the best laid plans…

I was planning to fall into a deep slumber.  I was planning to get to it immediately.  I didn’t see that I could stay awake one more minute.

So it was no surprise–or rather, it ought not to have been–when I got a text that would veer me utterly off course.  L was in the country.  Not just in the country.  To be more precise, he was in the country AND in town, and L and I are usually continents apart.  In fact, I hadn’t seen him for 16 years, not since I left Africa.

So when he suggested we meet up, it was clear that no slumber would be had anytime soon.  I saw through this glass clearly. 

“Come over now,” I said, and with those words dashed out of my apartment to buy groceries.  I would make a delicious, quick and low-fat meal.

That, dear reader, is where I stopped seeing through the glass clearly.  Clearly.

Instead, I served what I’m going to have to call “glump.”  What is glump?

Glump: 

A mass of various undistinguishable mashed foods served from one dish, usually with a ladle. 

Now, glump can be yummy, or it can be horrid, or it can be, as it was when they arrived, tasteless.  It’s miraculous that way, glump.

I was putting the final touches on my glump–in other words removing it from the heat and frowning at it–when the bell rang.  I ran to the door, tearing my apron off.  (My name is stitched on its front as if I get muddled sometimes and must look down to confirm it.) 

As I unlatched it and wrenched it open, I smacked my face with apron and was left with it half on, drooping awkwardly from my waist.  No worries–L’s doubtless seen me much less dignified.  So I let them in and gave them the tour.

“This is my living room,” I said, gesturing expansively to my sofa and dining room table.  They ooh’ed and ah’ed beautifully.  “And this is my furniture,” I said, in case they hadn’t noticed.  They cooed kindly. “This is my hallway,” I said, and stopped as if to survey it, causing them both to bump into me.  They looked about in the tight space and nodded. “And this,” I said, walking into the dark room, “is my bathroom.”

They paused at the door with a giggle. 

“Come in!” I said.  And so they did. “Come here,” I said, and stepped into my bathtub.  With another laugh, L complied.  And then he saw my view and understood the appeal.  We stepped out and P surveyed the view.  (Trust me, it’s worth the extra step in the dark.)

But now I couldn’t delay dinner any longer.

I made P taste the glump before dishing it out, so that he could judge how hungry he was.  He tasted it and maintained a politely interested yet faintly surprised miraculously neutral expression.  In a way that only a South African living in England can.

“Can you save it?” I asked.

I didn’t have to ask twice.  He moved quick.  Rummaged through my spices.  Only two had English lables.  Rosemary and fenugreek.

“Rosemary should be added earlier in, er, the process,” he said, and so we added fenugreek.  And then more fenugreek.  And then P made the executive decision that my expired parmesan wasn’t really expired.  And I have to say…he made it yummy!  We ate the whole pan of glump, the three of us, together with salad and buffalo mozzarella cheese.  ‘Twas oddly perfect with my dark chocolate and the South African pinotage and Chilean cabernet they’d brought.

Then again, I can’t in all honesty report that.  I never made it to the cabernet. 

I think we all had a great time in the end.  We hung out till after midnight, and my new dining room table got properly eaten and spilled upon, so all was wondrousness.    I was TOAST at the end of the night, crawling into bed around 1am, and there was no way I was getting up in four hours to write.  So I slept late; got up at seven and indulged in two cups of coffee and absolutely zero brain activity.

All this is to say that I should know better than to plan.  For although the best laid plans can disintigrate into a much fuller and truly wonderful, irreplaceable evening, they indeed are so prone to dissolving as to make one feel one is brazenly tempting fate when one says (as I’m about to now):

This is going to be a great writing weekend!

Turkish bath and Sunni mosque in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia

They told me I’d be asked. Told me to have an answer ready

But I was otherwise engaged, and besides, I didn’t know how to answer.  And they were right; people do ask.

“So, what was Peace Corps like?”

Some expect a two-line answer.  Others want to really get into it, to imagine it vicariously through you, sometimes to think on doing it themselves.

Peace Corps… I loved it; even the worst of times was worth it.  The insight gained from those times lingers with me still, a million miles away from those moments.

They say Peace Corps is the toughest job you’ll ever love.

They say Peace Corps is different for everyone.

They’re right; which of course means they’re wrong.  :)  If it’s different for everyone, it stands to reason that for some it’s not the toughest job they’ll ever love.

I never regretted joining Peace Corps.  Not for an instant.  And it was true for me: it was the toughest job I’ve ever loved, and I credit it with so much, personally.

