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.