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.
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