Aba Hey

Today is my last day in Georgia. I officially finished my Peace Corps service one week ago. My two years here went by pretty quick. Leaving's weird, not knowing if I'll ever be back. Although there were some not so hot days, I definitely enjoyed my time here and wouldn't trade it for anything.

I uploaded my last batch of pictures from Georgia to my Flickr page. They're from a trip I took up to the mountains of Tusheti, my farewell to Georgia. I couldn't have spent my last days in Georgia in a better place. Ra lamazia tusheti!

Tomorrow I get on a bus for a 26 hour ride to Istanbul where I'll spend one night, then it's off to incredible India. I'm excited.

One Month To Go

I know no one is going to believe this, but I've been meaning to update this blog for months now. It's just that whenever I go to the internet cafe there are so many other things higher up my list of priorities that I never have time.

A lot has happened since my last post. After a really cold winter spring came and went and summer is now here. School ended a few weeks ago. I completed a project which allowed for the renovation of two classrooms at my school. None of it's really interesting.

I will officially be done with PC on July 17. I'll be leaving Georgia on July 25. Before that I plan on hiking through the Borjomi National Park with some friends and taking a trip up into the mountains of Tusheti. I'll take a lot of pictures.

After I leave Georgia I'm going to travel through Asia for three months or so. India, Bangladesh and Thailand are definitely on the itinerary, and Nepal is a possibility. I'm extremely excited. I

I uploaded some pictures yesterday to my Flickr account.

What's New

I didn't realize I haven't posted since November. I knew it had been a long time, but I had no idea it had been that long.

A lot has happened since my last post. The holidays came and went. In Georgia one gets a double dose, as the Orthodox Christmas and New Year's are later than their Western versions - January 7 and 14, respectively. I, however, was in Turkey from about December 25 until January 7, so I missed the holidays entirely. Missing the holidays isn't as bad as it sounds, since when your family and friends aren't around you don't have much to celebrate.

In Turkey I first visited Cappadocia, birthplace of Georgia's own St. Nino. Cappadocia is in central Turkey and is a semi-desert area with some pretty amazing natural rock formations. It was also home to a sizable Christian population until the 1920s and has a bunch of old cave churches and monasteries.

After Cappadocia I spent a few days in Ankara, birthplace of Joe Strummer (who knew?). Ankara is really nothing special. There are a few good museums, but the city itself is rather uninspiring. One thing definitely not to be missed, though, is the Ataturk Mausoleum. Anyone who's been to Turkey knows that the cult of Ataturk is all pervasive. His image is everywhere. His mausloeum is a grand (that's really the best word to describe it) complex of buildings and grounds with collections of his personal belongings (pyjamas, automobiles, swords, etc.), a War of Liberation (i.e. WWI) museum, a gift shop, and, of course, his tomb. The place is guarded by mean looking Turkish army soldiers standing at attention in dress uniforms, but with locked and loaded magazines. The best (and tackiest) part was the War of Liberation Museum. You're filed into this room with a brass rail on your left. About ten feet beyond the rail is a wall with murals depicting famous battles, all of which Ataturk was the key figure in, of course. Between the wall and the rail are three dimensional mockups of trenches, machine gun emplacements, artillery shell craters, etc. And the entire time a soundtrack is playing on a loop with sounds of explosions, bayonettes clashing, machine gun fire, and men screaming. There are also BIG canvas paintings in gilt frames showing things like Ataturk visiting the wounded and smiling Turkish women in colorful dresses carrying artillery shells to the front. If you only see one thing in Ankara, it should definitely be the Ataturk Mausoleum. For those of you who've been to Georgia, it's like the Stalin Museum in Gori times twenty. And it's free.

After Ankara I spent about a week in Istanbul. Istanbul is nice with a lot to see, but very touristy, even in early January. I can only imagine what it's like during tourist season. The Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia were both nice, of course. The Hagia Sophia is HUGE inside. I arrived on New Year's Eve, but unfortunately all public festivities were canceled due to fears of a PKK attack. I took a lot of pictures in Turkey. You can see them on my Flickr account.

While I was gone, Georgians voted for president on January 5th, with incumbent Mikhail Saakashvili winning over 50% of the vote.

And it's been cold! In early January a storm dumped about a foot of snow on eastern Georgia, and was followed by about two weeks of subzero temperatures. We also got about eight inches the last week of January. This is much different than last winter, when we only received one significant snowfall in Telavi (about four inches) and did not have really any subfreezing weather. In the fall I bought a lot of firewood, much more than I thought I would need, but I've been using a lot more of it than I expected.

Winter Is Here

A front came through last weekend bringing cold weather with it. It's not frigid, but I set up my petchi (small wood-burning stove) yesterday. My room is small, so it heats easily and gets nice and warm.

