At the Heart of Gori

I have only been in the land of a Stalin for a few days, but there is already so much to say.  For now I will tell you about my new Georgian family.

I met my family on Monday.  My school principal and host father traveled to Tbilisi along with another principal and host mother who would be hosting one of my fellow teachers.  Dato (my host father) was over the moon when I greeted him in Georgian, he has been telling everyone we meet about it.  Goes to show that just a few words in a new language can get you a long way.

The car ride from Tbilisi is only an hour or so, but we stopped along the way to eat kachapuri and khinkali at a restaurant that lies under the view of one of Georgia's most ancient and sacred churches.  After lunch, as we drew closer to Gori our new Georgian friends pointed out vast amounts of newly built houses and explained that the government built them after the war in 2008 for the refugees from South Ossetia.  Within my school alone, there are several children and teachers who have been displaced from their homes in South Ossetia.  Looking at the rows and rows of houses and then hearing, "this is just some, there are many more," it was hard to grasp just how many people had fled or been forced out. 

When we arrived in my family's home in Gori I was greeted by my new host sisters and grandparents, who were all peeking over the balcony as the car drove up.  The older of my two sisters, Nata, showed me around the lovely apartment and brought me to my room, which is huge and beautiful.  Shortly after that, Dato and my sisters drove me around Gori.  They showed me the main street (Stalin Ave.), the main museum (Stalin's) and the city center where the main government building sits.  They also drove me around the outskirts of the town, showing me the buildings that had been destroyed during the war and later rebuilt.  This included the school where I am teaching, which is just across the street from my apartment building. Dato also pointed out where he works, which is the Ministry of Internal Affairs (the equivalent of the FBI I am told).

Later that day I met my host mother (Maya) who had been at work all day.  She is just as amazing and warm as the rest of the family.  Upon seeing me she said "We have been waiting for you since October!"  Like her daughters, she also speaks English very well.  Dato's parents, who live with us, do not speak any English, but they do speak Russian, as does the rest of the family.  Between my few words of Georgian, limited Russian and their excellent English and Russian, we have managed to communicate very well.  Our dinners are trilingual!  They are all eager to practice English and learn more words, but when I brought out my notebook to practice writing the Georgian alphabet, they were even more excited to help me learn Georgian, pronouncing K', Gh and Kh over and over for me.

On my first day I asked about the internet, wondering if I should go buy the wireless stick from geocelli that we had been discussing in training all week.  But I was simply told that it would be taken care of.  The next day Dato came home with a very long ethernet cable which is now running from the router in the living room, under a series of carpets, behind furniture, and through a newly carved hole in my door.  They also offered to change the lock on my door so that I could not only lock it from the inside, but also the outside.  I told them it was not necessary, which they found surprising.

In general my family is very busy.  Maya and Dato work 6 days a week and the girls attend lessons after school, sometimes late into the night.  The girls are very smart, Nata wants to be an economist and they both love math and science.  I asked my sisters what they do for fun, and one responded "what is fun?"  I hope it was a lapse in vocabulary and not an indication that she never has fun.  While the grandparents stay mostly at home, they also keep busy with cooking and cleaning and other tasks around the house.  I am trying to get to the know the city as soon as possible so I can stop interrupting their schedules.  For now my sisters are walking with me or Dato is driving me places so I do not get lost.  Thankfully, Gori is relatively small, so I can walk to most places once I get better oriented.

Celebrating International Women's Day

On Tuesday it was International Women's Day, so there was no work.  Maya brought me a new scarf and a set of my own house slippers as a gift.  Later Dato's sisters came over to celebrate with us.  I heard a knock at the door followed by excited whispering, then one of them peeked around the corner and said "Hi!"  They immediately showed me the gift they had brought to welcome me, a bracelet carved with St. George's name and "in god we trust" in Georgian.  We drank wine and ate the Hershey's chocolates I had brought from America. 

On Wednesday I attended my first supra, which is a Georgian tradition of eating and drinking late into the night.  Maya's father was celebrating his birthday.  I met Maya's sisters and brother and their husbands and wife.  Once again it was a trilingual affair.  Zaza, Maya's sister's husband and an officer in the Georgian army, was appointed tamada.  For those of you who did not attend a 2 hour lecture on the Georgian tradition of supra, the tamada is the toastmaster, which is a huge responsibility.  Mainly because you need to be able to toast dozens of times, drinking the whole glass of wine in one gulp, and not get (or at least appear) drunk.  There are a series of toasts that are required to be done in a certain order, some involve all of the men standing while the women sit and others involve special bowls.  It was quite the experience and I believe I have another to attend tomorrow.  I only wish Anthony Bourdain could be here.

I now know all of my new family members, including aunts uncles, cousins, and grandparents, who all live just minutes away.  We never get to choose our families, but I feel truly blessed to have been given such a wonderful Georgian family while also having a wonderful American family waiting at home.