There were times I wept with frustration.  There was even one time when I locked myself into an outhouse to cry, so you can imagine… (!!!)  But there were also times I cried with happiness.

Are my tear ducts too willing to gush, you wonder?

Nay, I say.  They’re about average.

I remember the winter when I cried in the outhouse.  (How could I forget?)  I texted my site-mate to ask if it was safe out; if I could escape unseen.  (A site-mate is a fellow volunteer placed in the same village/town/city.)

“Yes,” he texted back.

Together we ran from the building down the only main street in town.  Well, I exaggerate.  We walked.  But swiftly.  Stumbling, for the ground was cracked and slippery with ice.

My bedroom also, by the way, had ice in it.  I look back now and realize that for the first time I was experiencing seasonal stress, which only seemed to be eclipsed by the frustrations of culture shock.

“I’ve had it,” I said.

“With Peace Corps?” Sig asked.

I laughed. “No, I love Peace Corps,” I said, and then a few more frozen tears eked out.

Again he probably wondered why he’d been paired with me.  With nowhere to go, we followed our feet down the road, eventually reaching my other workplace there.  I was working directly with four NGOs (non-governmental organizations) at the time.  With a sigh, I stumbled into the building.  He followed me.  This place was the only one which had heat…  And in that cold, brutal winter, heat was something precious and not to be turned down when available.  (Have I mentioned the ice in my bedroom?)

We walked into my large shared office.

There was a spread laid out on the table.  Delicious Georgian foods and wine.  I looked at my colleague sitting there.

“It’s been forty days since my relative died,” she explained in Russian.

Ah.  My face grew hot.  That meant it had been 39 days since I’d misunderstood the word “passed away” in Georgian and had told her that her relative would be fine the next day.  This is why she was now reminding me in Russian, my stronger language.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She sighed deeply and nodded at the chairs next to her. “Sit down.  We must toast her and commemorate her with this meal.”

I wasn’t supposed to drink at work, you know.  Peace Corps rules.  But I felt this superseded the rules.  I opened a spot at the table with a shift of a chair, and sat down heavily.

I think I needed to commemorate life and death that day.  And I think I needed a drink.

I toasted loquaciously and many, many times.  In the Republic of Georgia, that’s the only way to drink.  Actually, that’s literally the case. Whereas in the US you sip your wine throughout your meal, in Georgia that is VERY bad form, and no-one would lift a glass without toasting first.  A long toast.  Fortunately, I happen to love toasting, and my Georgian friends loved that about me.  I knew how to honor a glass of wine and the people around the table (and away from it, and passed on, and future generations,–and everyone that one tends to toast at Georgian parties).

So I toasted and toasted and toasted, and soon we were all toasted.

Which was precisely when Sig’s cell rang.  He looked up suddenly.

“Peace Corps is here,” he said.

I lowered my glass. “Huh?”  (See what I mean by eloquence?)

“Right outside the building.  They’re here to inspect my new place before letting me move.”

I sat up. “Sig, they can’t come in!  I’m wearing jeans!”

He looked me flat in the eyes then let his glance travel to my glass.  I lowered it slightly.

“Go on, meet them outside, come on!” I pleaded.

“It’s cold outside,” he grumbled, but he dashed out.

And I toasted him next.  :)

Yeah.  Peace Corps isn’t what you expect.  Good times, bad times, hard times…  Okay, no easy times.  But my God, if you put your all into it, and if you’re lucky and get great colleagues…  It’s all worth it.  One hundred times over.  More.

You know the US Army slogan– “Be All You Can Be”?

That’s EXACTLY what Peace Corps is to me.  A two year increment of your life where you put yourself to the test and you make sure you pass.  Sure, you can do it at home.  But many of us don’t.  We forget to live life to the full, back home.  But make it the whole point of a period of your life, and you can achieve so much.  You can begin to achieve being yourself, the way you want to be.

Just not a particularly well-scrubbed self.

Gori Apartment, Republic of Georgia

Left Field and No-Man’s Land

Desert land.  Stretching far beyond the eye can see, the rising haze playing games with your perception.  That’s what much of Jordan and Israel are like.

So what’s the great danger in these harsh lands, other than being caught without water?  No, not terrorists.

Get ready for it.

Sign in the Israeli Desert

I kid thee not.  Flash floods apparently do occur in certain areas of the desert.  They’ve lost entire groups of tourists out by Petra, Jordan’s gem ancient city, and in the desert surrounding Israel’s Masada, a symbol of martyrdom which stands remote on a mountain top near the Dead Sea.

