Thwarted: A tale of pathos and Georgian swat teams, but no Thai food

Yes, it became common knowledge rather rapidly in Georgia that I would do just about anything for Thai food.  If I could swing a meeting in the capital, which boasted exactly one great Thai place, I would be pretty sure to time it such that a meal was in order.

Even when I had dysentery I managed to squeak in a visit to the Thai place.  At that time, I could barely even handle the scent of food, and plain rice was all I could stomach.  Still, I was there.

When I returned to my site–the name Peace Corps gives the village, town or city in which a volunteer resides–my host mother asked me if I’d really gone for Thai, sick as I was.  I sheepishly admitted that I had.

“But what could you eat?” she asked, shaking her head.

“Rice with dry bread,” I thought I said.  ”Rice with joy,” I actually said.  She collapsed in mirth and I left her for the facilities.

The only problem with my Thai addiction, other than the dearth of Thai food in Georgia, was that half the time I was there, the country managed to be politically unstable.

As a result, volunteers were pretty much told to steer clear of the capital for the most part.  Tragic.  So beautiful a capital, so ancient, and so beneficent in Thai food.

Finally the day came when we were allowed in Tbilisi (with restrictions.)  I stormed the city.  By this I mean I climbed into a shattered yet miraculously moving minibus and hurtled down the potholed highway to Tbilisi, where I fell out shaking and breathless about 45 minutes later.

“Come,” I said, and began the march from the river up through Old Town to the Thai place.  ”Nothing can keep me from Thai food now!  Nothing!”

My companion said nothing as we saw the first signs of a noticeable police presence.  I too maintained a prudent silence.  He might have cleared his throat as we ran past a barricade.  I may have glared back at him, but my memory’s hazy on that.

“Nothing,” I repeated firmly, and stalked forth.  We told ourselves everything was normal.

Old Town was pretty desolate.  We walked those tiny alleys and gorgeous balconied roads, finally emerging just a few streets down from the restaurant.  My internal soundtrack was almost back in happy gear.  Thai food was so close, so tantalizingly, deliciously, irresistibly close.  And everything had been calm and normal.  We’d been overly sensitive to the sight of the police.  I relaxed my shoulders.

Then we passed a huge swath of dark buses filled to the brim with soldiers.  I frowned, but we sallied onwards.

“I guess you really meant it when you said nothing would stop you,” my companion remarked.  I nodded silently, but I was beginning to feel perturbed.  I know:  late.

We turned the corner.  We had arrived.  It should have been the most joyous of moments.

But opposite us, across from the Thai place, were two huge groups of swat forces, dressed head to foot in black gear, including such bullet-proof vests as I’d only ever seen on Batman.  Huge truncheons, machine guns, glass barricades, the whole shebang.

We looked at them.  They looked at us.  My companion raised his hand to knock at the door.

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

“It’s locked,” he answered, as if we weren’t gazing at two hundred deaths’ worth of men in black.

“Gah!” I responded reasonably.  And grabbed his arm and began pulling us down the street and away.

“But I thought nothing would stop you–!” he protested.

“Nothing but swat teams,” I answered irritably, “Swat teams will stop me.”

We broke into a desperate jog.  No Thai food for us.  Not for weeks.

Foiled again.

What would you do, opposite a door with this painted on it? (That's what I did, too.) ;)

Silver Linings, or Winter Evening Conversations in a Small Caucasus Town

We were sitting huddled around the fire in the kitchen.

Every few minutes one of us would kneel down before it to fan the flames, to increase the heat in the frigid room.  It was the only source of heat and light at night.

All winter we lived our evenings around that fire.  Sometimes we played the panduri, a Georgian national string instrument, and sang.  Sometimes we tried to hit each other with the panduri.  Most nights we did both.  But always, always, as close to the fire as possible.

At first, it was…novel.  An adventure.  Exploration of a world beyond my previous experience.  But after 3 months without water, electricity, gas and regular heat, it became…life.  Not easy, no.  But–life.

Raising my hand to turn on and off light switches ceased to be automatic.  There was never a reason.  Not washing, that was the hardest.  Or maybe it was the cold nights, when water bottles froze solid next to my bed and I climbed in fully dressed.  Then there was the lack of light in my room, which had a blanket hammered into the wall to block the hole in the window.

It was life.  And really, not that uncommon for many people around the world.  A great Peace Corps lesson.

One night, my adorable host mom turned to me, suddenly curious.

“Ruth,” she asked, “in America, what do you do when you don’t have electricity, gas and water?”

I paused.  What would we do, if ever such a thing happened?  We’d be in dire straights.  We don’t know how to cope, for the most part, pushed up hard against the elements.

