And the Beat Goes On...

Riding horses again. This never gets old.

I’ve been in Georgia for over a month now, inching closer and closer to the 2 month milestone. Thus far, life continues to be one giant magic carpet ride of craziness, in a country that provides a novel approach to eccentricity. Teaching has begun, and so has, appropriately enough, the inevitable village boredom which sets in when one in is in a situation as I am. Most of us in Guria kill time by reading, writing, teaching our host families English, or watching movies on our computers. Simon the BAMF has resorted to throwing rocks at trees. At least that’s better than what the children do-they throw rocks at the goats. The chickens have been behaving as of late, which is startling, but the turkeys haven’t. The gobblers have begun congregating on my stairway in the morning, covering it with their foul excrement, which I have to clean. They’ve now been added to the axis of evil farm animals.

Simon may throw rocks when he's bored, but I've resorted to being a narcissist and taking pictures of myself

 I’ve learned a few things this week, and have uncovered a few mysteries-phenomena which were previously inscrutable. First and foremost, I have discovered that using a hair dryer here is out of the question. I attempted to dry my hair the other night, for the first time, and it was a petrifying experience. The outlet began to spark, and then the lights began to flicker. In an instant, the lights went out, and I was surrounded by darkness. I will just have to continue going to bed with wet hair, which my host family gives me more shit for than wearing my boots. As for the mysteries, my detective like abilities have unearthed two previously unknown answers to pressing questions: Where do they put their trash? And, how do they pay their electricity bill if they don’t have an address? Regarding the latter, I stumbled upon a large “landfill” in the far back of our home, near a river.  I intuitively knew that this is where our trash goes. When it comes to paying electric bills, the payment method is rather simple: a bill collector comes house to house, with a small notebook and change purse, and each family pays in cash. How did I discern that this was a bill collector? The shirt gave it away, which was bright orange, and had the word “collection” placed conspicuously on the front. Last on the list of Scooby Doo adventures was the discovery of what men in the village use for odor protection. Their solution: shaving their armpits. I wonder what they would think if I told them that long ago a fascinating odor blocking device was created, and that this hygienic tool is referred to as deodorant. At this rate of mystery solving, I think I may uncover the lost city of Atlantis while I’m here. I may even be offered a job with Unsolved Mysteries when I return home.

As usual, I attended several suphras, in one weeks time, all of which were remarkable in their own way. The most attention grabbing feast occurred at the home of one of our neighbors. Among the attendees was an elderly man who was sporting a bowlers hat coupled with thick rimmed glasses. I don’t know his name, but he acted just like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. At spontaneous intervals, he would grab a piece of bread and begin crumbling it in his hand, while creepily voicing garbled Georgian. The bread almost seemed like his precious. He did this several times until his entire plate was covered in breadcrumbs. As with most suphras, I was obliged to eat until I felt sick, and driven to drink several glasses of wine to the point where lucidity could be vanquished, and the entrance of delirious, non-compos mentis became a genuine concern. At one point, I had to do a toast while standing on a chair. It was getting to be too ridiculous, even for me. I devised a plan to escape further liquid induced incoherence, by merely asking where the restroom was. I had no idea that such a simple and commonplace action would turn into the most wacky and awkward bathroom experience I’ve ever had. The house lacked outdoor lighting, so the twins and two of their friends grabbed some flashlights, and led me outside to the outhouse. With almost a telepathic sense of what lay in store in the enclosed Turkish style toilet, and my thoughts about using such a lavatory, Nino abruptly shouted “No, Renni. There!” With the utterance of these words, she pointed to a spot in the grass, near the edge of the woods. I directly understood what she meant, but I would have used the outhouse anyway, if there was no other choice. I had drunk too many glasses of wine to be picky about my toilet accommodations. Before I could even go to the bathroom, all of the girls had dropped trou for what had turned out to be a pee party. All the while, the kids were asking me how the wine was, how I liked the food, and other small talk questions usually reserved for the dinner table. When everyone had finished, we began walking back to the house, but our path was intercepted by the owners dog, who decided it would try to attack me. In a matter of seconds, I was sprinting in every which way, unable to see through the pitch black darkness while squealing like a pig. I could hear the twins shouting for Giorgi, the owner of the dog to come save me. I’m not sure how long I ran for, but I ended up in a tree, with the dog at the bottom, growling and bearing his teeth. The owner eventually rescued me, and I learned an important lesson: going to the bathroom in Georgia is dangerous. We all had a good laugh about it afterwards, at my expense, and everyone wondered why the dog singled me out. After a few minutes of scrutinous thought a deliberation was made---it must have been because I smelled like America, and this dog was Russian. Chasing and feigning attack is simply how they play. This made absolutely no sense to me, on so many levels, but it worked for everyone else. Something had to of been lost in translation, but I had to roll with it anyway. Before we left for the evening, we were treated to some after dinner amusements. Several of the men threw miniscule amounts of cha cha (homemade vodka) on their empty plates and then light it on fire. But the cha cha tricks didn’t stop there. The plate lighter guys even put cha cha on their fingers, and then put a match to said fingers, and began roaring with laughter when their body parts caught on fire. They all stared in amazement as light blue flames emerged. I am now thoroughly convinced that pyromania runs rampant here.

