Long Post About Nothing... its about time though

I have been trying to get myself involved in a lot of different projects lately since I have realized that only about 10% of what I start out trying to do here is going to actually happen. So my strategy is to start as many projects as possible, and one of them is bound to work out. In addition to helping my school start applying for a grant to build "gym facilities" (read: showers), I have co-taken over next year's Teacher Training. I and another volunteer have been working on recreating the plan for teacher training in a way that involves more volunteers, provides more trainings for teachers, and is generally just less of a pain-in-the-ass to be part of. I will be doing a little intro-session about Teacher Training during the G6 PST (pre-service training) to try and recruit some poor saps to join. While we were throwing out some ideas for how we could remake Teacher Training I made a joke about doing Teachers Camp. Forcing teachers from all over Georgia to come together and learn not only about new teaching methods but also take exercises courses, do arts and crafts, etc. Nobody around me was feeling the genius-ness of this idea until I mentioned it to our Project Manager. She loved it. I mean really really loved it. She said we would be "pioneers". So now, apparently, I have committed to planning (along with my Teacher Training partner who may want to shoot more for blabbing my ridiculous ideas to our boss and thus committing her to take on yet another project that involves a great deal of work) and implementing the first annual Teachers Camp in the summer of 2007. Luckily the partnership I have worked out with my fellow volunteer has me being the curriculum planner and recruiter for projects, and her being the organizer, grant writer, fund securing, logistical everything planner. All that basically means that she does the work to make my crazy ideas and vision come true. Which I have decided is officially the way I would like all of my life to happen. We like to say that I have the enthusiasm and she has the ability to actually make something get done.

Recently I was able to go see Sukhishvili's dance troupe perform in Tbilisi. This troupe of traditional Georgian dancers performs all over the world (I believe they were in New York recently). For only 15 lari (about 8 dollars) a ticket I and several other volunteers went into Tbilisi to watch them perform. It was fun to try and get dressed up when I really didn't bring many nice clothes. I wore the only nice shoes that I brought and hadn't worn them since I swore in as a volunteer. On the way to the concert I discovered a curiosity about my biology that was previously unknown to me. A large majority of the weight I lose seems to come from my feet… not a particularly helpful place to shed the pounds. So I was literally slipping out of my shoes on the metro and down the main street in Tbilisi, which is actually far more embarrassing than you probably realize, given that I live in a country obsessed with footwear and had to make a pit stop at McDonalds to shove toilet paper into the tips of my shoes so that I wouldn't walk right out of them on the way to the Opera House.  (PLEASE NOTE: If you are really interested in hearing about the dance concert you should skip past the next few paragraphs as I digress and give you a play by play on shoe shopping in Tbilisi, most of which is actually probably not interesting or amusing to anyone but me.)

After this incident I decided to go shoe shopping. I personally never understood that cliché obsession that women have with shoes. When I see women who have a pair of delicate high-heeled shoes to match their one, extremely unique to say the least, neon-green dress, which undoubtedly matches their vintage neon-green, sparkled purse, and down to the ridiculously coordinated hair clip I must admit I have scoffed at them. For one: how can one person possibly own shoes to match every obscurely colored dress? Two: why would you buy multiple pairs of uncomfortable, ankle-breaking shoes when one is clearly enough? I set off shoe shopping with the attitude that comfortable, black, and simple, no-fuss shoes were what I was looking for. This was the same time period our recent heat-wave started, so I adjusted my ideal shoes image a little to include, sandal-like. Simple, black, comfortable, sandal-like shoes. I needed something I could wear to work, but could pair with a skirt or pair of jeans and look equally well coordinated and sensible. Seems like the item you would find in every shoe store in every town, everywhere. I started my search at the largest bazroba, Vagzali Bazroba, in Tbilisi, figuring that there wasn't much of anything I couldn't find there.  

I was wrong. There was in fact, plenty I couldn't find there, including any shoe that even remotely resembled something I could call both simple and comfortable. Nearly every pair of women's shoes was a bright color, with a 5 inch heel, a pointed tip that actually doubled the length of my foot, and regardless of the size my feet couldn't really fit into them. A strange cultural fact that lonely planet did not inform me about Georgia is that people here believe your shoes should be worn a size smaller than your feet actually are. I don't know what it is, but no salesperson in Georgia believed me when I told them that it isn't in fact correct for your heel to be hanging off the end of your shoes and for the straps to be constricting blood flow to your toes.

But the really strange thing about shoe shopping-- and I am starting to think I may have stumbled upon some elaborate scheme created by shoe manufacturers (most likely based on something Freudian in nature) involving some inexplicable female hormone involving tall shoes and pointed things, is that the more you look at those shoes that you swear you would never wear, the more you start to imagine yourself wearing them. In fact, you start passing over shoes that don't have a heel, because even looking at a pair of sneakers starts to feel like you're shouting to all the women around you that you are both unfashionable and unfeminine.  So I spent 6 hours shopping for a plain, black, simple, sandal-like pair of shoes, and by the end, I left the bazroba with a pair of high-heeled brown slip-on fancy shoes with a flowery decoration on the front that I was well aware I could wear neither with my work clothes nor really for very long with a pair of jeans. But I paid twice what I intended to pay for any pair of shoes and left feeling very satisfied. Don't get me wrong, they are nice shoes, but after walking around Tblisi in them for a few hours, I started to realize that they were exactly meant for walking. I thus concluded that what I needed were multiple pairs of shoes to satisfy my various needs, and I moved on to shoe shopping round two.

