Better Know A Georgia, Part Stupid Internet List. Or: You know you've been coming to this blog too long when...

Usually I really hate these "You know you're ______ when" lists, but I found this randomly on Facebook, posted by some expat or other (hence the Tbilisi-specificness of it, since expats mostly live in the capital), and thought it was amusing. I also thought it would be pertinent as a Better Know A Georgia entry, because while, obviously, Georgians and volunteers would understand the jokes immediately (although, really, "jokes" is giving even an amusing version of this sort of list too much credit), most of you will not, and as such I get an opportunity to explain things, while subtly mocking the merely-amusing-ness of the "jokes"! Hooray! Let's begin:

YOU KNOW YOU'VE BEEN IN GEORGIA TOO LONG WHEN:
You can distinguish between Kazbegi and Argo in a blind taste test.
Kazbegi and Argo are Georgian beers. They taste the same. Hence, the joke is that you have been here too long if you can taste the microscopic difference between them. See? This is fun.
You recoil in horror if somebody punctures a khinkali.
Khinkali is sort of like Chinese dumplings, served piping hot. You are supposed to pick them up by the "knob" of the dumpling with your fingers, and put them into your mouth whole. But I'm more of a puncturer.
You find nothing romantic in candle lighting.
See, because if you have candles lit, that means there is no electricity.
You never go anywhere without a small flashlight.
This is true. I carry my crank flashlight with me everywhere. Usually, I go home from work after dark, and the streetlights on my street UNTIL RECENTLY were never turned on. So, the first night, I ended up inching my way along in pitch blackness, triangulating my position by my distance from the tops of the trees on either side of the street, which were barely visible against the starlight, and also trying to figure out whether I was in immediate danger from any of the 50 barking dogs I could hear but not see. Since that night, I've carried my flashlight everywhere. But, a couple weeks ago, they started turning the streetlights on. Here's a personal addition to the list: you know you've been in Georgia too long when you find yourself sincerely grateful that streetlights are turned on.
You consider amoebic dysentery to be a weight loss strategy.
I know a volunteer who has lost 30 pounds due to different stomach ailments.
You actually believe that Borjomi water has curative properties.
Also curative: spending time in Bakhmaro, a mountain town in Guria, which apparently has a "healing mixture" of mountain and sea air.
You think you can get a cheaper fare if the taxi driver doesn't notice your accent.
You do need to project a certain air of native-ness with taxi drivers, or they'll overcharge the hell out of you, since most Georgian taxis are "freelance" and not metered. Thus, you need to either agree on a fare before you get into the cab, or try to pay him what you feel is appropriate at the end of the journey without asking his opinion, and hope that he doesn't lock the car doors and drive you to Russia. A good technique for cheaper fares: when negotiating with the driver, say, "I know that's too much," and slam the door. He will, almost without fail, drive five feet, stop, open the passenger door, and ask for less money.
You don't mind eating dinner or showering in complete darkness.
I haven't showered in complete darkness, but I have showered by candlelight. You never shower more quickly than when it's (1) below zero, (2) you're naked in a room with no heat source but the hot water, (3) your glasses are several feet away and the room is covered in water, and (4) you have no idea whether too much steam extinguishes a candle. I spent the entire maybe two minute shower envisioning having to stand naked and shivering in the dark until the sun came up.
You get annoyed if the waiter doesn't change your plate every 5 minutes, or doesn't take empty bottles off the table within 30 seconds.
They like clean plates here. At supras, your place includes a plate on top of a plate, so that partway through, a hostess can take the top plate, leaving you with a clean one. I never want to make the hostess do more work, so usually I tell them I'm ok with continuing to eat off the top plate, even though it has a couple chicken bones on it. This confuses everyone.
You can't drink a glass of wine without a toast even when dining alone.
It, literally, was kind of weird to sip wine with my family when I was in London. Georgians do not sip alcoholic beverages. Ever. You wait for a toast, and then down the entire thing. Occasionally, if there is a mini-supra at my office, and I'm trying to do work, I will accept a glass of wine, but sip it at my desk instead of downing it at the table with everyone else. They don't like it when I do this.
You are not taken aback when a complete stranger at a supra kisses you and professes that you are his best friend.
I have lost track of the number of times this has happened.
You appoint someone tamada even when dining with foreigners.
Volunteers do this when we're eating Georgian food and celebrating an occasion. It seems weird not to.
A few shots of chacha don't even give you a buzz.
Tchatcha is the Georgian word for homemade vodka. As I mentioned in my supra post, it nearly always tastes like pure jet fuel. I think even Georgian men accept this, so it's not culturally insensitive to say it.
You're at an expensive restaurant and don't even notice the guy at the next table yelling into his cell phone.
Georgians answer their cell phones whenever, wherever, and conduct phone conversations by yelling. To be fair, Americans do this too. I read a story recently that the official announcement-making-woman for the London Underground got fired after joking on the PA system, "To our American friends, yes, you probably are talking too loud."
You have grown used to the picture quality of pirated DVDs.
Pirated movie files, more accurately.
You find sit-down toilets uncomfortable.
Not uncomfortable yet, just weird, if it's been a while. I'm also becoming quite proud of my Turkish toilet form. I'd show you, but, you know, you're...over there. Where you are.
You think you speak Georgian fluently.
If I ever once think this, I need to not only leave Georgia, but seek medical care, because something bad will have apparently happened to my brain. I do, however, sometimes think that my Georgian is better than it is. For instance, I get annoyed when I am in Tbilisi and I say something to someone -- a waitress, say -- and they answer me in perfect English. I think, "what, you think your English is better than my Georgian?" Of course, it is. But it pisses me off that they THINK it.
You can't put a proper sentence together in your native language.
I can't put a proper sentence together in ANY languages now. Some people speak several languages fluently. I speak zero.
You automatically bring your own toilet paper when you go to the bathroom.
You get burned enough times, it becomes a reflex. You don't really want to hear more about this.
It is no longer surprising that the only decision made at a meeting is the time and venue for the next meeting.
I wish our meetings were this productive. If I tried to obtain this information at a meeting, I would be met with the question, "Why do we need to have another meeting?" Now, I do not mean to rag on my coworkers. They are motivated and (often) hardworking (at least as often, for instance, as I am). But, today, I was trying to tell them that they didn't have to wait for an suggestions from a woman in Tbilisi to start asking townspeople what they wanted from our organization. I said, "Don't wait two days for her response. Just go out and do it." They asked me, "Why?" I said, "So you're not sitting around for two days not doing anything." The response: "What's wrong with that?"
You no longer wonder how someone who earns $400.00 per month can drive a Mercedes.
Answer: because it's the frame of a Mercedes on the body of a 1976 Soviet Lada.
You honk your horn at people because they are in your way as you drive down the sidewalk.
I would probably be doing this if we were allowed to drive. I have, for instance, been IN a vehicle that drove onto the sidewalk to avoid two stopped cars that had just hit each other.
Other foreigners seem foreign to you.
It took maybe two weeks in this country before we started looking at the tourists who occasionally visit Gori, where we were, with an expression of superiority.
You consider McDonald's a treat.
True.
You ask how much people are making and expect to hear an answer.
I don't, myself, do this. Because anything more than "zero" beats my salary. Also, when you live in a small town in an economically struggling region, you don't ask what people do, because they might not do anything, and that would make you feel awkward. At least, it would make ME feel awkward, because I am an American. The recipient of the question probably wouldn't feel awkward at all, but would instead start telling me about the job he had back in Soviet days.
You ask fellow foreigners the all-important question "How long have you been here?" in order to be able to properly categorize them.
In the case of the new G8s, I will KNOW how long they've been here. I'm looking forward to perfecting the inflection of my dismissive, "Pff. Wait until February."
Smoking is one of the dinner courses.
We were just recently discussing this. Nobody could think of a volunteer who had ever smoked in America -- no matter how long ago they'd quit -- who did not resume smoking here. If there are G8s reading this: if you have ever been a smoker, you will be a smoker again when you get here. It is inevitable. Prepare yourself mentally.
Georgians stop you on the street to ask for directions.
I don't know if other volunteers ever get asked for directions, but I'm told I could pass for Georgian, so perhaps that is why it happens to me with relative frequency. Just like when waitresses speak to me in English, it really pisses me off if the directions-asker decides my Georgian isn't that good and moves on. "WAIT," I think. "DAMMIT I COULD HAVE HELPED YOU IF YOU'D WAITED TEN SECONDS FOR ME TO COMPOSE THE SENTENCE IN MY MIND."
You get homesick for Georgian food when away from Georgia.
This will probably be true.
The word "salad" first brings to mind mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise on anything doesn't even really bother me anymore. Salad. Pizza. Hot dogs. Whatever.
You don't notice your gastrointestinal problems anymore.
It's not that you don't NOTICE them. You just start planning around them naturally.
You give a 10% tip only if the waiter has been really exceptional.
As far as my understanding goes, tipping here is 100% optional unless it's added into your bill automatically. If it isn't already in the bill, we only tip if doing so makes a more even number. I am going to come back to America, totally forget about this at a restaurant, walk out on a $100 bill, and get beaten to death by seven enraged waiters.
You change into slippers and wash your hands as soon as you walk into your apartment.
I change into my "home sweatshirt" and sometimes my slippers, but I wear my slippers out to the toilet, which you're not supposed to do. But, I mean, come on. I'm not gonna go upstairs to put my shoes BACK ON. The changing thing is more critical in the summer, when it's disgustingly hot out, and you don't want to get one more second's worth of sweat on your work clothes. So you put on a t shirt and shorts, and you wear that same t shirt and shorts whenever you're home. It's a nice little system. Note: only Americans do this. Georgian people never, ever, ever wear shorts.
You know more than 20 Tamunas, 30 Ninos and 60 Giorgis.
These are very common Georgian names. There aren't that many Georgian names, it seems. During training, my host mother told me, "it's big Giorgi's birthday today." I thought she meant fat Giorgi, down the street, as opposed to skinny Giorgi, my host brother, or little Giorgi, my host cousin. Turns out she meant my host brother, and I was late to his birthday supra. I felt really bad. But, as you can tell, it wasn't my fault.
Your sister writes to you about the best prime rib she's ever had and you can't remember what it looks or tastes like.
What is prime rib?
You catch yourself whistling indoors and feel guilty.
I whistle sometimes. Nobody looks at me funny or says anything, but I always wonder if secretly they think I'm doing something repugnant. If you have insight to shed on this, please let me know.
You never smile in public when you're alone.
You don't smile at men, anyway. You can still smile and nod at women, if they're not too old, or kids. Men will just stare at you blankly if you don't know them but do the American smile-nod thing. Which is weird, because "in public" is the operative phrase here. Ref: the earlier mention of complete strangers kissing you at supras and declaring you to be their best friend.
You are no longer surprised when your taxi driver tells you that in Soviet times he worked as a rocket scientist.
This doesn't happen to me very often, but last week I was in a cab in Tbilisi and the driver spent the entire time telling me Georgia was going down the tubes and that he missed the Soviets because he used to have a job in a refrigerator factory and the kids these days are terrible and what's with their baggy pants and their music etc etc etc. It puts you in an awkward position, having to defend a person's own country while he insults it. "No, Georgia is improving! The economy is doing very well! I know a lot of motivated kids!"
You consider holding a supra to celebrate the purchase of a new TV set.
I'd consider holding a supra if our current TV set suddenly got a new channel.
You specify "no gas" when asking for mineral water.
I don't understand the sparkling water thing. At all. Why is it preferable? Getting those bubbles down your throat is like work. Why do I want to work when I'm drinking a glass of water?
You think a bus with 200 people on it is "empty".
And then you are shown just how empty it is when the driver of the bus/marshutka stops to let fifty more people on.
You walk down the street holding hands with your buddy.
I mean, I don't do this, but Georgians do.
You start believing that you can blend into a large crowd of Georgians.
Until I pull my bright blue iPod out of my expensive American backpack.
You answer "ho" even when speaking English to non-Georgian friends.
"Ho" means "yeah." I can see how this might cause potential problems down the road.
You swear at a taxi driver for stopping at a red light even when there's nobody coming.
I think I did this, at least in the back of my mind, in America.
You notice that your wallet has been stolen and your first thought is that, come to think of it, the guy behind you on the bus sort of looked Armenian.
Georgia and Armenia do not like each other. I've been told that the Georgian word for "hell" is actually the name of a village in Armenia. This would be really funny if it was true, but I do not know whether it is. Very funny, that is, with the requisite caveat that xenophobia is totally lame etc etc etc.
You take foreign guests around Gori and feel compelled to point out that Stalin really liked small children.
I'm looking forward to taking guests to the Stalin Museum. Which, if you are new-ish to this blog, is located on Stalin Street in Gori, at one end of Stalin Park, at the opposite end of which is a large statue of Stalin in front of City Hall, which is one of maybe seven Stalin statues in Gori.
You order food at most restaurants without looking at the menu.
I mean, they all serve the same thing.
You answer your phone "Allo?" even when outside of Georgia (or 'gisment').
"Gisment" means, I think, "I'm listening to you." "Allo" is, I think, just a theft from English that means nothing in Georgian, which is interesting. Although I could be totally wrong about that. If you know the person who is calling, another acceptable salutation is, "Batono!" which means, "Sir!" I favor this last one. I might bring "Batono!" back to America.
You tell others your phone number in two-digit sequences: i.e. ninety-nine, seventeen, forty-three.
Georgian phone numbers have a three digit code and then six numbers. They give those numbers to you this way. It is really, really hard to process phone numbers this way, especially in a foreign language, when you're used to the American way. I mean, you'd confuse someone in America if you recited a phone number in anything other than the proper "DA-DA-DA (pause) DA dum (pause) DA dum" inflection, let alone in number combinations.
You try to bargain over the price of tomatoes while in a grocery store back home.
I still suck at bargaining. I was at a bazaar over the weekend, at a stand selling undershirts. The woman offered them to me for four lari each. I didn't think to bargain, and decided to go look around for other stands because I thought the sizes she had might be too big. But she thought I was trying to do the taxicab pretend-to-leave thing, so she said, "OK OK OK, three fifty." I'm at the bargain-by-accident stage.
You feel self-indulgent and pampered checking into a flight during the daytime.
Wouldn't know. Haven't done it in nine months. And I felt pampered and indulgent checking into a flight at all, when I went to London. "You mean I get a seat entirely to myself?"
You end English sentences with "ra".
"Ra" means "what," and is a common slang-y sentence ending. I try to talk slang-ily sometimes, often to derision from my coworkers. But I stick with it, what.
You turn off your car engine at stoplights to save fuel.
They do this here. Does anyone know if this actually saves fuel?
You have ten different responses to the question, "Do you like Georgia?"
If you are speaking to a Georgian person, there is only one acceptable response: "Yes."
The lady in your local corner shop stops asking when you are going to get married.
This will never happen. Just yesterday, I was walking to work and a woman I don't recall meeting (although I'm sure I have) said hi to me on the street. She asked if I missed home. I said, cheerfully, "Hey, my home is here!" She said, "Great! So, when are you going to find a Georgian wife?" Tricked again.

