SOME THINGS I'LL MISS, SOME THINGS I WON'T
AND SOME THINGS I'LL NEVER FORGET                    
FIVE MONTHS IN GEORGIA

Good fences make good neighbours, and good neighbours we have indeed, but even still the same too many fences make me feel slightly oppressed. 

Most every Georgian property is surrounded by a fence with a large gate, and as such most of the day-to-day socializing takes place in the street, unless of course, you're brewing cha cha, that tends to draw people inside the barrier. There are a few communal benches along our street and guaranteed no matter what time of day or night I happen to be out there, there are people chatting, or simply sitting in silence watching their little part of the world go by. 

I have seen fences made from piles of thorny branches.  I have seen fences made from rows of old school lockers, and from every other bit of scrap metal imaginable.  I have seen a fence whose main bit was a car door.  Yes, I have seen a great many fences, and although I respect them and appreciate their necessity, I believe I will feel a great sence of freedom whence I am no longer confined by them.

As far as I have been able to gather, these fences are, in part, a relic of the country's recent lawless and corrupt history, where many people were desperate and the police force was a mere ploy. This made break and enterings and robberies all too common, and yet, although this is thankfully no longer the case, we are still in a part of the world where every bit of unfenced green is fair game for any cow, chicken, pig, goat or sheep that's been let out for the day, and so the fence lives on.

School yards, grave yards, parks, ditches, the centre bits of  busy traffic circles, these all serve as grazing grounds, and so it is necessary, unless you don't mind livestock snacking on your yard (which in most cases is planted from edge to edge with flowers, fruit trees, vegetables, and herbs, so no, you don't want live stock snacking on your yard) to take this precaution. If you do happen to have a patch of grass amongst your cultivation however, they make excellent lawn mowers.  In fact their the only lawn mowers I've yet to see i Georgia. No need to hire a public care taker, just set a cow on it and it will be nicely trimmed in no time.



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I will dearly miss having fresh coriander in almost everything I eat.  But then, I will not miss having far too much oil in a lot of things I sometimes don't really have the choice not to eat, so I guess it evens out.

I will not miss eating meat. I once accidentally picked a pig's ear off a plate at a suphra ...enough said.

I cannot wait to live off fruits and vegetables...I am already anxiously awaiting the eating of my first avacado in over half a year!

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I will miss drafty wooden windows (in the warmer months), and waking up to the chorus of a thousand birds every morning. It is a glorious way to greet the day.

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I will not miss the tension that yelling causes.  Yelling is a common form of communication around here, happy, angry, sad, indifferent, it doesn't really matter, and it's hard to tell.  Georgians just yell a lot, and it's especially unerving when you have no idea what's being yelled about, because you can only understand maybe 5 percent of what's being said.

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I cannot wait to live in a house where the T.V. is not on 14 hours a day.  I will not miss that...at all.

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I'm not sure whether or not I'll really miss them, but Georgia's great many soviet era parks are definitely noteworthy. In all my previous years combined I had never seen as many chairoplanes (both functional and long since written off) as I have seen since coming to this country. Every other town has got a mini children's theme park of sorts, and they are, if nothing else, interesting to wander through, and to imagine what they were like in their prime, with their mini roller coasters, bumper cars, and giant jungle gym/obstacle course structures, ferris wheels, carousels, and yes, chairoplanes.

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Think me crazy if you will, but I love naturally carbonated, naturally salty water.  Borjomis tsqkhali I will miss you dearly.


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I will not miss being a woman in a decidedly patriarchal society.




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I can't wait to wear shorts again without feeling risque...especially now that it's in the mid 30s daily.

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I will not miss my long night time journeys to the bathroom.

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I think I might kind of miss seeing everyday words that have 4 or 5 or sometimes 6 consonants in a row when transcribed into English. A few typical examples of this are

tsqkhaliv -water
tskhra - nine
mtsvani - green
tvitmprinavi - plane
vphiqrob - I think
kurdgheli - rabbit

The best and most impossible are the ones that have the qkh sound, which involves contracting your throat somehow in order to utter it properly. The only way I've ever succeeded is by having my asophogous crushed slightly. Nevertheless, it is a very intersting and beautiful language, and it's been a great expereince getting familiar with a tongue so entirely unique and foreign.    

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I will never forget the fiirst time Mirian called me his sister, not his teacher, not his friend, his sister.  I will miss the little goof probably more than anything else.  Our karate sessions, that always only eventually seemed to come to a close when I got an accidental elbow in the face, our endless games of speed and the like, our chin-up competitions, our English lessons that began to more and more quickly digress into foolishness the more comfortable we became with one another, and how he kept me company at my bedside while I was sick, making me laugh by telling me Georgian jokes translated into English. Ki batono, my time in Georgia would not have been the same without you. A great many thanks! Dzalian didi madloba!

