Postcards from Georgia:
I arrive at the border in a Chevy minivan, a shared taxi carrying an Armenian doing business in Turkey, an Iranian doing business in Russia and three Armenians with no business but chainsmoking during the ride. There’s no line to leave Armenia, but the passport agent is busy with a long line of trucks from Georgia and Turkey headed into the country. They idle on the bridge over the small river that divides the nations. A fisherman stands in the middle of the stream in wading boots, casting for trout. On the Georgian side, a blonde border guard examines my passport. A woman in uniform is so incongruous here that I notice she’s cute, a serious-faced pixie with epaulets. She stamps my passport.
“Please look at camera.”
I look into a webcam and smile.
“Please do not cheese”
I break into a broad grin. “Aww, now you made it so I can’t stop doing it.”
She looks at my passport “You are smiling in this picture too.” She says, and points to my photo, taken 9000 miles ago at a New York City Post Office. “You are easygoing guy.”
“Usually am.” I say
“Welcome to Georgia. You can go straight through customs.” She says, and smiles.
The Marriott Courtyard and the Tourism office are across the street from each other in Freedom Square. The Marriott has better free maps of the city, but the tourism office has better free maps of the country.
For the first time in more months than I can count on one hand, I walk into a McDonalds, this one on Rostavelli street, occupying two floors of the corner of a historic building. I’m told it’s the classiest in the country. I realize for the first time that every McDonalds has the same distinct smell, hot grease and fries and plastic. It’s a smell I could recognize anywhere. I order a big mac, fries and a coke then take my meal upstairs to eat and watch Georgian women in miniskirts chase toddlers while their husbands flip through iPhones. I’d forgotten how soft McDonalds bread is. The preservatives, too, have their distinct flavor that I’d forgotten. After months of tough, freshly killed beef and chicken, I can’t even taste the meat. The fries are forgettable tools for carrying ketchup and grease. The coke is delicious.
My Couchsurfing host is an Indian medical student. I share the surf with Alex, a Chicago boy who came to Georgia to volunteer for four months in Teach and Learn in Georgia, a Georgian Government program that works like a mini-PC. Idealistic 20somethings from English-speaking countries are recruited to be placed in Georgian schools in Tbilisi and the regions (especially in the north, where the PC won't go because of the risks in the event of a war with Russia). They're given a week of orientation, no health-care and twice the salary of a Georgian teacher. It's this last point that has infuriated the opposition party, as has the rumors of one of the TLG'rs (or TnL, as I like to say) being gay. He's not, but that hasn't stopped the media from camping out in front of his house. Alex is friendly and soft spoken, and it’s his first time out of his little Georgian village in 4 months. We go out at night with three TnL girls, equally wide-eyed. “You mean you can just go into a bar without paying cover?” says one, from a farm near the Mississippi River, “Isn’t that stealing?” We make our way to an art gallery/bar. “I think this might be a private party.” She says, “We shouldn’t intrude.”
In the bar is a mix of expats and good music. An 8 year old gypsy girl with a teddy bear backpack dances with the customers. I meet an American journalist and her German friend, who has discovered Long Island Ice Tea has very little ice and no tea. Unfortunately, the German has been discovered by a short, squat 60-something Georgian man with eyes going in two different directions. He is holding her hand and telling her how beautiful she is in some sort of English, then naming bands he likes. I look at the American, then take the Georgian man's hands. “Your hands are so beautiful. And you have a very long life line. You must have lived for several hundred years.” The American gets the joke. “Oh, you have to read his right hand,” she says, “look at this love line. It’s very short. I think you’re not going to be lucky in love.” I pick the man’s hat off his head. “Look at this hat, I love this hat, it’s so beautiful. May I have it?” The German takes it out of my hands and put is backwards on her head and starts to dance. The Georgian is encouraged. He puts his hands on both of her cheeks and kisses her full on the mouth.
“That’s it buddy, you’re out of here.” I push the Georgian away, towards the bars entrance.
“Just one. Just one more.” He pleads. Out. push. Okay, okay, he leaves the bar.
“Well, I didn’t give him any tongue.” Says the German.
Chase and I hit the bathhouse, sharing a private room with a shower and a hot tub. Drinking Georgian beers in the steaming sulfur water, then cooling off by lying on the marble slab is the most relaxing thing I’ve done since my last spring motorcycle ride along the West Side Highway. We get a massage from a Georgian man who wears swim trunks in deference to our Americanness. I later find out that if I wanted a massage from a woman, I had to go up the hill to the older baths where drunken men stumble out and women check their makeup in mirrors in the alcove outside.
I take the train home, sharing a compartment with two ethnic Armenian women born and living in Georgia. I bring out bread, cheese, sausage and lemonade. They bring out chicken, vegetables and vodka. We make a few toasts, then I call folks at home for a Sunday-night catchup session. I’m on the phone with Sandra when people start running the hall “Durs Gna! Durs Gna! Passport Brne!” yell my compartment mates. “I have to go,” I tell Sandra, “they’re telling me to go outside and bring my passport. I also haul out my backpack and sleeping back. Never want to leave behind your towel and all that. “Djur! Djur! Brne Djur!” men are yelling. Bring water? Where? I’ve got a bottle of drinking water in my bag. I hop off the train. Flames and smoke are coming from the front. I run forward. The rear of the locomotive is on fire. Used fire extinguishers are piled around. Men are running up with buckets labeled ТУЛИТ -Toilet“Djur! Djur! Djur ka!” there is water here! There is no light. I pull my headlamp from my backpack then drop the pack on the ground. There is a small pond, little more than a puddle of water. Beside it is an Armenian man, trying to avoid getting mud from the pond on his shiny pointy black shoes. He’s smoking a cigarette with one hand, dipping buckets into the shallow water with the other. There’s a long line of men waiting for their buckets to be filled. I step into the mud and join him, but the water isn’t deep enough to fill a bucket. “Oh really.” I say, and step into the water up to my ankles, then pass up filled buckets of water.
The fire is soon put out and we stand around watching the locomotive and waiting for someone to say what to do.
“Thank you for helping save the train. You’re a real hero.” Says a distinguished looking man. “Would you like some dry socks? You shouldn't catch a cold.”
“No, I’ve got plenty in my bag, but thanks. I’m sure this only happens on the Georgian side.”
“Of course. They were going much too fast.”
We get back on the train. I change out of my mud spattered pants. Women come to my compartment to thank me and worry about my catching cold. The train limps back towards Tbilisi, the locomotive is changed and we start our journey again. I unpack my sleeping bag and get in my bunk, the rocking motion of the train sending me right to sleep. At the border, I wake enough just enough to hand the guards my passport from my pocket.
-Don’t bother him, let him sleep, I hear the other people on the train saying, he helped save the train, he’s a good boy.
I wake up in Yerevan.
Update:
Returning home, my host family quizzes me on the prices of food in Georgia. How much was bread? How much was this cheese? I bring them two kilos of mandarins, the fruit specialty of Georgia, sold by old ladies on the side of the road and in metro stations. I get good at doing 3-way conversions. 1 Lari for a kilo of mandarins is about 50 cents is about 150 dram.
-Which is more beautiful? the teachers at my school ask, Yerevan or Tbilisi
-They're both nice, I say.
-Say Yerevan, they say.
-Yerevan.
-Good boy, apres.
I return to school to find half the students out sick. My school director has placed crushed garlic in the classrooms to ward off disease and cancels my English clubs.
My host family tells me that the radio has announced that Saakashvili blamed the fire on an attack by a 13-year old Abkazhian terrorist. The radio also mentioned that an American passenger helped put out the fire. C'est la vie.
