An Old Theater

Snow days at home were always among my least favorite kinds of holidays. To be sure, it was nice to get to sleep in and spend a lazy day in my pajamas…but what good is a free day if the roads are too bad to spend it visiting friends or obliterating my to-do list? Here, though, I can walk wherever I need to go. I don’t really have friends and my to-do list involves studying Georgian verbs, so being home suits me fine. Yesterday, I read and wrote for most of the day. Maguala’s friend came over at noon—as always—and I had coffee with them. This particular friend has recently started bringing her grandchild with her when she visits. 

The women talked for awhile and I quietly sipped my coffee. I don’t usually talk much when Maguala has friends over,  because her coffee-hour is her one time to relax and enjoy herself each day. This time, though, I tried to take part when matters turned to slightly less-serious problems. And what a reaction I got!

You see, at theater practice the previous day, Giorgi announced that the local government had reniged on their promise to sponsor (in part) his group’s performance. Ineza, the German speaker, explained to me that they need 2000 GEL to buy costumes and some curtains for a very basic set. That’s about $1500. The woman from the local government that Giorgi talked to said he should just have his parents send the money from Tbilisi. To contextualize this, let me reiterate that the government had already said they would provide some funding and let me say that Tbilisi has a staggeringly huge percentage of her population living below the poverty line. Not that Giorgi or his parents are part of that statistic necessarily—I don’t know, but the probability that his parents have that kind of money to send to a place that doesn’t want to do anything to help itself…

Giorgi responded by leading a team-building exercise and entreating his cast to take heart. They responded by saying simply “We’ll perform regardless.” Maybe because I’m an American or maybe because I’m a Villa girl (my high school has a reputation for turning out over-achievers), my reaction was totally different. I sat down with paper and a pencil and brainstormed. Fundraising in Oni wouldn’t work: most people don’t have much spare money and the politics between the families are too complicated. Certainly, they could use a coffee-shop or a bakery; someplace that sold to-go hot coffee would do very well because such a commodity is cheap to produce, cheap to buy, in demand, and fashionable enough that people would be drawn to it. But the theater group can’t have a bake sale or coffee stand because family members without money would feel obliged to support them and neighbors from other families might not exactly be supportive. Fundraising in Tbilisi wouldn’t work: again, people don’t have money…and the people in Tbilisi have no reason to send money for a show to Racha. With a bit of internet, we could fundraise in America. The easiest and most practical things to make here and sell there would be either recordings of folk songs or a cookbook.

I figured it could work pretty easily. The people here are proud of their music and their recipes, so I figured they wouldn’t be opposed to sharing these things—pooling their talents to generate marketable commodities which would cost them nothing and potentially support their performance. If they recorded music, I could send the files home to either my sisters or my friends. They could burn CDs to sell cheaply at theater performances at Villa, Malvern, NYU…I have a lot of friends in theater, and $1500 isn’t an impossibly huge sum to raise. If the cast here provided recipes, it would be more work for me. I would have to translate everything, organize it into a single document, and then look up book-printing services in the US. Again, a sister or a friend would have to pick up the books and sell them, but it wouldn’t be very difficult. Within a few minutes, I was feeling pretty pleased and sure that we could solve their budgetary problem. And really, why were they relying on the government for funding anyway?

I figured very incorrectly. I tried to talk to Giorgi about it, but he just wanted to tell me how much he likes my nose and wants me to come to Tbilisi with him. So that didn’t work. Then, when Maguala was telling her friend about their situation during their coffee-hour yesterday, I told her my idea. I was careful with my phrasing. I needed to make sure that I didn’t sound patronizing, that I didn’t reinforce any misconceptions about Americans having lots of money lying around, and that I use the right tenses for all my verbs. She laughed and asked why I would want to help. Vistvis? Giorgis? Sisuleli xar. she said. “For whom? Giorgi? You’re ridiculous.”

And that was the end of it. I’m ridiculous. Working is ridiculous. Self-efficacy is ridiculous. Wanting to support a cause outside one’s own self is ridiculous. It’s a mindset that drives me crazy, but that I was warned about before I came here. A friend in Prague told me that Eastern Europeans have a special apathy that they cherish. A friend who lived in Russia told me that the deficit of men post-WWII led women to spoil the men who were there, so that now there are many lazy men and many cynical over-worked women. After first visiting Georgia, a friend told me that the soviet mentality (rather than a communist mentality) has led people to treat the exteriors of their cities with indifference. He reported that apartments may be nice and people may take great care of their clothes, but at the same time they let the balconies crumble from their buildings because such things are considered the responsibility of the government. And usually the government does nothing.

6 o’clock rolled around, and Maguala and I got ready to go to play practice. Today, they were practicing in the old theater at the House of Culture. Maguala warned me to dress warmly because the building isn’t heated, and off we went. I’d been to this building once before. At the time, I was there to record voices for Keti’s puppet show. I was also very sick, which spurred me to go in search of a bathroom. I found a room with a sink, a urinal-like hole in the floor, and a swastika graffitied on the wall. As we crunched through the snow to the building this time, I said a quick prayer of thanks that this time I was healthy. We walked first through an empty blue room with pictures all over the walls. Giorgi Berishvili and Goiko told me that the room was a discotheque 15 years ago. Goiko’s uncle used to work at the bar there. The pictures, they also told me, are all from performances that were held in the big theater. There were photos of our Avto as a young man, of Keti and her brother as children, of Maguala’s neighbors and of Batono Giga Japaridze himself.

