One of the reasons why I decided to join Peace Corps was to honor
the legacy of my grandmother, Marietta Wright, who was a tireless worker for
equality in my home state of North Carolina. After she passed away I signed up,
and now here I am in Georgia, which you surely already know at this
point.
This week I had another grandmother pass away, but this one was my
host grandmother. It started on Monday when Tedo (my host brother) and I were
playing ping pong upstairs, and Medico (host mom) came up and said she needed
an antibiotic to put on a big sore that had developed on the bebia (bebia is
grandmother in georgian btw). I gave her some which I had, was showered with
the normal fanfare of "you're such a good boy", and then I went back
to playing ping pong. Then I went to my room to play some more of the Sims 2
where I have taken to doing horrible things to my constituents like trying to
make incest babies. A good time later Tedo came up and just said "Bebia is
bad". I could tell right away that this meant more than the usual bad that
she has suffered through for the past 7 or 9 years following a severe stroke,
so I immediately got up and went down to sit in the room with a stove in it to
try and lend whatever support I could.
Almost instantly the entire village showed up and were offering
kind words to the family, and I was shocked that they even knew about it, as no
messages had been dispatched. The village doctor came and there was great
commotion for about 30 minutes, followed by a harrowing call of anguish by
Medico which could be understood in any culture that someone had died.
Instantly the whole house went into action. Tedo stopped all the clocks in the
house to mark the time of death, and I went upstairs to help clear out the
supra room to turn it into the body viewing room. neighbors brought over chairs
and set them up, and somehow a coffin materialized. The body was brought
upstairs and the doctor used a special linen to tie the hands together, and to
tie her mouth shut.
My host aunt, bebias daughter, then arrived home from a day of
shopping in Batumi. No one had told her what had happened, and when the news
was broke to her about the demise of her mother, she was visibly shaken
and began to cry and wail. my host aunt is very near and dear to me, and
seeing her suffering was probably the hardest part about the bebias death. It
was truly a heartbreaking experience. I probably broke a lot of cultural norms by doing so, but I had to go up and give her a hug and try to console her.
In Georgia, like in America, people seem to have the urge to find
some role to fulfill during a moment of crisis. Here it was manifested in the
men doing construction, and the women doing what they pretty much always do,
cook and clean. A new balconcy was constructed in less than an hour and the
outside of the house got a new coat of paint. Mind you, this was all done in a
few feet of snow (oh yeah, forgot to mention, we got about 2 meters of snow a
month ago and it's still around).
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| Me in the snow with my towns tank |
The body was covered and people came to pay their condolences.
Bebia was a Muslim like many people her generation in my village, so there was
a lady reading the Koran next to her, and people were charged with staying with
the body all night long. Unlike what I knew about Muslim traditions, the body
was not buried within 24 hours, but rather stayed on display for 3 days.
Unfortunately for me, my room is right next to where the body was, so I got to
be woken up quite often, despite heavy doses of moonshine, to the sound of
mourners throughout the night for 3 days. On the second night, after the
washing of the body (also a Muslim tradition here I believe), I was allowed to
go in and say a few words. My Georgian language training is mainly geared to
asking directions, shopping, and expressing desires or interests, it isn't
really geared to giving eulogies. So instead, fueled by the bravery that comes
from drinking too much village moonshine, I instead did my best re-enactment of
Agent Brody from Homeland, uttered some "Allah Akbar's", and then
switched it to Latin and said the words from "Liberame Domine" which
I remembered from high school chorus. When I was done I looked around and all
the Bebias were nodding their heads in approval and whispering "what a
good boy". Thanks Hollywood!
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| This Akbar. |
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| Not this Akbar. |
Most of the days were spent with me standing in my suit at the
house entrance shaking hands with people who had just seen the body, and
explaining to them how funerals were conducted in America. Typically my response was just "it
depends on which religion they were", but sometimes I would talk about
Jewish and Muslims usually having a burial in 24 hours, how some people are
cremated, and how we usually have our funerals in churches, and not so much in
dining room. I felt like I did a pretty good job of cultural exchange with
those interactions.
On the 4th day I got the joy of digging a grave through many feet
of snow high upon the mountain where the family grave yard is. Thank god the
ground wasn't frozen. Oh, I also had to do it while still wearing my suit. I
found myself wondering whether or not I could put this particular skill on my
resume when describing what I had gained through Peace Corps. At 2:00pm they
took the body up and buried her. I didn't go on this part because frankly at
that point I was all funeralled out.
We then went to near by Keda for the funeral Supra, and my buddy
Communist-Boss-Georgi was leading the toasts. There was lots of wine, and I was
trying actually not to drink that much, but then Communist-Boss-Georgi said
that I needed to keep up. So we drank a lot, gave toasts to the dead and to the
family, and it lasted about 4 hours. (note: another skill PC has given me is
the ability to just sit for a very long amount of time). After everyone else
had left and it was just the family and Communist-Boss-Georgi, we gathered up
some leftovers, and went back to our house for an after-supra supra, where I
told them I thought their tradition of helping one another out so much during
funerals was really cool, and that I hoped to be able to bring a little bit of
that back to America. More "what a good boy", and drinking followed.
Other random news: didn't have power for 16 days, went to a Circus
that involved a monkey riding a donkey and a bear riding a scooter, got into a
few law schools, went crazy, hung out with friends in Tbilisi for christmas.
Random fact: Go to your grocery store. See all that food? in one store you have more food than my entire region has in all of its stores. Enjoy it. I miss it.
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