Martha really likes the place that we live that I can't tell you what it is called

Hello everyone,
I hope all is well with all of you. I don’t have much internet access; in fact, I can only use the internet when I get permission to travel to Gori which I can only do on Sundays. Peace Corps Georgia is like a really strict summer camp; you go where they tell you to go and do what they tell you do, when they tell you to do it and listen to what they tell you to listen to, and, as long as you do that, you can do basically what ever you want (as long as it is in business casual).
Georgia is really great, I actually I feel like perhaps I am not in the Peace Corps. Everyday we have loads of delicious food prepared by our super nice and doting host moms. For example last Saturday we went to the Sergeant’s house. Her name is Dali and she is called the Sergeant because that is what she is a Sergeant in the Georgian Army, but more importantly to us she is a fabulous cook. We go to her house on Satudays, she is the host-sister of our language teacher Maka. The following is what she whipped together for our lunch last Saturday; boiled chicken, fried chicken, chicken in walnut sauce, cheesebread stuffed with beet greens and garlic, fresh tomato and cucumber salad, cornbread dumplings, eggplant in walnut sauce, fresh cheese, unnamed vegetable salad, soup, rice with hazelnut something, bread, fresh berries and cherries from the garden, homemade cake, and Turkish coffee. I am probably forgetting something, but you get the idea. All of this is served on tables the size of card tables, on plates the size of saucers so plates of food are perched on the top of other plates. We travel around gorgeous countryside looking at really old things. And we receive hours and hours of language lessons to speak a language that linguistic scholars study inside and out, but that is generally useless outside of Georgia.
This past Sunday we went to A***s Sioni. Which is translated as: A***s Sioni. Still no word on what the translation is for Sioni. A couple of ideas: “Sioni is Sioni”, “Tbilisi has a Sioni as well” and “It is the type of church”. Name aside - it is a 6th Century Georgian Orthodox church. The church was really beautiful and nestled in the hills. Ateni’s Sioni is about 3km outside of lower Ateni where I live. We walked up there along the main road which is quite narrow. Along the way we passed a 9th century monastery and the ruins of a fortress from who knows when. Lower A*** has its own fortress which we hiked up to last week. What I am trying to get at is that in less then 5 kms, (less than 3 miles) there are a least 4 “world heritage” style sites and the Georgians don’t even notice them anymore. It is amazing/sad to see all of these things going to ruin, but also cool to see them nestled into everyday life and not closed off from everyone. When we were in Gori for example we went to another fortress. This fortress is a more substantial 13th century fortress which sits atop a hill overlooking all of Gori. We were able to climb up to the fortress, go into the fortress and see it innards, touch it’s walls, looked through its turrets and know what is was like to see the galloping hordes coming over the hills around the city. See pictures attached.
On Sunday A***s Sioni was filled with 17 year old girls who were praying that they would do well on the national exams. Georgia has “completely eliminated” corruption by implementing national exams. The students who want to go to college take a test and - based on their results from the test - the government pays for either 100%, 70% or 30% of their tuition. It does seem like a pretty good system, except that none of the 11th graders went to school this year because they all stayed home with their private teachers to study for the national exams. Teachers in Georgia make about 50 lari a month which is about 35 dollars. It is cheap here but not that cheap so must teachers supplement their incomes with private tutoring sessions. Georgia’s most skilled workers make about 500 lari a month, about $350. So there is a big “brain drain” here. A lot of people who can go somewhere else to work. There are a lot of people who go to Greece it seems. It should be interesting to work in the system.
In a couple of weeks Julien and I get to leave for the weekend ( with written prior approval of course) to go on a cultural tour. We have decided to go, along with some of our Peace Corps peeps, to Mount Kazbeg (Dad, don’t look at the map). We are taking a marshutka (hopefully one that we can sit down on) to Tbilisi and from Tbilisi to Kazbegi, a lovely mountain town that one can only get to during the summer when the roads are open. Julien is pleased because there is a brewery in Kazbegi which makes creatively enough Kazbegi Beer, a popular Georgian brew. I wanted to go the beach, but it is very far and I would only get sunburned and overrun by Russian tourists in Speedos yeeew. So the mountains will be nice and everyone we have told says that it is very beautiful there. I will let you know how it goes.
I will sign off by saying Happy 4th of July! I hope you enjoy your barbeques; we are having a Peace Corps picnic (attendance: required, dress: casual, yesss!). Although I think a good day for all of us would be a day without eating, or a day without cheesebread, or a day where we only drank water or for us village people, a day with a flush toilet will be heavenly.
I would like to say that if there is anything going on that you think that I should know about, you should let me know via email because the news is not useful to me yet and I feel as though I have dropped off of the face of the earth information-wise. I won’t of course find out about it for a couple a weeks even with this sort of methodology, but at least that is something. Also, anyone who would like to keep me up-to-date on any gossip (any kind of gossiping is fine by me, political, social, entertainment, Sturtz, Fort Collins) that would be great.
Another thing if you would like me to not send you this email or you would like me to send it to another address or you would like me to send it to someone I have forgotten (I may have forgotten you) please let me know. I can not get on to my hotmail account, so I am missing a lot of addresses (John and/or Peter you know who you are). Talk to you soon,

Narchvramdis,
Martha

PS If there is an emergency I do have a cell phone ( I told you it didn’t seem like real Peace Corps) you can get the number from my mom, but she has never been able to get through, so you may want to try a different calling card.