I asked Giga where I could possible find more shoe options than the ones present to me at Vagzali. He mentioned a place I had never been to called Lilo's bazroba, but warned me that we had to take a marshutka out of Tbilisi a way to get there. I didn't realize he meant a 45 minute marshutka out past the outskirts of Tbilisi where for some reason beyond my understanding in the middle of what appears to be a completely uninhabited part of Georgia exists the most elaborately huge shopping complex I may have every seen.   Lilo's Bazroba is nearly indescribable to a western shopper accustomed to shopping malls. Imagine a place roughly the size of 2 football fields, with aisles no wider than two feet dividing rows and rows of shops designed a bit like horse stalls. Each stall being not quit large enough for an actual horse. Everyplace in Lilo's was packed with people and more than once Giga and I got completely lost and only realized we were gong in circles when I tried on the same pair of shoes 3 separate times having absolutely no memory that they didn't fit the other two times. The great thing about shopping in Georgia is you can get yourself a pair of genuine Pumna shoes for only about 5$. Or that Addibas track suit you have been looking for for only 3$. You can even find a rare pair of Gep jeans for 10$. Its great. Although on this trip I had adamantly decided I wouldn't be sucked in by the girly shoes, I found I had a new force of shoe shopping to reckon with- cheap shoes- ridiculously cheap shoes. While there I purchased not just one, but TWO, pairs of super-ultra-made-in-china-willbreaknextweek-flip-flops which I know I will embarrass my family to no end wearing, but I don't care. When I rule the world, people will only wear flip-flops, as they are clearly the most superior form of foot-wear in existence.

None-the-less I still didn't find a pair of shoes that I could wear to work and not want to cry after wearing for two hours. But I did have three pairs of shoes I probably wouldn't ever be able to wear anywhere without either falling over or being mocked incessantly. A few days later I was walking down Rustaveli Street in downtown Tbilisi and there in a window of a normal western style store that was devoted to selling only shoes and a few clothes were not just one, but about 7 varieties of simple, black, sandal-like, shoes. I tried them on and they turned out to be reasonably comfortable and very reasonably priced. I bought them. That brings us up to 4 pairs of shoes in one week, only one of which I will probably ever wear. Since going on this shopping-spree I have begun to notice a change in the way I view shoes, and the women who wear them. I find myself drawn to looking at people's feet on the subway, and this compelling urge to ask women where they bought their shoes. It may be slowly becoming an obsession. Shoes are everywhere. I can't stop looking at them. This has led me to revise my thinking about women and shoes. There may in fact be some sort of biological shoe clock in woman that we are helpless to fight. Someone should look into that. I never would have guessed that I would join the peacecorps and discover deep down I really am materialistic.

(NOTE: end of shoe shopping rant!)

But coming back to the Georgian dance-- it was really interesting. Unfortunately, we were unaware that we had purchased tickets for the televised version of the recital. This meant that every time a commercial break was due, we had to watch several minutes of advertising or speeches, most of which we couldn't understand. Essentially it was like a telethon I think and people could call or text in during the breaks and donate money for orphanages… or something. I wish I had been able to take some video for you all because the dancing itself was pretty amazing. There are these dances that are half dancing-half sword fighting in crazy Russian Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon style…. only these people actually were defying gravity sans special effects. It was unbelievable. If any of you ever get a chance to see some traditional Georgian dancing, you most definitely should go.

I meant to go home the next day after the concert, but I ended up staying in Tbilisi for the big Independence Day celebration. Rustaveli Street in Tbilisi was shut down for the military parade which is basically ALL of the Georgian military riding in trucks or tanks, marching through town, or flying overhead in fighter jets. What baffled me was that if this was really ALL of the Georgian army was marching around Tbilisi on that day… wouldn't that be a bit of an easy target if someone wanted to attack? Anyway, for me and my relatively little experience with military parades, it seemed like a lot of people, although most Georgians insisted it was nothing compared to the Russian version which is supposedly (and understandably so) immensely more impressive. I did take some pictures on my phone of the tanks… I will try and get those up in the near future.

In other news, it is definitely summertime here now and I am roasting. I hate hot weather and I already miss the winter. The grass is always greener right? I don't have many summer clothes with me either. Thus, I have come to love what is known to the volunteers as the "free-box." This box has provided me with half of my summer wardrobe and a good jump on next winter's clothing, as well as yet another pair of shoes. When volunteers leave they are encouraged to donate their excess clothing to the free-box so that the rest of us poor, cheap volunteers can have something to wear. Since the old group of volunteers is on their way out right now, the box has been a never-ending supply of new (old) clothes for me, and my family too, as they have recently become awe-struck by the fashionable finds I have brought home and claimed to have found in this mystical box. Now every time I return from Tbilisi my family eagerly asks me "Did you check the free-box???!" Actually, I think I might be monopolizing the box a bit…

As I write this lengthy post which is really about nothing, I am doing laundry… and we can all be thankful that I am. I haven't done laundry in an obscene amount of time and all of my clothes have developed a very strange stench that I am not sure can possibly be from me. I remember when I mocked the high rate of odor-ridden Georgians, but I think I am starting to sympathize with (empathize? become like?) them. Doing laundry is just too darn difficult... it's much easier to just be a little stinky. Now that it is summer the stinkometer levels have gone up two-fold on the marshutkas. It is highly advantageous to get to your marshutka early and claim a window seat.

My school year doesn't end until the end of June because of all that winter heat drama which caused us to miss several weeks' worth of classes. So ALL the other schools are out now or in the next week, but mine will continue. However my counterpart informed me that the end of the year isn't very important, so I can come when I want to… Keep in mind this is the same counterpart who has informed me that the beginning of the year isn't very important, exam time isn't very important, and most classes can easily be missed if need be. So on the scale of importance… which part of school here is worth going to? I might just never understand.