What is more difficult than learning Georgian, a language with guttural sounds that do not exist in my native tongue and that has its own ანბანი? I’ll tell ya:

Teaching English.

One of the things I committed to doing at my new organization was teaching my co-workers English twice a week. I’m not a teacher. I don’t know a lot of grammar rules. I don’t know how to explain why something is the way it is in English… I just know how to say things.

I don’t have — and my students/co-workers don’t have — any books. There are a lot of resources online, but they all are lacking in some way or another. So I’ve been piecing things together, creating lesson plans by pulling this worksheet from this website and that vocab list from that website.

My co-workers are all over the place. Some of them don’t know the ABCs by heart yet. Others are English teachers to young kids, which means they know how to say “That is a table” and various British English sayings that are foreign even to my ears (“I have not experience,” for example, instead of “I don’t have experience”), but are not yet what you would call “conversational.”

After four lessons with varying degrees of success, talking about verbs, using flashcards, playing silly games, etc., I decided to change my strategy. So the other day I came in armed with slang words and a bunch of stuff about Thanksgiving.

It was a hit.

They loved the slang. Around the office they’ve been saying that things are “cool” and “awesome” all week. Next week they’re going to tell me about Thanksgiving traditions, in English (I know it’s past the season, but they don’t care — they asked to do it). Theme-based learning, readings, vocab, slang and conversation.

The other night I commented to McKinze that I could feel that I was overthinking this… that it shouldn’t be so hard. That I just needed to break through and then it would be a whole lot better and a whole lot easier. I think I’m on to something here.

One of my co-workers insisted on teaching us the term “culture vulture” — someone who, ya know, loves culture and stuff. She insisted that it was a very popular saying in America. I had to say it was the first time I’d ever heard this.

In other news:

• It’s cold and it’s staying cold. Seeing my breath in the air while I lay in bed in the morning isn’t a novelty anymore. It’s just what it is. A fellow PCV, a volunteer in the new group, wrote a fantastic post about this and other winter hardships in Georgia that you should totally read right here.
• Similarly, a PCV in Senegal wrote this fantastic piece for the Huffington Post that perfectly captures the feelings of frustration and downright failure that I’ve felt on more than one occasion here. Nice to know I’m not alone.
• The other day I saw in a lesson plan that the Georgian words for “gravy” and “cranberries” are the same.
• McKinze and I have watched four seasons of Friday Night Lights in about a month, and we’ll probably wrap up season 5 next week. It’s not the best show in the history of television, but it’s addictive in that networky/”Lost” sorta way. Don’t judge. I loves me some Buddy Garrity.
• Next week I’m putting on 5 separate events/trainings in 4 days. This will be the busiest stretch of Real Peace Corps Work all in one week since I’ve been here.
• I’m thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to finally being ready to submit my project proposal to get some much-needed basic sanitation equipment — i.e. toilets and showers — in the gym I’ve been excited about since the summer. I’m also finishing that up next week.
• Once those things are over, just a little more than a week from now, we’ll be back in America for the holidays. Heck yeah***.

*** That link is not for young ears, people who are easily offended or people without a sense of humor. Or terrorists.