We walked into the huge theater auditorium, and I was breathless. The walls and ceiling were elaborately decorated with wallpaper that is now ripped and discolored in some places. I saw the windows in the back of the theater where a video projector may have been, and then Goiko suggested not standing under them because pieces of the ceiling there were crumbling. I was wondering about the people who used to come use this space. He was worrying about pieces of concrete hitting me in the head and killing me. Amazingly, this is typical.

While the cast milled around complaining about the cold and waiting for the few who are always late, I explored under and behind the stage. The stage itself is relatively new. Obviously it was rebuilt recently. Underneath, though, the floorboards sagged and cracked as rotten wood gave way under my feet. The giant turntable in the middle of the stage was long ago rendered stationary by rusted gears and swollen old wood. The rooms upstairs had holes in the walls and cracks in the ceilings. There were no panes in the windows, so the old costumes hanging like ghosts in some of the rooms were more worn from weather exposure than from use.

I did a lot of thinking during the practice. Giorgi had other girls there to flirt with, and the old women were too cold to do more than throw coats at me (I was buried under 4 at one point)…so I was left with my thoughts in the cold creaky theater for about three hours.

Obviously, fixing the ceiling or the windows in the theater would require a lot of money and a lot of work. Other things, though, like painting the stage or sweeping the floor would greatly improve the space and could be done cheaply. If on one spring day someone cared enough to air out the room and spend a few hours with a mop, the space would be much more lively. The front room, the old discotheque, is in perfectly good condition and the bar almost looks new (if empty). The more I learn about this place, the more of a puzzle it becomes. At first, I wondered that there were no public places for socializing other than the street. There are no bars or cafes or theaters…Over the past few months I’ve learned that once Oni had all of these things. They gave people places to meet outside their homes, but more importantly they gave young people places to laugh and they provided badly needed jobs.

The café closed when the Germans who ran it fled the war. The theater fell into disrepair after its last director passed away. The declared center of Oni has changed its face over the past two decades, but more interesting is that the actual center (where the traffic is concentrated) is both unacknowledged and on the opposite side of town from where it used to be. One war meant that wealthy tourists stopped coming from the north and a second war meant that visitors coming from Tbilisi could no longer take the short-cut through South Ossetia. As a result, the flow of traffic (what there is of it) through Oni was totally reversed. Some streets are hardly streets at this point. Some buildings have been bombed or earthquake damaged, and rebuilding them would take more money than anyone here has. Some buildings just need a little love and elbow grease, but things are complicated. Love and elbow grease aren't possible if people don't care enough to give them...if people don't see a point to expending effort on something that could be confiscated or bombed and that doesn't give them any concrete benefits. 

I want to know why they think the way they do. I also want to know why I think the way I do. Why should they put effort into fixing up a theater? Why do I feel an urge to help them? How I long to understand......

Horse races and a museum

There’s a lot going on in my head right not. A few days ago,  a friend of Eka’s called and said he would be bringing me a horse after school on Tuesday. Needless to say, I was pretty excited. Tuesday was a good day at school. I taught passive voice (let’s talk relocation of responsibility?) and the human knot game. Then I rushed down to Oni, more aghprtovanebuli than I’ve been in a long time. I was beyond excited. A car pulled up with Baka, Giorgi and two other men I didn’t know. I dropped my bag in my friend Tatia’s shop—thinking I wouldn’t be gone long—and then got into the car with the men. We drove to Baka’s house where there were two horses waiting for us.

How do I start to explain…Understand that I had no idea where we were going or even who would be going. I just knew that there would be at least one horse. What I figured out was that Bakari and I would be riding alone to a picnic site by a hilltop cemetery in a very old village near here. At first, he gave me the big dapple-grey horse, which was “slow but smart.” It had a Georgian saddle, with a huge padded pommel and cantle. The padding completely prevented me using my legs the way I used to with the dressage saddles I so loved; only the bottoms of my calves could touch the horse’s sides, and he pretended not to feel them. For a little while, we went along with Baka trying to figure out whether I actually knew how to ride. He explained that Georgians ride with both reins in one hand because that frees up the second hand for holding a whip (tree branch, in my case) or a gun or both. He told me to take my feet out of the stirrups when we were going over icy spots so that I could land on my feet if my horse fell. Apparently when we ride at nights in the summer, we’ll attach bells to our horses’ tales so that the noise will scare away wolves. Georgian riding, he explained, was designed to be as practical as possible for a people who were always either hunting or at war.

As my horse plodded along, he reigned his to keep it beside me. He lit a cigarette, and as we left Oni behind us he redefined my landscape yet again. As we passed a cemetery that I’m well familiar with by now, he explained that it was for the Armenians—separate from the Georgian Orthadox cemetery a little ways away. For the first time I understood why this cemetery was so small and unkept. There haven’t been Armenians here in quite some time. Baka pointed out which mountains marked the Ossetian border. He’d been there both as a guest and then as a soldier, and we talked about how the people are not the government…how we love our Russian friends and the people in the separatist regions but how the Kremlin and the KGB (South Ossetia’s police) make keeping in touch difficult.

