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?
Last week, on Wednesday, I was trying to do some work at home and I could not concentrate. Every couple of minutes I got distracted by constant purring and meowing. I was literally distracted by cuteness. On Wednesday evening, Justin and I became sudden “kitten parents” without our knowledge. In the one hour between I got home from work and the hour I had to prepare for dance class, two kittens must have dropped from the heavens from the grace of God onto our doorstep. At that moment in time, we had no clue as to where they came from.
I mean, seriously, could you get any cuter?!
Our yard is small and it is easy to notice the slightest change. Coming home from work seemed as normal as ever. When Justin got home an hour later, I noticed that he was standing on the porch for a while. I opened the door and he was staring at two young kittens meowing at his feet. I saw it and nearly died from the amount of cuteness. In all seriousness, who does not love kittens and puppies?! If people did not love them, they would not create millions of calendars of puppies and kittens.
Cuteness Overload! Each time we go outside this cuteness tries to sneak into our house.
I could not help myself, I picked up the kitten and started petting it. In the back of my mind, I heard the PCMO (the Peace Corps Medical Officer) yell at me, “RABIES! DO NOT PET THE KITTEN.” I was very careful so that the paws do not scratch me. I put the kittens down and went off to Georgian dance class. When I returned from dance class, the kittens were still there. Not only that, they must have realized that they loved me. They came up to me as I was approaching the main door. Did I suddenly become the kitten whisperer?
Sup, kitten?!
In reality, I realized that Justin and I are probably the only two humans that have shown them kindness. They looked like they have been separated from their mother early and they are probably hungry. Justin took out a bowl and gave them some water. I took an old shirt and put it in a bucket outside to create a “warm home” for them of sorts. Last night was windy and rainy. I would have taken them inside, but I am allergic to cats. I am able to pet them for a couple of minutes in outdoor spaces, but I cannot live with them indoors.
The kittens waited for me by the main steps to the house
Seven years ago when I was still living with my parents, my middle sister brought home a kitten. Within three days, I sneezed so much that my nose started bleeding! I had to hide in my room because the dander was everywhere, and my chest started to hurt. It is a gradual allergic reaction and it is very frustrating. However, at least, I was able to enjoy the kittens for a few minutes at a time outdoors.
In the meantime, I tried not getting attached. If you notice, this post is written in the past tense. Thus, I’m implying they are no longer here. Also, I failed at the “attached” thing. If I did not get attached, this blog post would not exist. Yet, here I am. We discovered the next day that the kittens belonged to our neighbor. Justin and I speculated as to why we had them for a day, but nonetheless, he purposely put them in our yard.
There have been so many animals that have come into our lives while living in our home in Georgia. A few months after we moved out on our own, we discovered a puppy one morning on our porch. I named him Spot and he was the calmest dog on the face of the planet. We fed him and petted him each moment we had a chance. Justin got into the habit of even bathing him. Our neighbors found the puppy and brought into our yard.
After it started growing and barking, the neighbors grew frustrated. One day I go to work in a rush and Spot barked at me for attention. I looked at Spot and yelled, “Hey, I love you, but I really got to go!” I did not pet him and ran out the door. That same day, Justin went to the pet store to see how much the vaccinations would cost now that it got old enough. The lady at the pet store said, “well, how much does your dog weigh?” Justin said, “I’ll be right back, I’ll go check at home and tell you.” Justin went home and Spot was nowhere to be found. Spot was gone forever.
Justin fed Spot peanut butter. Spot was figuring out if he liked it or not.
The neighbors had given Spot to their relatives in some village while Justin was at the pet store and I was at work. They did not even tell us that they were taking Spot. That morning was the last time I ever saw him. Spot may be dead or alive; I would never know. At least, we can visit Bono, our host family’s dog whenever we see our host family.
Months later, there were bunnies in our yard. Bunnies are not as friendly or warm to humans as children like to think. Justin attempted to grow an attachment to the bunnies, but they were not open to being petted. Regardless, we got used them trimming our yard from the ever growing grass. Several weeks go by and I saw my neighbor cutting tomatoes and other vegetables in an industrial size pot in the yard. That night, the bunnies were gone and so were their cage. Justin and I assumed that the bunnies were eaten that same night at some feast.
