you can't have your namtskhvari and eat it too

A quick note on Christmas in Georgia…

As Georgians are Orthodox, they celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January. This is because the Orthodox liturgical calendar still uses the Julian Calendar, rather than the Augustinian Calendar, mainly because the guy who updated and corrected the calendar was a Pope, and at that time, the Orthodox Patriarchs didn't like the Roman Pope. This is probably because his funny looking hat was a different color than their funny looking hats, and probably there's something in the Bible about the colors of funny looking hats, just as there is about calcing. However, many Georgians know the history of the Church, in that we used to be one Church and nowadays there isn't too much different between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches. They look at us generally the same, except we sit down a lot, cross ourselves backwards and don’t fast quite as much. I like to call us the Western Orthodox Church, in case they haven't heard the news. And by news, I mean what just happened a thousand years ago.

During the Soviet Union, the practice was to transfer all festivities and traditions from Christmas to the New Year, creating one essentially big Supreme Party for the Pride, Glory and Solidarity of the Congress of Workers Soviets. This is very much like when the Catholics took pagan traditions and just transferred them over to Christian holidays (the cross was not made of pine, guys, surprise!). The Soviet social engineers (like the Catholic Church before them) knew that it was important that people still have celebrations and that it would be easier to control a populace if you didn't make too many drastic changes to their traditions and if you still had Santa Clause. So gift giving, Santa Clause, Christmas trees and all that were just moved. And Santa Clause was renamed to Grandfather Frost.

This would have taken place in America too, I imagine, as everything becomes more sterilized, but our Capitalist social engineers (ie marketing companies) decided to just leave it all on December 25th. They are, of course, wiser than the Soviets and the Catholics, in that they work all the more subtly. Having a Ministry of Propaganda, though quite nice in terms of transparency, is probably not the best idea when you're pumping out the lies to the people. No, no, a Press Room works much better for that.

As the Soviet Union dissolved and collapsed like an overused Lada (who am I kidding, those things never break down!), they just kind of left it alone and New Years is still a day to exchange gifts and party it up like 1999 (the last of all real parties in America, until 2011). So today, I'm celebrating my Christmas, which is today, on December 25th. I'm attending a birthday supra tonight, so as in the tradition of all Catholics, I'm taking that birthday supra and turning it into my Christmas celebration. Clever, eh? Then I'll get to party next week for New Years, and then party again on January 7th. So, don't feel sorry for me, the wine shall flow! But, not the women, unfortunately. They will probably be sitting at the "women's table". A pox and scurvy on womens' tables! Or on mens' tables who don't allow for women! And for all the babbling babushkas who'd make a fuss if the women sat too close to the men! Actually, not on the babbling babushkas, since they're the ones making the food, and I'd rather not have a pox or scurvy. You can't have your namtskhvari and eat it too, as they say. And if you're not Georgian and can say that word correctly, I'll give you ten dollars. And I've never understood that saying. Why would you have a cake if you couldn't eat it? That'd just be silly.

watch where you step

Back during training, I used to go jogging nearly every morning with another volunteer. It was in those days that we were in close vicinity together, about five of us in each village. The Peace Corps does a good job of easing you into the insanity of the country you're living in, especially since the training is the most stressful and shocking part of the service. I tried to maintain a modicum of what my normal life back home was like, and jogging and exercise were a part of it. Probably I should have sought relaxation, rather than pushing myself so hard, it would have saved me much heartache and stress. But when I'm confronted with a situation in which I can push myself retardedly onward, I tend to pick that instead of sitting back. Which is strange since normally I'm a person who likes to sit back.

