Alli, why don't you know Georgian yet?

The short answer: because I know Russian!

The long answer:

I never realized when living in Russia how vital my classes were in teaching me grammar and words so I could later pick them up in conversation. Maybe that sounds stupid, but it's true – I sort of had the idea that even if I weren't in class, I'd still have picked up the language okay.

Turns out, for me at least, that's just plain not true. Because I've been in Georgia for a total of seven months already, but beyond a few words and phrases, I don't know any more Georgian than I did when I first arrived.

I forgot that I'm not five years old anymore and can no longer spontaneously learn a language. In particular, most of my linguistic exposure is aural, and I've found that without written confirmation of what I hear, sounds that are new to me continue to pass by my ear – I simply can't catch them.

I know it's possible to retrain one's ears to hear new sounds, as I hear the difference between hard and soft consonants in Russian that I couldn't differentiate and the beginning of my studies. So there's hope.

Beyond my lack of formal language study – something I hope to remedy soon – there's the probably more important fact that everyone is already used to speaking with me in Russian. So it's very hard for them to remember to switch to Georgian, and I – because I understand them in Russian – don't remind them. There have been a couple attempts to “go Georgian,” but when I don't understand right away, it's too easy for everyone to just switch over to Russian rather than struggle through it to communicate in Georgian. The irony, of course, is that without Russian Reziko and I would never have met at all, but now that same language has become a crutch.

My first few months in Russia in 2005 were miserable because I didn't understand what people were saying to me. My brain was overwhelmed by linguistic input it couldn't process. But that experience is necessary to push through to language fluency. I feel like my ear is so used to hearing Georgian around me now that if only I'd learn a little grammar and vocabulary, everything would fall into place. But until I can create that uncomfortable situation where Georgian is the only language of communication, I fear I'll never pick it up.

Tovli!

Well, I know all you Midwesterners have about had it up to here with snow already this winter, but I just have to share: it's snowing in Batumi!

A couple nights ago it was wintry-mixing, which is the usual order of business here when it "snows." It's like slush falling from the sky, it's gross and wet and not pretty at all. But yesterday was actually pretty cold, close to freezing all day, and towards evening REAL snow started to fall - the dry, dusty kind.

This is the first time I've really been cold here - it's one thing for temperatures to hit freezing when you have a nice central furnace heating the whole house, and another to wake up in a room not one degree warmer than outside. Brr!

But it's worth it, because this morning I woke up and even without my glasses I could see that we had a good foot of snow on the roof. Whoopeee! It's Iowa-beautiful, but in Batumi. It looks so strange and marvelous! And it will disappear so quickly once the sun comes out again... but it's fun while it's here!

Finding Balance: A Gastronomic Journey

When I left Iowa City in June, 2008, to study Russian in Vermont followed by 9 months in Russia, I was physically quite fit. I worked out 4-6 days a week and carefully watched what I ate; despite occasional splurges (nummy treats at the office, anyone?) most of my food intake was carefully planned and executed. When I went grocery shopping, I bought the exact number of apples I'd need to get through the week, my dinners were planned out ahead of time, and lunch and snacks were planned, packed, and subsequently devoured ONLY at the appointed time.

Yes, it was a bit obsessive, but it gave me control, and I liked how I looked and felt. I was fitter (and thinner) than I'd ever been in my adult life, and while I've never been overweight, I enjoyed feeling trim and muscular.

I was able, for the most part, to maintain my diet and exercise routine in Vermont (although exercise started to fall by the wayside when Reziko and I met and almost all activity outside of class was replaced with Skype time). At the very least, the foods available to me gave me healthy options, and I made somewhat regular use of the campus gym.

Then came Russia. I already knew from my previous year in Petersburg to anticipate some weight gain – a different diet and climate, after all, will have their effects. But I felt like I gained a LOT last year. Maybe it was the lack of sunlight draining me of all energy, maybe it was academic burnout, maybe it was a lack of sleep from staying up late to talk to Reziko, but my willpower and motivation were sapped. I would eat a relatively healthy meal of salmon or chicken with steamed veggies, then after dinner pig out on cookies or pudding made with whole milk or my host mom's turnovers or chocolate. None of these things are bad in moderation, but I was eating them constantly, and they constituted the majority of my calories. My host mom would bake constantly, I'd helplessly scarfed it all down and beg her not to make so many or so often because I couldn't resist, and we'd repeat it next week. I started to eat not from hunger, but from boredom, stress, loneliness.

I did have a gym membership, paid all up front in September. I could use the facilities as often as I wanted, whenever I wanted, including classes. And I did go. Sometimes a couple weeks would go by without a single workout, but especially toward spring I got better at going at least 3 times a week. But with my eating out of control, the exercise did little to influence my weight or shape. My clothes were too tight, my stomach too round, and I wasn't a happy camper.

Since then, Georgia has had quite an influence on me in the diet department. My first few visits were downright gluttonous, as my desire to try everything and the Georgian tradition of stuffing guests silly ganged up on me. As I made forays back into the world of meat, I earned myself quite a lot of stomach upset, including one illness this summer that landed me in the hospital for some rehydration. But since then (and after a few weeks back in Iowa eating my comfort foods – spinach and cottage cheese), something has clicked with me, and I feel like I'm eating better than I did in Russia AND in Iowa City.

