Daylene's New Family

Daylene recently went to live with a new host family, just outside of Kutaisi.  They were very keen to meet her friends and play host to other English teachers, so they she invited me to come out to Imereti for a visit.  She now lives in Akhasopeli, just outside of Kutaisi. 

I had intended to leave Telavi early on Friday morning, but circumstances conspired against me.  As it turned out, I made it to Tbilisi just barely in time to go to the USA2Georgia office to pick up the package from my mother.  Public transportation in Georgia tends to stop completely around 5 in the afternoon, so I really had to hustle to Didube in order to catch the last marshrutka to Kutaisi. 

After wandering around the lot for a while trying to read the correct dash sign, I finally found a marshrutka to Batumi, which would pass through Kutaisi and Akhasopeli.  At her insistence, I called Daylene’s new host mother and put her on the phone with the driver.  After a very excited conversation, of which I could hear only half and understand considerably less, the driver assured me that he knew exactly where I was going and that he would drop me off exactly where I should be.

The entire four hour ride to Akhasopeli was punctuated by increasingly frantic text messages and half understood conversations with several members of Daylene’s host family.   Apparently, they were excited that I was coming to visit and worried that I wouldn’t find the village.  Finally, I settled for texting Daylene the name of every little village and town as we passed the signs. 

When I finally arrived at the village (really a don’t blink or you might miss it kind of a place) Daylene’s host family was eagerly waiting to drive me the two minutes further down the road to their house… where there was a supra.  Of course.  This is Georgia, after all.  In honour of the two Americans, they had proudly made pizza!  With no cheese, extra mayonnaise, and some kind of spicy pepper sauce instead of tomato sauce.  Just like home!

The grandparents in Daylene’s new house switch back and forth between Russian and Georgian with no real rhyme or reason.  I tried to keep up with the grandfather’s conversation, but it turns out that I’ve forgotten almost all of my Russian.  Every time I tried to say something in Russian, Georgian would come out instead.  It’s like the Georgian has shoved the Russian out my ears to make room for itself. 

This is Babua

And this is Bebia.  With Daylene

Even though we had spoken on the phone just about every night since she came back to Georgia, we still felt the need to stay up half the night catching up. 

Breakfast was yet another supra because Daylene’s host family is very Georgian.  After breakfast, we caught the marshrutka into Kutaisi, but not before being loaded down with snacks by Daylene’s host mother who runs a small shop just beside the main road. 

Several other TLG teachers in the area had made plans to meet at the McDonald’s in Kutaisi, and we ran into them there.  Some of the members of the very last group to arrive in Georgia, in October.  And John was there, whom I had met all the way back at the Istanbul airport, all those months ago.  We all compared host family situations and swapped teaching disaster stories for a while before splitting off in our separate directions. 

I don't know who this is, but they decided to build a statue to him!

Daylene and I hopped a bus to the city centre, where we were trapped for a bit in the middle of a traffic circle by a wedding party going round and round and honking.  We wandered about and took in the sights.  Naturally, we got lost for a bit, but we found our way back without too much trouble. 

We were stranded on this island.  At least the company was ...  shiny

When we got back to the village, we were greeted by – wait for it – another supra!   This time at the neighbour’s house.  More pizza, with herb salad, khatchapuri, lobiani, and strawberry compote.  Not all on the same plate, though. 

In order to catch the last marshrutka to Telavi, I had to be back in Tbilisi in late afternoon, which meant I had to leave Akhasopeli pretty early.  First, I was of course loaded down with food once again by Nino.  the marshrutka I happened to catch was driven by a former rum runner.  Or maybe he was a frustrated finalist for the Grand Prix.  Perhaps before retiring he’d been an competitive downhill skier.  Whatever he was, the man drove like an absolute demon and I had to be very careful not to pay attention to the road for most of the ride. 

The scenery was nice, and I got to see a really interesting cross-section of Georgia.  Even though this country is so small, it seems to have every possible climate within its borders.  Through the course of the ride to Tbilisi, we drove through fog, sun, snow, rain, sleet, and high winds.  Gradually, the first signs of spring that were poking up in Imereti disappeared as we went further inland. 

In Akhasopeli, the forsythia was blooming and there were buds on the trees.  I had only needed to wear two pairs of trousers and one pair of socks.  Everything was green and wet, with water in the riverbeds and new grass growing everywhere.  In Telavi, it’s very clearly still winter.  Ice on the mud and snow on the mountains.  The riverbeds are almost completely dry, and there are still piles of snow and slush everywhere.  

This is the view from Daylene's house

And this is the view from my house

Still, if it’s spring already only a few kilometres away, then spring can’t be too far behind in Kakheti!

The Hidden Dangers of Running in Georgia

In a country where exercise is a completely foreign concept, I was surprised and delighted to find a running buddy.  Lika and I run together a few times a week at the old, deserted Telavi football stadium in the evenings.  Usually, we have no trouble getting in or out as the gates are left open pretty late.  Monday, however, was a slightly different story. 

European football, not American

We got in just fine and ran our laps just fine and even stretched just fine.  Then… the gates were locked.  When we went to leave, we found that the way was shut.  You see, the dead had made it and the dead would keep it and… no, that’s the wrong story. 

But the gates were quite visibly shut and locked.  And the fence is pretty high.  And pointy on top.  We walked around and tried the other gate, only to find it in precisely the same condition.  This was a situation but not yet a problem. 

These benches are designed by top chiropractors to provide maximum lumbar support.

Next to the field is a very large derelict building that used to be either apartments or flats.  At the moment, it’s blown out windows and collapsing walls.  There was, however, a light on in one of the rooms on the second floor.  Lika suggested that whoever was in there might have been the one to lock the gates.  We should go in and find this person.   In the derelict, crumbling, mostly abandoned building far away from anything else in town late in the evening.  Good plan.  Courage screwed to the appropriate sticking place and loins properly girded up, we ventured in.

Looks promising, right?

Every movie with a scene wherein the hero (or heroine) goes in search of something in the abandoned Soviet building ends badly.  I was quite certain that every shadow was hiding a crazed axe murderer, a psychotic KGB holdover, and a horde of radiation zombies.  No one answered our shouts, but we could hear voices from upstairs.  Naturally, we went up. 

That's right.  Let's go further down this rabbit hole.

The hallway was completely deserted and filled with rubble, but there was light and noise coming from the corner room.  We knocked, but there was no answer.  Very cautiously, ready to jump back at any minute, we pushed the door open.  Empty.  The fire was lit, a television was going, but there was no one inside. 

At this point, it was entirely too creepy and we had to get out.  Quickly.  Very quickly. 

However, this still left us with the problem of being locked in the stadium at night.  The situation had indeed developed into a problem. 

We looked around behind the building, but all we found was a horse.  He didn’t look too inclined to help us.  With the aid of some dead tree branches, we tried clambering up and over the fence, but we couldn’t get nearly high enough.  Lika called her parents, but they didn’t know what to tell us. 

Finally, we decided to go wait by the gate again in hopes that we could flag down a passing police officer or someone else equally useful.  The gate still sported its pair of serious-looking padlocks.  That started me wondering: why were there two padlocks on one gate? 

They weren’t locked, that’s why.  Each part of the gate had a padlock securely through it, but the only thing holding the two padlocked sections together was a stick jammed through them.  The only thing holding the gate shut (and keeping us panicking inside) was a stick.  It wasn’t even a big stick.  Pippin would have looked at me in disdain had I told her to fetch it. 

Still, next time we go running, Lika has suggested we find somewhere else. 

We'll miss our cheering section, though.