Maguala's birthday!

Seeing the house change as it was prepared for Maguala’s birthday supra filled me with nostalgia, excitement and dread. The nostalgia came from recognizing that unique pre-party feeling. There’s a certain atmosphere to the two or three days before a large party. It’s created by all the cleaning and planning. Calling guests and friends, gathering groceries, cooking massive amounts of food, counting and re-counting drinks, arranging furniture and pulling out extra chairs…This always was one of the environments in which my mother was happiest and most easily frustrated, so those days felt a bit like  being at home. The excitement came from the fact that this was the second birthday supra at our house since my arrival. The first birthday had been my own: a party I didn’t plan with guests I didn’t know and jokes I couldn’t understand because my Georgian wasn’t very good. This, though, was a party for my host-grandmother. Though Eka still controlled much of the planning, Maguala had a guest-list of family members and friends who have known her for all of her life. The dread came from knowing that I always stop being family when Eka has other guests. As such, I knew I could anticipate watching Nona, Eka and Jumberi work while being politely but firmly instructed to sit with the guests.

Having off school for the two days that I was home before the supra was a treat. Eka and Nona had work, so I sat in the kitchen with Maguala. Her usual routine is as follows: she gets up at 6, gets dressed, and starts cooking breakfast. In reality, breakfast doesn’t usually (unless she’s making some kind of bread) take very long. Sometimes when I’ve been sick or unable to sleep, I’ve wandered into the kitchen in these early hours. Inevitably, I find Nona softly snoring, the macaroni noodles cooking over the fire, and Maguala sitting by the fire, staring out the window. The rest of the house gets up between 8 and 9. Eka and Nona drink coffee. They eat with me and head off to work. I help with dishes while Jumberi eats alone—which he does at every meal, usually eating from a bowl with all of the previous day’s leftovers mixed into it—and then I sit down to work. As I read, write, or study, Maguala cleans everything. She washes the floor with a wet rag on the end of a long pole. She sweeps. She irons shirts, trousers, socks, underwear, skirts, tablecloths, dishrags, window curtains…everything. Then, around 12, she sits by the fire. If a neighbor hasn’t come visiting by then, she calls one or two of them and says “You don’t want coffee today?” Usually at least one friend comes, but sometimes she turns to me and decides that I need a study break. She makes Turkish coffee and eats some sweets or fruit. After at least an hour, the friend either insists that she must go home or she starts doing dishes. I usually help with the dishes and then return to my books. Meanwhile, Maguala (and possibly another visitor or myself) begins cooking. She cooks constantly, and she’s very good at it. She spends the day cooking, cleaning, watching TV, gazing out the window, yelling at her husband or her daughter, singing to herself, or eating with friends.

With her birthday party looming, Maguala’s schedule changed to focus almost exclusively on cooking. Instead of one or two friends coming by for a coffee hour, we would have 7 or more older women come and bustle around the kitchen. I like the old women with their humor. They are earthy and worn and sometimes as pushy with me as they are with each other. They are amused by my attempts at their language and my insistence that I really don’t have time for a husband. They insist that I must find life in Oni boring. Twice I’ve been asked to marry someone’s grandson because a Georgian surname would suit me and a visa to America would suit the boy. More often I’m asked if I like Georgian food and if I want to learn how to make beautiful supras. Food presentation is taken as seriously as food preparation here. The women cut cucumbers and carrots into flower-like bowls for pomegranate seeds. These garnish plates on which eggplant strips and carrot salads have been arranged to look vaguely like sunrises. Sometimes the women look over at me and laugh. “Look what a good girl she is,” they call to Maguala, “See how she’s studying how we make these dishes!” Kargi gogo var. Vitsi…an…ese minda viqnebi…

The day of the supra, I actually left to go hiking with Michael—the other English teacher—and his neighbor’s grandson Saba. It was snowing, but we went up into the mountains without too much trouble. Periodically Saba threw fireworks ahead of us or took out his lighter to play with. We talked a bit about our vacations, and then we asked Saba about his school and his interests. Saba is 12 and lives in Tbilisi, which for all intents and purposes is the center of the world. He studies English, Russian and French. English, he claims, is his favorite, while Russian is the easiest. He likes Justin Bieber, Eminem, 50 Cent, Tupac, and The Beatles. He likes “Tom and Jerry.” He likes mountain walks, books, and sniper video games. He also likes my Georgian; he said my American accent is very funny to listen to but that my grammar is pretty good.

It was nice to finally have some exercise, but soon I had to go home. I had been told to be home around 3 to help set up for the 6 o’clock supra. There were lots of women running around the house, but Eka didn’t get home until 5. She brought gifts from a friend: extra glasses and two new wine jugs. Over the course of the evening, Maguala also received a mug with an onion soup recipe on it (in English), chocolate, a set of coffee cups, a new set of wooden spoons and spatulas, and a cake stand. People kept coming into the kitchen and then it was time to move into the big room for the supra. Usually, we don’t  use this room because it’s so cold. However, the door between the big room and the kitchen had been left open all day so that some of the heat from the fire would creep through and warm things up. Beyond that, guests who were cold could only dress up and drink faster, both of which they did.

