Tuesday, December 1, 2015

my old host family and a bucket full of grenades


A look down the street
This is another bit from my old Georgia file, when I was a volunteer back in the Peace Corps and I first moved to my training site in Giorgitsminda, Kakheti. 

I found myself sitting across from an old Georgian man in army fatigues, smoking some stale cigarettes, staring at me as though trying to figure out why the hell an American would come and live with them. We sat in a dark, low-ceilinged living room, with wood paneling on three sides and a brick wall and fireplace on the fourth. It felt something like my grandmother's house in Louisiana, complete with aging furniture and floral patterns on the upholstery. Everything smelled of cigarette smoke and there was a general thickness to the air.
I was thinking nearly the same thing myself though. Finally he began to talk to me. It felt as though man had first discovered words, primal grunting followed by spurts of confusion. Finally, it dawned on me that I was understanding what he was saying, that is, he was speaking Russian. I had studied Russian back in university though had barely kept up with it, mainly only as a bar trick to write in another alphabet and impress girls. He shook his hand at me, exasperated, thinking I didn't comprehend. It didn't matter though, since I couldn't think of how to reply to what it was he had asked me. My Russian seemed to be at the level of a four year old. Quickly being able to comprehend more and more, though at times being at a loss for words at not having enough vocabulary. It is, at least, an easier language than Georgian.

The front of the house, my balcony
I had arrived there only a few hours before. The Peace Corps had put all of us volunteers and host families into a high school gym, separated from each other like at a dance, with the volunteers slightly shy, hands in the pockets, trying to read which one of those people would be our hosts and if there were any cute host sisters or mothers over there. The Georgians were on their side, relaxed, smiling, excited to show these adventurous young foreigners what their country was all about. They read off our names one by one, one volunteer to one family, and each volunteer would awkwardly advance and try not to make a fool of himself in front of everyone. "Do I kiss on the right cheek, or left, or both?" "Should I just shake hands?" "Should I just keep my hands to myself?" All these things that formulate a sturdy first impression that were completely alien to us, like we were just out of a crazy house, unsure of how to cope with the outside world.

When I met my host dad, I had mixed feelings. He was a short guy, bald, with a huge scar that split his face. At first I thought perhaps it was from a war - in which he had fought many - but later I had learned he was in a car wreck and the windshield had tore apart his face. He was fit, energetic and always helpful - he knew everyone in the village and was quick to hook one family up or another with a favor, working the lines of the birja - the local town collective - like a telephone operator. He brought me to a black Mercedes and they drove me back to their house. The Mercedes was not their's, but a loan from a neighbor. I suppose he wanted me to feel comfortable coming in, especially since his car was a pale blue Lada that you had to kick in order to start. He then was off to help some neighbors out with something and I was there alone on the couch, across from the grandpa.

When my host father got back, as he showed me around the house, I tried to adjust my thinking - perhaps he was more of the host brother. He was about my age and much smaller than me, the top of his head barely reaching my chest. I felt like a clumsy giant thudding around the place behind him. And here was the tour of the house, in broken Russian so that I could understand: "This is the living room, as you know. And here is the kitchen. And the marani, where we make the wine." We came into a dark room with only one light bulb shining,  the incandescent wire glowing a bright red. The walls were dark grey, solid cement, and there were holes in the ground, each hole containing a wax coated clay pot called a qvevri, where the wine was fermented. Along the walls were pots and pans and bottles of jams and water.

Then the next room. "And this is the arsenal." This was a much better lit room. Camouflage nets hung over the sides of two bunks, there was a row of automatic weapons on one wall and a bucket of grenades sitting next to them. "Do you fish?" he asked smiling, holding a fishing pole. 

"Um," I said, staring at the rifles, trying to pretend all of this on some level was normal for me. "I guess." Then I took the pole from him and pretended to inspect it, though all the while thinking, "What the hell have I gotten into?"

The upstairs to the house was my room - I got a gigantic room with a balcony - the view of Stalin from my last post, and there was another dining room, a piano room, and their bed room. The grandparents slept on the groundfloor, in a room that also led to the arsenal. 

The walking area of the garden, grapes overhead
The backyard was a gigantic garden, grapevines hanging down over pathways that led to tomato plants, carrots, olives, cabbage, and whatever else you could imagine. Chickens roamed about, squawking and fluttering their feathers and there was a golden-red dog that helped with the hunting who would also make sure the chickens were in line. Further back there was a pen for a small family of pigs, and they were far enough not to stink up the place. The grounds were idyllic, to say the least, and from the balcony, you could look across the grapevines as though it were a sea of waving kelp, and across the sea a tropical mountain rose, green and misty, shimmering in the light. What was the shimmering was the waves of grass, the endless steppe. 

That night a supra - a Georgian feast - was prepared. There were all sorts of fresh fruits and vegetables stacked up to the ceiling, along with various meats and cakes. There were my host family, all of whom didn't drink much, perhaps they were just honoring me, not sure of how much the American drank, though I did learn that the grandfather was altogether sober and my house father only ever drank during supras. A couple of neighbors had also gathered there, all with their curious questions about American weather and girls. 

That night I had learned that my host father had been in the Georgian special forces and had fought more than his share of Russians and Ossettes; he had seen fields lying flat where there once were villages. But now he was done with that. He dreamed of taking his wife and his baby girl elsewhere, far away, the usual Georgian dream, because anywhere far away had to be better. Until then, while I was there, he would have various occupations: one year he was driving vans from Germany to Georgia to sell them, another year he was helping a group de-mine a nearby mine field.  

Ushangi, the father, was a puzzle to figure out for a while. He had, throughout the yard, random pieces of equipment sprawled around, on which he was constantly working. I thought this was some sort of hobby until I saw a truck pull up with a refrigerator that the driver then dumped off. Granted, even then I thought this was some sort of hobby. Finally, I had a homework assignment where I was to find out everyone's occupation. He was an electrician/repairman! This also explained why we had hot water in the shower, whereas my fellow village volunteers didn't. He was a quiet man, who was working constantly on appliances or on his garden in the back. I'm not sure if he enjoyed the simplicity of a life at work or if he just felt it as a necessity, but for some reason I put the man in a sort of Cateline type philosopher category.


2 comments:

  1. Really liked reading this, it's very evocative. For awhile, I felt like I was there too!

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    1. Thanks! I'm combing over a lot of my old writing, adding a lot to them, and maybe trying to fill out something for another book. So even this "old stuff" is mostly new.

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