I had an absurdly good little weekend. Well, actually the
last two weekends have been good. A lot has been going on in little old
Kakheti! I guess the shorthand form of all of these events would be this:
Wedding! Time to supra and dance and drink!
Door upstairs installed. Supra!
Leftovers from last night. Supra!
Birthday. Let’s go to the village and have a supra!
Friday. Take a shower, get in a taxi, go to Tbilisi, eat
[super tasty!] Thai food, go to a house party with some random people your
friend knows, at 2 a.m. decide that you want to go dancing, proceed to the
[one] gay club in Tbilisi and dance to really awful techno until 4:30 am. Pass
out at hostel.
Saturday. Wake up, eat McDonald’s cause you can, spend the
day walking around eating delicious food and drinking wine and watching the
festival, chug 2 lari liters of wine with your friend, go running around the
streets, go falling in the streets, go to a strip club accidentally?, go to a
bar that has a huge beer pong tournament, decide you are done with the fun and
want to sleep so trek back to hostel. Pass out, but not before sending some
wild ass text messages.
Sunday. Everyone hungover, insist on listening to a brass
ensemble and get a lot of dirty looks from the hungovers, sit on the roof of a
building and listen to Alt-J while watching Georgian shenanigans in the square
below, leave Tbilisi, resume semi normal life.
It was really great to see a bunch of TLG people from the
other regions. Not that I don’t love my Kakheti friends, cause they’re a very
goofy group of people and great to travel with, but it was cool to see a few
folks who are in the West that I haven’t really talked to since orientation. I
find it strange we all get along so well. There aren’t really a lot of similar
personalities here, and while there are a couple people I have zero interest in
ever spending any sort of quantifiable time with, the rest are actually very
fun to be around. I guess that’s what happens when your common denominator is
English and being foreign in a country together.
Even though I’ve been told numerous times that I look
Georgian, my whiteness feels very obvious. Being stared at on the street, or in
stores, is not something I’m used to yet. That's one great thing about trapsing around with other TLG people - I don't feel quite like the star attraction of a three ring circus. The other thing I'm not used to is my role as a
foreign woman, since women in Georgian culture already exist in a very
contradictory bubble.
Traditionally, women are supposed to be virginal until they
get married, while their husbands are expected to be educated in sexual ways by
the time they take a wife (can you see where this is going?). Women take
great pride in how they look, and often dress way non conservatively. Think of
Hollywood and how girls dress there – stilletos, mini skirts, see
through shirts, boots, tight dresses. Now apply this to a culture where women
are, theoretically, not sexually active when single, and are regarded as these
innocent creatures. Strange? Oh yes. What’s even more strange is that, as a
foreigner, I can’t dress like that without eliciting many negative outward
opinions. Georgians who see women from other countries dress
the.exact.same.way.georgian.women.dress. think that these foreign women are
either prostitutes, or clearly have no kind of self respect for themselves. Unless,
of course, that foreign woman has a boyfriend or husband. A significant other
is kind of a do-whatever-you-want card as a foreign woman here. Smoking and
drinking in public are also right out, as only prostitutes would do those. So, permutations of wearing any kind of
suggestive clothing, smoking, and drinking in public as a foreign woman is
basically an invitation for Georgian men to assume that you are loose and would
therefor be down for a one night stand so they can get some experience under their
belt. It makes sense that, when your native demographic of women is virginal and your men are expected to know what ding dong to put in what
hoo ha or what have you, these men would naturally turn to women NOT from
inside their culture.
Navigating what’s culturally polite and acceptable is a bit
of a challenge. I’ve accepted that I will already stand out like a sore thumb
no matter what, namely because of my complete lack of fashion sense. A lot of
times I think Georgians are torn between proving they’re ridiculously wonderful
hosts and dealing with the seemingly wrong feeling of giving a girl a lot of
wine at a supra. I try to ease this a bit by just refusing to drink quickly
with everyone else at these events, but I’m still curious as to what all I’m
socially “allowed” to do.
Another thing I’m not used to worrying about is my so-called
reputation. Even in Marquette, which is just slightly larger than Telavi, I
could basically do whatever I wanted and no one said boo about it. But here,
everyone knows everyone else, and everyone talks. So if one passerby on the
street sees me having a beer outside a café, alone during the day, they will
assume that I’m open for business, and this reflects poorly on my host family.
Running, actually any form of exercise, is also strange here, and while part of
me wants to rebel and say “You know what, I have changed a lot of stuff to fit
in culturally, I think these folks can deal with me doing one or two weird
foreigner things,” the lazy part of me actually likes this as an excuse NOT to
run. This reputation thing is one wonderful reason to travel on the weekends, however. Tbilisi is large enough that you can do whatever you want and no one will really care one way or another, while other towns and villages don't have anyone in them whose opinion of me I care about. It's a very wonderful feeling to have a day beer and not worry about it effecting my job as a teacher.
This seems like it’s been a very negative post. I don’t mean
it to be. I love Georgia. I think this place is bizarre, and strange, but
weirdly logical in some ways. It’s beautiful, the people are very friendly and
appreciative. It’s just got a few gender issues that I’m having a hard time
sorting out. I knew this coming in; it’s just one thing to read about it and it’s
another thing to realize that you have, actually, changed a lot of stuff all
because of what’s in between your legs. This country is wonderful if you’re a
man. It may just be paradise, in fact. But there are a lot of unspoken rules
that women need to follow to be considered a kargi gogo (“good girl”), and let’s
be real, at the end of the day, that’s all we want to be!
P.s. kargi gogo might just be the most hilarious and best phrase ever.
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