The Meaning of Pride

After resting for a week in Kutaisi Tim and I thought things would be easier for us as we began the last part of our trip. We planned on making it to Tbilisi in a week and not stopping for more than a day in any of the cities along our way, yet as we headed for Zestaponi (30 km from Kutaisi) our old problems resurfaced - my crippling cramp and Tim's bad knee. At first the weather was working to our advantage but as we got worse so did the environment around us. The terrain we crossed was empty - no cafes, no place to stop and warm our cold bones. Quiet most of the day we agreed to stop anywhere we could after walking 20km, although I really hoped we would do more. All I wanted was to be done with the walk, to bring this journey, this lesson, to an end, and I knew the sooner I did the better.

"There is an old church about 2 km off the road," I am told by a toothless old man along the way. "Not sure if you'll find a priest there though."
"I can't make it to Zestaponi," Tim replies to my question of whether we head for the village of Argveta and the church or continue towards a hotel in the city 10 km further.

As we walk down the muddy village road we spot a group of men standing and smoking cigarettes together. "Go and ask them if they know where we can sleep. Tell them we can pay." Tired and grumpy I snap back at Tim: "That's offensive. I'm not going to offer them money like that just because they're poor. Lets keep going towards the church." "Just ask. Fuck it, I'll do it myself. How do you say homestay? Chasni what?" "Forget it, I'll do it." With absolutely no desire to talk to the hardened men, I approach them.

"Excuse me, my friend and I are on a long journey. We have walked here from far away. We're very tired and need a place to sleep for the night." "Show them the letter from the bishop," Tim interrupts. "Where are you from?" the men ask. "I'm from Croatia but we walked from Istanbul." "Tell them I walked from Spain," Tim adds. "We just need a warm dry place to sleep tonight, not even a bed," I continue. "Tell them we can pay." "Oh, just shut up Tim would you!"
I had lost it. I couldn't concentrate with Tim interrupting me and I lashed out at him. "You never talk to me that way," Tim yells furiously, "NEVER!" I ignore him and keep explaining our situation to the men, who, after reading the letter from the bishop, tell us they know of a place we could sleep. An elderly mentally challenged farmer shows us to a large concrete building, a former agricultural institute now used for growing mushrooms. We meet a bunch of men inside - a large former wrestler from Osseti named Maho, his cousin, another bulky man named Zura and a few other farmers from the village. Glad to host two 'crazy' walkers they fill our cups and a meal of mushroom stew, fish, cheese and cabbage is served.

Ashamed of my words and deeply distrubed with what was going on inside me I only manage to say: "I'm sorry Tim..." "You know I've got more experience at this than you," he replies, "I know what I'm doing." "I know Tim. I don't know what's wrong with me. Having to take care of everything is getting to me, please understand." And my brother did understand. He knew the mental anguish I was going through, he knew my anger was not directed towards him...and at times I felt he had a better opinion of me than I did....

Sitting at a long table in what seemed to be an old laboratory, Maho takes a slim long glass test tube and fills it with wine. "Have you ever tried drinking out of this?" he asks. Keeping his thumb over the hole at one end, he places the other in his mouth. He lifts his thumb and air pushes the wine into his mouth. "Try it, come on." I explain that Tim is sick and that he can't drink any alcohol. "Antibiotics," Tim adds. I would be doing the entertaining/drinking again. I fill the test tube with a glass of homemade white wine as an elderly farmer explains the meaning behind the ritual. The tube represents life - the beginning is slim, the middle wider (representing the 'good' years when you get married and have children) and the end slim again. "To life! Gamajos!" I toast and down goes the wine. The men are a merry bunch and after the test tube they drink out of a horn, out of clay plates and other various 'toys'. We laugh, sing, toast and drink well past midnight and I slowly sink into a haze of tired drunkeness. "Make sure you follow where we go to sleep, man. I'm fucked up." I proudly keep drinking with Maho, Zura and the others, showing them that I could keep up. Late into the evening Maho takes us to his humble home where we sleep in a spare room.

"You're OK?" Tim asks surprised I'm not more hungover in the morning. "I'll be fine when we hit the road." It was raining outside but I was in no mood to stay longer with Maho. Although he was nothing but welcoming towards us, there was something wrong about him. He, like almost everyone we met in Georgia, was unemployed, and he kept talking about better days and how everything was falling apart now. His house was poor - moldy walls and in desperate need of a paint job. His outhouse was a horrible mess and his yard overgrown with weeds. The new system, the Russians, Sakarshvili (the president) - everyone was against him and it was all their fault.

As his quiet 12 yr old daughter served us breakfast Maho began yelling at her violently. "What is this?! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" Apparently she had put used tea bags in our cups. Tim and I of course have nothing against used tea bags but Maho was too proud for us to witness his poverty. The scene is a great metaphor for Georgian society and I will never forget it. Maho, like most men in Georgia, resented not having work. He was proud and felt embarrassed that he couldn't provide certain things for his family but instead of rolling up his sleeves and planting an extra row of potatoes, or trimming the grass in his yard, painting his rusty gate and house or even bringing a bucket of water to his outhouse, he spent his days drinking from horns and playing around like a kid while blaming his misfortune on everything and everyone.

It was then and there that I realized how little I really respected these men. It doesn't matter how bad things get, you don't give up on your family, on yourself. You try your best and damn it in most cases you figure something out. I remember the men in Turkey - also poor, also proud, but proud enough to plant on every strip of land they could find, even on patches next to the highway, proud enough to tend to other people's cows for extra cash, to make their homes as nice as they could. I was realizing what it meant to be a 'good' man, a husband, a father. At times I felt that Georgia was giving up and trying to keep myself from doing so in such an atmosphere was harder than I could have ever imagined...