Real, live "Peeps"

I was crouched on the bathroom floor over a tub of soapy water, encouraging the dirt out of some clothes when Tea walked in grinning. She held her hands cupped together in front of her. As she got closer I heard a tiny peeping sound coming from whatever she was holding.

"Look!" she whispered. I stood up, and as Tea held out her hands, I saw a fuzzy little head peek up through her fingers. 

"Oooooo! A chick!" I cooed. "Is this your first day out of the shell?" I asked the chick. Tea said that today was the second day for the little one. 

I gently took the wee bird from Tea's hands and held it close. So tiny and frail. So soft and fluffy. Tiny, beady eye. Tiny, pointy beak. It settled into my grasp as I wrapped my hands around it. The baby responded to the warmth of my hands and gripped my finger with its teeny feet. It cheeped and peeped as I patted its little head and stroked its tiny neck.

Tea said there were nine more in the shed. I gave back the hatchling and scooted up to my room to get my camera. Together we went into the shed, and Tea took the sitting hen out of the box where the chicks were being safeguarded. They were so cute -- white, yellow, and black chicks -- all scampering and huddling together, a chorus of cheeps and peeps. I gingerly nabbed one of the black ones as it came close to me. If I could have held all of them at once, I would have. Lined them all up like a package of "Peeps" that I know are on the shelves of every grocery store in the U.S. right now and patted every one of their precious little heads. But I didn't. I put back the little guy I had picked up. The mother hen that Tea was holding by the shoulder was not very happy that her chicks were being played with. Tea put the hen back in the box, and the hen immediately gathered the chicks underneath her wings. 

Beautiful.

Living in the present

This is a tough thing to do. At least on a regular basis. I tend to go through phases of living in the moment and then circumstances and stresses distract me from the present and get me mired in the past or floating in the unknown nebulous-ness of the future.

For the last few weeks, I have been gradually slipping out of the present and either dwelling on the past that I wish were my present or stressing about the future. Worrying about either one is as effective as trying to nail jello to a wall. The past is gone. The future is not certain. Neither one should be consuming my energy and attention. Yet as my time here in Georgia winds down, the more steadily my focus turns to the unknowns -- where will I go next? What will I do? Where will I work? Where will I live? How will I pay for moving to where I get a job? Will I get a job? How can I buy a car with no job? I (stupidly) left almost everything I had when I left Pennsylvania -- how will I afford to buy what I need -- I don't even have a towel or pillow of my own anymore. Most of my money got sucked up trying to move to Canada, and what is left belongs to the IRS..... And on and on and on go my worries, spiraling out of control.

I was talking with my friend, Katherine today, and she said something very poignant. She stated that there is nothing like a crisis to bring one back to the present. When she said that, the words bounced around in my brain like a pinball machine, hitting on nerves, sparking on gray matter, lighting up synapses, and finally coming to rest in a spot where I would remember what she had said after I hung up the phone. (Often my brain acts like a sieve, leaking out too much of what I really want to remember). This thought I filed away under the heading, "Important! Don't forget." I thought about it for the rest of the day.

My mini-crisis, this minor catastrophe that is really only an inconvenience in the grand scheme of things -- namely the teeth-marks in my calf -- has refocused me on the present. Can I change anything by worrying about it? No. Will my stressing about the future give me any more control over it? No. I know these things, but I so often forget that they are true.

The remainder of the day, I practiced living in the moment. I enjoyed everything that I did -- drinking tea with Tea -- writing out some ideas for class activities -- reading Kerouac's On the Road (a crazy, frenetic read, by the way) -- sweeping the rug in the sitting room -- stoking the fire in the stove -- kneading bread dough -- watching Casablanca with Tea -- talking with "Our Grandmother" -- watching the crazy weather change from rain to hail to sun. Everything means so much more when all my attention is focused on the moment at hand.

As I pulled up a bucket of water from the well tonight, I noticed that the clouds that had hung in the sky for days finally moved off to hang over someone else. The sky was clear and the stars were bright. I'd almost forgotten that they were up there. Orion, Cassiopeia, Ursa Major and Minor greeted me as I watched my breath evaporate in the chilled air. I breathed it in and thanked my God in heaven for that moment.

A running-first

There are many negative things that affect most, if not all runners at some point in their running careers -- blisters, dehydration, exhaustion, cramped muscles, run-ins with dogs, being run off the road by vehicles, getting lost, being hit by something, and getting yelled at -- just to name a few. A year and a half ago was the first time I had something thrown at me from a passing car (a full beer can). Yesterday I had another running-first -- I was bitten by a dog.

