Super Supra: My Host Father's Birthday

This past March my host dad had a birthday on the 7th. The preparations started on the Sunday (the 4th) and continued up until the last minuet. There was a small army of people who came to help. They tried to put me to work, but I ended up being one of the worst Georgian cooks ever and banished myself to my room. Animals were slaughtered, vegetables were peeled and chopped, and bread was baked. Women gossiped in hush tons as they worked and men drank and did the heavy lifting.

As the sun started to set on the day of the supra, everyone showered and changed into their party clothes. The videographer and the DJ showed up. I greeted people that I knew as they came in and took photos. People commented on the grandness of the whole thing. 

I took my seat with the teachers from my school on one side of me and my host parent’s granddaughter on the other, as I was her favorite American at the party. My host mother had given me instructions to not drink, because the director of my school was present. The people I teach with, thought I should do other wise, and I did. I was told to eat, and eat, and eat. I seat hopped all night visiting with everyone I had come to know in the past six weeks. A woman handed me what I thought was a glass of wine and I downed it like a good little Georgian, it was  liquor. I made a face and everyone laughed. Emily the entertainer had showed up.

I was told to Georgian dance multiple times and stupidly agreed. There is video of it that I still have to burn. I got asked to dance with the village’s most eligible bachelor, while his mom and most people who live here watched. I felt like I was at a middle school dance again.

The supra had started around 7pm and I finally excused myself to pass out around midnight. The next few days were spent having smaller supras to use up the left over mounds of food and cleaning up. Even having spent a couple of years catering I think this beats any $200,000 weddings I have been to. That night I really felt like I was a part of my village community and it’s nights like that, that make me love Georgia and everything about it.

 

Hundreds and Hundreds of Plates

Mushrooms

My Host Dad With his Favorite Village Baby, Saba, on the Morning of his Birthday

Setting a Table

Neighbors Waiting for the Supra to Start

My School Director

My Host Dad's Daughter (left) and her Friend

The Videographer 

The Gem of the Woman Who Gave me Liquor, Not Wine. (Adopting Her and She is Moving to America with Me.)

Me and My Future Georgian Husband ♥

Because This Problem Is Going To Last More Than The Weekend: Part Three

Last Sunday morning (May 13th) I woke up around 7:30am and looked out the window to blue sky and I thought about the night before when I was sure Tbilisi was going to explode. I got on my laptop and spent some time downloading movies, music, and random TV shows that I will probably never get to watching or listening to, but the thought of having over 250GB of entertainment comforts me. I dealt with some of my friends back home and their drunk Saturday night issues that made me wish that I could be there with them, but I’m half a world away and it’s going to be like this for quite some time. 

I started to feel a little sad over this and the fact that I was missing Mother’s Day, again. Last year my mother had been mad at me over buying a last minuet ticket to go to Ukraine to see a guy that I missed. My grandfather gave me his blessing so I won that fight and proved my point, but I still felt like shit that she was fuming at me. The year before that I spent working all day at Gap then Bath and Body Works, which spurred me to quit the latter of the jobs. (What store that is dedicated to women makes their employees work after store hours to move bottles of lotion from one tower to another?) I know I was just missing another brunch were, ok food was being served, but being away from Maine for so long now has put in perspective just how important spending time with family is. I was also still a little upset about a stupid fight I had, had the night before.

I sat in my bed for the whole morning, trying to save the world back in Maine and write a Mother’s Day blog for Mama Otter. I got a text a little after noon, from the moron Jamie, saying that him and George were heading to one of the main streets in Tbilisi. I read it and threw my phone on to my bed and stayed there typing away, not wanting to be near him. I eventually took a shower and packed all my stuff up as the internet at the hostel was acting up and not wanting to upload my pictures and set off in the direction that the guys were. 

