Shuki Ar Aris

Following up on my initial posting of basic conversational Georgian, I offer here a selection of phrases I had no idea would come in handy until experience taught me their value:

“Shuki ar aris” – This useful phrase translates as “There’s no electricity,” and is one that I have heard rather dismayingly often. Sometimes there’s a reason, usually related to the weather, while sometimes there’s no apparent reason at all. The best reason so far, however, was that someone hadn’t paid their electric bill. Apparently this happens every month (always the same man), and as there are no individual meters on the houses, they turn off the power for the whole village until he pays. This may seem like punishing the innocent, but it can also be seen as a way of leveraging community influence, since everyone knows who this man is and pesters him until he pays up and the power goes back on. In fact, it seems to have just come back on as I’ve been writing, judging by the happy chant containing the word “shuki” coming from Paata downstairs and the sound of the evening news on the TV.

“Kartveli ts’oli ar ginda?” – “Don’t you want a Georgian wife?” I was warned about this one during orientation, and sure enough, it has cropped up twice in conversation with village residents. It is the follow-up question to be expected if one reveals that one is not yet married.

“Bavshebo, ramdeni ts’ignia?” – “Children, how many books are there?” One challenge of teaching in a Georgian village school that I hadn’t considered was that the kid’s families have to buy their own schoolbooks, and this process takes a while. Thus, many classes in the first week began with this question immediately after preliminary greetings (especially in the younger grades, the kids all jump up when we come in the room and shout, “Good morning, teachers!”). And while the books themselves have their limitations—more about this in a later post—it makes it very difficult to do any work in the books when only a handful of students in the class actually have them.

“Bavshvi!” – Grammatically, this is simply the singular form of bavshvebi (children, as in the previous phrase). In practice, though, in a house with a resident one-year-old, it means something like, “Watch out, the baby is coming your way, so try to keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t fall down/touch the stove/stick his fingers in an outlet/try to eat the chicken feather on the floor.” I should perhaps explain that there is a constant low-level war going on against the chickens, who will exploit every opportunity to get into the house, and are in constant need of being chased out.

“Soplis Harmonia” – The literal translation of “Village Harmony,” used in the dubbed footage of my second TV interview. This one was for a local Zugdidi station, and was a considerably longer segment, focusing on my interest in Georgian culture and folk music. The crew was very nice, but insisted on some rather contrived shots, such as one of me playing the panduri, even though I don’t really know how. I’ll admit to being relieved when they didn’t ask to come back to the house, thus avoiding another interview/supra extravaganza. Incidentally, while I’m on the topic of music, it turns out that one of the few other foreigners to spend any amount of time in Tsaishi was none other than ethnomusicologist and Village Harmony collaborator Carl Linich, who was here collecting songs from some of the older villagers.

Despite knowing these handy phrases, most conversation still passes straight over my head. I would have thought I’d be used to this, from the amount of traveling I’ve done, but I’ve come to realize one important difference: people here very often sound like they’re arguing, even when they’re not. Perfectly mundane exchanges quickly escalate to raised voices, emphatic gestures, exaggerated facial expressions (shock, disgust, scorn), and banging on tables, but then are just as quickly laughed off. I’m hoping I’ll get used to this, but as someone who ordinarily feels uncomfortable just being around an argument, let alone engaging in one, I’m finding it kind of stressful to be surrounded by so much conversational tension. I’m not sure if the fact that I have no idea what they’re saying makes the situation better or worse.

Lest all this sound like I’m feeling overwhelmed, I should say that on the whole, I really am enjoying my time here. School is certainly stressful, but I would be crazy not to expect it to be. It’s a new job, a new language, a new culture, and new rules to follow, all wrapped up together. And while I don’t think that it will necessarily ever become easy, I know that it will become less unfamiliar with time, and that I’ll eventually work out certain patterns and strategies to work my way through it. In the mean time, I just have to remember to treat everything as a learning experience, and consider how to use what I’ve learned going forward.

Lastly for now, I want to give you the closest thing I have to a mailing address, in case any of you feel like writing me on paper. The Georgian postal service is notoriously unreliable, but if you write to the following address, there’s at least a good chance that it will get to me:

Ben Sachs-Hamilton
Zugdidi, Village Tsaishi
Samegrelo
Georgia

I’m the only person in the village who could possibly be receiving a letter addressed in English, so if it shows up, they’ll be sure to bring it to me. I look forward to hearing from you, by whatever means you prefer!