St George's Day and Thanksgiving

Monday 28th November

This week we have celebrated 2 occasions, one Georgian, St George’s Day, on Wednesday and the other American, Thanksgiving which we celebrated belatedly on Saturday.   I love it when you see the similarities and differences in the cultures.  Sometimes here I find it is pretty much the same as at home even if it comes out of a different time period and other times very different.

The patron Saint of Georgia is funnily enough St George or Giorgi and we get the day off school.  I don’t understand why but I am informed that in Kvemo Khvedureti (the village where I teach and we live) does not celebrate this day but Zemo Kvedureti (the village where Martin teaches) does.  We celebrate the feast of St Maryam (feast of the virgin Mary) apparently in our village.  I am even more confused when at 9:00 that morning we get an invite to a supra (feast) at a house in the village for later that day.  Naturally we accept and look forward to what otherwise was going to be an uneventful day.

Our hosts were both doctors and relatively wealthy.  We were entertained in a party room which was separate to the main house which was fitted out very well.  Pine-clad with a roaring fire it was very welcoming, the men drank and the women worked hard to put together a very impressive meal.  Pork kebabs were roasted on the fire and those of us that were not men or part of the working party of women were left to talk to the children!  Much eating and drinking and dancing and singing took place and a good word to describe it was “Merry”. Me and Martin were declared “Kargi” (Good) and then we left so that the women could clear up and the men get off their faces.  Not of course before the inevitable toasting, that got rowdier and rowdier, standing on chairs and into the chandelier.

The Thanksgiving meal in Tbilisi was both a happy and sad occasion.  Happy because our TLG group 23 were getting together to eat good food and sad because some of us were going home in December and finishing their contract.  There were only 17 of us in our group that arrived together in the middle of August and although we were placed all over Georgia we have met up regularly and stayed in touch through Facebook, email and telephone. We are a mixture of mainly American (8) but with 3 English, 3 NZ, 1Australian, 1 Canadian and 1 German.  There were 2 sets of couples and 3 of us were around the 50 age group with the rest between 23 to 30.  We are an interesting bunch of people, at least 3 inches off centre and have been a good group and it is sad to see this first phase over.  Of the 6 people who are leaving, Greg is going to Japan and Melissa is going to China to teach English.  Irene, Adam and the New Zealand couple are resuming life in their respective countries and the German woman, Anna, and her Georgian husband is expecting a baby in February.The Hostel Georgia has been our refuge in Tbilisi where we escape the ravages of the village most weekends for 10 lari a night (£4) and it feels like home to us.  The owners are great and it was an ideal place to cook a communal meal and party.  I offered to buy, cook and bring the turkey and gravy and everyone else chose to bring cakes, salads, vegetables, cheese and beer.  The squash was a triumph as it was dowsed in maple syrup and butter and roasted!

Some arrived early Saturday morning and the rest of the group arrived throughout the day.  At 3 o’clock we started the preparations for the meal in the seediest kitchen you had ever seen and to get to which you had to go through the bar, into a bedroom which was separated from the kitchen by a set of curtains.  It was a fairly orderly process with people going in and out to help with chopping and cutting and supervising.  We had music and alcohol and then carols and it really felt like a family party.  We selected songs that were significant to us in our early teen years which meant they were subjected to a rendition of Donny Osmond singing “Puppy Love” (no apology).  Jake demonstrated the dance routine of “We’re on the Road to nowhere” and Ren being from New Orleans selected zydecho stuff (sorry I was a bit tiddled by then and can’t be specific).  Motown favourites for Irene who is from the big D (Detroit), Bartman, and ABC by Jackson 5 were amongst the others. We all wrote what we were thankful for on post-it notes and stuck it on the wall. It was a really lovely event and when we finally sat down for the meal we were hungry and ready and we were not disappointed.  Dessert was an eclectic mix of Apple pie, Georgian chocolate cake and Spotted Dick (much to the amusement of the Americans who had never heard of it) and custard from England.  After the inevitable smutty jokes about the aforementioned pudding we did a bit of clearing up, more drinking and more singing this time accompanied by Rob on an interesting looking guitar that probably has a name and Caitlin on her ukulele.  Mark did his stuff as well. ( I have a video but it is too big to load onto Facebook so may have to do some editing.)

The next day many of us went to the Hangar Bar where the ex-pats hang out and had the best burger you can find in Tbilisi with thick cut potatoes chips plus beer and then went for a hot soak and a scrub in the Sulphur baths to combat the 4 inches of snow that fell during the night.

Final goodbyes and we went our separate ways again back to our villages and to temperatures of -9!