Well, that took way too much time and probably broke a record for worst content/useful information ratio. Just what you've come to expect! You know you've been coming to this blog too long when [fill in funny end joke].

Better Know A Georgia, Part Whatever Plus One: The Supra. Or: Seriously, you want to come to this country.

I am not one who usually lacks for words, and yet I keep trying to start this piece on the Georgian supra, so that you, the fresh-faced new volunteer, will be properly informed when you finally get here, and I keep drawing blanks. Once you have been here for a while, the word “supra” and the word “Georgia” just fit together so naturally that it is hard to imagine one without the other, and just as hard to describe the both of them in a way that fully captures what the supra is to Georgia, and to Georgian people. While Georgia is rapidly modernizing, it is and always will be primarily a land of traditions. There are traditions here for every time and for every occasion. But paramount of these, not only in the perceptions of volunteers but in the perceptions of the Georgian people themselves, is the tradition of the supra.

The supra combines the most cherished and most legendary characteristics of the Georgian people: they love hospitality, they love to party, and they really love wine. So a tradition in which a person will open his or her home to others for what could nearly be termed an orgy of food and wine – perhaps to celebrate an occasion, and perhaps for no reason at all – could not be more suited to their sensibilities. It is said that the supra is intended to evoke the Last Supper; indeed, Georgians treat each supra like a Last meal, and this is what makes a supra so enjoyable, but also so problematic, on some occasions, for volunteers. Excess is the name of the game at a supra, and if excess is not something you are comfortable with – especially when it comes to alcohol – you will have to stand your ground amidst people who, at least at first, will be confused that you are rebuking their hospitality. But if you know what you’re getting into, and you stay smart about your limits and your surroundings, then it is entirely possible that you will take nothing but excellent memories away from the supras you share with friends, family, and coworkers here. At the very least, it is likely that supras will dominate your anecdotes for friends and family back home. “You drank what out of what?” will probably be a frequent question. “Something out of a big ceramic horn,” you will say. “I don’t remember what or why. It was six hours into the supra.”

I am sure you have read or heard something about supras by now, and know the very basics. Supras can involve as few as two and as many as hundreds of people; everyone comes together to eat and drink (usually wine, occasionally liquor of some variety, but never beer, which is only for informal occasions) and give elaborate toasts for everything from peace to friendship to relatives. The supra is run by a man (always a man, unless it’s a female-only supra – this is, after all, a country governed by tradition) called the “tamada,” who decides when, and to what, each toast will be. Since a guest is always given special treatment at a supra, and you will always be a guest in this country, you may sometimes be offered the position of tamada, despite your initial lack of language ability and knowledge of supra customs. You are absolutely free to beg out of this. However: know that it is tradition, when the tamada is being chosen, for the person who is asked to be tamada to refuse several times before relenting. So, if you are asked and do not feel comfortable leading the supra, you will have to refuse more forcefully than perhaps you might think.

The tamada will decide when to raise glasses, and in some places or situations may decide what the subject of the toast is, but the order of toasts in a supra is actually relatively fixed (some volunteers claim that it is rigidly fixed, but, in my experience, this order is a little more variable than tradition would technically dictate). Once you learn what the usual order is among those you tend to supra with, this fact will make keeping up during the supra much easier, since you will only need to hear and successfully decipher one or two words in someone’s toast to know generally what is being said – which is good, because when drinking is involved, usually difficult-to-understand Georgian men become impossible-to-understand, slurring, shouting Georgian men. The first toast is always, “Mshvidobas” – to peace. But the tamada will not simply say, “Mshvidobas gaumarjos” (“Cheers to peace”). He will spend between 30 seconds and five minutes talking. I wish I could tell you what he will talk about, but you’d have to have amazing language ability to follow the many digressions and explications in a typical Georgian toast. Victory is understanding the one- or two- word subject of the toast (it is also, incidentally, the literal translation of “gamarjoba,” and the root of “gaumarjos,” which translates colloquially to “cheers” but technically means, “may he be victorious”). The tamada will talk for five minutes, sometimes with theatrical arm gesturing and shouting, and then often you will ask what the toast was about, and receive a two-second answer (“He was toasting to your brother.”). Subsequent toasts will include: a toast to the occasion of the supra, if there is one; a toast to the guests, if there are any (which there always will be, if you are in attendance); a toast to Georgia and Georgian people; a toast to parents; a toast to siblings; a toast to children; a toast to ancestors; and a final toast to the tamada himself. There also may be toasts to God, to spouses, to love, or to other things; the more formal the supra, the more toasts there are likely to be. There is also a strong likelihood, due to your attendance, that there will be toasts to America, and to its friendship with Georgia. Once the tamada has made the first toast, everyone around the room gives their version of the same toast. It is considered rude to skip a toast; make sure that, if everyone is toasting and also keeping an eye on you, that you raise your glass in turn to say something. Especially at first, you will not be expected to say much more than, “gaumarjos,” but toasts are a good place to practice your Georgian. Everyone is drinking, so they won’t care if you mess up, and they will be riotously pleased with your effort.

