08 September

In the first 25 years of my life, I had been to three funerals: my Poppops, Tio Paco’s, and the boyfriend of a college friend who overdosed on heroin. In the 2.5 weeks that I have been in Georgia, I have been to 3 funerals. Today’s event was by far the strangest one I have been to, which includes the time that I did not even know I was at a funeral for the first hour I was there (after my first few glasses of wine I went to the bathroom and nearly tripped over the casket). The funeral today was the grandest as far as scale goes, attended by some 400 or 500 people. It felt as though things were going to go as usual as a Georgian funeral goes, standing around awkwardly with a bunch of people who don’t know what to do with the presence of a foreigner, walking through the grieving line with somber handshakes and small head nods, and then a glass of wine and depart. I should have known otherwise, especially when my host parents left without telling me, abandoning me in a city 45 minutes away from our village with a couple of grieving women in black and burly men smoking cigarettes and staring at my wondering why I was there.

Finally my ride reappeared, and 5 people climbed into the backseat of my car to push off, something that I have become increasingly accustomed to. However, we did not point in the direction of home, but instead drove down the worst road I have ever seen, jockeying for position with 100 other cars as we bobbed and weaved 6 or 7 wide trying to avoid the potholes and craters that littered the road, presumably ditches that had not been fixed since being bombed by Soviet forces. It took a few tenths of a mile until I noticed the lead car, the hearse that was winding as much as everyone else, hatchback propped open and the casket uncovered, giving the trail cars a clear glimpse of the dead body as it bumped and jumped against the 3 pole bearers riding alongside. The chaos of Georgian roads increased when it became clear that the road was not a one way as it had appeared, and slowly the 6 lanes that were constantly being created and then ignored had to shrink to make room for the opposing onslaught of traffic, bobbing and weaving equally in the opposite direction. In all, it felt like that scene in 2 Fast 2Furious when Paul Walker and Vin Diesel take shelter in a garage and then pour out amongst hundreds of other drag racers going in every direction to confuse the FBI and police that had been monitoring the criminals. I am not sure if that made me Paul Walker or Ludacris, if the police that were waving on the funeral procession were the FBI, and if that all made the dead woman in the hearse (the one everyone was chasing) Vin Diesel. Perhaps my metaphor is starting to fall apart.

I have always found wakes and funerals very uncomfortable and ceremonial occasions, archaic traditions meant to force everyone into an awkward social scene save for the person who has passed, the only person to escape the palpable tension. It is even worse going to the funeral of someone whom you’ve never met, in a land 4000 miles away where nobody speaks the same language and can tell you don’t belong here. The sadness and grief that has clutched the hearts of everyone in attendance is not something that can be faked, and the forced somber look that I feel is appropriate to bestow on myself only solidifies my role as an outsider. As people begin to come up and try to talk to me, word quickly spreads that I am an American teacher living with my host family, who is in attendance. As has become typical, this immediately becomes a big deal, and even the husband and children of the dead women are honored that such a ‘distinguished guest’ would take time out of his day to come so far to pay his respects to the deceased. I curse my host brother for opting for his friends house and a day on the river instead of coming along, the absence of my usual translator rendering my hand motions and exaggerated speech completely useless. I am soon dragged over the well maintained gravel spots that are other family members’ final resting places, and to the front of the crowd of 400, staring down at the weathered and plastic corpse so many feet below, looking comfortable and ready for eternity. People have tossed a few handfuls of dirt on top of the woman’s face and dress (where the hell is the lid to this casket?!), and soon the aggrieved husband hands me a shovel, offering me the honor of burying his dead wife. My hands go insta-clammy as I stare at this incredibly intimate scene of everyone’s last goodbye to wife, sister, mother, aunt, or friend, and try my best to hand the shovel to anyone that might take it, babbling in broken English and hurried Spanish (the only foreign language I know) that I cannot be the one to bury a woman I have never met.

Finally the shovel is taken from my hands, whether the grim look on the faces of family members is anger at my refusal, understanding at my discomfort, or merely continued grief as to the woman’s passing, I have no idea nor desire to stick around and discover. I start to walk over to my host family, taking a second to pour wine on the grave that I had been standing on in what I hoped was a respectful gesture, and was led back to the car trying to walk quickly while still avoiding the piles of cow shit that has been strewn all over the cemetery. Praying the day was over, I  was instead driven to supra, a surpisingly timid affair, the 400 people who were in attendance for the plates of foods and gallons of wine indicative of the money the family clearly had. The food was good, even despite the plastic looking bone in some pink beef that cut the roof of my mouth, and the wine went down smoothly enough, which is an important characteristic of wine when chugged 6 ounces at a time every few minutes. There was a lot more action at this supra than my last, the tamara forcing the men present to constantly stand for each toast, the exchange of hugs and kisses on the cheek a flurry of confusion and near sexual advances as I still do not have to procedure down to a science (some people handshake first, others bend in awkwardly making it look like they’re trying to kiss one cheek before switching to the other at the last second, and kisses occasionally nearly miss their mark).

The other big development on the day was the changing of my room. After two weeks of falling asleep to sneezes, hives in my throat, and runny eyes and nose, my family finally decided something was amiss with the bedding I was sleeping on, and I was moved next door. The windows do not face the Eastern mountains, which means I am not awoken at 6 am by the glaring morning. It also means my room is about 15 degrees cooler, allowing the impending fall air to rush in and tighten my grip on my blanket. Dreams of travel to Greece and Tbilisi swirl in my head, and I drift off to the fullest night sleep since the allergies began.