Rainbow Trout

I had a bunch of photos from my childhood where the adults lay in the grass while I and the other children stood and picked flowers. Now I thought I'd recreate the photo pose, there's just no kids around yet. 

My uncle caught a rainbow trout early in the morning while everyone was still asleep.

The fish then continued to live in this tin tub for the next hour, my uncle says "somewhere about 33 years and 23 months."

On my second day in Abastumani I found that I really love my aunt. She helped my parents raise me until I was 4 years old. Everyone in Abastumani thought she was my real mother and that my father and mother were just pretending to be my parents to hide my aunt's secret (that she had me out of wed lock). My uncle is really funny and nice and my cousin loves me like a sister. I liked spending time with them much more than with my own father. Their energy is always positive and they never make me feel uncomfortable. My father on the other hand was trying to make me believe that my aunt didn't love me anymore and that she didn't meet me when I arrived because she just didn't care about me.

When my father realized that I really like my aunt and her family he became extremely jealous. He promised never to drink again after I arrived, but then, because his plan to get me to stop talking to my aunt wasn't working and because he saw that I like her more than himself he went and got drunk again. I came into my apartment to get something of mine and noticed that he reeked of alcohol and I was so upset and disappointed that I ran back to my aunt's and asked to get all my things from my apartment and to move into their house right then and there. They live in a one room house and my cousin sleeps on one bed and my aunt and uncle on the other. I didn't want to make them uncomfortable by moving in, but they said that my uncle and cousin will move into an empty house across the yard that one of their friends gave them the key to, for safe keep, and my aunt and I will stay in their house at night. 

My father was making me very uncomfortable, even before he got drunk this time, because he refused to come in and eat dinner with my aunt's family, but I really wanted to spend time with them. I wanted to eat dinner with my aunt, and breakfast and lunch. I felt like there needed to be two of me, so that one can spend time with my father and the other with my aunt. Because my father was the one who made me feel this way I decided that he was the one I needed to leave. So I ran off to my aunt and my cousin helped me get my stuff from the apartment. I thought I wasn't going to talk to my father for the rest of my time here in Abastumani. It really hurt me to see him this way and I felt that I  had to turn my heart cold toward him because I didn't want to hurt any more. I have had enough pain in my life and during the past year so many good things have happened to me that I was very afraid of having any new painful experiences. I really don't want to feel any more pain, although I realize that there's no way to guarantee happiness on earth. 

My aunt really wanted me to not give up on my father though, and she kept telling me to invite him for every meal even though he always refused. This time, even though I decided in my heart that I didn't want to talk t him any more, she still asked me to invite him, and I tried to. He said no, and I got so upset, I couldn't help it anymore and I yelled at him, not very loudly, but louder than I speak normally, with passion. I told him "when I'm at my aunt's house you're missing time with me because you refuse to be in the house with her, but you haven't seen me for 19 years and I'm leaving soon, how can you say you don't want to be with my aunt when that's where I am?" And he said "yes, I'm missing time with you, but that's how it is, I can't spend time with her." I got so mad at him when he said this and yelled, "your daughter flew across half the world for you, and you don't want to walk across the yard for her!" and I stormed out. My heart was pounding and my hands started shaking. My mother used to make me really upset, but not quite as upset as this. My hands often shook from her and I often cried from her, but I've never had my heart pound so hard as it did this time. 

I really wished that I didn't have a father. I wished that my aunt and uncle were my parents and that my cousin was my real brother. I did not anticipate that I would feel this way. For 19 years I wondered if my father still thinks about me and loves me just to find that when I finally did see him I did not want him in my life, the presence of him made me nauseous. I thought my childhood and adulthood would have been so much easier with my father in my life, and here I found him making my life miserable after all these years. He reminded me of all the worst people I've ever known. If my aunt wasn't there I don't know how I would have survived these 18 days in Abastumani. I would have been devastated, I don't know how to deal with this situation, but she has helped me make the best of one of the worst and most confusing challenges I've ever faced.

