Life in Gori

I have been traveling around the country a lot lately, and I realized that I have neglected to write more about life in Gori.  I have said many times over the past two months that I am really glad to have been sent to Gori.  It is both a proper city (aprox. 50,000) and a small village (i.e. cows and chickens in the road).  I have really enjoyed becoming part of the community here in Gori and participating in the many important springtime events.


Bonfires
The first of these was the Wednesday before Easter.  I cannot pronounce, or spell for that matter, the official name of this day, but the basic premise is that everyone lights bonfires around town and the children jump over the flames.  My host mother explained that this tradition was started back in the old days when people would burn their old clothes and get the "devils" out of the home before Easter.  Or something to that extent.  The most popular kindling for the fires is not clothing, however, it's tires.  So it is well-known that you should never ever hang out your laundry on this day because everything will become sooty and black.

I had a wonderful time walking through town with my family stopping at all of the different fires.  We met up with my host mom's sister and her daughters and walked around some more while munching on sunflower seeds.  Sunflower seeds are an integral part of walking in spring.

bonfires

walking with a gaggle of girls

 bonfires

St. George's Day
The next big event I got to participate in was St. George's Day on May 6th.  This is a very exciting day for Gori dwellers as it means that Gori Jvari reopens for the summer.  It remains open until November 23rd, the other St. George's Day.  Gori Jvari is a large church that sits up on a hill near my house overlooking the city.  Whenever Georgians pass a church they cross themselves three times, so it is common to see people stopped in the middle of my street crossing themselves furiously.  Surprisingly we had school that day, not surprisingly few students showed up and those who did were petulant about not being able to leave early and walk to the church.  I asked my 5th grade what was special about this day and how they celebrate.  They explained to me that it commemorates when St. George killed a dragon ( I think?) and that they go to the church and sacrifice sheep.  The older of my host sisters invited me to join her classmates on a picnic.  Since only 3 of my students showed up for our lesson, I was released early for the picnic.

Gori Jvari in the distance

The  "walk" to Gori Jvari takes about an hour and is straight up hill.  We were only a few in a sea of many people making their way to the church.  The air was heavy with festivity (and wine).  The wind always blows in Gori, but that day it was particularly strong and I was surprised not to see chickens and Gori dwellers flying off the hillside.  When we finally made it to the church, only a few people from the group went inside to pray while the rest of us stayed outside and enjoyed the view.  I watched as one of the sheep tried to get away from his owner, and by extension his upcoming fate. 

The walk to Gori Jvari

Gori Jvari

Gori Jvari

Our time at the church was brief.  It became clear to me that the most important part of this day was actually the picnic.  We walked about twenty more minutes further into the woods, where the wind couldn't get to us, and settled in.  My host dad had very kindly prepared the lamb shishkabobs for the picnic the night before.  When the boys started the fire and began putting the meat onto skewers my host sister shook her head and said "they don't know what they are doing," and took over the skewer duties.  I was proud of her. Soon we were feasting on lamb, lavash and jonjoli.

(Side note: I have become a fan of jonjoli which is a pickled, green, salty plant that seems to exist only in Georgia.  I recently came home to buckets of light pink and white flowers covering the balcony.  I was told that that is what jonjoli looks like before it gets pickled.  There are now several jars on the counter waiting to be eaten.)

After about an hour I ran out of things to talk about with this group of 16 year-olds.  Turns out we don't have all that much in common, and I am after all their teacher, so I was ready to head back down as it was also getting chilly.  However, there was still some socializing to be done, so I waited and observed until it was time to go.  As we headed down the hill it got quite cold.  At some point my sister much have realized that she shouldn't be caught coming home without a coat (the fact that a nice young man had lent her his, was not
 going to be a viable explanation for grandma), so she said to me "we must wait here for Kati."  Sure enough a few moments later Kati came running from around the corner with a coat and Nata was able to come home pretending she had it all along.  Sisterhood, it is the same everywhere.

Rock Concert
The latest event in Gori took place last Thursday.  All week my family had been talking about the rock concert that would take place in the city center.  As I was walking around earlier in the day I saw the stage being set up with a huge banner with the European Union Monitoring Mission logo and about a dozen of their cars lined up.  I didn't realize that the EUMM could take time off from their peacekeeping duties (they monitor the peace accords between Russia and Georgia) to hold rock concerts.  A highlight for my family and students was that Vassia, a very charming Russian teacher from my school who is known for being quite the jazz musician back in his youth, was going to be playing in this concert.  He joined a group of young and old musician and rocked Gori post-Soviet style.  The music sounded exactly like what you would expect rock in the former-Soviet Union to sound like.  I went with my host family and my friend Netty, which added up to a gaggle of girls and Uncle Zaza.  It appeared that everyone in Gori was at this event, all age groups, dancing around together, eating sunflower seeds and drinking fanta.  I said to Netty that the only thing missing was the "Saqartvelo!" chant.  And moments later there is was.  We later walked home with the gaggle of girls singing "I love rock and roll."  


Life is good in Gori.