My Yard

Many things have happened since I started this blog. I meant to record the happenings of each day briefly, but I don't remember anymore what happened on what day and in what order. I remember that after I yelled at my father about crossing the yard for me he disappeared and I was certain that he went to get drunk because instead of following me into my aunt's house like I thought he should have, he disappeared in the direction of the store. 

Everyone in the village was outraged by his behavior, but everyone kept saying "if only you take him to America to be with your mom he'll be a changed man, he won't drink." At that point I thought that my troubles consisted of him drinking and I was worried that he wouldn't stop drinking. I was very afraid that he would go to live with my mom, who has a very difficult personality, and start drinking from sorrow. It turned out that my father had a personality very similar to hers, perhaps they will understand each other just fine.

Later that day I talked to my mother on the phone and she made me cry. The conversation started off fine. She made jokes and spoke in a very gentle tone of voice, then I said "I'm sorry, mom, we're all sitting at the dinner table and everyone is waiting for me to stop talking so we can eat dinner." It was the second time in a row that she'd called during dinner time, and she pointed this out and then changed her tone of voice into accusations and insults. I have been used to this from her and desensitized to her mind games. There was a time, very recently actually, when she could have me crying and screaming for mercy within the duration of just five minutes. 

This time, I started crying because I was already upset from everything else that was happening. I ran outside and sat down on the bench next to the chicken coup and everyone was trying to make me feel better and then my father appeared with a bouquet of wild roses. He stood dumbfounded and didn't know what was going on, everyone else was hugging me and petting me, even the dog, Dgeko, came up and put his front paw on my foot and licked my leg to make me feel better. My father didn't say anything but after everyone calmed me down we all went back to dinner, and my dad followed me. 

That day we had dinner and everything was perfect. Everyone was nice to him, even though he's long ruined his relationships with my aunt's husband and son. My aunt was happy and kept saying "Now he sees how much your mother has been torturing you all your life he's ashamed that he's doing the same thing with you when you're here, everything's going to be different now, you'll he'll change." I went to sleep apprehensive but hopeful. It turned out that drinking was only one of his many vices.

This is the chicken coup and the bench on which I sat down the first day I arrived, that I later found out was my favorite bench in my childhood.

This is my aunt's shack. My cousin said that all the rocks were brought in by my father when he was drunk so that he can build a wall out of them around a piece of land near our house.

This is the full yard. To the left, the pink brick and the terrace without glass in the window panes is my father's house. There used to be glass in the panes, maybe he sold the glass to buy some vodka, no one has explained to me yet why the glass is missing, just that it used to be there.

This was also brought in by my father, it's next to the rocks. I guess it's supposed to be part of the wall that he never finished building.

This is the piece of land my father started building the wall around, you see the wall that he started. This land is literally across a little side road that runs past our yard. He told me that in Georgia you can just "claim" land by building on it. It won't be legally yours and if someone tries to buy it you'll lose it, but it's not illegal for you to build or grow things on this land, until someone buys it. My dad hopes to have me buy it for him and for him to build a house on it with his own hands. I don't think he'll ever do it. As you see, so far, he can't even finish building a wall. He did the same thing in Russia, when he was much better off financially. He started building a house and never finished it, to this day the foundation for the house stands and the logs that were already put up for the wall have been rotting because he never put a roof over it.

This is the side road that goes past our yard. I don't know what is kept in this shack.

The faucet you see below is where I go to brush my teeth every morning, and wash my face and we walk here to fill buckets all day for anything we need.

This is one of the bridges for crossing the little river that surrounds us.

This is a high rise building near the one I was staying at, very close to our yard.

This is one of the buildings that have been restored from the Romanov's family. It was being used as a rest house, kind of like a hotel, only during Soviet times these rest houses were really cheap and had really tasty food that was practically free at the restaurant. I don't know how it is there now.

Another Romanov's building. It was never restored so it has rotted from within. It used to be a sanatorium, I don't know what that means in English but that's the word they use in Russian, and now it's no longer functioning.