Naghmebi

Digging


Naghmebi is the Georgian word for mines. There is a series of relief aid words in the phrase book that I had for the language but have lost in the last couple of days. Strangely enough there are no phrases on, "I think the construction is taking too long." or "Do you know what you are doing?" or rather, "Do you understand how much environmental damage you are doing by knocking over trees and spitting toxic clouds of smoke out of your tractor that shouldn't have a permit if it does indeed have one?" Nothing terribly current in the book, although there still are landmines in Abkhazia. There is at least one page on questions such as:

Take me to the mine field.

Where are the mines?

What are they made out of?

Help me!

Thief!

How many victims are there?

Among many other questions/phrases etc. It really doesn't paint the country in the most favorable light. We used to bring it out at cocktail parties in DC and here when visiting people for a good laugh. It really is a random group of expressions and perfect when you don't know what environment to expect.

So, with that in mind it may explain my current mindset. We have been here almost 2 weeks and nothing has exploded yet. Not that it is supposed to. I just keep thinking it will for some reason. Vova didn't really describe the place as explosive but perhaps the word for mines, naghmebi, has been poking at my subconscious in the back of my brain.


Water pipes in Tbilisi

So far the water has been turned off twice for fixing the mammoth pipe down the street. The electricity was off at the market towards the end of the day when we were there once. I haven't been attacked by bugs, or shouted at. For the most part everything seems normal. Well, everything except for the fact there are tractors outside my house with make-shift engines spitting asthmatic black coughs into the air lifting concrete slabs off the street.


Parking lot at the intersection with several police directing traffic

There is a very pretty parking lot of buses, tractors, cars and trucks honking at eachother in the intersection complete with 4-5 policemen directing traffic, shouting on loudspeakers to speed up/quiet down and other crazy things. Oh, the internet just went out except for Georgian website pages. Yet, I'm still waiting for something to happen. Either I am getting too accustomed to being here or Vova set wierd expectations in my head. I didn't come with any expectations but I was expecting less electricity as the film Powertrip portrayed and others have complained about. We have taken to watching traffic instead of TV recently. It is actually reasonably entertaining. Usually around 3PM the parking lot takes over the intersection. I have a feeling driving will be a topic of several entries. Archil, a Georgian friend who met us at the airport apparently broke all of his bones in a traffic accident but still drives like his rear end is on fire and he is trying to put it out. There is this odd desire to get faster to one's death here, or perhaps teasing it slightly. I guess it is the challenge of avoiding it, perhaps.