Normally, I post a story or an experience on this blog. For this post, I thought I’d post some quick and dirty fun facts about my Peace Corps service. Some of these facts are mentioned in other posts.
- We had a pet rooster for about two months. Justin tried training our rooster like a dog.
- Cows are everywhere in Georgia and I’ve been obsessed with them lately. Each time I see a cow while walking, I attempt to take a selfie with it.
This is technically a calf, but this still counts as a cow selfie - In my office’s bathroom, there is a bathtub. This is because our office is actually a home converted into an office.
- I am the only foreigner at work. All my colleagues are Georgian and we speak Georgian at work.
- Georgians are obsessed with mayonnaise. They sell it in tubs and they also drizzle it on pizza.
Here is an entire section of mayo at the market. - I’ve had food poisoning about half a dozen times during service. I’m so well versed with the symptoms that I can predict the play-by-play by the hours.
- I strive to combat racism during service. In Peace Corps, I co-lead a diversity awareness summer camp, called DREAM Camp, for Georgian youth. At the end of my first camp, a teenage girl hugged me and told me that she has realized her biases and will strive to change for the better because of my session.
- Last year for Thanksgiving, the only way I was able to procure a turkey was to pick one out alive. My boss, Justin, and I went to a live poultry market and paid a grandmother a couple of dollars to kill it for me. I later cleaned the insides and baked it.
- During Easter, Georgians only dye their eggs red. There are multiple shades of red. In America, we dye our eggs cute and various pastel colors. That is not a thing here.
At the bazaar during April 2018. You can see the different shades of red for the Easter eggs. - I created a gender-equality committee in Peace Corps called Saqartvelo Smashes Stereotypes. I wrote about the committee on this blog and a prospective Peace Corps applicant read my blog and discussed the committee in her Peace Corps interview. Now, she is a volunteer here and is on the committee with me!
- During my Peace Corps Pre-Service Training (PST), I only used an outhouse that was located next to the pig stye and chicken coup. No one in my village had an indoor or western-style toilet.
- I currently live without a dishwasher, a dryer, a couch, a TV, a radio, or even an indoor toilet.
- I do not have a wide variety of food where I live. Thus, I currently make up my own recipes and I now I consider myself an amateur chef.
I made up this marinara pasta sauce that is incredibly healthy and delicious. No recipe here. - In my first week of Peace Corps, I witnessed my host family’s pig give birth to her nine piglets. She immediately proceeded to murder most of the piglets by eating them and burying them in her feces. I helped my host family save the remaining piglets. Months later, my host family killed the mother pig and we ate her for dinner. I am still traumatized.
- The average price for a haircut for females is less than $4 USD. This includes wash, cut, and style. I have cut my hair in Georgia three or four times thus far.
My most recent haircut in the summer (2018). I only paid 10 GEL at this fancy place in town, which is equivalent to about 4 USD. - My office is about a 15-minute walk from my home. I walk every day to and from work.
- Georgia sells Oreos, M&Ms, and Pringles. We buy them frequently and consider them great snacks during my long transportation rides to the capital.
Which fact surprised you the most? What else would you like to know?