can barely talk about what you had for lunch today?

Friends and Field Trips

Gamarobat!
Well, it is officially fall here. Scratch that, it is officially winter. November came with a vengeance, and we plunged from beautiful 70 degree, sunny days to cold rain and--slightly drunk after the supra last night-- what felt like snow. Turns out it was just white in the pavement, but hey, it could happen.

Anyways, what a week it's been. Lets start from the beginning. I make friends everywhere I go. The Georgian people are so unbelievably warm and friendly. You get them talking (even if it is with my broken Georgian, and/or their broken English) and you have made a best friend ten minutes into your marshutka ride to work. The other day, Caroline (one of my closest friends) and I went to get manicures ($3.50 manicures, ladies!) at this salon, and were a little nervous because the women there didn't seem friendly. Two minutes into conversation, we became best friends. On the way out, we all hugged, one of them walked us out to our marshutka and kissed us goodbye like family. Then, on the marshutka, we met two schoolgirls who told us about the best shopping areas and the proceeded to take us there as though they had nothing else they would rather do. The people are so kind, and so giving...they make me feel at home in a country that once felt strange and unnerving. They have helped set my internal clock to Tbilisi time, in all senses of that phrase.

School has been going well. I feel like I am actually making some difference in my schools...I see my students actually beginning to learn and it feels incredible to realize that I am a part of that. From the smallest detail (pronouncing the -th sound,which they do not have in Georgian and seems impossible for georgian children to replicate sometimes) to understanding what subject-verb agreement entails, I see my students learning everyday. They are, for the most part, enthusiastic, excited, and always happy to see me. Every time i pass by one of them in the halls, I'm greeted by hugs, smiles, loud hello's, and sometimes even presents. They are just so cute! My favorite student so far, however, has been little Mari. She is like a cute little sponge, and she picks up everything so quickly. The other day I was teaching her the conjugation of the verb "to be," which she was having trouble understanding. Then, all of a sudden, she said, "You are Ali. I am Mari. We are silly." I almost fell out of my chair. I am so proud to be making an impact on her, and she (though she doesn't know it) is teaching me, too. Here are two pictures of us...these were taken when we went to Mtsketa, one of the oldest cities in Georgia.

This weekend brought with it Halloween parties, movie nights and an amazing excursion with my class. With no Halloween holiday here, us Americans partied it up US style and decked ourselves out at a bar downtown. The georgians probably thought we were crazy walking down the streets in our hats and outfits, but it was great and total shenanigans.
The best part of the weekend (and maybe the most amazing part of Georgia thus far) was the excursion I went on with my students on Sunday. Excursions here in Georgia are like school field trips, and many students and parents participate in them. On Sunday morning, bright and early, I got to school by 9 and boarded the bus with 15 seventh graders and their parents, my english co-teacher Tina, and we left for Gori, a city located about one hour west of Tbilisi. Winding through mountains and teeny-tiny neighborhoods, we suddenly saw this beautiful view in the town of Ateni.

Naturally, we stopped to take pictures!

It was stunning. We went to a church that had been built in the 9th century and lit prayer candles. My co-teacher understands that I'm not very religious, and so she explained to me as she gave me the three candles that I could simply make wishes and that I didn't have to pray if I didn't want to. She told me that the church was the godmother's church and that she felt that the godmother was there, in the ancient church, right at that moment. Looking around at the old walls and paintings and listening to the nun's songs, I believe that there was a godmother there--maybe not Jesus' mother, but one who is more important to me....my nana. So I lit a prayer candle for her and then another one for peace.

...and then the children began buying me religious relics. I now have quite a collection of paintings of Jesus, Mary, and many saints. Oh boy.
Anyways, we then went to this rock temple in Gori that boasted some of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. Our tour guide explained to us (in georgian, and my co-teacher translated for the less georgian-inclined) that the temple ruins that sat atop the rocks were built before the year 0....ie these rocks were from well before the Christ era. We're talking O-L-D. What is even more amazing is that much of the temple's outsides and the accompanying church were still intact, despite the fact that much of it had been destroyed by the Mongols. Unbelievable.

