150 - Georgian Hospitality (Tbilisi, Georgia)
"Naive you are, if you believe, life favours those who aren't naive."
— Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)
PART OF MY MENTAL AND PHYSICAL CONVALESCENCE (see previous post) included a country retreat with Shota and Koka, my newly minted Georgian pals. (We met via Couchsurfing.com.) Shota invited me, Koka, and a Texan named Robert to visit his family’s village (Martqopi) 25 km east of Tbilisi. His kin showered us with cheerful smiles, tons of food, and delicious homemade wine. We were made to feel at ease, at home even. It was something I needed right when I needed it most. I was, and still am, grateful for that experience.
I had my first peek at a marani (Georgian wine cellar) where Shota's family produced its own wine with grapes plucked from vines hanging over the courtyard. It was also my first taste of Georgian chacha (brandy), the local firewater stored in large glass jugs containing sticks of oak to add color and flavor. It’s their version of vodka, ranging from 50-80% alcohol. To me, it resembles an unholy combination of vodka and tequila. In the immortal words of Ralph Wiggum, “It tastes like burning.” Shota, being the host and designated tamada (toastmaster), raised glass after glass to Georgia, his loving family, his new friends, and to everyone's continued happiness. Such toasts are an inextricable part of Georgian culture, a phenomenon of which I’m quite fond.
After stuffing our faces with local sausage, cheese, fresh salad, omelets, and delicious wine, we watched Shota's rambunctious afro-sporting nephew bounce around the courtyard like a toddler on a mission. What mission? Who the hell knows? Whatever it was, he was going about his business with a palpable sense of determination. I sat trying to decipher the esoteric Code of the Toddler. He smashed steps with some form of digging apparatus, stuffed an arm inside a rain gutter, spun circles on a tricycle to avoid my camera lens, repeatedly removed the lid from a plastic barrel, and screamed like a banshee for no apparent reason. It was magnificent. If only I could reenter that world and rediscover what we’re all destined to lose. Oh, the impenetrable mysteries known only to children…
Shota brought us to the Martqopi monastery, initially built in the 6th century. Perched on a hill overlooking the surrounding forest and presided over by an adjacent watch tower (St. Anton's Pillar), it bordered on the sublime, notwithstanding the cacophony of ongoing construction and the revelry emanating from a wedding reception in the adjoining forest.
All in all, a good day. A very good day.
Courtesy of Aerial Explorer.