These were my exact words when I found out that I actually live in a place called Temi. Shocking yet true, I know. Temi is like a sub-village of Shroma so I suppose our entire tropical mountain is all called Shroma. For locals each mini-cluster of homes has a different colloquial name…which makes sense. Everyone [...]

I left early this morning after an unexpected shot of breakfast ChaCha (aka Georgian Moonshine) with a Turkish coffee chaser. Oh my. My deda and bebia are so unpredictable sometimes! Being a Sunday, not many people come into town (Ozurgeti) but those that do, move at a much more leisurely pace. The weather was crisp and [...]

I was invited to the school director’s son’s wedding reception today. Here are 10 reasons you should never miss out on an important Georgian wedding celebration: 1 – Even if you didn’t get to shower for the whole week, if you throw your hair up and spray your entire body with spray-on deodorant…everyone thinks you [...]

So…sometimes the electricity goes out. But obviously this only happens when all my electronics are out of juice and the sun has gone down. I’ve heard this used to be much more of an issue in previous decades, but it’s still quite frequent. When this happens we bring out the candles and continue on with [...]

Another fine day in Shroma. The weather here is just perfect….in the shade it’s cool, in the sun it’s not too hot and the humidity has disappeared as well. I can’t believe it’s October! Since my host family does not let me help them with the household work, which today included chopping down an entire [...]

After thousands of years of industrial and technological advancements it boggles my mind why people would chose to continue to sweep their floors with brooms which require them to bend over. Today I watched my deda laboriously sweep the entire game room, which judging by the amount of dust, cobwebs and insect carcasses that were [...]

Daylene and I woke up bright and early so she could get to school and I could get on another marshrutka. I’m sure you can all guess that I was just jumping for joy at this.  (sarcasm) I downed a boiling cup of chai and then we got on our way. Marshrutka 1: Down a [...]

Woke and headed straight back to the Hanger bar for some mid-morning bloody mary’s. We watched the little angel ring the clock tower bell a few more times and then I realized I really needed to get on a marshrutka home….and should have left, probably three hours ago. Uh-oh. I took a taxi to Didube [...]