Ode to John

Included in this blog entry is a photo of my brother John. I did not receive his permission to put the photo on the internet, but as his older sister I will take some liberties in the legality. He did, after all, let me take the picture, and he will be glad that I did not use some of the other pictures from this same weekend in Durango when he spent most of the weekend dressed as a pirate. Not a good-looking pirate, but a maroon velour jumpsuit clad pirate, not a pretty sight (though inexplicably it did work with the ladies). But I digress. This is in fact an “Ode to John” for being the best brother in the whole world. How did John get this title with so much competition? There are brothers all over the world who do great things, they help you move at least once a year, they pick up giant boxes filled only with books, they retrieve things from the top self, they make you laugh when they do extra stupid things like riding on recliners tied behind trucks etc. But what did John do that was so great, you may be asking yourself? Many of you know that I have an affinity for gummy candies and John took time out of his busy schedule looking at spiders, rocks, trees and various other forms of nature to send me what I can only imagine to be an entire candy aisle worth of gummy candies. While this means I will have to try extra hard not to get a cavity, it also means I am a happy camper for at least the next month or so on the candy front. For that I would like to thank him. I have included a photo showing my joy and only a small portion of the glee creating bounty.

In other news the weather has changed overnight. Just last weekend we “West Georgians” were bragging to the “East Georgians” (more on west vs. east later) that fall had not yet visited our sunny shores. We were still sleeping summer-style with the window open and just a sheet to cover us, however that all changed on Monday. We had hints that fall would come eventually. Hints like the sun setting at 6 o’clock instead of 8:30 or 9 like it did in the summer. But Monday was the day that fall came with no guessing at its arrival and unfortunately it has not left again, and I am beginning to think that it is here to stay. Monday the day-time temperatures fell about 25 degrees and at night it is downright cold. I can’t actually tell you how cold because I have not seen a thermometer since we arrived and it would be in Celsius anyway which doesn’t help me all that much, but it is noticeably cold.

West vs. East: Georgia is a really small county about a quarter the size of Colorado, so about the size of West Virginia, but it has two very distinct halves; the west half and the east half. It is very easy to tell when you are leaving one half and going in to the other because there is one main highway and when you are on this highway you go through a very long tunnel (think Eisenhower tunnel, but with more, um... charm.) when you pass from one half to another. Everyone said everything is different on the other side and they were right. The west side where I live is warmer and wetter and has more bugs and a coastline, while the east side is cooler, dryer and grows more fruit and still has bugs, but not as many. It is strange to think how different it is on the other side of a tunnel, but it is like another country all together, but fortunately (or unfortunately as the case may be for me) they all speak Georgian in one form or another, except for the people in the south, who speak Armenian and the people it the far-east who speak Azeri and the people in Samagrelo who speak Mingrelian, or the people in the North who speak Russian and so forth.

This is a picture of a cow for you city folks. I liked cows before I came to Georgia and I still like cows, but I didn't think that I would see quite so many cows. Cows are everywhere and they roam pretty much where ever including the streets of main cities and along the main highway, the school yards and in pretty much every open bit of land in the town.. This particular one was minding his own business near our formerly illustrious Young Pioneers Camp in Terjola.

Now for my last topic today. As promised I am going to continue to tell you little funny things that I come across in the Georgian language. I have not done it in a while because I have been a very bad student and have not been studying the Georgian language very well. But this is something that I came across during training and continue to come across it everyday as someone tells me some thing about their family. In Georgia and in Georgian it is very important to be able to identify not only that someone is related to you, but how they are related to you. I have included a little lesson for you. The first part is easy, but then we start getting into the intricacies of who is related to whom and how…

Mother- deda

Father- mama (confusing, yes?)

Brother- dzma

Sister- da (also means “and”)

Grandfather- babua

Grandmother-bebia

Uncle-bidza

Aunt (from mother’s side)- deida

Aunt (from father’s side)- mamida

Aunt (uncle’s wife)- bizola

Cousin (uncle’s child) – bidzashvili (literally Uncle child)

Cousin (dad’s sister’s child)- mamidashvili

Cousin (mom’s sister’s child)- deidashvili

Mother-in-law (husband’s mother)- dedamtili

Mother-in-law (wife’s mother)- sidedri

Grandchildren- shvilishvili (literally child child)

And when talking about your family you can say “my sister” or “my brother” or “my cousin” (chemi da, chemi dzma, etc.), but whomever is the generation that is older than yours you must call “mother mine” and “father mine” and “grandmother mine” (deda chemi, mama chemi, bebia chemi) or else it is blasphemous. It is these sorts of things that can trip one up when learning Georgian, so I have given you a head start on your way to speaking what is one of the oldest and most exclusive languages in the world. Lucky you.