Bolo Zari

Welcome to a tale of the Georgian graduation. Interesting fact of the day: It's a good thing I was invited to this Bolo Zari ("last bell") because the Ministry of Education added an extra year of school on, starting next year, so there won't be any graduating class of 2008. They'll have to wait until-- gasp!-- the 12th grade. Now I have my own views on whether it's a good idea to institute another year of mandatory schooling when the students already stop coming to class in late 10th grade... and that's about as much as I can write about that; if you can't infer what my views are from that sentence, then I guess we have nothing to say to each other.

And before I continue, I should point out that, like in the cartoons, there was a good fairy and an evil demon on either of my shoulders, whispering judgments to affect my opinion. Or perhaps I've merely lost my mind and am treading ever-steadily towards a whack-evac. Either way, here's what the voices in my head had to say about the graduation ceremony:

Evil demon: Great, they graduated. Now all the boys can go hang out in the street for the rest of their lives.
Good fairy: Knock it off! The government's practically run by men, which means at least two or three of these boys are going to get out there and do something. You don't even know them.
Evil demon: I don't know them because they haven't been to school in three months.
Good fairy: And some of them are probably going to the university after this.
Evil demon: Where they'll graduate without attending classes.
Good fairy: What a cynic. How about your counterpart's former students who work in Tbilisi, and one who works in the gamgebeli's (mayor's) office in Samtredia? And how about the one who ended up as a U Penn-educated economist?
Evil demon: ...
Good fairy: That's right.
Evil demon: Their uniforms look funny.

Barring that, it was a sane experience. Some things were different... most things, in fact, were different... but I think the main point in all of this is that I feel old now.



It starts right after school, with a concert put on by the graduating class. After they make their grand entrance from the hallway-- wearing their traditional school uniforms, which they have made especially for the occasion since no one over the age of 10 wears their uniform to school... and by the way, the girls' uniforms look like French maid costumes-- they do a little dance, make a little song, and recite poetry. If I've managed to upload the videos from the Bolo Zadi to YouTube, then I've also managed to embed them in this blog post. If not, then I've sorely disappointed all of you, and I apologize for bringing it up. Anyway, we all sit around and watch them do Georgian dances (and, inexplicably, a cheerleading dance to Spanish music) and sing for about 45 minutes.


Then, the ceremony is considered closed, and they run around signing each other's newly-purchased French maid costumes. One of the last things I saw before leaving was the director signing girls' dresses right across the chest. The evil demon reminded me that American school principals would be fired for such a thing, but let's remember-- these are still children here. They're addressed as "children" ("bavshvebo"), and despite anatomical evidence to the contrary, there's nothing inappropriate about writing across the apron on the chest of a 17-year-old girl. Seriously. Which is not to say that I did it.

After that, we come to the part that's invitation-only. This implies excellent community integration on my part, that I was invited, but actually my counterpart was invited and brought me along. I suppose I crashed their graduation party.


We went to a restaurant called Kalakis Guli ("Heart of the City"), which I'd passed a million times but never really thought to enter-- side note, when my site mate and I 'try new restaurants,' it just means we want to test the quality of the 10 items on their menu, which are the same 10 items all the other restaurants have. There were two long supra tables set up, one for teachers and one for students. As per usual, the supra table was covered in all the Top 40 Georgian Food Hits-- khachapuri, chicken in walnut sauce ("bazhe"), tomato & cucumber salad (to which I've become addicted... Georgian tomatoes kick American tomatoes' collective tomato-butt), grilled meat ("mtzvadi"), eggplant with pomegranate ("badrijani brotseulit"), et cetera. Also as per usual, there was a big plate of cakes, but let's make a distinction: these are "namtskhvari," which is like an appetizer for the main cake, "torti." Add to this the fact that big dishes of vanilla ice cream came out afterward, and you have the reason why I've gained 15 pounds in Georgia.

Evil demon: Fatty!
Good fairy: She'll work it off when she gets back to the US and she's free to exercise without being stared at.
Evil demon: Is this before or after she reacquaints herself with cheeseburgers and milkshakes?
Good fairy: You know she prefers tuna melts and Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper.
Evil demon: Tuna gives you mercury poisoning.


ANYWAY, the supra continues like most supras... a synthesizer band plays keyboard demos of traditional Georgian songs, busy waitresses refill plates, people periodically get up to start dancing, and the toastmaster ("tamada"), who is one of the 11th-grade boys, and raises a glass every once in a while. We did the usual toasts (children, parents, life, love) and added a couple special ones (to their director, to their 1st grade teacher, to finishing school). Here's one of Jennifer's Moments of Cultural Contrast: the students' parents paid for this supra, at which we're toasting with very strong wine, as led by a 11th-grade toastmaster. In the US, my graduating class was carted off in buses to a rec hall on the Naval base, where we were entertained/imprisoned to keep us from slipping away into the night for a little celebration drinkie.

Another side note-- every single country I've been in has convinced me that the US minimum drinking age of 21 only makes kids more irresponsible with alcohol, and leads to more problems with drunkenness and not knowing their limits. Georgians start drinking when they're whatever age (I've seen as low as 8, but I don't really recommend that either), and when they're 16 they can drink a little without tittering like birds and chasing their wine with a gallon of Pabst Blue Ribbon. And a disclaimer: I didn't drink anything at all till I was 20, but that was a personal decision and shouldn't have been tainted by the notion of arbitrary legality.




So that's about it for their graduation celebration. I was interested to see the dance instructor Levan start dancing, since he's the only adult Georgian I've ever seen throw himself around like that (the male parts of traditional Georgian dances are usually very physically taxing), and despite my continued reluctance to show off my inadequacies, I somehow ended up dancing, too, being forcibly spun in circles and dipped by students and dance instructor Levan alike. The Georgian teachers on the other end of the table got tipsy and started singing, though there's a marked difference between American tispy singing and Georgian tipsy singing, in that Georgian tipsy singing involves vibrato and four-part harmony. About at that point, my counterpart and the other English teacher got up to leave, which induced me to follow suit as to avoid showing off another of my inadequacies, the Georgian language. We congratulated a few of the students on the way out, including the very first Georgian girl I've met who's taller than me. She plays basketball, they tell me.


Good fairy: That was a very nice journal entry. Your readers will be satisfied.
Evil demon: You pluralized "readers," that was very optimistic of you.
Good fairy: There's at least three readers, which consitutes a plural. I just wanted to point out that I thought this was one of her better entries lately.
Evil demon: That's because she figured out how to embed pictures in her posts, and she's been relying on them to the extent that her writing suffers for it. Bland, bland, bland.
Good fairy: Well I agree with that.