First and most important, Georgia has broken me of that nasty habit of finishing everything on my plate. Take too much? Leave it. There's no reason to stuff yourself. Finishing it does not feed starving children in China, it just messes with your hunger signals and stretches your stomach out. I've long known this, of course, but my solution back in college was to simply severely limit the amount of food available to me, based on the premise that I can't stop myself if given unlimited access to food. This is still true when it comes to chocolate. But where I went wrong in Iowa City was limiting access even to the good stuff. I don't think an extra half cup of cottage cheese or a whole sandwich instead of half of one would have killed me or made me fat – and I would have spent a lot less time running around hungry and watching the clock until my next designated eating time. Also, this strategy taught me nothing about learning to say “no” in situations were I'm not in control of the serving spoon. I've learned the hard way that taking another cabbage roll or piece of meat just to be polite does nobody any favors – especially me when I spend the whole evening or next day feeling ill as a result!

Another habit in the Gvarjaladze household has proved very helpful to me: no set mealtimes. Not hungry. Don't eat. Hungry at 11 PM? Inga will get up and fix you a plate (I've never asked her to do that, by the way, but sometimes she gets up and takes over anyway). We all eat breakfast and dinner at different times, which has provided me a great opportunity to get more in tune with my body's hunger signals.

These two developments – only eating till I'm full and only eating when I'm hungry – have been revolutionary for me, even though they aren't new concepts in the health and fitness world. I haven't been exercising here at all beyond our fairly regular seaside walks, yet, despite a diet higher in fat and with more cheese, bread, and meat and fewer veggies than before, I haven't gotten fat like I feared I would! I weigh less than in Russia and just a few pounds heavier than my lowest weight in Iowa City. Would I like more veggies? Yes. Would I like more whole grains? Yes. My diet here isn't perfect. But I am way more satisfied than I ever felt in Iowa City, and I don't feel like a gluttonous pig like I did in Russia (I know the fact that it's warmer here and my body isn't trying to store winter fat helps, but that's not all of it).

And while I'm still trying to work around fitness restraints here – weird rules about when one may and may not go running by the sea, for example – I have started in the past week or so to work strength exercises and yoga back into my daily routine. I feel perhaps I've truly started to find a balance.

New Floss

Confession time: I have not always been a regular flosser. I'm an avid twice-a-day brusher, but for some reason flossing has had a hard time working it's way into my nightly routine next to the more easily habituated tooth brushing and face washing and moisturizing. I've tried, folks, I really have, but the habit has a habit of not sticking.

Part of the reason, I suspect, is that I hate the floss itself. The waxed kind is, well, waxy, and always seems to leave behind little chunks of wax. Ew. The unwaxed stuff is too hard and hurts my gums, even when I'm really careful. I had a large spool of unwaxed floss for a pretty long time, and I finally used it up last week; despite my above comments, I have been flossing regularly - if not daily - for one month and going strong. Woot!.

Once that hateful old spool of unwaxed floss was gone, I felt free to try the Crest Glide floss my friend Kerry accidentally left here when she visited last July (Ker, if you're reading this, the floss fell off the shelf into the laundry basket, which is probably why you couldn't find it when you were packing). Let me tell you, kids, I have seen the light. Apparently while I was spending all that time hating on flossing, somebody actually came up witha floss that gets between teeth without collateral (gum) damage AND doesn't leave behind a horrible residue. I'm not a paid spokesperson, I swear. This floss is just really awesome.

Where does the money go?

I'm no healthcare expert, nor do I pretend to understand all the nuances and implications of the healthcare bill whose future is now in doubt in Congress, despite the fact that I regularly read the latest developments in the New York Times. But one question that definitely has not been answered, at least not in a way I understand, is how this proposed bill will lower costs. I simply don't understand why healthcare costs so much in the US.

For comparison purposes, lets turn to the world of dentistry. I haven't had dental insurance for several years now, and I haven't been to the dentist since 2006 as a result. When I looked into it in 2008, I found that an initial exam with x-ray at the dental clinic my friend recommended in Iowa City would cost $175. Just to take a peek! I didn't go then because I didn't have the money, and while I've thankfully had no dental complaints in the past four years, I don't actually know that there isn't a problem that needs attention.

Here in Georgia, we're in the process of doing Reziko's teeth. Genetics tossed him some pretty bad teeth to begin with, and in addition he's neglected getting them looked at for even longer than me, so I was quite relieved when I finally convinced him to get them taken care of (mostly by explaining how much more costly it would be to deal with a problem in the US!).

The clinic we're going to is small, clean, and professional. It's dentists are certified by the National Dental Association of Georgia, which in turn is certified by the European Dental Association. All of their tools, materials, and equipment are manufactured in Europe, America, or Japan and are held to high standards of quality. These guys know what they're doing, and they do it well.

One of the dentists here is Reziko's friend, but he's being treated by another, as the friend was on vacation when we wanted to get started. We stopped in before New Years for a consultation, and the initial exam and x-ray were free. We've come to the clinic nearly every day since January 4. The first couple of weeks were to treat some inflammation and remove some surface decay, now we've moved on to filling teeth (5!) and fitting a couple prostheses (crowns, I think they're called in English? I'm rusty on dental terminology).

In total, including all of the above plus special toothpaste and mouthwash and antibiotics, our bill is not going to top $250. That's right, just $250. True, for the average Georgian family $250 is still a lot of money to pay out of pocket, but when you consider that our entire treatment cost is just a little less than one and a half times what we would have paid in Iowa just for the first exam, the difference is truly remarkable.

As a layperson, I can't speak to the cost of materials, instruments, equipment, office space, or support staff neither in the US, nor in Georgia. Nor can I attest to the take-home pay of dentists in either country. But, other than perhaps dentist's salaries, I can't imagine that expenditures are so much astronomically higher in the US that they account for the huge difference in treatment cost. So where is that money going? And what has whoever gets it done to earn it? I think that these are the questions that need to be answered in the (now more tenuous) US healthcare debate.

Has anyone had experience with healthcare outside the United States? What were your impressions of the quality of care and cost?

Yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay!

Reziko's interview at the consulate in Tbilisi is scheduled for February 16. One step closer to a US visa. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT! We're doing the Document Dash for the next few days...

Celebrating the Moment

Last Sunday was my godfather, Iva's, birthday. Reziko and I were among 15 or so people who gathered for dinner at Iva's home. It was a typical Georgian gathering: very noisy, toasts that went on for several minutes or more, lots of joy and laughter, and even quite a bit of singing, from traditional Georgian songs to church hymns. Much hilarity ensued when our tamada (toastmaster) demanded that at least one toast be given in Russian for my benefit, as the boisterous guests did their best and gave each other a hard time about their rusty Russian.

This gathering reinforced my desire to *finally* learn Georgian, because I'm tired of being left out of the jokes while everyone around me laughs. But it also reminded me what I love about Georgians, and why I think I could live here long-term. Georgians are joyful people. They've been through a lot, and because of this they understand the importance of celebrating the moment. I like that.

New Years Resolutions

So maybe I'm a bit late with the New Years resolutions post. But if you consider that New Year by the old calendar was January 14, I'm really not that late at all! Besides, I'm a bit of a year-round goal-setter anyway; New Years is just a convenient time to reflect and evaluate what my priorities are for the near future.

Before going on to tell you all about my goals for this year, I want to take a moment to look back at all the neat stuff I did in 2009:

1. I completed a rigorous study abroad program in Russia.
2. I tested at 3+ (professional+) in speaking and reading in Russian.
3. I converted to Orthodoxy.
4. I got married!
5. I successfully figured out how to cable-knit and knitted a scarf for my hubby in just under a week.
6. I rode for 8 hours over unpaved mountain roads in fog to get to an 11th century cave city.
7. I spent more than 24 hours in the transit lounge of the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul (thankfully, not consecutively).
8. I started a new job as a translator and copy editor at International Life magazine.

Not bad for one year, eh? Still, there are lots of things I'd like to get done (or at least make progress toward) in 2010. They say you'll have more luck if you don't try to change too many things at once, so here's my short-list, my top three goals for 2010:

1. Get back in shape. Original, I know. But I miss muscly Alli and the energy working out gives me. So I'm aiming for 3-6 hours of activity a week, including cardio, strength, and flexibility training. I've already gotten started with some strength exercises and yoga, but I'd like to add in some more vigorous cardio. I was looking at getting back into running (without over-training and killing my shins like last time) by following the Couch to 5K running schedule. If I can start getting my buns out of bed early enough to run during the “socially acceptable running hours,” I'll be doing 5Ks by mid-March!

2. Learn Georgian. At least a little. More than the 30 or so random words I know now, including chipi (bellybutton), bibilo (earlobe), and zazuna (hamster), all of which are fun to say but not that useful in day-to-day conversation. I know hello and goodbye, I can tell when I'm being toasted, I can say thank you, and understand from context when someone asks, “Oh, she is your spouse?” ("spouse" being one of those words in Georgian that I understand when I hear but can't pronounce myself). I also know a few swear words. but I can't follow most conversation, let alone participate, and it's starting to get embarrassing that people are STILL having to switch to Russian on my behalf. The longer I'm here, the more disrespectful it feels not to know the local language. I have a textbook, but it turns out I'm crap at sticking to a study schedule without somebody asking for my homework every day. So even though it's hopeful we'll only be in Georgia another 2-3 months, I'm again on the hunt for a Georgian teacher.

3. Become a part of the Orthodox community. I converted last summer and I've done some reading, but I still have a lot to learn about living an Orthodox life – new traditions to take up, habits to form, and lots and lots of history to read and digest. I don't expect to become an expert on Orthodox theology in a year, but I'd like to be able to fluently explain why the filioque is a heresy or what theosis means or exactly what our views on the meaning of the Incarnation are when people say, “So, you're Orthodox now. What does that mean, exactly?”

Well, there you have it. Did you make New Years resolutions? How are they coming along? Or are you more of a year-round goal setter?

Vashli Zazuna!

I hear tale that the hot ticket item in the US for Christmas this year was some kind of robot hamster. Well, I'm here to tell you all that I got something waaay better: a REAL hamster!

Reziko took note of my extreme love for cuddly, fuzzy animals and got me a little blondie, like me. We named her Vashli, which means “apple” in Georgian, in honor of this video, which Reziko and I got a real kick out of:

Here is a darkish webcam pick of Vashli:

She began her residence in the Gvarjaladze home in a plastic 20-liter wine jug, but it quickly became evident that she needed more space. My godfather, Iva, came to the rescue, hooking us up for cheap with a huge glass aquarium courtesy of his friends at the glass store next to his house.

Now Vashli spends here days sleeping in the foot of an old sock I gave her and her nights crawling all over us or trying to “swim” up the walls of the aquarium to reach the edge of the curtains hanging just on the other side of the glass. In this pursuit she also repeatedly jumps from the little fake wooden Christmas tree, or chichilaki, we gave her to gnaw on. This tickles me to no end, because she doesn't jump from four paws, but rather stands on her hind legs like a dinosaur and sort of hops toward the glass. Despite her lack of success, she's very determined, and will jump toward those curtains dozens of times a night. Too cute!

Last night I actually gave her the edge of the curtain, just to see what she'd do. Poor thing latched on and then just hung there, lacking the strength to hoist her round and fuzzy self further up. This makes me worry less about potential escape should the curtain accidentally hang into the aquarium one day.

It is perfectly allowable by US government agencies to bring a hamster into the country, but we'll have to talk with the airline and really consider whether Vashli would survive such a long and stressful trip. But we still have some time before those decisions have to be made, so for now I'm just enjoying having my little hamster around.

