Seven o'clock is always such a nice time of the day. It means my last class is done and all I have to do for the rest of the evening is eat and read "Crime and Punishment", which I borrowed from the office about a week ago. And maybe prepare next morning's class, if I didn't do so earlier in the day(and knowing my working habits, I probably didn't). Apart from the soon-to-end World Cup, there isn't a whole lot of evening entertainment to be had in this town, so I foresee a lot of reading during the coming month and a half. It's a good thing the office got a donation of used books some time ago so there is some selection. It's an odd mixture though, not an awful lot of what one could call "quality literature". Apart from "Crime and Punishment", I've seen "Wuthering Heights" and some Steinbeck, Updike and Camus, but otherwise it's mostly romance novels, self-help books from the 80s and one gem: "Hippies in our midst", a 1968 social study of, well, hippies.
Anyhow, today I was especially glad to finish. My morning group, which I usually like quite well because they're active and ask a lot of questions, really got on my nerves today because three of them just wouldn't shut up. This irritation really shone through when I told them to be quiet, but it didn't seem to have any effect. Next time these women won't be allowed to sit next to each other, which is such a ridiculous thing to have to do - they're not seven years old anymore, more like forty-seven! I was always dead set against teaching kids, now I'm thinking most humans either don't develop very much after that age or they just regress completely when in a classroom setting. At least the other guys also found them annoying and told them to be quiet.
But the evening group restored my faith somewhat. One man in this group also tends to be pretty talkative, but not nearly as much as the women in the early group. This time he also showed up twenty minutes early and fixed our office table which has been broken for a while. He did so quite of his own accord, and it was very nice! When we thanked him, he said it was nothing and he would thank us instead, for working during the summer just to teach them for free. Especially nice considering that last time I steppend on his toes a bit when thoughtlessly introducing Abkhazia - Abkhaz into our country-nationality vocabulary exercise (to get them to stop saying "I come from Georgian, I am Georgia"). Since they're all IDPs, many of them want to say they come from Abkhazia instead of Georgia in general, and so when I was writing the usual Georgia, Russia, Germany and so on, I added Abkhazia and Abkhaz to the list as well, not thinking about the fact that my headings were "country" and language/nationality".
"Abkhazia is not a country!" came the indignant response from this man. Oops. We quickly explained that we just wanted to write it for the sake of the people who want to use it, and that it wasn't a political statement (and obviously since these are ethnic Georgians, they're more likely to be from Abkhazia but speaking Georgian or Mingrelian rather than Abkhaz). These are beginners as well, so it wasn't exactly time to launch into an international law debate about the legal status of Abkhazia. But it really makes me want to go back and read up on the many, many things I've forgotten about public international law: what is the legal status of Abkhazia now? It's embarrassing how much I've forgotten already since I can't even pull off the most basic analysis now. My next task for long evenings, a mini-dissertation for personal perusal. Ah, if only I had access to a university library again.
Yesterday I was at a meeting with the ICRC, senior staff from the US Congress and a bunch of local NGOs (hence my presence: Imedi were invited). No one had any idea what the meeting was about when we came there, but it turned out this US Congress staff was on a lightning visit to Georgia to... well I honestly forgot why. I'm becoming as bad as the locals with the memory, maybe it's all the asbestos in the walls? But anyhow, they were learning about the situation in the country through the help of the ICRC, I think because they came from departments that are providing funding for the Red Cross and therefore want to have a bit of insight? The meeting was pretty interesting, though I got the impression it was a bit hard for the Americans to get straight answers to their questions - it could be because the questions were lost in translation or because people just really wanted to talk about whatever they thought was important, rather than answer. I'm beginning to get the feeling it happens a lot around here...
What grated a bit was that they (the Congress staff) looked like college kids from your favourite Hollywood film. They can't have been much older than I am, and already having nice jobs with paid-for trips halfway across the globe! Maybe party politics is the way forward and I'm just cheating myself by insisting it's the most boring, pathetic thing ever and that getting involved with it would be selling one's soul? Social Democrats of Sweden, want a new party leader who will pay for her own Toblerone, at the very least? Silliness aside, the Americans seemed pretty nice and I told them about the World Cup screening in the park (not expecting any interest since, y'know, they're Americans) but they actually turned up there later for Germany-Spain and apparently had a good time, so points to me for excellent tourist guiding skills.
Now I forgot to plan tomorrow morning's lesson. No rest for the wicked.
No comments:
Post a Comment