Timber....

Wood, Axes and Booze

            I awoke early Friday morning.  Normally the pleasures of sleep slowly fade at some point between 6 and 7 however on this day a loud repetitive banging noise rustled me from a deep loll around 5 or 5.30.  My first day of school was the day ere and I had Friday off.  Had I known this before I probably would have reinvigorated my attempts at making it to Akhalaksikhe (I really want to go there).  Instead, I figured that Friday would be a day to catch up on some reading, perfecting my learning of various tongues and so forth.

            The noise was persistent.  It sounded like two garbage trucks repeatedly slamming into one another.  Naturally I was quite irritated at such a disturbance but what can one do?  The previous night the whole family was constantly up and moving about, around 3.00 in the morning and then again at four and then at six.  I figured that this must be normal.  The coming weekend often inspires restlessness.  I stumbled outside, the hazy fog of my subconscious still grasping at my eyesight while euphoria haunted my every step and my thoughts were still in a dream like state.  I looked about and noticed that there was a massive amount of logs, piled so high that it bordered the essence of absurdity. 

            I approached my host father, Shamil and utilizing charades asked if we were going to spend the day chopping wood.  In retrospect this was a ridiculous question.  Of course we were going to chop wood, winter was approaching and we had more logs than the number of days in a year.  I went inside and brushed my teeth and got dressed appropriately, it is quite cold in the mornings.  The hair on your next will briefly stand in firm attendance as the early morning wind makes it rounds.  Then Shamil, a neighbor and I huddled outside of the villa.  Others joined us and around 8,30 his neighbor beckoned me to his back yard.  There he gave me a tour of the various kinds of grapes and other fruits that his yard furnished in abundance and insisted that I take handfuls of grapes and figs.  This, I’ve noticed is the way that all tours begin in Georgia, the person in question will show off what nature provides them with and insist that you sample what you simply don’t have.  I accepted his offer and ate them with little hesitation.  They were simply fantastic.

            Still eating we huddled in front of Shamil’s house once more, waiting for the others.  School would be starting soon and the neighbor gave Lekso, one of the kids that terrorizes the village a few Lari.  Lekso took off running and returned with 2.5 liters of beer…at 12.5% ABV.  Thus the four of us (Giorgi had just appeared) began our morning session of debauchery.  More people showed up with axes.  By 9.00 we were chopping the wood.  Well, I was chopping wood, the others were attacking it.  The Georgians employed a method that I was certainly not used to.  Rather than aiming and hitting the center of the log and then using a wedge, they aimed at the corners, thereby reducing the amount of surface area of the log.  Then with one, at most two clean swipes the log would split and they would split it again.  If the log was still too big after its size had been reduced then they resorted to slamming the axe in the center only to lift the entire piece in the air and then slam it on the ground upside down generating their desired effect.

            At 10.00 we amassed in the kitchen.  Tomatoes, tkemali, beans, bread, cheeses, chicken and more beer were all collected onto the table.  Thus the first session of lunch was served.  Each person had a small glass in front of them for Chacha.  Chacha is the notorious Georgian take on vodka distilled from grape leaves and can range anywhere from 50-90% ABV.  Thankfully, this was the former.  There were about 6 or 8 of us and a decanter filled with the Chacha appeared and its contents disappeared amongst the workers.  Then the beer washed it away only to be followed by the wine held in Fanta, Coca-Cola and Borjomi plastic bottles.  I looked at the clock, then at my half empty shot glass filled with the potent Chacha that reeked of some sort of automotive solution, then at the glass of wine that I was forced to drink.  It wasn’t even past 11.  Occasionally my host mother, or her sister would stop by to check on me, however I drank slow and ate much, thereby buffering the effect of the libations.  Then we went back out and chopped some more.

            They set to work dutifully, barely resting and vowing to stop only when the work was completed.  Jokes and laughter were tossed about in numbers that only equaled the number of pieces of wood that faced division from the oncoming blade.  The sun was beginning to reach its zenith and the work was almost completed.  At 14.00 it was finished and another meal was laid out, this time outside.  I was a fool to think that the climax of drinking may have already been reached for what was about to occur was something that few have the opportunity to witness and quite possibly be legendary in other parts of the world. 

