Festival of Abasha

Last saturday was the village festival. It was everything that one expects from a Georgian celebration. There was a church service, music, dancing, tables and tables of food, lots of wine, and lots of Georgian men immediately ready to fill your empty glass. I'll start with the church service. My colleague, Nino, took me inside the church where a service was being held. It was beautiful inside, with lots of brightly colored icons on the walls.  It was unlike any service I have been to. It was incredibly small and everyone was standing, sometimes pushing rather fiercely I might add, and everyone was talking. Friends were embracing and having conversations while others sang in the corner and still more lit candles and just observed. Nino forced me to take pictures of everything, pointing and saying "take picture now" and "now from this angle, it would be better." I think I even have a picture of the bathrooms. After the service was the music and dancing. Getting to the front row of this small concert was seriously worse than being at a Jay Z concert. Georgian moms with cameras have the strangest ability to finagle their way through the smallest of spaces. I stood at the very front in the beginning and somehow ended up near the back after only 5 minutes. Those of you who know me know that I am super competitive and not easily pushed aside. So I did what I would do at any other concert, I showed them I meant business! -- I finally made it to the 4th row, fair enough. The dances were beautiful. The Georgian people are so proud of their traditions and everyone was clapping and smiling and of course the moms were waving their cameras. Next, we feast! By far my favorite part of the festival was the socializing and drinking and feasting that came afterwords. Long tables filled with food: meat (seriously a goat that still had its head but it stomach had been carved out and filled with apples), bread, cheese, fruit, eggplant (which was amazing), cakes and WINE. Yes, wine. Drinking sometimes from long horns and sometimes from bowls and sometimes from cups, not even sure which cup was mine at times as there were so many. After a toast you are required to drink back your whole glass and of course, in Georgian fashion, there were about a hundred toasts.  When the whole village had become inebriated, including myself, there was lots of hugging and cheek kissing (sometimes you went in for the cheek kiss and they moved last minute for a real kiss...oops) and I was even fed some grapes-- yes they actually insisted on putting the grapes into my mouth. The whole thing was less sexual than I'm making it sound I promise... but not by much. Anyways here I met another foreigner working in a nearby village. He is from Canada (ay?) and his name is Daryl. Only a few miles away, I suspect we will be hanging out a lot. Chase, a fellow Fulbrighter, living in Kutaisi, also met me there. The three of us were a pretty damn awesome bunch.

Daily life resumed after the Saturday spectacular. My new Georgian friend, Davit, texted me on Sunday to make sure I was alive. His actual text read "How are you feeling morning you drank so much yesterday :)" Frankly, I am not amused. I just got out of 4 years of college....in MAINE, if there's one thing I can do its drink. I happily let Davit know that I was feeling great.  The rain continued all of Sunday and Monday unfortunately and although I am happy to have my super durable waterproof rain jacket, it is no match for the monsoons of Abasha. Note to self: get large umbrella.  My classes have started to become a familiarized routine. Although the kids are amazing and the teachers try their best it is not always easy. Children almost never do their homework and teachers follow lesson from lesson from what I can only describe as a hilariously bad British textbook. Half of the time I don't know what's going on because everyone is speaking Georgian and another quarter of the time I don't even understand the English directions. But alas, everything is tolerable when the class is over and the teachers usher me into the lounge and make me coffee and feed me cake and tell me I'm pretty. Yes, this will work nicely for me.

Fun facts:
Sneakers in England are called trainers, sweaters are called jumpers and to "turn over" means to change the channel on the TV.

Georgian feast

Goat with no stomach

Inside of Georgian Orthodox church

Traditional Georgian dance