Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Settling In

A Day

7:30 - The view East from my bedroom window. Not all days start with such a sunrise.

9:00 - The bus is a crowded adventure every time. The door squeezes me in so tight I don’t need to hold on to a thing. It’s just a 20 minute ride up the river valley for me but it continues 2 hours toward the mountain villages so furniture crates of fruit and kegs of beer are common cargo. 

9:45 - Passing time from the window of the teachers lounge. They boys mostly wrestle and chase each other, the girls form tight circles. It’s like anywhere else in the world except that there’s no teacher intervention…ever. So most fights amongst the younger boys are moderated by their big brothers and the fights between the older boys are over, when they’re over. 

11:00 - Some days I have long breaks between classes so when the weather is nice I explore. This day I climbed the switch backing road to the village of Kibe (which mean ladder in Georgian). Beyond me just 10 kilometers to the South is the Turkish border.

2:00 - My after school English club gathers. The boy in the with shirt is Giorgi (one of the most common names in Georgia) and he is the quintessential Giorgi. Maybe you have to live here to understand and maybe not. Some people’s names just fit them and he is one.

8:00 – Skipping the lazy afternoon that often involves a game of soccer or reading or writing or napping, let’s get to the good stuff. Not all evenings but many lead to large quantities of food and wine. My host brother Ramazi raises a drinking horn for one of his elaborate philosophical toasts.

10:30 - Our apartment seems to be the place to hang out. Maybe it’s the killer wood stove that just moved into the living room for the winter chill, or maybe it’s the graciousness of my host mother and host sister (second from left and far right respectively), or maybe it’s the sweetness of the mandarins that are always in bountiful supply. Whatever it is guests often stay late and I usually understand little of what is said, but I’ll get there.


An Excursion to Kazbegi

With my friends Logan, Michelle and Kai, I headed to the slopes of Georgia’s iconic Mt. Kazbegi. Like any good plans, this one was hatched last minute over a beer. An overnight train carried me and Kai to the capitol city T’bilisi and after convening with our compatriots from the far Eastern Kakheti region we wound our way three hours further by marshutka to our mountainous destination.

Gergeti Monastery on the left skyline with the slopes of Kazbegi beyond

Walking to the monastery and looking cool doing it

The alpine town of Stepantsminda below

A multi-lingual dinner table at the guest house. Russian, Armenian, Georgian, and English were all intermingling with a modest level of mutual comprehension. But wine and cognac help facilitate communication where language fails.

An early morning hike through the birch forests rewarded me with this glorious view.

When I arrived at the monastery the monks were warming their hands around a wood stove and lighting candles in preparation for the Sunday service. Most parishioners walk a steep hour for the 8 hour service.

It was one of those trips where you end up with nicknames (Georgian ones). Ninico and Dato looking weary of transit on the Tbilisi metro.


9 Georgian Characters and Their Stories 


Mukhrani (pronounced moo-pretend like you clearing something from your throat-ron-ee): He’s one smart 5th grader and I love his name. When he’s waiting to be called on he clutches his raised hand and begs like his life depends on delivering the correct answer. Then when he’s chosen to speak he bounces out of his chair like a spring and exhales the answer like a cry of relief. He’s usually right.

Vasili: The guesthouse owner in Kazbegi pushed a hard bargain and drove this wonderful Russian matchbox of a car with a little taxi sign on top. He would intentionally swerve in front of busses and toward farmers on the roadside just to get a rise out of us. Whenever he did something dangerous or scary (which was often) he would take both hands off the wheel, turn around with a smile and say, “don’t worry, be happy!” Then after a perfect comedic pause, although he was dead serious, he would add, “Vasily Shumacher”. As in, of course, the Formula one champion Michael Schumacher.

Keti: This photo marks my victory in a game we played where she tried to sneak up on me and I tried to take her picture. She won the first 10 rounds in a blur but when I showed her this winning shot she conceded defeat.