In addition to teaching the twins English, I’ve been teaching them a bit about culture. They’re favorite “naughty” word is dbili bitchebi (stupid boys), and they’re usually referring to most of the boys in their school as such. According to the twins, 95% of the boys in the village are stupid. In light of this high figure, Nino and Nana asked me if there are stupid boys in America. “Reni, dbili bitchebi, America, yes?” I replied, “Yes, many many dbili bitchebi in America.”  I also taught Nino about the drinking age in the States-21 years of age. Both the twins dislike wine, and prefer champagne and cognac, because they’re classy like that. Nino decided to provide me with some legal facts about Georgia… “In Georgia, it is 25 for boys, and 27 for girls to drink,” she said. Nino must have been confusing her years with months, because there’s no way in hell that this is the legal age. If it is in fact correct, according to Subchapter X, Title X, Chapter X in Georgian legal jargon, then it surely must be one of those archaic rules that no one pays any attention to, similar to the Napoleonic Code in Louisiana. I think the correct drinking age is something more along the lines of…whenever, as in whenever you want to.

Both of my host sisters suffered through a mild cold last week, which they passed on to me. By a stroke of luck, I only had to put up with a few sniffles for a day or two. Even though I only experienced symptoms of an intensely moderate illness for a radical two days, my sickness was taken extremely seriously. First, I had to eat an unfathomable amount of grapes. After this, I was told to drink a few shots of cha cha. This instruction was more like a requirement rather than a suggestion. I was fine with the cha cha and grapes, but then I was told I couldn’t take a shower. I hadn’t bathed in four days, and this part of the get well prescription was not cool. Perhaps it’s for the best, since my hair dryer is an obvious serious safety hazard. I would have never heard the end of it if I went to bed that night with wet hair. There has never been anything I have undesired more, or moreover, not yearned for than requiring medical attention while abroad. While in Kutaisi once with my host family, we accompanied one of our neighbors to the hospital. He had some sort of skin infection and needed the attention of trained and knowledgeable medical personnel. The outside of the medical facility looked worse than post-Katrina Charity, and the inside, while much better, smelled like burning rubber. In the waiting room, there were five doctors, all women, sitting and chatting. One of the patients told the doctors I spoke English, and they all stared at me for a solid minute. All this because I spoke such a magical language.

Somehow, I have acquired several suitors in this village. Almost all of them are worse than horrible. Meet some of the contestants:

Bachelor #1 is the son of one of the teachers at my school. I can’t remember his name, so I’ll just refer to him as ‘unmemorable.’ Come to think of it, I can barely recall any details about him, except his pick up line, which went a little like this:

Unmemorable: Hello Renni.

Me: Hello?

Unmemorable: I’d like to make your acquaintance. How do you like our village? Is it melancholy?

Me: No, it’s not sad. I dig it. Do you like this village?

Unmemorable: No, it is a hopeless place.

Me: ……

Unmemorable: My mom is a teacher at the school. Your co-teacher Nargiza said you have been the best English co-teacher so far. She likes you very much.

Me: Really?! That’s great!

Unmemorable: I have to go. Bye. I might see you soon.

He said his last line a bit ominously, and, after further analysis and thought, it would be wiser to refer to him as ‘goth,’ since life seems all doom and gloom for him.

Bachelors # 2 & 3: I don’t know if they have Crystal Meth in Georgia, but if they do, it’s probably called Crystali Methi, because they put an ‘I’ at the end of everything. If you’ve never seen a picture of a meth addict, then you’re drug education program, or DARE, was probably pretty unsuccessful. But, if you have, then you can imagine what the twins look like. Not my twins, heavens no…they look like angels. I’m talking of course about a set of twins who live in the village-grown men-who have a thing for me. It’s not hard to describe what they look like. Picture a meth addict. That’s them. They’re both skinny (unnervingly so), are missing several teeth while the few that remain are black or rotted; their skin just isn’t right; their faces are hollow, gaunt, and their eyes sunken in. Both of these men are probably in their late 40’s, and each smoke about 3 packs a day (this is a conservative estimate). These two are always providing me with major “FML” moments. One is worse than the other, and I’ll just call him Chuckie, because just like the doll, he scares the shit out of me. Not long ago, some asshole gave him my number. Since then, he’s been constantly calling and texting me, even though I ignore every call or message. I don’t even know why he bothers, he doesn’t speak English. All the texts are in incomprehensible English. He might as well be sending me messages in Egyptian Hieroglyphics. In an attempt to resolve this problem and make my life easier, I did what I always do when the going gets tough here. I lied. I lied and said I had a boyfriend. As soon as I said this, I was asked what my “boyfriends” name was. I could see that part coming from a mile away. I said Nick. I had already thought this through. The bastards couldn’t stop there though-they had to have a last name. I thought quickly and said something that would be both long and hard to pronounce, with the hopes that they would never remember it: Nick Megalabovajovich. That 7 syllable lie seemed to do the trick. Eight if you count the first name too. Of course things couldn’t be so unproblematic, and the meth twin tribulations continued. I decided I needed to enroll the help of a real, living, fake boyfriend. But where would I find such a faux collaborator? Enter Ureki…