When you finish talking is where it gets hairy. It is tradition that your wine glass, after each toast, must be consumed bolomde – to the end. I’ll let you count the number of possible toasts I mentioned in the previous paragraph, and I’ll also say that it’s probably not a real supra unless there are at least seven to ten. Now I’ll let you imagine yourself after ten glasses of wine. There are ways – sneaky and not – out of drinking bolomde, but the fact remains that you will end up drinking a lot of alcohol at a supra if you either do not set ground rules for yourself, or drink enough that you forget them. Wine consumption, on even the personal level, is not even usually measured in glasses – it is measured in liters. As in: “He didn’t drink that much last night. Only a liter and a half.” Thus, rules number one through, well, eleven, of Safe Supra-ing: always know, before beginning a supra, how much wine or liquor you are willing to drink. If you do not want to drink at all, say so at the very beginning, and don’t budge. You will be begged. Begged. “Just one.” “Why not?” “It’s ok, my family made this wine. It is very delicious.” If you relent, and drink one, “just one” will turn into “just eight.” I was at a small supra a few weeks ago where four straight toasts were promised to be “the last one.” And this was with vodka, not wine (an important note: homemade Georgian wine, while it varies in strength, is usually relatively weak, despite its fun vinegar taste. Homemade Georgian vodka also varies in strength: from fire-down-below to pure jet fuel. Be advised, and be careful). If you’re not drinking, don’t drink. People will eventually take you seriously. If you don’t want to drink very much, start drinking less than bolomde from the very first toast; you will, again, be exhorted to finish your glass, but if you refuse for long enough, you will be left alone. A good excuse is, “I’m an American, I can’t drink as much as you Georgians can.” They will take this as an immense compliment.

This is a good point to mention the gender difference at supras. As a male volunteer, I have not had much opportunity to witness how American females are treated at supras, but from what I have heard from other volunteers, it is relatively easier to beg out of drinking heavily. Also, there are apparently all-female supras, where there are no men who must be tended to, which are evidently loads of fun. I wouldn’t know. But I do know that, if you are a man, you will either drink a lot, or say, “No” a lot. Georgian men drink, and they drink a lot. They will want you to drink a lot with them. They will want you to drink a lot the morning after you drank a lot, because this is the best way to cure hangovers. They will want you to drink a lot when the electricity goes out, because this is the best way to pass the time when you don’t have electricity. They will want you to drink a lot at 11 o’clock in the morning in the office of the school principal, because this is the best activity to engage in while in the presence of children. It is a fact of life in this land, and it is one you will get very used to very quickly.

Your endurance will be tested at supras in ways even beyond your tolerance for alcohol. Full-blown supras usually have vast arrays of food; every traditional Georgian dish will be present, and there will be a lot of it. On the table, plates will be stacked on top of plates that are already stacked on top of plates. You may never have seen as much food in one place as you are likely to see at big supras (weddings, for instance). Partly because your Georgian hosts will be wanting you to drink an unfathomable amount, they will want you to also eat an unfathomable amount. You will hear a lot of, “Tchame, tchame” (“eat, eat,” if you haven’t yet encountered this most ubiquitous of phrases in other parts of this handbook). Pacing yourself is an important part of the supra experience. Do not succumb to the temptation to eat all of the delicious-looking things that you see immediately, even if you do not get these foods at normal meals. You will immediately feel tired and finished, and you will have many hours yet to go. Georgian supras can be prodigious in length. A normal supra will probably last a few hours, a supra for a special occasion can last much longer. I have heard stories about volunteers who have left supras, gone to sleep, and woken up the next day to discover the supra still in progress. Besides knowing your limits in terms of alcohol, and how to stick to them, knowing your exit strategy is the most important thing you should think about during supras. There are lots of strategies. Try to sit near an exit, and to not get blocked in by other guests. Sit with people who will be sympathetic if you wish to leave – friends and coworkers, perhaps – rather than with over-enthusiastic hosts. Text a friend, and tell him or her to call you; then, when the phone rings, pretend that your mother is calling, which is an acceptable excuse to get out of anything. You can even just wait for everyone to get so drunk that they won’t notice or care if you slip out the door. This sounds like a joke to you right now. It will not six months from now, when it’s 1:30am, nobody is showing any signs of stopping, and you have to wake up to teach class or go to work in the morning.

It occurs to me that I have probably either excited you immeasurably or terrified you beyond words. But, whether you’re texting your friends to tell them, “dude, peace corps is gonna be awesome, wait til you hear how much they drink there” or having terrible visions of a bottle of Merlot chasing you down a dark tunnel screaming, “tchame, tchame” (of course, I am kidding – homemade wine, which is what you will always be drinking, is to Merlot what a go-kart is to a Mercedes), realize that the volunteer experience is highly variable. Some volunteers rarely have supras. Some supra multiple times per week. It depends on your host family, where you live, and your willingness to take part. As long as you stay in control, you will be totally fine. Gaumarjos!

Better Know A Georgia, Part Whatever - The Alphabet. Or: Fun weekend films for the whole family.

Hello there. Normally, while apologizing for not actually posting this entry two days ago, as I promised, I would use the clever rhetorical device of giving you "zero" guesses to determine the cause of the delay. However, it occurs to me that you would all likely guess the reason to be that I am lazy and uninterested in your edification. This is not, actually, the correct reason. The correct reason is that I have been without internet for two days as a bunch of partially frozen water particles, none identical to any other, decided to make their way down from the sky at a torrid and sustained pace. But today it is clear (so far), so, without further ado:

Wait! There is an ado! An important BREAKING urgent advertisement-style PIECE OF ADO. Tomorrow, the most important piece of film in the history of cinema is being released, and you are not to come back to this blog until you have taken five or fifteen friends to go see it.

Yes, friends, Be Kind Rewind, the delightful comedy starring Jack Black, Mos Def, and about two seconds of footage worth of giant black and white photographs that I took of old cars unlesstheycutthatpartoutsinceilastsawascreeningalmostayearago, is coming out tomorrow, and I expect you all to go see it, because I have an ENORMOUS profit percentage in my contract as "Additional Production Assistant." So. There's that. And now for our feature presentation (that's a Hollywood term):

The Georgian Alphabet Entry for the G8 Future Volunteer Alternative Handbook
So, this is something I wrote for an informational CD, composed by current volunteers, that gets sent to the NEW batch of volunteers who are still in America (Flee, future volunteers! Flee while you still can! Ha ha! Just kidding! Maybe!). I thought it might be fun to post it here for a few reasons. Foremost, the Georgian language/alphabet is an ancient, historic language/alphabet, but one that almost nobody has ever seen or heard of, because of the relative closedness of the Georgian society, the small number of people who know it (estimated by Wikipedia to be only about 4-5 million, making it approximately the 120th most common language in the world -- with the caveat that it's almost impossible to have accurate numbers for such a ranking), and the fact that this country doesn't have a diaspora that does a lot of college-campus-marching, like Armenia has (there also, sadly, is no Georgian equivalent to System of a Down). So I thought it would be interesting for those of you who read this blog to see a description and an explanation of its alphabet, since, if you read this blog, it's possible that you may come into contact with this alphabet at some point. Perhaps you have received a Georgian-language postcard from me, or perhaps you are planning on VISITING HINT HINT HINT HINT. Or, perhaps you're just interested. Or, perhaps you're an actual Georgian, who has stumbled upon this blog after searching for "pictures of shakira concert," in which case this entry will perhaps have ENGLISH language educational opportunities for you (example: in a chart below, I use the word, "burrrrrrito." This is the proper spelling of this word. All other spellings are wrong.). So, without any further ado (I swear):

The Georgian Alphabet Entry for the G8 Future Volunteer Alternative Handbook

Congratulations on accepting your invitation to serve in Peace Corps Georgia! I am sure that, while you were making your decision, you thought of many benefits to serving in the Peace Corps. “Learning a new language” was probably among the benefits you thought of. It was certainly one of mine. “I will be able to use this new language that I learn, later in life, to great benefit and acclaim from my peers!” you are probably thinking to yourself. You will be tickled and delighted, then, to discover that Georgian is approximately the 120th most widely used language in the world! There are perhaps five people in the entire world, outside the borders of Georgia, who can speak this complex, ancient, and fascinating language! But do not fret, volunteer-to-be; there will be rewards for your seemingly meaningless toil. For instance, I just wrote a bunch of postcards in Georgian to my friends back in America, because I know that they will be very impressed to see something in the mail that they cannot read. “What the hell is this?” they will say, when they receive my postcard. “Did he accidentally sneeze ink? Are these words?” Friends, the Georgian alphabet can be as confusing to look at as a parrot wearing mittens. If you have ventured to find it already, perhaps on the internet, you have already discovered this. If you have not, please consult this chart, before reading on:

Now, now. Put the sharp implements down, and take a deep breath. We will get through this together. You can now probably see why the Armenians say that the Georgian alphabet looks like someone threw a plate of spaghetti against the wall. Some volunteers prefer to say that it looks like “Elvish.” But it’s not as difficult as it looks at first. It just takes practice. It’s much easier, for instance, than remembering the hundreds of different versions of each verb. Stop! Please put the implements down. Thank you. Anyway, you will get to verbs in due time, but it is the opinion of most volunteers here that, language-wise, the most important way you can prepare for your departure is to learn the alphabet. If you learn the alphabet before you get on the plane, you will start your first language lessons at least being able to understand what is being written down by your language instructor, and you’ll have that much more of a head start on learning the actual words. Past the very basics (“gamarjoba,” “nakhvamdis,” “madloba,” etc.), it is very difficult to learn anything about this language when you are not here, being taught by an exceedingly competent teacher (trust us – the language teachers are amazing; you’re in good hands). Buy a language book if you want to, and study as much as you like, but any head start you get with actual words is likely to be minimal. However, I recommend in the strongest possible terms (and most volunteers agree) that you learn the alphabet before you get here. It’s doable, and it will make it easier for everyone to get started.

