Wet Hot American Supra

“I’m not doing that,” I say to Jack as I peer over the side of the train platform to the tracks at least eight feet below. “Why couldn’t we have gone the normal way?” I’m lamenting our decision to allow the owner of one of our favorite restaurants (Chaplin’s) to drive us to the train station, as he directed us away from the main entrance to a set of stairs accessible only from a dirty covered bridge lined with grimy shops, and leading only to the center train platform. Thus, we stand with an eight-foot drop and three train tracks between us and our train , which is waiting on the next platform.

Jack puts his hand on the small of back and looks over my head to where Mushood is still trying to buy cigarettes from a group of men we met on the stairs. “You just have to embrace it,” he says, referring to the backward, slapdash, Georgianness of the situation, “and cross the tracks illegally.”

With that he steps to the edge of the platform and hops nimbly down on to the tracks. Mushood, now on the platform but still a few yards behind me, calls inaudibly after him before stepping off the platform and into the Tbilisi night air. His landing is less impressive as his limbs and baggage sprawl across the first set of tracks. He yells something else I don’t understand, possibly because he is too far away or possibly because his speech is impaired by the ridiculous amount of wine he and Jack have already consumed this evening. Either way, it sounds as though he is in pain. I wait until he is off the ground and collecting his things before setting off to find a way into the main station, any remote considerations I might have given to crossing the tracks now completely obliterated.

The night train to Poti leaves at 1:30 am and arrives in Senaki, were we will get off to continue our journey via taxi, somewhere between 6:00 and 7:00am. It functions a lot more like a giant Marshutka with a bathroom than an actual train, stopping frequently to let passengers on and off, but lacking any system announcing which stops are which. The seats are wide and recline a little to allow passengers to sleep. I drift in a and out of a kind of half consciousness in which every time I open my eyes the composition of the people sitting around me has changed, but in which I am also constantly aware of the raucous snoring of the man two rows ahead of me.

Suddenly I’m being shaken alert by Jack, who says something to me in rapid Welsh accented Georgian, and then, reading the angry confusion on my face no doubt, repeats in English, “It’s soon.” I look down at my phone: 5:00am.

Jack returns from the back of the train car and invites me to join him in the seats just outside the conductor’s box where he has befriended a group of Georgians. They are journalists, an English teacher, a priest, and a poet. The group is eating triangles of khachapuri and taking shots of Vodka. It’s five in the morning and they have clearly been at it for a while.

When we arrive in Senaki it is dark and raining. The town is completely shut down and only a few taxis are gathered outside the unlit train station. We procure one of these taxis, after some abrasive negotiation on price, and make our way to Natalie’s house in Khabume, where, upon arriving, we all pile into Natalie’s deliciously warm bed.

Natalie’s host family, in a fit of typical Georgian hospitality, has invited almost all of Natalie’s friends in Georgia to their home for a supra (In case you forgot, a supra is an enormous dinner that centers around drinking what can amount to literal barrels-full of home made wine). The family has even offered to put all of us up for the night, since Natalie and I live in the Georgian boondocks.

So lets recap: Eleven twenty-somethings, most of them barely out of college, crammed into a house where they will be strongly encouraged to drink heavily for the entire evening.

Grandma, stop reading now.

When Natalie, Mushood, Jack, and I finally emerge from the bed and make our way into the kitchen, we are greeted warmly by Natalie’s host father Bakuri, as well as his mother and one year old son, Io. We sit down to fresh baked bread, roasted meat, home made jam, tea, and more khachapuri. I’m just starting to feel human again after the sleepless night on the train followed by s sleepless morning listening to Jack ramble drunkenly about how wonderful it is that the women here do all the work, when Bakuri starts passing around shot glasses with tall stems and produces a large glass bottle of cha-cha.

Four shots and two tumblers of wine after the cha-cha comes out some of our friends arrive on the marshutka from Zugdidi. There are eight of us now, Eteri and Nichole having arrived part way through our meal from Kutaisis along with Nic and Elaine from Batumi. We all pile into Bakuri’s five seat sedan for our into the city and I’m relieved that with the addition of Adam, Aly, and Elie, we won’t be able to take the car back.

The snow has topped for a while, but left a thin blanket across the green lawns and deserted buildings of the village (“This place looks like the Russians bombed it yesterday,” Elie observes). The air is a biting, cold and wet, and I’m breathing it as deeply as I can during the two kilometer walk back to Natalie’s, trying to rid myself of the dull ache the cha-cha has left behind.

The house, now busy with people, reminds of the first day of summer camp as everyone drops their backpacks and begins claiming beds. However, there is no lake or horseback riding waiting for us. Instead we are ushered into the family’s small living room filled almost wall to wall with a long elaborately set dinner table.

