Won't you be... my neighbor

What with my blind focus on July 17th, I'm finding it difficult to be inspired by the Muse of Georgia when writing these blog posts. Rather than write yet another entry about my job search or my broken mp3 player, I thought I'd go for a change of pace and describe an aspect of Georgian culture for once.

Randomly selected topic: neighbors. Or as they would write here, "neighbours." They would really write "mezoblebi," or if they were my English students they'd probably write "naibers" or "niebores," but you get the picture.

Here a neighbor...
Our neighbors may as well live at our house. Without fail, an army of neighbors descends upon our humble abode at exactly eight o'clock in the evening, which is exactly the time that "Mientras Haya Vida" comes on TV. Sometimes they bear snacks, usually they just bear gossip. They watch the show intermittently, in the moments where they're not discussing how much weight Mediko's daughter has lost, and then they leave an hour later to a chorus of "What's your hurry?" from my host mother.

There a neighbor...
There's no phone call of warning, either; they just stride right in. This is fairly universal here. Sometimes Georgians who I've met minutes before will ask me if I'm familiar with my neighbors in the US, to which I reply no, thus confirming in my new friend's mind the superiority of her own culture. I have no ground to stand on when arguing/discussing this point, either; I don't even know the names of any of my next-door neighbors in the US. Not one. The usual American line of defense goes that we make friends based on mutual interests and not based on proximity, but you'd think we'd run out of ways to wave hello to our neighbors without eventually walking over and making friends.

Everywhere a neighbor neighbor...
Georgians also ask if Americans have to call before they go to their neighbors' or relatives' house, to which I reply yes. Unless I throw in the caveat that you can never be sure an American will be at home, the perception is that we're sitting in our living rooms screening our calls for any annoying relatives that might want to disrupt Heroes by visiting (yes, we know what you're watching). Could I explain that when I return, I probably will screen my calls for annoying relatives? Perhaps. Would it go over well? Most likely not.

In the meantime, it's nice to have a million people in the house every evening. It triples or quadruples the number of close community contacts that I have, and it fills the awkward conversational gaps that surface when my host mother, host sister and I are left alone. Sometimes the arrival of a special, rare neighbor warrants the purchase of a kilo of apples, most of which are left for scavengers like me afterward.

And if I suddenly remember why Americans like to have their houses to themselves, I can go up to my room, the little American corner forbidden to neighbors and relatives alike. Maybe that's why the teachers at my school think I'm not "contakturi"...