Welcome back to a day in my Svaneti life. Since random
things happen all the time there is no such thing as an ‘average day’. Let me
give you a couple examples. Two Mondays ago I went on a long glorious solo
walk. I had wanted to catch some sun which then disappeared behind the clouds
and left me freezing cold, but it was good to be alone for a bit and enjoy the
silence. I came back after only 2 hours or so since I was about to turn into an
icicle. What I ended up coming home to was a pair of oxen hooked up in the
yard, with Nika at the helm. I will remind you that Nika is 7 year old and 3
feet tall only on a good day. He was affectionately slapping the oxen’s’ heads
and invited me to do the same. He then turned to the darker of the pair and
said “this one is angry”. Good, good Nika, maybe let’s not play with the angry
massive animal with horns. But whatever. I thought maybe we needed to fetch
more wood or hay, since oxen sledges are the favorite way to do both of these
activities (dead serious, there was a minor traffic jam once in the center
because the oxen team had dragged a pair of logs across the road and then
gotten stuck). Instead Gari Bidza brought the iron plow over from the neighbors
and he Gocha and Nika proceeded to plow the front and back gardens. With oxen. How
this works I discovered is that one guy leads the oxen, the other puts most of
his weight onto the plow and almost falls over the furrows every turn and the
small child smacks the oxen when they stop moving. And the token American
watches and considers how she could turn this into a convincing grad school
essay about how she was raised Amish. There’s a life skill I never expected to
learn. But I now believe that given a little hands on practice I could plow
your yard for you.
It gets harder and harder to write these posts, not because
nothing happens but because things that I do seem normal, rather than
extraordinary. While in Tbilisi, the capital, recently I went to Carrefour, a
Western-style supermarket that expats go to for curry powder, brown sugar and
avocados. Frankly, this place seemed far more extraordinary than slaughtering a
pig in the backyard the day after Easter. The idea of purchasing meat in little
plastic and Styrofoam packages blows my mind. Being able to get out of season
fruits (ie anything in the winter). I remember reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder
books as a kid and she got an orange for Christmas. At the time I thought ‘big
whoop, it’s an orange’. After having now experienced a winter sans-citrus
(cabbage was a special treat) I’m thinking “Schmoly you got an orange?!?!”.
That particular passage makes sense to me now. The idea having everything you
could possibly want available at your fingertips, the incredible variety of
foods, and of brands of the same food, nope nope nope. Essentially if you know
what’s good for you, don’t take me to a Sam’s Club upon my return to the US for
at least 3 months. The same goes for
entertainment (Netflix is going to be insane), infrastructure (I’m so used to
the power going out it doesn’t faze me. I’ve also turned off the heater in my
room and gotten rid of my third blanket. It’s not even 60 most days but it’s
too hot to sleep), health and hygiene (I can buy floss somewhere less than 3
hours away and can speak to the doctor) and a million other little things.
Going from the end of the world to a University that’s at least 10x the size of
Mestia is going to be…a transition. I apologize in advance for everyone who has
to deal with my crazy upon my return. It’s not my fault, reverse culture shock
is just worse than culture shock. I think it’s because you feel like “Ok, this
should be easy, this is home, this is what I grew up with” but then it still
feels so foreign and you start thinking that it’s YOU who’s broken and not just
a little lost.
Piggy was delicious by the way, and I was very impressed
with how quickly my host father dispatched it. I was expecting the process to
be kind of awful, since pigs make a lot more noise than calves and they also
squeal. But the animal was silence within 15 seconds, the blood was collected by
Saba (11) and then the animal was bathed, shaved and then the rest of the hair
burned off by my host father and his friends in the yard. We then ate the
organs—the heart was a little overcooked but the rest were quite good. We have
a ram in the yard now that has a date with the chopping block though for the
time being it’s just hanging out with one of the new calves. I kind of hope we
don’t eat this calf since he’s super cute, brown and white spotted.