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I will miss free range live stock.  I once witnessed, while waiting for a marshrutka in the centre of town, an old man with a hunched back and cane 'run' out into traffic to shoo his cow back onto the grassy patch in the middle of the traffic circle. 

I love that you can't drive anywhere farther than 15 minutes away, without at least once having to cede to a heard of something or other crossing the road or simply walking in the middle of it. I love how docile cows are, and how bashful pigs are, how ridiculous chickens look, especially when they run, but just generally all the time, and how there is something so calm and peaceful to behold in a heard of sheep.  

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I will never forget teaching the 'th' sound to my grade threes.  There was a picture of thirteen birds on a path, thirteen and path being among the new words we had just covered in our phonics section.  Alongside the picture was a sentence with blanks that read '               birds on a               ." While circulating the class I noticed that Dato, a very bright student, had written 'twelve birds on a path'  instead of thirteen.  I tried to explain to him that we had to use the vocabulary words we had just covered to complete the excercise, then proceeded to count out loud while pointing at each individual bird in the picture.  At seven he promptly stoppped me and, pointing to the wattle on the bird in question said, "Es ra aris chiti. Es aris mamalia!" "That's not a bird. It's a rooster!" I couldn't argue with him, so I just had a good laugh and let him have it.

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I will miss being able to guess with 50% accuracy at a perfect strangers' name. For males it's Giorgi, for females it's Nana. This can work for or against you though. It really didn't help when trying to keep my students straight. 

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I remember in the beginning, before I really got to know my students,

in my grade four class I would get surrrounded by a bunch of little grils with dark hair and huge brown eyes before the beginning of every class. They would shower me with questions and compliments, and all I could do was laugh at how alike they all looked. I couldn't keep them straight, just seven sets of big dark eyes, browner I think than any I've ever seen.

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As many flaws as there are in the Georgian school system (as there are in every school system) there is something very right about a school where students still bring flowers to school for their teachers.  Although I've yet to pull a kid's ear or give them a healthy tap on the head, the fact that that's allowed means that I am also allowed to hug my students, to give them a pat on the back or a pinch on the cheek, without having to fear a law suit, and there is something much more functional and common sensical about that, than the hyper restricted way in which we are forced to teach in our schools back home.

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My A.D.D case in grade six spontaneously broke out into ''My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean' one day last week.  It's really hard to chastize a student when you can't stop laughing. 

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I can't be sure, but something tells me I won't miss chugging wine. Pretty sure I'll be ready for a serious detox when I get home. I will however, miss the Georgian toast. In Georgia, you don't drink unless a toast is made, they can be as simple as a toast to you, to friends, to family, to love, to life, to the deceased, or to country, but often times, they take the form of eloquent speaches, not that am ever really able to underrstand much of them, but the idea behind it is enough to make you appreciate it.

Georgians drink to celebrate love and togetherness. This is why it is necessary to drink to something. We drink to the things that unite us, all that we share and all that we hold dear, and so although we may end up drunk, we also end up closer to one another than when we started. And that my friends is a beautiful thing.

May 14^th 2012

Spring in Georgia is a brilliant succession of wild flowers. It arrived just over a month ago now, and gardens and fields, mountains and roadsides exploded into fragrant colour seemingly overnight.  First came the cherry and tremali blossoms –tremali is a distant relative of the cherry (I think) that grows wild, and whose little white blossoms I believe would take over the entire region if not kept in check. These have now ceded to the queen blossoms, which are beginning to wilt, and I am anxiously awaiting to see what follows. The daffodils gave way to the poppies and lilacs a few weeks ago. The tulips are out, and this past week I was given a bouquet of lily of the valley by a girl in my grade six class. There are countless other specimens growing wild all over, so much so that it seems with the passing of every few days there is a new site and smell to behold. The fields and hills around Khashuri have woken up from a long winter’s sleep, and it’s a beautiful thing. 

Lately when I go for my walks along the railroad tracks and through the fields, I am reminded of how important it is, a wholesome and necessary thing, to embrace the progression and turn of the seasons, to “breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each,” as Thoreau once put it. And surely enough, after suffering through the winter here, I feel that I am better able to appreciate just how much sweeter the air is now that it is laden with the scent of flowering things, and how even the smell that follows the rain has changed to tell of summer. The sun now sets three mountains over from where it did when I first arrived, and only the highest reaches of the small Trialeti range are left with any snow.  

As for the drink, well that’s always the same and in ample abundance in Georgia, but there is a steadily increasing supply of fresh produce about, and, thanks to Ruiza’s labours, we’ve been eating chives out of our own garden for weeks, and the string beans are already a good six inches out of the ground.  She ploughed and seeded the entire back yard (a small field) herself, by hand, over the course of two or three weeks. This is a typical undertaking in these parts, even for 78 year old women. My brother says it’s because Georgians like working the land by hand. They are a strong, proud people with a rich agricultural history, and, from what I’ve seen, they place great importance on their reciprocal relationship with the earth.  In the market one can easily see the difference between local produce, and that which is imported from Turkey or Greece.  The latter is plump and spotless, regal looking, like the fruit you’d set out in a fancy bowl on your kitchen table – full of pesticides.  The former is small, speckled and humble in appearance, like the wild apples that grow on the trees along the railroad tracks – delicious and natural. 