I got another text asking were the hell I was, as when both of us are in Tbilisi on Sunday mornings we have brunch together and then take the marshookah back to our villages together. I told him that I was on my way. I stopped in my favorite cafe to get a large coffee to go (It tastes like American coffee) and took it to the cafe where they were eating. When I walked in Jamie verbally assaulted me for having a drink from another establishment with me. I just looked at him and said “It’s Georgia, no one gives a fuck.” George just sat on his MacBook doing what ever he was doing, and sided with me that no one probably cared. (No one does. I sat at a bar last night drink vodka from a bottle that I had bought and chasing it with my juice from my “Adult” juice box. It’s half a liter, that’s what makes it adult.)

In this cafe you can see into the kitchen where they are making pastries and I spotted their massive meringues that they have. I declared that I was going to get one in honor of Mother’s Day, because Mama Otter loves them and ran as fast as I could to order. I came back to the table with it and started to giggle at it’s sheer size and being over caffeinated. Jamie looked at me in horror as I started to eat and said, “Well there goes your diet!” (I bet him that I can loose a kilo a week for my last six weeks here to shut him up for always making fun of me for being fat.) He kept going on and on about all the sugar in it and how I was basically asking for diabetes at that point. We had a fight over how bad it was and I googled it and declared myself the winner, on what I’m not really sure. I started to feel really sick about a third of the way through and had to put it away and started cursing getting it. Mama Otter would not want me to feel this ill for her, but then again she may have laughed over this and found it funny.

"Oh haha, so funny! Look at this massive meringue!"

"OM NOM NOM!" 

"I am going to vomit everywhere!"

We finished up at the cafe and walked George to catch the metro, so he could get his marshookah home. Jamie and I walked to a market to get some food for him and water to wash the sugar out of my mouth. I wasn’t my usual self, joking with him and making fun of everything in sight. I was too nackered and I felt the odd rage coming back again. He confronted me about it and I tried to brush it off and just said that I was tired and didn’t feel well after that stupid Mother’s Day meringue, which was also true, just not the real issue. We were mostly silent on the way to get our marshookah and stayed quite for the first bit of the ride, until I started in again about my friends back home and being sent texts and Facebook messages, asking me to come back to Maine and stay there. Jamie just turned and looked at me and said, “Oh waaaaa! People miss you and want you to come back home. That is just so horrible!” He turned away and looked out the window, leaving me there to think for a moment and wanting to ask wasn’t it the same for him, but I knew the answer. It donned on me that not everyone came to Georgia, for the same reasons as me. Some people left where they were from, because they had nothing left there and when they leave here, some won’t go back to families that missed them, friends that missed drinking with them, or jobs that missed them showing up not matter how hung over they were. I get to go back to all three, whenever I decide that I’ve had enough and want to call Maine my place of residence again. 

I put my headphones in and listened to Emily and The Woods “Steal His Heart” (music video included for your listening pleasure).

The landscape passed by me in a blur, the marshookah driver seemed to be doing his best to go the fastest he could, which I wasn’t too comfortable with as there had been torrential rains the night before and there had been flooding and roads partially washed out. I did not want to die. I just sat listening to my “girl” music and thinking. I thought about the advice that I had given Jamie earlier in the week, about us all only having five more weeks together until school ends and then we go our separate ways and trying to make the most of it, and enjoy what little time we have left, because even for those of us who come back in the autumn it won’t be the same.

I remember taking my headphones out and looking up and smiling at him. He asked what I was smiling at. I don’t blame him, I usually am up to something, and I told him nothing. It was a quite marshookah ride home that day, no one told us to shut up like they normally do. He read his book and I listened to my music. I caught myself smiling in his direction a few times. I couldn’t be mad at him, just because it felt right to be for some odd reason. I didn’t know how many more rides I would have with him. Saturday morning ones, where he has always saved a seat for me when I get picked up in my village, spent eating peanut M&Ms and Bounty bars and talking and laughing endlessly about our weeks until we get to Tbilisi. Sunday afternoon ones where we are much more silent, tired from Saturday night spent out, dreading the week we will have to spend in our villages, and for me a little bit of dread that I have to say goodbye again.