“I don’t know,” I answered slowly.  ”It never happens.”

She looked into the darkness, pondering my answer.  Then she shot me a mischievous grin.

“That’s what’s great about Georgia,” she announced.  ”Everything can happen here.”

Bless her soul.  :)

Kartulis Deda, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia

Pride and Prejudice, or the Single Girl’s Life in a Small Caucasus Town

My host mom heard I liked a Turkish guy.

She pulled me aside with a kind and sweet smile.  ”Ruth,” she said, “you will have cultural differences with this boy.”  I sigh heavily, thinking I know where this is going, because somehow ’tis my pattern to like boys of different cultures and to be warned away.  I stare into the sinking fire, squaring my shoulders against the usual.

She nods wisely and continues.  ”You need to find a good Georgian boy.”  I look up in surprise.  I bite the inside of my mouth to stop a traitorous smile.  How will a small-town Georgian Orthodox macho boy be any better a match than an Istanbuli secular Muslim?  Curious.

My host mom’s on a roll, thinking my choked silence and crooked mouth means a possibility of American capitulation to wily Georgian sex appeal.  She leans forward and raises her eyebrows conspiratorially.  ”He’s single.  Thirty-seven.”  Already the huge red flag is raising and waving madly–in this part of the world this is a very suspicious sign in a man–but I let her continue. “His name is Soso, and he’s not in prison anymore, and he’s unemployed.”  She smiles winningly at me, like she’s just let me in on the jackpot.

I blink for a second.  What is the diplomatic response to this?  I return her smile and choke down another laugh.  ”See, the thing is,” I say eventually, “I don’t like the name Soso.”

And I carefully return my gaze to the fire, glad a season-long power-outage will help my scraggly hair hide my face.  ”But thank you for thinking of me, anyway.”

Last summer; or Life and Dreams in a Small Caucasus Town

Sighnaghi in the Mist

I served in Georgia, the Republic nestled in between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus Ranges, touching on Chechnya and Russia to the north and cradling the Black Sea to the West, with Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan neighboring in the south.  I was to be there for two years and three months, only the Russian army had other ideas, and invaded after one year.

In a country famous for its dramatic mountain ranges and exquisite landscape, I had managed to be placed in one of the flattest areas, where the earth looked parched despite its great bounty of potatoes and tomatoes.

Hungry cattle wended their way through the town streets, leaving behind manure and a sense of fatigue and never-ending days. Sheep were slaughtered by butchers on the main street, tied up on the pavement where they could see their fate in the fates of necks chopped before theirs.  Chickens were sold live, and carried home by their feet.  Everything was bought amid the din of a huge, bustling bazaar which opened at 5am.  Azeri music blared on stereos, together with Turkish, Russian and Georgian pop.

Schools ran on shoe-string budgets, with paint peeling from walls and the stench of the toilets pervading entire floors.  The hospital was visited by stray dogs and cats, cobwebs hung throughout the dank grey corridors, and it felt a visceral shock to the system to actually see people coming there to get treated to feel better.

Unemployed men littered the streets, whiling away hours in teahouses that women were better off not even looking into for fear of appearing wanton.  Women worked their fingers to the bone, slaving over troughs filled with laundry, preserves and dirty dishes.  Hard working men and women in offices faced electrical outages, gas outages, internet outages and general scarcity to get their jobs done.  The only fax machine in town was in the mayor’s office.  Life was, in a word, hard.

I loved this town, and I didn’t, too.

But most of all, when the days were hard and long, and when I was reeling from the unforgiving and harsh beating the sun doled out every summer, night and day, I would look south, beyond the confines of town, out to the blue waves of the Armenian mountains, and I would drink in the sight and imagine the fresh, wet, cool smell of those beautiful mountains.  And I would dream of going there.

Otar, my friend’s wonderful father, who took care of me as if I’d been adopted into the family, wondered at my fascination.  When I announced to all and sundry that I would spend the upcoming Saturday walking to the border with Armenia, some 39 kilometers away, he was tickled pink but also curious.

“Why, Ruth?” he asked, finally, as he said goodbye to me (and my sitemate who I’d corralled to join me on the trek).  ”Why do you want to walk to the Armenian border?”

I thought for a moment.  ”Because it’s something I can’t do in America.”

Little did I know that one day I’d be on the other side of that self-same border, desperate to return over those now accursed Armenian crags back to my dusty little town from which war had torn me.

*** the photo is from the gorgeous town of Sighnaghi, which is to the east of Tbilisi.  My town remains unnamed thus far in my blog, but was south of Tbilisi.

***I returned after the war was officially ended three weeks later, this time not as a Peace Corps Volunteer, but as an independent citizen, volunteering without the aegis of a sponsoring institution.