Travel Snapshot: Tbilisi [1] (On a Balcony in Tbilisi)

I stepped outside of my apartment for a cigarette and immediately noticed, to my left, Nikolai, standing outside of his apartment, enjoying a moment of fresh air, and he too immediately noticed me. Keeping his left hand gripped on the balcony railing, he rose his right hand to greet me, still holding his cane, to give me a hello with a gentle wave, his cane dangling below. Neither of us can speak the same language, so we don’t say a word, we just exchange smiles and head nods. He has a beautiful smile.

A neighbor below, standing with an empty saucepan, had started hollering above to the neighbor on my right: “Nana!” and then waiting for a reply; “Nana!” and still no reply; “Nana!” another time. Since it’s now day two of no water due to line repairs, I assumed that Nana may have some water to fill that saucepan below. After a few more “Nana!” attempts, I came to the balcony railing, looking down at the neighbor below and motioned that, perhaps, I could ring the doorbell to get Nana’s attention. She agreed. I rang the doorbell, but still no reply.

Nikolai yelled down to that neighbor below in a raspy old voice. I’d say it was a whiskey stained voice, but I think he’s a wine man for he and his wife had invited me into their home just a few weeks earlier, my first experience of Georgian hospitality, and allowed me to discover and devour plates upon plates of brand new, delicious, Georgian foods. They had a jug of wine on the table and Nikolai kept encouraging me to drink it with such fervor that I ended up chugging back wine after wine while eating cheeses and meats and sweets all at the same time. Seeing as they had this jug of wine, I doubt his raspy voice has to do with whiskey; probably just an 80-something year old man voice. Regardless, both he and the neighbor below said a few words and Nikolai gave a wave of dismissal to her and made his way to the door on my right.

Nikolai came towards me; a beanie on his head, lightly placed; I was waiting for it to fall off his head at any moment. He wears a drab long-sleeved shirt, with a thicker black vest on top, dark brown dress pants three sizes too big and black running shoes. Inch by inch, he takes a small steps forward, along slightly uneven and warped aged wooden boards, his cane there for support, shaking not too violently, followed by another few inches and a few inches more. Roughly a minute later, and he’s reached the neighbors door, shows himself inside and, alas, Nana’s not there. He yells down in that raspy, experienced, voice communicating such, and then he looks at me.

“Yeuuughhhh…” and motions for a cigarette. I point at my cigarette and then point at him, perhaps he wants a smoke, though I’ve never seen him smoke, but so many people in this city ask me for smokes. I suppose they don’t even smoke, just on occasion, and I figured, perhaps, Nikolai was the same.

“Yeauuughhh…” he says again motioning at me and then pointing at my cigarette, then waves his hand around a bit. I think he’s telling me that I shouldn’t smoke. I give a nod and try to motion “I know, I know…” and then he walked back to his door, inch by inch by inch, until he stopped at the exhaust of my gas furnace and held his hands over the heat. I was reminded that I don’t think he has heat in his home, again, having been in his home a few weeks prior and it was rather cold.

A number of hours prior, my landlord’s mother had come over to do a prayer to Jesus I think. I’m not quite sure. I didn’t really know why she was here, but she wanted to come inside for some reason, so I went outside for a cigarette to let her do whatever she was doing in peace. I came back inside afterwards and she had brought me some kind of tea with, maybe, grapes in it? It was a kind gesture. She tried explaining to me how to prepare the tea, both of us, again, not speaking the same language. “Put a spoon or two of this grape stuff in a cup, then put hot water, but don’t put any sugar, it’s sweet enough as it is” is what I’m pretty sure she was saying. She asked me to open the jar for her as the lid was on quite tight, and then she spooned a little of it out of the jar and brought the spoon to my lips and, yes, it was pleasantly sweet. Only problem was, I didn’t have any water.

“Me momts’ons” I said, speaking a little Georgian, and it impressed her. I’ve just been here 6 weeks and my language learning is coming along, and to be honest, I’m even impressing myself at this point. I can read the alphabet and know all numbers and now I’m learning words upon words. I’m certainly no expert, but I am noticing progress. She talks to me non-stop in Georgian, not caring if I understand or not, but I can understand her here and there, and she’s great in speaking with her body. She’s a great avenue to practice my new found words.

She was rather intent on communicating a particular message at one point and my lack of understanding was disturbing her. I asked if she spoke Russian, and she does, so I opened up Google Translate (it can translate Russian audio, but not Georgian), and she, I think, was trying to determine my interest in her daughter as she showed me photos of her; a late 20’s woman who could easily be a beauty model. Her daughter needs to see more of the world, she said. She should go to Canada, she said. I told her Canada is beautiful, but I’m not planning on going back any time soon. I’m staying in Tbilisi for a while. She left after that.

20 minutes later and she reemerged with a bottle of water for me from the corner shop, allowing me some tea. Quite nice….Quite nice.