The Georgian Epiphany

Happy Holidays!

Yesterday was Christmas #2 here in Georgia. Part of being on the orthodox calendar means that some of our holidays aren't exactly in line with what I'm used to in America. We also celebrated catholic christmas, but just with a supra with lots of drinking (read, just another day).

Once the new year came, we had a pretty large supra (which featured my pulled pork BBQ) and then we went from neighbor to neighbors houses having mini-supras. It all meant a good amount of drinking, and saying the same toasts, but it was fun. then at about 4:00am we stopped going to houses and came back to my house, where we danced for about an hour before I passed out.

The hangover was such that I couldn't get out of bed until 7:00pm the following day. My host family found it quite entertaining.

Here are some of the differences in US holidays and Georgian holidays:

• Georgia has two new years celebrations, January 1st and January 14th. The days in between are the epiphany. 
• Georgians also celebrate Chinese new years, but on January 1st. This year is the year of the snake, so we gave some money to a toy figure of a snake. 
• Because it's the year of the snake, my family didn't set off fireworks because "snakes don't like them". 
• At midnight on December 31st, the eldest son takes a pumpkin, raises it above his head, and smashes it to the ground on the carpet in the living room. In my house the cats then immediately sprang into action to eat some of it. 
• Christmas trees (see below) are new years trees here. 
• Santa clause has the same name here as snow man. 
• On Georgian Christmas we eat a special kind of Khatchapuri that is cheese and boiled egg baked inside of bread, and lots of butter. It was yummy. 

Me and the kids in front of the New Years tree. The kids are the ones who do the decorating here

A selection of the ornaments used

The finished Christmas / New Years tree. Not bad. 

On one day One of my students asked me to come to her house to install some English language software to help her learn more. I asked my host brother Tedo how long it would take to get there, and he said it'd just be about 20 minutes. 

An hour later and 2,000 feet higher, we finally arrived and I suppose I had my own form of epiphany with regards to how people behave in school. The distance that some of these kids have to walk to school each day is incredible, and so it's no wonder that they want to talk and socialize throughout class; it's impossible to go to a friends house after school without hiking a tremendous distance, and probably not being able to make it home that night. While this doesn't explain the rampant cheating, it does explain some of the other behavior. Myself I am impressed that these kids make it to school as much as they do. 

Oh also this, we went to another Peace Corps volunteers site after new years to a supra, and I was able to get some pretty sweet video of my friend Mark downing a large horn of wine in one go. Also he said some pretty good toasts about thanking the family, and having a good new years. 

I head to Sri Lanka tomorrow, so I'm excited to get out of the cold and go somewhere warm for awhile. I hope that I'll be able to take lots of pictures to show everyone.