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Stepantsminda, Mtskheta-Mtianeti, Georgia
@benjaminrahimi
Member since 2024
Greetings, everyone. I’m Benjamin. Though originally Iranian, I have spent the last twenty-five years in near-constant motion across borders. My pattern—whether by design or temperament—is to remain roughly seven years in each country that becomes a home. Following seven years in Turkey, I lived and worked for six to seven years as an instructor at an orphanage in Tajikistan, collaborated with private schools, and served as a United Nations translator in Northern Iraq for another seven-year stretch. After a subsequent seven-year period teaching with language institutes and private schools in Turkey, I relocated roughly three years ago to the stunning country of Georgia. Here, I divide my time between tutoring languages and guiding hikes through the awe-inspiring peaks of the Caucasus, particularly Kazbegi (Stepantsminda). For me, moving through nature mirrors the way others enter churches, mosques, or temples: it is a devotional act, a form of wilderness prayer. Concurrently, I translate classical Persian Sufi poetry into Turkish, deepen my engagement with Hasidic literature, study Eastern Christian mysticism (Hesychasm), and pursue two writing projects—a forthcoming book and a novel translation from Persian into Turkish. For a clearer portrait of my work and wanderings, find me on Instagram: backpacking_in_georgia.
Interested in Books & Literature
Interested in Cooking
Fluent in Azerbaijani
Learning Chinese
Why I'm on Couchsurfing
_ I strongly bleieve that each human being is an unique being by whom I can be enlightened, from whom I can learn something uniquely new, and thus being transmuted, be a better virsion of myself. _ To improve my linguistic skills. To learn more of cuture, history and mentality of people from other parts of the world.
Music, Movies, and Books
Books: _ from the world of Hinduism] : Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, _from the world of Mahayana Buddhism] Dhammapada _ from the world of Sufism:The Mantiq al-tair (=Language of the Birds) Masnavi of Rumi. The Walled Garden of Truth or The Hadiqat al Haqiqa of Hakim Sanai
One Amazing Thing I've Done
Beginning from the border of Bulgaria, by walking-hichhiking in intervals and working for few days in return for food and pocket money, I, at the age of 21 set out on a long journey, walking all the way to the border of Turkey-Iran, from border of Iran in the same manner, to the border of Pakistan. From Sistan and Baluchestan province of Pakistan to Lahur and Aibtabad, where having visited and worked for few monhts, I then walked all the way to the gorgous region of Gilgit. Having worked in a bakery in return for some amount of paket money, I walked-hichhiked to the Afghanistan, having worked as a translator with a Turkish construction company for few monhts, headed to the mesmerisingly beautiful ''Pamir'' of Tajikistan. Spent 6 months there, hanging out with Ismailites, I moved to Dushanbeh city, Tajikistan and my 3-year-long jearney ended there whereupon I settled down and began working as an instructor with an orphanouge. Relatively recently, in Georgia: hiking to Truso valley, Kazbegi glacier, Juta mountain, Tsdo mysterious village, Gveleti waterfall and Pansheti carbonated mineral water spring and the most difficult one, the-three-day hiking to the glacial Kelitsadi Lake
Teach, Learn, Share
I can share my linguistic knowlage with guests and can help them visiting places around that tourists don't know about.
What I Can Share With Hosts
My linguistic knowledge and hiking experiences in Kazbegi I might expect my guests, of course if they are willing, to tutor my online students. To teach me, if I don't know their languages at all, the alphabets of their languages. And share their knowladge of healthy-eating/properly cooking.
My Interests
Exchange conversations
