I Have Seen the Face of Dog

            The sickness that had met me with the weekend had all but vanished by Sunday. I woke up feeling chipper but anxious, outwardly calm yet wracked with inner turmoil. I needed something to do.

Bardnali shrouded with cloud

            Entering the third week of my month long self-banishment to the mountains, I’m starting to go a little crazy. Long periods of inactivity leave you restless, and any interaction with the people of Kvatia is often unsatisfying for both parties. Neither of us ever know what the hell the other person is talking about and even the sign-language of the Caucasus is as foreign to me as their tongue. When I say that I am the only person for miles and miles that speaks English, what I’m really saying is that I’m the only person for miles and miles that does not speak Georgian. You have to learn to be your own confidant, your own psychiatrist, and your own best friend.

            When Sunday morning crept around, it was time to climb that damned mountain that had been mean-mugging me since I first got here two months ago. I stuffed my face with melted cheese, slurped down a Turkish coffee and hit the road at the bleary-eyed hour of 12pm.

            My family did not want me to go on this little hike at all. One of the purposes of the TLG program is to facilitate a cultural exchange, yet this is entirely one-sided. My eyes widen when I learn of the intricacies of Georgian culture, my mind plays host to little debates as I argue with myself over the logic, historical context, and present-day consequences of getting drunk on moonshine at 10am or yelling at a person who is standing two feet away from you. When my family recognizes things that are important to my culture, such as maintaining a certain level of physical fitness, hygiene, and spending all of my money on useless gadgets, they just laugh in my face and shake their heads. They seriously could not understand what made me want to climb that mountain.

The range behind me curves across the border into Turkey

             I waited until they were collectively bent over a bucket of grapes and then I made my escape. I immediately felt better: the pent up frustration from work, the homesickness, the physical sickness, the confusion over my life and the lives of those around me, it was all expended in the sweat that dripped down my face or in the vapour of my warm breath as it hit the chilly autumn air.

            I made my way down through the village, tipping my ball cap to smiling young men and women, wrinkled old babushkas, and screaming children who kicked empty beer bottles around the street. I crossed the valley and began to climb for the next three hours. The meandering switchbacks of the dirt road gave way to narrow, snaking lanes of rock and gravel. Nothing but the stoutest of Russian jeeps would make it up here, a place the locals call Bardnali.

The valley

            An hour went steadily by. I broke up the climb with short water breaks or opportunities for self-portraits, remember what I said about being your own friend? I stumbled around sheep, danced around cows, and jumped over fallen logs, but there was one barrier that was not so eager to be conquered: a frightfully rabid dog.

            My route took me through a cheerful meadow, complete with a herd of lazy cows who were taking advantage of the pleasant afternoon the only way that they knew how: eating grass. If I didn’t have my headphones in and cranked to the new Mumford and Sons, I probably would have noticed the barking, but alas, I was jamming.

            The dog came flying around a disinterested bull and stopped before me, all teeth and matted fur, barring my way. Saliva dripped out of its fearsome jaws, its eyes mere slits filled with an unmistakable hunger: the hunger for Canadian flesh. I looked up towards the top of the mountain and then back down to the valley, I did not want to turn around; I wanted to keep this good feeling going.

            It was a Caucas dog, bred over thousands of years for one purpose: to fight wolves to the death. I pulled the headphones out of my ears and implored my bovine brethren for assistance but they politely refused to become involved. If I hadn’t been eating nothing but cheese for the past 8 weeks I probably would have messed myself. This was dire.

Almost there

            I am a great lover of dogs, I think they make terrific companions, and I’m always the first one to walk up to strange canines and give them a good scratch behind the ears. However, during our orientation in Tbilisi, the government informed us that a sizeable proportion of Georgian dogs have rabies. No big deal, rabies won’t kill you.

            Then they told us that after taking the rabies vaccine, you weren’t able to consume alcohol for six months.

            My right hand reached for my knife while my left searched the ground for a big enough rock to brain this beast. Dog lover or not, I’m not about to go down without a fight. You aren’t supposed to make eye contact with an angry dog but screw that, I thought, I’m gonna stare this thing down while I walk right on by it.

            I began a slow shuffle towards my fate, muscles tensed, arms locked, jaw set. Cerberus stood his ground, growling and snapping at the air, a strip of black hair on its back standing straight up. Five feet (more snapping), four feet (its weight shifting to its back paws), three feet (black eyes starting to roll back), two feet (I begin to shake). As I closed in, right when I was certain that the dog was about to spring towards my neck, a shrill whistle filled the crisp afternoon air. The dog sat back on its haunches, its tongue came out, and it blinked agreeably at me.

Finally made it

            Another blast and the dog jumped up and trotted away. I looked up towards my saviour and found an eight-year-old child, a student of mine, who was giggling while the dog was eagerly licking his face. The headphones went back in and I crushed the rest of the mountain, when the adrenaline wore off my pace slackened, but I made it home before nightfall in a state approaching bliss.

            My family later informed me that they could hear me talking in my sleep on Sunday night; I bet I was still thanking that boy.    

            On a side note, it has dawned on me that perhaps the readers of this blog would enjoy a perspective on Georgia other than my own. There are fifty-eight people in my intake and fifty-eight blogs to go with them, but I enjoy my friend Sanchez’s quite a bit. He has a down to earth, no-nonsense style that I believe contrasts quite nicely with my own, so you guys should check him out at http://sanchezjohnson.wordpress.com/, particularly his article entitled “I’m a Grown-Ass Man!”

Kargad!

-Zacho

Pickniki, Kvatia behind my bag