We talked about music—about rock and about jazz—and about parachuting and off-roading. At some point, we hit a sunny stretch of road. My horse kept plodding along, no matter how I tried to urge it along. Baka laughed and offered to switch. He had decided that I do know how to ride after all, so I mounted the small black horse with the Russian saddle. The saddle was strange for me. My legs were slightly closer to the horse, but the front of the saddle sloped steeply upward. This tilted me back far more that I’m comfortable with. Before I could think about it too much, Baka gave a shout and we shot off up the side of the mountain. I couldn’t help but laugh as we galloped up a muddy mountain road, past 100 year old village houses (now used as dachas and so standing regal but empty through the winter)…and there I was with one hand steering and the other gripping both my tree-branch whip and the metal pommel of the saddle. It was brilliant.

When we got back to Oni we visited with Baka’s mother before going to a small supra at Eka’s best friend’s husband’s house.

Yesterday, Matsatso and I arrived at school around 3^rd period, just as the Georgian Ministry of Education called to inform our head teacher that they were cancelling school for the day da xval da zeg. Which meant that they were giving us Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off…except that we had already started Wednesday. Having hiked up the hill, we decided to have school anyway. Maybe this means they’ll play with our attendance books. My co-teacher told me that we’ll make up the days over a weekend (as opposed to in the summer like American schools do)…so having un-officially proceeded with the school day means we’ll make-up two days instead of three. Fine by me.

When school finished, Baka called. His mother works at the museum here, and he suggested that we go together so he could show me around. 

So we went to the museum. He and his mother talked about money in hushed voices for a minute—I would later learn that the two of them live on his mother’s 100 GEL/month salary (which is next to nothing)—yet they refused to let me pay the 3 GEL admission fee for myself. Then we began our grand tour.

The museum is tiny. Most museums struggle to get funding for refurbishments and restorations, but this building clearly had been damaged by years of mountain weather, earthquakes and bombings. Baka’s mom followed us, turning on lights as we entered rooms and then turning them off as we left. There were three rooms on the bottom floor. In the first were an easel, a piece of metal that had been hand-bent by a legendary strongman (displayed next to his picture and medals of government recognition), miniature replicas of different building types from the region, and some works of taxidermy showcasing the kinds of wildlife found in the surrounding woods. In the second room were beautiful oil paintings in a variety of styles. I didn’t get to look at them too closely, because Baka called me over to some glass cases in which were showcased metal decorations and jewellery from antiquity. These were truly ancient artifacts—some of the labels claimed 2^nd century origins—and it seemed so strange to be seeing them in these little cases in a tiny museum. But things were about to get wilder. The third room we entered looked like an artfully arranged store-room. It was crowded with artifacts. Some were stacked as if waiting to be documented and archived; some were obviously arranged for visitors to admire. Baka was picking things up and turning them over, constantly calling to me to come see these hand-carved trunks, these straw shoes, these stone arrowheads, or these wine casks. He told me how things were made and what they were made for. I was so grateful that he was showing me around and silmultaniously so amazed at how much I understood of what he was saying (probably more because of his expressiveness than my linguistic prowess).

When we went upstairs, there was only one big room and a small hallway. In the hallway were woolen tapestries and some carved fragments of stone. In the big room were a series of photographs of people and buildings from the area. There was also a huge painting of Stalin looking out over the  sea, which Baka and I both stared at (me for the first time but he certainly had seen it many times before) long enough for our very complicated feelings about it to be mutually understood without a word being spoken in any language.

Then we decided to head back out into the snow. Baka borrowed a car from a friend and we drove as far as we could through the snow, just to admire the mountains. Then we went back to Oni to run a few errands and return to our homes. I got home just in time to eat dinner and walk to play practice with Maguala.

Sometimes life here seems deceptively simple. These are the descendants of a few mountain families. They’ve lived here forever. They will continue to do so in spite of fault lines and governments and unusually freezing winters. They make wine from their grapes. They go to market each Thursday even when they don’t have money so that they can later have coffee with their friends and discuss the prices or availability of goods. They rejoice over marriages and children, over new socks or spoons, over tiny violets peeking through the snow. They argue about politics and governments. They never have money, but they always have cigarettes, perfume, and food for guests. I am here for one school year to speak English to their children.

But then things get complicated. The relationships between branches of different families are carefully tracked. The young people have cell phones and facebooks and video games, but they don’t have jobs because there aren’t many here. Without jobs, they don’t have money to pay for electricity or internet or to care for their parents as tradition dictates they should. They also don’t have much incentive to stay, though some will out of love for the land. They don’t understand nutrition or medicine. They don’t trust doctors or police. They don’t understand why it’s wrong for their president to arrest members of the opposition party or allow civilians to be fired from their jobs for signing a petition. They don’t have parades because the Soviets held mandatory parades. They are afraid of war, but they’re more afraid of earthquakes, wolves and bears. Each year, there are fewer marriages, children, new socks and new spoons. Each year, the violets push their way through the snow. The children are studying English in part because the government here wants America to protect them for Russia and help them reclaim their separatist regions. The American government is very aware of Georgia’s proximity to Iran, and more than once I’ve been told by a thoughtful soul that he is worried war between America and Iran will mean many Georgian casualties. I’m afraid he’s right.