When the marshookah stopped to let me off this weekend I let go of any pointless, meaningless anger that I felt towards him and gave him our usual hug goodbye. I got my bag from the back and walked a little bit and then turned around and saw him giving me a goofy wave and I couldn’t help but smile and be sad at the same time. I only have four or so weekends left of rides with him, if we go into Tbilisi every weekend until then.

Monday night, I took my nightly shower, just standing under the hot water going over what I was going to put in my blog and it hit me, I’m mad at my friend because I don’t want him to go home at the end of June. I don’t want this period of time to come to a close. I’ve already thought about the autumn and how I am going to feel about being able to look and see his town in the distance from mine and if it will sting a little like it does now, out of knowing soon he won’t be there. I think about the new volunteer who will be placed there, if someone is placed there again, and if I will silently hold it against, whoever they are, that they are not him. Trying to push him away with my rage, hoping that it will make the final goodbye not as hard, if he’s mad at me for being mad at him. It’s not working like that, though, he hasn’t stopped caring yet and it’s too hard to stay like this, now fully aware that I am using my old defense tactic of pushing people away by hurting them before they hurt me, especially when all I want is him to give me a hug and tell me that I will be ok, life won’t end in June when school does. I’ll still have him and all my moron friends, they just won’t be as close anymore. It’s not a new concept for me.

One last song for your listening pleasure: 

I'm Tallinn you...

Surprise, I went to Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius over Easter break! I don’t want to try to cram all three places into one, blog because that wouldn’t be fare to expect you fine people to read and look at all of those pictures all in one go and most importantly it would be unfair to each unique city.

Tallinn

I will start off with Tallinn, Estonia which is a small country of about 1.4 million people south of Finland, to the west of Russia, to north of Latvia, and east of the Baltic sea. Arriving in Tallinn on April 11th, I was tired from my traveling to I checked in to my hostel and took a two hour nap. I then went out and naturally found, say it with me people I know you all know where I went because I just got into town, the grocery store! Whatever moron, thinks it’s a good idea to let someone go to a grocery store after spending the past four months in Georgia is wrong. I was so giddy to be in a place that sold food that was so bright and clean. The chicken was even already butchered and put in nice little packages to buy. I didn’t have to buy a live one and kill it myself! They also had Ben and Jerry’s, which I wanted so badly, but it was almost €7, so I will wait until I get back to the States in January-ish and have my mother buy me a pint for every month I was gone. (Love you mom!) I didn’t make too many poor choices when I checked out. I ended up with carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, rice, oranges, kiwis, muesli, and assorted liquorish. I just really wanted the option to be able to eat food that is not dripping in sunflower oil and salt. 

When I got back to the hostel I took one of the most amazing showers I have ever had. I am lucky enough to have hot water at my house in Georgia, but to say it’s lacking water pressure is an understatement and when I was in Ukraine I bathed in a bath tub that was in a freezing cold kitchen. (I still love my kitchen bath tub, but it is a bath not a shower.) The hostel, just opened up and the show head is one of those ones that is suppose to mimic rain or being under a water fall or something. All I know is that it was amazing.

Me in my Ukrainian bathtub this past May

After my shower and so dinner of rice and veggies I went to go see the Hunger Games. I have been wanting to see this movie so badly and in Georgia all the movies are dubbed in Russian or Georgian so I had to wait until now to see it. I thought it was fantastic. It was also odd sitting in such a modern movie theater, dare I say better then the ones in Maine, and then leaving it to go back to my hostel. I kept thinking that I would be going back to my house in Maine, but alas it was back to my hostel to get a goodnights sleep.

********

On day two in Tallinn I woke up and took shower number two in less then 24 hours (amazing!), ate a nice healthy breakfast and heading out to kill sometime time before going on a free walking tour at noon. I ended up at a great little cafe in Old Town that I don’t remember the name of, but they had real coffee and strawberry cheesecake. I sat in the dimly lit place, just so happy, but feeling a little weird, that I was not in Georgia for the first time in three months. 

I set off and found where the walking tour and for two hours a lovely Estonian girl took us all around and told us all about the history of the city and fun other little tidbits.

