Three Funerals and a Wedding

People seem to die around here more often than in the US. If that were a statement based on a low life expectancy or high mortality rate among Georgians, then I would deem it in bad taste and maybe not write it, but since my friends insist that the Georgian life expectancy is comparable to the US life expectancy-- thanks, McDonalds-- we're in the clear. It just seems like more people die around here because everybody knows their neighbors up and down the street, as well as their neighbor's cousins in Tbilisi, their neighbor's friends in Greece, their neighbor's Godparents, etc. so among that vast range of categories, someone's bound to die every once in a while.

I went to my third funeral in Georgia today. The first, which I wrote about already, was for my friend Heidi's host father from training. The second was for a neighbor whom I perhaps passed in the streets everyday and didn't say hello to because I never know who's going to stare at me like a crazy person if I greet them and who's going to be offended if I don't. The third was the father of my host brother's friend, and also our neighbor on an adjacent street. Since he's our neighbor, I tagged along to the panashvidi-- a ceremony in which you go to a room with the coffin and you offer your condolences to the female family members who are sitting and talking to the dead person. If you are a woman, which I've been known to be, you stay in the room and listen to the mourning for a little while, probably sitting in quiet contemplation of life and death. On this particular occasion, a trio of men sang dirges in the other corner.


I thought this was another anonymous funeral for me, until Irina told me I have a picture of the dead guy in my computer. Here he is, an innocent bystander and prop from my quest to capture Samtredia on film. To this man who died, I'm that weird American who showed up and took a picture of him with toilet paper in his hand. To toilet paper in his hand. He doesn't even look that old in the picture. I tried to think about that while sitting around at the panashvidi, but I soon reverted to me, the dead man is the guy who frowned at me after I took a picture of him with trite philosophical thoughts about the fleetingness of existence. I wondered why the Georgian church is against cremation. I entertained morbid thoughts about the condition of the unembalmed body, thoughts which proved unfounded at the open-casket funeral the next day.

The panashvidi was yesterday, and the funeral was today. I'd guess about 200 people showed up. I'd be pretty satisfied with my time on earth if 200 people showed up to my funeral. The only problem is that you end up with moocher guests, like my host sister and I. We arrived at the funeral procession for the final five minutes-- just in time to see the pallbearers pick up the coffin and rotate it around three times before placing it in the car, a custom I hadn't noticed before-- and then we waited an hour or so for the mourners to return from the graveyard so we could eat their food at the funeral supra down the street from our house, which we promptly left as soon as we were full, having made no toasts. Furthermore, Irina was entertaining me the whole time with her strange knowledge of funeral vocabulary-- "There is the coffin." "Here comes the hearse."

Speaking of food (as usual), there's a special funeral food that I think falls under the category of cool exotic food that belongs in a blog. It'd really help if I knew the name, but alas I just point at it when I want it. It's buckwheat with honey and coffee. Pretend this is a restaurant menu, and that I've just described this food with all the delectable, irresistable adjectives that are due it.

This weekend, I shall break my streak of death-based events and attend my first Georgian wedding. I've been told that they're 2-day affairs, full of non-stop eating, drinking and dancing, all of it videotaped. I've seen one such videotape, and by hour 22 the bride looked like she'd seen better days, so maybe this weekend's wedding will be a bit shorter, since they had their Kutaisi (nearby city where the groom lives) wedding last weekend. Did I mention the bride and the groom both get a wedding? The bride in this case is my sitemate's host sister Natia, so it's like one of my friends told me; in the grand scheme of things, where there's no question as to whether I'll attend my host brother's friend's father's funeral, this is practically my best friend's wedding. Perhaps a post on it will be due.

Side note-- I hate movies that steal phrases like "my best friend's wedding" and make each incidence of that phrase remind everyone of the movie. I also hold no love for people who take that opportunity to make a jocular reference to the movie in question, so there best not be any jokes left in the comments section of this post. I'll settle for the usual nothing.