Can you imagine that–dying of a flood in a desert?  A more interesting and memorable way to go than being run over by a car in Georgia, or hit by a Wall Street business wonk dashing in to work.

Jordanian Vessels in the Desert Near Petra

I went to both countries with my dad last summer, taking a two week break from Georgia.  My dad sprung Petra on me as a surprise.  WHAT a surprise.  It was gorgeous.  And I wish I had more shots, but my camera collapsed of exhaustion and refused to function.

Coming back into Israel proved a mite difficult for me.  The guards reckoned me for an Israeli citizen by virtue of my background, and kept asking for my non-existent Israeli ID.  Amusing.  My dad rescued me from no-man’s land.  So much time spent in no-man’s land that summer of 2008.  A metaphor for the year, or for my life?  Time may tell.

In August 2008, I’d spent about five hours between Georgia and Armenia, escaping the Russian incursion.  It was, to say the least, a stressful time for everyone, not least the Georgian staff, who were amazing.  But one thing really gave me a chuckle.

Peace Corps was set on our safety, of course.  Their number one goal, as they iterated.  When the bombing started, we gathered in a southern town in Georgia, all the volunteers from throughout the country making their way there with Peace Corps’ help.  We waited there for a few days, coalescing.  Every day we had three to five meetings with staff to discuss the situation.  And this is what amused me:

The plan was, if the Russians actually invaded, if one Russian boot stepped foot on Georgian soil, if a true land invasion began, then we’d leave.  That moment.

Why did I find that funny?  Because apparently the Russian boot was more dangerous than the Russian bomb; their planes were flying overhead and bombing with impunity, the Georgian air force being negligible.  (I should note that the Russians were targeting airbases so Peace Corps’ decision wasn’t as arbitrary as it might seem.)  :)

Ah well.  Eventually their army indeed decided to make their point more vividly, and the Russians did soil Georgian land with their army boots, and we in turn moved south too, but to Armenia, which seemed not a whit disturbed by the war to the north, focused as they were on the Olympics.

Such is life.

And a bonus Petra shot for the day:

Petra, Jordan

Thwarted: A tale of pathos and Georgian swat teams, but no Thai food

Yes, it became common knowledge rather rapidly in Georgia that I would do just about anything for Thai food.  If I could swing a meeting in the capital, which boasted exactly one great Thai place, I would be pretty sure to time it such that a meal was in order.

Even when I had dysentery I managed to squeak in a visit to the Thai place.  At that time, I could barely even handle the scent of food, and plain rice was all I could stomach.  Still, I was there.

When I returned to my site–the name Peace Corps gives the village, town or city in which a volunteer resides–my host mother asked me if I’d really gone for Thai, sick as I was.  I sheepishly admitted that I had.

“But what could you eat?” she asked, shaking her head.

“Rice with dry bread,” I thought I said.  ”Rice with joy,” I actually said.  She collapsed in mirth and I left her for the facilities.

The only problem with my Thai addiction, other than the dearth of Thai food in Georgia, was that half the time I was there, the country managed to be politically unstable.

As a result, volunteers were pretty much told to steer clear of the capital for the most part.  Tragic.  So beautiful a capital, so ancient, and so beneficent in Thai food.

Finally the day came when we were allowed in Tbilisi (with restrictions.)  I stormed the city.  By this I mean I climbed into a shattered yet miraculously moving minibus and hurtled down the potholed highway to Tbilisi, where I fell out shaking and breathless about 45 minutes later.

“Come,” I said, and began the march from the river up through Old Town to the Thai place.  ”Nothing can keep me from Thai food now!  Nothing!”

My companion said nothing as we saw the first signs of a noticeable police presence.  I too maintained a prudent silence.  He might have cleared his throat as we ran past a barricade.  I may have glared back at him, but my memory’s hazy on that.

“Nothing,” I repeated firmly, and stalked forth.  We told ourselves everything was normal.

Old Town was pretty desolate.  We walked those tiny alleys and gorgeous balconied roads, finally emerging just a few streets down from the restaurant.  My internal soundtrack was almost back in happy gear.  Thai food was so close, so tantalizingly, deliciously, irresistibly close.  And everything had been calm and normal.  We’d been overly sensitive to the sight of the police.  I relaxed my shoulders.

Then we passed a huge swath of dark buses filled to the brim with soldiers.  I frowned, but we sallied onwards.

“I guess you really meant it when you said nothing would stop you,” my companion remarked.  I nodded silently, but I was beginning to feel perturbed.  I know:  late.

We turned the corner.  We had arrived.  It should have been the most joyous of moments.

