Supras and Summer Camps

We've mentioned the Georgian tradition of the supra, a feast whose distinguishing characteristic is a series of often elaborate wine toasts. These happen fairly frequently -- they're held to mark special occasions like a birthday or a wedding, and there's a variation for funerals, but they're also likely to be held for no reason other than a group of friends or neighbors wanting to spend time together. Georgians will tell you that the supra showcases much of the best of their cultural ideals (hospitality, generosity, friendship, gregariousness, eloquence, gratitude, good food and drink), and many will admit that the wine and extravagance sometimes go a little too far.

The key role in the supra is played by the tamada, or toast master. He (it's almost always a man, unless the supra is for women only) is responsible for making the toasts (though there are times when he can pass a toast to another or send the privilege around the table). You don't drink until a toast has been offered, and then it's best to drain your glass. At my last supra, where, for some odd reason, I was made tamada, a neighbor told me a story about what it means to be tamada: Stalin was once at a supra, and the phone rang. He answered, "I can't talk unless the tamada says I can be excused."

Many of the toast themes are fairly ritualized - you tend to start with a toast to peace, then move on to toast your hosts, friendship, parents, siblings, spouses, and children. When you mention any group of which some may have passed away, it's good to mention them and pour a libation on the food being served (sometimes this is just a symbolic tip of the glass, but sometimes the tamada will drop a little wine on each food dish). People can wax wonderfully eloquent, and while (thankfully) I could mostly get away with a simple formula, a really good tamada can spin off toasts with poetry and class.

The rough equivalent of "cheers" is "Gaumarjos!" (or some grammatical variation thereof), and you'll hear it long into the night.

Every family here makes their own wine, usually red, sweet and slightly fizzy. There are all kinds of traditions: you'll see folks getting up, crossing arms, and drinking their glasses to the end over linked arms, finishing with a kiss. Of course we miss a lot for lack of language and cultural awareness, but at the supra people talk politics, tell stories, reaffirm friendships, lavishly display their hospitality (and great food and drink), sing, dance, and generally spend time.

The downside of the supra, which people here have admitted to me, is that it's terribly hard for everyone to stay sober. For all that it's a drinking culture, being drunk is strongly frowned upon (unless, as happened with a neighbor couple of weeks ago, you try to do magic tricks while drunk, in which case being drunk is heartily laughed at). And you have to have a pretty strong stomach to keep up as the toasts continue hours into the night. The tamada especially has to be sure not to be drunk -- sometimes he shows off by balancing his wine glass on the tips of two fingers eight or ten glasses into the night.

The only supra I've stayed till the end for was the one where I was tamada. After around two hours, everyone else was quite prepared to keep going, but I was exhausted, and luckily a World Cup game was calling so no one protested too much. But I got to experience a tradition I hadn't seen before -- the toasting of the tamada at the end of the night. I was really touched by my host parents' toasts to me, and it was really a moment to love this place and the people I've come to know.

As for the daytime hours, this week our group has been conducting "summer camps" in the village -- later, in our permanent sites, we'll be responsible for holding one on our own. The camp consists of about 2 hours' worth of activities every afternoon for a week, and we've had in the neighborhood of 16 kids each day so far. The biggest hit has been a game called "animal sounds," in which kids are given cards with different animal names and must, without revealing their card, imitate their animal's voice and find all the others with the same card. It's a riot -- we've got quite the talented frog impersonator and some really effective donkeys. It's also interesting to see what the different stereotypical animal noises are. In Georgian, for example, pigs don't "oink!" they "groot! groot!" (unless you're the girl who can do a worryingly spot-on impression of a pig at its squealingest). Our suspicion is that we could have just done 10 hours of animal sounds and our summer camp would have been a hit.

But we've also done art projects, learned songs, had a relay race, done a scavenger hunt, played pictionary, made (but never successfully unmade) a lot of human knots, and watched Finding Nemo, ensuring that "dude" is bound to become part of the local slang.

Pictures soon.

On the language front, things are progressing, but there are some curve balls. Maybe it's that old American exceptionalism showing, but I really don't think Georgian needs a separate verb for "to wear (something on your head)," when we already have two for "to wear (clothing)" and "to wear (accessories)."

Meanwhile, we've finished our Russian classes and our last Armenian class is tomorrow. Just over a week until swearing in and moving to our permanent sites. As we've mentioned, it's going to be just about heartbreaking to leave, but it'll be good to get down to work in the community that will be our home for the next two years, and we've promised to come back to visit our training village as often as we can.

Actually, last night, our host father gave the following toast: "To friendship. To friendship between American and Georgia. To our friendship. To a friendship that will last, so that we'll visit each other, and our children will visit each other after that..."

Gaumarjos!