Trying to understand

I read an article in the New York Times today that gave me some insight into my own biases when it comes to understanding the mentality of my Georgian family and friends. You can read the article here, but in a nutshell, it was about how cultural understandings influence the manifestation of metal illness, and how Western ideas and methodologies and approaches are being “exported” at locomotive speed. The entire article was fascinating, but the part that struck me in relation to my family was where the author pointed out that Americans' sense of self as an individual and the influence we believe we have over our destinies, the power of personal will to change circumstances, if only we try hard enough – all of this influences how we react to mental illness. Other cultures place more value on a person's role in the kinship group or on their place in the line of ancestry, and this helps them deal with mental illness in a way that is more accepting of the condition.

I can't pretend to be an anthropologist or an expert in sociology, but through my interactions with Georgians over the past year or so, it has become very clear that they more closely fit the kinship group model. People are defined by their role in the family (patriarch, first son, second son, mother-in-law, godfather, etc), and families are defined by their relation to one another. For example, Eliko is my godmother. Because she christened me, there can be no intermarriage between our families for nine generations, because we are now considered one family; such a marriage would be considered incest in just as if we had a blood tie. Similarly, christening can only go in one direction, that is, I cannot christen the children of anyone in Eliko's family, but her brother could christen my children. When one person or family experiences misfortune, the family and neighbor community gathers round to provide support. And these are all great things.

But one thing I could never wrap my brain around is the rampant homophobia I've encountered here. This, in fact, is the one aspect of Georgian culture that I simply cannot grin and bear. However, while I am in no way comparing homosexuality to mental illness (Georgians would), the article gave me a new way to think about this issue. When I discussed homosexuality with Georgians before, my arguments were always very individual based: people are born gay and can't change that fact any more than a person can change the fact that they were born in a particular country; God made everyone the way they are and it's not our place to judge; and someone being gay has no effect on our lives – just live and let live.

This last argument in particular has little meaning for my Georgians – in their minds and cultural understanding, gay people do affect our daily lives, because by going against strongly held communal norms, they threaten the very foundation of those values. Religion plays a key role here, of course, and is most often cited in Georgian arguments against accepting gay people as they are. But religion isn't all of it, I think. Gay couples can't have children (at least not the traditional way), which means they can't have a family. “If they have no family, how can I tell where their family is in relation to mine?” I imagine the Georgian line of thinking. Being childless is considered a heavy burden in this culture, so anyone who “chooses” to live a life that leaves them childless is selfishly turning their back not only on their traditions and culture, but on all of Georgia – a people that has survived over the centuries despite nearly constant invasions, never dying out even when their population dwindled to a few hundred thousand (there are about 4 million Georgians around the world today).

This is all speculation. I haven't checked this out on any of my Georgians, but I sort of wonder if they'd have enough perspective on the issue to give me an objective answer. Of course, I haven't changed my beliefs, and I would love to see Georgian culture become more accepting. But, I think I at least understand their viewpoint now – I've gotten past my own emotional reactions to what I perceived as thoughtless bigotry. I feel that I'm one step closer to a fuller understanding of this culture which has become a permanent part of my life.

Procession of the Cross

On Orthodox Christmas (January 7) I participated in my very first крестный ход, or Procession of the Cross. Usually this procession simply winds its way around town, with more and more people joining as it passes by their homes, but this year I lucked out: the procession was to escort the Cross for the top of the new church being built up the closest mountain.

I've been up this mountain before. At the end of June my soon-to-be godfather, Iva, took me and Reziko up to see the convent there. We were give a tour by Sister Barbara after riding most of the way up the mountain in a sort of scary Soviet-era bus and then walking the rest of the way. This time we'd be walking the whole way up.

Reziko and I got off to a late start due to a (typical) morning bathroom traffic jam, so the first half hour of our procession was us walking very fast to catch up with everyone. Once we caught up, it was a very cool thing to be a part of. There were probably 500-700 of us, from priests, deacons, and alter boys to lay men and women, teenagers, even some very small children. Two bulls (or oxen?) pulled a cart filled with donations for orphans to be distributed by the nuns at the convent, and a little donkey, representing the donkey that Mary rode into Bethlehem, hauled a cart with a large cross and an icon. The poor donkey pooped out before we even got out of Batumi, so he didn't make the journey up the mountain.

But the rest of us did! It took over an hour just to get to the base of the mountain (we took the scenic route). The road started out as asphalt, then just past the cemetery became cobblestones (at least a century old!), then the cobblestones gave way to a mix of dirt, gravel, and mud. Even for Batumi it was unusually warm for January, and I carried my coat for the entire trip. Fresh air, beautiful views, and participation in an ancient and holy tradition – I can't think of a better way to spend Christmas day.

Reziko and I kept up a good pace, and once we got to the mountain the crowd became a long, thin line snaking up the old roads. Even at our clip we reached the summit two and a half hours after leaving the house – and this is the littlest mountain around here! The church bells rang out every once in a while, calling us further up and providing encouragement.

At the church I expected there to be a formal service of some kind, but there was none. There were candles to be lit in prayer, and, of course, the new Cross was blessed before being raised and affixed atop the church. The church itself, still under construction, was closed.

We were among the first to arrive, and the summit slowly but steadily filled with other processioners until it became quite crowded. After lighting candles, we watched the Cross as it was raised into place on the church, then turned our weary legs towards home. At the edge of town we gave in and took a marshrutka the rest of the way, and arrived home around 5 PM.

I look forward to the day the church will be completed, when I can ride up on those creaky buses or get a workout climbing the hill myself, reach the top, look around, and feel my heart burst from the beauty of this place. I will offer up my prayers to God and the Saints among the mountains by the sea, where I feel closer to Him than anywhere else.

