Go Kartli

Sam and Melissa are busy packing and getting ready to head to Georgia, a former Soviet Republic on the Black Sea in the Caucasus Mountains. We will do our best to keep this blog updated with retellings of our experiences. Since hearing about how many books (lots), comic books (more than lots) and kitchen gadgets (not really that many, given our microkitchen) we've had to pack might not be of interest to the more discriminating of readers, we'll update a bit here and there until departure with information on Georgia. What better way to get facts than from the uninformed.

First, on names. This blog is named "Go Kartli" because Kartli was the name of the historical region that today makes up a major portion of the country we call Georgia, but which Georgians call Sakartvelo (საქართველო). It is also a blatant rip off of the very clever parties our friend Carrie would hold in Reston, which she dubbed "Mario Kartli" wherein we would drink large amounts of Georgian wine while playing MarioKart. I'll never be as clever as Carrie, but as long as I can keep stealing ideas from her, I don't need to be.

Second, why are we going to Georgia and what will we be doing there? We have joined the Peace Corps and will be working with the English as a Second Language (ESL) program in a secondary school in Georgia, volunteering for two years.

Third, have you seen how crazy the Georgian alphabet is? We're not exactly strangers to funky letters and squiggles, but check this out:



So let's all work on getting that alphabet down and we'll keep posting and hopefully you'll keep reading.