Soperapelos

Maka’ s parents live in a tiny, farming village about an hour’s marshrutka ride outside of Telavi.  They keep pigs, chickens, and cows and grow tomatoes, corn, grapes, and various fruit trees.  I finally met the elusive Ani, whom I like very much.  She first asked me what colour nail polish I like best and then kicked the butts of all the little boys playing football out front.  Ani paraded me up and down the street, introducing me to all her friends and neighbours and telling me which boys she likes and which girls she doesn’t like.  Pretty soon, I had all the kids in the village following me around like the Pied Piper of Soperapelos. 

Who has right of way?  Pigs, ducks, or cars?

In the evening, all the adults sit around eating watermelon and sunflower seeds while everyone who has any energy left plays football and tag in the street, dodging cows and the occasional car.  At one point, I saw a guy blasting Eminem on his iPod… while driving a donkey cart.  There are no fireflies here to tell them when it’s bedtime, so I’m just going to assume that all Georgian children have terrible insomnia.  I heard a mother calling her kids in to bed last night and them begging for five more minutes and it was all so familiar and so much like when I was a kid that it was kind of a shock for me to realize that I didn’t actually understand any of their words. 

I understood the pigs, though.  They all said, "Mine.  Mine.  Mine."

Grandmother (Dedua) seems to spend every waking hour making some kind of food.  She made tonis puri, kiln bread, in the giant kiln out back.  She made lobiani, bean dumplings, on a frying pan over a wood stove.  She made sulguni, Georgian cheese, on a Bunsen burner every night.  The whole time I’ve been here, I’ve been hearing a constant litany of “Keti, sit. Eat.  Eat more!”  Georgian doesn’t have a ‘th’ sound, so they can’t pronounce my name.  Everyone just calls me Keti or Ketevan because it’s easier than trying to teach ‘th’ to every person I meet. 

Dedua pulling tonis puri out.

Maka’s sister Maya is also here with her son Nico, who is about two.  Maka’s brother Rezo came to visit but only stayed for a day before he had to go back to work.  Ani took me down the road to see the village church, which is quite pretty and very dark inside.  I had to wrap a shawl around my hips because I was wearing pants, which is apparently a Very Bad Thing.  The graveyard outside was neat.  Lots of the tombstones had pictures of the deceased etched on the front.  It sounds like a good idea to me.  When I die, I want this guy’s picture on my tombstone.

Oh, yeah.  He's still got it.

The whole time I was there, I kept referring to is as the Village of Soppelshi.  Turns out soppelos is just the Georgian word for village.