An American in Georgia(the country)

[cornelius blaze]

Do you suspect this family will let him in the house after you leave and treat him kindly like you have? Or is his job just to be chained to the doghouse and bark at anything that passes?

its not Robby's fraught!

 

[CrystalGeezer]

its not Robby's fraught!

I'm not blaming Robby. I'm just curious about the family he's contracted to stay with.

 

[cornelius blaze]

I'm not blaming Robby. I'm just curious about the family he's contracted to stay with.

about the same...

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

thanks Cornie, I was starting to take CG's post a little personally, I am doing what I can what I can dog wise, I am only one man, defeating the mentality here is quite the struggle on my own
having said that, I am sure, this is more my own defensiveness on this issue than anybody's fault, it is what it is
I am not going to let it get me down, especially since today, down by the river, I had a "wild horse" come right up to me!
an out of body experience for me, words cannot describe
so, moving on here are some random pics starting with the new dog:

"Bahula"
he is no Loma, but I like him anyways, and he already adores me(which is somehow points against him, I mean, I don't like me very much & am sort of suspect of anyone who is)
from there here is a pic of GIT:

Nino, from a walk we together in the woods a while ago, I gave here the camera for some of it and she took some photos:

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

more Nino pics I think, she really is better with the camera than me:

I could post more, but you get the point
am I falling in love with her?
a little, but who wouldn't, she get more beautiful & smart everyday, sweet too, still so sweet and innocent
perhaps I love that most, which is why I would never doing anything to end that maybe when she is 21 and I am 43
will see
however, after seeing her pics I did

pick some flowers for her, how she blushed when I gave them to her
weird to be doing this sort of thing for the first time at my age
the moment did not last though, because of Nugo, he

gave me some smelly flowers the next day, as a joke obviously, still, I think he is torn about Nino and me, I have not done anything to upset him
but my affection for her is obvious
it has gotten so bad, a few times I have asked where she is:
"Sad ar Nino?"
and instead said:
"Sad ar Tina?" (my ex wife's name, I have never done that, cerntainly not in another language, man, whats up with that?)
now for some stuff in the news about me:

an article about me teaching English, it was basically a puff piece, I think because I spoke a lot of Kartuli(Georgian) when talking to the reporter
even though she had a translator there, I have found that making an effort to speak their language and emoting my true and good intentions goes along way with them
I hate to say it, but Georgia has made me a better person, I feel like I "emote" love more than I have in years
lastly, this appeared in the local paper shortly after my brother died:

spelling errors and all, I really thought it was touching they went to so much effort
anyways, enough internet for a while, I am trying to say the money I spend online
bye til next month kids...

 

[CrystalGeezer]

thanks Cornie, I was starting to take CG's post a little personally, I am doing what I can what I can dog wise, I am only one man, defeating the mentality here is quite the struggle on my own
having said that, I am sure, this is more my own defensiveness on this issue than anybody's fault, it is what it is
I am not going to let it get me down, especially since today, down by the river, I had a "wild horse" come right up to me!
an out of body experience for me, words cannot describeso, moving on here are some random pics starting with the new dog:

"Bahula"
he is no Loma, but I like him anyways, and he already adores me(which is somehow points against him, I mean, I don't like me very much & am sort of suspect of anyone who is)
from there here is a pic of GIT:

Nino, from a walk we together in the woods a while ago, I gave here the camera for some of it and she took some photos:

Cooooooool! Horses are intense, especially when they pick you.

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

Cooooooool! Horses are intense, especially when they pick you.

yeah, horses are awesome, so here is some pics of
"the horse with no name"

this is when I first saw him, after that

I slowly got closer

eventually, he looked up at me then started to wander

closer, at that point I put the camera down as he ate some grass near my feet and I petted his head
I wish I had some food for him, but I didn't,after a little he followed the fresh grass

further on, and I went back up to the road
on the way back up I smelled this

weird plant, is it what I think it is?
also, here is a pic of my desk

notice the globe?

its in Russian!

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

this post is to remind me to upload more pics from how I spent my Easter, here is the 4 I did upload so far:
the day started at a cemetery

where adults placed adults placed eggs on graves & kids picked them up, weird huh?

this is Nugo's mother's grave, lots of Georgian graves have these images of people from when they were alive on them
I have not been to an American cemetery in many years, do we do that now too?

I wandered and found this (mostly)abandoned church, inside I took a lot of pics, but only uploaded one so far:

Georgians believe everything goes better with wine, thus...