So – how to learn it? The internet can be a good resource for you, but when I did my research before leaving America, I never had any idea how reliable the information was on the few websites I found. Some of it was contradictory. So, since the alphabet is such an important first step, I have compiled the Absolutely Unassailably Correct Pre-Departure Future Volunteer Alphabet Guide for you, so that you can feel reasonably confident that you are learning what we learned. I do not require your thanks; merely that someone bring me a Taco Bell Burrito in some sort of thermos when you get here from America. Thank you.

Now, then. As you can see from the first chart, the Georgian alphabet is made up of 33 letters. Some of the sounds contained in these 33 letters basically do not exist in English, and some of them sound exactly the same as other sounds, to our ears, but are in fact different. Differentiating sounds, and being able to identify the proper letter when you hear sounds that are not in English, will end up being a much more difficult task for you than just memorizing which squiggles correspond to the sounds you CAN hear. It is still hard for volunteers who have been here a long time. I will do my best to explain these sounds for you, but it will take arriving in-country for you to really grapple with them. Let’s start with an alphabet chart, and then parse it further from there:

One thing that does make learning the alphabet easier is the fact that the sounds never change with context, like they do in English. There aren’t several different sounds represented by the letter for “a” – there’s just one, so all you have to do is learn the sound for each letter, and it will always sound like that. This frees your brain to try to recognize the letters that sound, to English speakers, exactly the same. But we’ll get to those in a minute. First, the easy ones. These 16 letters have English equivalents; except, as I mentioned, each letter has only one sound that never changes. This chart tells you which English sound is used for the equivalent letter in Georgian:


Of these, all are very commonly used except for the last two; “j” is used infrequently, except in the word “gamarjoba,” and “h” almost never, except in the word, “ho.” This is fortunate, because they can be difficult to write.

Next, there are five letters that do not have an EXACT equivalent in English, but are either pretty close, or combine a two-letter sound that we DO have in English. These are also easy letters:


Of these letters, the letter “zh” is not used particularly often, but the others are very common.

Finally, we come to the twelve letters that will be the most difficult for you to learn. These twelve letters consist of six sounds in English, each with two variations that will be very, very difficult for you to hear at first. It will get easier for you to sometimes hear the difference between these sounds as you spend more time here, but you will continue to make mistakes, and if you have annoying coworkers, they will laugh and try to get you to make sounds that you cannot (for instance, they LOVE to try to get volunteers to say “bakh’akh’i,” which means frog, and twice uses what is generally considered to be the most difficult sound for Americans to say). When this happens, my best advice is to say the word, “faith,” which combines three sounds that don’t exist in Georgian, and are thus just as hard for them as “bakh’akh’i” will be for you. Ha ha! Cultural exchange is fun.

The easiest way to think about these sounds is in pairs of letters, one with a “soft” sound, and one with a “hard” sound. The soft sound is closer to the way the letter sounds in English; for these sounds, you should be letting air escape your mouth. For the hard sounds (marked here and in many language guides with a ‘), make the same sound as before, but stick your tongue back in the roof of your mouth, and force the sound through it, without letting air come out. A good way to test whether you are saying the sound properly is to put your hand in front of your mouth; if you feel breath, you’re saying the soft sound, and if you don’t, you’re saying the hard sound. Let’s give it a try:


Of these letters, the general consensus is that the most difficult is “kh’,” or the letter that looks like a “y” (I have to describe it, instead of typing it, because you probably don’t have Georgian font drivers installed on your computer yet – find a driver online, if you can). It’s hard enough to say the soft version of this sound, especially when you haven’t had a glass of water in a while, but the hard version can be very, very difficult. The best piece of advice I heard for pronouncing it is to tilt your head back as far as it can go, and look at the ceiling. Then say the soft, “khhhh” version of the sound. That should produce the proper, harder sound.

It will be hard to know if you’re getting the sound right until you’re here, in your language classes; your language teachers will do an excellent job of trying to teach you the sounds, but you still won’t be able to tell them apart in conversation-speed speech for a while. But don’t really worry about it. Georgians will understand you, even when you say the sounds wrong, and to my knowledge there aren’t any extremely embarrassing words that sound exactly like a more innocuous word, only with one sound pair switched. It ends up being mostly a spelling issue; you will NOT be a good speller in Georgia. Just trust me on that one.

So, now that the alphabet is laid out for you, how can you practice it so you know it backwards and forwards once you get here? What I did was to write the letters over and over and over, just like kindergarten all over again. This allows you to start putting sounds with squiggles, and gets you more comfortable with writing the letters more quickly (although don’t try TOO hard with j, t’, ch’, or ts’ – there are handwritten versions that are easier than the typewritten ones). There is also an excellent website that has a small alphabet game, where you are shown either a Georgian or an English letter, and have to select the proper equivalent in the other language. A combination of these techniques, along with any other materials that you find on the internet (although be careful with these, because as I said before, I found a lot of contradictory information online; the sources usually have the alphabet right, but often have differing explanations of the sounds) or that Peace Corps might send you, in whatever way you think works best, will work out fine for you.

So, that’s it! I am sure you will arrive here with the alphabet in the palm of your hand. Eventually, though, you will have to wash that off, and actually learn it. And it isn’t so hard, with practice. Trust me. The time you spend pre-departure on the alphabet is time you don’t have to spend on it here, when you will need every word you learn immediately, in order to be able to communicate at the most basic level with your host family and with people in the community. The Georgian language is a fickle mistress, and you must do your homework if you wish to tame her. Good luck.

PART V - Guria Region, In Pictures (Episode II). Or: Please keep a sufficient perimeter around this post.

One of the tenets of project execution that you learn in Peace Corps Boot Camp is "overpromise, underdeliver." This is where you promise things endlessly and then don't deliver on them, and then everyone hates you, but your project is a success anyway because of Evolution or global warming or something. I'm not sure. I'll have to check my notes.

Anyway, because I follow the letter of what I have been taught, I have endlessly promised you the eagerly-anticipated follow-up post of Pictures of Places I Can Walk To In Chokhatauri That Are Within Like 200 Yards Of My Office, so that you might better know Georgia by better knowing the two blocks near where I work, while not actually posting them. But, huzzah! Now I am! And, I am giving you two bonus photo sections, to apologize profusely for holding this treasure trove of visual pleasure from you. Bonus Photo Section 1 is a very exciting photo section entitled, "Presidential Candidate Mikhail Saakashvili comes to Chokhatauri to Deliver What Ends Up Being About a Five Minute Speech." As you have surely forgotten by now, the Georgian Special Election season is heating up, with the election to be held on January 5th, and the campaign is in full swing. By, "in full swing," I mean that Mikhail Saakashvili's campaign is in full swing, and those of the other six candidates are, well, absent. The constitutional mandate that a current president must resign his office before seeking re-election has been pretty convenient for Saakashvili, since he suddenly has all this free time to fill by driving around the country in a huge bus, campaigning, and then airing commercials of these campaign stops on television pretty much every night. I have seen, conservatively, 4,657 Saakashvili ads on television in the last couple weeks, and exactly one (1) for any of the six other candidates. That was an ad two nights ago for Levan Gachechiladze, who is the opposition coalition candidate. But Misha's ads are everywhere, and in Tbilisi, his photo, campaign slogan, and the ballot number of his party ("5" - thanks to Cuttino Alexander's blog for explaining the significance of that number, which I'd been unaware of) are unmissable on billboards and busses. According to this story at Civil Georgia, Saakashvili is the only candidate paying for television advertising; the others are apparently only using the state-mandated free airtime alloted to them. This is interesting with regard to at least one other candidate, business tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili, who is apparently worth billions and is pledging that, if he is elected, he will spend 1.5 billion lari of that personal worth on social services. Perhaps it is just my latent American assumptions leading me to wonder why he is not spending money for advertising. Perhaps the Georgian people are not swayed by all of this Misha advertising. I make no conclusions about this. But he has a campaign song, for God's sake. How can you not be swayed? This song was apparently written by a former Georgian boy band member and is entitled "Misha Magaria," which means, "Misha is cool." A sample of the lyrics:

A new day is starting, the sun is rising
Georgia is being built
We will not spare any effort for the homeland
We don't have a lot of oil, we don't have a lot of territory
But we have a great future ahead

Sometimes the sun shines, sometimes the wind blows
Sometimes we have problems, sometimes we are happy
No matter if the weather's good or bad
Misha is cool!

