07 September

Georgia has the capacity to be the most threatening military power in the modern world. I do not mean to attest to their military strength in numbers, which is relatively small, nor in their prowess in military technology and strategy, both of which are negligible. However, if they are able to launch an attack on any country with the same level of surprise with which they launch a supra on a foreign teacher, every attack would reverberate with a magnitude similar to Pearl Harbor.

September 7 is the anniversary of my neighbor’s grandfather’s late wife’s murder, an event that is still cause for a supra 24 years into the future. Complete with the grandfather’s new life. I suppose this is life in Georgia. I had been a bit envious of my other TLG volunteers whose Georgian experiences already included the famed drinking and feasting rituals, but the neighbor’s gave it their all in making my first supra  worth the wait. I was ushered into the dining room and introduced to a table of 30 unsmiling Georgian mine and a few women who had exempted themselves from the hassles of cooking and cleaning. After I was introduced as the American teacher who does not speak English but lives next door and is a nice person, everyone stood for the first toast to the dead wife, lead by the tamada, or toast master. By the time I went from the shot to my chair, I was presented with a glass of red wine, a glass of white wine, a bottle of beer, and another shot of tchacha. The games had certainly begun, and people were not messing around with their descriptions of the sheer aggression that is Georgian hospitality.

The number of different plates heaped with food was almost more disarming than the constant toasts and steady flow of alcohol. The kitchen for this house is a separate building just outside the main door, and the only thing slowing down the women in their constant wind sprints between leaving the dining room with empty plates and returning from the kitchen with refills was the mass of bodies they had managed to cram into the tight room. The food in Georgia has become a problem, but only because all of it is so fresh and everything tastes so good. I cannot help but load my plate with everything with in reach, and then everything out of reach is forced upon me by the elders who want to make sure the foreign guest does not go hungry but instead experiences every piece of culture Georgia has to offer. That one thought sounds innocent enough, but in Georgia food and wine are the currency of culture, and the families here are very wealthy. The only thing that I have yet to shake off is my habit of eating everything as quickly as humanly possible. I do not know if it came from growing up with 3 other brothers who share a similar appetite or the time I spent in the Army when we were given so little time to eat that lunch was measure in seconds rather than minutes, but I have always cleared my plate as though food was going out of style, which, in Georgia, is not the case. The problem with this is that once anyone at the table sees that my plate is empty, they are back to forcing more food onto my plate with screams of Chame! Chame! (eat! Eat!). To further complicate the matter, since no one can understand what I’m saying and since they know I can’t understand what they say, no one takes the time to ask if I am hungry, if I want more, or if there is anything I would like or would not like. Instead, everything is foisted upon me and the stares linger until I start eating.

The same is true with the consumption of alcohol, and today was the first time that I was glad every cup in Georgia is absurdly small. Typically, it gets exhausting to constantly stand up while reading to fill the glass that only handles 6 ounces of water at a time, but it was a true life saver at supra. As it turns out, tchacha is not the only thing that is thrown back as a shot. Wine is not casually sipped as a matter of food pairing, but is chugged until empty after every toast. Yes, once the toast is through and the wine is finished, the glass is immediately refilled, but if the glasses were larger than each toast would be more of a detriment, and no one wants to spend four hours chugging 12 ounces of wine at a pop.

In the end, I survived my supra not much worse for wear, even if I was haunted by the image of an unrecognizable 250 pound Tom waddling through the airport in Connecticut once I got home to Connecticut. My only hope is that morning runs and excursions into the mountains will be enough to keep my body small enough to fit into the few pairs of pants I was able to pack into my luggage. The food and alcohol came and went, and my host family whisked me off to the next family gathering while the old men stayed behind to drink further, kiss each other constantly on the cheek, and argue loudly about whatever event came up in conversation. The dishes disappeared before I had the chance to thank anyone or offer to help, and the supra surprise attack was over just as quickly as it had begun.