Building and Moving Bridges

April 13, 2010

Last Thursday Ron got a call in the afternoon inviting us to a celebration for interns at the ministry who had been appointed to positions there. We decide to go since this was a first invitation and it had come from the Budget Director who is the person Ron works directly with. We arrived at 7:30 as instructed and were about 15 minutes ahead of anyone else. Georgians have a rather different sense of time. Cultural differences. We were sitting at one of the two tables that had been set for the event. It was evident we were in for a supra as much of the food had already been placed on the table: fish, cheese platers, chicken salad, another mayonnaise based salad which I have no idea what it was even after tasting it, breads, spinach spread, etc As the table filled up we were instructed to move to the other table where the Deputy Minister of Finance and the budget director would be sitting. Too bad because the people around us at the original table didn’t smoke

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By eight, the budget director showed up and about two hours later the deputy minister came. Our friend Gigi served as tamada, toastmaster, and I have always liked his toasts as they are brief. No long diatribes with Gigi. He was joined by his lovely wife Sophie who is a physician who works as a nurse because she can’t find work as a doctor! The restaurant hosted several other supras as well. After things got started there was ‘entertainment’. I thought I was in a foreign country, not Georgia, when the can-can girls came out. Not a traditional dance here! There were several other performances that weren’t Georgian including a Russian dance. Odd since most Georgians resent the Russians.

What really intrigued us was when the band played national songs the majority of people went to the dance floor and did national dances which involved a lot of hand movements and bowing while dancing. Our friend Gigi trained as a dancer and he is a pleasure to watch. During these dances, men danced with men, men and women danced together and women with women. When I was telling Elza about this she asked if people were drunk and I realized it was later in the evening and most people had been drinking since 7:30 or so. Even so I realized we don’t have national dances in the US much less an excitement about such a ritual.

Around 10:00 the deputy minister showed up and after a while came over to us and asked via his interpreter if we were having a good time. He had his photos taken with us and returned to his seat after congratulating the newly appointed staff. As the night wore on we grew tired. Various attendees of the multiple supras were getting drunker as the night wore on. We got up to dance and we realized every person attending our supra was watching us. I don’t think we look that odd and since we were dancing to a slow number Ron danced with a number of women from the ministry. At midnight we decided it was time to leave. We needed to get up early on Friday as the fabulous Italian designed bridge that has been being erected most of the time we have been here was ready to move into place across the river and Ron was dying to see how they were going to move it. You would have thought we were leaving five minutes after eating when several people rushed up to make sure we really wanted to leave. We got to bed around 1:00 but Ron woke up several times with food poisoning. Gross! I think because Georgians leave food out for hours at supras there is a greater chance of food poisoning with mayonnaise based iitems. We will skip those items next time. It may have been caused by a food service worker not washing his or her hands. Who knows? At any rate Ron finished tossing his cookies around 6:00 a.m.

Gia took us to see the bridge moving across the river one centimeter at a time. It took three hours to get across a river not as wide as the Willamette in downtown Portland. It was fun and we were blessed with a crystal clear day that was relatively warm. Afterwards we walked downtown and had lunch at Prosperos, a favorite hangout. We then went next door shopped for a mafrash, a large woven bag that we hope to have made into a bedspread using the end panels for the pillow area and the side panels for the top of the spread. We found one that I was wild about. It requires a lot of repair which can easily be done here but Ron wanted to check to see if there were others available from a man we heard about through friends. Jamal doesn’t have a shop but comes to the house with his wares. Jamal came over on Wednesday night but we weren’t interested in the two mafrashes he bought. He also had brought a salt bag which we purchased. He said he had more panels to show us and is due back tonight. After he left we walked over to Leslie’s house and joined Laurie and Leslie for a movie downtown: Men Who Stare at Goats. The best part was listening to Laurie and Leslie laugh throughout the movie.

We are feeling very comfortable here and Ron’s work seems to really be picking up. Today I visited with the Chief of Party (yes they really do call the executive director for USAID projects this) for a project that he has asked me to volunteer for. I think I probably will as IWA doesn’t have any summer activities and I will grow restless. The project involves helping to establish an alumni office at the oldest and largest university in Georgia which is here in Tbilisi. Stay tuned.