Post Office Scavenger Hunt

My mom sent us a Christmas care package by regular post. The Georgian postal system isn't 100% trustworthy, so I was a little nervous about it getting here at all. So I was quite surprised and pleased when, just three weeks after Mom sent it, the post office delivered a notice saying I should come pick up my package.

Just a couple of problems. First, until just a few months ago, the central post office was housed in its historical building near the town square. However, that area has become prime tourism real estate, and nothing so lowly as a mere post office can take up said space, so they moved it.

But they didn't tell anyone to where, and everyone we asked had a different answer as to the new location of the post.

Secondly, an address was written on the notice, but the street name was an old, Soviet name. Street names here change faster than Liz Taylor's husbands, depending on who's in power and who's in favor. So we didn't know exactly where this street was located.

Reziko thought it was over by the park, so we headed that way first. On the way we asked some elderly ladies where the post office was, and they pointed us to some courtyard. Dubious that the central post office would be tucked away in some yard, we headed there anyway, Reziko grumbling the usually American complaint about the lack of building numbers. Then, another woman pointed us to an apartment. This apartment, while obviously serving some sort of official function, was closed. There were three phone numbers on the door, which Reziko promptly called. The first connected us with a woman who only dealt with letters from the court. She gave us the number of a guy who worked at the international post, but who said they had no packages from America. And neither of them knew the street that was written on our notice, nor could they tell us the location of the main post. We were flummoxed and annoyed. Imagine if I'd received such a package without a native Georgian speaker to help me out! As it was we were stumped.

It was close to closing time, so we gave up. The next day was Orthodox Christmas, so we didn't even try. Finally, following a new lead from friend Tamazi, we found the post office on Friday. And then we ate chocolate for a week straight. So it was all worth it.

Staying Warm in "Winter"

We are lucky in Batumi that winter comes late and is overall pretty mild. The temperature rarely reaches down to freezing, and while we get plenty of rain, there are lots of sunny days, too. Nonetheless, even in this mild climate the house needs to be heated, because walking around in 40s-degree weather is not the same as sitting around in it. Brr!

Here in the older part of town, homes are typically heated by a combination of wood stoves, fireplaces, and electric heaters. Step outside in the evening on our street, and your eyes and lungs are hit by a haze of smoke, which clears once everyone goes to bed and all the fires die down. During the Soviet era everyone's homes were heated by natural gas (or maybe steam, like in Petersburg? Well, anyway, heating was centralized and government controlled). After the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 90s, the newly-privatized natural gas became too expensive for most families – when there's barely money for bread, gas becomes a true luxury. Thankfully, since then the situation has improved, and more and more people are able to get natural gas hooked up for heating and cooking.

Alas, even in natural gas hookups there's politics. We live in a forgotten part of town. To give the government its due, we do have streetlamps and modern electric meters. But, half our street isn't hooked up to the city sewage system (ours is the last house that squeaked in); they all still have septic tanks. Batumi was recently given 47 million euros (unconfirmed, but that's the number Reziko gave me) by Germany to fix our aging plumbing infrastructure. The money, at least for the most part, is going towards fixing the sewers – but only in the “good” part of town, where much of the sewage system is as new as 30 years old. Where we live, where some people have never had plumbing, there's been no work done whatsoever. The (naive?) hopeful me would like to think that they'll get to us once the rest of the system is in better working order, but history shows that that rarely happens, and that they always have an answer when we cry, “What about us?” In the same vein, the same few, main, “good” streets get repaved just about every other year, but in our quarter, which has never been paved, it will only happen if all the neighbors raise the money to do it themselves. And to get back to gas – people who live in the “good” part of town got gas lines put in for free on their streets, they had to pay only to have a line run into their homes. We have a gas pipe on our street, too, but only on our side of the street, and only because a bunch of neighbors pooled their money and paid to put the pipe in. Should the Gvarjaladze household ever want a gas hook-up, we'd have to buy into the pool (about 500 lari), as well as pay for the line into the home, the furnace, etc.

All injustices aside, what it comes down to is we'll probably be using our wood stove and electric heater for a few years yet. Growing up in Iowa, we always had a wood-burning fireplace, though more for atmosphere than for warmth, and Dad always seemed to know someone who'd give us the wood if Dad would cut down the tree for them. Here, where a significant portion of the population burns wood, firewood selling is a whole industry.

As often seems to happen, Basa waited till a rainy day to order firewood. It was already dark when one of those huge construction trucks used to haul sand and debris came rumbling down our street and halted in front of our house. It was filled with huge logs – entire tree trunks 2-3 feet in diameter and 2-4 feet long. The truck driver tipped the bed up, and all that wood came crashing down into the street. What a racket!

Reziko and Gogi rolled as many of the waterlogged rounds as they could into the courtyard; the rest stayed on the street. After the truck lumbered away, the next industry players showed up: local guys with chainsaws. For a few lari, they cut the larger rounds into more manageable chunks. The next day, two of Basa's workers came by to make some extra money and chopped all that wood into fireplace- and stove-sized pieces. We don't hire out every year; there have been many years when Gogi and Reziko are tasked with chopping all that wood themselves.

After four or five hours of steady chopping, the men finished up. Two mountains of wood now completely filled the courtyard. They stayed that way a couple of days, then, tired of tripping over the wood constantly, I rallied the forces and me, Reziko, and Gogi stacked it all under the stairs. It took three and a half hours and we ended up with three cords as tall as me. A great workout – and now we're set for winter!

Georgian Halloween

We had Halloween! Reziko designed and carved his first pumpkin ever:


Here he is drawing the face he finally decided on, after we cut out the top and scooped out the innards.



