Gaumarjos!

Well, I wasn’t going to post again before going to Svaneti this weekend, but then the trip was postponed by a day, and I had something to write about, so here it is.

Marina, our school director, put together a big supra last night, ostensibly in honor of the successful renovation of the school over the summer. She invited several people who worked on the project, the few male members of the school staff (don’t ask me why), me (possibly as one of the previous category but also because I’m Someone Special in the community), and a few people from the regional Resource Center in Zugdidi. Then, in what was essentially a gift to me, she invited Polikarpe Hubilava, a beloved 88-year-old local singer, from whom Village Harmony actually gets some of its Georgian repertoire, and some other older folks who sing with him. Thus, in between the many toasts that passed around the room, our end of the rather long table was engaged in a lot of singing, which made me very happy. I got to listen to a number of great songs, and with Paata’s help, I figured out what songs we knew in common, so I got to sing with them too! Marina explained that while she was very sad that I was leaving in December, she wanted to give me one really great day, and she certainly did. There was so much food on the table that it was both beautiful and almost disgusting, with some plates piled on top of others for lack of space, and we didn’t leave until after midnight.

This morning, we were summoned back to the same house for what is apparently a traditional part of a big supra that I hadn’t heard about, namely eating leftovers and renewing the drinking and toasting for another couple hours.

In other news, we, that is, about fifteen volunteer teachers and a handful of Georgians, leave tomorrow morning for a long weekend in Svaneti. There’s not really much of a plan, which bothered me at first, but then I just decided to give up and go with the flow, so we’ll see what happens. A lot will depend on the weather, so I’ll have to wait and tell you more about it once we get back.

I’ll leave you for today with a little reflection on one of the unexpected obstacles of teaching in a Georgian classroom: the kids all have the same names, and the names are all really similar. The vast majority of students in any class will be called Giorgi, Giga, Gega, Gio, Nino, Nini, Nana, Nata, Natia, Nika, Lika, Lana, Lasha, Vasha, and other maddeningly indistinguishable names. A few names, like Salome, Irakli, Zuriko, and Shotiko, are more distinctive, but no less abundant. This problem extends to the staff as well, which contains, as far as I can tell, two Ninos, two Nanas, and two Nunus. I’m doing pretty well at remembering the names of the kids in the oldest grades, who I am able to communicate better with, but in the younger grades, it’s pretty much a lost cause.