Names unknown: Keti’s mother and grandmother. It’s fitting in a way that I never caught the name of these women even though they served me two incredible meals during my stay in their home. In Georgia, as a guest, the women of the house work hard to prepare and serve you food but they rarely sit at the table during meals, and they almost never drink at a supra. On this morning they prepared Adjarian Khachapuri, basically a French baguette canoe filled with a thick layer of cheese and then baked in the oven. Just before serving an egg is dropped in each vessel to cook slowly in the steaming masterpiece. This was, hands down, the best breakfast I’ve had in Georgia.

Name unknown: Well, there are actually two characters in this one. If you want to know the story of the guy on the right ask me some time in person. As for the man on the left he told us his story mostly with his hands. An Armenian native we shared almost no words in common. Over a bottle of cognac at Vasili’s guesthouse we learned that he had just survived a horrific accident that very day. His cell phone photos showed the cab of his truck in flames, many yards from the rest of the wrecked cargo. He must have rolled 200 feet down a rocky slope before he hit bottom. In gesture, he explained that angels must have been watching over him, showed us pictures of his family, and then toasted the wonder of life in all it’s precious finitude, at least that was my interpretation of the expression on his face.

Makhwala: My most successful way of communicating with Makhwala is by calling out the names of my favorite writers. She teaches literature and so when we find a common hero, Leo Tolstoy or Jack London, her face lights. Even though I can’t ask her much about her own life, we are connected by the wonderful stories we’ve read. Also, she is beautiful. She must dye her hair this wonderful deep crimson although I’ve never seen even the tiniest hint of grey. Either way, I  always catch myself staring at it. I’m a little bit in love and if she was my age maybe I would never make it back to America.

Luka: I met this young priest to be at Gergeti monastery. Before I met him and practiced the only 10 questions I could ask in Georgian, I snapped this photo of him in his robe watching the morning. Some day he will preside over the 8-hour Sunday service, but for now he gets to take some breaks from lighting candles to enjoy the view.

Gulico: She spends many evenings in our apartment and on one wine-induced occasion I was even bold enough to ask her to dance, and so we did. Here she is cutting a khourma (a very soft persimmon-like fruit). She has the most incredible hands, giant and weathered from a lifetime of work. Here her face is lit by the blue buzz of the t.v screen. She grew up in a mountain village so I can only imagine what she is thinking as she watches American music videos with women in g-strings shaking their asses at the camera. Mostly she just laughs and slaps her knee.


A Supra with Family and Friends

In Georgia, sometimes I’m with my family and sometimes I’m with my friends but rarely both at the same time. My family had been hounding me about meeting my friends and my friends heard many stories of my 7 hour supras and Ramazi’s lengthy philosophical toasts so they finally got to see it in action. From left: Michelle (Austin, Texas), Elizabeth (Starksville, Mississippi), Ramazi, Merabi, and Raines (can’t remember the name of your town, Georgia).

Some white wine, some red wine, Ramazi was not about to let anybody off easy.

Since Raines hails from the other Georgia, he was given the name Giorgi (George) for the evening. Whether he likes it or not, I think it’s gonna stick.

If any Georgian tells you they just want to have one glass of wine, they are undoubtedly lying. There are at least 5 required toasts and I hear that the unofficial comprehensive list is north of 3,000. Our tally for the night was somewhere between those two.

Hour 3 or so

No party is really rocking until a chair breaks. But usually when you get to that point, inventiveness and team cooperation are in ready supply.

Naira and Gulico prepared this wonderful feast and we even convinced them to join us for a couple toasts. Integration of friends and family…great success!


Nature

Khourmas and a haystack, near Kibe

M’tirala National Park: hard to believe this place gets 178 inches of rain a year on a perfect fall day like this one.

Praying Mantis Awesomeness

This place was like the Georgian Columbia River Gorge. I can always remember the name for waterfall in Georgian because I like the way it sounds, chanchkeri.

Garni, Armenia: a mysterious place.

Above the village of Kibe looking North up the Chorokhi River Valley.

Armenia’s capitol city, Yerevan, with the hulking silhouette of Mt. Ararat just visible of the clouds.