Georgian food in Tallinn

Estonian Freedom Monument 

Orthodox Church

Orthodox Church

Orthodox Church

Former KGB Headquarters that are now going to be luxury apartments.

Swedish Embasy

Town Center

Town Center

Town Center

After that I set off and walked along the sea and it reminded me of my autumn spent in and out of Aarhus, Denmark. Tallinn has a very Scandinavian feel to it to began with. I eventually drifted back towards town and found a little bistro that had the most amazing tomato and ginger soup with feta. It was simply to die for. I will find a way to make this when I get back to the States and have a proper kitchen.

Best Soup Ever!

Street Art

Street Art

Street Art

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On day three of my Tallinn adventure, it was raining so I decided to go to their occupation museum, which covered when they were taken over by Germany and Russia. It had lots of artifacts, and showed long half hour portions of a documentary every few meters. Needless to say I did not watch them all, because I would have been there all day. Down in the basement there was this odd collection of Soviet statues, in a room that had a bunch of lockers in it. There was nothing also nothing stopping me from going up and cuddling with the massive Lenin statue. I thought about it, but I have higher standards, now if there was a statue of Stalin there... Just kidding!  Still kind of perplexing that room.

That night I was suppose to go to the ballet, but smart me thought it started at 8, and it was actually 7. I normally never mess up on times or dates, but it happens. I stood pouting in my black dress, looking all nice for the missed ballet, when one of the guys who worked at the hostel asked me if I wanted to go to a metal concert with him and three other guys. Who wouldn’t want to go to a metal concert with a Belgian, two Brits, and a Russia in Estonia?! Of course I said yes. 

To be honest I said yes very reluctantly. I don’t really ever listen to metal, but it was one of those “Oh, why not Emily? It’s not like you are ever going to get this chance again,” moments. I stood awkwardly for the first few songs, clutching onto my beer for dear life, surrounded by hipster metal heads, looking like I had just walked out of Banana Republic, and I felt like someone was going to throw me out for clearly not belonging. I downed my beer, and thought, “Screw it, screw them. This is your last night in Estonia, might as well enjoy this.” I just threw myself into the music and started dancing and moshing, while most people just bobbed up and down. During the breaks the Belgian who worked at the hostel introduced me to some Estonians, and a girl complemented me on not looking like every other douche bag in the place and that I was beautiful. She became my new best friend at that very moment. I really wish I had taken some pictures of me on that night to share, but I didn’t think my camera and metal concerts mixed. (Russian Circles, Junius, Deafheaven, Wolves Like Us, and SoundArcade were the bands I saw just incase that means anything to you.)

Overall I thought Tallinn was a great arty little city, people had hair more outrages then mine! It was full of plenty of cafes, where I could get my coffee fix, and not curse not having Starbucks for once in almost five months. Creative restaurants to get my foodie on and the glorious ocean that I have missed. Possibly the next semi-permanent  destination on my list?

What a gem of a poster.

No Love for the Georgian Bromance

A running joke among my volunteer friends and I is that my host family thinks I am a man. I personally think it is hilarious, that we have come to this conclusion and for the most part they do have a point. My host father is quite keen on having me drink and for the first week everyday he would offer me different kind of alcohol, which I would also deflect with answers like that beer makes me vomit. I’m never a hundred percent successful at this. Last week I ended up having beers with my host dad and the region’s police chief. I hate to say it, but I was almost out drinking both of them, but then again they were were in a heated debate over some topic in Georgian so all I had to do was politely sip beer out of my “I <3 Georgia” mug, that my host parents bought for me in Tbilisi. (I cannot wait to take this bad boy with me back to America and use it for the Keurig machine at Gap.) The other night I also got in on the boys drinking action when we were having a supra to celebrate to delivery of about 5,000kg of fertilizer. I will admit it is fun for me to kick it with the village men, chugging wine, eating great food, toasting to everything, and trying to get me married off. Yes, that’s right I have a potential husband lined up. He seemed more interested in who ever was texting him, probably his secret girlfriend, then me. I am also pleased to report that I did not throw up after drinking all that wine, which again makes me a man. 