I had had a bad day for various reasons, and Tea and I had just finished writing our lesson plans for the following day.  I was frustrated by the things that were weighing on my mind from the day; so although it was already 7:30 p.m., I decided to go for a short, fast run to work out my stress. I quickly changed my clothes, laced up my sneakers, and was on the road by 7:45. The sun had set, leaving a strip of vermillion light peeking out underneath the dusky-purple cloud of the cold front that had settled over the village. The cool air (winter is having a bout of separation anxiety this week) felt refreshing as it washed over my stressed out body. My expression immediately relaxed. Nothing calms me down like a furious workout.

The village is full of dogs -- big dogs, small dogs, meek dogs, loud dogs, skinny dogs, fluffy dogs -- everyone has at least one "house protector." All properties are also fenced in. Everyone's primary land (house and yard) and sometimes the orchards, too, are surrounded by some type of fence. For the most part, the fences keep the family dogs contained.... for the most part. But there are a few who habitually jump their fence to chase whoever may be passing by the house.

 One dog in particular has been getting more and more aggressive when I run by. It always barks and chases me if it sees me coming. In the last few weeks, it has started running right up on my heels and tagging the back of my sneakers, then backing off. There is usually a group of men who hang out on the road there. When that dog comes after me, they all yell at the dog and chase it back to its yard.

Yesterday, since I was out later then my usual running time, there were few villagers out on the road. I was on my way back to the house -- about a mile left to go. I approached the mean dog's house, not really paying attention to the angry barking coming from behind the fence. The dog ran ahead of me to the end of its yard, cleared the fence in one easy bound, and circled back to meet me head-on. None of this was unusual for this dog, so I was not alarmed. Fur standing up along its neck and upper back, teeth bared, the dog lunged at me and tagged my sneaker as I passed. Again, this was its usual reaction to me, so I kept going. But then it lunged at me again, this time, latching onto my calf. I felt its strong jaws squeeze my muscle. I whirled around to face my attacker. I yelled at the dog, and it backed off; as its owner yelled for it from inside the house, the dog jumped back over the fence and was gone.

Me being me, I began running again, fueled by the shot of adrenaline I'd just gotten. My leg didn't really hurt, so at first I thought it was nothing. After a couple of minutes, my calf started to ache, and I started wondering if the dog's teeth had broken the skin. I stopped, hit the "stop" button on my watch, unzipped the ankle-zipper on my track pants, and pulled up the pant leg to look at my calf. My heart sank. An inch-and-a-half gouge had filled with blood and was dripping down my leg. I couldn't tell how deep it was in the low light, but I could tell it wasn't merely a scratch. I knew I needed to get home. I pulled the pant leg back down, zipped it closed, and hit the "start" button on my watch as I took off down the road.

The wound was beginning to throb as I slowed to a walk in front of the house. I went into my room to get clean clothes and my towel. Undecided as to whether I should shower or tell Tea what had happened first, I put my things in the bathroom and stood there for a minute, immobile. I decided to tell Tea before I showered. I stepped into the kitchen where she sat amid ingredients that she was preparing for stuffed cabbage. By the look on my face, she knew that something was wrong.

"A dog bit me," I stated flatly. I pulled up my pant leg. I thought she might pass out.

"Deda!" she whispered frantically, clutching her heart. "Our Grandmother" saw the wound and immediately ordered that vodka be brought -- for sterilizing the wound..... and maybe to drink, too! There was none in the house, so Tea took off for the neighbor's. In the meantime, Tea's cousin, Zaza walked into the house, saw my leg, and when I told him that a dog had bitten me, he said that I needed an injection. He called Koba to come home from wherever he was with the car. Tea arrived at the same time as Koba, and instead of dousing the bite with vodka, we all piled into the car and took off down the road for the village nurse's house.

The nurse took one look at the bite and refused to touch it. She ordered us to the hospital. We piled into the car again, this time headed for Zugdidi.

Koba drove as fast as he could on the ridiculously bad road out of the village, careened through town, and pulled up to the "Ambulance Only" entrance of the hospital. The guard at the gate stepped out of his glassed-in shelter. Koba told him (in Georgian) that he had an American who had been bitten by a dog. The man pushed the button to raise the gate, and we sped through.