At first I was at a table with only the old women. They were family members and close family friends, and I was rather happy to share their company. After my first piece of khachapuri, the only male guests arrived: cousin Giorgi, his friend Tornike, and our previous houseguests Zaza and Merabi. The old women told me a few times that Tornike is a dzalian kargi bitchi. Sometimes this phrase sincerely means a “very good boy.” Sometimes it means that he can sing, dance, play a few instruments, that he has a handsome face and that he doesn’t have a wife. The old women insisted I change tables, so soon I was seated with the boys and two of Eka’s girlfriends from Tbilisi. They passed horns of wine. Maguala’s mother danced with Giorgi and I danced with Jumberi. Merabi decided to teach me Georgian swear words. Maguala laughed with her friends, and it was generally a good time.

When the evening ended, I had drank more than I wanted but not too much. I had also eaten more than I wanted but somehow managed to avoid eating too much as well. Between the excitement, the hike, and then wine, I was exhausted. I helped clean up, dried the dishes (this is almost always my role because the well-trained house-wives don’t typically trust me to wash the dishes well but they know I want to be useful), and then went to bed.

I’ve learned to be very careful with supras. First, there’s the obvious fact that they drink a lot of alcohol at these things. Being able to drink well is a sign of strength. It’s one of the few times I can convince anyone that being unmarried does not make me a child. Since most people make their own wine and tcha-tcha, drinking is also a compliment to the family. They take pride in the wine they make and in their toasts, so properly expressing appreciation for both is very important when one is a guest. All of this considered, I’m a 120 lb. 5’4’’ foreign teacher in a small village. So even if I liked being drunk (which I don’t), it really isn’t an option.

Staying sober is complicated a bit further by the fact that Eka and Maguala like to tell people that I don’t eat bread. Women here do all sorts of little things to display how important their appearences are to them. I don’t take part in these rituals simply because they’re things I’ve never done even at home. I don’t wear make-up. I like practical shoes. I don’t wear much jewellery, don’t get manicures, don’t see  a hairdresser every week. One of the few ways that Eka and Maguala can reassure people that I’m not completely alien is announcing that I don’t eat bread. This implies that I’m dieting, which means I care about being pretty, which makes me a good girl. Usually, the hostess will respond with half-hearted protests that I don’t need to worry; at the same time, she decides to forgive my unruly ponytail and her eyes show her approval.

Then she will force food on me. People here don’t seem to be comfortable spending time together without eating. Michael speculates that this has to do with the fact that the people here have known serious hunger and so now they take great pleasure in eating. Maybe this is so, but for me the pleasure of eating is lost when I’m constantly ill from too much polite-eating.

Ah supras: slowly destroying my liver, my stomach, my waistline…at least all of the toasting is good for language practice!

The day after Maguala’s birthday, I studied and drank mineral water and watched the falling snow. Eka had cancelled our morning walk because she didn’t feel well. Shortly after she left for work, I noticed Maguala setting the table. Within 20 minutes, I found myself at a totally different kind of supra. This was just Maguala and her close friends. They enjoyed the leftovers from the night before, including the cake and two bottles of wine. I had been working on an essay and was startled by the appearance of so many guests. I could study through Maguala’s coffee breaks, but continuing work with this many people over would have been considered very rude. So I tried to remember that I should be grateful for these experiences, filled my wine glass with lemonade (to stop the tamada from filling it with wine) and joined the table.

The ladies stayed until it began to get dark and then they politely excused themselves. Two stayed to help Maguala and I clean up. When the cleaning was done, they had tea together and I went back to work.

When Eka and Nona got home, we ate dinner, watched our soap opera and then set about taking down the holiday decorations. Tomorrow is a holiday. No one will explain to me the name or significance of this holiday beyond saying “We cannot have the New Year’s tree still up tomorrow. Ar shiedzleba. It cannot be so.” The rain had washed away the paper doves that had been hanging on the tree in the yard, so we only had to undress the tree in the kitchen and the balloons that were on the ceiling.

Did I ever mention that we had two trees? One is a real pine tree that Eka brought home and planted in the yard. It’s under the grapevines which makes me think 1) that corner of the yard will have particularly acidic soil and this may change the taste of the grapes and 2) the tree won’t be allowed to stay there. It stayed bare until Orthodox New Year, for which paper doves were hung on it. Maguala had written our names on the doves, and Eka kept calling them pidgeons.

Our second tree is a little fake tree (“permanent tree” for marketing purposes) decorated with gold and red ornaments. It’s been in the kitchen, and often Eka would respond to other trees by turning to me and saying that ours was better. I will never have the discipline for a single-color tree, but on our little tree it looked very nice.