But opposite us, across from the Thai place, were two huge groups of swat forces, dressed head to foot in black gear, including such bullet-proof vests as I’d only ever seen on Batman.  Huge truncheons, machine guns, glass barricades, the whole shebang.

We looked at them.  They looked at us.  My companion raised his hand to knock at the door.

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

“It’s locked,” he answered, as if we weren’t gazing at two hundred deaths’ worth of men in black.

“Gah!” I responded reasonably.  And grabbed his arm and began pulling us down the street and away.

“But I thought nothing would stop you–!” he protested.

“Nothing but swat teams,” I answered irritably, “Swat teams will stop me.”

We broke into a desperate jog.  No Thai food for us.  Not for weeks.

Foiled again.

What would you do, opposite a door with this painted on it? (That's what I did, too.) ;)

The Night the Russians Attacked

I was conked out, an overdose of Nyquil.

Yes, this is already old hat to you.  You already know, I was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Republic of Georgia, blah blah.  But maybe what you didn’t know, is that when I finally got there, all trussed up with enthusiasm and ready for the job, they managed to find the most mosquito-ridden place in the country to place me.  (I thought not.)  In a land known for majestic mountains and lush greenery, they found a malaria zone for me.

I jest not.

I took this in stride.  I find that the only way to take things; it helps avert nasty stumbles.

And from this day forth I became an avid user of all the bug repellents and itch ointments in our trusty Peace Corps medical kits, which resembled the kind of sturdy med kit Chekhov must have lugged through the backwoods in days of yore.

Well, the day came when my ship came in.  All of them, actually.  Namely, a group of volunteers left the country, and returned their unused medical supplies to the Peace Corps office.  To say I leapt on these supplies with the crazed frenzy of an addict would be…well, to ever-so-slightly belabor the point.  But you get it.

I scrambled madly among the left-over med kits, wholesale grabbing everything that looked like it ought salvage my poor bitten body from my mortal enemies.  What I neglected to check for was—expiration dates.

Yeah.  It turns out they’re relevant.

I was stunned, gobsmacked and completely confounded the next day, when my skin broke out in the hugest rash I’d ever seen.

“Gah!” I said profoundly.  And applied more anti-itch ointment.  Yeah…

I’d never seen the doctor’s eyebrows go up like that before.  Well, fine, I had.  This is Peace Corps, after all.  We had all sorts of everything plaguing us.  And the docs are great.  Anyway, they easily discovered the source of my rash:  my stupidity.

As we all know, the cure for Ruth’s Stupidity is a massive dose of Nyquil.  Which brings us back to the beginning of our tale. Namely, my stupor.

I wake up after a night of much thunder and lightning.  I stretch.  I see I have a text from J in New York.  I chuckle.  She’s going on about some scuffles at the border with South Ossetia.  She thinks it’s getting worse–could it mean…war?  I smile.  Dear girl, she’s yet to learn that there’s always scuffles at borders.  Honestly…

I leave the village I’m temporarily at to attend a Peace Corps meeting in Khashuri, a nearby town.  And apparently 30 minutes afterwards, the village was bombed.  I was the only one without any questions about the night before; everyone else had seen the lights and heard the artillery.  I was the only one who’d attached a weather forecast to my lists of reasons for the noise.

“Thunderstorms without rain?” they asked me, unimpressed.

Hm.  And of course within an hour all hell broke loose.  But that’s another tale.  And maybe not for the blog…

Wintery Bank in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia

Miracle on Riverside Drive

I’d been hoping for the call.  I knew it was too much to hope for, but I had.

From 5:22am till 5:50am, I sat with the phone cradled between my knees, waiting.  My eyes were fixed on the window, on the cool blue mist outside, hovering over the river.  But at 5:50, I had to accept the truth.  It was barely drizzling.  The weather was fine.  Exercise boot camp would not be cancelled for the morning.

Sighing heavily, I plugged my phone in to recharge, and got some water.  Time to perk up before class.

But instead of perking up, I slouched deeper and deeper into the armchair.  I didn’t have the energy.  I’d wait for J to get up, and for the power of peer pressure to hit me upside the head, forcing me to change for class.  Besides, I had no idea where I might find a clean sports bra.  Definitely not in the house.  I closed my eyes.

Then J came in, moments after her alarm almost brought the entire building down.

“Did you get it?” she asked excitedly, holding her phone up, like it held the key to Mecca and the afterlife.

I shut my eyes again.  ”If you’re lying…”

“No, no!  It’s cancelled!”  Utter glee was suffused on her face.  I opened an eye.

