The Day I Meet My Host Family

The day finally came that we broke free of Bazaleti and went to Gori to meet our host families.  It was every bit as awkward as I knew it would be.  It was very much like a giant game of Red Rover where the one side took the other side home with them. I ended up in the Ruisi Cluster with the Baliashvili family.  They are awesome.

My დეიდა (mom, pronounced day-dah)'s name is Nino.  She's 33 and always happy.  She has an amazing garden and talks to the neighbor lady all the time about seeds and starts.  They are hilarious.  My და ("dah", sister) is 17 and her name is Nazi ("Nah-zee").  She loves One Republic, John Legend, and Adele.  She takes English Conversation lessons in Gori, so she saves me.  She translates a lot, but then feeds me vocabulary constantly.  I'll correct her pronunciation and her homework, and she speaks slowly and repeats things often.  We have a great thing going. And then I have a little ძმა ("dz-mah", brother), Rezo ("Rrrrrez-oh").  He's 11 and fun and I think he is involved with the local church somehow.  I'll figure it out on Sunday.  I told him I would go.  Their მამა ("mama", dad - yes, it's opposite from English) works in the West and I guess he only comes one one weekend a month.  I haven't quite figured out what he does there, but we are taking baby steps here...  Our ბებია ("beh-bee-yah", grandma) lives in a smaller village Northeast of here, but she's here visiting.  She's fun and we commiserate with the cold.  That's about the extent of our communication, but it has bonded us. They are very chill and I like them a lot.  I really lucked out with my host family.

Like I said in my last post, Georgia seems just like home. I'm in a bit of a smaller valley now, so it's just like Cache Valley.  The weather is similar too, but since we don't have central heating, it gets really cold outside. Particularly at night.  I was fine for the first couple hours, but I woke up freezing.  They gave me a great comforter, but it wasn't my usual heated mattress pad and double comforter set-up, so naturally I was cold like unto death.  Cold enough that I was awake enough to know that I needed my sleeping bag, so I rolled over and unpacked it and pulled it over me.  I wasn't awake enough to actually open it and get in.  And also not awake enough to realize that maybe I shouldn't put it directly on my face.  As my body temperature finally rose, my breaths became shallower.  Soon I was gasping for air and realized I was about to suffocate myself in the name of a warm nose.  I made a breath hole and luckily didn't become the shortest-lived Peace Corps trainee.  I almost didn't survive the first night unsupervised.  Funnily enough, they didn't cover that in the Safety and Security briefings... Maybe sleeping bag asphyxiation isn't a huge threat.  Or maybe the rest of them are smart enough to give themselves a slight cross-breeze.

The good news is that Georgian is actually seeming manageable these days. I still don't understand 95% of what is spoken around me and there is so much that I have to learn, but it doesn't sound completely foreign anymore.  I have the alphabet down and I have classes and Nazi. I wish I could remember more of what she teaches.  My brain resembles a saturated sponge these days.  There's just so much to learn!  So I write it all down and I'll come back to it later. But even ცოთა ("tso-tah", a little) progress is progress, so I'll take what I can get.

But I've taken a break from homework to watch Georgian X Factor.  One guy totally killed it with Ice Ice Baby.  He brought the house down, and I think he sang it better than most English speakers.  So life is good here in Saqartvelo (Georgia in Georgian).  I don't have wifi, but their computer has internet, so I have some access.  I'll update with pictures as soon as I can.

Nakhvamdis (goodbye)!