Finding the Cow Herder

Finding the Cow-Herder
04-28-05
















After lunch at Betania Monastery, I took another short nap, and then took off on an adventure, my sense of time completely warped with the six hour night service and the dull gray lighting of another overcast day.

I hiked in the direction my feet took me, down through the monastery pasture, steeply down a track to a fast running shallow stream too wide to jump. I did consider jumping the stream because with grudging admittance, I remembered having won the 3rd grade long-jumping competition in my school, but of course that was a long time ago and I was more likely to break my neck and get soaked in the process. So I took my shoes and socks off and experienced mild hypothermia in the four seconds it took me to step through the stream.



















I climbed through misty highland pastures wet with dew, marveled at blooming wild apple trees and sudden precipice drop offs next to the trail, nothing but cloud below. I climbed through dripping forests for an hour and suddenly came to a wide sloping field with the dim shapes of several cattle grazing in the near distance. Sound was muted except for the pitter-patter of drops on my jacket hood.

Seeming to hear a human voice, I threw my hood back and listened, but nothing else happened and the cows continued to graze. I walked towards them, humming a tune. Then the voice yelped out at me again, and I turned, suddenly fearing people behind me, to the right to the left. I looked wildly about, vulnerably standing in the middle of the field, but through the dense shifting mists I could see nothing but the trees at the edge of the field closest to me and the frightening nonchalance of the shadow cows ahead.

Moving forward again, I smelled woodsmoke, and spotted an old man crouched under the trees, working over a hissing pile of wet sticks. Without looking up he let loose a great yelp, and stopping in my tracks again, I realized he was just calling to let his cows know he was still watching them, though hardly was the case. I walked up, and said amicably, ‘Gamarjobat, how are you sir?’

I invited myself closer and hunkered down over the fire, though at first there wasn’t a flame to be seen in the spitting smoking mess.

“Where are you coming from,” he asked.
“Up from the Monastery,” I replied.

“Do you live there?”
“No, I live in Tbilisi, but I’m living there now for three days or so.”

“Are there many monks down there now?”
“There are three or four, but there are about fifteen other men visiting right now.”

“Do they have any cows?”
“Yes I think they do.”

“How many cows?”
“I think there are probably about two or three, no more, though they have quite a number of those, what do you call them, baah, baah...”

For the first time, he cracked a smile at my imitation of a sheep and said, ‘tskhvari, tskhvari,’ revealing his four teeth, a couple of them gold. I would guess he was in his late seventies, though no telling how old someone is up here, could be a hundred, could be a hard looking fifty. He was wearing a couple old sweaters covered with a knee-length rubber coat, an Irish tweed flatcap seemingly worn by shepherds world round, and short rubber shoes that looked like they should be worn into the shower, not over these crazy slopes chasing cows through bramble thickets.

As I put a couple more sticks on, he looked out over the field and gave a yelp to scare the bounce out of a rabbit. I realized why I had heard the cry all the way across the field even through the sound-dulling mist. ‘Hch, hch,’ he said as an afterthought. This man had a heck of a voice! I almost invited a song, but resisted, asking instead,

“Do you live nearby?”
“Just up there,” he said.

“Have you lived there your whole life?”
“Yes, but have you heard of Rustavi? Yes? Well I lived there for a time, but then I moved back up here.”

“Do you know where there is an old church nearby here?” I asked further, trying to see if my wandering feet might have led me to a 9th century church Fr. Theodore had mentioned.
“Yes, there is one church up that way,” he said, pointing generally uphill.

“How far is it?”
”One hour at least. Are you going to go?”
“No, I guess I’ll go back to the Monastery. That’s pretty far,” I said.

We pondered the steaming pile of sticks and tried to breathe life into them. At a certain point, he got up again, apparently to yelp at the now distant cows again, but instead he just sidled away. I watched him for a time, and when I realized he was not coming back I called, “Nakhvamdis!” “Good day!” My voice sounded pitifully small in the rain, and all I could hear was him mumbling at his cows, so I called again, this time in my belting voice, “Nakhvamdis!” The mist swirled, the fire hissed, a big drop landed on my head, and the man disappeared up the hill after his cows without responding. I guess it’s like that. One meets in such a way and parts in such a way, life goes on, though for each of us our end will come sooner than we know.

I sat over the fire for awhile, alone with the coals and small licking flames, wondering what I should do. I had been a lone wandering adventurer. Then I had become a miserable man in the company of another miserable man but hoping for better times, even if just a little flame, now I was alone with someone else’s fire, a long way from anywhere, and nearly soaked despite my ‘weather-resistent’ coat from the States.

I poked the fire out, spreading the ashes, wandered to the edge of the field, and sang the resurrection hymn again into the shifting mists. I stood at an abyss, the depths hidden from view, the ridge lines of at least three receding hills periodically emerging through the clouds. I could hear gurgling water not too far below, but couldn’t see any stream. Turning to leave, I spotted the shape of one, then two and three cows on a slope across the gorge on an upper slope. Were they the cows of my fireside friend? Had he heard my unabashed singing into the rain? There could be no answer, and turning, I dashed my way back down the long mountain to the monastery without thought of staying dry.