Visiting a Georgian hospital was the last thing I wanted to do. I hate all hospitals and doctor's offices, and the prospect of medical treatment by a developing-country's night-shift actually scared me (and I am not afraid of much). I envisioned a dingy, dirty, unsanitary, crowded place where I would be stuck with a giant needle in the stomach -- the old-school rabies treatment. The entire drive to the hospital, I was silent, trying to get a grip on myself and my trepidation.

After parking the car, Koba, Zaza, Tea, and I walked through a crowd of men hanging outside the ER, smoking and waiting. We weaved our way through the throng to the doors where a police officer stood guard. Koba told him what had happened, and he let us through. Tea and I were immediately escorted to an empty treatment room and a nurse walked up with a notebook and a pen. She took down all my information, called my insurance company to verify my coverage, and asked us to wait for the doctor to come and look at me.

Tea and I sat in the large treatment room and waited. We were both glad that the room was empty, but it still smelled like a nasty hospital room. I suggested that we race the beds-on-wheels up and down the room, and Tea cracked up. She said that she was so glad I could keep my sense of humor at such a stressful time. I told her that it was either laugh or cry. We laughed.

We didn't have to wait long before the doctor came in. He looked at the wound and then wanted to know all about the dog -- if we knew who it belonged to -- if it was a stray -- anything we could tell him about it. He said that the dog must be watched for ten days to see if it had any changes in behavior -- rabies is a real threat in this country. He said that he would give me a tetanus shot and also start the series of shots for rabies. He went to his office and left the nurse to tend to the wound.

She poured an entire bottle of some milky-white liquid over the puncture, rinsing off the blood that was caked on and around the gouge. I could see down through the layers of skin now -- all the way to the muscle. Yuck. At the deepest spot, the puncture was about a half-inch deep. I was in too much shock to feel anything, so nothing that she did hurt as she cleaned the bite. After fully irrigating the wound, she slathered on lots of betadine -- I felt that one. Some piles of gauze and tape, and I was as good as new.

Not really.

Tea and I followed the nurse down the tiled, dimly-lit hallway and into the doctor's office -- a startling contrast in lighting with three large, interrogation-strength fluorescent lights shaped like mini-steering wheels hanging from the ceiling. I sat on the bed as the nurse readied the tetanus shot. She was very nice and very gentle -- and if the liquid didn't burn as it went into my shoulder, I wouldn't have known she was giving me a shot. The doctor explained all the shots that I would need, wrote up a prescription for antibiotics and an allergy-blocker, and then went through a list of what I couldn't do while on the medication. This is where it got weird.
  - No coffee or chocolate for 10 days. (Okay, I'll survive)
  - No alcohol for six months. (What??)
  - Don't be cold. (Okay.)
  - Don't sweat. (Wait a minute.......)
  - No watching the sun set. (What the heck???)
  - No physical or mental exertion. (So..... do I meditate for two months?)
Then I asked when I can run and dance again. His answer, "In two months." I shook my head -- no way. No way can I not run for two months. I'll go crazy and I'll drive everyone around me crazy. I asked why I shouldn't run for so long. He said that physical activity will inhibit the injections from working properly. And since the rabies virus can lie dormant in the body for a few weeks, the shots may not work if I am active. I told Tea that I would do some research online about this. I absolutely cannot not run.

The doctor bid us goodbye and the sweet, barrel-shaped nurse led us back to the treatment room. Since the doctor had been speaking in a mix of Georgian and Mingrelian when explaining the shots I would need, I didn't understand what he had said. I had no idea what I was in for.

The nurse said that the first one would be given in my wrist and then I would have to wait 20 minutes before the next one -- "First one? next one?" I thought, and my face reflected my surprise. I climbed up onto one of the wheeled beds that I had joked about racing and lay down. No racing for us. I held out my arm, and she again gave me the shot as gently as she could. This one hurt. I flexed my hand to try to alleviate the burning, but the nurse told me I needed to be still. It was too much, and the tears that had been waiting in the wings suddenly sprang into view. I couldn't hold them back. They streamed down both sides of my face. I hate shots. I hate needles. I hate hospitals. I hate being injured. I hate pain. And here I am, lying in a hospital bed on the other side of the world from where I belong -- it was just too much. Tea rushed around to one side of my bed, and the nurse stood by me on the other side. Tea held my arm and hand, and the nurse smoothed back my hair and wiped my tears. They both reassured me that I was going to be alright -- I had English reassurance on one side and Georgian on the other.