And here's the final result, goopy stuff on the table included! Pretty scary, huh? Our camera died before we got a picture with the candle lit, but believe me, Reziko's jack-o-lantern delighted everyone who saw it. Added bonus: they insisted on leaving the lid on when it was lit, so a nice burning pumpkin smell filled the room. :)

On the table you can also see the first plate of about a million pirozhki, or homemade Hot Pockets, that Inga made that day. I helped with some of them - we made them with eggs and onion, potato, hamburger, and cabbage. So yummy!

Running Georgian Style

A Georgian friend and I decided to start running in the mornings. This lasted all of three days, I'm afraid I have to report, but our first run out was so funny from an American viewpoint that I just have to share.

For comparison purposes, here's what I typically do when I go for a jog: I try to run more than I walk, and I give myself time limits on how long I can walk. At my peak, I was running a good 10 or 15 minutes before walking 2-4 minutes, then repeating. The time I spent out rarely exceeded about 45 minutes.

We decided to go running on the Boulevard, a stretch of path running several kilometers along the coast of the Black Sea, which turns into a track in the early hours of the morning (although it's mostly men, and mostly older men, who are running). We met at seven and headed out, our walk to the Boulevard taking about twenty minutes.

My friend has long been off the workout wagon, and I haven't been doing too great myself, so we decided to start slow, alternating three-minute jogs with walking periods. The morning sea air was fresh and invigorating, and it was motivating to see so many other people also out exercising.

About six minutes into our exercise, which means we were already walking after an initial jog, my friend saw someone she knew, and we stopped to talk for about 10 minutes. We kept going, running three minutes at a time, but walking at least 10 minutes in between, aiming to get a total of 20 minutes of running in. We did eventually reach that goal, but it took an hour and a half! This is why even though having a workout partner is a great motivator to get out of bed in the morning, sometimes it's hard to run with a partner - if your goals or abilities are too different, you can be left feeling like you haven't worked at all, or it can take waaaay to long to reach your relatively modest goals.

The biggest kicker? On our way back, we were passing by my friend's godmother's apartment, and she decided we should stop by. The walk up to the sixth floor was a great workout, but when we arrived, we woke up her godmother, which I felt bad about (but is totally normal and acceptable in Georgia - the random stop by is the preferred method of visiting). We ended up staying there, drinking coffee and eventually eating breakfast, until almost noon... when they gave us a ride home in their car! It was nice visiting, her godmother and her husband and daughter are lovely people, but it was definitely not what I was expecting from a morning run. Especially riding home in a car afterwards....

Anyway, this was an interesting insight into Georgian social patterns and their take on fitness culture. I'd still like to go running in the morning with a partner (because I really don't seem to be able to get out of bed otherwise), but I need one who is similarly focused. Reziko has offered to go with me countless times, but this offer has the caveat that I have to wake him up, which defeats the whole point of my workout partner motivating me to get out of bed because I know they're making the effort for me, too. It's so much easier when the alarm goes off to just snuggle back in and doze off than to climb out into the cold air and try to convince a happily sleeping husband that he, too, should brace for the cold and go exercise. Just doesn't happen.

Georgian Wedding

On October 7, Reziko and I had a BIG party to celebrate our union. Well, it seemed big to me, as we had about 100 invited guests, but Georgian wedding receptions often run 300 or even 500 guests.

You can see pictures of the event here.

The morning of we were still running around, picking up sweets and khachapuri from the bakery and delivering them to the reception hall and attending to a thousand other details it seemed like we should have thought of before. At one I was dropped off at the salon to get a mani-pedi and my hair and makeup done, which took a good couple of hours. The girl who did my makeup spoke a little Russian, but everyone else was almost completely Georgian-only, so that was kind of awkward. They dressed me right there, which is good, because I couldn't have gotten into that dress without help. I was then whisked home in a taxi, where I sat very still and straight, because it's painful to slouch in a corset.

Everyone had gone to the reception hall except me and Reziko and our mejuarebi (best man and maid of honor) Tamazi and Irma. The reception started at 4, but apparently it's normal for the bride and groom to come a little later than that, so that the guests are all seated and waiting by the time they make their grand entrance. This was sort of a bummer for me because I was starving, but finally, at about half past four, the car showed up to ferry us to the event.

As is traditional, Reziko and I sat with Tamazi and Irma at the table of honor on a raised stage. However, the layout of the room was such that I couldn't see all of the guests. At the table closest to ours sat my parents with Eliko, who was interpreting, and my mother-in-law, Inga, and Gela, who was our tamada, or toastmaster.

I didn't have the benefit of the toasts being translated for me this time, but I think Gela did an excellent job of shouting over the guests to deliver his toasts. The first toast, naturally, was to me and Reziko and our happiness, and Gela toasted us with a khantsi, or bull's horn. Khantsi come in many sizes; I think the one at our wedding was a one-liter, and it was clear crystal, rather than a natural horn. After Gela toasted, other men who can handle that much wine at once also took their turns toasting us with the khantsi. Every time we had to stand up and hold our glasses, which at first were connected to each other with what looked like Mardi Gras beads (to symbolize everlasting union?). We quickly removed the beads, as they were a spilling hazard (our table, like every table in the place, was loaded with food), and we thought they looked kind of dumb anyway. Once everyone who wanted to toast with the khantsi had done so, Gela moved on to other toasts: to Reziko's parents, to my parents, to our mejuarebi, etc, and these were done with regular-sized glasses.