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true!”  She held her phone up.

I shot up.  Stalked over.  ”Bullshit,” I said louder.  Hopefully.

She turned the phone so I could read it.  I held it in shaking hands, a beaming smile breaking.

“YES!”  I leapt about the house, I jogged, I giggled, I reached for the stars, I danced, I squealed.  I pretty much squeezed a work-out in, so actively did I celebrate not having to climb up the hill for a workout.

“Well, enough of that!”  And I tossed myself into the merriment of not having to jog this morning.  We enjoyed a delicious cup of hot coffee, and I managed to fit in a short story read-through.  Roald Dahl’s little fiction piece about inventing a machine which churns out short stories and novels in minutes.  What a delightful morning!!!  YUMMINESS.

Now we’re off to work again for the day.  But I have to say, for all that I relish having had the morning off, I did happen to feel my calves today–and they’re HARD!  Yowza!  My arms are stronger too, but to my eternal shame, I still can’t open a bleedin’ bottle of wine by myself, most days.  Very sad truth.  Clearly I need another month of exercise boot camp, if only to facilitate greater ease of opening wine bottles.

(Oh, and on the topic of wine, since you ask so plaintively, I have discovered that I enjoy sweet Rieslings, Pinot Grigios, and some sparkly Kabinetts.  I’m thinking I’ll get a new Pinot Grigio…expand my horizons, what with my uber huge discount at the store.)

 I hope your morning’s going as well!

Ah yes, and tomorrow’s off, so tomorrow will be a writing day for me again.  Wooohoooo!  :)

Regrets Drawer, at an International NGO in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia

Last summer; or Life and Dreams in a Small Caucasus Town

Sighnaghi in the Mist

I served in Georgia, the Republic nestled in between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus Ranges, touching on Chechnya and Russia to the north and cradling the Black Sea to the West, with Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan neighboring in the south.  I was to be there for two years and three months, only the Russian army had other ideas, and invaded after one year.

In a country famous for its dramatic mountain ranges and exquisite landscape, I had managed to be placed in one of the flattest areas, where the earth looked parched despite its great bounty of potatoes and tomatoes.

Hungry cattle wended their way through the town streets, leaving behind manure and a sense of fatigue and never-ending days. Sheep were slaughtered by butchers on the main street, tied up on the pavement where they could see their fate in the fates of necks chopped before theirs.  Chickens were sold live, and carried home by their feet.  Everything was bought amid the din of a huge, bustling bazaar which opened at 5am.  Azeri music blared on stereos, together with Turkish, Russian and Georgian pop.

Schools ran on shoe-string budgets, with paint peeling from walls and the stench of the toilets pervading entire floors.  The hospital was visited by stray dogs and cats, cobwebs hung throughout the dank grey corridors, and it felt a visceral shock to the system to actually see people coming there to get treated to feel better.

Unemployed men littered the streets, whiling away hours in teahouses that women were better off not even looking into for fear of appearing wanton.  Women worked their fingers to the bone, slaving over troughs filled with laundry, preserves and dirty dishes.  Hard working men and women in offices faced electrical outages, gas outages, internet outages and general scarcity to get their jobs done.  The only fax machine in town was in the mayor’s office.  Life was, in a word, hard.

I loved this town, and I didn’t, too.

But most of all, when the days were hard and long, and when I was reeling from the unforgiving and harsh beating the sun doled out every summer, night and day, I would look south, beyond the confines of town, out to the blue waves of the Armenian mountains, and I would drink in the sight and imagine the fresh, wet, cool smell of those beautiful mountains.  And I would dream of going there.

Otar, my friend’s wonderful father, who took care of me as if I’d been adopted into the family, wondered at my fascination.  When I announced to all and sundry that I would spend the upcoming Saturday walking to the border with Armenia, some 39 kilometers away, he was tickled pink but also curious.

“Why, Ruth?” he asked, finally, as he said goodbye to me (and my sitemate who I’d corralled to join me on the trek).  ”Why do you want to walk to the Armenian border?”

I thought for a moment.  ”Because it’s something I can’t do in America.”

Little did I know that one day I’d be on the other side of that self-same border, desperate to return over those now accursed Armenian crags back to my dusty little town from which war had torn me.

*** the photo is from the gorgeous town of Sighnaghi, which is to the east of Tbilisi.  My town remains unnamed thus far in my blog, but was south of Tbilisi.

***I returned after the war was officially ended three weeks later, this time not as a Peace Corps Volunteer, but as an independent citizen, volunteering without the aegis of a sponsoring institution.