Hike up to the Observatory

While I was wilting away in the roshya with Gosha my father came along to bother me. I was still trying to act like everything is okay even though I was very upset at the way things went when he met me at the airport. I was also very eager to see as much of Abastumani as is possible in the first 24 hours that I'm there. I was very excited. My father wanted to see if we can take the elevator up to the observatory, but it wasn't going to start working until later in the day. I used to go to kindergarten up there so I really wanted to go up right then and there and so we started to make our way up the short path through the forest. It's a mile up the mountain's incline.

These are toxic mushrooms, Amanita.

Below is a wild lily. My mom's name is Lilia. Lilies seem so delicate and gentle, my mom is not delicate or gentle.

I caught a butterfly on camera! I noticed these butterflies are all over the place.

We got to the observatory. I didn't go inside, but here it is:

When I was standing where my dad stands below I suddenly remembered seeing this place before. I know I've been there in my childhood but I never had a clear memory of it. It wasn't a place that I would recollect throughout my life. But once I got here, and stood in the spot my father is standing in on this photo I suddenly realized that I've stood there before and had thoughts and impressions of this place, many years ago, as a child.

This is a kindergarten that I used to attend next to the observatory:

Above were some more photos of the buildings in the observatory complex at the top of the mountain.

A Walk in the Park

On the second day I woke up early, at 5 am. My father was still asleep and I escaped. When I looked at my clothes selection I picked my one dress that looks like a village dress, the others were too fancy for the first day out, I thought, and put it on quickly, brushed my teeth and walked out quietly with my phone and my lap top so I can Skype with my boyfriend. My apartment had no internet and I really wanted to talk to him.

My cousin was going to work and he invited me to come with him. There is a small park where you can go on horse rides, jump on trampolines with the bungy ropes, ride on quadracycles, and go up on an elevator that travels along a conveyor belt from the bottom to the top of the mountain. I quickly changed into pants and a shirt for the horse ride and trampoline. We first walked down the entire little town part where all the tourists like to hang out. I didn't take any pictures then, but I will later and post them. I took some pictures of the flowers that were near by instead.

The park itself is called "rosha", which in Russian translates into a "small forest". But it's funny because the park is actually a small clearing in the midst of a large forest. When I tried to explain this to my cousin he didn't understand why I told him that rosha is not actually a rosha at all and he kept telling me, "no, it's rosha, that's what it is." He didn't understand because he speaks Russian, Armenian, Georgian and Turkish. Russian is not his main language and so he doesn't know the finer nuances of words such as rosha which is a variation of the word for forest because it means a small forest in the middle of a clearing, rather than a regular forest. I thought it was funny that they would call a clearing in the middle of a forest a rosha when it means the exact opposite. My uncle later explained that the word stuck for the park from the Romanov's family. Perhaps during that time it was the small portion of the forest that they would walk into and that's probably why they called it that.

This is the tiny little strawberry that I always thought tasted like a thousand strawberries in one little one, but now that I've been eating them I found their taste is very different from strawberries, although they are very flavorful. It's hard to find the really ripe ones. They grow everywhere, along the sides of the road, in the park, in our yard at home and in the forest. The only ones that are good to eat are in the forest because that's where they're clean. They like to grow in the sunny spots of a clearing and along paths through the forest.

This is the path through the park. I wish parks in Tucson look like this:

This is the small river that runs through Abastumani. Otskhe is the name of the river, it meets another river called Mtkvari farther away from Abastumani in a place called Pareha, which is also a village. Mtkvari has a Russian translation "Koora" which is also the word for chicken. It's illegal to catch the trout that lives in this river, it's the royal red spotted trout (that's what they call it in Russian, in English it's the rainbow trout), it's small and very tasty. 

And then I took some photos of the flowers that grow along Otskhe.

The picture below is of a flower called koorinaya slepota which translates into chicken blindness from Russian. I don't know why they called it that, I always wondered if chickens would go blind if they stared at it for too long.

I took some pictures of the clover next to Otskhe, and then I walked up the mountain with my father and saw some GIANT clover, I didn't ever know it got that big. It's extremely aromatic here and tastes very sweet.

