Eat, Drink and be Merry...

Death is a part of life everywhere you go.  However, in Georgia it seems to play a more prominent role.  When I was preparing to leave for Georgia, I was told "Georgians wear a lot of black.  If you wear bright colors you will stand out."  I kind of chuckled since I lived in all black for the length of my adolescence and beyond.  Color is a recent phenomenon in my life. When I arrived in Tbilisi, our trainer, Tamar, repeated this fact about Georgians mostly only wearing black.  She said it is because so many people die in Georgia that people were always wearing black for mourning.  Death was so frequent people just began to wear black all the time and it became ingrained in the culture.  And this is true, I look at my students, all black.  I look at the people on the street, all black.  The stores even cater to this trend and mostly only sell black and gray, with limited selection in other colors.

Georgians have a hard life.  They have received unwanted visitors and survived many bloody wars throughout their entire history.  War and suffering are a part of life, then and now. People in Gori are all too familiar with heartache, as they took a big hit during the August War in 2008.  Everyone I have met here has friends or family from South Ossetia or Abkhazia.  Many have shared their stories about being forced apart from their homes and families, losing family members, and being displaced indefinitely.

In the 6 weeks I have been with my family, they have received news of several deaths.  A colleague, friends, our neighbor.  My oldest sister speaks very matter of factly about death.  Delivering the news in a very unemotional tone.  I have not figured out much about Georgian mourning, but I do know that the day after our downstairs neighbor died (of old age) a coffin lid appeared in the stairwell and remained there for four days.  For those four days we heard wailing from downstairs almost constantly.  People came with flowers.  And after four days the funeral was done.

But this entry isn't about death.  Rather it's about the celebration of life.  As I sat through a birthday supra for my "aunt" it really struck me how distinct this lifestyle is from what you typically find in the U.S.  Celebrating family and friends and God are top priorities here.  Every supra and every toast are carried out with both purpose and sincere merriment.  This is a lifestyle that seems to come from a long history of hardship and an understanding of what it means to truly live your life and not simply go through the motions of school, work, marriage, etc. This isn't a place where work will take over every aspect of your life and it will never be the most important thing. 

I have spent nights with my family and my fellow teachers' families laughing harder than I have in a long, long time.   I have danced more than I have in a long, long time.  And it feels as though I smile more than I used to.  Even on the tough days when it feels like nothing is going right and everyone is driving me crazy, my family jokes me back into a good mood.

Deadlines, rules, and everything else takes a back to seat to these things.  Why worry about such things when you have so much to celebrate?  Why waste a moment not treasuring the family and friends you have around you?  What could possibly be more important than this? 

I think this is where some foreign teachers are struggling.  Trying to plan lessons with co-teachers who don't share your concern for preparation or dealing with students who are uninterested in English can be frustrating.  At times it can feel like school and learning is not a top priority for Georgians.  And at times it most certainly is not.  But I think that's just fine.  In fact, I think there is something great about that.  I would rather see my students thrilled to see their friends and happily celebrating the holidays with their family.  Learning is important to them, and I truly feel that most of them will do just fine with their chosen paths.  In the meantime, yes -- eat, drink and be merry -- because everyone here knows all too well that everything around you can disappear in a heartbeat.