Orientation Week: Hotel, Security and Lessons

Due to the business of my schedule I am actually writing this two days after orientation ended and we were picked up by our host families. This entry will discuss orientation week including the classes we had throughout the day.

I met most of the other teachers at the hotel over the first few days of orientation. With close to 70 teachers there it became an increasingly difficult job to remember not just names, but faces too. Every time you walked round the hotel you met more and more people. I have to say 99% of the other teachers I met were absolutely fantastic people. They came from all walks of life. Despite the majority of teachers coming from America, they generally came from different states and so I guess you could say our group featured an equal distribution of people from most of the states in America (if this makes sense).  Aside from America, some were from Ireland, a few from South Africa, an Argentinean, and an Englishman. If I’ve forgotten any other foreign nationals I apologise!

 As the week went by we got to know one another better and I think by the end of the week I could remember almost everyone’s name. As the orientation took place in the hotel (excluding trips into Tbilisi of course, as they were only occasional) we learned more about each other and I think this helped the experience. From 9am to 3am (or whatever time you stopped drinking...) you were always in the company of at least a small group of teachers.

The schedule for orientation week was pretty much the same each day. It would start with a meeting at 9am with Tamara, the orientation co-ordinator. She was great throughout orientation and was always willing to help when necessary. The first meeting was a ‘meet and greet’ type meeting introducing herself. Other meetings in the week were just to keep us updated with respect to our orientation and when we would be finding out our locations in Georgia.

Georgian language lessons were generally after the meeting. These lessons lasted four hours but we always had 2-3 coffee breaks inbetween to ensure our brains weren’t fried. In my group our teacher was Marika, and she was brilliant in teaching us the basics of the Georgian language. Their alphabet has 33 letters and so remembering what they looked like and their pronunciations was very difficult, but she made it easier for us to do so. So far I know the fundamentals of the language, such as greetings, directions, talking about the weather, talking about family, food and drink among a few other things. I am by no means perfect at the pronunciation of words but feel I have enough to get me by until I learn more words and phrases.

In the afternoon we had Cultural Training. This workshop-based session encouraged us teachers to interact with one another in groups as well as others in the class. The main purpose of these sessions was to make us aware of things like cultural shock (pretty self-explanatory I know) but also to go in more detail, such as looking at prevention strategies as well as coping strategies if it was to happen to any of us. I felt more comfortable after these sessions and now know the signs to look out for if I think cultural shock is going to set in. Other aspects of the cultural training was to make us aware of culture differences between our society and Georgian society. Despite being similar in a number of ways, there are differences which we need to have an understanding of, particularly as some of us will be living in the country for a year. Perhaps one of the most surprising differences is that Georgians do not smile to eachother if they were to pass on the pavement, which is possibly why I received strange looks when walking past the locals during the week.

We were usually finished these sessions around 7/8pm and the rest of the evening was ours to do what we wanted. Some people would have a look round Tbilisi while others stayed at the hotel in the bar. On one of the evenings a group of us got taxis to the Rustaveli (the CBD of Tbilisi, if you will) and had a walk round there. It was an absolutely amazing site, and I hope to have a blog entry on the Rustaveli over the coming weeks/months.

When we stayed in the hotel for the evening, the hotel staff were pretty laid back and we were allowed to buy alcohol from small shops near the hotel for considerably less than the price they were charging in the hotel. You can buy a bottle of Chacha (their vodka which is far nicer than any other vodka I’ve tasted in my life) for about 10 Laris, converted to Pounds thats about less than a fiver. Amazing. Beer is also cheap and you can buy a 3 litre bottle of lager for 5 Lari. Again, this is ridiculously cheap compared to UK prices.

I must mention an interesting aspect of the orientation which was...security. Throughout the week in the hotel there were security staff following us pretty much everywhere we went (around the hotel). These were typically mean-looking Georgian men who never gave us as much as a smile. At first I thought they were keeping an eye on us in case we misbehaved or got into any trouble. It only became apparent some time later that these guys were here to protect us as much as they were there to look after the hotel . As we were guests of the hotel they would have wanted to ensure we got into no difficulties, for example with the locals.

These ‘mean-looking’ security guys were actually the most hospitable guys I’ve ever met. They followed us constantly through the day but when they clocked off at 1am or whatever, they would join us at the bar and drink with us. They would bring everything from beer to vodka and shared it with everyone who was in the general area. They were very friendly and together we learned a bit of Georgian and they learned a bit of English too.  The secretary of the hotel (although I think to us Westerners he was actually the boss) was a lovely chap who was very friendly, and despite not sitting down to drink with us he would play on the grand piano in the bar to give us some ambient music.

Overall orientation was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. The days started early and went long into the night, but I think it was the perfect way for us to meet new people and begin preparing ourselves for our time in the country. The orientation formally ended on the Saturday, one week after arriving there, and it was time to meet our host families and leave the hotel for the last time. This will be covered in my next blog entry.