An American in Georgia(the country)

Oh my god. it's Robby!

spontaneously luminescent
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Here I will hopefully post pics and comments about my life in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia during the year 2012.
So far, I have really only made one friend:
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"Loma" the family dog, but that still pretty good since he tried to bite my arm about a month ago, however, after repeatedly talking to him nicely and feeding him scraps, he now adores me, if only people were so easy.
What else, what else, there is lots, but the wine is starting to get to me, here in Georgia, the men drink wine pretty much continuously, I drink about half as much but still.
Anyways, a couple more photos:
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Stalin! They still love him here, crazy huh? Mainly because he was Georgian not Russian, did you know that?
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This is Nino, the 16 year old daughter of Nugo(whose family I am staying with). She is the only one who knows any English, but I have to be careful when around her, her father(Nugo) gets mad at her for(I guess) smiling at me too much or what, so if this thread comes to an abrupt end or you hear that an American teacher got killed in Georgia, its likely me, and because Nugo got the wrong idea...
 
So where in Georgia are you living? And speaking of Stalin; have you visited the Stalin Museum in Gori yet?
 
So where in Georgia are you living? And speaking of Stalin; have you visited the Stalin Museum in Gori yet?
wow, you know you're stuff Emil, have you been here? As for where I am living its a little town called:
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Vertkvichali, hereby called simply "V-town" & no, I have not been to Gori yet.
I am hoping to go there with some other American(and other English speaking) teachers to see the museum, perhaps by summer...
 
wow, you know you're stuff Emil, have you been here?

No, I haven't. I've never been so far away from Sweden. I think I've read about the museum somewhere, in Der Spiegel perhaps.

As for where I am living its a little town called: Vertkvichali, hereby called simply "V-town" & no, I have not been to Gori yet.
I am hoping to go there with some other American(and other English speaking) teachers to see the museum, perhaps by summer...

So what part of Georgia is it? Close to Tbilisi?
 
No, I haven't. I've never been so far away from Sweden. I think I've read about the museum somewhere, in Der Spiegel perhaps.



So what part of Georgia is it? Close to Tbilisi?
ahh, Sweden, high on my list of places to visit
as for where I am in Georgia, its the Imereti province, almost 3 hours from Tbilisi
however, I am less than an hour's drive from the border with "South Ossetia" where the Russians still have troops stationed and so if they decide they want the rest of Georgia back under their tyranny(a legitamate fear here) then
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this is one of the roads they will come down, which is a real shame, since the Russians would not even think about doing so if we just just sold anti-air and anti-tank weapons to Georgia(or let them in NATO)
but Obama won't let that happen, which is starting to piss me off more now that I am here
maybe enough so that I may vote Republican!
will see, I have time to think about that
anyways, today I re-arranged my room and put up an art poster I got from a Kiwi in 09:
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I think putting it underneath the pelt of some unknown(to me) woodland creature that Nugo killed adds to the overall effect, don't you?
 
AWESOME thread, and destined to be one of my favourites on these forums

also...

Nino looking good! She needs to be a re-occurring character in this thread. Don't get yourself killed over it though

that dog will be the most loyal friend you make over there, Robbie, so keep those table scraps flowing.

I look forward to reading this thread thoughout the year. The only other thing it needs is some re-occurring Raytownian wisdom...
 
What I did yesterday.
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Thats Nugo and Giorgi chopping down a tree for firewood.
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I wanted to get to use an ax or maybe even a chainsaw, but Nugo, wisely decided to limit me to
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stacking the wood, however, I, sort of got the last laugh on this score about who would be the most danger to oneself when
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cousin Giorgi*(about half of all males in Georgia are named "Giorgi")cut his toe with an axe. This after I warned him, as best I could, to get some boots on. It was weird though, after he hit his slipper(and the foot in it) with the axe, he did not cry out and seemed more concerned in Nugo not finding out than about stopping the blood flow. I helped him hobble back to the house. Eventually showing him the scar on one of my toes where I cut it with an axe when I was a little younger than him. However, I screamed and screamed when I cut my toe. Next up for me was
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branch clearing, at this point, the branches are behind me in a haphazard mess and must be taken to the
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top of the hill &
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stacked, this done, I rested



*=Georgians are constantly visiting each other and having house guests, so even though there are already 7 of us here in this 3 BR(with 1 person sleeping in the kitchen) He(Gio) has been here for weeks as well, as someone else will be after him, its a constant revolving plethora of house guests and people just visiting during the day or staying for dinner.
I find this both annoying and I am grateful for it becuase it explains how they would let some complete stranger like me come stay with them for a year!
 
Nice life.
It is my hope that before I leave here that Loma is let off that damn chain, the best I have been able to do is to get Nugo to loosen it around his neck so that when he lunges at "strangers"(to him) coming to the house that it pulls on his shoulders rather than neck. But make no mistake about it, he does lunge at plenty of people as they come to the house and has in the past bit Giorgi and a couple of other people, in the USA he would have been put down already, is this chained up existence better?
I think not, but I hope it is a half way point. See, when I am here though and guests come by, I try to be by his side calming him down, its working so far, rather than bark or lunge, if I am there, he sort of whines and growls lowly, looking up at me all confussed, but I have faith, by next winter, he will be a reformed doggie!

AWESOME thread, and destined to be one of my favourites on these forums

also...

Nino looking good! She needs to be a re-occurring character in this thread. Don't get yourself killed over it though

that dog will be the most loyal friend you make over there, Robbie, so keep those table scraps flowing.

I look forward to reading this thread thoughout the year. The only other thing it needs is some re-occurring Raytownian wisdom...
cool, I'll keep posting then, and just for you here is the first picture I took of Nino, she is singing in English(with a very thick Georgian accent which is just so adorable)
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Its some old 70s Soul song called "One Way Ticket" you can find the original on youtube...
 
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For a minute there I thought they were playing some Rock Band :/

that's a pretty fetching white coat she's wearing, too.

With their leniancy on houseguests, I might need to swing by one of these days and find me a Georgian soulmate

I usually use a log-splitter to help cut/chop/split wood but hats off to those tough-as-coffin-nails Georgians axing down trees as they need it and getting the guest to do all the stacking :rock:
 
It's Robby <!> hasn't posted anything in three days

hopefully he didn't overstep his bounds and find the business end of Nugo's tree-chopping axe or something...
 
Nugo: Oh [Robbie!], don't come to the house tonight...because there's somebody heeere who'll take a hatchet to your eaaaaar...
 
Looks interesting, Robby!

How come you chose to go to that country for a year, though?
 
The snowball fight
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It all started out tamely with me writing my name in the snow and
(insert pic of me here)
Nino taking a picture of me, then Giorgi threw the first snowball @ her &
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dared her to strike back, it escalated from there with
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(cousin) Giorgi becoming involved, snow started to get
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all over the place and
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disaster loomed, with the struck window
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Nugo came out and called an end to it, all that was left was for
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the clean up. There are no real "winners" in a snowball fight, however, I think the real loser was
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Loma, unable to defend himself, he seemed to take strikes from all quarters(especially his house) war, it is always hardest on the innocent, aint it?
 
It's Robby <!> hasn't posted anything in three days

hopefully he didn't overstep his bounds and find the business end of Nugo's tree-chopping axe or something...
I just used up all my bandwith watching American TV dude

Looks interesting, Robby!

How come you chose to go to that country for a year, though?
Georgia does not have an extradition treaty with the USA. No, just kidding, the deal was I found that most of the jobs for teaching English abroad were going to people with actual teaching experience, it is my hope that my one year here will change that.
& now for pics, I threw some snowballs of my own but mostly I took photos of others especially these first 4 while hiding around a corner and
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Nino tried to hit me
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She really throws like a girl, doesn't she? Oh yeah and here is that
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pic of me she took and now for a pic of the
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bell at the school and 2 more of a
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strange building out back of it, with this ominous
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sign on it...
 
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was just goofing around about your disappearance, dude. I didn't want the thread to sink too far down the page

that picture of you in all black with the cig is a riot.

and who is the culprit responsible for the busted window?
 
Is there at least a blanket in Loma's doghouse? Do they ever take him on walks? Where does he pee?
 
was just goofing around about your disappearance, dude. I didn't want the thread to sink too far down the page

that picture of you in all black with the cig is a riot.

and who is the culprit responsible for the busted window?

don't worry, I was not freaking out or anything, I leave that to others here now these days
as for the window strike, that was by Giorgi 1(not the cousin) but its fine, it just got covered in snow and Nugo came out shortly after
and yeah, my look is pretty rockin there, esepecially with the one glove!

Is there at least a blanket in Loma's doghouse? Do they ever take him on walks? Where does he pee?
would a wet blanket be better than none? I think he had one before because I see shreds of some kind piece of clothing near his "area"
as for the peeing and pooing, the pee rolls down the hill, his "area" sits astride a plateau that plunges from it to the front gate at a steep incline
while the poo, well, I seem to be the only one who makes an effort to push it away from him, I use the excuse that I don't want to step in it, otherwise they would just think it another one of those weird American habits of mine, hard to explain, they already scratch their heads enough at me
now when it comes to walks, do dice yet, but I have not given up!

ps: this might be my last post for a long while, watched some Doctor Who and got some music, so the bandwith is getting eaten up again...
 
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