But I am getting away from my modest photo gallery. What with all the campaigning around the country, I suppose it should have been only modestly surprising that Saakashvili made plans to visit the little mountain town inhabited by yours truly. He was supposed to come on Sunday, but ended up moving his visit to yesterday. The town was......intrigued, is probably the best word I can use without getting in trouble, as was I, in my role as a completely politically neutral representative of the United States Government. Volunteers are not supposed to have anything to do with political rallies of this nature, but Saakashvili's speech ended up being given literally outside my office, which sits on the main "square," so I got some pictures of people gathering from my window, and then I went outside and stood at the very perimeter of the throng for just as long as it took to snap a couple action shots before hastily retreating the 50 feet back to safety. Thus, here, for your enjoyment and edification, a Georgian presidential political speech:

This is Misha's bus arriving, on which you can see all the elements I mentioned: big picture of Misha, the number 5, and (barely visible) his campaign slogan, which is, "Sakartvelo sigharebis gareshe!" meaning, "Georgia without poverty!" Amusing story about this campaign slogan: originally, when I heard it on television, I thought he had said, "Sakartvelo sigaretis gareshe!" which would mean, "Georgia without cigarettes!" I thought he was attempting some sort of healthy living reform. So I turned to my host sister-in-law, and said in a sarcastic tone, "Pretty big goal." She snickered. Then, later, I realized what the word actually was and looked it up, and felt like the biggest dick ever for making a sarcastic joke about poverty. I don't think my host sister-in-law took it poorly at all; she probably assumed I was just "dissing" Misha, which wasn't really doing. But I still feel bad for having THOUGHT it. Back to the photo gallery:

Lotta cops and black SUVs in the former president's entourage.

Two photos of the man himself. Note to Peace Corps staff: I refused to get any closer than this, despite entreaties from my coworkers. Then I scurried back to my office, but not before taking one last photo:

A lot of Mikhail's supporters at this rally seemed too young to vote. But, kids do a lot of things in this country that you wouldn't expect them to. If you're old enough to drive (maybe not legally), order alcohol in a restaurant (maybe not legally), and throw really dangerous firecrackers at each other (probably legally), you're old enough to vote! Who's with me?

Bonus set of photos number two: "Cooling Our Hot Political Tempers in the Snow." Yes, friends, yesterday evening witnessed the second snow dumpage of the season on Chokhatauri, but this time I had my camera with me, which I used when we tramped outside after work to throw snowballs at each other. Well, I didn't throw any snowballs. I hadn't known we were going to be doing this particular activity, so I'd brought my camera instead of my coat. And, I'm not sure I would have participated anyway. I love playing in the snow, but you think twice about it when you don't have central heating or a parka.

This photo was taken as I shrieked, "Not at the camera! NOT AT THE CAMERA!" It is possible everyone thinks I'm a pussy now.

The heavily bundled person on the left is my host sister-in-law, who does not seem to like the snow much.

Aww. How seasonally splendid.

So, then. With your bonus photos out of the way, let's blow through THE THRILLING CONCLUSION (for now, at least) of BETTER KNOW A GEORGIA PART V - PLACES I CAN WALK TO IN CHOKHATAURI FROM MY OFFICE IN LESS THAN TWO MINUTES:

A row of flags in front of the elementary school behind my office. It's a pretty nice looking school, actually. The aforementioned President Saakashvili, to his credit, has put a lot of money into school refurbishment the last few years. Apparently, there have also been some downsides to his education reforms, but I am not a TEFL volunteer so I do not understand them. Just wanted to mention both sides.

The main drag through town (one side of it, anyway; the park runs down the right side of the photo, and there's another row of shops on the road to the other side of it). The first building on the left contains the dentist sign and the hidden restaurant I've mentioned before, and the second, barely visible building contains my office.

The aforementioned park. Usually there are people sitting on those benches or just standing around, not doing anything.

Don't know what this building used to be. It's next to the "bazaar," which people point to and call the bazaar even though it's just a pink building in which, as far as I can tell, almost nothing is sold, and the bazaar in the actual sense of the word is on Saturdays, at the bus station.

Here is the sign for Cafe Harmony, which is the OTHER tiny restaurant-type establishment in Chokhatauri. I include this photo because it says the same thing in both English and Georgian, for your edification. The word on the top left is "Cape," or "cafe," the word on the top right is "bari," or, "bar," and the word in the middle is, "harmonia," or "harmony." I expect you to be able to read this now.

Finally, this is the building that contains your humble blogger's office. My window is the one on the top left. I'm looking out of that window RIGHT NOW. Literally. Isn't it impressive that I'm still typing? I cold go vor days.

Well, I hope this was an informative pictographic adventure. Tomorrow to Ozurgeti for a friend's birthday supra, then the dastardly night train yet again to Tbilisi, where I will be shopping for cheap souvenir trinkets for family Christmas presents (Hi, mom!). Then London on Monday. You might call it LONDAY. LOL.

I will try to get a Christmas-themed post in this weekend, perhaps another photoblog of the surprisingly ubiquitous and classy Tbilisi holiday decorations, but if I do not: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you out there in Blogdom. Be safe and warm out there. Until next time.

PART IV – Recent History and Current Events. Or: Walk Softly and Don’t Even Carry a Stick While Reading This Post, Please

NEW ANNOUNCEMENT, SAME AS THE OLD ANNOUNCEMENT: This post is, again, being written with the intent merely to inform you, the reader, about third-person events in the country where I am living. These events have been very volatile and opinions here differ wildly, but it is not my intent to prioritize or promote any opinion, agenda, course of action, or political belief. Any content that appears to do this is unintentional, and no part of this post should be taken to be an official stance by the United States Peace Corps, the United States Government, or any member of either, including me.

Now, keep up: “Current Events” was supposed to be part four of Better Know a Georgia, to follow part three, “Recent History.” However, current events have become quite current indeed, and in light of some stunning developments in Georgia, both topics are now extremely relevant, so I’ll discuss them together, and I’ll pretend that the Bonus Supra Coverage was called Better Know a Georgia Part III the whole time, and we won’t discuss this again. Ok? Good.

So, as you may have seen on the news or read if you don’t tend to skip past the International section, we’ve had an interesting few days here. [redacted]

Everything started last Friday, when an enormous opposition political rally took hold of Tbilisi, the capital. This rally had been in the works for a while, and thousands of people from all over the country showed up in front of the Parliament building to voice their displeasure with President Mikhael Saakashvili and others in his government. [redacted] The day before the rally began, members of the opposition party drove through the main part of town in Chokhatauri, honking their horns and waving flags, and held a mini-rally before heading to Tbilisi. So many people were headed there that the police started shutting down the roads into the capital – coworkers of mine, headed somewhere else for a conference last Thursday, were pulled over on the highway and asked if they were headed to Tbilisi. I don’t know if they would have been allowed to continue or not, had they actually been going there.

The demonstration began Friday, and was peaceful, if boisterous. Everyone in Chokhatauri watched coverage of it on the news; [redacted]. It continued through the weekend and into the beginning of this week, with little interest lost. I was wondering how much longer thousands of people would be willing to stand in the street and chant[1]. It turns out that it was longer than Saakashvili would permit them to stand there. On Wednesday, police officers with riot control gear attempted to disperse the crowd, which had been blocking traffic on Rustaveli Avenue – the main conduit through downtown Tbilisi – since Friday. Demonstrators fought back, and pandemonium ensued. Saakashvili maintained, afterwards, that his officers had merely been trying to restore traffic flow, and that they had acted within necessary bounds to clear protestors. He also claims that the entire demonstration was orchestrated by Russian interests who were trying to destabilize Georgia. The opposition says that the police started wantonly assaulting innocent people, chasing and beating people who were trying to flee. Whatever happened, hundreds of people ended up getting sent to the hospital as the streets of Tbilisi turned into a war zone through the entire afternoon and evening.

That afternoon, I was in the office of my NGO, working like it was any other day. The days leading up to Wednesday had been quiet in Chokhatauri, with no indications of swelling local emotions tied to the demonstration. I had lunch that day with a volunteer from Kutaisi who was bringing me books for my local ECO Club, and while we were eating[2], I glanced at the TV and saw one man hitting another man at what seemed to be the demonstration. But I paid it no mind, because we were discussing other things, and when I got back to the office I was not under the impression that anything was drastically out of the ordinary. That is, until I got a call from Peace Corps, telling me that there was violence in Tbilisi and that I had to return home immediately. Friends, I don’t mind telling you this – I was pissed off. I had a lot of work to do that day, and while a part of my mind relaxed immediately and went into Early-Day-at-School mode, the rest of it was upset that I wasn’t going to be able to finish the work I had to do on one of the rare days that I actually did have plenty of work to be doing. I got off the phone and told my coworkers, who were confused.

“But nothing is happening here,” they said.

“I know,” I said. “But Peace Corps has rules about this sort of thing, and it wants all the volunteers to go home.” I told them that if I did not comply, I might get sent back to America.

“Fine,” they said, laughing. “We’ll let you know if we get killed.”

Now, I want to make clear that I almost never have problems with Peace Corps’s safety and security policies, and I don’t in this instance, either. I was angrier more because I didn’t realize how bad the situation was in Tbilisi, and because I legitimately had a lot of work to do and there was no security threat to me whatsoever in my town. But I know that Peace Corps has to do what it has to do, and I admire the extent to which they take our security seriously. I have never felt seriously in danger in this country, and that is due in very large part to the preparation and continued surveillance of all situations by the Peace Corps staff. I say all this because I know Peace Corps staff reads this blog, when they find the time to do so, and because in the interest of full narration of the events of the week I am going to disclose that, after I packed up and went home from work on Wednesday, I went to a birthday party even though we were supposed to stay home.

