It Must Have Been the ChaCha

             It’s been two weeks since my last update and I sincerely apologize to those who have been following along. I promised a thrilling play-by-play of our Trap Zone adventure, but I feel I must explain what’s been going on. I’ve been pretty busy with school, some personal business, and sickness, both of a nefarious, self-inflicted nature and otherwise.

            I, like many other men do, was enjoying a personal moment this morning. I was sitting with my elbows resting on my knees, contemplating life and all of the subtle and interesting turns it so often takes. Unfortunately, this moment took place on the hillside on the way to school, the bottom of my months-salary-worth of slacks soaking up the morning rain and thus the morning mud. I picked myself up by the straps of my teaching boots (the hikers that are required for my commute) and continued on to spread the good word, quite literally in this case.  

How I've felt the past couple weeks

               If you ever get the opportunity to travel to this wonderful country, I pray you will never inform anybody when your birthday is, be they a local or expat. When Wednesday the 26^th rolled around, I had forgotten that twenty-three years previous my wonderful mother brought me into this world. I was quick to remember, as nearly every man, woman and child in my village tried their best to wish me a happy birthday...somebody had loose lips.

               I went to my classes as on any other day, but somewhere in there a couple of the older students stopped me in the hallway and unceremoniously offered me a small plastic bag. Inside the bag was the single ugliest hat I had ever laid eyes on in my life. Their thoughtfulness made me want to cry.

            Soon after I was whisked away to the teacher’s room. I found all of the staff assembled, sipping Turkish coffee and chatting. I had made it half-way through my own coffee when I heard a few hushed voices practicing “happy birthday” in the hall. They set before me one of the largest birthday cakes I had ever seen, a knife that was equal to the task at hand, and a touching reminder of what hospitality really means. I had only known these people for a couple of weeks, but they went out of their way to make me feel special. It was a moment I won't soon forget.

The birthday boy

            Soon after leaving school, I was grabbed. When Georgians grab you, you have little chance of escape, their nails dig into your forearm and they pull with a force that threatens to knock you off balance. On the end of this particular arm was another teacher, he led me to a meadow behind the school where fresh-cut pieces of timber were arranged around some tomatoes, pickles, flat-bread and a bottle of chacha. The Georgians will tell you that they invented wine over five-thousand years ago, yet so many of them prefer its ugly cousin. Chacha is moonshine, made from distilling the remnants of the grape harvest, and it has so often knocked me on my ass.

            Chacha comes in many different forms; some of it (most of it) is bitter and tastes like gasoline, while other kinds can taste like brandy. I think it all depends on the type of bathtub they make it in. On this fateful afternoon, I was given chacha of a pleasing nature, it was smoother than the Russian vodka that permeates this land and it went down far too easily. There I sat, with a small group of teachers and farmers, chasing moonshine with pickles and trying not to fall off the ground.

My Georgian birthday party

            They toasted to my health, to my parents health, to Georgia, to Canada, to friends, to women, and to young men like us. They also poured a shot of the chacha onto my stool and lit it on fire, mesmerising me with the snaking blue flame and the image of what it was doing to my liver.

            Two bottles gone, I begged them to let me leave. The pickles were doing nothing to soak up the clear, bubbling demon in my stomach. I was becoming pickled. Finally, they stood up and we stumbled back onto the dirt track that makes up main-street Kvatia. I was standing off to the side of the road, head bobbing back and forth like an agreeable horse, when a man came up to me. He smiled, shook my hand, and spoke a few words to me. I smiled back, showing all of my teeth, and stuttered out “bodishi, arvitse Kartuli” (excuse me, I don’t speak Georgian). He gave me a strange look and turned without another word.

            A few minutes later, I spotted a villager that knows a few words of English and I inquired as to whose hand it was that I had just shaken. He looked at me, smiled with all of his remaining teeth, and informed me that it was the minister of education, my boss.

Downtown Kvatia

The incredible hangover I experienced the next day turned into a sickness that threatened to derail my weekend plans. The reason that brought the minister to my town was the same one that took me out of it. I travelled to Batumi to celebrate my birthday with some friends; we had the following Monday off because of the first free elections that this country has ever witnessed. With our typical level of professionalism and all-around classiness, we brought in this new era of democracy with both the style and respect that it deserved. I only woke up face-down on a balcony once.

The crew in Batumi

            I’m going to put a lot more effort into this blog in the coming weeks. I’ve spent the past two weekends in Batumi and so I’ve banished myself to my village for the foreseeable future. I’m also going to try and prove to you that I am actually doing good work here: it’s not all debauchery and difficult mornings. Again, I apologize for the delay but check back for updates concerning school, village life and some other adventures. 

Kargad!