The party went on for a good three or four hours. There were mostly men there, people my father-in-law Basa knows from his job and neighbors on our little street. Reziko and I danced to a couple of slow tunes at the behest of our ever-more-drunken self-appointed DJ, and my Dad tried out his variation on traditional Georgian dancing (think doing the twist only real low). The Georgians just went wild over that. Dad also danced with Inga, which left her breathless and, I'm sure, will be fondly remembered for years to come.

The food was prolific and fantastic. One of my favorite dishes were these absolutely delicious, plump and juicy roasted mushrooms, prepared on traditional Georgian clay cookware. So yummy! There was roast suckling pig, beef dishes, chicken dishes, eggplant dishes, khachapuri, tons of other stuff. I even asked that they just bring me out a little plate of tomatoes and cucumbers, so as not to make myself sick eating just meat. One interesting tradition that I didn't anticipate is that the wedding cake is not cut on the day of the reception, but rather just sits in front of the table of honor, looking sparkly and pretty.

At the end of the night a couple of especially drunk and especially happy for us guys came over to personally give rambling (but heartfelt) toasts in Russian, wishing us long life and millions of babies. As the guests left, the food was packed up for day two (yes, it goes on!), and I finally got to go home and take my beautiful but heavy dress off.

On day two we prepared our living room for about twenty guests, serving some of the massive quantities of food that remained from the day before. I spent the morning cleaning chairs that had long been stored in a dusty attic and helping to put together an extended table. In a smaller room, the toasts seemed even louder than before, and I had a harder time staying smiley on day two (Georgians are very good at celebrating until it's not actually fun anymore), but they didn't stay too long, and we got to cut the cake this time, so that was good.

And then the wedding stuff was over at last! Now I've got the rest of the weekend to spend with my parents, who fly out on Sunday. It's been great to see them!

Wedding Reception Planning

Basa and Inga are throwing me and Reziko a wedding reception. Normally this would have been done right after the venchanie at the church (which we had July 26), but we wanted to wait so my parents could be present. And now I'm learning lots about wedding planning in Georgia!

Clothes: Most wedding dresses in this part of the world look like Disney princess gone awry. Here's a sampling from the first couple pages of a Google search; these are very representative of what's available in the stores around here:





Basically, they're way not my style; many of the dresses I saw here could easily be confused for the wedding cake. If I'd been more on the ball, I would have picked out a dress I liked from the internet and had someone custom make it for me, but since it didn't occur to me early enough, I was limited to what was already on the rack. Fortunately, we did find one dress that isn't shaped like a church bell, and even though it's still sleeveless (i.e. it's a corset top - don't think I'll be eating too much!) and covered in strings of blingy rhinestones, it's still a pretty nice dress. We got a little bolero to go with it, so I won't be cold or feel so naked. I also bought my very first pair of peep-toes, so it's a good thing that my salon work-up includes a pedicure (along with manicure, make-up, and hairstyle).

Of course, I'm not the only one getting a new outfit. Reziko bought his first suit and dress shoes (do you know how hard it is to find a coat and pants for someone as skinny as he?), Gogi got a snappy new shirt, pants, and dress shoes, and lovely Inga got a new haircut and a dress, and will even be wearing heels!

Food: Basa, Gogi, and Tamazi set off at about 4 AM yesterday morning to the villages in the mountains to buy meat. They came back with about 30 kilograms of cheese, an entire cow, hacked up and stuffed into grain bags, four live piglets and about twenty live chickens. Our courtyard has temporarily been turned into a barnyard. The animals are cute but stinky; the chickens are constantly knocking over their water, and one of them is an escape artist, always squeezing out through the wire. We eventually just let her roam; she can't get far anyway, as the yard is fenced. Butchering time is scheduled for four o'clock; I'm not sure yet if I'm going to watch. I'm half grossed-out and half curious, since I never have seen how animals are butchered before. So maybe I'll watch one or two and then skedaddle. All of this food will be taken to the chef at the reception hall tomorrow morning so they'll have time to cook everything by 4 PM on Wednesday.

Clean-up: We've been scurrying around getting the house guest-ready, which has involved a lot of sweeping, mopping, scrubbing, etc. I try to stay out of the way and stick to what I know how to do, which has been mostly dish-washing and sweeping. I had a little battle of wills with Inga this morning as she physically tried to stop me from moving the couch with Gogi, saying, "You can't do that, Alli! You're a WOMAN!!" Which, I know, is just how she was raised and is used to looking at the world, but it really pissed me off. And I moved the couch anyway, and explained to her that in the US I don't just wait around for a man to show up to move something marginally heavy for me, and fumed about it for awhile afterwards, and now I'm mostly over it. Most of the time I can deal with this gender-role stuff without much trouble, but when the reason why I can't do something is not because I'm not strong enough or not tall enough, but specifically because I'm a female, that irks me. Anyway, in the end we've got the house pretty presentable, which is good, because my parents arrive tomorrow!

I hope Mom brings her camera, because I don't have one, and I'd really like pictures of us looking all spiffy, and of all the food, and of the party in general. Georgian weddings typically run to 300 people, sometimes even 500, but we're keeping ours to about 100. Still, it's going to be raucous. Stay tuned for updates after Wednesday.

Allergy Update

After another miserable, snotty, sneezy morning, Reziko and I finally went to the drugstore and got me some allergy medicine. Ah sweet, sweet relief! And I'm not drowsy or loopy, and it only costs 35 tetri per pill (about 20 cents). I can handle that much per day, especially if it means I'm not going to feel like shit all winter (at least not from allergies). Yay!