Each weekend, the Western English teachers gather for all sorts of activities. Not only is getting together a way to escape village boredom, but it helps you keep your sanity-to be surrounded once again with people who speak your language. These escapes are essential. Collette, a hot middle-aged mama, arranged a day trip to Ureki, to go and relax by the beach. The Friday before our trip, a torrential downpour struck. Simon the BAMF called me to see if I was still planning on going. Here’s a transcription of our conversation:

[ring ring]

“Hey Simon, how are you?”

“I’m good Ren. I called you earlier.”

“I know, what’s up?”

“I spoke with Caitlin, Collette, Greg, and Adam.”

“…..And?”

“Collette is happy. Caitlin is good. Greg is a bit anxious about the weather. Adam is going to Batumi to see Georgian dancing.”

The rest was all just jibba jabba but I did successfully assuage Simons fears about the weather and the original plan was back in full swing. I caught a marshutka Saturday morning with only enough money for the fare and a dismal amount of credit left on my phone. When I reached Ureki, I called Collette to determine where to meet her at, which turned out to be on the beach. She gave me appalling directions, which forced me to backtrack several times, and hitchhike as well. I know that sounds harsh, and should possibly be prefaced with a disclaimer. To her credit, however, Collette is one those amazing and rare true free-spirits, who is always offering the most sincere and genuine of compliments, even towards the most atrocious amongst us. Even though she gives terrible directions, there are many endearing quirks about Collette which cancel out her non-existent sense of direction. Chief among these is her propensity to completely butcher Georgian words. Her recent language annihilation was with the word for teacher, mastavabeli, which she pronounces mastavalabia. Pay particular attention to the last part, labia. Refusing to allow her to speak such an inappropriate word, we informed her of the correct pronounciation.

On to the hictchhiking….After traversing for several miles while venturing to Ureki, I had developed blisters on the heels of my feet, and each step became incredibly painful. Throw in some light rain and it makes anyone desperate. I wasn’t quite brave enough to flag down a car, but I did keep looking back over my shoulders with a look of despair and helplessness on my face. I only had to keep this up for about a minute, until a black Mercedes rolled up alongside me, with 3 Georgian men inside. Never one to pass up an opportunity to be lazy, I hopped right in, and made it to my destination safely.

Combing the beach for Collette turned out to be a rather effortless task, and I quickly spotted her sitting on a green towel with her back perched against a log, talking to someone I’ve never seen before. This stranger turned out to be Nathan, another TLG’er who Collette had coerced into joining us for the afternoon. I learned that Nathan spoke fluent Russian, which was to shortly become of use. We were later joined by Simon, Greg, and Caitlin and, after a day filled with joy and merriment, we began to walk back to the main road to try and catch a marshutka home. Being penniless, I vehemently opposed paying for transportation, and succeeded in flagging down an 18-wheeler. The five of us crammed into the front of this monstrous vehicle and enjoyed our free ride home. Having just read On the Road by Kerouac, Caitlin couldn’t refrain from chuckling for the entire length of our short trip. As soon as we arrived in my village, and before we had even walked 10 feet, a ferocious downpour began. We arrived at my house soaked.

Nathan had agreed, beforehand, that he would play the part of my fake boyfriend Nick. Actually, he never agreed, but he didn’t disagree either. Since he speaks Russian, he was able to communicate with my host father. The subject of the repulsive twin came up, and Nathan did his best to explain that I was not interested, and never would be. My host dad made a few jokes about a marriage between me and said repelling twin. Doing his best to play the part of the fictitious Nick, Nathan said, “Well, what if I put a ring on her finger first?” To this, my host dad responded “In Georgia, woman has no choice.” He was obviously joking. I think. I hope. The night ended with a balcony dance party on my gargantuan veranda, and Nathan, like a true hardass, walked back to his village, in the rain, and hitched a ride home.

“I venture to affirm, that we are nothing but a bundle or collection of different sensations, succeeding one another with inconceivable rapidity, and in a perpetual flux and movement.”

-Hume