Last week, Justin calls me as I walking home from work to say, “by the way, we now have a rooster in our yard.” My reaction was, “huh, I wonder how long is that going to last.” After the dog and bunnies, the rooster for some reason did not surprise me. The rooster as it turns out also belongs to the same neighbor that owns the kittens. A couple of days ago, the neighbor thanked us for taking care of the rooster but still offered no explanation as to why the rooster was even there.
Hello, Rooster! Are you able to mow the grass?
The three animals that still live with us are the three adult black, old cats. They are lazy and did not even kill the mice that were roaming around our house a couple of weeks ago. Out of all the animals, the three lazy old cats are probably my least favorite.
Regardless, I know that their disappearance was inevitable. My neighbors do not exactly communicate the livestock or pets with us when they come and go.
Peace Corps has acted a bit of a doctor and I have been a bit of a patient. The medical prescription is a “chill pill.” I actually hate that phrase because it is normally said in an angry tone, “take a chill pill, dude!” But here, it is more like, “I’m just going with the flow, mannnnn.” As someone who is clearly a Type A personality, I have had to adjust my expectations. Demanding a detailed-orientation and punctual events is not a realistic expectation. With that being said, I have reinvented my leadership style since I’ve had to lead a lot of events in Peace Corps thus far.
In our Close of Service Conference last week, the US Ambassador to Georgia came and presented to my cohort. During his presentation, he said, (I’m paraphrasing here), “Returned Peace Corps Volunteers are marketable because you are extremely flexible and adaptable in ever-changing and unfamiliar environments.” I looked around the room when he said that. There were a bunch of nods and agreeable facial expressions. To risk sounding obnoxious, we are more flexible than a regular, standard professional in the United States. We did not all start off that way. Many of us have changed some of our working and leadership styles to become adaptable to our Georgian environment.
On average, in the United States, we micromanage the heck out of a project. Every little obstacle must be foreseen by a magic eight ball during the planning process. Every step must be executed to the minute it was predicted. I say this confidently because I used to be a program/project manager.
For example, one of the programs I used to manage was the division’s quarterly bonus program. There were over 6,000 employees in that system and when combined, their bonuses would naturally be in the millions. Like nearly every system in the world, it also had its glitches. I would literally try to look over every single employee’s entry to inspect if were would be any problems in advance. However, everything was always in flux. Thus, there would be maybe one or two entries in a given quarter that would cause a glitch in the system. When/if there was a glitch, that is less than 1% of the entries in the system.
Instead of simply saying, “let’s go and fix it,” the first question was always, “Rawan, how did you miss this?” Natural question. I would have asked the same thing if I were my boss back in the United States. The perfect employee would have predicted these glitches in advance. Let me tell you, I predicted a LOT. But because in the real world, no one can always have 100% success rate, especially considering the magnitude of that program. Any glitches were typically fixed before the employees would have even noticed.
We call this the White Bridge, part of an old neighborhood of my town
Georgia is such a different story. When some natural little hiccup happens here, it is almost pointless asking how/why it happened. During the beginning of my service, that question would roll off my tongue before I would even notice it. My counterparts would just look at me and shrug. They also had a look of, “why are you even asking? It is what it is.” Their sense of curiosity was non-existent compared to mine. I was intrigued by what caused the mishap and they just rolled with the punches. Two years later, I am now officially as flexible as my counterparts.
Let paint you an example that happened today. My counterpart and I reserved a hotel and its conference room in November or December. When we went to the hotel, the manager simply said, “sure, that is fine.” She did not check the calendar. She did not even write the dates down. So of course, I had my counterpart call and constantly check up on the hotel every few weeks to ensure that they would not book over our “reservation.”
I took this photo taking a car cable in my town. The hotel is somewhere on the hill that is the upper left-hand corner.
Two days ago, we went to the hotel in person- again. We wanted to reconfirm the cost, the conference room, the menu, and the room. Everything was confirmed, except the menu. I asked what they plan on serving and she said, “just the regular food.” That was literally as specific as she could get.
Now, get this….the day before the conference, she calls us and said that the conference room is no longer available. They decided to do renovations today. Her plan was that we do the conference in the hallways. In the morning 24 hours before the conference, she sends a text message to my youth counterpart with pictures of the hallway. She did not even apologize but stated the alternative plan as a fact.