At the party, for the birthday of a teen girl who helps frequently at my NGO, we sat around the table for the supra, and everyone’s eyes were glued to the television. Images of the afternoon’s events in Tbilisi were being played on repeat; police advancing in riot gear on demonstrators, people getting beaten up and trying to run away. There was even an oft-replayed image of a bloody bandage on the floor of a church, which was explained in Georgian that I didn’t understand. Shortly thereafter, President Saakashvili came on television himself to address the crisis. [redacted]

When I arrived home, my family was, of course, also watching television. As I watched more coverage with them, one of the strangest sights I’ve ever seen on television occurred. We were watching Imedi, one of the three main broadcast stations in Georgia, which is quite critical of the government. Suddenly, the anchors looked confused and stood up at the desk – something that’s odd to see, because of the fact that TV anchors wear jeans that are usually concealed from view. They removed their earpieces and moved off-camera as an out-of-breath man took their place. He talked quickly at the camera while repeatedly checking his cell phone, which kept ringing. Then, when he was done saying whatever he said, the camera was pointed towards the ceiling, the set lights were all struck, and Imedi went dark. I had no idea what had just happened, since I’d understood none of the Georgian the man spoke. My new host sister tried to explain it to me by saying, “Politsia,” (“the police”) and mimed pulling an electrical cord out of the wall. I found out later that the government had shut down two of the three television stations.

The next day, Thursday, everyone was on edge. Nobody knew what was going to happen. School was canceled, so many of the students took it as an opportunity to march around the center of town, chanting that “Mischa must go.” Rumors were flying everywhere. And I was not surprised to get another phone call from Peace Corps, telling me [redacted] that the President had declared a 15 day state of emergency. [redacted] I had no idea how the country would react to the violence, or whether there would be more. I was just glad I was allowed to be at work, because I had a Document Your World club meeting that day, and I thought that “Dan isn’t allowed to leave his house today” would not seem particularly convincing to the kids. That evening, after work, I went to my tutor’s house for a tutoring session, and they were – of course – watching the news, on the only station that was allowed to continue broadcasting during the state of emergency. Saakashvili came on to give another address, and in this one, he stated that he would be calling presidential elections on January 5, many months before they were scheduled, and also putting a referendum to voters on when to hold parliamentary elections.[3] This is what everyone had wanted, and my tutor’s family was quite happy.

[redacted] my tutor told me. She was referring to the nonviolent coup that swept Saakashvili himself into power, in November 2003, which has usually been referred to since then as the “Rose Revolution.”[4] Saakashvili, a Columbia University-educated Georgian politician who had at one time been a member of then-current president Eduard Shevardnadze before leaving it to found his own party, was swept into power with 96% of the vote in a presidential election following Shevardnadze’s resignation, which he tendered after weeks of massive protests in Tbilisi concerning what was thought to be Shevardnadze’s corrupt government.[5] So there are some parallels here, although Saakashvili is not resigning (as I mentioned in my last post, which I have since redacted after a request from Peace Corps of all volunteers not to mention political news that we receive from them) and is merely calling new elections, which he says he will win.

So that is where things stand, as of now. The country seems to be rapidly finding its way back to normal, and [redacted] we do not seem, currently, to be in any danger. I will update you more if things change.

Meanwhile, if you are interested in further developments – and things will surely remain interesting up until, and through, the election – I recommend the site civil.ge, which has up-to-date stories in English. One interesting story that I am just reading now: Imedi TV, which is currently managed by Rupert Murdoch and News Corp because the former managing partner decided to finance the opposition demonstration and didn’t want Imedi to be accused of bias[6], apparently had its equipment destroyed when it was shut off by police on Wednesday night, and is saying it won’t be able to go back on the air for three months. Hopefully, cool heads prevail on all sides for the foreseeable future, and everything will remain normal for us volunteers, so we can get our work done. Needless to say, I was not expecting things to be this…exciting during my time here, but at least it makes for a good story to tell.

Speaking of story to tell, I apologize for the mediocre writing-quality of this post and the lack of snappy prose and jokes.[7] I am quite ill today, from a combination of a nasty cold and eating cookies that have apparently made me sick. Naturally, my family wants me to go to another wedding tonight. I’m hoping to God that it’s laid back, because otherwise I’m just going to go to bed at 9 again, like I did last night. More soon, friends.

_____________________
[1]A popular chant, apparently, during political demonstrations, consists of one man screaming, “Sakartvelos gauMAR–” and the crowd screaming back, “—JOS!” Because I am such an excellent cultural teacher, you should know what this means by now.
[2]An aside, for those of you who remember my discussion of local restaurants: we ate at the second of the two restaurants, and there were actually other people there! At noon on a Wednesday! It was shocking, and my classification of the place a an actual restaurant was affirmed, even despite the fact that the one menu was handwritten and tacked to a wall, and that the proprietor’s answer to my entirely reasonable, “What kinds of limonati do you have?” question was a scowl and the response, “The Chokhatauri kind,” even though this answer makes no sense at all.
[3]One of the specific complaints held by the opposition was that Saakashvili had changed the date of next fall’s elections, putting the presidential election and parliamentary elections on the same day. He said it was logistical; the opposition claimed he was trying to gain an unfair election advantage.
[4]When it’s mentioned in the American press, it is usually coupled with Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution,” which was very similar and at about the same time, and called one of the two “color revolutions” that were supposedly about eastern bloc countries attempting further independence from Russia.
[5][redacted]
[6]I knew that it was currently owned by News Corp, but did not know the “why” until I read this article. It is interesting that the former managing owner wants to retain an image of impartiality despite a pretty widespread notion, here, that Imedi is the anti-government network and Rustavi2 is the pro-government network. That’s what everyone in Chokhatauri thinks, anyway. I, of course, wouldn’t know, because I don’t understand what is said on either channel.
[7]And footnotes!

A Weathery Wedding Weekend, Plus Bonus Better Know a Georgia - the Supra. Or: Get Comfortable and Remember to Rehydrate Often While Reading This Post.

It was, perhaps, while I was wading through a lake where the road used to be on my way to and from my tutor’s home last night, mere millimeters from certain death[1], and saved only by my fortuitous footwear felection[2] this morning[3], that I decided the tale of this weekend must be told quickly, in case this keeps up and I drown tomorrow during a walk to the shop for a Coca-Cola. You see, friends, it has been raining. Quite a lot. Almost literally without end for about a week. The only sustained dry spell since it started raining last Wednesday was, in fact, Sunday during my host brother’s weddings, which is proof positive of very little except probably global warming.[4] But it was a thankful development in an otherwise thankless week, meteorologically speaking.

And the clear of the morning on Sunday turned out to be a portent for the rest of the day, because it was one of the best days I’ve had so far in this country. Really, you’d expect it to be, since my only host brother was getting married, which in this country means not one but two huge parties. But the last wedding I had been to had turned out to be one of the worst days of my service so far, for reasons including the fact that I was trapped halfway up a mountain in absolutely no control of when I could leave and not wanting to drink for fear of getting sick on the way down, so despite my hope that this weekend would be different, I was not totally sure it would be. Turns out I had no reason to fear. It was terrific. Both huge parties were great fun. I took more than 300 photos[5], drank at least 20 glasses of wine[6], gave one extremely well-received toast in Georgian while holding a ceremonial wine-horn, and due to this toast now count dozens of new friends who, I think, are more impressed that I drank the whole horn than that I gave a speech about hospitality and real brotherhood and only had to look at a cheat sheet for a few words. But we’ll get to that part in a bit.

Because it will make the retelling of the day’s events easier for you to understand, I am going to first insert Better Know a Georgia, Bonus Section: Supras[7] into this post.[8] So let’s back up and talk about Georgian tradition for a while, because weddings are – obviously, not just in Georgia – all about tradition. In Georgia, the tradition of the supra is possibly the most important and probably the most memorable and iconic of all their millennia-old traditions. The word “supra” means “table,”[9] and that will be the first thing you see if you are ever privileged enough to attend one.[10] The second thing you see will be food covering every inch of the table, with plates literally stacked on top of each other. That is because a supra is a traditional Georgian feast, and lesson number one of the supra is that there will be more food prepared than an entire city’s worth of people could possibly eat. There will be khatchapuri, and katmis k’ortsi, and salata, and soko, perhaps kartopili, perhaps any number of a dozen other dishes, and most certainly there will be namtzkhvari.[11] There will also be soft drinks and mineral water. These beverages are for the womenfolk and/or children.[12] They are merely tests of your manhood if you have a Y chromosome. Because what you should be drinking instead is wine.

Lesson numbers two through thirty-seven of the Georgian supra concern drinking. Basically, they can all be summed up by saying that you will be drinking. A lot. Drinking is the main activity and the main purpose of a supra. And there is a strict protocol for what you drink, when you drink, and why you drink. The supra is built around the traditional Georgian toast; you only drink when you are toasting to something or someone, at which point you drink “bolomde,” which means, “to the end” of your glass. It is considered rude to drink wine when you are not toasting. It is also, incidentally, considered rude to toast with beer or with your left hand.[13] It is also rude to toast out of turn. This is because the toasts at a supra are led by a man[14] called the “tamada.” The tamada is in charge of giving the first toast during every round of toasting, which usually means he will end up talking for five or fifteen minutes, gesticulating wildly and throwing his vocal pitch around like a boxer throws punches, on the particular topic of the toast and anything that could possibly relate to it, before thrusting his glass into the air and saying “gaumarjos!” which means, “cheers!”[15] Then, at a smaller supra, people around the table each say their own version of the toast before clinking glasses and downing their own. At a larger supra – like a wedding – people do a more informal version of this with those in their immediate table vicinity. After everyone drinks, the “merikipe,” who is the sort of second-in-supra-command, is entrusted to refill everyone’s glasses with wine, to await the next toast. At larger supras – like, again, weddings – there is no one merikipe[16], so you grab the nearest of about 500 liter jugs of wine and refill your own glass.[17] Then the tamada starts his next toast, and you do it all over again.