You see women here aren’t suppose to be drunk in public. A lot don’t seem to drink at all because of this, especially in the village. I have Georgian female friends who have been away to university and have lived a life away from their families and then after to come back and live with them. I had a friend tell me I like to drink a little and dance, but my brothers don’t like when I do that, so I don’t in front of them. If my older brother ever told me that I shouldn’t drink, I’m talking social amounts not black out amounts, I would tell him to go to hell. When I in my house my host mother is always hovering around to make sure that I don’t look too bad off or that the men aren’t too rowdy. If anything like this happens she pulls me out. If she thinking I am drinking too much she will try to cut me off, and normally my host dad shooters her down I am sure he says to her, “Just let her drink, she’s still in control. She is my American son I have never had. I mean half her head is shaved, so clearly she’s not a Georgian woman, there for she must be a man!” 

They have also tried to take me hunting for little birds with them. It’s quite a popular man activity here. They have this big riffle looking gun that shoots pellets. On the weekends they are always doing target practice, if they don’t have something to do like make Cha Cha. I honestly haven’t seen them kill a bird yet and I kind of want to take them up on the offer to go hunting and kill something so I can one up them. My host dad thought I didn’t want to shoot a gun and that is why I didn’t want go hunting. I really didn’t feel like being laughed at for doing something wrong again. I ended up pulling out my pictures of target practice from Ukraine. They were super impressed, it was either my sweet hat or the fact that I had l told them that I killed ten Russian spies with a sniper riffle, you decide. 

Ukrainian Rebel

They have also been really interested if I can drive or not. I explained to them that I have a license and my own car back home. There minds were f*ing blown. I drive and have my own car? They told me I could take the BMW for a spin, but it’s not an automatic, however the Mercedes SUV is. Again I think it was my host mother who ruined my fun and informed them that I could not drive cars when I am here. The men then had the bright idea that I can drive the tractor this spring. (Because yes boys, that is not a motorized vehicle, which again I am pretty sure that I cannot drive here. I will however pose for a photo op later on.) Many women here don’t drive, either because they don’t have a license, or because the men here just drive too crazy. They kind of have made up their own rules that they just seem to know, and I hate to say it, but I’ve heard that women driving causes a lot of accidents here because they fallow the proper road rules, not bro ones.

There are a lot of gender specific rolls here in Georgia and I am not completely against them. It is a very traditional society and awesome if the men want to be out in the fields growing the food that the women are going to cook in the kitchens. The issue I have is the double standards. We have a female friend of the family that comes over at least a few times a week, always brings some kind of food, and sits socializing with us, and oh smoking cigarettes. (Women here don’t smoke cigarettes in public incase you haven’t caught on yet.) She keeps a pack hidden in our kitchen and stays around for an hour or so and smokes a few. I do not know how her husband doesn’t know or better yet   why she should have to hide it. I understand that it is not the best habit to have, but I don’t think it spouses should be hiding things like that, I mean she goes off to a friends house so she can light up? I know she’s not the only one to be doing something like this. We were told during orientation to be aware that in the villages smoking women would hide it. I mean come on, people know you are doing these things, why not just do it in public if they all know? I’ve been tempted to walk down my village smoking a butt on my way home from school, with my bright red lipstick on and headphones in, just to see people’s reactions, but I am a teacher and I don’t need my students thinking this is good behavior. I just want to do it in spite so badly some days. The men can’t really judge, because most of them smoke and the village women already know that a select group smokes and they don’t beat them with sticks. Do it in public already! Stop hiding! 

The thing that I think pissed me off the most since being here was being at a supra with a friend and there were probably twenty or so people at it. The wife of the house hold that it was being held at was rushing around most of the time while we were eating, making sure that there was enough food, never really having time to sit down herself and enjoy the party. The table was split men on one half and women on the other. This seems quite common and I’m not horribly against it. The women can talk about women things like mommy and me yoga and guys can talk about the newest Apple product, oh shit sorry this is Georgia, those things don’t exist here. (Kind of off topic but I told my sixth grade boys how much I paid for my MacBook and they about shit their pants the other day.) 