So, my counterparts and I are figuring out a plan on how to deliver a 3-day conference in an undisclosed hallway of a hotel. I wish I am making this up, but I am not. The frustrating part is that the hotel manager still wants us to pay for the conference room. My counterpart and I think that is unfair and we will continue to negotiate on that portion. As for the hallway, it seems big enough. I think it will be fine. I do have to laugh at their timing though.
So ask yourself, do you see someone in America do last minute (and not urgent) renovations on a reserved conference room the day before? Oh, and suggest a hallway as an alternative? I’m going to say probably not. This, my friends, is the definition of flexibility.
My organization and I applied and received a grant from the Let Girls Learn project to encourage teenage girls into sustainable, green farming! How? We taught them how to compost and provided them with the materials to do it in their villages!
When I studied abroad in Hong Kong during college, I took a day trip to Mainland China for a Spa Day with a friend. In the cab, on the way to the spa, I saw a milk ad on a billboard. It had a cow, showing its utters, stating how fresh her milk is. Right next to the cow billboard, there was an ad for pork. It had the same set-up, a pig was basically saying, “Hey, I’m yummy. Eat me.” It freaked me out. I realized that American commercials (excluding Chick-fil-A), tends to shy away from things like that.
American culture, regardless of personal values, does not have a strong desire to know where our food comes from. Things are slowly changing, but it is true. When I told people that our “pet chickens” were later “dinner” in Peace Corps, people thought, “oh, my poor thing.” It is completely forgotten that most of the world and human history knows exactly where their food comes from. For centuries, most of food came from our backyard’s or our neighbors.
My PST (Pre-Service Training) Host Family were farmers and grew various vegetables and fruits. I personally picked out these garlic bulbs from the garden back in PST.
For Georgia, this is still the case. According to The Fund Georgian Center for Agribusiness Development, the “agricultural sector employ[s] around 53% of the active workforce.” For less than 4 million people, that is a crazy amount of farmers. In my personal opinion, this is probably an inefficient way to feed a nation. To make matters worse, there are a lot of harmful farming practices in the country.
My host neighbors in PST riding their tractor to the far early in the mornings. I would see this man so many days on my way to training.
Georgian farmers heavily use pesticides and toxic fertilizers. Green farming practices are nearly non-existent on a national level and are not commonly used by local, small-town farmers. According to WECF International, Georgia still uses illegal and toxic pesticides in their farming practices. Many of these pesticides are untested, and they are replicates
of the “western trademark pesticides.” Farmers tend to use these replicates because they are cheaper; however, they contain harmful toxins and pesticides that are also less effective at killing their targeted pest. The improper use and storage of these illegal and banned substances pose a health risk to the farmers and contribute negative effects on the environment.
My youth counterpart and I receiving fresh fruit from one of the farmers in our composting project
Also, men make up about 90% of farmers in Georgia (our own needs assessment). Females may look after small livestock, such as chickens. However, the men are strategically in charge of the farm and make the important decisions. Women, on average, own fewer assets, such as land, livestock, and human capital. They have less access to inputs, such as seeds, fertilizers, labor, and finance. They tend to depend on their husbands for these things. Increasing women’s resources could “help rural women maximize economic opportunities, increase productivity, and improve food security, education and healthcare since women tend to reinvest in their households” (The World Bank).
To alleviate some of this, my youth organization, Youth2Georgia, wanted to do a Composting project in the villages of Imereti. Initially, we submitted the proposal to the German Embassy, but we got denied. Therefore, six months later, we revamped the project idea and submitted it as a Let Girls Learn (LGL) grant. I discussed a bit of what LGL is in this post if you want to read more. We felt that composting was a great way to reduce the dependence of harmful fertilizers and pesticides while increasing female participation in sustainable, green farming practices!
Iberia College Training and Composting Demo. Here, we are building the first composting bin at the Agricultural School at Iberia College.
So for a couple of months, I worked hard with my counterparts. Many times, a Peace Corps Volunteer will write the SPA or LGL grant, but because we were not on a tight deadline, I refused to do that. For nearly two months, I spent several hours a week working with my counterparts. In fact, I did a mini, informal Project Design Management training. I explained all aspects of the Let Girls Learn grant writing process. They even wrote the first draft to the grant. I worked with them on all the edits. In the end, I rewrote a lot of the English and fixed it up. However, it was a truly a group effort and I was very proud of how much we designed the project together.
