8 years ago
0

Not-a-Mango

by Rawan / Her
“I promise you that it is not a mango. I know what mangoes look like, I have eaten them many, many times and that is not a mango!” I was trying to convince my team that mystery fruit in the kitchen is in fact not a mango. At first, I thought a weird, small potato. It was the size of small garden potato, green-ish/yellow-ish in color once ripe. This particular one had starting bruising. It wasn’t until I touched it that I realized it had the same texture of a fruit’s skin and not of that of a potato.
My colleagues had originally believed it was in fact a mango, even though they have never seen a mango before. It has some of the same coloring, it was soft and gooey on the inside, so I could see their logic in their argument. The skin did almost feel mango-ish. I continued to proclaim, “You guys, I swear to you that is not mango.” We all started laughing, possibly because no one on the history of the earth proclaimed with such drama and passion about this topic. Then, someone suggested that it might have been an avocado. “Oh my gosh, no, it is not a mango and it is not an avocado. First of all, mangoes are 3 times its size and secondly, avocados are green on the inside and not a pale orange like this fruit.” One of my colleagues interjected that they were told it was possibly a mango. “Well, whoever told you that is very wrong. Mangoes do not have a bunch of big black seeds in the middle of the fruit,” I’m half laughing and half smiling as I’m saying this, but nonetheless, I was confident. Finally, they believe me, “Okay, Rawan, we believe you. You know more about mangoes than we do since we have not eaten one before.”
The next day, I asked one of my colleagues who brought the fruit to the office where she got it from. Apparently, her husband’s uncle (who happens to be her neighbor as well) had given them a bunch of this fruit. Apparently, he has had the tree in his yard for a while and has no idea where the tree came from. He did not plant it and yet each year the tree bears fruit. Each year that passes, he and everyone he has talked to have no idea what the heck it is. Unofficially, I was on a mission to find out. I took pictures. I ate the fruit. Then I took more pictures.
Top Left: The tree of mystery fruit. Top Right: peeled and ripe. Bottom Left: whole, unpeeled, and ripe. Bottom Right: Unripe, top is broken in half showing one of the seeds, bottom is whole and unripe
Top Left: The tree of mystery fruit. Top Right: peeled and ripe. Bottom Left: whole, unpeeled, and ripe. Bottom Right: Unripe, top is broken in half showing one of the seeds, bottom is whole and unripe
I showed my host family the pictures of the fruit, maybe they know right?! Well, yes and no. Yes, they knew exactly what I was talking about because my host and brother lead me to our yard. Low and behold, we have the same exact tree! There it was bearing the mystery fruit. Our fruit however was no ripe yet. And take another wild guess? My host mom has the same story as my colleague’s neighbor/uncle. She too has no idea where the tree came from and also doesn’t know anybody that knows what it is. Do I even need to say that she too thought it was a mango? Because she also suggested to me it could be a mango or an avocado.
The next day at work, I told them that even my host family has the tree in which we laughed about it. Two families have this mystery, non-Georgian native fruit growing in their yard each summer/fall having no clue what the heck it is. But at least we all know it is not a mango or an avocado.
If you have any guess to what it is, tell me….pretty please!
*Please note that a few days later with the help of my fellow volunteers, this fruit has been identified as a Paw-Paw
8 years ago
0

