Finally settled in at home. From Kiev I flew to Riga. The
plane was super small. It even had propellers on the wings, which I’ll admit
made me a bit nervous. My flight was late landing, so I was worried that I
would miss my connection. I followed the signs to my transfer gate and found
myself at a different gate…staring at a locked door and a sign saying “transfer
bus to D terminal here.” A man came up and told me to wait 5 minutes for an
airline worker to come. So as my flight time drew nearer I stood and waited for
something to happen. It was nerve-racking. The woman did come eventually. She
told me that the current snowstorm in Riga had delayed a flight from Moscow. 4
passengers from the Moscow flight were also trying to fly to Tbilisi, so I was
to wait for them with her and then she would call a bus to take us to our
plane. And that’s exactly what happened: the 4 girls showed up, the airline
worker explained the situation to them in Russian, called the bus for us, and
then said to me in English, “Now we can go.”
I slept through the flight to Tbilisi. When we landed it was
5 in the morning. I was the first person out the “Arrivals” gate, to the
disappointment of the crowd waiting for friends and loved ones there. A friend
told me once that her favorite thing to watch is the moment where a person
walks through a door, searches the crowd, and then spots the person they’ve
been waiting to see. It was strange to have so many people looking hopefully at
the opening door, so many people who then looked away when I walked out instead
of the travelers they were searching for.
Eka had told me that I could get a taxi to the bus station
for 15 lari. I talked to the taxi drivers and they laughed at this price. They
showed me an airport sign that set the price for a ride to the city center at
30 lari. As the bus station is farther than the city center, it was absurd of
me to ask for such a low price. So I gave in. At 6 am I found myself alone at
the Didube Sadguri. I stopped in a
shop to buy a Snickers bar and some cherry juice for breakfast, and then I
waited at the cold, dark bus station for over an hour. When my marshutka pulled
up, I was surprised to see that the driver was not Eka’s uncle. I didn’t
recognize this man, although he knew me by name and knew I was staying with
Eka. He suggested I sit in the marshutka and wait there where it was warmer. I
fell asleep waiting. When I woke up, it was 9 and the sun was up. We waited a
half hour more and then finally started on our way home. I fell asleep again,
and this time when I woke up Eka’s uncle was driving. The two men must have
stopped off somewhere and switched cars. Petia laughed to see how surprised I
was.
I had hoped to get home in time for Keti’s puppet show.
Instead, I got home at 3 and found that we had guests. I texted Keti asking if
I was too late, but she didn’t answer. I helped hostess for a bit, then I
unpacked and showered. Maguala took my laundry, which means the three pairs of
actual pants (as opposed to sweats or dress pants) that I brought have all been
washed, hung out to dry but rained on instead, frozen when the rain turned to
snow, and now hung (still wet, two days later) by the wood-stove.
We had more guests in the evening, because it was Orthodox
New Year. They looked at my pictures, we ate dinner, and then we watched our soap
opera together. At one point, one of the women mentioned that her husband’s
niece was very sick. I was told that this girl is beautiful but that she always
wants to diet. Recently, she decided on a new diet: coffee with lemon juice and
nothing else. Needless to say this didn’t end well, and she passed out in the
shower after few days like this. In other news, a drunk driver hit two children
who were playing next to the street in front of a market two streets over from
us. The children are in bad shape; one was taken to a hospital in Tbilisi. The
aunt of a close friend’s husband passed away so there will be a funeral supra
for her soon. And lastly, Maguala’s birthday is coming up so our home is
preparing to have a supra for her. All the things I missed in one week…
After talking a little more about the coffee-and-lemon-juice
diet idea, Eka and I decided to go walking to the mineral water spring together
every morning from now on. It’s about a 40 minute walk. On the way, Eka
practices English and I get to ask questions. For example, the first day she
learned “war” “bomb” “curious” and “mud.” I learned that there will be a big
fast before Easter and then on Easter Monday we will have eggs died red and we
will picnic in the cemetery. Eka asked why Americans don’t go to the cemeteries
on Easter. I explained that (aside from the fact that not everyone celebrates
Easter because not everyone is Christian) families tend to be spread out in the
US and I don’t know which cemeteries I would need to go to in order to find my
family members. Thinking about it, I would probably be most likely to go to
Mary Lynch’s grave, if I could figure out where it is.
Eka says that the mineral water at the spring we walk to is
known to be good for the sinuses. It’s also good for the skin and eyes, so we
drink it and wash our faces in it. Apparently the mineral water near my school
is good for the stomach, if I drink a liter of it slowly. I’ll remember this…
Maguala and Nona think we’re crazy for taking these walks.
They say it’s unhealthy to be out exercising in the cold. Just like it’s unhealthy
to sit on the floor or the ground (apparently my ovaries will freeze) but it’s
perfectly ok to breathe in the smoke from the wood-stove as we toss cigarettes
and plastic in with the logs. Women here often say that they are dieting and so
are not eating bread. That said they still eat oatmeal, khachapuri, and pasta.
They fry everything in lots of oil, dump heaping spoonfuls of sugar into their
tea and put lots of salt on all their food. Then they say exercise is
unhealthy. What a diet!
The food we eat in my house is very healthy. We have a lot
of veggies and fruit juice, and everything is delicious. With the holidays,
though, I’ve been able to share a table with many different people, and I
really want to laugh every time someone claims to be on a diet. Until recently,
the manifestations of the people’s lack of knowledge about health were harmless
and amusing. Recently, though, my encounter with food poisoning, Nunsa’s
diabetic crisis, and now this story about this girl’s extreme diet have me
wondering what can be done to help educate the people here about how to take
care of themselves. I’m teaching Eka how to stretch before and after our walks,
but beyond that I wonder if there’s anything I can do?
Refocusing, I should also write a bit about yesterday evening.
I was in the middle of writing an essay on Ukrainian politics (because that’s
the most recent thing I’ve learned about) when Eka’s cousin showed up with
another relative, his wife, and their new baby Dmitry. Everyone gathered around
Dmitry, passing him around and fawning over him. Even my host-grandfather and
then neighbor family’s 9-year-old were playing with the baby. It warmed my
heart. Then Giorgi spotted my computer (which I had put on the window when our
guests arrived) and asked Eka if she had her internet modem. She did, and he
then spent the next 4 hours online. During dinner (when he was tamada), he was
chatting on Odnoklassnik (Russian facebook…). Then he looked at cars with the
neighbor’s husband, and when everyone left he stayed behind to watch videos of
Georgian folk singers and play internet billiards. This is the internet modem
with which I’m not allowed to download, watch videos, or video chat because Eka
doesn’t want the bandwidth to be used up. I had other work that didn’t require the
computer, but it was a little frustrating to not be able to work on my essay
because Gio was playing video games and eating the internet bandwidth. Yet no
one said a word (myself included).
Now it’s Monday morning. Eka and I had porridge and coffee
after our morning walk. Eka went off to work and I’m home writing while Maguala
continues to prepare food for her birthday supra. Usually I watch and learn,
but right now she’s making a dish wish chicken livers and pomegranate seeds.
I’ve found myself eating things like chicken liver and veal feet out of
courtesy, but I have to say that I don’t really like these dishes and don’t
feel a need to learn to make them for myself. I’ll stick to shkmeouri and mtsadi.
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