You will do it all over again many times. At least ten, or it’s not even a decent supra. A really involved supra, over the course of several hours[18], can involve literally dozens of toasts – after each of which, of course, you are expected to make a concerted effort to drink to the bottom of your glass. There is also a general order to the supra, which is changed only slightly depending on the occasion. The first toast is nearly always “Mshvidobas” – to peace. The second is usually “Sakartvelos” – to Georgia. The third, in my experience, is often “Sakartvelos da Amerikas megobrobas” – to friendship between Georgia and America. Although I doubt that this toast is as prominent when there isn’t an American guest present. I haven’t been to enough supras to have the subsequent order memorized yet, but there will be toasts to parents, to children, to ancestors, to neighbors, to love, to God, and to the people sitting at the supra. At a special event, there will be more specific toasts – a wedding supra will include toasts to the groom, to the bride, to love, to long life for the couple, and often to their future offspring. A toast given by a good tamada will usually go on for several minutes. I wish my Georgian was advanced enough to give you a quasi-verbatim example, but it is not. Usually, I listen to a tamada say a bunch of things I don’t understand, then, when he's done, I turn to the person sitting next to me, I raise my glass in the air, and I say, “Ras?” which means, “to what?” and the person summarizes the toast in one or two words.[19] I consider it my goal to figure out the general point of a toast before it is summarized for me, and I consider it a great success if I can sort of understand some of the tangential points the tamada is making. Like all things having to do with language, this is easier when I’ve been drinking.

So that is the basics of the supra.[20] The importance that drinking and toasting hold in this culture can be seen in other parts of life[21], but it all comes together at a supra, and it all comes together most spectacularly at large “event” supras. Wedding supras may be the biggest of them all. The word Georgians use for these events translates into English as “wedding,” but it isn’t a wedding in our sense of the word. In America, the most important part of a wedding is the formal ceremony, which is the part that’s actually called the “wedding.” In Georgia, the formal ceremony is not emphasized.[22] For instance, I have no idea if my host brother even had one. If he did, it’s likely that nobody but the best man and maid of honor were invited, if that. He simply showed up already wearing a ring after the three-week-long vacation he took[23] with his bride. In Georgia, the “wedding” is what we would refer to as the reception, and there are two of them: one at the bride’s family’s house, and then another at the groom’s. At my first wedding supra here, a couple months ago, I looked around at about 200 people and remarked to a coworker, “This is bigger than I was expecting it to be.” He assured me that it was a very small wedding and that we’d go to “better” ones later. These are big parties.

And with big parties come big preparations. Amazingly, these preparations did not start until Friday, two days before the wedding, when an army of relatives descended on my house to start setting up (the men) and cooking (the women). I missed the Friday activity, because I was at work, but much of it consisted of setting up a large nylon tarp along the side of the house, to act as a tent to hold all the people.[24] These tents are de rigueur at Georgian weddings, for whatever reason, but for my host brother’s wedding the tent was to be a vital necessity, because it had been pouring for days. The tarp went up and immediately started gathering pools of water on top of it, which my host brother and I spent a large amount of time Friday evening trying to get rid of, either by catapulting the water off the tarp and into the neighbor’s yard or by scooping it out with buckets. I enjoyed this activity, because it seemed like bonding, and because I knew I wasn’t going to be allowed to help with much else in the way of wedding preparation.

Saturday the relatives were back to continue setting up. The women busied themselves preparing an utterly unconscionable amount of food – whole chickens, turkeys[25], pigs, and a cow, along with even more things that were not meat – and the men busied themselves with the rain issue. The constant rain had raised the water table so high that, even protected by a tarp, the lawn where the guests were to sit had been reduced by foot traffic to a muddy mess. Things did not look so good, but everyone kept working. It was pretty impressive, and I wasn’t allowed to help with any of it, because I am the American guest. Also probably because it would have been more trouble than help to figure out a way to explain any instructions to me in Geornglish. So I busied myself taking photos, and became a passing amusement to all the relatives, some of whom I hadn’t met before.[26]


Sunday morning, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the sun was out and things were looking up. The men carted in many wheelbarrowsful of gravel to cover our yard with[27], and people started showing up to the house in suits. I realized that, when I was packing for Peace Corps in America, I had packed my only suit with the rationalization that, “I won’t be able to get this cleaned in Georgia, but I’ll bring it in case I need to wear it for a wedding or something.” So I grabbed it out of the closet for the first time since we swore in as volunteers, and put it on over my long underwear.[28] It was the same reason I carried my camera around all weekend – I only have one host brother, and he was only going to get married once, so this was going to be a one-of-a-kind moment in my service, and I wanted to treat it accordingly. And it was a good idea, because I look really spiffy in all the photos I’m in.

Then we had to wait for my host brother to get dressed – he’s a traditional sort of guy, so he decided to wear a traditional Georgian costume. I am not 100% confident of my knowledge of Georgian traditional costumes, so I am not sure what the exact origins of this costume are, but it is worn during exhibitions of Georgian traditional dance, for dances that represent traditional courtship of a woman by a man. What happens in one of these dances is that the man does a lot of shuffling dramatically in circles around the woman, often doing a ballet-like move on his tiptoes, and swinging his arms around. It’s a very powerful tool for arousal. I might start using it on first dates.

Once he was dressed and everyone was ready to go, we got in the cars to head to the bride’s house for the first wedding supra. The part of the wedding day where you’re getting from one place to another combines Georgians’ love of outsized expression with their love of doing dangerous things in automobiles to form an often truly harrowing experience. My first encounter with this was when I was invited to a wedding by my language instructor during training; we were waiting for the wedding party to show up, and when it did, the lead car came within maybe five inches of running me over. Since then, I had heard these wedding processions in various places several times. This is because a wedding procession, in Georgia, consists of a bunch of cars driving very fast, in a tight bunch, blinking their lights and honking their horns so everyone looks at them. Often, the cars will circle the same place many times before moving on to the actual destination. We did not circle the town square multiple times, but on the way from wedding supra one back to my house, two cars did get in an accident and the car I was in decided that it’d be fun to drive on the sidewalk for a while. So.

After an accident-free first leg of the day’s journey, we arrived at the bride’s house, where there was a nearly identical tent-and-long-table-rows setup in the yard. We proceeded upstairs, to where the bride and groom traditionally hold court before the supra starts. They stand in a line with the best man and the maid of honor, accepting congratulations from people, near a table that shows off the wedding cake and also includes a few bottles of champagne and some champagne flutes. You can stand at this table and give a personal toast to the bride and groom, if you want to start drinking early so as to get a secret head start on everyone who stays downstairs. It was here that I first discovered, to my relief[29], that I was not in fact the best man for the wedding. If you recall, one night last week my host brother pointed to a word in the dictionary that – according to the dictionary – translates as “best man,” and said, “that’s you.” I said, “really?” and he said, “yes,” which apparently in Georgian means, “no.” Perhaps he was attempting to make an affectionate statement that I am like a brother to him and the word was mistranslated. Or perhaps he found another guy to do it two days later. Who knows. Either way, it did not matter that I was not the best man – people came up to congratulate me during the meet-n-greet anyway. Apparently one is supposed to congratulate the family of the bride and groom, and I am close enough. That was pretty cool.

After a short time, everyone went downstairs to start the supra. The wedding supra is set up much like an American wedding reception – the bride, groom, best man, and maid of honor sit at a dais in front of everyone, there’s a dance floor, and there’s also always a DJ. However, DJs in America simply play music, whereas DJs in Georgia ARE the music. They usually have a synthesizer, a drumbeat machine, and a bongo, and they play versions of songs you hear on Georgian radio, except they sing the songs. And they sing really, really loud. The quality of this DJ-karaoke is variable. The guys at this particular wedding, thankfully, were pretty good. There was eating, and dancing, and much toasting, and then, after a few hours, it was on to my house.[30]

The party at my house was a curious dynamic. The second wedding goes exactly like the first, so court was held upstairs, which happens to be where my room is. So there were a bunch of people standing right next to my room. And some of my coworkers hadn’t been to my house before, so they asked where the bathroom was.[31] It all felt like I was much more a member of this household than you would think, me having only lived there for two months. After the meet-n-greet, the party again moved downstairs, and there was yet more eating and drinking. I did my share of drinking, and I met an orthodox priest who is apparently good friends with a coworker of mine, and I took a bunch more pictures, and then I got called up to do a toast.

Ordinarily, this would have freaked the hell out of me. It would be quite difficult, at this point in my language development, for me to ad-lib a toast in Georgian in front of 400 people. I would have ended up saying something like, “I like Tamazi and Tamazi’s family and I hope Irina was in my family in the future.” But, since I thought I was going to be the best man, I had prepared a toast in advance. I wrote it out last week and sent it to a translator I know who works in a friend’s NGO, and then printed out her translation and underlined the difficult words I didn’t know. This was, as they say in the business world, a killer move on my part. So I went up to the front, and stumbled only a little bit[32], and spoke mostly from preparation, only having to look at the paper a few times. My toast, as verbatim as I can recall, went like this: “Tamazi is my host brother, only for two years. But I feel that he is my real brother. He and his family have shown me such hospitality. I am glad that Irina will be in our family, and I hope that she will be a real sister to me, like Tamazi is my real brother. Happiness and long life to you both. Congratulations. Gagimarjot.”[33] After I finished speaking, I drank the entire ceremonial wine horn.

I was a celebrity for the rest of the night. People were congratulating my toast left and right, although as I mentioned earlier, it seemed they were more impressed – fittingly – by my drinking ability than by my toasting ability. People called me “brother,” and clapped me on the back, and offered me more drinks. Which I drank. When in Rome, you know.