Rain Rain Rain Rain Rain Rain Rain

So, guess what the weather's been like here... ugh. Apparently this has been an unusual September; normally it's considered the most beautiful month of the year in Batumi. But it's only been sunny maybe five or six days since I got here, and the rest of the time it alternates between a dreary drizzle and downright downpour. I wouldn't be so bummed about it, except I'm discovering that with all the windows closed all the time, the allergies I found tolerable this summer (to mold/mildew and cigarette smoke) are making me completely miserable now. Not only is there no air exchange with all the windows closed, but when it's pouring, we can't even go out for walks by the sea, which always clears my sinuses right up. Whaaaaaah.

But it hasn't been all bad. We have had a couple of really lovely days, during which Reziko and I went for hours-long walks that seemed to pass in minutes. Last week, in the first clear day after four or five days of rain, we walked down to the beach to watch the roily post-storm waves and look for interesting rocks. The tourists are pretty much all gone now, so we have the Boulevard and the beach and the benches and the bar by the port back to ourselves again.

We also went to the local registry the other day to find out about the process for getting me a long-term residence permit, which, as far as I knew, was required for folks planning on staying beyond the 90-day no-visa-necessary period. The girl behind the counter looked at us like we were crazy (Why do you want to stay more than 90 days? her gaze inquired), then, after consulting with some other people in the office, suggested that I simply cross the border for a day to restart the 90 days. Wow, great suggestion. I guess we could go to Turkey... Well, that just didn't sound right to me, because I was sure I'd read about the process for getting a residence permit on the Georgian Embassy's website sometime last year when I was preparing for my first visit, so we decided to check back with the ol' Ministry of Foreign Affairs online. Turns out that sometime in the last few months, the no-visa-necessary period was extended from 90 days to 360! That's almost a whole year! So, I guess THAT problem's been resolved. And the United Airlines lady in DC didn't want to let me leave without a return ticket......

My and Reziko's language lessons are heating back up, as I slowly start to chip away at my Georgian beginner's textbook, and we review the English he studied this summer in preparation for further work. I've also had a little translating work to do, but I haven't been terribly active in seeking non-Reziko students of English yet.

There has also been lots of reception planning going on, from haggling over the date (the 10th. No, the 11th. No, the 12th! No, the 11th again!), to finalizing the guest list (slashed at Reziko's insistence from 250 to around 100), to writing the grocery list (meat to vegetable ratio around 10:1). In the next couple of weeks I'll be purdied up with dress and hairstyle, myriad livestock will be handpicked and butchered from the farms around Batumi, the post-no-roof-during-rain-season disaster that is our living room will be repaired, and we'll all be ready to have a grand old time.

I'm extremely happy to report that I have not had a single intestinal problem since arriving (knock on wood), which I attribute to generally less pigging out on pork and drinking of tap water than this summer. I'm hoping my luck holds out at LEAST till after my parents' visit - they arrive next week! - so that we can have a good time together, eat a lot at the reception, and not have to worry about me feeling ill constantly. Speaking of their visit, I hope the weather clears up! We have lots of neat things to show them if the weather cooperates, but I'm afraid if it's super-rainy the whole time, our options become much more limited. This isn't exactly a huge metropolitan area, after all. Well, we'll figure it out.

Back in Batumi

Welcome to the recently renovated blog, which I am hoping to NOT abandon without warning like last time.

I got in last Saturday and had pretty awful jet lag for about three days and couldn't sleep at night, and I also came down with a cold a day after getting here (that's what I get for a week and a half of traveling around and not sleeping enough). But I appear to be pretty fully adjusted already, which is amazing, since it always seemed to take longer in Russia (same time zone). Maybe because the weather's nicer here. I've been in Batumi for a week now, and it has passed as if in a single day! We've managed nonetheless to have a few adventures. The day after I arrived, a huge storm blew in from Turkey and we had monsoon-like rains off and on for three days straight. This happens frequently, and usually isn't a problem, but this time, part of our roof was gone (it was in the rather slow process of being replaced), and so half of the upstairs got completely soaked. It also fried the electricity, so Reziko and I are still sitting in the dark in our room.

Why only in our room? Well, apparently, during the Soviet Union it was common practice to have two kinds of electricity running to your house: left and right. Right electricity was funneled through the meter; you ran your TV and lamps and whatnot on it, and you paid for it. Left electricity bypassed the meter; you ran your washing machine and other big appliances on it and got it for free. Legal? No. Widespread? Absolutely. Today the government has wiped out this practice by placing meters on the street before where the electric lines are split for each home, but the electrical systems themselves haven't been updated. Thus, our room is on left electricity, and that's the one that fried. We're still waiting for the electrician.

In other news, I've managed to get some baking done the past few days. I made peanut butter cookies and chicken pot pie, both of which went over rather well. Poor Inga's been sick (drinking bad water, perhaps?) so I've had the run of the kitchen, which has been nice. Not that I want her to be sick more often. I'm getting a little more assertive about cooking and whatnot, and now that I'm part of the family, Inga's been more willing to let me go wild with the cooking and cleaning and whatnot. It's a good feeling to be contributing, as well as to have a sense of control over my life and my space that is often lacking when you live with a host family (or your sweetheart's parents).

The past couple of days the weather has been great - it's warm and sunny during the day, but quite cool at night. Reziko and I have gone for some really great walks, and it's getting even nicer now that there are fewer tourists.

This first week has been a bit lazy, but we're gearing up to start our language lessons - Reziko learning English, of course, and me Georgian. I am still hoping to get a few English students while I'm here to help cover the cost of our plane tickets home.

Speaking of, no word yet on our visa petition. We know it's been received and it's in the works, but it can be a couple months or more before we hear anything - unless they need further documentation or something like that. Keep your fingers crossed that all will go smoothly - we'd love to be in the US as early next year as possible!

Not much else to report. Oh, except that the grapes are ripe and boy are they delicious! Nice to be living in the cradle of winemaking. :) Hope all at home is well!