This other volunteer and I would run around in circles on the local football field, until finally, a kid joined us and told us a nice road to run down. We'd run down that road, jumping over rocks and turkeys and dodging pools of standing water and cows for some fifteen minutes and we'd turn back. A dried up river was our boundary. The first few times we reached the boundary, my friend and I would look to each other and say, "Let's run past that next time. Let's see what's on the other side." I was even imagining myself, on one Sunday or another, strapping on my backpack and making an event out of exploring the other side of the river. It was like standing on the edge of civilization and out before you was a great expanse of unexplored country. There is nothing that boils my blood and urges me onward more than unexplored country. That's what brought me out here to begin with. It wasn't any philanthropic urge, it was the urge for exploration, to see and experience new things. And in that sense, I can never be placated. When I sit still for too long, I begin to stir. It is wanderlust. And with all the requirements Peace Corps put on us at the beginning, with all the restrictions, with the utter removal of all of our freedom, I could feel myself grinding away. I needed some release, some exploration. These bindings were growing tighter and tighter, I could feel them digging into my skin. I felt as though soon I would pop.

At the river we stood, the Georgian youth with us. This kid was one of the more shining examples of what Georgians could be. He was a judo champion, always light on his feet, always respectful of his elders and of women. He was lean and tall and was always smiling. He had the kind of sincerity of heart that I always wished I could have. He didn't have any of the darkness that's always hidden behind my eyes. No, he had a simple joy about him. If I could have understood anything he said, which I didn't since he didn't speak any Russian and at the time I was a complete mute in Georgian, I imagine that he would have said some funny anecdotes and would have always had honest praises of his neighbors and enemies, though I doubted he had any of those. Perhaps I'm praising him too highly here and perhaps most of my esteem in him was because we didn't speak the same language. But what does it matter? I can think better of people than they deserve if I want. It's better than thinking worse of people than they deserve.

The hot wind was in our faces. Today would be another hot one. You could tell that early here. The hot air mixed in with the smell of sheep and cow manure. Mornings weren't much for smells, but the sight was worth it. We could see the ridge of mountains to the north of us and look down across the valley to the gentle rise that would lead to the feet of the Southern Caucasus and drop away to Azerbaijan. Always a gentle breeze. Always menacing clouds lurking down the valley. "This is a good day to go," my friend said. "Isn't it?" I replied. We looked at the kid. He was smiling at us. We pointed over the river gulley and grunted.

He shook his head and spewed off a few words in Georgian.

My friend looked at me. I said, "I don't know what he said. Maybe something about snakes?"

"Well, why not?" I asked the kid.

He went on again. His hand signals showing that there was an urgent danger across there.

"I think maybe he's saying there's some kind of building there?" my friend said.

"Hmm… snakes… or maybe a building… maybe there's construction going on?"

"I guess."

From the look on the kid's face though, we were both for the time discouraged from going over. Probably if I had stayed in Giorgitsminda longer than I had, I would have gone over that river. It's a good thing I didn't stay in that village too much longer, since then I'd probably be dead. Chance and fate are a strange thing like that. Had that kid not gone running with us on that day, which he wasn't always with us, then both of us might have been gone.

Why? Past that river was an unmarked minefield. I just found out about that at the conference. There was an old military hospital there, and during the revolution, to prevent wanton ripping off of military and medical equipment, the evacuating Soviets just threw done a few hundred mines. The cool thing about minefields is that they tend to kill more children than anything. And usually the reason they were lain was some thirty years ago and is as historical as Genghis Khan. The lesson here is: Boys, go ahead and play with your guns. But please clean up after yourselves and don't leave your obscenities lying around.

My friend was pissed when we heard about this. I personally found it kind of funny and now a source of bragging rights. So, next time I'm in America drinking beers and telling stories, better believe I'll be using the "I almost ran into a minefield!" story. Though I'll have to embellish it a bit, and since that comes rather naturally, that should go without saying.

Priorities

The marshutka was one of those rides you don't want to remember. Pressed between two fat, smelly Georgian men, I tried to pass the time by either reading For Whom The Bell Tolls or staring dully out the window. Please to God don't let one of them talk to me and decide to drag me home as their American trophy, "Honey, look what I done killed!" and place me on the mantle next to the ram horns. Except, actually, it'd sounds more like "Topli, ukureba akari!" Which isn't correct either, but I'm losing the motivation to make it correct.

