When I returned to Georgia, much remained the same, but much had changed as well. Two big facets of my life in Georgia would not be the same: my school and my host family. Before I left, I had every intention of returning to my life in the village, however, while away I began to reconsider that. Life at the village school was exceedingly difficult. I dreaded going to school each day, and more times than I care to count I came home in tears because of the frustrations of being in that place. Furthermore, I had to be honest with myself, as nothing I did at that school had made any difference I felt. The apathy from both the teachers and students was ever present, and that would never change. The teachers would look at me like I was crazy when I had the audacity to ask them to use more English and less Georgian in the English classes. Over the months I repeatedly lowered my expectations about what I could do and what the students were capable of. It was disheartening. Could I in good conscience look back at my time here and feel good about what had happened? No, I realized. At times I felt as though I was running from the problems at school, however, I gave it a whole semester of effort. I could not give it another knowing I was not accomplishing anything.
Moreover, just before I left I found out that my arrival at the house had forced the grandmother upstairs. She is frail and in poor health, and it takes her whole minutes to get up the stairs. Her old room was on the first floor where everything she needed was. Knowing that I had displaced someone was hard to hear.
While back in Minnesota, I was presented with the opportunity of moving to a new school and a new host family. I was not sure what to do, as it was a great risk. But the thought of staying at a school that I dreaded going to was not appealing. Consequently, I took the opportunity, and I moved into Batumi proper knowing that the school could be worse then what I left. Now I live on the south side of town, maybe a 12 minute walk from the sea and the border with Turkey is just down the road. My address is great: Airport Highway, Dead End #2, House #9. Plus I never have to worry about catching the one marshrut’ka back to the village, as they run by the house all the time.
The school and host family both are amazing. My school is near the Black Sea and from some of the classes I can actually see it. The behavior and knowledge of the students astounds me. They are well behaved, and their English is very good. Sadly, I only get to visit each class once a week, so I do not get to know the students as well as I would like, but I get to work with all grades from 1st to 12th, except 5th. Such variety is very cool. I hope that English language education remains a priority here. Many of the youngest students show great promise, and if they continue to receive English language education, their English will be very fluent by the time they graduate. The other day my host brother informs me that he asked his private Georgian tutor, who teaches Georgian at my school, what people thought of me. He said that she said everyone likes me and they think that I am a good woman. Wow…I was not expecting to hear that.
The 4 teachers I work with are great. Their English is very, very good, and they understand me when I talk. Only once could I not get my point across when talking with one of the teachers. I asked her when she was going to retire from teaching, and despite my attempts to explain it other ways, she never got it. In the village the first day I met the teachers I asked what I thought was a simple question: “What time does school begin?” It took whole minutes, a look of suspicious looks at me, and much conversing in Georgian before they gave me a tentative answer. That did not bode well. At the new school, nothing like that has happened! If I have questions, they are answered without deliberation. The new teachers also want to improve their English, and often ask me questions from the books they work out of. A discussion on the vocabulary of gambling was not what I was expecting to have last week; however, they probably think because of the proximity of Springdale to Las Vegas that I am well versed in all things gambling related. They couldn’t be more wrong.
One area that I do struggle with them is when it comes to pronunciation. They are accustomed to British English not American English, and often question why I say things they way I do. I am sure my Minnesota accent does not help. The other day in 3rd grade, they learned the vowel sound for “bag.” I made sure I did not say that word, because it is one of the words that my accent comes out very strong with. Or they will pronounce words and I do not hear the difference in the least, but there evidently is a big difference to them. Another day one of the teachers wanted confirmation from me that English does indeed have 44 vowel sounds. Until then I had never even considered how many vowel sounds the English language has. I just nodded a yes. But when one considers that, English is a really hard language to learn. Georgian, by comparison, has only 5 vowel sounds.
The host family is great as well. The family has 5 people – grandmother, dad, mom, and 2 teenage children. The son’s name is Jaba Beridze, just like my first host brother. Now I refer to them as Didi Jaba (Big Jaba) and Patara Jaba (Little Jaba). Moreover, I think I will name my first Golden Retriever Jaba Beridze, and I will make him understand Georgian commands. My vocabulary is such that I could make that happen. That would be great! Until my arrival, Jaba had never heard of Jabba the Hut. I made sure that was corrected. I showed him videos on YouTube.
The kids speak English, but I am working with them to help improve it. When I first arrived, the sister would say “Sweat dreams Charlotte!” when I would head to bed, instead of “Sweet dreams.” Jaba also says “Ock” when he reads “OK” in a book. Now those have become little jokes between us. For some reason, they love my story about when I was catsitting Dave the Cat in Rockville, Utah. Dave is a very clingy cat. If my laptop was on my lap, Dave assumed that there was space for him too. However, there usually wasn’t, and he would end up on the keyboard. Dave also decided that he would be my alarm clock, and would let me know when I had slept too long. One morning he decided that 8 a.m. was too late for me to be sleeping. I was lying on my side, and then next thing I know Dave is tapping me on the shoulder, as if to say, “Charlotte…wake up…Charlotte.” But a closer translation probably would have been, “Charlotte…I’m hungry.” Needless to say, it was an ADORABLE thing for Dave to have done, and for whatever reason the host siblings adore this story. The story is mentioned at least once a day.
The house, in the words of a friend, is a palace. I have the whole 3rd floor to myself, complete with my own bathroom. However, as with all houses in Georgia, it isn’t heated. If my room gets to 55 F, I feel blessed right now. As I type this, my fingers are freezing and a bluish color, plus I have 2 shirts and 2 jackets on, and still cold. My nose runs basically all the time. Great. However, a runny nose is a small price to pay for actually enjoying school and the opportunities I have to serve there. I have not come home in tears once, and I doubt I will.
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