Titled so because of the massive amounts of sugar I’ve consumed in the last week, the jarring process undertaken by my host family for the upcoming fruitless months, and because of the song I’m listening to by Soulive.

I can feel Fall soaking into the valley and throughout Georgia, and I smelled it this morning when I awoke to the dryness, the smell of burnt leaves, and the preemptive trees who are apparently calling the shots for the start of my favorite season. Around this time I’m always sure to listen to a lot of Nick Drake, James Mercer, Mountain Man, Jerry Garcia and David Grisman’s Shady Grove album and Bob Dylan’s Desire.

Here’s a recap:

This last month’s been pretty busy, including an excursion up to the river head/canyon, a Summer camp for the kids of Ambrolauri, harvesting fruits from the trees outside of my host family’s house, planning some English classes for community members with my site-mate, and preparing myself for the start of school next week.

Hiking through the canyon was beautiful: it wasn’t spelunking, but I’m going to refer to it as such just because I like the word. I was grateful to have the opportunity to spend some time with some seniors at Scott’s school and talk to them about Ambrolauri and what they like/dislike about the English program.

The camp went pretty well even though I had to assert my authority more than once with the boys–I guess I should say I never thought I’d have a problem with twelve year-old boys leaving during an activity to go drink beer. Three things that every counselor/teacher should have in their arsenal: water balloons, zombie references, and a good dinosaur impression.

Our community English lessons were also beneficial for the upcoming school year because we were able to create lessons for multi-level classrooms, bond with my director and some of the teachers at my school, and integrate a little more into the community.

Drew, a cluster-mate who lives in the closest neighboring town Tkibuli, came up for a night and spent it with Scott and myself. It was a long day for him filled with havoc, unscheduled marshutkas, popped tires, and showing us up with his Georgian language skills. At least we were able to give him a decent tour of our town, show him the bazaar (tarp city), and introduce him to my French speaking cousin. This was thoroughly entertaining, not only because Drew “knows” French, but our conversation conjoined at least four different languages at any given moment, and I was happy to practice a bit of my Spanish and more of my broken Georgian.

The last days of the month were spent in Tbilisi acquiring sleepless nights, long conversations with ex-pats and (sometimes delirious) laughs. The lightning crack and cloudy skies that fused overhead as we left the hostel should have been a telltale sign that rain was coming, but I figured it wasn’t going to be a big deal…I’m used to the rain. It downpoured and we were all left in the street-less rivers of the city, soaking from head to toe. We warmed right up after it stopped with some tchatcha, or at least enough not to notice our wet feet.

I had the opportunity to head to GLOW Camp (Girls Leading Our World) and participate as a counterpart counselor with a very well-educated young woman named Tamuna. I am excited to inherit the project next year and continue to educate the young women in Georgia.

I’ll end with a short snippet inspired by our 22 year-old marshutka driver from Bakuriani to Terjola who proclaimed to my 14 year-old campers that he hates the 21st century because of what it has done to the “pure and honest” Georgian women. After being asked what kind of girl he wants, he replied, “one that wears long dresses down to their ankles and shirts that completely cover them up.” That’s around the time that I left the back of the marshutka to have a conversation with him about women nowadays.

But here are some cultural taboos that may suit his reasoning:

1. Don’t sit at the corner of the table or you won’t get married for seven years (or have a bad husband). I’ve been told on several occasions to “dajeki kargi” (sit properly). Maybe not as relevant now as it was 50 years ago, but still something that I’m constantly told not to do.

2. Never sit on the cement or you will be infertile. When I was in PST, every time I sat in the sun on the cement staircase, my host mother or father would come out of the house and give me a wool blanket to sit on.

3. Don’t walk around with bare feet. You will also become infertile.

I guess these are the kinds of things that my new favorite marshutka driver named Gio dislikes about women from the 21st century. Living in a society that values its traditions and culture so much, I can see where he’s coming from: Georgia seems to be walking backwards into the future. Destroyed by many conquerors but restored once again, Georgia takes everything that belongs to it, holds on with a tight grip and proclaims its cultural identity, “This is who I am and this is what I represent.” That beautiful make-up will be preserved by future generations, though it might mix a little bit with the ever changing world that we live in.