Day one at the 1st School, we really are #1

Julien has already told you all about his first day of school, so I thought I would tell you about mine. We too had a concert of sorts. The students here love to sing and are always happy to sing any number of songs, but they also love to dance. There is a Georgian national folk dance tradition and it is taken very seriously here. Children start taking lessons very young and dancers are very well respected. The dances are a little hard to explain but they involve a lot of jumping and posing and masculinity for the men and a lot of come hither looks and purity for the women. There is a lot of spinning from both sexes and usually some sort of knife fighting for the boys - my favorite dance is one where a man spins around very fast on his knees and throws knives into the floor. What isn’t great about indiscriminate knife throwing while spinning on one’s knees? All and all it is a very beautiful and powerful tradition. This power was displayed by a seven year old boy at my concert and was very amusing because, while dancing is taken very seriously, dancers also take themselves very seriously. So this 7 year old, with all of the grit and determination of a bull fighter in the ring, whirled and struck poses like a true professional. It was quite a spectacle.
After the concert, the first form was welcomed into their first day of school and the rest of us went to class. Well we didn’t really go to class. We sat in the classrooms as teachers and students came in and out trying to figure out where everyone was supposed to be. The schedule is posted everyday, so everyday is like a new adventure. I am not sure when my first class will be or when I will be done for the day. I just go in at 9:30 (yes that is when school starts) and expect to be there until 2:30 (that is when school is over). There is no cafeteria, so school can’t last very long because the students have to eat at home. They have obviously not taken to snack time like the Czechs did when I was in school there. It was strange to be a senior in High School and have a snack packed everyday by my host mom, but that is the way it was. Here it is not so. I think because sandwiches are not popular, maybe non-existent (I haven’t seen any). When sandwiches become popular, school will last longer. I will let the people at Subway know that their lack of enterprising spirit in Georgia is a detriment to the entire education system.
I must say there are a few things I miss about living in the U.S., one is 24 hour news. I thought that I hated CNN when I lived in the states, but living here with one channel where everyone looks like a smurf ( yes they are all blue, though sometimes the skin color shifts to a greenish hue) has given me a new appreciation for information. Julien bought a short wave radio in efforts to remedy this information problem; however, the only stations that come-in in English are actually Chinese, maybe he shouldn’t have bought a Chinese radio. I would like to make a quick plea to the American Embassy in Georgia, I would be okay with any type of radio programming in English, even Fox News as much as it pains me to say it, as long as I don’t have to hear about the daily preparations for the 2008 Olympics any more. I suppose that is all for now, I have to get back to making my vocabulary lists and boning up on my Russian because even though my Georgian language abilities have far surpassed my Russian language, Russian is still the lingua franca for all foreigners here in Georgia even if you tell someone you don’t speak Russian, please speak Georgian they switch to Georgian for about 2 seconds and then back to Russian again. I don’t get it but I think I will join in on the fun.
This last picture is just something that we found funny. Well actually Julien found it hilarious, and I found it mildly amusing. It is the storefront of a Purfume Chain called Voulez Vous. This is what Voulez Vous looks like in Georgian.