I’m here—a government import, sent by and supported by a “democratic” government that could use a little bit of cleaning up (as could my own of course). I’m here—a young and unmarried woman with somewhat Georgian features and a sincere interest in their humanity. I love their language, their music, their mountains, their stories. I love their history, their borrowed words, and their toasts. I love their kiln bread and their hot peppers. I love the laugh lines around their eyes, the worry lines on their foreheads and the callouses on their hands. I know their alphabet, am good with children, can make a warm fire, and cook strange delicious foods. Because of all these things, they like me and I belong to them. Yet is-is iqo ra I’m here—a perfectly intelligent woman who doesn’t want a husband and who would leave my parents to come here. I left my family and my country to be here. I expect  that they will return my respect with respect. I ride horses and sit on the floor, wear shirts that expose my collar-bones to the winter air, and make fun of soap operas. I question the news and the government. I don’t spend money on expensive perfumes or shiny accessories. I wash my hair even when the weather is cold, but I don’t wash my shoes each week. I carry a pocket-knife, have my cartiledge pierced, and play football. I read, write, and eat only when I’m hungry. And so they are a bit unsure about me…even after all this time.

This is a paradox-filled adventure. They can’t believe I would leave my family for so long, yet they can’t believe that I don’t want to marry a nice Georgian boy and stay here forever. I’ve never been so sought-after and yet so completely alone. I can turn tricks left and right to impress them, yet I won’t be a woman until I’ve been wived. They want me to dress up to spend time in decrepit buildings where I should be beautiful enough to attract men yet be careful not to be kidnapped. 

I knew this year would teach me a lot even before I was sure I would come. Now I know that I'm learning a lot, but it will still be a year or two perhaps before I know exactly the scale and scope of these lessons.

A new month and a new adventure...

Michael and I were supposed to teach our English lesson at the Resource Center yesterday. However, when we arrived we were greeted by dark rooms, a locked door, and a man who just kept saying “No-No-Ara-Nyet.” As we tried to kindly escape the No-man so that we could phone Nino and figure out how everyone but us had been told class was cancelled, Giorgi walked up. Or George, perhaps. The theater director.

It turns out that he is running theater workshops for children as well as for adults. He asked is we were coming to the workshop. Since we had suddenly found ourselves free for the evening, we thanked him for the invite and followed him upstairs.

For the past few nights, I’ve been going to the adult rehearsals with Maguala. I go for a number of reasons. First, I understand a few more of the lines each night. This means the story is revealing itself to me with more and more detail each night. Second, I like listening to Giorgi and watching him work. I’ve always liked watching creative people work, but here the situation is rather special. Most of the actors are older people from the town. From what I can make out, most of them have been dancers, actors, singers, or artists. In one conversation, an older woman asked why a handful of people whose family name has a history of being attached to creative people weren’t there. Giorgi replied that they had all declined to participate in his show. They said they’re too busy. However, the show is being dedicated to their surname’s most famous patriarch. It will be performed in a theater that was named after the great man because of the great works he directed and acted in there. Now here’s this (brilliant and well-intentioned) outsider (he has a different surname) come from Tbilisi (even though he’s from Racha) to try to revitalize the theater in memory of their patriarch…something they never did themselves. Think there’s a bit of jealousy here? I do. It would explain why so many people close to the surnames of my host family are involved in the play and are critical of Keti’s puppet show. It’s like I fell into the world of the Montagues and Capulets—were they families of mountain artists—and didn’t realize there was a feud until I had already become attached to the people on both sides. After a bit of fumbling, I’ve learned how to be as vague as possible if I ever have to talk to people on one side about people on the other.

I was on my way to saying that I like to watch Giorgi work with the older people. He addresses them as “aunt” and “uncle.” His lead is our Giorgi: the bus-driver with a law degree who loves singing about Racha and is about Giorgi’s age. The two of them spar and shout and then laugh and go back to the show. Some of the older women consider themselves divas. The dialogues are in a heavily poetic dialect that everyone has trouble with. In short, Giorgi has to somehow demonstrate how much he respects each of these cast members while also managing and directing them to prepare for the performance. The very first practice, he had to remind them that “it’s called a repetition (the Georgian word for rehearsal) because you’re supposed to repeat! You can’t do something different each time!” Yet he had to say this to people who consider themselves quasi-professionals without sounding patronizing.

So when yesterday I found myself following Giorgi up to the rehearsal room a full 2 hours before Maguala’s rehearsal, I was intrigued and excited. We joked as we walked up the stairs, but when we entered the rehearsal room, his whole demeanor changed. There were about 15 students from age 11 to 18 waiting for him. Some of them were from my school—some of my cleverest and most charismatic kids. Giorgi continually addressed them as “kids” or “my good ones.” He was strict: correcting their posture, barking at them for whispering, calling them out for not supporting each other. He began by sitting them down and explaining what kinds of behavior he doesn’t like in children. Then he told them what kinds of behavior he likes in people.

He asked them about their names and backgrounds. He asked them what they think theater is and what they consider Georgia’s conflicts to be. From there he went into an exercise. He asked how many of them were familiar with Tbilisi. All except one student raised their hands. He congratulated the one girl who didn’t raise her hand, and then he asked the others if they were familiar with the metro system. They said they were. He asked them to close their eyes and picture a subway car. When they opened their eyes, he asked how many seats their subway cars had. The answers ranged from 6 to 12. Then he asked if the people on the imaginary subway cars were talking to each other. The students said no. He explained that he wanted them to notice how they each counted the subway seats differently. This, he said, was because they each have their own minds and imaginations, and that this is part of human nature. Then he remarked that it’s true that people in such a small space as a subway car often don’t talk to each other, and that this is part of our nature too.