Watermelons Go Bye-Bye

by Rawan / Her
Watermelon season is almost over. Today is the first day of September, which means slowly but surely watermelons are going “bye-bye.” Fall is approaching as the end of summer is just around the corner.
You see, food is actually dedicated by seasons here. Georgia is not like California. I can’t go to the grocery store and buy the departing watermelon in the middle of December no matter how much I cry and whine. It is gone. Tough Luck. Gotta wait until next summer.
But that is okay, I am officially sick of watermelon because that is one of the unintended consequence of seasonal foods. You end up eating it all the time. You end up seeing it in your dinning room table, mocking you to eat it because “the limited time offer” is almost over. My host mom kindly offered me watermelon as dessert yesterday. I stared it with indifference. My host mom took a slice and enjoyed it very much. Spitting out the black seeds was too much of an effort for me, so I just didn’t eat it. Come back to me next month and ask me, I may regret not eating it.
I know I will be sad about one thing though for sure: the availability of fruit. I have been forewarned by other Peace Corps volunteers that “winter is coming” (there is your Game of Thrones tribute for the day). I’m serious though, because winter might as well be nicknamed “the season of potatoes.” I already eat a lot of potatoes. In fact, that was my dinner two nights ago: fried potatoes with a bit of onions. Yet winter has a lot of potatoes and no pears, figs, watermelons or a lot of fruit for that matter. I should rephrase, there will not be a lot of fresh fruit.
Georgians are smart because they take the fresh fruit they have on hand now and start making “compote” out of it (whole fruit in juice) or they will make jam. Currently, my host mom is making a lot of fig jam with the figs from our yard. There is enough Leghvi Muraba (fig jam) to go around for the entire street. My coworker told me that she has been making compote for the past couple of days, few hours each night. The problem with compote and jam is that most of the nutritional value is gone because the fruit was boiled for hours. Also, don’t ask me on how much sugar is in compote and jam. The answer is that it is safest not to know.
Either way, Georgians are shocked when I tell them that Americans don’t make compote or jam. The only person I know in America who makes jam, is my cousin. I think she picked up it up as a hobby years ago once and I’m pretty sure that hobby died down now that she is a busy, young mother. It just isn’t a thing. Americans don’t have a room dedicated to store the jam and compote like Georgians do.
As far as I know, there is no watermelon compote or jam. Thank goodness, because it will give me a chance to miss it until next summer. Until then, I counting down for fall to start.
8 years ago
0

The Wild [Marshmallow] Goose Chase

by Rawan / Her

Justin is one of those easy going husbands until he asks for something minor, like, “Hey, since you will be going to Tbilisi, mind getting me some marshmallows?” Then, my life becomes consumed with his little, seemingly simple request. I was visiting another Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) in a city close to Tbilisi, which is about 4 hours away from my site. Since I was making the long trip, Justin wanted to take advantage of the situation since anything remotely American would be in Tbilisi.

Back in ‘Merica, the diversity of our candy ecosystem would put Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory to shame. For a tiny country like Georgia, the candy here is delicious, no doubt about it. But does it include everything an American heart desires from what PCVs are accustomed to? A big, fat, sugarless ‘no.’

So me and my fellow PCV friends kept Justin’s request in mind for the entire weekend. There were two of us visiting our local PCV friend. The other visiting PCV wanted to see if they had vanilla extract. My local friend’s site had a lot more grocery shops than our sites. So we thought it might be nice to check those stores out and possibly save me the scavenger hunt in Tbilisi. Marshmallows in store 1? No- but we did find Soy Sauce (good mental note). But the adventure really starts with Store 2.

Our local friend had originally calculated it would probably take a 10-minute walk from her house. The morning of our departure, the three of us headed with our luggage to Store 2. We literally walked in 98 degrees at noon to get these marshmallows. Was it a brisk ten minutes? No, it wasn’t. It was a sweaty 60-minute walk to the edge of town. My back was killing me because lugging around a laptop and shoes on my back takes its toll. But all is well, because there is a 1 percent chance this place will have marshmallows. I looked at every aisle, but I don’t need to tell you that there were no marshmallows. I can’t remember if my other visiting friend found her vanilla or not, but I do remember that we bought some spices so the trip wasn’t a complete waste.

Marshmallow-less, the three of us walked again in the hot heat to the bus stop to catch a mini-bus to Tbilisi. The walk took another 30 minutes, which is also longer than expected. So at this point, we are getting dehydrated from walking for an hour and half in the hot heat for stupid marshmallows. I called Justin to see if he really needs these marshmallows hoping he would say, “just kidding, you don’t need to buy them.” Instead, I get a polite response of “yes, I would really would like the marshmallows and would appreciate it.” So that means, I got to do another adventure for this American treat.

After lunch, the three of us headed our separate ways. Instead of heading back to my site hours away, I take yet another Marshutka (mini-bus) to Tbilisi Mall and go to Carrefour (a British grocery store that is similar to an American set-up). Forty-minutes later, I’m searching every aisle of a two-story grocery store (the only one in the country). In Georgian, I ask two different employees where the marshmallows are located. They both looked at me like I was the weirdest person and just walked way with confusion and fear. But, I didn’t give up because my husband wants marshmallows! I finally find several generic bags of Marshmallows tucked away on a top shelf collecting dust. I brush off the dust and ask the closest employee if these are the only kind of marshmallows. This third employee didn’t even know the bag I was holding up was for sale at her store. She thought I had it at home and was asking where I could find them at Carrefour and said that they don’t sell these bags. I didn’t even bother explaining that I found them at the store. I walked away and I asked a fourth employee- my favorite interaction by far. This employee looks at the bag and reads the word out loud, “MARSH-MALL-LOW….MARSH-MALL-LOW” because she didn’t think I knew how to read. I cracked a smile and took the bags away as the employee looked very pleased with herself. At this point, Justin is going to have to be okay with these two dusty generic British bags of marshmallows.