My sister came and
visited for 10 days here in Georgia and I brought her up to Svaneti to meet my
family and see where I am living. She walked into our main room and her first
observation was “it’s like Little House
on the Prairie but with a flat screen TV”. This is a true statement, but I
hadn’t really thought of my life like that for a long time. It’s just, you
know, my life. We went to a wedding supra and my sister was astounded by the
number of people (later I was told about 800), the amount of food, the sounds
of Georgian and Svan swirling around us, the kids who pointedly placed us at
the bachelor table (I think they were maybe bribed), the music and dancing, the
fact that you just dig in and the massive amounts of alcohol on offer. To me,
it was a wedding, a fun event to get dressed up for. And I did—a new dress and
a new lipstick color. If you have ever wondered how to make a situation awkward
for all involved I can tell you having a clump of your 10th and 11th
grade boys call you over “Hannah Mas!” and then give you a thumbs up and a
“very nice” as their rating for your choice of outfit fits the bill. Everyone
was apparently quite surprised that I cleaned up that well. I also wanted to
dance at the wedding but couldn’t get any of the bachelors at the table to
dance with me (perhaps explaining why they are still at the bachelor table). So
I tried to find some of my seniors to dance with me. I finally convinced Jema,
an incredibly talented young Georgian dancer, to at least walk with me to the
front where dancing was kicking off. He got embarrassed after about 15 seconds
and bowed out so a neighbor danced with me instead, and then I danced with some
of my 11th grade girls. I noticed after a bit that he and the rest
of my boys hadn’t gone to sit down though. Nope, they were all standing there,
watching. When the song finished the reaction was “that was very good” and
“Hannah Mas, that was fantastic”. I reminded them that I might be a little
cooler than they thought. I think my seniors were mostly thinking of how much
longer it would be until I wasn’t their teacher anymore.
We also visited Tbilisi, Batumi and Davit Gareja, though I
will most likely speak about those visits in another post. What I will say is
that it was both awesome to see my sister and being her tour guide was
exhausting but a pretty amazing ego boost. Everyone here in town knows exactly
how well I speak Georgian and are utterly unsurprised when I speak it. I don’t
get any compliments and at home typically what I get is surprise (read:
consternation) that my Georgian isn’t coming along better. In the cities and on
the marshrutkas where nobody knows me though: shock and delight. I have never
been told so many times how well I speak a particular language. Everyone wanted
to know how the heck this little pale girl spoke their native tongue with such
confidence if not particularly grammatically.
I was offered many relatives for marriage and told innumerable times
what a good girl I am. To which the responses were “that’s very kind” and
“thank you very much”. Upon my return to Mestia on Sunday I found myself caught
up in a birzha that then moved to a village on the outskirts of town and I
didn’t get home till nearly 1am. I knew some of the members of the party,
others I hadn’t met before but they knew who I was, and others were visitors
who were flabbergasted to say the least to find a young American from near
Chicago speaking Svan and obviously at ease at what can sometimes feel like the
end of the world, and certainly the end of the road. But this is home for a
couple more weeks at least and I couldn’t be happier to be here, some days
might be rough, but this is where I am and I cannot think of what I’d rather be
doing at this moment.
Coming back from training we were crossing a bridge in our
car and had to slow down because a cow was manically running across, but
weaving from one far side to the other. After reminding myself again to be
careful of the cow brain in this country, I took a closer look at the
marshrutka in front of us which had also been forced to slow down. There were
white things on top wrapped in blue and I couldn’t tell what they were until we
got closer. And then, of course, it was half a dozen live lambs wrapped up in
tarps and strapped to the top of a moving vehicle. How I didn’t guess that
right away is difficult to determine. The lambs seemed perfectly ok with the
arrangement. I wondered who was having kebab for dinner and half wanted to ask
the driver to follow. Georgia has a pretty endless ability to surprise you if
you’re willing to keep your eyes and mind open.
Easter was beautiful if freezing cold here in Mestia. I went
to church for the vigil, which started an hour late due to the priest having
guests. We kicked off almost exactly at midnight. About an hour in bells rang
and everyone streamed out of the church, to circle it three times with their
lit candles. The snow was falling heavily and the ground was slick. An altar
boy (Datka, from my 6th grade) rang out a cadence on the pair of
bells in the churchyard. We gathered in front of the entrance to the church as
a group to praise the Risen Lord, listening to the collection of delicate
women’s voices calling out. We repeated the same phrase I have always done,
just in a different language, Kristes Aghsdga! (Christ is Risen) Cheshmaritad
Aghsdga! (He is Risen indeed!). The call and response that has been used for
millennia, confirming the miracle of life’s triumph over death, forgiveness
over sin, light over darkness, love over hate. Because God is love. I wish you
Peace and Contentment my friends, as we all celebrate in one way or another the
rebirth of life as spring approaches.
No comments:
Post a Comment