After the cool rocks we had a picnic up on a mountain with lots of food (it was basically an outside supra) and wine. Apparently one of my favorite students, Sandro (his classmates call him "dwarf" because he is so small!) got his hands on two glasses of wine and was walking around, playing with the cows and lighting fires. Gotta love my georgian children.

I am learning so much from these experiences. Yes, my trips to Gori and Ateni were unbelievably informative, and I love hearing about the history of these places. But what I find most interesting, and most important in my own life, are the stories from the people, from the students and my friends. A seemingly silly conversation with my co-teacher turned serious on the car ride home as she, in her broken English, explained to me that there are few real problems in life. Running late, being sleepy or tired--these are not real problems. "Cancer is real problem. Death and pain are real problems. Everything else, not problem. It can be done another time. No worry." It's amazing the kind of perspective you can get when you least expect it.

A perfect end of the trip was the sign that I saw on the marshutka home. On the opposite side of the highway, written in both Georgian script and in English, I read two simple words: Happy Journey.

Teaching, Yarn Making and Cha Cha

So sorry for the delayed update, things have been going so well over here and I haven’t had much time to unpack (literally and figuratively).

I have successfully finished my first week of teaching! Whew! My school is, well, interesting. It’s a large block plopped in the middle of a neighborhood that is about a ten minute bus ride from my house. The school is large—the teachers don’t know how many students are in the school (?) but it seems to be quite large. The classrooms are relatively well equipped—some better than others. All have desks and chairs, and most have blackboards. All the walls are covered in grafitti, some more graphic than others—I would imagine its quite distracting, and the school is equipped with some lovely squatter toilets (more on that to come…)

I teach every grade (yep….) and am teaching about 23 classes per week. I work with five other English teachers of varying abilities (both in terms of their English speaking and their overall teaching effectiveness), but all of them are very sweet and have made me feel loved and appreciated at school. I teach with all of them at some point during the week…and I have some more classes with some than others.

            My kids are overall pretty wonderful. In every class there is, per usual, several students of clearly higher abilities and to counteract those kids, the trouble kids who never bring their books and who throw spitballs in the class. This is to be expected, naturally, but it is definitely frustrating when trying to teach a class of such mixed levels. I have three favorite classes: my third grade class, my 11^th grade class (all girls…talk about angelic), and one of my eighth grade classes.

           The third grade kids are totally out of control, speak little to no English, have the attention span of goldfish, but they are so absolutely adorable. One kid is so small he actually managed to lodge his legs in his desk and then lost his balance and fell out of his desk during the ABC’s. I almost died laughing. The have barely learned the alphabet and don’t know any verbs besides “to be”—and even that is rocky. Thus, whenever we talk about family, they say “I am one brother” and “you are one sister?” and then my co-teacher yells at them in Georgian to pay attention. It’s totally out of control and hysterical.

My 11^th grade girls are lovely and so driven to learn English. They ask me to take pictures with them and go to McDonalds to hang out (to which I scrunch my face and tell them that in America, a lot of people don’t like mcdonalds, or fast food in general). They are so sweet and I feel like I might actually make a difference with them.

My eighth grade class is enormous and half out of control. The back of the classroom doesn’t give a damn, and they just sit there—but I manage to get their attention sometimes, and I always have the attention of the front 2/3 of the class, including my favorite student who resembles a caterpillar with his unibrow. He speaks horrible English and always talks excitedly to me in Georgian---and he tries to hard in class. He always raises his hand and wants to participate, but he makes so many mistakes and more often than not is never even on the right page, or he repeats the answer that the person before him said. But he tries and is good and has a unibrow. Gotta love him.