Also, now that the weather is nice, I have taken to spending many an evening playing in the street with the neighbourhood kids. At first, it felt a little strange that I was most comfortable associating with a bunch of 8 to 13 year olds, while the adults, every once in a while, watch and marve at my youthful vigour and acrobatics, and probably my childishness too.  Bear in mind that in this country I should, by rights, be married with kids by now, and spending my evenings having far less fun, and being way more ‘mature’, adhering to the guidelines of what we are taught to believe constitutes adulthood.

I have since come to terms with my preferred crowd however, and my current game of choice, although I cannot call it by name, is a sort of cross between freezedance and dodgeball.  Everyone stands in a circle and passes a ball around at high speed until someone drops or misses their pass, whereupon everyone freezes.  The first person to move is eliminated, and is then tasked with doing everything short off pushing to make the people left in game laugh or move.  The more people who get eliminated, the more fun/difficult the game becomes.

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I attended my first Georgian wedding a couple of weekends ago, and aside from the actual ceremony, it was very similar to a wedding celebration back home…only with a lot more culture, much better dancing, and the usual never ending supply of food and drink.  There were even Chinese lanterns, a few fireworks, and a special forces officer in attendance who decided it would be a good idea to empty a round on the roof of the restaurant, presumable to salute the happy new couple. We later had to search for and collect the empty casings via means of cell phone light.

This past Saturday we celebrated Mirika’s 14^th birthday.  I got him a watch and made him a card, both of which he proudly showed off to his cousins who visited that evening for a small celebration. He is now decidedly the younger sibling I never had, and I felt a sort of pride upon seeing this that I have never before experienced.  

Sunday was the feast day of Saint George. We attended a supra at one of Tamrico’s sister’s houses, and I saw, for the second time in a week, another police officer empty a round while drunk, in uniform, skipping his shift to stay on at the banquet.  I also had a man remove his wedding ring and tell me that he loved me upon our introduction.  

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The last weekend of April I tried out the Turkish baths in Tbilisi.  It’s funny how it’s not at all uncomfortable being naked in a room with a bunch of other naked people, until of course you look down, and your visual sense brings you back to reality again and again and again.  It’s almost infantile in a way, like if you can’t see it, it ceases to exist, and is therefore not an issue. But then it only takes witnessing a few saggy ladies lifting up their dimply, deflated spare tires to scrub under their roles, and in so doing bend over just enough to give you a full on view of some of the widest posteriors you’ve ever seen before you stop caring that you’re naked, and actually really start to relax and enjoy the experience.

The following day I visited Mtskheta with a friend. Mtskheta is the former capital of Georgia, about a 30 minute ride outside the current capital, Tbilisi. Situated at the confluence of the Mtkvari and Aragvi Rivers, and nearly surrounded by lush green mountains, Mtskheta is about as idyllic as towns come in Georgia, and so, naturally, it’s clean cobble stone streets lead past many an overpriced restaurant and tacky tourist souvenir shop. 

First we visited Samtavro Transfiguration Church of St. Nino, originally built in the 4th century, and reconstructed in the 11th century. We had the good fortune of getting to hear a polyphonic performance while there, a truly gorgeous art that brings something celestial to an already sacred atmosphere. We then visited Svetitskhoveli Cathedral which translated literally means "the Living Pillar Cathedral,” a name derived from the most prominent legend associated with the church, believed to be the burial place of Christ’s robe.  It is said that a giant pine grew from the place where the robe was buried. Saint Nino ordered the tree to be cut down and had seven pillars made from its wood. These were used to build the original 4^th century church, and the legend (in part) goes that a sacred liquid flowed from the seventh pillar that cured people of all illnesses, and so it was that Georgians began to flock to Svetitskhoveli, and still do today.   

The following day I climbed what must have been the equivalent of 50 flights of stairs to get to Mtatsminda park. Unable to find the proper path to the park, I opted to take what will eventually serve as the maintenance/emergency staircase of what will eventually be a gondola. At present however, it is merely a construction site, guarded be men who do not speak English, and must have thought it a huge joke when they eventually allowed me entry, for lack of being able to provide directions to the real path, because after suffering and sweating through the seemingly endless climb, I arrived at the top only to discover that I could not get into the park, because the building that will one day greet the gondola at the top of the small mountain is not only still under construction, it’s locked. These types of situations have become a recurring theme of my weekend adventures. 