The supra went on for hours and it was a school night and I wanted to get home and go to sleep. It was close to 10:30pm and the guys kept drinking more and more, toasting away. They were making a racket and having a jolly time. I looked over at my half of the room and it was full of a bunch of the most tired, pissed off looking women I had ever seen. One of the wives was even pregnant and the guys were completely ignoring the fact that we were beyond over it. None of us had drank, which was probably a good thing in my case, because if I had, and known enough Georgian to get my point across I would have shouted at them for being so fucken rude and irresponsible. They are suppose to take care of their wives, keep them happy and protected, yet they were sitting there drinking more and then driving home at least somewhat intoxicated. They more then had their allotted amount of fun. I mean this supra started around 5pm and I didn’t get driven home until well after 11:30pm and that was only because my friend was able to use the excuse that I was an American guest who had to teach the next morning. If I was a Georgian woman, forget it. I would probably still be there. Unacceptable in my eyes. I have grown up around very strong women, who have taught me to stand up for myself and I know that if my dad ever tried to pull crap like, especially if my mother was pregnant, he better enjoy the couch, because he was going to be sleeping there. It is so hard at times to sit in a country where women don’t always have a voice, granted mine is a rather loud, strong one. I would never stand for a spouse that acted like a big man-boy. 

After this particular supra, I was on the phone with one of my friends and I said, “I’m pretty sure this year I am going to get into more cars with drunk drivers then I had in my whole life.” I don’t really make it a habit, to be driven around by drunks in the States, but it has happened a few times, when people were a little buzzed. I can probably count the times on one hand, if I really sat down and thought about it, like I said it’s not a habit I am into. Here however, when someone gets pulled over the first thing they do is breathalize you, wether or not you seem drunk. This happened on one of my marshooka rides and man was the driver pissed. That says something about a country when they check alcohol content in the middle of the day. My friend asked why I didn’t refuse to get into the car of someone who had been drinking. I told her I didn’t want to cause a scene. He also didn’t appear to be drunk. I know that is not an excuse and people reading this right now are thinking that I am in fact stupid as shit and that I make poor choices. I except this, however to it is a really hard situation if the driver doesn’t look clearly intoxicated and his family members are getting in the car. You will seriously offend someone by questioning their ability to drive and you will shame them, which is taken very seriously here. It’s one of those damned if you do and damned if you don’t things. I feel every volunteer is going to or has at some point and not just once but multiple times had to deal with this. (I might add the last time I left my village was over almost two weeks ago so I am not getting driven around that much to start with.) Also if the police just assume the drivers they pull over are drunk, even if your drive is sober, the one next to you on the road may not be. 

Things like these make me wonder why I am here sometimes. I shake my head and think, “I just don’t know any more.” This weekend I am most likely going to try to spend at another volunteer’s place, which he has his own mini-apartment. I don’t know how to exactly explain to my host family that I will spending a night sleeping over at a guy’s house without them freaking out and thinking I’m a whore. (Women in Georgia don’t have sex unless they are married and if you are sleeping at a guy’s house you are sleeping in the same bed as him and there is penetration. There is also no such thing as a guy and a girl being friends here.) Nope, it’s more like a sleep over with two ex-pats who want to be able to speak fluent English to someone in person, while drinking a little, making fun of this crazy situation so they don’t loose their minds and then passing out in separate beds in different rooms. I am just waiting for the shit to hit the fan with this one. It makes me miss America and my parents who accept that I have friendships with guys and I’m not sleeping with them, but then again I think they suspect that the majority of them are gay. (We don’t have gay people in Georgia.)

I just want to slam my head against a hard object and go, what the hell are you people thinking? There are so many things I don’t understand here and it bothers me a lot. It’s just so backwards, like the fact that my host father encourages me to drink so much and then the next morning asks why I was drunk last night and why I am hung over this morning. I don’t know. I guess it’s because I am in fact not a Georgian man?