Arriving in Georgia
My first week in Rustavi
"Autumn comes when you're not yet done with the summer passing by." -'Francis Forever', Mitski
The first step into my new life started (as all the steps out of the airport do) with a wave of warmth and in the first moment strange smelling air, with the taste of dust and a slightly painful reminder of my loved summerdays back in Germany. And with the sudden realization that this is going to be my home for the next 6 months. Yes, I know, it's just 6 months but please keep in mind that for you old people half a year may not be that long but for a 18 years old 6 months sound like maybe 2 years for you! Just kidding, but for me this EVS felt like an upcoming eternity in this first moments in Georgia.
Nevertheless the first few days passed by very fast and I nearly can't remember them because it was a whole soup of new experiences, more than I made in half a year during my time when I was still going to school. I got to know Rustavi, a charmful old city with a post-soviet flair, went to Tbilisi with my new flatmate Pierre from France and our mentors Lile and Nino. I ate khatchapuri, lobiani AND one of the maybe whackest dinners I had in my whole life: it was the first one in our flat and assumed to the fact that I can't cook came the struggle that we didn't buy some tomatosauce for the pasta, it was tomatopaste- the ones who can read have always an advantage- so we sat there, with a pasta-tomato-paste-dinner in our sad not-decorated livingroom and I just told Pierre that "it's going to get better", looking forward to the day to come when we can laugh about this depressing situation.
During our working time we worked out a timetable for October and what we are going to do throughout our time in Georgia. Lately I chose teaching German and Spanish in the GYE office, writing projects for Erasmus+ and working in the maintance section of the Scoutcentre.
Georgian lessons
On monday we had our first Georgian lessons with Nana in the GYE office. We learned the alphabet, which consists of very beautiful but partly very similar looking and pronounciated letters. I swear, Geogrian looks and sounds like a language from another world and I am very passionated about learning how to read and write in it and I obviously want to know some phrases when I get back to Germany. Nevertheless there is one thing about the Georgian alphabet which disturbs me: they don't have an F. So for writing my Name I have to settle for writing it with an V, like: Vinia.
Learning the alphabet woke up the little motivated girl from first grade inside of me, who walked through the streets with wide-opened eyes, suddenly standing still moving the mouth to the signs, letter by letter, forming words later on. The frist word I read was "marketi", which means market, I suppose.
In the evening me and Pierre were invited by our neighbours, the volunteers from the GYE office. They had invited also some volunteers from Tbilisi who visited us Rustavi-People and we've been awake till 2 o'clock, chatting in maybe more than 5 different languages. I have the "luck" to be the only German here, so I'm forced to speak English or Spanish all the time. I already started to dream in English, which I had the last time when I was in Uruguay for two years where I used to dream in Spanish.
Grapepicking at Uncle Gias House and our first supra
On tuesday me and the other volunteers helped at the Grapepicking at the place of Aleks' uncle. It was a very nice experience, I felt like in the garden of Eden, with all the grapes around me in the late-summerlight, tasting them from time to time. Aleks' uncle invited us to come for the next step during the wine-making-process, and I'm seriously thinking about going-maybe I can learn something from him;)!
So there was one thing me and Pierre as "the rookies" among the volunteers often heard people talking about, but never took part so far: the georgian feast called supra, which we got to know the next day. We and the other staff members of the Scoutcentre were invited to a supra in a restorani (the second word I read!!) in New Rustavi. Imagine a big, big, table which seems like breaking down beneath all those masses of food and wine. I guess I never saw so much wine in one row..! So during eating and drinking the whole time, nearly after every few minutes someone (the so called tamada) raises a toast on something. And after every toast everyone drinks some wine, cheering to eachother. So on the one hand you are obligated to drink after every few minutes and on the other one there is always someone who gives you a hand with filling up your glass once it gets empty...not a good combination! So I think it didn't take a lot of time until we were all in a good mood, it got so far that I also ended up raising a toast-unbelievable!:D I had so much fun that night, I mean: tasty food combined with good wine-the Georgians know how to have a feast!