Let the Mash Cook Georgian!

It's about time I learned how to cook some Georgian foods. The first step to becoming a force of Georgian cooking is a handle on the right spices to use. Buying the right spices for Georgian cooking works like this: You go to one of the spice purveyors in the bazaar and tell her what you want to make. In my case, it was lobio (ლობიო, Georgian-style beans) and satsivi (საცივი, walnut sauce). She then takes a paper cone, fills it with the appropriate spices, and voila! You have a little package filled with what you need to get the beans and the walnuts spiced just right.

Mash, Persona Grata

Honestly? Sometimes it's just nice to be appreciated. Thank you, School 30!

Just Another Day in Kutaisi

The rain finally let up long enough this afternoon to take a walk. I hear that it's been unusually wet and chilly this April (nevermind the 90F day we had a few weeks ago). Today was definitely a sweatshirt and jacket and raincoat on top of it all kind of day. Brrrr.

Asomtavruli

This is a poster that was hanging in one of the schools I was in last week and is of the Georgian "Asomtavruli" alphabet (the text up at the top of the poster says "Kartuli Asomtavruli" which, I guess, identifies it as Georgian Asomtavruli).

Asomtavruli is the oldest form of the Georgian alphabet. Isn't it beautiful?

If you can read modern Georgian, I just learned of a quizlet set of flashcards to help one learn the Asomtavruli alphabet. 

Asomtavruli Flash Cards

DIY Dry Erase Whiteboards

Today in our workshop I showed the participants how to DIY a dry erase board. It was super simple. All you need is a plastic sheet protector, a piece of paper to slide inside of it, and a whiteboard marker. If you wanted to get fancy, you could tape the whole thing down to a piece of cardboard. The teachers really liked this idea. It's inexpensive to execute, too.

Bagrati Cathedral (ბაგრატის ტაძარი)

I haven't been getting out nearly enough lately, so this afternoon I shelved work and went for a walk up to Bagrati Cathedral, which is fairly close to Kutaisi's city center. It was a lovely afternoon to be out. This morning's rain lifted a bit after noon and left us with a cool, clear, fresh afternoon. Sigh. I need to spend more time outside.

2013 Open Lesson Week in Kutaisi

Last month, some of my teachers participated in an Open Lesson Week in which they taught lessons that were based on what I've taught them, and these lessons were open for anyone to attend. I compiled their lesson plans into a booklet. They did great work. :)

If it's too difficult to look at the document in the viewer below, you can click here to be taken over to the document on Google Drive.




Of course, I made a map of participating schools, too!


View 2013 Kutaisi Open Lesson Week in a larger map

Adjika, Adjika, Adjika!

Back in February, I was having a grocery shopping marathon at the Carrefour in Tbilisi when I saw the package of rice paper wrappers. I'm not sure why I grabbed them. I'd never used the wrappers before and, to tell the truth, I wasn't even sure what to do with them. But they found their way with me back to Kutaisi and, two months later, I was ready to give them a try.

I was trying to figure out what to eat for lunch today and couldn't get very excited about eating leftover pumpkin and lentils. Then it dawned on me: What about pumpkin and lentils wrapped up like a spring roll? Why not? And so that's what I did. As a bonus, I had received a gift of a bottle of adjika yesterday (packaged up in a water bottle, more on adjika below) and I thought that would make a superb dipping sauce. And it did. And lunch was good and very quick and easy and much more exciting than a simple bowl of lentils and pumpkin.

I will be using rice paper wrappers again.

More about the deliciousness that is adjika....

Adjika: Sauce of Glory, Pride of Abkhazia

Yet Another Sauce of Glory

(However, if I had to choose between adjika and the ajvar made by my Kosovar landlady, the ajvar would win.)

მე *heart* ELCE

My latest obsession is getting program participants and graduates to email me photos of their faces so I can make an "I Love ELCE" poster.

The Doors of Georgia

Here we have doors from Telavi, Tbilisi, Gori, and Kutaisi. These are pretty typical of the doors I've seen....most with multiple layers of peeling paint. (All of the photos are mine.)

A Rainy Day in Kutaisi

It's been a rainy, rainy day. It let up briefly earlier this afternoon, though, so I took a walk. I am working on making a CD cover, so I was on the lookout for doors (because I've been asked to do it of doors). Of course, it seemed like everything but doors caught my eye. Heh.

This last photo, I think I'd like to use it on the back cover. I love the color combination.

Sunday Morning Reading

A few bits of reading I came across this morning:

Abkhazia: recognising the ruins

Armenians Seek Language Rights in Georgia

Certificate-Making Mash

About a month ago one of my colleagues organized a logo competition for the English Language through Civic Education Program. I think the winning entry was made by a 14-year old student. Today I used that logo to make certificates for the participants of Open Lesson Week in Kutaisi. I'm glad my colleague went to the extra effort to organize the competition, solicit submissions, and select the winner. His hard work, and the work of the student who produced the winning logo, definitely made making these certificates a bit more enjoyable.

School 14

On Tuesday I was at School 14. Here are two pics from where I was sitting at the teacher's desk to observe a class up on the 4th floor.

Extremely Early K

Yesterday, I misread my schedule and showed up over an hour early at the school where I was conducting observations for the day. Instead of just parking my butt in the teachers' room, I strolled around the neighborhood. Here are a few resident buildings:

Now, It's Time to Map the ELCE Schools!

Along with the map I'm trying to crowdsource of all of the primary/secondary schools in Georgia (there aren't actually separate primary and secondary schools, usually all classes from grades 1-12 are held in the same building), I'm also trying to build a map of all of the schools that have participated in the English Language through Civic Education program (which is the program with which I am currently involved). As of this posting, less than 25% of those schools have been mapped, but I'm hoping to get all of the participating schools on there!



View ELCE Participant Schools in a larger map

2 Doors

Laundry Time!

It's been a rainy couple of days (this morning is grey and dreary as well), but the skies cleared and the sun came out just long enough yesterday afternoon for laundry to be hung out to dry.

Public and Private Schools in Georgia

Have you ever asked yourself, "Gee....I wonder where all of the elementary and secondary schools in Georgia are located?" I haven't, exactly, but I have tried to find either a website or a map that lists all of the public schools in Kutaisi (as far as I can tell, there is no such resource). As I was posting my previous blog entry (you know, the one with all the scanned index cards giving directions to schools in Kutaisi), I thought a map of schools could be a useful source of information.

As a result, I'm trying to crowdsource a Google Map showing the locations of all schools in Georgia (aka Georgia, Republic of and Georgia, country). Whether or not I end up with a populated map, we'll see. At the moment, though, two other people have pinned schools to the map.

This map is public and is open for anybody to edit, so if you know where any of the public or private schools are in Georgia, feel free to add it to the map.



View Public and Private Schools in Georgia in a larger map

Where are the schools in Kutaisi, anyways?

A huge chunk of my time is spent observing teachers teaching lessons. With the 23 teachers I’m currently working with, I have several schools to visit that are spread out all around Kutaisi. Because I didn’t initially know where any of the participating schools were, I asked my teachers to write down directions on index cards for me. I asked them to include, in Georgian, directions for a taxi driver and information for the marshrutka driver along with the routes that run near their school (so I could be let off in the right spot). These index cards have proved indispensable.

School 1

School 5

School 7

School 8

School 9

School 10

School 11

School 12

School 14

School 20

School 22

School 24

School 25

School 29

School 30

School 32

School 37

School 38