I finally went to bed after most people started to leave, around 2am. When I woke up, Tamazi and a man I didn’t know were sitting downstairs, eating supra leftovers[34] and, of course, drinking. I declined to join them in the morning, but after I had spent an entire day at work doing absolutely nothing[35] – the Georgian term for “hung-over” is “pakhmeliaze,” and it is used frequently – I came home to discover…even more drinking! That’s right – there is yet a third part to a wedding ceremony, called the “second day,” and it is when the bride’s parents come to the groom’s house[36] to cut the wedding cake. I missed this part while I was doing nothing at work, but I arrived home to find another mini-supra taking place, and this one I joined in at until I was too tired to continue, at which point I snuck out when I didn’t think anyone was looking.[37]

So that was my weekend, and that was Tamazi’s wedding. It was a really great time, and I’m glad I got to experience a wedding from a family’s perspective, and I’m glad my toast wasn’t a disaster, and I’m glad that Irina seems to be a really cool person. This last part is especially important, of course, because she now lives in the room next to me. I was not expecting there to be an addition to my host family during my service, but I’m glad there was, because my host family was only three people before, and it’s nice to have one more around the house. Also, Irina knows how to play the guitar, so I think I have my winder doldrums activity. Now I just have to figure out how to learn how to learn the guitar in a whole different language.

I hope you packed enough provisions at the beginning of this post to last you the whole way, friends. That is all for now. There are many more iterations of Better Know a Georgia on tap, and I may be going to an actual club[38] for a friend’s birthday and then watching the Illinois-Ohio State football game in Tbilisi this weekend, so there are plenty of fun stories ahead for you. Until next time. Stay warm. And, seriously, go say thank you to your central heating system. It does such a thankless job. And it never gets enough credit. Also your indoor plumbing. Winter’s such a gas.


____________________
[1]Not to mention extreme foot soakage and general discomfort.
[2]In days of yore, they used to write s’s like f’s. When this aids in alliteration, the creation of which is the primary priority of my prose, do not think I won’t take advantage. And do not think that I won’t ignominiously ignore the fact that s’s were usually written like f’s only at the end of wordf.
[3]It was raining, and my work loafers, which are bewilderingly and yet life-savingly water-resistant, are still dirty from the weekend, so I selected the winter boots I purchased for Peace Corps and had yet to wear, because they are water-proof hiking boots and because my only other option was decidedly un-waterproof cross-trainers.
[4]My mother thought I was going to say Jesus there, but she cannot prove that it was not instead Neptune, God of the Sea, who approves of my host brother’s nuptials.
[5]Most of the time, I exaggerate numbers, but this time I have not. I haven’t been great about taking photos since I’ve been here, since I have a large camera with many fun features and it is often cumbersome to carry it around, but I realized that this was going to be a unique weekend in my service and that the chance to record it was not going to come around again, so I had my camera with me all weekend and took 343 photos. You can see the best 60 in the “Best Of” album, linked to in the sidebar, and more than 100 other good ones in the other two wedding albums (once I get a chance to upload them).
[6]This number, unlike the previous one, is completely made up, because I have no idea how much I drank. I assume it to have been more than 20.
[7]Or: Where we measure consumption in liters, not in glasses. Or: Let’s put it this way. You probably won’t be going to work in the morning.
[8]Which will now be so large I should probably insert chapters and release an audiobook version.
[9]Although it’s always used to mean the traditional feast I’m about to describe, and never to describe an actual table.
[10]I mean, you could come visit, and then you’d surely see one. Not that I am stressing this, nor do I mean to imply that anyone who visits me will be showered with candy and gifts and food and anyone who does not will probably die penniless and sexless.
[11]I will leave the translation and description of these dishes to the post on food, because this post will already be too big.
[12]Although women can and do drink the wine during big mixed-sex supras at which they are guests.
[13]An occasional pastime, especially at a bar, is toasting to one’s enemies with a beer in your left hand.
[14]This is a country with still-developing modern gender roles, so this person is always a man unless the supra is women-only. Although, really, the role requires a pretty excessive capacity for bloviation, so it’s probably more suited for men anyway, just like ultimate fighting and getting into major traffic accidents. Let’s be honest about these things.
[15]Because I’m certain you were wondering and because you must be equipped with the necessary tools if you would like to come visit Georgia for yourself: this is only the form of the word used if the thing/person being cheered is in the third person and not being addressed. “Cheers to us!” is, “gagvimarjos!” and “cheers to you” is, “gagimarjos.” Please write this down.
[16]Although usually there is still only one tamada, who uses a microphone to bellow toasts to the masses. There can also be two or three tamadas who rotate toast-giving duties.
[17]After, of course, refilling the glass of any women around you, because chivalry is not dead and because God didn’t make women to lift heavy things.
[18]Outside of a wedding, which is two separate parties and takes many hours, but which is also quite large and thus not as full of pressure to drink and do untold numbers of toasts, I have not been to any mega-supras. But I have heard stories from other volunteers of being trapped in a supra for 5+ hours, with few enough people that there is nowhere to hide when you don’t want to drink anymore. At this point there are various strategies. One that I have heard is to text a fellow volunteer and ask them to call you immediately, at which point you pretend it’s your mother calling, which is a good excuse to get out of anything. I have even heard stories that involve successfully getting oneself out of a supra, going to sleep, and then waking up to discover that it hasn’t ended yet.
[19]Hypothetical example: the tamada spends ten minutes talking about love, and true love, and how Georgia was built on love and how Georgians cherish love, and how important it is for the future of the country and indeed for the future of the entire human race, and maybe how all wars would end if we could all remember to love one another, and this is all by way of saying that the happy couple really loves each other, and this will serve them well in this life and in the next, and will lead to many happy progeny, and the continuation of the man’s line forever. The summary for me: “cheers to the bride and groom.”
[20]Supposedly, at the end of a supra, one gives a toast to the tamada before leaving, but this is purely theoretical, because nobody has ever provided evidence that supras actually end.
[21]For instance, my earlier anecdote about being encouraged to take shots, which can substitute for wine as a toasting vehicle if there are only a few people present and/or if you’re with a bunch of men who are intending to get housed beyond comprehension, of cognac in an elementary school before noon.
[22]An example: I was invited to the ceremony part of a Georgian wedding once, during training, by my language instructor. We arrived at the church a few minutes before we were told that the ceremony would start. Nobody was there, and none of the people at the church seemed to have any idea what we were talking about. 20 minutes after the ceremony was supposed to have started, the cars of the entire wedding party screeched up to the front of the church. By this point, another group had swooped in for a different wedding. So our wedding party stood around in the courtyard, waiting and taking pictures of each other, until a priest came out and said that this other wedding was going to take a little while and that after that the priests were busy and didn’t feel like marrying our bride and groom today. Nobody seemed to be too upset at this turn of events, and they all got in their cars to find another church. Whereas, in America, this turn of events would cause a minimum of four fatalities.
[23]During which I found out, from someone else, that he was even getting married in the first place, but that’s a different story. Georgians aren’t really into planning things or alerting you of events in advance.
[24]It also consisted of hanging a cow carcass up on a hook near the door to the bathroom. Talk about things that are fun to see as you’re rounding a corner unexpectedly in the dark.
[25]My family keeps their chickens and turkeys in the back, in the area where the latrine is. Needless to say, my walks to the latrine have been far lonelier this week than they were before. It’s eerie. I half expect to see tumbleweed and a solitary chicken in the corner, chewing on some thistle, muttering about having seen it all coming.
[26]And almost none of whose names I knew. When you’re dealing with a language barrier and all sorts of other issues, it’s impossible to remember names, and even more so when you meet so many people. I now find myself in the difficult position of having met a truly large number of people whose names I don’t remember. And, of course, none of them have forgotten my name, because I am the American, and everyone in town knows my name whether I’ve met them or not. The game is not fair, and I am not looking forward to the first time, however many months from now it may be, when a person who thinks of me as his American brother realizes that I don’t know his name or why the hell I know him.
[27]…forever dashing my dreams of starting a croquet league in the backyard. The grass will never grow back. Scotts Turf Builder has yet to make its way to the developing world.
[28]I had resisted breaking out the long underwear to this point, because it hadn’t been that cold and because older volunteers advised us to keep our uber-cold-weather wear in reserve until we couldn’t stand it any longer, so we didn’t deploy all our weapons too early. But I put it on because the suit is thin and I knew I’d be up to the late hours of the night, and it turned out to be a great decision. For that night, at least, because it’s so comfortable that I’ve been wearing it ever since, and I am truly dreading the day in February when Neptune, god of the sea, blows an extra cold front across the country just because he gets off on that sort of thing, and I have nothing left with which to combat the chill that will find its way to the very depths of my soul.
[29]But, let’s be honest, also to my secret disappointment.
[30]By way of a sidewalk, as mentioned earlier. Also, this was after I ended up waiting in some guy’s car for a completely unexplained 30 minutes. Sometimes you just have to wait, in this country. I wish I had a Game Boy, or something.
[31]The answer to this question, in America, is never, “in the yard, by the chickens.”
[32]It might be even harder to read Georgian in front of 400 people than to say something spontaneously in Georgian in front of 400 people.
[33]I don’t like to brag, but that’s the best toast ever given by anyone who can barely speak a language. I am confident of this. Do not even attempt to dissuade me.
[34]I will be eating these leftovers for the next six weeks. And people don’t have microwaves here, so it will all be cold. It was delicious the first morning-after, like morning-after pizza, but for the next six weeks it will be like eating six-week-old pizza that has not been in the refrigerator.
[35]You try working the morning after drinking an uncountable number of glasses of wine.
[36]Which, after the wedding, is the bride’s house. People live with their extended families in Georgia, and houses are retained by males, so a new bride will go immediately after the wedding day to live with her new husband’s family.
[37]When people have been drinking for three days, it’s easier to catch them not paying attention.
[38]What “dance club” actually ends up meaning, here, is probably going to be pretty funny. We will have to see. This particular club is owned by a member of a Georgian soccer team who I met during training and who has become a good friend of my friend back in Gori. I have been promised a spot on the “VIP list” at this club for my friend’s birthday party. You cannot make these things up.