Kutaisi Weekend and Sunday Church

Sunday February 12th

This weekend I made it to Kutaisi, the old Capital in Western Georgia, to meet up with some other TLG friends. There was some confusion in the process… My English-speaking neighbor had told me that my host mother would accompany me to Samtredia (the city near our village) to explain how to get on the marshutka (mini-bus) to Kutaisi. In retrospect, this wouldn’t have worked well anyway since my host mother doesn’t speak English or Russian, but in the confusion we established that I would go with my English-speaking neighbor instead. I was half an hour late at this point, but I finally got on my minibus to Kutaisi. Of course, it broke down half-way and we all had to get out and wait for another minibus, but I made it to Kutaisi in one piece and met all my friends at (where else?) McDonalds. From there we explored the city on foot.




Kutaisi is a BEAUTIFUL city with a giant blue-green river running through the center and market stalls everywhere you turn. We wandered around the city for the day, but the best part was when we went back to our hostel --- the home of an elderly Georgian couple who treated us to lots of homemade wine, cha-cha (moonshine), Lobio (beans), lots of fresh greens and salads, homemade cheese, yogurt and jam, and just about anything else you can think of that is Georgian and Delicious. They spoke great Russian so we talked all evening, I translated all of the toasts to our health and our families, our youth and our beauty, etc. We went through all the Georgian drinking traditions, including Kh’antsi (drinking out of horns, like from bulls and rams). The man of the house is crazy talented when it comes to drinking, toasting, and dancing.


Today I went to Church with my host mom, which was a great (although very cold) experience. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to go again and start to understand more of what is happening, but as it is we mostly just stand around and everyone does their own thing --- reading prayers, lighting candles, singing along with the cantors, or walking back and forth to different icons to kiss them and pray. Cool stuff. Can’t take pictures, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Until next time!
Sarah