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

thought whoever is still reading this might be interested to know the music I hear here in Georgia when not playing my own at "home":
its normally on the "marshutkas"(private buses) one must use to get anywhere here that I am bombarded with
a strange mix of Georgian folk songs, Russian pop music, Spanish ballads, "Euro trance" music & of course, the odd American song, right now all the marshutkas seem to have "I Love You Like A Love Song" by Selena Gomez, at least I think thats the title, on their mix cds. Oh yeah, and some drivers are really into American rap, usually the filthiest hardcore stuff which I am sure they have no idea what it is saying

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

Baby, baby, where did our love go?

I'll tell you where, Nino, I came after school today to find the dog chained up exactly like this
then wrote down the word "cruel" and watched as Nino looked it up and pointed at her and said "Shen"
which is Georgian for you, her face turned red and she went of somewhere then I

freed him(Bakuna) but really, I fear for him once I am gone
as for how I feel about Nino, it all makes perfect sense, she appears nice, sweet and kind
but is quite capable of incredible brutality when made angry
(it seems the dog messed up one of her new sneakers)
what was I saying? oh yeah, it all making sense now
her inner viciousness, I have always had a thing for women/girls(like this) all the way back to high school
so yeah, I look at her differently now
"pretty poison"
and brother, I am done going there and doing that

 

[Iona Mink]

Robby I am glad you are continuing this thread on occasion. I am really enjoying your photo journal. I think you should continue this even when you get back home. It's a nice look into your life.

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

Robby I am glad you are continuing this thread on occasion. I am really enjoying your photo journal. I think you should continue this even when you get back home. It's a nice look into your life.

cool, well, I just made 16 random uploads of pics and here are half of them:

raising a tree

this was about 6 weeks ago and I saw it a few weeks ago and it is flourishing now, covered with little white blooming flowers
bees love these trees so thats why we saved it

spiders, when I got here, I hated them more than anything, but with the end of winter(finally) bugs of all kind abound
& these guys keep all the others at bay, so I let them reside with me here in my rooom
quite a breakthrough for me actually

this is the one of the walls of the room I stayed up in Bzhenvi(where Nugo's fam lives)
all day and all night, the wall made "crunch, crunch, crunch" noises, I could not stand it
termites, how these others abide it, I don't know, untreated=bad

these made me laugh, they are from the alphabet chart we have in class, errors like this about in materials used here
and when I pointed these two out, Eka(the main English teacher, who hates me) she did the new spelling with capital letters, and so it goes here

this is the posted time for the class times for spring semester, as you can see the class times are too short
breaks in between too long, and yet still classes never start on time, its despicable to me, but thats Georgians for you
also, notice, it does not even all add up right, ahh Georgia, even simple addition is a trial here

saw this near my bank today, I have no idea what it says, but its an interesting usage of Uncle Sam, isn't it?

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

Giorgi smoking, he wanted me to take this pic to send to some girl in Russia
I guess he thought he would look cooler if he was smoking in it. He has to hide his smoking though.
Nugo(the hypocrite who smokes a pack a day) forbids him from smoking, even though Gio is 18, its ridiculous
but hey, thats Georgia

Gio's best friend, Sami?(I think) he speaks German pretty good, so me and him communicate some
which is more than I do with most Georgians, usually talking about basketball(go Lakers) which makes just makes it even more weird

I told you about Nugo's grandmother, this is Ia's(Nugo's wife, my fave Georgian)
she was one of those legendary female snipers of the "Great Patriotic War" a subject I have always been deeply fascinated with

Gio in some of his dad's old uniform, now what interested me most about this uniform is that it is East German,
not "Soviet" seems the Russians filled out East German corps with "volunteers" from other "republics" of the USSR
and I happen to know that this one was one of the ones in the West which we rated as elite
I had no idea it was almost wholly made of troops from the Caucasus mountains
makes sense now to me though since as fierce as German soldiers can be, I never really understood the notion that East German troops would have fought NATO since most hated their Soviet overlords
Georgians, on the other hand have always been an integral part of what was the Soviet "war machine" since the days of Stalin*

this is a pic of "Hind" gunship flying over my head, I heard its distinctive "thrum, drum, thrum" from far off
an eerie feeling for me, out in the open, unarmed,
see back in the day, these guys were what we feared most in the Mech infantry, the Bradley(which I was a gunner in) could handle a lot of Soviet threats, but not these
so I noticed my heartbeat start to race as it came closer, luckily it stayed high up
I took this pic just to have something to do, funny how some things never leave you, I mean I never saw one of these in the war, hell, the only guys I knew, who were killed, it was by our own Apaches!
still though, low flying gunships, not something I like to be around, ever

I met this guy at a "Supra" on VE day(a big celebration here) he was a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan
and I(somehow) managed to communicate to him the absurdness of the fact that Georgia fought in both that war and now in "our" war there
Afghanistan, where war is truly eternal**

not only Nugo is cruel to dogs here, this is Simba, a beautiful creature chained up for my protection I am told
of course, by the time I left that house, he was not barking at me, dogs, they just know

I took this pic of Loma the night before they executed him
I gave him water and food, hugged him a lot
and even cried a little, I could see the shock on the Georgian's faces
particularly Nugo and his father's looks of disgust and laughing at me
these men who served only in peace time, think me weak which I find so incredible
here, me, Robby, veteran of war, killer of my fellow man seen as weak because I detest their cruelty to animals
what a world!

