Watch out for Tcha-tcha

And finally, I catch myself up to this week. Really I am going to try to do a better job of posting at least once a week and not three times in one week to make up for the lack of posts the previous week. On Wednesday, there was a crazy storm in Poti. Crazy meaning there was actually some snow on the ground. But if Poti had it that bad, I did not want to KNOW what was happening further east. My fears were found to be true when Lela told me and an email from TLG confirmed that all of Georgia's schools would not have school for the rest of the week. I heard rumors of three days of storms and actual real snow in Poti, not just stuff that was gone by the end of the day. Personally, I thought we in Poti would have a bad Thursday, but great Friday, because we get the weather for the country first. I was wrong. Thursday was great and Friday was not bad at all. We in Poti took advantage of the weather to finally all meet each other. Well, actually it was more my chance to prove to everyone else that the others were not a figment of my imagination. We went to our usual place. Last semester that was a restaurant called Aragvi, but it is all the way at the port and seemed to be better located for the other volunteers, but now most of us live scattered across the river and our main place is what we call the kebabi place. It is not Kebab in either the kind that I think of in the states or in England. I think of it more as a burrito without the tomatos (I do get it “ara pomadori”) and it is GOOD. It is a whole 3 and a half Lari and we sit and chat for hours there. And the staff still smiles when we come in. This time there were four guys at the next table and one of them was wearing a boxing hat apparently (I didn't have a clue). It turns out he is a boxer and his manager speaks a better English, his is very bad, we should talk to his manager. Well, it turns out he is sitting across the table, so we start chatting with him. He tells us he runs a sport club, a gym, and we should come. They have all sorts of sports. Meanwhile Donna started looking up the boxer's name and it turns out he was the bronze medalist in the 2000 Olympics. Not too shabby. Still hate boxing, but still very cool. Then Tanya (the one who came in the same group as me) went for a walk toward the port and we walked into the restaurant that I was told served real salad with vegetables that were not chopped to bits and no mayonnaise. We went in and got a wine (Tanya is here to learn about Georgian wine) and I learned that the name of the wine I love every time is Saperavi. It is the grape used to make the wine, but it is always very good. And much more alcoholic than they seem. Anyway, we walked in and they gave us, what I have heard referred to as, Russian balloons. These are balloons that have been blown up (no helium) and put on a plastic stick instead of a string. Very fun.

Friday was not a day to go take a walk (very rainy) but school certainly would have been fine. Saturday was also kinda rainy and I slept in a little. Around 11, I figured I should move, so I went into the living room to curl up near the fire and read and get some breakfast while I was at it. But when I went in the living room, there were two women I had never seen before and Lela, who had not been feeling well the night before, was lying on the couch looking terrible. I figured it was either a family doctor or just plain family and it turned out to be the latter. Soso's sisters, who both live in Poti, had come over for a bit. Lela had shown be pictures of the family and I knew that Soso had two older sisters and one younger. And then had two daughters... Now I understand a little better what a big deal Leqso is for him. Anyway, we all sat down to lunch (breakfast) in the kitchen: the sisters, Soso, Margo, and me. We had some leftover mtsuadi and I was starting to eat when the tcha-tcha came out. It could not have been much past 12:30 at this point, but there we are drinking what I call Georgian moonshine. After the 3^rd shot, I was feverishly spreading butter and jam on the bread and eating as much as possible. After the 5^th shot, the sisters left, little brother looked mighty proud of his hospitality, and I sat down next to the fire and read. Then I remembered I had juice in my room and went and drank the whole thing. I started to read again, could not concentrate and watched about half of the first season of cheers. What a day!