How Bazaar

December 6, 2009
Today is Sunday. Friday night Ron and I went to the Sheraton to help IWA oversee the set up for our bazaar. We came home around 10:00 p.m. On Saturday I left the house at 6:45 a.m. and went to the Sheraton to help vendors, and Embassies unload and direct them to their tables. All the Embassies in town participated. They sold items from their respective countries, including food items. There were probably close to 100 other vendors who sold everything under the sun that was craft related: lots of items made from felt which is huge here, prints of paintings, typical Georgian souvenirs, quilts (we almost bought one but realized it was too small for a queen bed), jewelry, enamel which is also huge here, hand made clothing, rugs, ceramics and the like. In addition, a number of Embassies held a food court so participants could sample foods from around the world. The sushi was gone is a flash! The only food vendor left after 4:00 was the Georgian vendor and she endured until the end at 6:00. Ron and I bought two prints from a painter and a beautiful huge panoramic photograph of Svaneti in the Caucasus region. I bought some orange marmalade from the British Embassy, a print from Bridie, an IWA member who paints beautiful watercolors. I got some hyacinth bulbs from the Dutch Design Garden table and I treated myself to an amber necklace.
Ron helped with counting the money along with several other men who had volunteered or had been volunteered by their wives. There were four shifts and Ron helped to two of them and stayed until the end around 9:30. I was on the collecting detail so Mikki and I went to each food vendor at 12, 2, 4 and 6 to collect their money. All the Embassy food vendors donated money to the IWA as well as the Embassies once they covered their expenses. The vendors simply paid for table space. We took in something like 67,000 lari. I think that is around $54,000. This money will be used to help various individuals in need here. As an example I think I already mentioned a three year old girl who needs a cochlear implant and two years of hearing and speech therapy. IWA will be helping to pay for her expenses. We got home, bleary eyed and very weary and heated some leftovers, eating dinner at 10:00p.m. before taking hot bath and falling into bed.

This morning we woke up and didn’t move for a while. Around 8:00 we got up and had breakfast then I went back to bed to finish my book and take a nap. Ron woke me up around noon and we had lunch with his freshly baked loaf of caraway rye. Yum. We took the subway to the bazaar where you can buy anything. It is a rabbit warren of a place, crowded little passageways with thousands of tiny stalls about two people wide and one and half deep. The clothes section has clothes hung high and items can be retrieved using a pole with a hook on the end. It is totally claustrophobic. Ninety percent of the clothes and shoes are…black. We decided to try some of the coffee here so bought a small amount and will grind it in the morning and see what we think. I am pretty sure I will not be able to find decaf here much less Swiss water process decaf. What a fantasy that is! We also bought some thread and we bought oats, hoping they are not quick cooking oats. We will know when I make the next batch of granola. Our last purchase was some small drinking glasses that we will use as traditional Georgian wine glasses. Things at the bazaar are cheaper than in the stores but some things I can’t find in the stores so the bazaar is the only alternative. There is also a lot of junk at the bazaar, low quality goods. Because of the crowded conditions and the low quality it is not a place where I would bother to shop on a regular basis. We were curious to explore it and today we felt contented to have meandered through and bought the items we had not been able to find anywhere else. On our way home from the subway we passed by a vegetable stand where we have shopped twice. After we passed by it the owner came outside and yelled ‘friend’, I turned and realized he was pointing to Ron so I told Ron to stop and turn around. He walked back a few steps to the shop and he was invited in to join the men in a round of drinks (homemade) wine. This is a perfect example of the Georgian hospitality. Ron drank a small glass and we were on our way. None of the Georgian spoke English which made the gesture all the more charming.

Friday Dec 11
Happy Chanukah!

I ground the coffee we bought at the bazaar and won’t bother again. Thank goodness for the internet! As for the oats, apparently we left them on the counter at the bazaar because we couldn’t find them once we got home.

I have started paying more attention to how Georgians drive. Elza, our language teacher said Georgian love their cars so much that the word for cars is considered an animate object as opposed to an inanimate object which determines verb usage. That in itself is an interesting fact. This week I observed two lanes of traffic heading in the same direction stopped at a red light. A driver went to the left of the car in the left lane so that he was actually over the mid road line and into the oncoming traffic lane. Since two lanes of traffic to his right were stopped for the light, he turned in front on them to the right!!!!!! I have seen that happen several times since then. Near our house is a complicated intersection and I am always mystified as to how it is supposed to be negotiated. On Sunday when we were trying to cross the street with the light in our favor I discovered that cars that want to turn left against opposing traffic would get in the lane next to the driver in the left lane creating a lane that doesn’t exist and turn left against a red light since the opposing traffic is stopped. I hope that makes sense. What is means is that as a pedestrian even with the light in our favor, we can get killed by a ‘creative’ driver. Gia told us the story of an American who had lived here for several years and drove his own car. You apparently have to drive like a Georgian to survive here. The American has over $800 in traffic tickets from when he last went home and drove in America. That should give you an idea of how Georgians totally disregard the rules of the road as we know them.

I had two forays with Lala into looking for fabric for tablecloths. We ultimately found something quite suitable very near our house after spending five hours searching. It is a high end store that caters to upper income folks and carries expensive bedding, curtains, bath towels and the like. We were delighted to end the search and happy with the find. Lala had done some looking on her own and had spied the fabric earlier in the week.

Yesterday when I was out running errands with Gia I noticed the hills around town are dusted with snow. So far none has fallen in the valley where Tbilisi is located. We took in 13 enlarged photos to be framed this week. These are photos that Ron had taken when we visited the botanical gardens earlier in November. The house is big and most of the walls are bare. The quote for 15 pieces (we had two prints to be framed also) was 179 lari which is $107. We couldn’t believe it and we were told they would be ready by 2:00 the next day. Well you get what you pay for. The mats are a little thinner than ours, I think. The frames although they look like wood are plastic and the backing is primitive with string that is stapled to the frame. But they serve the purpose of filling our walls with beautiful photos so I am not complaining.