I collected my composure after a couple of minutes of tears, and told the two worried faces peering down at me that I was alright. In that moment, Tea's face was like an angel -- like my guardian angel who is so familiar to me -- has been a part of my life forever. I'm not sure how else to explain it, but I felt as if I have known her all my life.

The other three shots were not as bad as the one in the wrist -- one in the shoulder, and twenty minutes later, two in the buttocks.

When all the shots were done, we left the hospital, got back into the car, and found an all-night pharmacy. After filling my prescription, we drove back to the village. I was so glad to be home after being stuck like a pin-cushion for an hour. I took my medications and went to bed.

I didn't go to school today, and I won't be going again tomorrow. I am sore and if I keep my leg down for more than a couple of minutes, it starts to throb. Today Tea took me back to the village nurse's house to change the bandage, and I took my camera along to take some pictures -- If only I had thought to shoot some of the fresh wound -- it looked nastier yesterday.....

Blood-soaked guaze -- the small cut and bruise on the right are from the dog's upper teeth

And this is the cleaned-out gouge from its lower teeth

As I told my friend James..... at least it will be a scar with a good story behind it!

Notes on Spring

Today while riding to town in the marshutka, I made some notes of small things that I have noticed as the seasons have changed.

The river -- As the rain continues to fall and the snow in the mountains melts, the river has risen. Swollen waters now overflow the lower rocky banks and are edging their way up toward the upper grassy bank. The water has turned brown as the increased volume quickens the flow and stirs up silt from the river-bottom. All the snow melting off the Caucasus in Svaneti is on its way to the Black Sea, 20 kilometers south.

Fish -- Last Friday was an Orthodox holiday -- the day that the angel appeared to Mary and told her that her life would change forever. Orthodox Christians always eat fish on this holiday, so Koba and his friends went fishing in the river. They showed up at the house with a huge plastic tub of fish -- the catch was divided up evenly among the seven fishermen, and we were still left with almost 30 fish -- small, but so many! I asked how they could catch so many -- remembering my few fishing days back in Maine when I was small, and what an eternity it took to get even one bite on the line. Tea said that they cheat -- they use some device that shocks the water, and they scoop up the fish in a net. Just like shooting fish in a barrel!

The cows and buffalo -- Back in late fall, I posted about the cows coming home at the same time every day -- between 4:30 and 5. Well, it seems that they are only punctual in the fall and winter. They gain an independent streak in the spring -- last night they didn't come home. Tea said that they must have found some extra nice grass somewhere, and refused to come home. When we got up this morning, they were out front, lying in the road -- recuperating from their wild night out.

Newborn calves -- Tiny babies, furry and clean with ultra-velvety noses smelling the apple-blossom scented air experience their very first days -- new sunshine, new rain, new night, new wind, new clouds, new skipping through the hazelnut trees, new butterfly-chasing, new nuzzle from their mothers -- all for the very first time.

Spring -- It is an actual season that lasts longer than one week. The cool temperatures, rain, grass growing longer and greener by the minute, flowers appearing little by little -- all of these subtle changes are happening in a time-span that is stretched out over weeks -- even months! Not the single week of spring between winter and fall that seems to be the norm in Pennsylvania. And I love it!

How to make a chicken happy

The majority of today was spent online. I spent hours staring at the computer screen but got little accomplished. For various reasons, I haven't yet been able to finish filing my tax extension request -- that took at least two hours of my day -- and it still not done. I am also in the middle of posting my resume online on various web sites for teachers -- there are some pieces of information that I don't have for that -- so that's not done, either. I wanted to send resumes to some of the postings I found that looked like suitable jobs for me, but with slow-ish internet and incomplete information online, I ended up sending out only two resumes. Two. For the number of hours I sat and worked online, two resumes is not what I would call "productive."

And, what's more, I hate sitting. Combine sitting with a computer and looking for a job, and you have a trifecta of horrible-ness. Finally around five o'clock, I couldn't take it anymore. I shut my laptop -- I'd been working on it since eleven this morning -- and told Tea that I needed to do some manual labor. She laughed, and we headed outside.

The soil in the flower garden needed to be dug up and turned over, but we needed to borrow a long-handled spade. Tea and I walked over to the neighbor's house and borrowed two.

We carried them back to the yard, stepped over the drooping, rusty, chain-link fence that surrounds the flower garden, and got to work turning over the dirt.

This job should have been done a few weeks ago. Since it wasn't, the weeds had grown up to cover most of the topsoil, making our job a bit more difficult. The weeds are the stringy-viney kind that cling to and climb up everything. Chopping through them was half of the difficulty of the job. But it felt great to move and work.