He continued: “Theater is about conflict. When people have conflicts, they can go in the street and start hitting each other in the face.” I can’t directly translate what was said next, but the gist was that theater presents a better platform for analyzing and resolving conflicts. In part, this is because the actors learn how to empathize with someone else through becoming someone else. On stage, he stipulated, they were to keep their street lives to themselves. What was going on at home, who they liked, whose family they disliked…all of it was banned from the stage. Then he put them through a series of exercises, including one which—remarkably—had them sitting on the floor. 

Maybe I'm a bit awe-struck.

Sonnet 66

Yesterday, I walked into the mountains with Michael. Today, my body feels like it’s made of spaghetti. New muscles! Yay!

After our walk, we went back to his house. His host parents have been a bit upset that he comes to my house so often yet I don’t usually go there. So I went and we ate and drank and read Shakespearian sonnets in Georgian. His host mother asked me to specifically read sonnet 66. She said it’s her favorite. I can’t remember all of it, but the gist is that the world is cruel and unfair. The speaker is pained by this situation and is tempted to seek refuge in death. He resists the temptation because he doesn’t want to leave his love alone to face the world. With lines about censorship and distorted perceptions of justice, the poem was not one that I was expecting someone here to point out as her favorite.

The more I learn the language, the more complicated life here becomes. I’m grateful, but I’m also a little scared. Five months is a long time…although my co-teacher did say today, “Easter is close. It’s only two months away. Of course, Saint Valentine’s day is first. But two months is not a long time because time—however long—runs away quickly.”

After lobio and cake and wine, went home and passed out. That hike really tired me out.

At school today, I made macaroni and cheese for all the teachers. I also taught most of the lessons because my co-teacher took some cold medicine that made her very sleepy. We were both pretty out of it today.

Maguala had asked me to bring eggs home after school. She said she would be making a cake and that I could watch and record the recipe. I’m home now, but she’s not here. I’m just going to read until she gets home. Maybe I’ll go to play practice with her again tonight.

I’m sleepy. And I want a dog to cuddle with.

Sonnet 66:

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, 
As, to behold desert a beggar born, 
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, 
And purest faith unhappily forsworn, 
And guilded honour shamefully misplaced, 
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, 
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled, 
And art made tongue-tied by authority, 
And folly doctor-like controlling skill, 
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, 
And captive good attending captain ill: 
   Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
   Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

Just an ordinary day...

It snowed all last night, but this morning the weather was clear—if cloudy—just long enough for Eka and I to have our morning stroll. When we got back to the house, we sat down for pre-breakfast coffee and cake. She outlined our day: we would clean my room, clean the kitchen, shower, eat, study PowerPoint, and then go and visit her grandmother. I agreed and then excused myself to my room to change clothes…and to pre-clean.

When I came back from Ukraine, I found that she had very thoroughly cleaned my room. My books were stacked in a different place and she had changed how my clothes were grouped in my drawers. It’s normal for Eka to decide to clean my room, and she insists no matter how I protest so I’ve just learned to pre-clean. Usually I straighten up before leaving for school each morning. She has the best of intentions (I trust) when she goes through my drawers and my books. Aside from having the whole everyone-knows-everything small town lack-of-privacy, I also have this situation at home. It’s…I can deal, but I’m glad I have nothing to hide.

The day didn’t quite go as planned. Eka started cleaning the kitchen and sent me to the store. I needed to pick up a few things anyway, because I’m cooking at school on Monday. I had to go to three stores to find everything on my list, but it was nice to be outside. By then the snow had started again and was falling in huge flakes. When I got home, I unpacked the groceries and made chocolate-covered-pretzels. Eka had already cleaned the kitchen and had moved on to my bedroom. Michael called and asked if I wanted to go play in the snow. What a silly question!

Being a skier, he thought to bring water-proof clothes. We dressed up like plastic penguins and then went to the soccer-field where there was lots of fresh snow waiting for us. We built a huge snowman in the goal. Michael estimated that our snowman-goalie was about 8’ tall by the time we finished. It was epic. We took pictures with it, and then Michael buried me and sculpted wings and a halo. Instead of making a snow-angel, I became one. One of his students showed up while I was buried. The boy traced Michael’s name in the snow and then brought us a carrot for the snow-goalie’s nose. Precious.

We returned to my house for coffee and a few games of chess. Which I lost. Then Eka strongly suggested that I go next in the shower, so Michael said good-bye and I went to shower. My hair has been getting really long. The first time I asked about getting it cut, Eka said the woman who cuts her hair could do it. Then she decided that I need a real hairdresser, so she said we would go to one in Tbilisi. The first time we were in Tbilisi, she went without me. The second time (when I was there alone), she had me stay with her family. I’ve asked Maguala a few times about cutting just the ends, but Eka always manages to throw some obstacle in the way. She’s admitted that she doesn’t want me to cut my hair because she likes it long. Finally today, I insisted that it needed to be cut. So she cut it. She barely took any off, but the dead parts are gone so I’m just going to be amused…and think about what would happen if I disappeared to the city for a weekend and came back with short hair.

