Goodbye Georgia

Sadly, it is already time to write my last blog. Unfortunately I am leaving Georgia next saturday. In total I spent around 8.5 months in Georgia (2,5 months longer than I originally planned). And when I am looking back on those months, I can for sure say that I had a good time here. I discovered a new country and culture, met new people and organised a lot of activities. Rustavi, a city I did not know anything about, now feels like my second home. I will miss the city a lot. Mostly, I will miss the people (my fellow volunteers, our coordinator Lia and all the other nice people I met here), but also the places we always went to. Moreover, I will miss Georgia, the people, the food (especially Khinkali), the music, the language, and the beautiful landscapes. It will be weird not to walk to the scout center with my friends every morning. But I guess every good thing also has to come to an end. I hope me and my friends manage to plan a volunteer reunion in the future (and I know we will). Also, I am definitely planning to also visit Georgia again in the future, because I fell in love with the country.

Haven't I had some hard times here in Georgia? Of course I did. And it would be weird if everything I experienced was positive. In the beginning I really had to get used to the country and I had to get used to doing everything together with the same people. In hindsight, I think that those are the things that made the experience nice. All volunteers moved to Georgia around the same time, and experienced that Georgia was different from their home countries. We did not know a lot of people, because of this we were quite dependent on each other. This is not a negative thing. This experience made us spend a lot of time together and made us bond quite fast. I think that I can conclude that my positive experiences, by far, have outnumbered my negative experiences.

To not end on a negative note I want to share my favourite memories I made here. It is hard to pick one, because I made so many nice memories. So I guess I will pick three memories:

1. My birthday in the Truso Valley. I expected to not celebrate my birthday that extensively this year, because I was living abroad and did not know the others that well yet. On my birthday we ended up going on a trip together to the Truso Valley. We even celebrated my birthday multiple times.

2. Our trip to Mestia. Last month we did a trip with all the volunteers to Zugdidi, Mestia en Tskaltubo. It was our last trip all together, which was sad. But I am also very grateful for the memories we made there.

3. All the evenings we spent together. We spent so many evenings together: going to Cafune, chatting in the apartment or chilling on the bench outside the apartment.

Okay everyone, I will really stop writing now, or otherwise I will start to cry.

დიდი მადლობა საქართველო!

Comments

MOVING TO GEORGIA: MY FIRST EXPERIENCES!

Moving to Georgia: my first experiences! At the start of September I moved to Georgia to volunteer at the International Scout Center in Rustavi for 6 months. In this blog I will tell you more about why I decided to volunteer in Georgia, about how I prepared myself to move abroad, about my expectations and about my experiences of the first weeks. Who am I and why did I decide to volunteer abroad? Why did I decide to move to Georgia? I am Renée and I am 25 years old. I am from the Netherlands and there I lived in a small city called Leiden. The few past years I was studying Education and Child studies there. In my bachelors I did an exchange semester and lived for 6 months in the city Tartu in Estonia. This was a really nice experience and after I came back to the Netherlands I decided that at some point I wanted to live abroad again. So when I graduated university last year I knew what I did not want: a stressful job in the Netherlands. I explored different possibilities, for exam...

In the head of a volunteer - Arrival and first week

I can’t believe that it’s been two months since I set foot in Georgia for the first time. And yet it seems like a lifetime of experiences. Here is an assortment of my very first moments, hope you enjoy :) The arrival and discovery of Rustavi landscape When I arrived at Tbilisi Airport I was surprised to see it was not as big as I expected a capital airport to be. I waited alone for a few moments for Aleks to pick me up. During my wait I went to exchange money (by the way, if you come to Georgia, don’t do it at the airport, the exchange rates are far better in the city) and I realised that I really was far from home, I couldn’t understand any of the words people were saying to each other. When Aleks arrived I went in the car. I had a cold at the time, and I travelled at night, so I arrived in Georgia without any sleep. I felt really tired and I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t talk m...

CHAPTER 1

Once upon a time there lived five gnomes. They each lived a different life in a different place for a different amount of time. However, the thing they had in common was an unexplainable urge to add a new plot to their autobiographies, to put their for-centuries-collected skills and knowledge to a good use and go to a land far far away. They packed their biggest tiny backpacks, said farewell to their gnome families and forest fairy friends, each jumped on the back of a seagull and flew into an unfamiliar direction. This is where their stories intertwine. Turns out all the seagulls were going the same way; they dropped all the gnomes at the same place – a magical castle surrounded by forests and hills. The castle was home for many, no matter big or small, young or old, beginner or advanced, from this planet or another. All the residents of the castle warmly welcomed the gnomes with open arms and open hearts. The castle was a place where a helpful hand was given first and questions ask...

FROM TOULOUSE TO RUSTAVI: MY FIRST STEP IN SAKARTVELO

Saghamo Mshvidabisa everyone. I am Oubayda Bounif, one of the new French volunteers in the Scout Centre team. Why did I decide to become a volunteer? I think this is the first question/element I need to clarify before going any further. During my last year of college, I decided that I couldn’t just continue my life by getting on the job market. I need a unique experience that could give me something to believe in or something to remember and cherish. I was already thinking for a long time about doing an Erasmus year abroad with my university, involving myself in a local solidarity organization , but I never had the time or the courage to do so. So when a friend brought up the idea of doing a Civique service during a discussion, I decided that now was the moment. The next day I sent 13 applications and 3 months later I had a Zoom meeting with Aleks Metreveli. Overall, the purpose of this volunteering for me is to grow as a human being, bring joy and happiness around me, help ot...

A taste of Georgian culture: Grape harvesting and khinkali making

In October I got to know Georgian culture even better. Together with the other volunteers I did various cultural activities, about which I will write in this blog. Grape picking At the start of the month, we were invited to help with grape harvest by the uncle of Aleks. At the house of Aleks Uncle, we were welcomed very warmly. In Georgian culture it is very important to take good care of your guests. We were offered coffee and tea and all kinds of cookies and other sweet treats. Even though it was still quite early, it was not really accepted if you did not want to drink or eat anything. Lia explained that it is very important for Georgians to take good care of their guests. In Georgia it is even a saying that every guest is a gift from God. So it is very important for Georgians that you as a guest are comfortable and have enough to eat and drink. For me, it was interesting to see this, because Dutch people are not as hospitable as Georgians. After the coffee bre...

Search This Blog