Anyhow, if nothing else, I am stubborn (or determined, whichever way you want to look at it), and there was absolutely no way that I was climbing back down those stairs, nor was walking back out past those guards.  So after hiking through some thick underbrush, and of course a small dump site, along a steep ridge, then over a wall, I eventually made my way into the park to find out that it hadn’t yet opened for the season. My efforts were not entirely in vain however, for although none of the attractions or concession stands were operating, the park was still welcoming visitors while the maintenance and cleaning crews went about their preparations. It’s a peculiar feeling wandering around an empty amusement park, seeing a place that, atmospherically, is everything it isn’t meant to be, quiet, still, almost peaceful. After a couple of hours of wandering and appreciating some truly amazing views of the cityscape bellow I found the real path that leads to and from the park, and had a much more enjoyable walk back through the hills and nature that surround Tbilisi.

Tuesday, March 27th

I learned a few things this past weekend. 

Firstly, never make plans with a Georgian, because when plans change they probably won’t bother telling you until it’s too late, and even then, the only explanation you are most likely to be given is, “I don’t know how to explain it English.”  Then, chances are you’ll find out that ‘it’ is something unforeseeably random like, ‘My grandmother’s sister’s husband died a year ago today, so we are all going to the graveyard to relive that sorrowful time in our lives.  We will begin the supra there (this is why every Georgian cemetery has picnic tables all throughout).  The men will eat and drink and pour alcohol on the grave, while the women, as always, stand aside.  Then we will go back to the house and trap you in the back of the table against a wall, in the very middle of about 30 people you don’t know, force feed you until you are on the verge of bursting, and my mom will sit next to you and talk with all the other women for approximately thirty minutes about how you lie about being allergic to wheat because you don’t want to eat bread because you’re afraid of getting fat, until you get up the nerve to excuse yourself, crawl out under the table, and walk home.'  So yeah, if you want to do something in this country, just do it, don’t wait for the accompaniment of a Georgian.  

I also learned that one should not leave their favourite pair of hand knit woollen socks hanging over the stove longer than is necessary, because eventually accidents will happen and they will fall and burn.  

The following day I learned that I could do without visiting Gori, ever again.  There’s almost as little going on there as there is in Khashuri.  All they’ve really got that we haven’t is a Stalin Museum, and forgive me if I’m wrong, but don’t think that being the birth place of Stalin is much to brag about. But then I suppose he had to be born somewhere. 

It’s about a 30 minute marshrutka ride from Khashuri, provided your marshrutka doesn’t blow out two tires on the side of the highway half way there.  Then it takes about an hour and a half, give or take. And you really want to check to make sure that that the bus you took into town wasn’t the last bus of the day, because that’s important to know. You should also make sure that your phone battery isn’t dying, just in case you have to call your host brother to have him speak to a taxi driver in the otherwise empty marshrutka station parking lot, to figure out that you have to get a cab to the highway from where you will have to wave down a westward bound marshrutka to get home (all possibly while fighting off an episode of the shits because of some, surprise, super oily borsh you were silly enough to order for dinner). This shouldn’t be too much of a problem, provided there is still some daylight remaining. 

The very last thing you want to make sure you don’t do is place your mobile phone in your shallow jacket pocket while on the marshrutka without checking to see if perhaps it fell out before you get off and the driver hastily speeds away 40 minutes further down the highway to his final destination.  That cell phone is your only connection to the English speaking population of Georgia, a rather vital lifeline, and you should treat it as such.  It’s very true what they say, you never realize how precious something is, until you don’t have it anymore. Luckily my host father Giorgi, is tight with the marshrutka driving community, and my mobile was recovered the next day…long after my little defeated session of lying face down on the living room floor (in front of both Mirian and Ruiza) mumbling curses into the carpet.  A person has got to vent every once in a while.    

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I came home from school this afternoon, and walked through the front gate to find Ruiza tending a homemade cha cha distiller, right there in our front yard, and I learned that cha cha tastes slightly less terrible when it’s still warm.    

March 22nd   

Spring arrived Monday and settled in overnight, so as to be in full swing come Tuesday for the official equinox…just as the Georgians said it would. The seasons are apparently very punctual in this country. The temperature rose from below freezing to a hold steady in the mid-teens in well under 24 hours, a much anticipated turn that has brought about a wonderful happy change in the people of Khashuri.

It’s like a sort of wide spread perennial convalescence.  Kids are outside playing in the streets.  Old people are outside doing work that is far too physically demanding for them.  Everyone, young and old, seems to be somewhat obsessed with shovelling away the snow.  I suppose dispersing it actually does speed up the melting process, but it still strikes me as odd when I see people shovelling the white stuff in the street, especially when it’s my 70-year-old bebia. I arrived home from school two days in a row to find her sitting on a stool outside the front gate, and thought to myself how nice, Ruiza is making the most of the nice weather, hailing the arrival of spring. What she was really doing however, was taking a break from breaking the remaining ice away from the entry.  