After my hair-cut, Eka and I had lunch/dinner. Then we started to study PowerPoint, but we were interrupted by her cousin’s arrival. Giorgi—her cousin—had brought another Giorgi. This new guest is a Rachuli Tbilisi-dweller. At first, I was told that he’s a director. I thought he must do something with the government or schools or something. Then I was told that he’s an art specialist. I still was unclear what this meant, but he was nice enough and we went through the usual routine where a guest asks a nearby Georgian about my background and I answer all the questions. Eka and Maguala petted me and babied me. Then I was excused from our PowerPoint because the Giorgis invited me to follow them and Maguala. I didn’t know where we were going, but any chance to do something different is worth jumping on. Gio laughed as Eka fussed over my hat and scarf. In front on new guests, they fuss over me so that everyone can see how they take care of their guest. And what I little girl I am. I usually play along, but when someone interesting comes along and I want to have a grown-up conversation, I’m always tempted to pat Eka and Maguala on the heads, tell them what good children they are, and then focus on our guest.

Luckily, Giorgi wanted to practice his English. As we walked through the snow, he asked if I like the people here. I answered that of course I do, and then he surprised me by asking if there is anything that I don’t like. I thought for a moment and then answered honestly that I come from a culture where being a guest is about spending time with the other person. It isn’t that I don’t like the guest culture here, but it’s difficult for me because I want to spend time with people here but they just want to feed me…regardless of whether I want to eat or not. He said that there is a very aggressive guest culture in the caucus countries. He understood why I struggle with it, and he explained that it isn’t the culture in Azerbijan or Armenia so he doesn’t understand why it’s so strong here. It was a thoughtful question and a thoughtful analysis of my anwer.

By then we had reached the Resource Center and he was taking out his key. As I followed him and Maguala up to the theater room, I wondered what Giorgi is doing in Oni and why his conversation felt so refreshing. When we got upstairs, he pulled out booklets and set them on a chair. As he continued unpacking, I picked up one of the booklets. It was a script, and a decently long one. By then, he had finished unpacking. The Giorgis started choreographing a fight with some machetes, and then they asked if I wanted to learn. So I joined for a little while. We fought until other people started showing up. These people were all actors. Giorgi is a theater director (and an actor). He was at Keti’s show yesterday, and he wants to dedicate his upcoming show to her father. As people filed in, I asked what this play is about. He explained as best he could, then he asked someone else to explain in German. Then I watched the rehearsal, and the story feels familiar. Probably because I've been reading so many Georgian folktales...Maybe I'll be able to translate it in full at some point. Hope so!

*points to the mountain* "That's mine!" -Jumberi

This morning Jumberi suggested that we walk to the mineral water spring near my school. One of the dogs came with us, and I pet it while Jumberi stopped to talk to some friends. He pointed to the ruin of a house with a red relief trailer in front of it. I’d passed it before, and Eka had explained that the owner lived in the trailer because she has no money. Jumberi added new information: the woman didn’t want to fix her house for some reason or another, and the woman was Eka’s German teacher when Eka was in school. A man passed us on the street and Jumberi explained that he’s an architect. Pointing to a new house just down the block, Jumberi said that this is one of the man’s buildings. He tapped his head and grunted approvingly. I could hear the unsaid Dzalian nitchierie katsia, “He’s a very clever man.”

We talked about the beauty of the mountains and about the amount of snow. We talked about the dog and about the river. I learned that he has an orchard on the side of one of the mountains I can see from my school and that he can’t wait to take me swimming in the river in the summer. Then he started coughing his missing-half-a-lung cough. He asked for the 100^th time if my father smokes. When I said no, he asked if my grandfather smokes. I answered that I have two grandfathers and that neither smokes. We walked in silence for a minute, and then he asked if I had understood that Maguala’s brother was having an operation. I answered that I had guessed as much, and I asked how the surgery went. He said that it went well and so Eka would be home tomorrow. I told him that my dad had a heart problem and had had surgery when I was younger. He furrowed his brows and asked why this was so. For as often as I find myself frustrated with people here for not working to figure out why and how things work, I also find myself amazed by how often they ask “Why?” If you say you don’t like a food, they ask why. If you don’t speak Russian, they ask why. If you leave America to teach for a low salary in Oni, they ask why. And if you tell them that your dad has a heart problem, they ask why. Often, I just shake my head and say that I don’t know why but this is how things are.

Jumberi pointed to one of the mountains and said that when my sisters visit we can go hike that mountain together. I laughed and told him that my sisters probably wouldn’t visit here. He asked why, and I found myself trying to explain. Georgia is far from America. Plane tickets are expensive. Getting to Oni from Tbilisi is neither easy nor comfortable. My sisters aren’t particularly adventurous and they can’t just leave school to come hike mountains with me. He became sad. Wouldn’t my mother come? I laughed again and said that my mother doesn’t like travelling. Wouldn’t my dad come? I hesitated…I could see my dad flying to Tbilisi, but somehow I couldn’t picture him enduring the 5-7 hour marshutka ride to Oni. Jumberi watched me think. Finally I answered maybe. He smiled, probably as he imagined my father tasting his wine for the first time.

