Happy Halloween

Gilosavt! Georgians don't celebrate Halloween, but that didn't stop us from having a party!

The pre-party began on Friday when some volunteers arrived early. For dinner we went to Orbi's, which is my favorite restaurant in town. We ended up staying there for 5 hours. As a group of Americans, you tend to stand out. Being in Georgia means that you are treated to worldclass hospitality. Georgians kept coming, some stumbling, over to our table to talk to us and offering to buy us food and drinks. By the end of the night we had graciously accepted and thoroughly enjoyed 5 pitchers of wine and mstvadi (bbq pork). Then we taxi'd it back to our homes.

The annual "unofficial" PCV Halloween party was held on Saturday at the Intourist Hotel. The Intourist is located in the center of Gori and is the hotel so let me be your tour guide. The hotel rooms are on the 2nd and 3rd floor. Lucky volunteers had rooms on the 2nd floor. There's a reason why we nicknamed the 3rd floor the "orphanage." It's amazing what a difference 10Lari will make in terms of a hotel room. Those on the 2nd floor had nice clean rooms with working hot water. Those on the 3rd floor (myself included) were treated to an authentic orphanage environment. Dilapidated rooms, brightly colored mold, chipped paint, exposed floorboards, rusty washbasins...the works! Placed next to the rusty toilet was a bucket full of water AKA no water pressure. Luckily, living here for 4 months teaches you to carry hand sanitizer at all times. The Intourist doesn't have many rooms so those who rsvp'ed too late had an entire hallway to call home for night with mattresses on the floor. I told you it was an authentic experience!

For the costumes, we had to be really creative since we couldn't go out and buy them. When it comes to being a successful volunteer there are 2 words to live by: flexibility and resourcefulness. It's amazing what a little creativity combined with sewing and/or flipchart paper can produce. Appearances were made by the Ninja Turtles, Captain Crunch, a White Trash couple, "Georgia," Staliness the Dominatrix, gypsies, Waldo (Where's Waldo?), "God's Gift to Women," etc. I went as Rocky Balboa- had to bring a little Americana to the party. The party was awesome as expected. Anytime a bunch of volunteers can manage to get together, fun is always to be had!

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I gave a presentation about Halloween to all my students. I told them all about different Halloween traditions, "Trick or Treating," and focused a lot on pranks (egging, toilet papering). Then I talked about the costume shops and the crazy things you can find for sale like blood capsules, fake appendages, masks, etc. To really build up the momentum I spoke about Haunted Houses and as I walked up and down the aisles talking about the creepy things inside them I yelled, "boo!" There were so many screams that the teacher next door ran over to see what had happened! Ah, yes the little things are what counts- like making your counterpart and students pee their pants!