Monday, September 20, 2010

My Georgian Familia


Ok so let me give you the family breakdown: I live in a house with grandparents, Jemali and Sveta, and two of their grandkids, Ana (14 year old girl) and Lika (17 year old girl).

Maya, me, Lika, Ana
Jemali and Sveta have three grown kids, Lasha, Maya, and one more son who lives in Russia. Lasha is married to Sofia (everyone calls here Sopo) and they have two kids Nino (14 year old girl) and Niko (8 year old boy). They live in the city center in an apartment, but the whole family is typically hanging around the grandparent’s house. Nino has been my absolute lifesaver/translator because she speaks a little bit of English! Lasha is a police officer and Sofia is a dentist in a really nice clinic here in town.

Maya lives in a nearby village with her 6 year old daughter Nini. Her husband spends most of his time up in the Svaneti region working and he comes home when he has time off. 
Ana and Lika’s parents live in Moscow. They moved their about 12 years ago because of financial problems and the lack of jobs in Georgia. Ever since then, Ana and Lika have been living here with their grandparents during the school year, and they spend summer and school holidays back in Moscow with their parents. Pheww! Ok, we that is the general breakdown.   
Nini

Ana, Babua, Nini, Nino, Niko


Niko playing dress up with the girls
Nini, Nino, Ana, Niko

Bebia!

One of mannyyyy chandeliers in our house!


Lash and Sopo out at the park

We live in a neighborhood on the edge of town about 30 minutes (walking) from the city center. We have two story, grey cement house with a huge property behind it. Downstairs is where we spend most of our time and there is a large formal dining/living room, a good sized family room, kitchen, and the one bathroom. Upstairs there are a bunch of bedrooms and a balcony to the backyard. Oh ya, I forgot to mention that are chandeliers everywhere in this house. I mean EVERYWHERE. Basically most of what I’ll talk about (food, drinking, cultural attitudes, etc) is veryyyyy similar to my big fat greek wedding. If you’ve seen that, you’ve experienced a bit of what I’m living with. :) My room here is really nice! I have a huge bed, giant armoire spanning most of one wall, a vanity and some end tables. We have a huge garden in the backyard, fruit trees, grape vines, chickens, cows, corn fields, etc. Ninety percent of what we eat comes from the backyard, which is awesome. They even makes their own cheese, wine, and Georgian ‘vodka’ all here at home. It’s a lovely home that they have here and it’s really great to be a part of their family for a little while!

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