Rabati Castle in Akhaltsikhe

I still have several sets of photos from a number of events that I meant to record in my blog but never got around to during my travels. I am now getting sick for the first time since I've been back in the US, very conveniently on my three day weekend, allowing me some extra time to sit back and catch up on my reflections of this trip.

I was still under the impression that my father was capable of some kind of human interaction and logical pursuit of results in the realm of daily life. Because he failed to obtain a document without my accompaniment, I decided to escort him once again into Akhaltsikhe, the nearby town that housed all the banks, markets and government institutions for the surrounding provinces. I felt my presence expedited the completion and collection of all needed paperwork. 

Upon reflection I realize more fully that it was wrong to want anything of my father, just as it was wrong of him to want anything of me. The shower lady infected me with the idea that I must coerce my father into filing his house under my name so that I become the rightful owner of it even during his lifetime. She brought up a good point; he has done nothing for me in the duration of 19 years, he might as well give me something to show that he supports and cares for me. This good point was what I was to leverage against my father to persuade him to switch his house into my name.

Her idea seemed like a sinister plot at the time, so many Agatha Christie novels were centered around a will, the passing of property from one member of the family to another. I sensed it was the wrong approach but I went with it. The propelling force was my enamored state with the country that I saw before me. The land was truly beautiful and I was possessed with the desire to be able to come back there someday with my family and feel at home.

To say that I had to coerce my father into giving me his house is an over statement. In fact, my father had often spoken of giving me that house without any prompting from me. The difference was that I did not actually have any intent to take him up on his offer until the lady suggested I should be more proactive in the transaction. But hearing my father make statements exulting me as the owner of his house many times and the advice of leading my father towards the fruition of his promise combined to give me a sense of determination on the topic.

The idea that my father would give me a summer house in a beautiful land also seemed appealing because it would prove that my father is not the monster my mother has painted him to be all these years. There was plenty of evidence to give me the notion that the idea was ridiculous, but I was in denial. I was also looking for a way to spend the rest of my vacation time there on good terms with my father, and this seemed like the perfect twist to get me out of the bleak situation I found myself in. I thought he would absolve himself in the duration of the time we'd spend together getting something done that's concrete and beneficial to me.

Although my plan came to a screeching stop, I am happy that I took on this venture because though my several travels into Akhaltsikhe with Ares (my father), I grew to know him better and many of my suspicions of his flawed character were dissolved into a sobering clarity of the reality of the situation.

Upon the second trip we rode again with a shuttle driver whose nickname was The Pilot. The Pilot let the shuttle get crammed full of people. Because everyone knew I was a visitor I got to sit in the front seat and share it with another lady that usually owns that privilege. Lucky for me; others stood upright, hunching their shoulders and heads to fit under the low roof. It was hot, crowded, stinky with body odor and it was incredibly fun and terrifying at the same time.

The road was full of curves and corners around which you could not see, dented with lake size pot holes and lacking in any traffic signs, signals or lines. Often, cars drove on the wrong side of the street to avoid pitting into the immense potholes. Cows and other forms of cattle often stood in the roadway, along with chickens and dogs trying to attack the oncoming traffic. As we passed villages, people walked in the narrow streets, crossed them, stood on the sidelines. And with all this going on, surprisingly, I witnessed no accidents.

The Pilot has driven this same route for many years and knew it like the back of his hand, and so he flew through this chaos like a bullet in the old, Soviet era shuttle, crammed full of people like sardines in a can, rattling around in joyful discomfort. Everyone else seemed calm and confident in their survival of this trip, I on the other hand was fearful for my life. I enjoyed the quirky trip tremendously in its tumultuous joy of life. People called out for where they wanted to be dropped off, and as the passengers in the back tumbled over bags and people in their way and passengers in the front got off to make room in the doorway for an exit and got back on, the Pilot kept saying "chega, chega" which meant "free, free" to the extended hands with pay for the fare. He took no payments from anyone, the lady next to me started snatching the payments out of people's hands and throwing the money onto his dashboard saying to me, "how's he going to pay for his food if he never takes any payments?"

This wonderful, warmhearted, jolly man ended up taking my father and I on a trip up to the Rabati Castle during his layover between routes in the city, needless to say, for free. The Rabati castle was recently restored by the government to increase tourism. However, when we went there it was completely empty.

Catch that Chicken

My aunt wanted to cook one of the chickens in honor of my visit. She asked my uncle to catch the chicken but then the first day she asked the chicken ran away. The next day she asked the chicken started to lay eggs. The next day she asked my father and I went into the city and bought meat that had to be cooked soon. Then finally, one fine day, my uncle remembered to go into the coup before letting the chickens out, and he caught that chicken. Then he beheaded it. He said usually it has a headless fit for a while after he chops off its head, but this time I didn't see it having an epileptic fit, which was disappointing. I wish I could have taken a video of a headless chicken running around. I asked him how he felt in his soul after slaughtering a chicken and he said it felt really good. I didn't take a picture of him holding the headless chicken because it really wasn't that interesting to look at, it was hard to tell where the head should have been because of all the feathers.

