Merry Christmas!...both of them!

Christmas in Tbilisi (above)
A Georgian Zamboni (left)
Season's greetings from Senaki: The citrus capital of Samegrelo!





Hello there and Happy 2008! (Written 01 Jan. 2008)
There’s always something that happens when you think things are just finally mellowing out. After the weirdness of this fall, things had pretty much settled down and I really thought I’d have little to write about. Well, in this season of giving, the universe gave early and often to me.
As I said I had started to finally get into a groove and was actually beginning to feel like a real PC volunteer. Of course, like an old LP record spinning perfectly at a party, there’s always some drunken buffoon that bumps into the turntable and ruins everyone’s good time. The cosmic miscreants in this tale of woe are as follows (cast listed in order of appearance): Poor air quality, scratched corneas, winter, the Georgian train system, my brain, scheduling difficulties, and bureaucracy.
It all starts innocently enough, as in any chaos theory model, with the simple seasonal cooling of the Northern Hemisphere (We call this phenomena autumn, for those of my PCCS students who didn’t pay attention during my riveting lectures). In Georgia most houses use wood to heat the domicile. While the petchi, as it is known, has a certain charm, it is not the most efficient heating device in history. Consequently, incomplete combustion is a problem and minute particles are carried into the atmosphere, cloaking the Samegrelo plain in a 24 hour haze. Now don’t get the wrong idea…this ain’t Beijing, but it is a bit hard to take.
Some of these particles made it to my eyes and in the course of living, I managed to rub them around enough to make my corneas resemble the screen of a 20 year old “Etch-a-Sketch” that a toddler has taken a fork to because he wants to “get the magic out”. By the time I realized something was wrong…I.e. I couldn’t open my eyes for more than 30 seconds or so, I was now faced with getting medical attention. This meant a 5 and a half hour train ride to Tbilisi to see the Peace Corps doctor. Alas, there were no tickets left for the train, making my only option the dreaded marshukta. Taking a marshukta is an exercise in risk management even during summertime but in winter…well, let’s just say you decide to invest everything you have in Poland…and it’s August of 1939.
I was spared the marsh ride due to the fact I couldn’t see long enough to flag down a marsh…I finally had to take a taxi to Tbilisi. After the doctors told me what had befallen my peepers, I was forbidden to read, watch TV, or use the computer for two days…meaning that after I exhausted the battery of my MP3 player, I basically stared at a wall for a day or so. When my eyes had healed enough to read etc., I was given more medicine and told to go back to Senaki. I was also told to come back for a follow-up the following Thursday.
I went and got a train ticket. The 2:45 train would put me in Senaki at about 8:30 PM. That gives me enough time to wash up, have some tea, and get ready for school the following day. I was in pretty high spirits as the train pulled out 15 minutes late. My eyes felt better, and I was going to get to spend my first healthy weekend in Tbilisi the following week. As we moved along, I noticed that some of the passengers in my car were grumbling to each other. After about an hour or so, they began yelling at the conductor. It seems that my train car had no heat. I actually didn’t notice as I was quite comfortable. Georgian trains, in an obvious homage to their former soviet oppressors, usually keep their trains just this side of “broil” on the oven dial, usually necessitating the opening of windows to balance the thermodynamics. So while there was some grumbling, all seemed ok as we started up into the mountains.
By the time we reached Kashuri it was snowing pretty heavily. We still had no heat and it was starting to get a bit chilly, but we were halfway home, so I really didn’t sweat it. After passing through the main tunnel that divides east and west Georgia, we stopped at a small village. All of a sudden there was a brilliant flash of light and an incredible “BOOM”! Marvin the Martian would have called it, “an earth-shattering KA-BOOM”. Well, this precipitated some noise from the passengers but mostly it could be described as sort of an exaggerated court room murmur (in Georgian of course). As the passengers calmed themselves, the flash of light and BOOM repeated, this time knocking the lights out. Well, now all hell broke loose. Bebias were shrieking, kids were crying, and most made a dash to the doors of the car that made The Who concert in Cincinnati seem like a line at the DMV. I stayed in my seat so as not to get trampled.
Once things calmed down, meaning that all the freak shows were off the train, I looked out the window and saw people looking up and pointing. This being the universal symbol for “Man, that’s really fucked up!”, I ventured out to take a look. It seems the overhead line that the train draws its power from had snapped. When the live wire hit the train, it produced the first light show. The second was probably from an overloading transformer that couldn’t take the huge current jump (my theory). So, in the gathering twilight, the snow coming down, and about 8 inches already on the ground, I began to wonder what would happen to we intrepid 250-odd souls. I must say that as I surveyed the damage, I had flashes of a Donner Party situation, but we were stopped in a small village, so I put that thought right away.
Repairmen were called. As we watched them work and smoked cigarettes (hey, I’m trying to assimilate here!), most finally realized that it was pretty fucking cold and we should probably head back onto the train. Oh yeah…remember, we had no heat on the train. So we sat. And sat. And sat. In the course of 2 and ½ hours we went from chilly, to cold, to freezing in the dark. Finally the train lights came on and we lurched forward….for about 5 seconds. Yes folks, 5 or 10 carefree meters and then we stopped again. Finally, we started again in earnest and we were once again rolling. Zestaponi, Kutaisi, and then Samtredia.
Samtredia is the stop where I know I’m almost home. It’s only 30 kilometers from Senaki and brings a smile to my heart. As we stopped to let some people off and take on a few passengers, I took advantage of the station lights to do some reading (I had a two month old Newsweek burning a hole in my backpack). After awhile, I realized something was amiss. Either I was a really fast reader (well, it is Newsweek) or we had been stopped for longer than the customary 5 minutes. Before I could glance at my watch, my ears told me the story. Passengers were again grumbling and some drunken shouts at the conductors were heard. We had been there 20 minutes and we would stay in Samtredia for another 34 minutes. During this time, things did get a bit scary. Soon, everyone was shouting and a lot of the men were a somewhat drunk. I was the only American, with a “Novice High” level of Georgian proficiency I might add, on a train full of very pissed off Georgian people. I simply pulled my cap down low on my head, put my chin at my chest, and alternated between meditation and trying to feel my feet.
In due time we got moving and finally, after walking home in a cold rain, I entered my house at 11:47 PM. A lovely 9+ hours riding the rails. End of part 1. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to this story!!! Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel!