Sunday was a special day for the village, and not because we didn't lose power for the first time that week. Seriously, 6-7 hour power cuts every day last week. The reason Sunday was special was because it was some anniversary for Merisi. I thought it would be some sort of tiny village shin dig but I was mistaken. It was huge. To emphasis how big it was the media and the President of Adjara was here and I also saw a vehicle with a Turkish flag on the front, so I assume it was some sort of diplomat; yes, that makes it officially an international event. While it was still some what hillbilly it becomes the most prestigious party I've been to. That makes my head hurt just thinking about it.
I get there and realise I don't have my phrase book and suddenly realise that I wont have much to say, then again most of the stuff I can say is already established in my vocabulary, except for stop with the tchatcha already. Not that would help, it kind of bothers me when I take the time to learn how to say I don't want/need and they still ignore me. Kind of defeats the point of trying to learn to communicate but whatever. Anyway among the festivities is a Judo competition and it turns out the goat tied to the gate is a prize for the winner, more to come on that. I eventually get tired of that and decide to explore the rest of the events. It turns out it's mostly tables with free food and booze and everyone wants to drink with the teacher. I head upstairs of the building that people are assembled outside of and there are or sorts of traditional dances going on. I took some videos and I'll work out how to show them to you one day, maybe I can dabble with the YouTube.
On the way out of the building someone says hello to me; not the kind of 'hello' that's equal and opposite to my 'garmajoba', it sounded like it came from a native English speaker. This made my heart jump, I don't often get to see people my age here, especially people who speak English. It turns out the guy was Georgian and he'd been living in England for the last two years. His English was miles better than the English teachers, I didn't have to speak slowly or rephrase what I said several times and wait and hope things got through. I basically tethered myself to him and he translated the same three questions to me that everyone has been just busting to ask me, such as: D you like Merisi? What are you're favourite Georgian foods? Do you like Georgia? Rinse and repeat. Then it came back to drinking and there were toasts. We were told to toast to something or someone important from our countries; I said something for Sir Edmund Hillary and then this old guy says something about banishing the gays from Georgia; have to love the causal hatred here. Fast forward and we're doing circuits of drinking ghvino (wine) from various tables. Eventually it becomes time to bounce and the English speaking Georgian, Roul invites me to a party up the hill. Faced with the option of spending another night of doing not much or doing something with people within a decade of my age bracket I jump at the chance.
It turns out the party is in honour of the the guy who won the Judo tournament and with that a goat, we walked it up the hill to its impending death and on the way Raoul stopped me off to get a jacket at his grandfathers place; which meant more drinking. It's funny, before they drink they do toasts and these toasts aren't short and the more you drink the longer they get, which I suspect turns more into a drunken rant (as before with the casual hatred of the gays) than a toast. I'm pretty much just repeating myself over and over and pausing to stretch it out and rephrasing it. Thankfully translating it into English pads it out as one word in English could become three in Georgian. I get some more clothing and we head off up the hill to catch up with the others.
We get there and the goat is already in pieces and in a pot of boiling water. Eventually somebody pulls out the biggest bottle of wine you will ever see and amongst the thirty odd people there's just one glass. Again, more drinking and toasting. Eventually the night ended with me getting a ride home with some of questionable sobriety. Thankfully the roads are so shit that you have to drive at a snails pace. He stalled the car so many times that he ended up just rolling it along. Bad I know, but what can you do?
I brought my memory card and loaded photos onto my computer so I should actually put some pictures up......done, I had issues with this so I put them up on Flickr