            The toilets in school are holes in the floor. It took some getting used to, thats for sure. It turns out I was standing the wrong way for the first two weeks, hence my difficulty using them. My friends died laughing when I told them that I was having such a hard time, and things have been much easier from then on. It still doesn't smell good, but I bring my handy hand sanitizer and have become quite a pro.

           One of the most difficult things about school is the lack of resources in the classrooms and amongst the teachers. Some of the classrooms don’t even have blackboards, and so there is no possibility for us teachers to write anything down for the kids to see. Without tracking classes, kids are lumped together by age and not by ability—and it turns out that many kids in my school have transferred from other schools and speak absolutely no English. In my first class this morning, I had a girl who was almost fluent in English, and a boy in the back of the class who couldn’t even introduce himself. It’s very frustrating.

Georgia, like America, displays an enormous economic disparity. While there certainly are many wealthy students, many of mine cannot afford textbooks, and thus they have no way of keeping up with the lessons. Also, teachers here do not make lesson plans, and all read directly from textbooks and do only the activites in the books. There is little room for creativity, no projects, and it seems no papers. I have so many ideas and so much I want to do…but I have no idea what level the kids are at, because I teach every grade and my English teachers will just point to the book when I ask what the kids are learning. The teachers leave school at 2:30 or so and it seems do not make any plans for the next day (again, no plan... no problem--but it is a problem for me!); they just come in the next day and read more of the textbook, or, as happened today, just tell me to “teach.” Teach what? How? What do they know? It’s incredibly frustrating trying to teach kids when you don’t know what they’ve learned and have difficulty ascertaining that information. We will see what I can muster up...today I made up a tongue twister on the spot because it seems none of my kids can pronounce the sound "th." They all say "ze book" or "zhey ate," so I made up this rhyme on the spot and told them to memorize it for the next class. We'll see what happens...and I have a feeling I'm going to be doing a lot of making things up on the spot over the next two months.

            In other news, I went to the Khakheti region (the cradle of Georgian winemaking) this weekend with other TLG teachers. It was raining, but as our hosts said, “no problem.” We drove an hour and a half outside of the city and went to this lovely farm/vineyard for the afternoon where we had a class in making textiles, wine, cha cha (Georgian vodka…oh god is all I have to say about that), taking care of the farm animals, etc….and then of course we had a supra! God, I love this country. It was so beautiful and picturesque working with these Georgian farmers with hands covered in dirt, laughing as we made yarn together. We couldn’t understand each other, but we somehow still did. Pictures to come! Nachvamdis!

Finally!

Hello, hello friends and family!
This blog has been a long, long time coming. I apologize for the delay in getting it up and working...my internet here in georgia has been spotty, at best. Anyways, here is a recap of my life. Seriously.

