Big Weekends

I’m kind of getting used to three…four…or five-day weekends. Teaching in a mountainous village has its advantages and disadvantages—depending on how you view them.

Today it wouldn’t matter where you were in the Zestaponi metropolis, as the previous night of winter weather undoubtedly shut down just about everything—including the power.

Snowball wars filled the sidewalks and yards and spinning tires spun chunks of ice and mud throughout the streets.

I partook in several snow fights that reveled the smaller kids against the big kid. I did get my revenge in an organized fight on the No. 2 School basketball court. It was there we made snow “walls” that divided two teams of crafty competitors.

The fight was short-lived, but I got to show off the ol’ gun. I can really start to feel my age when dodging ice bullets from 15-year-olds. Just as the young kids at school never call a ceasefire when throwing pens and popping plastic bags, the teenagers don’t let an old man catch his breath on the playground.

Oh kids.

Tonight I was hoping for a little Telemundo or Late Night Comedy Club on the Georgian channel to relax with, but a presidential candidate debate has clogged the airwaves.

It’s interesting watching a political debacle in a foreign land with foreigners who care about it.

Bebia Lily is glued to the screen like her next batch of puri is dependent on it. Maybe it is…It’s not like I know what they are spewing into the mic.

Much like our debates, opponents have a certain amount of time to answer a question or spill their beans about how they will save the world and cut taxes or what have you. Only in Georgia, opponents and many in the audience are talking, laughing or turned around doing something else besides giving attention to the man on stage.

The people here would give you the shirt off your back if you asked, but they’d also cut you in line at the supermarket or throw a paper airplane during your State of The Union address.

It’s just a different way of thinking, I guess.

A few of us TLG folk were supposed to hit the mountain tomorrow to go boarding, but our driver looks to have a sick car. No transportation to mountain equates to me taking a marshutka to Kutasi to get a McFlurry and bum high-speed Internet.

Over and Out.

-SCB