We saw one of my students at the mineral water spring. Mamuka was filling up bottles at the spring while three men stood next to him smoking. Jumberi joined the smoking men and I joined Mamuka, who smiled shyly but didn’t greet me in any language. I filled up our three bottles, and then Jumberi and I headed home.

We ate lunch together, read for a while, and then I went out hiking with Michael. We walked farther than I had thought. At one point, two children came up and told us that we shouldn’t go farther because there were wolf tracks in the snow. We said that we would be ok, and they thought we didn’t understand them. We appreciated their warning, but we saw the footprints and cow tracks in the snow and decided that if the cows weren’t scared then we weren’t either.

The walk was nice. I mentioned that there were times in Berlin when I felt myself changing into someone I wasn’t sure that I liked. At the time, I noticed that most of my problems could have been avoided if I had trusted my instincts and had been more willing to stand up for myself. I became more pragmatic and self-assured, perhaps to the point of being cold and arrogant at times…but I could never tell because I didn’t have old friends around to keep me in check. I spent much of the summer worrying about this (and then worrying if worrying was making me self-absorbed as well). Michael mentioned that he sometimes feels as if he’s becoming more impatient as he lives here. I can see how that would happen. Coming from a different culture to a place where you’re constantly petted, fondled, and force-fed (all this if they like you…imagine if they didn’t!) requires a great deal of patience.

I don’t feel that I’m becoming more impatient, but I do feel that I’m becoming more cynical. An old teacher-friend once told me that she’s fascinated by Eastern Europe but that she has to leave every-so-often in order to maintain her sanity. Otherwise, she said, watching so many people who felt neither responsible for nor motivated towards changing their society made her depressed. Perhaps the social apathy is a survival mechanism: when the big community repeatedly fails a group of people they withdraw into smaller communities. They identify with their regions or their villages or their families; they complain about the government and the state of their streets, but they don’t bother trying to change things. Maybe this is because they don’t know how to start such huge changes. Maybe they worry that change isn’t possible, or that things will get worse and then they will be to blame. Maybe they’re still scared to challenge authority…they carry a social mentality traumatized by its history as a person’s mind may be traumatized by the events in his or her past. I wouldn’t characterize the Georgians I’ve met as apathetic, but their passion doesn’t seem to be focused into anything productive. They love their country and its traditions, but their strange relationship with their government has lead to a strange relationship with their government-run education system. So as much as students may like my school or my lessons, most of them don’t feel that my assignments or my language are worth extra effort on their part. Both stem from the current government…they’ve learned from history that it is safest to play along with the government but also that if they get too involved the next government might decide that they need re-education. People keep asking if I think the Georgians are lazy. I don’t. As always, some people are smarter than others and some are harder workers…Maybe history has taught people here that the best way to protect their culture, language and lives is to make sure they never commit so fully to something that they can be help responsible for it when the winds change. They’ve been taught not to question, not to analyze, not to look for innovations or alternatives. This doesn’t make them bad students; it just makes them difficult students for an American teacher to work with.

I watch the news on the president’s sponsored channel. There’s a segment on Putin making anti-Georgian comments. His Russian speech is dubbed into Georgian for the segment…I can’t help thinking that such editing was unnecessary. As I watch footage of Putin at a supra-like table drinking beer from a huge mug, I think two things: obviously the news station choose footage of Putin drinking beer intentionally, and why isn’t it obvious to them that people would learn more English if they aired programs in English from time to time. Regarding the beer, Georgians have a long history of holding beer suspect. Until recently, one only toasted to one’s enemies with beer. What changed? The patriarch decided to bless beer. Why, I don’t know. Nevertheless, Putin couldn’t be shown drinking wine, so beer it was. Regarding the dubbing, my family watches hours of Russian-language television every day. They watch hours of Georgian television, too, and it’s helped me learn. But I think they’d learn English a little faster if they replaced half of the Russian shows they watch with English ones.

The television is on almost constantly here. It would surely be maddening if I still noticed it. During the day, there are dubbed versions of tella novellas, concerts of Russian singers (lots of re-runs of those), and old Georgian films (I like those). I’ve walked in on Jumberi watching both the Hillary Duff movie and Hannah Montana, dubbed into Georgian. I don’t think he suspected that these are usually watched by pre-teen girls in the US. On weekends, there are shows on which Georgian children in costumes sing and dance. In evenings, we watch some combination of our soap opera, a comedy show, a talk-show, a sitcom (that I actually enjoy now that I understand the dialogue), or a new reality show called Maestro in which conductors compete against each other for the honor of conducting the [national?] orchestra. For most of the rest of the day, someone or another is watching (or listening to) the news. The news is on almost constantly. It gives me many opportunities to watch for themes in the content. Ironically, we watched a special tonight on internet addiction. Of course people here spend a lot of time on the internet. There’s no cinema or roller rink or ice cream parlor or coffee house…but young people have access to computers. There’s a house here where a clever family bought 5 Play Stations and they charge visitors by hour of play. The guests are almost exclusively boys and young men; grown men seem to prefer online gambling and shooting games that they can play at home or at relatives’ homes. After the special, Maguala made a few more comments than usual about how much time I spend at my computer. I wanted to say that I am reading and writing for homework. I wanted to say that spending hours in front of the television isn’t any healthier. Instead I shrugged. Then Jumberi grunted disapprovingly at a news segment about young people giving “free hugs” in Tbilisi. I narrowed my eyes at a series of join-the-military commercials and then a news special about the rising popularity of plastic surgery in Georgia.  I guess we have different sensitivities…

Back to school! Back to school!