As is the case with many supras, every inch of the table space is taken. Each place setting has two small plates staked on top of each other, a small tumbler (like a juice glass) for wine, and another glass for Coke, Fanta, or Likani (sparkling mineral water). Sometimes there is also a shot glass, in case the wine isn’t doing the trick.

Natlie’s family has arranged a large bowl of fruit, which is so perfectly ripe it almost seems to litter in the light from the fire. At some supras, there are tiered serving dishes holding cakes, candy, nuts and raisin, and other fruits. These displays are missing but we are each given our own plate of ghomi (cornmeal mush) and our own miniature lavashi (an oddly shaped loaf of bread that is cooked by plastering the dough to the inside of a clay pot sitting over a fire). The rest of the table is set with various salads (all heavily comprised of mayonnaise), cheese, more bread, and sastiva (meat cooked in creamy hazelnut sauce).

A few minutes after we begin eating, Natalie’s host grandmother and Bakuri’s wife, Maia, begin bringing out plates of msvare, whish is pork that has been cooked on a skewer over an open flame. It is some of the most delicious meat I have ever tasted.

A number of dishes are added to the spread in this manner, hand delivered by the ladies of the household, who rarely get the chance to actually partake in the supras they host. The dishes pile on top of one another until the entire table becomes a delicious game of Jenga. Can I get a slice of khachapuri without disturbing the sastiva and cucumber salad? Lets find out.

Bakuri is istting at the head of the table. He is the tamada, the leader of all the toasting for the evening, traditionally an important role at any supra. Next to him is Aly, then me, and then Elie, who, later in the evening when all the food and wine starts to bite back at my stomach, feeds me slices of mandarin from the fruit bowl, which helps. Who knew?

Bakuri wastes no time beginning his toasts, but is disappointed that none of us will understand what he is saying, since collectively we speak very little Georgia, and even less megruli. He asks one final time if anyone speaks Russian, holding his juice glass of wine extended in front of his chest, and we all shake our heads, just as we have every time this question has been posed to us in various locations and situations throughout the country. However, Nic has brought a new addition to the group, and, as it happens, his lovely Italian friend Elaine does speak Russian, as well as French and English. She quickly becomes the designated supra translator, relating to us each toast: all of them beautiful in their simplicity and sentiment. We toast to family, to friends, to Georgia, America, and wherever else we come from, to the dead, to the living who are not with us, to god, to our mothers, and to the moment in which we are all gathered around one table sharing wine and food and each other’s company.

Each time we make a toast, we all raise our glasses of homemade wine (it tastes a lot like rotten juice) and down the entire tumbler. This is especially important to do if you agree with the toast being made, and who could disagree with such heartfelt speeches?

Glass after glass of wine adds up quickly, and we even do a few toasts out of the khantsi, a hollowed out horn that is filled with wine and used in traditional Georgian toasting. It is not long before we are also making toasts, though I have to admit none of my friends’ toast makes it through the haze of wine settles over my senses. In fact, I loose a good chunk of the night to wine and cha-cha, and so relinquish more of my dignity than I would have liked to this traditional Georgian feast. However, even compromised by wine, cha-cha, and a general lack of sleep, I remain, apparently, eloquent to the end, telling my friends who are trying to put me to bed, “I’m fine. I just need to collect myself.” At which point, I cross my hands politely on the edge of the table and lay my forehead down to rest on top of them.

Everyone finds their way into bed around 9:30pm (remember we’ve been drinking heavily since about 4:00pm) after a great deal of shuffling from one bed to another, each of us measuring the warmth of one room or bed compared to the others. The peace, however, is broken again when we all wake up around 2:00am. One of the group, who had passed out naked long before the rest of us, awakens a little shocked at his compromised state, and proceeds to walk around the room, still naked and no doubt freezing, collecting his clothing.

As we lay in bed reviewing the events of the evening, Jack says, “Thank god for the little Russian speaking Italian girl.”

In the morning a majority of the group wakes early and is eager to get home and no longer be a burden to our hosts. We collect our things. Most of my clothing has found it’s way out of my bag and is strewn across the room. Nic and Eteri, responsible adults that they are, make their first order of business cleaning the bathroom attached to Natalie’s room, which has taken the brunt of the destructive nature of eleven drunken “adults.”

We gather by the fire in the living room turned dinning room ready to go, but we are delayed when the family informs us there is more food. We are given huge bowls of steaming hot soup, fresh bread, fried potatoes and meat, juice, and more wine. My friend Nichole laughs at the distress on my face as my glass is filled almost to the brim.

Bakuri arranges rides for everyone into town and we have perhaps the best luck yet finding marshutkas, since no one has to wait more than twenty minutes to be on their way. As we drive down the one road east out of Chkorostku, I point out my village center, the school, the abandoned tea factory, and the gas station my host family owns before we reach my house. I greet my host father, use the last of my strength to force open the door, plug in my electric heater and crawl back into bed, where I remain for most of the day.