Owing to this strange inclination, I recently discovered that a small portion of the street in front of my house is actually paved! The rest of them however, are definitely not, and I expect they will remain in their current mess of puddles and mud for some time. The main road on the other hand is entirely bare, and dry!  I wore flats to school today to celebrate! It was risky, but glorious! It also elicited a lot of attention.

(The weather has gone moody again since I wrote this.  We reverted to winter Thursday evening. It snowed through the night and all day Friday. My grade fours have just started a unit on the weather. This meteorological schizophrenia isn’t really helping them to grasp the concept of spring. But Saturday is proving to be decent, and so rebegins the melting process.)

Along with being the first day of spring, yesterday was just a big day of firsts in general.  I fired my first rifle! AND my second rifle! I even hit a target (a plastic bottle on a post by the railroad)...with some help of course, and I was invited back to try my hand at shooting, cooking and eating a bird. I suspect I won’t really be much help with any of those, but nevertheless, it doesn’t get much more authentic than that.  

After that unexpected dose of exhilaration, I returned home to receive my fist ever manicure immediately upon walking in the door. From the utmost stereotypical manly experience to the utmost ladylike; I am a woman of extremes…who is now wearing black on white crackle nail polish. This experience also entailed another secondary first, if you will, as before I could have my nails manicured, I of course had to have them cleaned, using cha cha.  A note to PEIslanders, you are wasting your time and money when you buy nail polish remover. Shine works just fine. 

And for the last of the firsts: Food made an appearance on one of the soap operas today...street food even! I saw it with my own eyes! AND someone almost ate it! Not quite though.  I'm not entirely sure what happened, but judging by the poor acting and forced facial expression I figure it was either just a really bad taco, or the character came to a sudden life altering realization in the same instant that she placed it in her mouth.  For those of you who require further explanation, there are two Spanish soap operas that Georgians, young and old, watch religiously – dubbed over in kartuli of course. It’s like family hour but all day, and minus the wholesome feel good content.  And if they aren’t actually watching it, it is almost always on in the background. It’s another one of those things encountered in foreign cultures that, although it will never be ok, you get used to over time.

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 I’m not entirely positive, but I think I just ate eel for supper. They said it was fish, but it was served in long thin strips, and it was incredibly oily.  I actually had oil dripping down my forearms.  Noteworthy experience, but one I could have probably done without. 

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Last weekend a group of us TLGers met up in Tbilisi to attend the Georgia versus Russia rugby match Saturday afternoon.  We made our way to the stadium hours early because A) we were unsure of how to get there, and B) we were unsure as to whether or not we would be able to get tickets, as a great many people seemed to think they would be sold out. This presumption was fair, in light of the deep seeded rivalry (perhaps something a little more than rivalry) between the two countries. Luckily however, scalping is not a problem with Georgian authorities, and so, although we had to pay double the price, getting tickets was not an issue (paying double wasn’t really an issue either considering the original price was only 5 GEL, the extra ~3 dollars wasn’t that big of a deal).  Furthermore, having arrived as early as we did, we had the opportunity to see the twenty plus busloads of riot police (enough to line the entire stadium, shoulder to shoulder, in an unbroken line) get shipped in for the event.

We got our faces painted and made our way into the stadium early enough that finding seats proved quite easy aswell.  It was the actual getting inside that was the hard part. You see, there is no such thing as a cue in this part of the world, and for someone who’s not accustomed to the push and shove approach of asserting one’s place among a group of people vying for the same thing, this was probably the most exhilarating, mind you slightly unnerving, part of the whole Georgian rugby experience.

I found myself pressed up against the metal bars of the gate by an unhappy group of Georgian men wanting in, struggling against the police on the other side who, for reasons unknown (to me at least), had stopped allowing people through just as I had (not entirely under my own will) made my way to the front of the pack. This rather uncomfortable situation lasted for about 15 minutes, at which point, I’m pretty sure the officers guarding the gate simply took pity me (I may have done some heavy begging with my eyes), and let me and my friends through ahead of the rest.

It was later explained to me that this chaotic, everyman for himself, mentality can be understood as a trapping of communist rule when people had to fight for everything they got, i.e. If you simply waited for your turn, your rations would be claimed by someone else, and you and your family would potentially starve to death.  On this particular day, it just so happened that this deeply engrained way of doing things inadvertantly gained us entry into the VIP section. Although we didn’t realize it until later, we were sitting in 40 GEL seats! 