By the time I got back on my bus to go home it was 5:30 p.m., which meant I spent 2.5 hours just getting to the mall and back. An hour into the ride back home, it started raining. This is horrible news because aside from the extra traffic and accidents, the bus routes could just stop running. I got back to my site’s main bus stop around 9:40 p.m. and realized that the inter-city buses stopped their routes hours earlier because of the rain! I realized I was stranded in a middle of a storm and in the dark. I really didn’t want to walk the 30 minutes to get home. Instead of blaming the marshmallows for my fate, I found a gentle looking woman to ask her how would I get home. Only understanding 50% of what she was saying, I walked towards a cab with her. Thinking she was simply directing the cab driver for me, she ended up sitting next to me in the cab. I thought, maybe this is my first shared cab ride in Georgia? Turns out, this woman was my guardian angel that day. She dropped me home safely and wouldn’t let me pay for my share of the cab ride. After a long day, I loved that this stranger took kindness (and pity) on the lost and lonely American trying to get back home.

Opening my bedroom door, I handed Justin the marshmallows. He hugged me and said, “Thanks! I’m so glad we can now have s’mores for BUILD Camp!”
Confused, I replied, “Um, so you are telling me I spent HOURS looking for marshmallows so that we can give them AWAY?!”

9 years ago
0

Death of the Piglets

by Rawan / Her

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.

9 years ago
0

Procrastination at its Finest

by Rawan / Her

I’m not going to lie, I’m having college flashbacks at this very moment. Very similar feeling to writing that dreadful essay and you have no idea what to fill up those 5 pages with. So naturally, you do everything else before you do what is supposed to be your priority.

But instead of an essay in college, it is packing for the Peace Corps. Nothing productive today. I think I had at least five staring matches with my clothes. I’ve had maybe 5 cookies (I know that has nothing to do with anything, but it is stress eating. Don’t judge). I may or may not be catching up on my TV shows right now.

In reality though, I’m not that behind. I’ve done 99% of my shopping. I already have a spreadsheet from weeks ago prepared. And I’ve also done 90% of the laundry I’m taking with me.

I think I just don’t want to pick things in the suitcases for several reasons 1) it is never fun 2) it just means I’m closer to leaving my family, friends, comfort, and luxury… and 3) I have all day tomorrow to do this.

9 years ago

My First Post!

by Rawan / Her

Hello World!

With one week left before the Peace Corps, I stand looking around my parents’ home wondering how much will change when I get back. I’m already going to miss 3 weddings while I’m gone- and that will probably be just the beginning of the list of “things I missed out on.” Life will go on without Justin and I in those 2 years, but I’ve been looking forward to this chapter of my life for what feels like eternity sometimes.

Thus, I’ve been partaking on something I like to call my “Pre Peace Corps Bucket List.” I’ve literally been doing all my favorite things right before I leave, because naturally I won’t be able to do so for 27 months while serving in Georgia. I’m eating all my favorite ethnic foods, because I’m not sure how diverse the cuisine will be there. Oh, I’m so eating a bunch of In ‘n Out before I go (for those located outside of the west coast,  you are essentially missing out). I even went to Disneyland and Universal Studios/Wizarding World of Harry Potter the same week! But my favorite activity as of yet is probably dressing up my youngest sister is crazy old outfits of ours while Spring cleaning.

I wish I could I say that I have just been having fun. Leaving the country for over two years is a lot of work. In reality, it has been stressful. My life has been packing and unpacking those darn Home Depot boxes for the past 2 weeks. We also had to sell our stuff in San Jose then drive the rest to my parents’ house 7 hours away. While putting things in boxes for storage (aka my parents’ garage), my mind keeps coming back to the same question that everyone loves to ask, “What are you guys going to do when you are done with the Peace Corps?” Essentially, I freak people out with my answer because it goes something like this, “Well, I’ll be 30 and living back in my old childhood room with my husband and jobless.” At least it isn’t in the basement, right?! But in all honesty, no one can really predict their life 2 years ahead, so I don’t worry about it too much and neither should you. We are the ones who sold most of our possessions, quit our Silicon Valley careers, and up and quit to join the Peace Corps. Yes, we are crazy. Yes, we are addicted to living abroad and traveling. And yes, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Looking forward to keeping you all posted on our crazy adventure!