I took a picture of the grass below because I just thought it's really pretty even though it's not a flower.

I caught a ladybug on camera!

Below is one of the houses that faces the park. I took just this one picture but later I will walk through on my own and photograph all the old houses. They were built during the Romanov's reign by the workers that came to build their resort for them. I will tell the story of these houses in a later entry.

This is my very sweet cousin. In Russian we say "dvayurodnyi brat", which translates into "my twice removed brother". I just call him brother. I always wanted an older brother when I was small because I wanted to dance ballet with him. When I grew up I realized that I'm already born and can't have an older brother, and that there was no guarantee that he would dance ballet with me even if I had one. I'm really happy now to have Georgi as my brother. I decided to call him Gosha. He says "you're the older sister, so I do what you say we do" and he takes me on horse rides and trampoline jumping, carries buckets of water for me and helps me wash my hands. I love him.

My Apartment in Abastumani

When I showed up in Abastumani no one was expecting me to be there yet because everyone thought that I was going to be in Yerevan. But I did not know this when I arrived. I was very disappointed and sad that when I walked into my childhood yard no one came out to meet me, especially my aunt, who helped my parents raise me. I will post pictures of my dad's and aunt's house later. First my father brought me to his house, which is right across the yard from my aunt's. It was absolutely empty with the exception of a bed that appeared to be so dirty that when my father told me I was to sleep in it I asked him if I can just sleep in yard on the ground. When I said this he told me there was an apartment that was set up for my arrival and that we were going there so that I can spend my stay in it with all the modern comforts. 

Before we went up to this apartment I sat down on a bench outside of the chicken coop in our yard and ate the Georgian bread and cheese he bought at the bazaar on the way there. Later on one of my relatives in the village told me that this bench was my favorite place to hang out when I was a kid, and it's funny that even though I didn't actually remember this, it was the first place where I sat down upon arrival. I myself asked my dad if we can sit down there and eat.

Then he took all my stuff and walked me to a 9 story building just three minutes away from his house where an old lady named babushka Lena gave him the key to the apartment and said she knew me when I was a baby and kissed me. It's the custom here to kiss on the right cheek and then on the neck. That's how everyone kisses me, but I think when they usually kiss each other it's just on the cheek, I think they kiss me on the neck because they all think of me as a baby still and are so happy that they found me. When I say they, I mean the whole village.

This is the living room:

The kitchen:

The bathroom:

In Russia, and I guess in other former Soviet countries, during the Soviet times, the water heaters were placed in very precarious positions. I remember in my childhood being terrified of them because they made noise above my head and were metal and I knew they used gas for heating water and I was always afraid that they would explode in my face. Maybe even a more immediate danger is that they might fall off their hinges on the wall and crush you while you bathe. They're quite terrifying.

The bedroom:

When I lay down in this bed the first time I was terrified because at that point I've been basically awake for 48 hours with the exception of a few one hour naps here and there. My brain was not able to cope with reality and everything seemed like a monstrosity: the flight, my father's behavior, my family's absence upon my arrival. I thought I made a huge mistake in coming to Abastumani and suddenly I had a panic attack, in my brain, and didn't see how I was going to survive the twenty days I was going to have to spend there. I wanted to die, without exaggeration.

I imagined that this was going to be twenty days of absolute torture from my father. I thought that when I finally do get back to the US I might already be completely insane and incapable of dealing with life. I thought I'll lose my job and my boyfriend will leave me because I will not be able to function at home either. Life suddenly became too painful to bare. I lay with my eyes wide open in shock and I didn't know how I was going to survive this trip.

I tried to call for my dad because I thought that maybe if he came and sat down with me and talked to me he could help me get a little more grounded into reality and end the insanity that I thought was setting into my brain. Ironic, since he's the cause of it. But he left the apartment and I was all alone, perhaps this was for the best. I went to sleep. When I woke up I felt much better, I guess I just needed some sleep to brighten my perception.

I have since moved into my aunt's house. This trip is a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, but it is still incredibly beautiful because I have an aunt that loves me like a mother.