The game itself wasn’t all that great. Russia has a rather weak team, and Georgia is pretty good.  So suffice to say, with a final score of 46-0, the play was very one sided. The atmosphere on the other hand was great! The stadium was packed, a sea of black (all Georgians wear black) dotted with red and white flags and the all too frequent plastic bags getting swept into the air by the wind (trash is a rather serious issue in this country).  The wave made its way around the stadium a great many times, and the customary section of painted bare bellies horns and drums littered the field with streamers of receipt paper. Afterwards, a happy satisfied crowd made its way into the street, and the universal sporting victory celebration soon began with car horns blowing, and young men hanging out windows, shouting and waving flags.   

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The next day I got in some long overdue wandering/sightseeing.  I also had my first encounter with the gypsies.  It went about as good as I could have hoped for.  The key is to ignore them completely, even when they latch onto your body...just drag them along, and eventually they'll fall away.  

We walked around old Tbilisi for the afternoon, visiting random art galleries, shops and places of worship, then hiked up the hill to take in the cityscape from the ruined turrets of Narikala, a 1700 year old fort (although most of the extant fortifications date from the 16^th and 17^th centuries), where we could count the spires and minarets of nearly a dozen churches, mosques, and synagogues, all within easy walking distance.  

Wandering into a church that is well over a thousand years old is commonplace in this country, and in Tbilisi in particular, an impressive number of these are currently in the process of being restored.  Many others however, still rest in various beautiful states of disrepair, with their once dark murals faded to dim shadows, and their ancient plaster crumbling, waiting patiently for their turn at some TLC.

  

Later, we crossed over the Kura River to visit Sameba, the Holy Trinity Cathedral (Sameba [სამება] is Georgian for Trinity), the main cathedral of the Georgian Orthodox church. Constructed between 1995 and 2004, Sameba is a massive and monumental feat of architecture, designed as a synthesis of traditional styles dominating the Georgian church at various stages throughout history. Built to commemorate 1500 years of autocephaly (you'll have to look that one up for yourself...I did too) of the Georgian Orthodox Church, and the 2000 years since the birth of Christ, the initial plan was to have it completed by the turn of the millenium, but the unrest of the 1990s saw its construction postponed for 6 years. 

Sameba is widely regarded as a symbol of the Georgian national and spiritual revival, and is a great source of national pride as well.  The dome of the cruciform structure is surmounted by a 7.5 metre-high cross covered with gold, and the height of the church from the ground to the top of the cross (not counting the 13 metres allotted for the underground chapels) is 84 metres.  Factor in the natural prominence upon which it sits, and it is easy to imagine how Sameba elicits a sort of reverent awe from near and far.   

It is surrounded by an impressive expanse of manicured gardens, complete with pond, ducks and swans.  A wide swath of marble stairs lead up to its front doors, and the main entrance to the grounds is marked by an imposing wall, and a free standing bell tower, with more than a dozen bells hanging at three different levels.  We were lucky enough to have these begin ringing just as we were leaving. The well-rehearsed chorus lasted for at least 20 minutes, probably longer, and was performed by five young boys in alter server garments. 

Leaving Sameba, we wandered through a narrow network of residential streets to find our way back to the river, crossed back into old town and continued exploring. The next thing we came across was the Tbilisi museum of dolls, located just next door to the puppet theatre…because hey, why not? 

Later on, doing some solo exploration, I came across the most serene little park, in slight disrepair and a little dirty - like most everything in this country - where a group of old men sat playing backgammon. The birds were chattering in the trees, and the sun was hanging low, soaking everything in its early evening amber glow (entirely for my own amusement that was), it was quite perfect.  Just beyond the park was the beginning of a cobble stone stair case, built in the 1800s. It climbed into the cliff face, past so many houses and two churches, all the way up to Mother Georgia, a statue of a woman holding a bowl above her head in one hand, and a sword across her body in the other, welcoming friends and opposing foes. Another brief view of the city from above, and it was time to head back to the hostel, grab my bag, and find the marshrutka station. 

I took the underground for the first time since arriving in Georgia, and was happily surprised at how stress free it was (probably mainly because the last time I used a subway system was in Mexico City…a bit different going from a city of over 21 million people with an anxiety provoking tangle of so many lines, to a city of just over one million, with a single, well maintained route).  The most noteworthy part of the experience was again, like the rugby match, the entrance.  

I have never seen such a long escalator, not even one that comes remotely close.  I never knew they existed at that length…never thought it was possible. I couldn’t see the bottom for what seemed like at least the first ten seconds. I’m pretty sure I experience slight vertigo for the first time in my life, and was unfortunately, in too much a state of shock and awe to think to time how long it took to reach the bottom (I expect I will have another opportunity). This machine must have been at least 7 stories worth of stairs in one go.

March 15th

So I had planned on making the four hour trip (one way) to Batumi (on the Black Sea) last weekend, expressly to get out of the snow.  Upon arriving at the half way point in Kutaisi however, I found out that it was snowing in Batumi as well.  Five years ago such an occurence in this semi-tropical part of Georgia was generally unheard of, but then again people in Khashuri aren't really used to snow storms in the middle of March either...damn you climate change. Anyhow, I met up with a friends, and having decided that the trip would be somewhat wasted on such junk weather, we opted to stay in Kutaisi, and take in some of the sites there instead.  Suffice to say, we were hugely unsuccessly, but of course, I will elaborate.