*=interesting note, the famous picture of a Soviet soldier raising the red banner over Berlin was from near where I live, these mountain folk really can climb anything
**= we toasted to peace coming to Afghanistan, and to the dead, all the dead, only me and him toasted to that
the other men at the table did not, once again, the remarkableness of it, me and him, the only two real vets at that Supra and we were the only ones that toasted all the dead, even our "enemies"

 

[CrystalGeezer]

I love this thread, Robby. I read it everytime I see you make an update.

That Uncle Sam pic is odd because it looks like he's playing beer pong, I don't quite understand the relevance of the fish, though.

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

I love this thread, Robby. I read it everytime I see you make an update.

That Uncle Sam pic is odd because it looks like he's playing beer pong, I don't quite understand the relevance of the fish, though.

thanks CG & yeah, I think those are glasses of wine actually
also, my last posted appeared twice, I have no idea why
so I deleted one, hopefully one will remain...

 

[CrystalGeezer]

Not wine, totally beer pong. They ripped it off this and added fish for some reason.

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

Not wine, totally beer pong. They ripped it off this and added fish for some reason.

ps: last word on the dog death/abuse, today I met the local area's "Dog Executioner"
sadly, I did not have my camera, young guy though, pock marked face, deep set & dark eyes
when I asked him how many dogs he had killed*

"Ramdeni dzagli grippa?"
he told me over ormotsdaati (50)
and I found myself thinking:
wow, when they find out this guy is also serial killer of people, I bet these morons here will be surprised

pps: reading what I thought at the time and wrote above I find part of myself wanting this guy to be a serial killer, which has given me new appreciation of some of Moz's more extreme comments
I mean, it would just make sense to me if this guy visited his evil upon humans eventually
a certain justice to it in my mind, strange I know, but its how I feel here...

*=he takes them out to the woods and shoots them

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

I am on low speed connection right now so I cannot upload pics but had a once in a lifetime experience a few nights ago
I was told we were going to a "banquet" for the graduating seniors and it was stressed that I dress up, I did my best
though its not like I brought my nicest clothes with me, here, but I managed I think
anyways, so we get to the event around 9pm and indeed the students are real nicely dressed for them, especially the girls
and there is music, tons of adults too though and I realize its like the Georgian version of the prom!
only with no dancing it seems
then the girls across from me get up and start dancing after about an hour
but none of the boys, then they finally play a song I decide I can maybe dance a little to
"Mambo #5" terrible song to be sure, but at least I have heard it before, hated it, but I know how it goes
always important when attempting to dance in front of a room full of strangers
so I get up, do my best to move in step with the song, there was some pointing, wide eyes and finally cheering
by the end of the song, some of the other boys had got up to
I had done my duty, "broken the ice" as it were
made it OK for the boys to dance with the girls, even with all their elders looking on
it was, if I may say, my "Footloose" moment
however, it did not stop there, I went to go sit back down and eat
but over and over again, Georgians pulled me up to "dance with them"
including one of my co-teachers(the one who does not hate me)
it was a blast, but exhausting, I have not done any dancing in quite sometime
and rarely as close to sober* as I was that night
and so it went on and on until I went back to the van and passed out around 1 am
woke up the next morning still in Nugo's van, but rested enough for school I guess


*=there were many toasts, but I made sure to only lightly sip the wine, its imperative to not get real drunk here
but at the same time one must balance not insulting them by not toasting with them, its one of the more annoying things about this place

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

these pics go with the above "Prom" post

Giorgi with two of his classmates

the toastmaster(tamada) with Nugo sitting next to him

the ladies sitting opposite me, as much into toasts and wine drinking as me

the girls only dancing begins, I joined in shortly after

I take a break after the boys are up too

in the center is Mya, the co-teacher I get along with

me, smiling a rare thing, especially here...

 

[123xyz]

I agree with the other posters on this thread , Robby - keep the updates coming (both the stories and photos if possible). It's been an enjoyable series of strangely poignant vignettes...