I made it home to Bolnisi at last. It's strange that I've finally started referring to this place as home. The insanity of the place. The utter, perverse weirdness of every aspect of life. Well, at least it's not Africa. Or Utah. So there's always that to look up on. But the day I got back was Giorgoba. Had I known this, maybe I would have known it would have been better to spend the day in Tbilisi, locked away in a hotel room with the curtains drawn and a "Please do not disturb" sign hanging on the doorknob. Not that they have those signs here.

Giorgoba is St. George's Day. This is Georgia's version of St. Patrick's Day. I'll put it like that, since that's the most directly correlation that can be found in America. Sounds all religious and innocent doesn’t it? Like a family holiday, right? To be fair, here it is a family holiday. And it is religious and innocent. It's just in their religion, they take down five liters of wine every day in rams' horns. Had I known that my innocent walk about town would lead to drinking a ram's horn in every single house in the city, while everyone shouted, "God bless America!" and "You should take a Georgian wife!" Had I known that, would I have repeated it? Yeah, probably. Had they actually thrown in some Georgian virgins on the bargain, I think I'd have repeated it a hundred fold. But, such is life, no Georgian virgins to be had by me… yet.

The next day, after meeting more people and being further questioned on my marital status and whether I like Georgian food or not, they took me up a hill to slay a ram. Bonus. I'm told that because St. George cut the head of a dragon off on this week, we have to cut heads off of rams. I'm not an overly superstitious person and tend to believe that all traditions spin from rational events. Probably the dragon stood for something or whatever. Georgians don't like to hear anthropological hooha, so they quickly shut you up by sticking a knife in one of your hands and the horn of a dead ram in the other while shouting and making cutting motions and laughing hysterically. Cutting off rams heads have become like a sport for me, and I must say I'm rather developing a skill for it. With my few sweeps of the rusty blade, the head was off and the Georgians quieted down and nodded their heads in approval. That afternoon, we ate the ram, along with drinking a few hundred more liters of wine. I must say, I'm not overly preferential to the ram's heart. During the supra, more questions were asked of me. "How do you like Georgian women? Would you like one for a bride?"

"Depends on the woman." This, I've learned, is the most important phrase to know in Georgian. It always evokes the response of all the old men slowly nodding their heads, as if I uttered a piece of superior wisdom. Sometimes, a person repeats in a vague whisper of approbation, "Damokidebulia kalze… ki… ki…" "Depends on the woman… yes… yes…" I have begun to become suspicious of their intentions to marry me off though. I mean, what's so wrong with the women that they want to get them all married off to strangers? Or, is it the typical pride of the Georgian, to show off what they have made? This is at the root of Georgian hospitality after all. "Drink my wine, it is the best!" And after you drink it, they want to know how it tastes compared to Dato's wine, or Pata's wine. Walk carefully here. Georgians are easily offended on three things: wine, food and women. They kill over these things. Sometimes I wonder if the problems with Russia were really started over a drunk Abkhazian insulting a Megrelian's wine, then the Megrelian insulting the Abkhazian's mother.

Really, Giorgoba is exactly my kind of holiday. Crazy amounts of drinking, meeting the neighbors and cutting heads off rams. There aren't too many ways to beat that. Maybe if I had some cotton candy with spiders in it, but you know, there's a trade off. That's what we do in life. We make trade offs, we make compromises. We have to prioritize.

I still taught classes that week, though to a crowd in largely diminished size. That is to say, it wasn't a crowd, it was more like ten kids. "So what did you do for Giorgoba?" I asked, going on down the line. The girls all answered, with wide grins, "I went to church for eight hours and then I went to the supra. I didn't drink though, no no!" The boys all answered, with wide grins, "I cut off a ram's head and then went to the supra and had a ram's horn of wine!"