Back to school. My co-teacher was late meeting me at the car station, so I got to stand alone in the snow and think a bit about how much has changed since September. Then she showed up and we slowly made our way up the icy path to school. Our first lesson was third grade and sixth grade together. It was difficult to make that a productive hour, but I had them teach me about Georgian holidays. This way, even the third graders could contribute things like “red egg” to a description of Easter. Then we taught fifth grade, in which we had only two students. I wrote B-I-N-G-O in squares of paper, gave each student one of the posters that came with our workbooks, and we played a kind of modified “I Spy”/”BINGO.” My co-teacher liked it, but she was a bit confused. I called out “Do you have something blue? Do you have two of something? Do you have any monkeys?” and the students raced to use all their letters. It worked pretty well. Our only other lesson was in fourth grade, in which we reviewed the last lesson they did from their textbooks. Then we went to the teachers’ room where we were offered chocolate and shots of whiskey to celebrate the first day back at school. One of the teachers mentioned that she had sent me a friend request on facebook. I could tell she was hurt that I hadn’t accepted it yet, and I quickly explained that between Maguala’s birthday and Eka leaving town I really haven’t had any internet. That seemed to make her feel better. I used the school computer to quickly accept her request and then email a friend while the other teachers were huddled around a fire. When they rose to leave, I did the same and we slowly made our way back down into town.

The government had sent me an email that all schools would be receiving complete sets of the English books. According to the email, I would have to go to my educational resources office, turn in my old books, and sign some papers before picking up my new books. I asked my co-teacher and she said she had already picked up my books. Sure enough, in the back room of her friend’s shop were both student and teacher copies of the books for levels 2 through 6. I already have the level 1 books.

I went to the resource center anyway because Michael and I wanted to talk to the woman there about starting English classes for adults. She’s a sweet woman who understands a bit of English and is very patient with my Georgian. I always enjoy spending time with her and with her kids. Today, though, I’m not sure how the meeting went. Originally, she was the one who suggested that we give adult classes. But suddenly she was asking where and for whom? We responded that we had hoped she knew of a place (this being the educational resource center and all…) and that we were willing to teach anybody who wanted to learn. She suggested a class size of 5 and be suggested 15. She asked what the price would be, and we said that we didn’t want money. She was pretty surprised, but she agreed. Then she used a form of the verb “to write” that I wasn’t familiar with. I think she said she was going to write a list of participants…or maybe she said we should do that…I can’t really do any such thing until Eka gets home or I go back to school on Monday. Maybe I could put up signs…but things around here get done because people use their social networks: they call neighbors, friends, cousins, co-workers and old classmates. It’s a tricky place to live as an outsider. Hopefully these lessons work out…

Teaching with Michael would be very different from teaching at my school. We see each other as equally competent and we can communicate freely. I don’t have to worry about diplomacy, and he understands concepts like re-tests, fill-ins, and modeling. Adult students would be difficult, but the atmosphere could be refreshing. And I do like these books. The books don’t work well in the schools yet because the native teachers don’t know how to intuit the directions or purpose of an exercise. In rural places like Oni, the teachers don’t know English well enough to work effectively from an exercise that says “Ask and answer.” They don’t know what forms to use when asking the questions and they don’t know what answers the students should give. They need more explicit instructions on how to use the books. I’m at a point where I’m thinking about how to make sure my time here has sustainable results. Teaching my teacher will have longer-lasting positive effects than just teaching my students, so I’m going to really focus on that this semester. Reading about Peace Corps volunteers who get 2 months language and teaching method training as well as total control over their classrooms, I wonder if they realize how lucky they are.

When I got home, I sat with the iPad and read more than half of Two Years on the Yangtze. It’s the reason I’m comparing my experience to that of a Peace Corps volunteer; it was written by a man who was a Peace Corps volunteer in rural China in the late 1990s. Sometimes, I feel like he’s describing my life in Oni. Other times, his experience couldn’t be further from mine.

Nona stayed late at work, so Jumberi, Maguala and I were the only ones home. This led to an unprecedented event: we ate dinner together. Even Jumberi. We had fried potatoes and they didn’t talk much and I wondered to myself at how curious a thing marriage is in all of its different forms. The common form here seems to be the “we’re at an age where we’re supposed to marry and we can’t have babies otherwise and that’s the reason we’re alive so I guess you’re pretty enough or a good enough dancer…now whose parents do we move in with?” And then after 40 years or so they run out of things to talk about. Eventually someone dies first (usually the man) and the mother fusses over any grown children and pressures them to do the same thing she did. I know this can’t be the case for everyone, but it seems to be one of the most common patterns.

I read more after dinner until Jumberi came over to the table.

“Let’s play dominoes.”

“Ok.”

“Go get them.”

“Ok.”

“Play well or I’ll kill you.” Then he laughed and we started to play. I had really bad luck, but he didn’t kill me. He just got bored and called Maguala over to play against me instead. She was watching a soap opera and so had minimal interest, but she played a quick game with me and I lost again. She went back to her television and I went back to my reading (I almost said “my book”), and things were quiet again.