In America we think that heating with wood is quaint and romantic, but people do it here out of necessity, because natural gas is too expensive. Using wood is a pain. Getting a fire lit can be difficult, damp wood doesn't want to burn, and you have to clean the ash out regularly. You constantly have to poke at the fire to make sure it's burning well and to make sure the logs are positioned correctly so they don't block the airflow. Sometimes the wind blows into your exhaust pipe and blows the smoke back into your room. And you can't fine tune it. Sometimes you throw another log on too early and next thing you know your room is 85 degrees. Sure, the glow is nice and hearing the wood crackle and pop as it burns is neat, butI'll take radiators and a thermostat over a wood-burning stove any day.

In other news, the BBC is doing a really neat project. They've chartered a boat and are sailing all over Bangladesh for an entire month to see the effect climate change is having on the lives of everyday people in a country seriously at risk from rising sea levels. You can check it out online. They've also opened up a Flickr account and have posted some good pictures. I may still be in Peace Corps, but Georgia is downright luxurious compared to Bangladesh.

Speaking of pictures, I've posted a few. Most are from rtveli, which is the annual grape harvest. The area I live in, Kakheti, is the heart of Georgian wine country, and rtveli is serious business. I went to a town called Kvareli at the foot of the Caucasus with my friend Mauricio to visit his family and got to watch his dad make his wine. It was pretty interesting. You can see my pictures here.

Georgia Podcast

I'm in Tbilisi for my mid-service physical and dental checkup, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to let people know about a podcast started by a few Volunteers here in Georgia. You can check out the homepage at www.sakartvelopodcast.org.

School is set to start (I hope) next week. Most schools started last week, but my school is under renovation and the work isn't done yet. Everyone knew the work was getting done this summer since last year, but for some reason the work didn't begin until late August.

The grape harvest has begun. I was travelling back to Telavi last weekend and in Kakheti (the region in which I live and wine country) the roads were full of dump trucks overflowing with grapes. I didn't get to participate in the harvest last year unfortunately because I had an unusual host-family who didn't do the whole wine thing, but this year I hope to travel to a little town called Kvareli with my friend Mauricio to visit his old host family and help pick and stomp grapes.

The weather is very nice. The heat and humidity of the summer has finally broken. It's about 70 degrees or so during the day and it gets a little chilly at night. I really need to buy some firewood this week, as the price goes up as winter approaches. There's going to be snow on the mountains soon.

Summer's Over

That's a bummer. The start of school is just around the corner and I have to buy some wood to heat my apartment this winter. (It was rather depressing seeing people buying wood in JUNE!)

I was quite busy this summer. First my family visited for two weeks, then I had four weeks of Eco Camp, and I just wrapped up a two week vacation in Turkey. It's nice to be busy, but I feel like a need a about a week's rest in my own apartment where I can just read all day. I was away from home the majority of the summer, which is difficult. In the entire month of July I think I spent just four nights in my apartment, and August wasn't that much better.

Turkey was nice, but being Peace Corps Volunteers, my friends and I did it on the cheap. We did 10 days for approximately $500. We did the entire trip by bus, and Turkey's a big country. Our first 36 hours in Turkey were spent in either buses or bus stations, and our trip home was from Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast, to Tbilisi. We left our hostel at 9:30 Tuesday morning and didn't arrive in Tbilisi until 10:00 Wednesday night. It's amazing how you can get used to long trips so quickly. Before the trip I felt like a six hour bus ride was on the verge of being unbearable, but now a ten hour ride is no big deal. (Our ride from Antalya to the Georgian border was 22.) Anyway, we saw the ancient cities of Pergamom and Ephesus, as well as some nice Aegean and Mediterranean beaches. I posted all of my photos on my Flickr page, so check them out.

I think I've posted to this blog twice in the past two weeks, which means I'm good for another four months or so. Check back then.

Turkey

So I've been very busy sınce my last post. I had four weeks of ECO Camp, whıch kept me quıte busy. It sounds lıke fun, but ıt was four weeks of beıng a babysıtter, sleepıng on the ground, no hot water, and not-so-great food. Clıck here to see my pıctures.

I've now been ın Turkey for about four days. I'm now ın Bodrum, on the southern Aegean. Me and two frıends have already been ın Bergama (Pergamom) and Selchuk (Ephesus). Turkey ıs very nıce, very modern, and VERY tourısty. Ephesus was almost unenjoyable due to the huge amounts of tourısts. It also doesn't help that we're on a Peace Corps budget, ı.e. we're hopıng to do the ENTIRE trıp for under 500 dollars. As a result we're travellıng exclusıvely by bus (Turkey ıs a BIG country), and we spent our fırst 36 hours travellıng. Tomorrow nıght we're goıng to a town called Olympos on the Medıterranean, south of Antalya, and, ıf we have tıme, Cappadocıa. I'm takıng a lot of pıctures and I hope to post them as soon as I get a chance.

Thıs ıs the fırst tıme I've heard azan sınce I left Bangladesh, and ıt's wonderful.