Today there was a conference call with greenheart travel for a pre-departure orientation that was meant to help prepare us for the trip, with information on logistical details, health, safety, etc.
- First up – airline tickets. Still haven’t received them yet from the Georgian Ministry. Looking like 30th or 31st will be the departure date.
- We will be in Tbilisi for one week for orientation on culture, history, language, logistics (bank account, health insurance) and ESL teaching
- Side note – one of the people that on the call had a Texas-drawl type of accent. I feel so bad for his students!
- There is only going to be one volunteer in each school
- The school size will vary between 200 and 800 students for K-12
- The schools have to meet special criteria to get a volunteer and they only mentioned two items: already teaching English and indoor plumbing. Hah!
- Most schools will built under the Soviet era so are 3-story gray block buildings
- All schools have a computer lab due to standards set by the Ministry
- Teaching resources will be at a minimum, including copying and printing material
- Each school has a library, but they will have very little English books
- The host families are volunteering their home to us – they are not getting paid in any way
- Part of the call discussed safety. Kimberly, whom I have mentioned before, talked about her experience there in June. She said that she has been all over the world and that Georgia was in her top 5 places where she felt the safest. She mentioned, and I agree with her, that in the villages where we will be living, the locals will take care of us and make sure no harm comes to us. The cities are still pretty safe, but they will not know us like the villagers will so we just need to be smart.
- Toasting is very important and you cannot drink before the toast is over, which can be over 10 minutes. I need to be prepared to give a toast.
- Finally, an important note: you use beer to toast to your enemies.
After the call, I felt like I needed to get some teaching material so Kim let me steal some of their kid books and then we went to the store and got some stickers and flash cards that have pictures and words. I got cards that are focused on space, landmarks of the world, animals, the alphabet, and homonyms. Now I just need to find space for it all.
Oh, and I found some online sites for learning phrases in Georgian. This site has a pretty good list and includes audio samples. I thought you would all like to here what I am going to be trying to learn. Here is how to say hello.