December 24th

The weather is still clear and cold here, we haven’t seen rain or snow in three weeks. Except for that one morning, when I looked out the window to see flakes in the sky, but by the time I left for my language lesson not a single hexagon was to be seen. Last week we had -11 but now it is +11, a difference from 12 to 52 degrees Fahrenheit. Brrrr; inside and outside.

Shesha! Firewood! I spent two hours loading the Niva jeep, driving the wood over to my district (Sabertalo), throwing it inside the downstairs door, then hauling it by hand up the elevator to the 8th and up the stairs to the 9th floor landing, where I have an eye-level-high stack. Next move, bring the little stove out of the fireplace where all the heat is escaping out the chimney, and set it up inside my room where the heat will stay here where I need it! I’ll run the pipes out the chimney and hope the don’t smoke too much on the way out.

The British Ambassador and his wife invited Luarsab and I to sing Christmas carols at their party. We invited a few other Americans, including the legendary Carl Linnich, international genius of Georgian folk singing (check out www.Kavkasia.com). The American ambassador showed up and sang with us too.

I’m becoming more and more uncomfortable with the way westerners ‘party’. Luarsab and I kept looking at one another and whispering, ‘who is Tamada in this place?!’ Everyone mingling, having little conversations with one or two people, wandering again, having the same conversation again.... there was no cohesion, not even one moment when the hosts acknowledged the guests, the guests acknowledged the hosts; not even one moment when everyone could see each other all together and attentive, to know whose company they were sharing on this occasion. Couldn’t one person even gather us all together to say, Merry Christmas and thank you for coming?! So bizarre.

The caroling went well, but Carl, Luarsab, and I found ourselves in the kitchen hanging out with the Georgians mixing up the mulled wine. We’re all a little sick, and everyone knows the cure for a sore throat... we started singing Georgian songs, and worked up a little repertoire. We took these songs, the mulled wine, and ourselves back into the guest room, and launched into a Georgian caroling session, which was very well received by all. Georgians of course have dozens of carols, most of them having variations of the same words, the whole genre called Alilo (derivative of Aliluia I think).

The British ambassador here seems like a very interesting man. He was wearing a kilt, and told a story about being up in the far Upper Svanetian highland region with a bunch of singing Svans. He plays the bagpipes, and played for them at that time. Turns out this guy is chief of Clan McLaren, father of five, doesn’t mind wearing a kilt in front of Georgian chiefs of staff, and loves chess. My kind of character. We have a date to play chess and football.