To begin, the weather, unsurprisingly, was terrible. The first thing we found out upon visiting the tourism information centre was about Kutaisi's main attraction, the super impressive Sataplia cave system with translucent stalactites, staligmites and rock curtains, and over 200 fossilized dinosaur footprints. It was closed.  Is closed until April.  But not to worry! There are other things to do around Kutaisi! The Gelati monestary, only 10 km, or a short marshrutka (mini bus) ride from the city centre, we were told was a very much worth a visit.  With not enough daylight left howeve, and with hopes of better weather on the morrow, we decided we would visit it the following day.

So after narrowly missing the 11 am marshrutka (mini bus) Saturday morning we spent the interim 3 hours til the next one huddled next to an electric heater in a cafe watching as near white out conditions dumped a fresh foot of snow outside.  We then proceeded to miss the 2 pm marshrutka, although we're still not sure how it happened, as we arrived 15 minutes early, and never actually saw it leave (maybe the driver decided it was better not to attempt the assent in such miserable conditions).  So we gave up on that idea, and headed to the Pub (it's actually called Pub hence the capitalization), where we treated ourselves to quality European beer and martinies!

When we ventured back out 3 hours later, slightly hesitant to return to our guest house for fear of what we might be fed following the previous night's cultural cuisine experience, we were greated by a beautiful, foreign, shiny object in the sky. Uplifted by the fresh boost of vitamin D and the overalll change in atmospheric pressure, we took our time getting back to Suliko and Mediko's guest house (they are very sweet and most hospitable, it's just that, again, as is often the case in this country, you can never be quite sure what they are going to feed you), watching the sunset from the roof before going inside, savouring every last drop. I have yet to see it since. 

That night, dinner consisted of beans, cheese and cornbread (cornbread made especially for me), the customary cabbage salad (shredded cabbage and a few chunks of carrot soaked in vinegar), and some small crummy looking fish that I decided was best left alone. Altogether pretty good though.  The previous night's dinner however, was probably the worst thing I have ever tasted, and by probably, I mean it was most definitely the worst thing I have ever tasted. 

The starter was soup with fat and bits of some kind of beef...I think.  Actually not at all bad, a bit oily, but my digestive system is learning to deal with that. When there was nothing but chunks of fat left in my bowl however, Mediko insisted that "that tastes really good with this sauce" (in much more broken English of course).  So fat with an exceptionally tart liquified version of a substance not unlike cranberry sauce....it really doesn't taste that goood. Having gotten off with just a small bite though before she cleared our bowls away, I was assumed I had the worst out of the way. I was wrong, very wrong.

After taking away our not quite empty bowls, she insisted she had something more for us. Something that, in lieu of a language barrier, was described by pointing to knuckles, elbows and knees...joints. Cartlidge soup is a powerful, nauseating assault on the senses.  I have smelled a lot of menure in my lifetime, but until last Saturday I had never tasted barnyard.  The brawth was at once greasy, milky and slightly thick, but thick in a way that makes you think 'that's not meant to be that consistency,' and the cartlidge, well yeah, it was cartlidge.  What more can I say? 

For the first time in my life I found myself utterly unable to consume. Actually I found myself in the bathroom for fear that I might vomit, leaving the social nicety of forcing oneself to eat and feign enjoyment of homecooked food up to my friend, who later confessed that he dumped most of his cartlidge bits into my bowl when no one was around to see. 

Spring in Georgia is much like spring on the east coast of Canada.  It plays with a person's hopes, warming up to above freezing just long enough for everything to turn into slush and mud, making you believe that better days are just around the corner, then boom, you wake up Monday morning to a fresh foot of snow.  Disgusted by the discovery, and groggy and disoriented by your head cold and the 13 hours of sleep you had starting at 5 pm the previous evening, following a long weekend of late nights, drinking, snowboarding, sledding, too many people, and oh yes, pms, you struggle to get ready for school, accidentally putting on a second pair of pants instead of a belt...it's going to be a great day.

Your voice has only partly returned from the nothing it has been for the last day and a half, and you show up to school just in time to realize you misread your schedule, an you're an hour early...it really is going to be a great day.  

You waste away the first period in the teachers' lounge, then make your way through the juvenile anarchy of the hallways to your fourth grade classroom.  You then begin the lesson only to find that a whole 3 out of 12 students actually did their homework (and there's nothing you can do about it because detention doesn't exist and your principal doesn't care),  awesome...it's time to break out the sticker reward system.  With the exception of the grade twos, a class that boasts some truly exceptional students, your day continues in much the same fashion.  The grade fives, despite having spent a solid half hour on it last Friday and having been told to remember it as homework, are still calling grey red, drawing complete blanks for purple, struggling with black and white, and just throwing together random noises (some of which don't even exist in the English language) for brown.