Then my aunt feathered the chicken. I never knew this, but apparently all you have to do is put the chicken with all its feathers into water that just boiled and leave it in for a few minutes, very quickly pull it out and also, very quickly pull out all its feathers. I had no idea that the feathers come out so easily. It looked like feathers might be very painful to have because some of them were wedged very deep into the skin of the chicken. I think I might be glad that I don't have feathers.

After this fiasco in the morning my father and I went off to get his documents straightened out in the city. The day before this I met a lady who knows my father. She owns one of the Romanov's era houses (the ones that were built by the workers that came with the tsar's family to build their complex). She rents out her house to the tourists (for only $25 per week, so cheap for a house that's antique!) and my father sometimes does work for her in the yard. This lady asked me how I live with my aunt, she was very curious, she used to be a neighbor of my family, and I don't know what her prerogative was. Maybe she was honestly concerned, maybe she was very curious to talk to me because I'm from another country, also, a LOT of people are sincerely eager to speak with me at least once because of the fact that I'm a daughter that came across the world to meet her father after he left her 19 years ago. 

I wasn't sure if she was going to be someone that likes to go around spreading rumors, but I thought, what the hell, I have so much on my mind, and I've got to talk to someone about it. Another thing was that I don't know my family well at all, and I wanted to know what other people say about my aunt and my father. So I told her about how much I like my aunt and her family and about all my grievances with my father. One thing that I was very happy about is that I got to take a shower in her house because I complained about the fact that my aunt's house has no running water, let alone a shower, and that I haven't taken a shower in maybe three or four days at that point. Also, she got very passionate about me helping my father. She said, "you have to do a kind deed. Let it be that your father is a drunk, I also have a husband who's a drunk, but I feel so sorry for him and I help him sometimes. Sometimes I do something for him and then I hate him and say, why did I ever do that?! But then I know that if I didn't I would feel bad, so I love and hate him at the same time."

She really wanted me to help my father by sending him to America. She said, "he'll definitely do anything for your mom if you take him with you, he will help, I know." She also said, "before you leave make sure that you take care of the paperwork so that his house becomes yours, he always said that his house is yours, but you make sure and put it in your name, that's the least he can do for you after doing nothing for all these years." At this point I was still very upset at my father for how he met me and brought me into Abastumani and I felt very heavy on my heart. I was putting off a conversation with him because I was planning not to speak with him for the rest of my trip because I didn't feel like I could handle it. But when she said all that I got really excited and happy and after taking a shower I ran to find him and tell him that I want him to take care of the paper work for the house and that I will definitely send him to America.

So the next day I got dressed up for the occasion because I saw that my dad was shaving and making a big to do about it. I felt very optimistic about him and we spent the day, I thought, very nicely. Later on though I realized a few things that I did not notice while I was out on the day trip with him. He asked me that day to give him my money because he wanted to be able to pay for things because he was ashamed that I would pay when he's with me. I thought, sure why not, I'll do him that kind deed, it didn't seem like much. I also took him to a restaurant and we bought a bunch of stuff at the bazaar. 

Later on I realized this was a mistake. We have a saying in Russia, if you let a pig sit at the table, it'll crawl on the table. That's what my dad did. We took care of some documents and the next day I didn't want to have to go into the city with him again, it was a tiring journey. I left $25 with him, not because he needed it, but because it was in his pocket, left over after everything we'd spent. It doesn't sound like much in America, but in Georgia that is a LOT of money, I could have bought my aunt all kinds of groceries on that money, but he came back the next day from his trip without any money and demanded from me to buy him cigarettes. I didn't and he got offended. 

It's upsetting because he pretends that it hurts him to have to ask me for money, yet every chance he gets he wants me to spend money on him in the restaurant, and to give him money for his own expenses as thought I'm supposed to support him here, in his own home. He also wants me to pay off his debts. The first day we went into town after I said I'd take him to live with my mom I had to go to the bank. I withdrew some cash and he started smiling at me and said, "listen, can you give me $100, I have to pay off a debt to someone." I said, "no, pay off your own debt." I was SO upset at him for daring to ask me to pay for that. 

My father should be doing everything he can to show that he's sorry, and instead he keeps asking for more and more from me. It was even more upsetting that the taxi driver that gave us a ride into town that day was the person he wanted to pay off his debt to. I realized this after my father asked me for the money because the taxi driver took us REALLY far for only some gas money, and I thought he was just being nice, but later I realized that my father promised him that I would pay his debt off to him. He didn't even ask me! And he made this agreement right in front of me, because I don't understand Georgian.

Below is my father's school that he went to. My cousin also went to this school.

This is a waterfall next to the natural springs of sulfur waters that have medicinal powers. The Romanov's medicinal pools. I didn't photograph them, maybe later I'll go inside and do so. 

This is a statue of the Tsaritsa Tamara. She was the only female ruler of Georgia, after her, her son took over and ruined Georgia's domains.

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.