My flight from the States to Georgia was on October 1st...my birthday. My special day began with my dad and I sitting at the airport, begging the Delta and American Airlines crew to give me a flight out of boston. Five hours of pleading and re-working, I had a flight to JFK, and a whole new itinerary. Stressful for somone who loves (read: needs) a plan. My flight to JFK went smoothly and there I had some time to meet my now close friend Caroline, with whom I was to be traveling to Kiev, Ukraine. Turns out there were many other TLG friends on the plane, and we all met in Kiev after our 8 1/2 hour flight in which I befriended both the cute Russian girl next to me in order to understand the menu choices and the large man behind me who kept waking me up with his goings to the bathroom. Lovely.
Anyways, we arrived in the Ukraine for just a quick layover, and quickly got ready for our much smaller plane bound for Tbilisi, Georgia. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and claustrophobic sitting next to two large Georgian man, on the back of the plane, squished up against the widow eating what appeared to be a small piece of turkey  (but we really dont know). However, when we started flying over the Caucasus mountains, I forgot all my worries and just revelled in how stunningly beautiful this part of the world is. It really looked like it did in pictures.....enormous, majestic snow capped mountains laying the ground for green, rolling hills. It was BEAUTIFUL. suddenly, this random trip seemed less random and more determined.
We landed in Tbilisi aroud 5 30 pm, met our TLG leaders, other TLG members (TLG is the organization that runs my program...it stands for Teach and Learn with Georgia--google that!!!) and were whisked away. Where? We didn't know. No one decided to tell us anything, so imagine our suprise when we pulled up to none other than the Sheraton hotel. One week in a five star hotel with pool and hot tub? BYE. Couldn't have been a better birthday present. We were thrilled, I hopped in the pool, we ate dinner, and went to sleep early.
The following week was comprised of training....for roughly ten hours a day. Four hours of Georgian language lessons, four hours of Georgian cultural lessons, hours of teaching methodologies, and meetings with doctors, bank represetatives, and group leaders made a week fly by, yet despite the crazy schedules, I managed to make some wonderful friends. Everyone on this program is so different and interesting, and they come from all over the world. We all bonded so much in just five days, and though most of us are clustered in or around Tbilisi (the capital), it was hard to leave each other at the end of training.
The day we met our families was like a really twisted and anxiety-provoking game of red rover. The teachers stood on one side of the room, the expectant families on the other side. It was WEIRD, and felt like we were eyeing the "good" families, and they the "good" teachers. My name was called and I met my host mother, took my bags and got in a cab to start my new life here.
To make a very long story short, it didn't work out with my first host family. They were absolutely lovely (mother and son), but the living arrangments and set-up were not what I was expecting and not what had been arranged in my contract. After nights of not sleeping and feeling ill, I finally called a TLG team member, and he came to my home that night to take me away. He literally whisked me into a hotel (I was a sobbing, bubbling mess by this poit) and promised to find me a new host family within three days. Thus, I spent the next two days and nights in a lovely hotel with a room all to myself, and even met a few other teachers who were at the hotel, also waiting for a new host family. I made best friends with them (obviously), and we scampered around the city and shopped and became more and more acquainted with this amazing country. One afternoon (Thursday?) I got a call from Giga, the man I had talked to, saying that he would be by to get me at 6 o'clock that evening to bring me to my new host family. A brief freak out moment later, I raced home to pack my bags, and was brought by TLG to my new home, where I am now.

I now live in Saburtalo, which is a district in Tbilisi. There are various forms of transportation that I can take...and while I'm learning how to get around and where to go, what the names of the streets are, etc., I am definitely rising to meet this challenge. I'm speaking more and more georgian with the bus drivers and marshutka drivers (and obviously my family), and have taken getting very lost on the outskirts of tbilisi (ie last night) in stride. This is a big challenge for me...as many of you know, this is my first time out of the country, and moreoever, my first time traveling ALONE. It has been very, very difficult at times, and I have thought about coming home and giving up. But I think about why I came here, and how it is that we grow into more mature beings, more in touch with ourselves--and I realize that it is experiences like getting lost on a bus on the outskirts of tbilisi that we come to better know ourselves. This is hard, but it's also incredibly amazing and rewarding and I think will be transformative in ways I didn't think possible. "We grow only through discomfort," is a quote that I read the other day. It has proven to be true thus far.

My host family here in Saburtalo is wonderful; I have a mom (deda), a dad (mama), and a da (sister), named Mari. They are lovely--the parents are in their 30s, and Mari (who I call 'chemi kartopili' (my potato)) is nine. I love them, and their house is comfortable and I feel safe in it...which is all I needed. They give me my space when I need it but also encourage me to be with them and obviously want me to spend time with them, and they me. I feel so incredibly luck to have them.

Anyways, I need to go take a nap because I didn't get to bed until late last night. On the way home from meeting some friends for dinner, I got a call from one of my Georgian friends asking if I would please come to his birthday "supra," or a big, big party with lots of drinks and food. Last minute? Yes. But i wasn't passing up supra....for the Georgians, it seems, no plan, no problem!!!