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Close to thirty of us travelled to Bakuriani, one of Georgia's prized ski getaways in the lesser Caucassus, this past weekend.  The majority of us being first or second timers on the slopes, some of the down and up hill acrobatics were quite impressive.  I will however, out of respect and also in the interest of time, only speak for myself.

I got to the bottom of the bunny hill on my first go with little incident, only to find that I was unable to unlock my right binding.  I was stuck to my board.  I waited alone among the crowd of people and random things at the bottom of the hill til I spotted a familiar face, Sebastien and his teacher.  They tried freeing me, but to no avail. Andy had wandered up in the mean time, beer in one hand, camera in the other.  Having given up all efforts at learning how to ski after his first time down the hill,  he had  assumed the position of happy English photographer for the afternoon.  So I held onto him, and together we navigated through the crowd of people, vendors, and rows of gt snow racers for rent, back to the stand where I had rented my board. 

It took two men, a screw driver and about ten minutes to free me from the faulty binding. I was given another board, and headed back up the hill, on a slightly bigger run.  I got to the top and took a seat to strap in, only to realize that the bindings on my new board weren't properly fastened.  Excellent.  So back down the hill I went (I can now cross taking a round trip on a ski lift off my bucket list) slightly furious and feeling like an absolute fool. It seemed as though all the gesturing in the world could not communicate the blatant fault in the equipment, so I simply took another board, of my choosing this time, checked that I wasn't going to be trapped on it once I strapped in, and left.  Almost two hours after my initial start, I was finally able to get in a few consecutive runs before calling it a day.

My last attempt was, hands down, the most hillariously inglorious of the day. With a vast expanse of hill infront of me, naturally, I ended up on a four foot wide jump that some kids had obviously thrown together for their own amusement, and to the detriment of newbies like myself.  Luckily, although I am not able to direct myself at all whatsoever, I am quite good at stopping, or at least slowling down, which I managed to do, just in time to have a seat on the edge of the jump, drop gracefully over it, then slide off the side of the hill directly into the path of the ski lift. 

Thankfully, I was able to scooch backward up hill and out of the way just in time to avoid a low speed collision with an uncomming kid.  All momentum thus effectively lost, I then hopped my way to the top of the last major drop on the run, and, not feeling up to another one of those falls on your butt that you hurt in your head, I sat down and took it, like a two year old takes the stairs.

I left the hill for a late lunch with the other Andy (jam tea and vodka for breakfast Andy) who, having been away from home for over a day at this point, was entirely sober. Lunch therefore, was extended over a jug of wine, which eventually led to a walk to the kiddy park, where, having just discussed how much better life was at the age of four, we went sledding...on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle GT snow racers!!!

To all you folks back in Canada, note this is a highly effective way of nourishing your inner child, and of temporarily forgetting how much you hate our discouragingly long winters.  It was easily the funnest thing I've done in a very very long time. My falls on the snowboard paled in comparison to our high speed sleigh crashes, and we quickly realized why we were the only people starting from the very top of the hill. By the time we made it half way down, we were spending more time either in the air, or on our faces in the snow then on our sled. A significant portion of my right side is now green, brown, and red. 

A few miscelaneous things of note about Bakuriani.

-The streets, which are inches thick with ice, and have ruts a foot deep in many places, actually get sanded.  This is accomplished by two men who ride around in the back of a dump truck pitching out sand by the shovel full behind them as they go.  The result seems really quite ineffective, but the random smatterings of sandy clay every twenty feet or so along either side of the road must have at least a minor effect, otherwise I'm sure they wouldn't do it.

-You can purchase anything at the bottom of the ski hill.  Far beyond the items you might conceivably expect, such as sunglasses, beer, coffee, barbecued skewers of miscelaneous meats, hats and gloves, and equipment, horses and snow mobile rentals, there are booths selling barbie dolls, bouncy balls, action figures, and pumpkin seeds, and of course you can try your hand at a round of arcade shooting with the chance of winning a stuffed animal, becasue hey, you're in Geogia, why not? 

-Soviet era ski lifts still operating on the bunny hill.  Most people would probably call these death traps back home.  Words really are not sufficient.  I will try to track down a picture.

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I just changed my bed sheets this past week for the first time since arriving in Khashuri.  Most of my peers express shock at the fact that I have to do this myself. I consider this freedom quite an accomplishment (I have also been allowed to fetch water from the well on my own as of late, since we are once again without running water as our pipes are have been frozen since last Monday). The sheet and matching duvet cover have two big red roses on them, with the words 'Hope it was Happy'...no inuendo there. My guess is that these were an item that didn't do so well about 25 years ago in either the U.K. or North America.