The First Two Weeks

The front view from our 8th floor apartment

In case we're not close friends or family so I haven't been overloading every single one of our conversations together with the news, I'm doing Peace Corps Response until next September in Tbilisi, Georgia. I'm working with an NGO called Helping Hand. I've only been here two weeks: one week of training and one week of work. What do I do when I feel nothing bad? No culture shock, no horrible stomach pains, no terrible homesickness, no uneasiness or anxiety. What happened? I know I'm in the honeymoon period, and since everything has yet to settle and since I have yet to get robbed or hit by a car, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm living with a chill family that lets me do what I want and has a kitchen with an oven and everyone loves chocolate just as much as I do. I'm in the capital city of a country that has a culture literally spanning thousands of years. Thousands of years. Like, their golden age was around 1200 AD. Coming from a country whose national identity basically started in the 1800s, that amount of time is unfathomable to me. There's this strange juxtapostion of new and old in the city, but somehow it all feels very present. A thousand year old church sits regally across the street from a McDonald's with an old-world facade. That McDonald's just makes me think of Santa Fe with the Target and Starbucks hilariously trying to blend in with the stucco and adobe. It makes me laugh, but it's pretty awesome at the same time. I see a lot of construction and even more reparation, mostly because everything is still a little mud-covered from the recent floods. (You remember when the news showed hippos roaming the streets? Well, that was outside my apartment window.)

I always thought my service would have been insanely different living in San Salvador rather than in the campo (or actually anywhere other than El Salvador), and ohhhh it is. The creature comforts are all there, which is unnecessary but nice, but the difference is more than just a washing machine and internet. The difference is constant human sound. The difference is working a full work week in an office run by incredible women. It's going to the International Peace Day event in a building with giant golden chandeliers and walls covered in mirror murals reflecting all of the bold girls (and some boys) reciting peace poetry and drawing pictures that represent peace to them. I noticed that a lot of drawings incorporated mountains, and I wonder if it's that mountains are native to their landscape and thus common in representations, or that peace really seems to be that unreachably high summit. With so many IDPs from various occupied territories in their own country, peace and unity seem like hard topics for Georgians to discuss. The difference is how insanely clean all of the streets are. Coming from a country that has zero social consciousness about environmental impact and waste management, it is astounding to me that the only thing I see on any city street for my entire 50-minute walk to my office is bottle caps. I also don't get a single lingering stare or, as far as my extremely limited Georgian can translate, any catcalls. If I stare at faces, their eyes quickly shy away. On the flip side, strangers do not greet each other, make eye contact or smile in passing. Actually, smiling is pretty uncommon amongst anyone except very good friends. It's something I will have to train myself in, because my discomfort reaction is usually to smile.

The office I work in is on the fifth floor, and the apartment is on the eighth, so although I usually walk up to the office, I sure as hell am not walking up to the apartment after work every day. Elevators are fairly terrifying in all of the Soviet-era buildings, which includes both my office and my apartment building. Who knows if it will stop halfway there and I'll be trapped in a wood-paneled box with sickly lights and a gap in the door just wide enough to press my eye to. It means taking these every day:

big enough for four people, but just remember that if you get stuck, you're stuck with those people in a little wooden and metal box with just a cable holding you up. Maybe it's better just to take the stairs.

Crossing the street is like an insane game of frogger and chicken where drivers seriously debate whether it's worth the consequence to just run pedestrians down. Crossing on the green at the crosswalk means nothing - someone in a car also has a green arrow and no qualms about cutting off other drivers in the middle of the intersection, let alone clipping walkers. Weirdly, I see an equal mix of cars with the steering wheel on the right and on the left, and absolutely no rules about where to park. If there's space or you need to stop there, it's a parking spot. Also, lanes are barely even suggestions. In the same way that parking is for those who find it, driving is for those who find space. They make their own lanes, weave in and out, and cross over multiple lanes in intersections. The streets are clean, though. No discarded bad fruit or used coffee cups, no street dogs, no pennies (tetri here). I'm trying to get to know the city on foot, which means exploring every street between home and work. Usually streets have little connecting alleys or a convenient grid, but on Wednesday I happened to pick a parallel street to my work with zero connecting side streets, and so had to spend half an hour backtracking, which made me horribly late despite leaving home an hour before work started with the express purpose of having leeway in case I took a wrong turn.

I love that the work day is from 10:30-6:30, lunch is around 2:00, and meals are shared meals. It means that I can really wake up in the morning, have time to prepare myself for life and can walk to work, even though it's almost an hour away. Sharing means I can browse and try everything, but I don't feel obligated to stuff myself with food and later feel incredibly ill, because (as far as I know) this culture doesn't dictate I leave a clean plate to show my appreciation. Maybe I'm doing it wrong and am actually offending everyone, but since I don't speak enough Georgian, I may never know.

Just a little carpet shop from a walk around Old Town

Speaking of...Language. Is. So. Hard. It is one of the oldest languages in the world, spanning about 1.5 millenia. How a language with four different K sounds voiced at varying levels in the throat (one of which is this impossible gh that is actually something like the french r), four different T sounds and two different P sounds survived without becoming easier to pronounce is a mystery to me. I'm retaliating by giving the office daily tongue twisters so at least we can laugh at English as much as they are confounded by my attempts at Georgian. Lots of people have decent English, and my host family has fantastic English, so I haven't actually had a chance to practice and learn Georgian past saying stop (gaacheret) to the bus drivers at my stop. I'm starting language classes with Peace Corps next week, so by this time next year I will actually be able to communicate with everyone in their own language, not force them to speak mine.

Two things I do feel are hugely unqualified for my current position, and slightly claustrophobic. Regarding the former, it's upsetting because this NGO is cool and the staff are very committed and qualified, but at best I feel like I should be one of the "volunteer coordinators," not the advisor that they are looking to to create a five-year plan, develop monitoring and evaluation tools, and deliver once- or twice-weekly trainings. I'm learning, though, and it's nice to have a challenge. For now, I give my two cents when asked, let the office talk wash over me with zero comprehension, and work on writing grants because it's the one thing I actually am qualified to do. And I raid the internet and mine people's knowledge for any and all useful trainings that I can adapt for the volunteers and staff here. If college and Peace Corps taught me anything, it's to use all resources available and present myself as if I totally know what I'm doing, even if I don't. I'm all for learning experiences, so bring it on.

Regarding the latter, it's something to do with being introverted and with growing up in Colorado, I think. Being around tons of people is not necessarily isolating, but it presses on my consciousness. I know that other people are living their own lives right below me and beside me. Sometimes our paths cross for a second on the street or in a shared view from the balcony. That happens everywhere, but the sheer weight of human effort and the number of people I cross lives with is what's heavy. This city carries the weight of thousands of years of toil and turmoil. I can feel my subconscious longing for huge open spaces where I can see the horizon. I realize now that I never felt overwhelmed by Valparaíso because, despite the crush of people all living on top of each other, it sits on the ocean. Pulsing waves and a mind full of sea and sky were never more than a short walk away. It's not that there's nothing green here, actually most places are lined with trees, but there's no horizon. There's no sense of being insignificantly small in the vastness of nature. Cities are a domination of the natural landscape. They're a monument to man in all his innovation and ego. That's fine, but I need to find silent spaces that don't try to impress me, because they are impressive in and of themselves despite our incursion. I'm hoping to find a silent place so the city doesn't crush me. It means more exploration and lots of patience. It's an adventure.

part of the back view from the apartment. Every window is another life. That's thousands of lives. 

The Peace Corps Response crew