            We began to gorge the food laid out amongst our ranks.  A Fanta bottle was produced and offered.  I accepted under the naïve concept that it may have actually been Fanta.  In fact it was wine.  Slowly, I began to realize why Shamil and I had siphoned all of that wine the day before into plastic bottles.  It was in preparation for the many supra’s of the next day.  Altogether I believe that we bottled at least two five gallon carboys of Shamil’s homemade wine.  After all, this time of year in Georgia is the notorious and well publicized wine making season.  I have no idea as to how on earth I did not see this approaching.

            The wine was poured and the toasts began.  One of the neighbors assumed the role of the tamada or toast master.  He made dozens of toasts:  to Georgian, to all things Georgian, to America, my family, my city, Urbnisi, to the women in our lives, to our mothers, our brothers, those who had died and this list continues.  I would only drink maybe a 1/5 to 1/3 of my glass each time, although they were begging me to drink more.  No matter how little I drank by the time of the next toast my glass was refilled prohibiting me from being able to accurately keep track of how much I consumed.  All in all I do believe that at least 20 liters that were consumed that afternoon.  Amazingly, each person at the table, for every toast, drank the entirety of the contents in their glass and appeared sober.  Gradually they began, one by one, to disappear.  The work was done and only the those of us who lived there and those who were professionals remained behind.

            Batcho and Lato were two of the most seasoned drinkers out of the group and the last to leave.  However they didn’t leave by themselves, but rather dragging me to Batcho’s house for the grand tour and….more drinking.  Naturally I was nervous because the last words that I heard them say before we left my host family’s dwelling was Tshkinvali, the capitol of South Ossetia, which you have a better chance of entering dead than you do alive, especially if you are a Georgian.  This fear however was unfounded and we just went over to Batcho’s.  He kept insisting that the house was new and if you remember my posting on the incident concerning the bats new simply means unfinished.  First he showed me all of the grapes and squash and unidentifiable produce he was growing in his backyard.  Actually, to be more accurate, I highly doubt that he was involved with the process of gardening at all, but rather that the backyard simply started sprouting various foods in various places. 

  

Then we entered the house going straight to the back room.  The back room is gigantic and if the house was finished its ceiling would be lowered by half.  The floor is literally the ground, that same soft and dusty like dirt that is the basis for all of our roads/paths.  Scattered across it are hundreds of cobs of rotting corn that will be sold as fodder and horse feed.  Batcho goes over to a makeshift shelf, moves aside a bottle and sticks his hand into the depths of a hole.  His hand reemerges with a mouse trap, complete with a dead mouse.  We go outside and there the carcass is tossed into the yard, we grab some grapes and come back inside.  We enter his room where there the table for dinner.  Meanwhile his wife is in that gigantic back room, making us dinner on the charred black surface of the wood stove.  Dinner that night was nothing more than beans, bread, grapes and beer.  5 liters of beer, once again at 12.5% ABV. 

            Batcho has been rambling the entire time and as every minute passes it is becoming more apparent that he is caving into the effects of the previous binge that we had ridden.  I hear his life story, many times.  He has a black belt in some form of martial arts, served in the former Soviet Army during its last two years of existence then in the Georgian Army during its first five years of existence, which was a time when they were more of a private army than that of a national one.  While in the Soviet Army he was stationed in Khandahar, Afghanistan and is thus suffering from the effects of PTSD.  I didn’t ask but it seems safe to assume to that he participated in the civil wars that occurred in Georgia at its infancy and I highly doubt that has helped his mentality much.    Finally, he hates the Russians.  The word ‘hate’ barely portrays his feelings.

He leads me into the main hall to show me his shrine to that of Christianity.  Photos and lithographs of St. Nino, Jesus, St. George and various other icons are there, plastered against the ailing wall paper that is slowly separating itself from the wall.  We go back to the table and continue to polish off the remainder of the beer.  I managed to escape around 20.00 and only then with Batcho in tow was I able to return home where we had more guests.  After drinking for about 12 hours it is a challenge to confront a small group of sober people in a somewhat formal setting.  For Batcho this appeared impossible which he demonstrated by trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to have me court one of the local girls.  Here it is important to note that there is no casual dating in Georgia.  Dating is coupled with the expectation of the delivery of marriage within one to twelve months.  Fair warning.

            After some time passed of conversing with the guests we settled down and had espresso around 21.30.  Everything here that day seemed to operate in reverse: beer, wine and vodka were indulged as the sun rose and caffeine was consumed as the night was beginning to cover the landscape.  The night would bring about a deep sleep, followed by an early morning where my host family would continually ask me if I was hungover.  I wasn’t and am beginning to suspect that this fact disappointed them.