Georgia Part 6: Meet the parents and New Year

See New Year's pictures here.

New Year’s is a family holiday in Georgia – involving, it goes without saying, lots of food and drink. Georgians put up what we call a Christmas tree, but they don’t exchange gifts on New Year or Christmas. It’s traditional around New Year and the few days after to always bring a couple pieces of candy to put on the table (usually in the bread or fruit bowl) when you go to someone’s house, because they believe it’s bad luck to be the first guest to enter someone’s house in the new year, and bringing candy somehow wards that off (appeasing evil spirits? I already don’t remember – I should have written it down when they told me about the tradition).

I was pretty nervous about meeting Rezi’s parents. Sure, I’d met his friends, and they all thought I was alright, but what would his parents think of the Internet girl? Turns out I had nothing to worry about – they both accepted me so warmly, I instantly felt at home. They really made me feel like a part of the family – actually, several times over the course of my stay I got the impression that Rezi’s friends and family are just itching for a wedding, and pretty much consider me and Rezi’s eternal bond as a done deal.

Anyway, right away on New Year’s Eve I ended up one-on-one with Rezo’s dad, Basa – a real character! 56 years old, Basa is a civil engineer with a moustache he’s NEVER shaved (for some reason, his dad forbade it) and a missing ring finger on his left hand (apparently he was wearing a ring on that finger when he decided to jump over a gate. The ring got caught at the top and stayed there – along with his finger). The funny thing about the missing finger is that Basa acts like it’s still there. He’ll hold up both hands and say something like, “We’ll leave in 10 minutes.” “More like 9 and a few seconds,” jokes Gogi. Basa, like EVERY man in Georgia, smokes like a chimney, and since he’s been at it most of his life he’s got a raspy, rumbly voice. That, coupled with the fact that he sort of mumbles anyway, made it very difficult for me to understand him at first, even though he speaks fantastic Russian (those who grew up in the Soviet system, down to about age 32, all spoke excellent Russian. For political reasons, Russian is just not a language they LIKE to speak now). Basa always has a story to tell – about what’s happening at work, about ridiculous bureaucratic adventures in the Soviet Union, about his family. Most of all I love the way he speaks with complete love, utter pride, and total devotion to his hometown, his country, and his family. He loves his boys and will do everything he can to help them out as long as he’s alive.

Rezi’s mom, Inga, is a total riot. She’s the sweetest woman ever and a fantastic cook – she makes whatever Rezi’s friends ask for when they come over, which is every day – and started calling me “moya devochka” (“my girl”) almost right away. But she cracks me up – at 47, she’s already “old.” “Oh, I’m so old,” she declares. “I wanted to sell this house and move to an apartment, but my boys won’t let me. They’re used to it here. But it’s too big for me to take care of on my own. I’m already old. Gogi used to help me, but now he’s grown up and has work. If only I had a girl, she could help me around the house.” Wow, Inga, could you drop any bigger hints? :) Inga is a master force-feeder; her habitual phrase is, “Why aren’t you eating? Eat, eat to your health!” I was a lot better off once I realized she mostly says that out of habit, and that I don’t actually have to continue eating just to avoid offending her.

New Year was a turning point in my visit. Before New Year, Rezi and I spent most of our time on our own. Though we got together with friends some evenings, for the most part it was just the two of us. After New Year, however, when I finally met Rezi’s parents, we stopped eating out every day and instead spent our days at his parents’ house (or at Eliko’s house).

On New Year’s Eve I met (or saw again) a few new friends that didn’t come out that first night in the ship restaurant. Irma, Eliko’s cousin, lives three doors down from Rezi. Tiny and bird-like, I never once saw her in a bad mood. She flits around the room, taking pictures, joking and laughing, taking people by the arm and patting them affectionately. Her addresses to me always began with, “Alli, Alli!” Always twice like that. She’s very cute. Baata, at 39, is the eldest in Rezi’s circle. He’s also gigantic – not that he’s super tall or fat, he’s just a big guy. His Russian was excellent once he broke it out for me (he even threw in a few soft consonants, which are decidedly lacking in the Georgian pronunciation of Russian, just to show off), and is always very friendly. On my last day in Batumi Rezi and I arrived at his parents house to find several of the boys, including Baata, already well into a bottle of vodka. Baata, his voice choked with emotion, toasted me, saying, “You are like a sister to us!” I was very touched, but also quite aware that he was pretty drunk. Later he gave me a dollar bill as a parting gift. Why exactly he decided to give an American a dollar, I’m not quite sure, but it probably made sense to him at the time.

New Year’s in Georgia goes on for about a week, so even though Rezi and I headed home around 2 AM after greeting the new year, we didn’t miss all the festivities. New Year’s Day I had a bit of a hangover from the homemade wine we had the night before, and when we arrived back at Basa and Inga’s house, I was immediately plied with more wine, which was not what I needed. I ate heartily at Inga’s table (including a lot of meat) – big mistake. I should have paced myself, because as it turned out, I was expected to eat ALL DAY. On New Year’s Day everyone goes around visiting, eating and drinking at every home they visit. We only went to Inga’s house and Eliko’s mom’s house, but it was way more than I was prepared to handle. In the afternoon on New Year’s Day I got my first Georgian lesson from Eliko, which was fun, but by early evening the excess food, drink, noise, and cigarette smoke had combined to give me a walloping headache. Luckily Rezi wanted to leave early, and once we got back to the quiet of our loft (and I took some ibuprofen), I felt a lot better.

When I woke up on January 2, I could tell something wasn’t quite right. I still felt full. Not just full, but as if my guts were filled with bricks. “That’s not good,” I thought. “Your stomach is sort of round and pooched out,” observed Rezi.

And it all just… sat there. And despite the fact that I felt pretty awful, I had to eat and drink a bunch more that day. Georgians say that however you greet the day on January 2 is how your whole year will go, so I tried to be cheerful all day. We started the day off at Basa and Inga’s, then went over to Irma’s house in the evening. By the time we returned to Basa and Inga’s house, my lower digestive tract had had it and finally jumped into action. I think I lost a good two pounds in about an hour. I felt so much better. Inga was very soothing, and I was like, “Well, I’m surprised the revolt didn’t happen earlier. Usually I can handle about anything, but I guess my iron guts («железный желудок») just couldn’t take New Year.” Rezi was concerned about me, and expressed it thus: “Wow, your stomach went way down! And it’s soft now, whereas it was firm before!” Thank you, sweetie. Laughter IS the best medicine…

On January 3 everyone was exhausted from so many straight days of drinking, and so everyone was lazy about speaking Russian. I felt left out all day, and started to pine for my friends at home, whose jokes I understand. In the evening Rezi, Gogi, Irma, and I went to a restaurant, but there was a kid’s birthday party and the music was really loud, so we ended up not talking there either. That was the only day I really didn’t have much fun – and it wasn’t even that I wanted to leave Georgia, I just didn’t want to feel left out all the time. Thankfully, Rezi and I spent quite a bit of time talking that evening, so by the time we went to bed I was feeling much better.