Seriously! This month felt so long, I thought it would never end, and I don’t even mean that in a bad way. I experienced all the ups and downs and in betweens in only 31 days- so let’s recap, shall we?
“I want to die – but I want to eat Khinkali”
The whole month started off slow and dark in the literal sense. It was just dark outside, and all my flatmates were either home for Christmas or travelling around Georgia. So, I just spent my time finding out how to entertain myself without going insane, talking to myself and the voices.
Luckily, my motivation entered soon through our apartment door in the form of my two flatmates returning from their vacation. What do you think three volunteers with free time, who live in a country rich in beautiful landscape and colourful culture, do? Correct - a lot of cooking. We all suddenly discovered we are able to create nearly anything from scratch and even invent vegan versions to traditional dishes. It usually ended in us starting random baking or cooking projects in the middle of the night. Maybe it sounds a little insane, but we have worked hard on our khinkali making skills through those nights and can confidently say: They may not be beautiful or resemble Khinkali at all, but they tasted heavenly! (And they were vegan!!)
Of course we didn’t just stay indoors. January also gave us the opportunity to explore Tbilisi and a completely different culture concerning Christmas. Personally, I have never seen a Christmas market after December 31st, but suddenly I was able to listen to Mariah Carey all over again in the early days of January. What a delight. In addition to that, on January 13th at midnight, I was surprised by fireworks suddenly going off and a text from a friend spelling “Happy Old New Year”. At first I thought it must be someone's birthday to which apparently the whole town was invited and my friend’s text just happened to arrive at the same time, but soon I learned I just experienced the celebration of another Georgian Holiday called Kalandoba. What a nice and absolutely unexpected surprise.
“The Great Volunteers”
After our well enjoyed long Winter Holidays we finally gathered in the office again, ready to tackle 2026. While we started slowly by simply resurrecting our weekly activities, the opening of our Scout School started to approach and there was some program planning waiting for us. When you grew accustomed to playing and working with children, staring at Excel Sheets can cause a tiny loss of inspiration. Fortunately, new energy and motivation arrived in the middle of January one by one and introduced themselves. We gained three new international volunteers, completing our team of long-term volunteers and bringing new ideas and perspectives with them. While a change in the team’s dynamics is usually hard for me, I am extremely happy to have more cultural diversity in our team. Adding our Georgian Coordinator, Lia, we went from a team with three to one of six different cultural backgrounds, counting Georgia, France, Italy, Latvia, Poland and Germany.
“Maze Runners”
Our new team and flatmates also brought in new motivation to discover Georgia. That was a really lucky circumstance for me considering I still hadn’t explored a lot. Although I have been here for almost four months (it feels like a crime - my deepest apologies).
Due to that I finally made it to the Chronicles of Georgia seeing something I have only before observed on Tik Tok in real life. They were beautiful and the view over the city, although we had horrible weather conditions, was breathtaking. Tbilisi is seriously huge, it took me a long time to realize this.
The Chronicles reminded me of a maze from a videogame, if you played “The Legend of Zelda - BotW” you might know what I am referring to. While it was not as wide as the fictional one I was familiar with, it was much more intimidating by its sheer tallness and dark, heavy colour. Also, it was real and that's a pretty big pro.
“1001 Georgian Tiles”
Another trip the others motivated me to come along for had the destination Gori. It was the time in late January when suddenly everything drowned in snow, cars had a hard time moving and in addition to that it was a public holiday. Because apparently the celebrations in January never end here - I am seriously jealous. All of that obviously made it the perfect day to pay Gori a visit. After encountering small difficulties on our way there, which meant navigating an hour through Tbilisi to find the correct marshrutka and failing to spot any open restroom (Public Holiday, remember?) we miraculously made it to Gori. What a relief, or that's what we thought until we left the marshrutka.
While Gori is beautiful in the snow, I learned through travel recommendations that the worst month to visit Gori is supposedly January. Now, I know why. While the temperature wasn’t that low, it felt like we were freezing to death the second our faces were touched by Gori’s icy wind.
However, unlike me, my travel companions were not to be stopped by any obstacles, so we pursued our goal to discover Gori after shortly warming up through some Khinkali.
Our first stop was the art installation called: “1001 Georgian tiles”, which is a collection of tiles on a random wall in the middle of Gori. They all featured different designs with symbols connecting them to Georgian culture. It might be one of my favorite sights I have managed to see in this country. This is due to its outer simplicity but inner focus on millions of details making every single tile completely unique. Additionally, it was just beautiful to see such an explosion of color after staring at white snow and grey buildings for days. A nice change of view.
“Freezing Tourists Society”
However, tiles were not the only sight we visited. After an adventurous journey up a hill on a frozen pathway, we made it to the Gori Fortress. That’s when I started to value the weather. Not much can compare to the sight of the fortress and the city from above being completely covered in snow. For a short second it created the feeling of complete quietness. The beauty was only slightly altered by the kneedeep snow in which I believe everyone of us vanished at least once. It did not really help with the cold, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless and luckily laughing warms your body up really well.
Lastly, we wanted to take a look at the “Georgian Battle Heroes Memorial” not far from the fortress. I still find it hard to describe the feeling it creates, but imagine feeling empathy, intimidation and pride at the same moment as well as simply the admiration of art. The memorial consists of multiple humanoide figures sitting in a circle. They resemble soldiers or according to the memorial’s name - heroes. Each of them is missing an important part of their body. It seems like they lost it while defending their home country. It robbed them of the ability to live without help or at all. If you stand in the middle of their circle all those figures are facing you with a straight posture and tall size. It creates the feeling of intimidation I mentioned although it is obvious they cannot move because of their injuries. Still, they portray a pride that is easily tangible, almost forcing you to take a second and mourn their losses.
“January dies at the end”
Somehow January managed to find its end. For me it was a really eventful month although I could not mention everything in this blogpost. I think I finished the month on a good note. We are slowly finishing the preparations for the upcoming Scout School – which is an adventure itself but I am excited for everything coming our way in February.
Ending this post I want to mention one of my highlights this month. We restarted our Arts&Crafts Activity at the Scout Center and it has become something I look forward to every week. While we obviously try to prepare an interesting activity for the participants at all times, I would lie if I said I’m not also creating a creative space for my inner child to try some new creative methods and just find some relaxation through crafting. Lately, we’ve made clay keychains together and I was blown away by the amount of skill some of the kids brought to the table. One girl seriously managed to create miniature versions of Georgian traditional food featuring a Khinkali and Adjarian khachapuri. I didn’t even know that was possible. I’m looking forward to my next friday evening as well as the following months in which I hopefully manage to discover more of Georgia, seizing many of the opportunities I am given. Let’s see what 2026 brings for us!
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