Let the Holiday's Begin

So I'm a little behind with my posts because the holiday season started a while ago but none the less I will share a few of my holiday experiences so far. So the Georgians don't celebrate Halloween, in fact they advertise against it but I love the holiday and wanted to celebrate but as I mentioned before I was in Kazbegi and Georgians don't like the holiday. Well, I only wanted to do one thing and that was carve a pumpkin. Before Halloween I couldn't find a pumpkin anywhere but a few days after I found one in a little shop as I was meandering down the street. I bought it, hid it in my bag, brought it home. It sat on my bedroom floor for nearly a month while ever once in a while I would look at it and want to carve it but I didn't know where to do it. My host family would never allow me to do it in the house, my hostess made that very clear when I carved a little jack o'lantern face into a persimmon. So, a couple days before Thanksgiving there was a Georgian holiday called St. George's Day. There was no school (i.e. no work) and my friend was visiting from Kazbegi so it seemed like a good time. So we took the pumpkin down into the park in front of my apartment building where there was a picnic bench. Trying to be a little more discrete about it, I decided to use my 4" pocket knife, that I had bought at the outdoor market a few days before, to carve the pumpkin. As I was cutting the top off of the pumpkin I notice that the knife wasn't locking open like it should have been. The pumpkin was very thick and tough to carve into so we had to use a lot of pressure. After we got the top off and pulled all the guts out I was trying to carve out an eye when the knife slipped shut on my finger. I'm pretty sure it only stopped when it hit the bone. I immediately grabbed my finger, held it up in the air and squeezed tight. It was a pretty clean cut and because I did this it didn't bleed much. So I stayed out there while my friend helped me finish carving the pumpkin. There where a few kids that stopped by to see what we were doing and thought it was very entertaining. When I went into the house to get my finger bandaged up, I told my hostess what we were doing. She told me, "I knew what you were doing and this happened because you were carving a pumpkin on St. George's Day." I knew that's exactly what she was going to say and thought it was pretty entertaining. She helped me bandage my finger and then I went back out so that we could find a candle to put into it.

Here it is:
 

Making Georgian Bread

On November 24th I went up to visit my friend Jiayi in her area of the city. We had just started walking up the street when I noticed a shop where I could see them making bread in the downstairs. I stopped to watch for a second and they invited us in to see the process. They even let us participate a bit.

 

 

 They take the dough and spread it on a mold and with the mold they slap the dough on the side of the oven and it sticks.

 It is hot in there and these guys get the bread all the way down the walls of the stove.

 

 

 

These guys were really nice and let me keep the bread I slapped on the wall (somehow they were able to keep track of it). Jiayi went to slap her dough to the side of the oven, freaked out and her dough fell. So all that came out was a lump of burnt dough/bread. So they were nice enough to give her another bread.

Some Random, Yet, Interesting Photos of Things Around Tbilisi

This was part of one of the biggest open markets in Tbilisi. 

I just liked the way they had all the fruit set up perfectly.

Need some boots?? Almost every woman here where's big black boots.

This I found at one of the restaurants near the market. Hehe.

An interesting apartment building we saw right outside the Metro station.

 Sulfer Baths- The natrual hot springs the city of Tbilisi was built around.

Ministry of Education Building

A picture I wasn't supposed to take at the U.S. Embassy

 Crossing the river in Tbilisi 

The largest church in Georgia.

 

Planting Trees

On November 6th we gathered as TLG teachers and took a couple of buses out to an area near the Sea of Tbilisi (a lake near Tbilisi) where we participated in planting some trees. We spent about 2 hours there putting saplings into holes that had already been dug for us. All we had to do was to get the trees upright and fill in the holes. It was pretty easy. There were a few holes that weren't big enough so we had to make them a bit bigger but for the most part we able to go fairly quickly and planted quite a few trees.

It was another media opportunity. Anytime they set up an activity for us, the media is there.This time the Minister of Education was there with a few of his people and they helped plant a few trees in front of the cameras before they left.

I loved the shovels, they were awesome. They were, what looked like, a tree branch with a flat blade attached to one end.