Turning over large clumps of dark, moist earth stirs up lots of earthworms. I love worms. They fascinate me -- smooth and efficient. There is so little to them, but they can squirm through hard-packed dirt better than my steel spade (probably because a spade doesn't "squirm"). As I turned over one lump of soil, an especially large worm wriggled up out of the ground. I snatched it up before it could dive back down below the surface, and showed Tea. She freaked out -- jumped back, muttering in Georgian faster than I've ever heard her talk before, holding onto her heart. She hates worms. I didn't know that. I was laughing so hard, I couldn't put the worm down. She continued to react, still creeped-out that I was holding the worm. I couldn't stop laughing, either. Finally I dropped the worm, and we stood, doubled over our implements in peals of laughter.

Then the chickens showed up. They love worms, but not for the same reasons I do -- chickens love worms because they are tender and juicy. Soon Tea and I had lots of company with us in the garden -- about ten hens and a rooster. I started grabbing the uprooted worms (subtly so Tea wouldn't notice) and tossing them to the chickens. They scurried after the gifts and gobbled them up.

That's how you make a chicken happy.

Renegade daffodils

Daffodils are one of my favorite spring flowers. There is something necessary and immediate in the yellowness of the flowers. Like they are mimicking the sun in shape, hue, and feeling -- after a long, cold, bleak winter, daffodils are just the cure for a winter-weary soul.

Daffodils (and all narcissus) grow from bulbs that have to be placed wherever they should grow -- they do not sprout from seeds. The bulbs divide each year, creating a larger and larger grouping of flowers from year to year. They should be dug up every few years and spread out to keep them from overcrowding. (That was a little "Daffodil 101" for those who don't know flowers or gardening.)

Most people grow their daffodils in gardens or plant them to line the edge of walkways. I love a walk that is lined with the sunshiny-yellow blossoms -- I think it is one of the most welcoming sights. But have you ever noticed a bunch of daffodils growing off by themselves in some random location? I call these "renegade daffodils." 

Many people in Shamgona have daffodils in their gardens, but there are also more renegade daffodils in the village than I have seen anywhere in the U.S. Along the river, in the ditches, at the edges of hazelnut orchards, in the middle of fields and meadows, in the middle of bombed-out concrete structures -- renegade daffodils are everywhere. 

Today while I was out for my long run, I looked at the runaways and wondered how in the world they got there. Since the flowers don't grow from seeds, no bird dropped the seed as it winged its way through the air. I imagined the flowers moving of their own accord like in one particular sci-fi movie that I used to watch with my dad when I was young -- "Creature Double-Feature" was always a Saturday afternoon favorite, and in one of the films often played, the trees could move around on their own. Maybe the daffodils can do the same. Or maybe a cow pulled up the bulb by the greens, munched the leaves down to the top of the bulb while meandering along, dropped the bulb, and stepped on it, pushing it to just the right depth underground. Or maybe it was the pigs. They up-root everything -- but they eat everything they up-root. And I'm not sure that the bulb would actually grow after being pulverized by gnashing teeth, digested, and passed. 

I spent at least an hour trying to figure out how in the world the bulbs got transplanted into such random places. I still don't know.

My run today took me out of my village and into another that is on the way to Zugdidi. I have run that way every weekend since adding a long run to my weekend routine, and the villagers there are beginning to become as accustomed to me passing by as the Shamgona villagers are by now. Today, after turning around at the end of the road and heading back, I was flagged down by yells from behind me. I turned to see a teenage-girl running toward me, waving both arms for me to stop. I did, and I waited for her to catch up to me. She was all smiles, and greeted me in English. She asked if she could run with me. Of course I said yes. We talked as we ran -- well, jogged at pace that she could keep -- with her little English and my little Georgian -- we asked each other's names, where we each live, how old we are, and about our families. She jogged with me for about ten minutes, and then she started getting tired. She asked if my house was still far -- I said yes (it was about 30 minutes up the road yet), so she kissed me on the cheek, said goodbye, and turned to go back home. 

As I watched her jog back to her house in her bright pink jacket, yellow scarf, and giant yellow and black sparkly headband, I thought -- "a renegade daffodil!" She certainly split off from the Georgians who normally line the road and wave and say hello as I pass by. Away from the group, she did her own thing -- went her own way -- on her own two legs. 

Maybe daffodils have legs......

Time for a little poetry....

A Prayer in Spring

  -- Robert Frost

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
To which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends he will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.