In total, we delivered three separate trainings. The first training was at Iberia College with about 20 participants. We trained the entire staff under the school of agriculture and their students. The staff and students included both male and female. We strongly believe that in order for gender equality to be achieved both men and women must participate in the process. The second training involved teenage girls and several of their mothers. We were hoping that involving the parents would increase the likelihood of them actually composting.
A picture of our second training. We held the event at a local winery of a famous female winemaker. The well-known female winemaker was also a participant and served as role model for composting.
We have later learned that there was no correlation between parent participation and girls composting. In fact, it seemed that less teenage girls wanted to participate in the training with their parents. Therefore, for our third training, we only invited 20 teenage girls. All the participants were from villages in our region. Therefore, all of them had access to large farms in which they could do composting.
This is the winemaker’s composting bin! I was so proud of how she got started on it and already filled it up half way within a few weeks.
Now, I will admit…We were not the most successful with the turnout. Only about 17% of the participant actually composted on their farms. However, over 80% indicated they understood how composting is made and why it is important as evident by our post-tests. More importantly, they understood why increasing female participation in farming is important (we had a gender component in our training).
On one of our monitoring days, we visited the sites that started the composting. I’m not making this up, but it was one of the most beautiful days I had in my service. I cannot tell you how bright the smiles were of our participants. For those who composted, they loved it! Seeing how proud they were made me proud! It was heartwarming how they took care of their composting bins and how it will change the quality of their farming.
For two of the three trainings, I had partnered with one of my friends and Peace Corps Volunteer Ryan. If you read the Thanksgiving post, he is referred to as Yarn Skallah. He was conducting a grant and a project to teach youth to professionally film and edit videos in the same community I was doing my composting. We thought it would be a great idea to film the composting trainings. If you are interested, here is a YouTube video of my trainings!
Immediately after I posted my last blog entry (about meeting my host family), this happened…
To set the scene, it was around 11:30 p.m. creeping around midnight. Justin urgently wanted to go to the restroom and I figured I might as well go too. He couldn’t find his headlamp/flashlight or his boots fast enough, so I told him I’ll just go ahead and see him in a few minutes.
Headlamp/flashlight and boots, you ask? Yes, because “going to the restroom” is a 5-minute adventure down the stairs, into an unpaved gravel “road” around the house, into a wooden shed, with a concrete hole in the middle that functions as our “toilet.” Our Outhouse also shares a wall with four large pigs and it is right across the chicken coup. Since it was raining on and off that day and there is no lighting, this is where the boots and headlamp/flashlight come into play. Silver lining, there is one less step because there is no flushing.
Baby wipes in one hand, flashlight in the other, I walk downstairs. I find all the adults outside in bath robes and coats looking distressed. Even though this is only my third night, I knew this was not routine. I see the women walking in and out of the pigs’ den and the men speaking loudly inside with a screaming pig. The invite me inside the pigs’ den. Turns out, the fattest big pig of them all just delivered 9 piglets! The host grandmother starts making an eating/attacking non-verbal expression. Now, I’m just horribly confused.
My host sister (the young mother of the family), knew I had a flashlight, so she takes me to the wheelbarrow located right by the outhouse by the garden. She has me point to the wheelbarrow. You know what I see? I see 3 half-eaten, half-alive piglets!!! Half their body is literally eaten- a scene right out of a horror film. I thought they would be dead, but nope, they were heaving heavily as they were taking their last breath. The mother pig delivered her piglets and then tried to EAT THEM ALL AND BURY THEM.
The host grandfather was still in the den attempting to dig out the rest of the 6 piglets underneath the mother pig’s poop as she dug them there alive half-eaten. I was just literally standing there shocked, helpless, and speechless.
Clearly the family was upset, most likely because they just lost a valuable source of income and clearly energy and time for raising the cannibal mother pig. I, on the hand, never knew pigs do that! So I walk upstairs with my eyes wide open, disturbed.
For the 20 minutes I was down there, Justin did not even come down. He was supposed to come down right after me! After I managed to tell him the story, I don’t think he was ever more grateful for holding it in and waiting. Oh, and he laughed out loud at my expense.