Not my problem

There were about 20 kids in the room from a few of the area schools. When the video finished playing, all that could be heard was the quiet hum of the gas radiator. The heat disappeared after about five feet and from any of the kids farther from the heater, one could see frost rising from their mouths. Winter isn't the best time for education here, but it's a message needed to be sent out. Especially when in the parks of small towns and in the streets of Tbilisi, the answer to the conditions of poverty are often found in the depression of a needle. Blood spurts back when the needle first enters, fills the brown liquid with a touch of red, and then with the injection, everything goes in and only a trickle is left over. Sit back, sigh, feel all the problems drain away. Refill, reset, "Here friend, have some." It's an ironic fact that most new addicts are won over by close friends.

"But you know, it's only the Svans that are narkomani. It's only the Ossettes. It's only Armenians. Good proper Georgians aren't narkomani."

"I almost stepped on a needle next to your house."

"That wasn't my kids'. That was a neighbor's."

There was some whispering in the corner. The steam picked up there as the exhalation of breath quickened. Someone laughed. They were talking about something else, not the content of the videos or the discussion. Those few moments, that chuckle, they were a long time. Every moment seems like an eternity, especially in the cold. The cold makes everything slow down, it makes time slow down. But also serious matters have that effect.

Beneath the drug usage, beneath the addictions and the deaths from bad heroin, there's a darker foe lurking. One that can strike even the first time user.

The presenter stood up and asked, "For how many of you was this the first time to hear about AIDS?"

Every kid in the room raised their hand. AIDS was never really a huge problem in Georgia. In 1999 the infected population was under .001%. That's nothing compared to their northern neighbor's infection rate. For Russia, there are nearly 1 million people living with HIV or AIDS, bringing the prevalence rate to 1.1 of the population. In the 2000s however, narcotic drugs and the sex industry picked up in Georgia, increasing the rate of infection by 350%, so that from .001% in 1999, the rate of infection is now at .1%, or a total of 2,700 people. The reason there are such ridiculously high numbers, for both Russia and Georgia, and for the rest of Eastern Europe, is that drug users are highly stigmatized and marginalized. The general attitude is that if you're using narcotics, then you should receive no support from friends, family or the government. You're effectively cast out, and so a problem that exists among narkomani is largely ignored. In Georgia, as the rates are steadily on the rise, more groups have begun to take note of it.

In Russia, the problem exists here: as there are few needle exchange programs, a narkomani shares a needle with an infected user. Then the narkomani sees a prostitute, or is perhaps seeing a prostitute, or is the prostitute herself. Then a middle class man sees that same prostitute, then goes home to his wife or girlfriend, who then herself becomes infected. The girlfriend sees someone else, who then becomes infected, repeat ad nauseum. As there are also few awareness programs to promote abstinence or safe sex, it continues to spread.

In Georgia, it's a similar case, though it has historically been slower since it hasn't adopted the free sex lifestyle that's become prevalent in Russia. But there's still the existence of underground sex workers and a growing problem with narcotics, both completely ignored by the government and society at large. Not our problem, so we should push it under the rug. My son will never do narcotics. My son will never have premarital sex. Not my son. Prostitution isn't a problem here, and if he sees one, well, he's a man, that's what they do. It's not your problem. It's never your problem. Not until your friend gets it. Not until your son, daughter, husband or wife get it. Not until you get it.

These attitudes also create a large degree of underreporting, so that the actual infection rate is probably much higher than what is officially known. How many men (and boys) here have I met to brag about their time with prostitutes? And how many have wives or will have wives?

For more about AIDS and HIV in the world abroad, go here: http://www.avert.org/
In Georgia, Worldvision. and Peace Corps are the active groups in AIDS
awareness projects. Do your part, at the very least, educate your kids.

And a quick note to Christians, who are often the ones doing the marginalizing in His name: Jesus reached out to the marginalized, to the weak and sick at heart. He didn't give a flying profanity to the lot that was "already saved". So keep that in mind next time you judge someone of lesser circumstance.