I actually did travel last year, but you wouldn’t know it from my blog, would you?
Although I didn’t write at all about my last semester in Georgia, I learned some tough lessons from those last few months in Georgia and I feel it might be time to start sharing. This post reflects on the struggles I had with my then-boyfriend and how that fit into the bigger picture of Georgian society. It’s quite personal so feel free to skip this if you’re more into posts about school life or travelling.
One of the biggest things I learned is not to ignore things that you know in your heart but you don’t want to believe. I wanted my relationship to work when it was pretty clear it wouldn’t. I wanted to believe the man I fell in love with was genuine and it was also equally clear that he wasn’t. The man I fell for was a show, and I could hardly stand the man he actually was. However, he insisted he was really the person he was when we fell in love and he just needed a chance to be away from home and to explore a new part of the world, he just needed the chance to grow like I had. And I so desperately wanted him to have that chance. I so desperately wanted to find the wonderful man who had whisked me off my feet, changed my life plans, and encouraged me to dream bigger. I wanted him to have the experiences I had had. So, long story short, we decided to travel to Georgia.
I’ll spare you the details of all the drama and chaos that preceded our trip. I’ll even spare you the details of our life in Georgia. I will go straight to the moral of the story, which is simply this:
Do NOT go to live in Georgia with someone you aren’t sure about. Or anywhere else, probably. But I can tell you from my personal experience: it’s very unpleasant in Georgia.
And now for the highly abridged story. Georgia is a conservative society…. so living with your boyfriend before marriage is a no-go. I didn’t want to lie and say we were married for a couple of reasons. Mainly because I’m friends with my former host families and Georgian friends on the internet and they would know it was a lie unless I faked a marriage ceremony on Facebook. Which would lead to awkward questions back home. And also because we both applied for TLG and I wouldn’t have wanted to lie to them and maybe have to provide documents. Too much hassle. But to be travelling with a boyfriend didn’t give the impression of being serious enough, so we said we were engaged.
Ha. Ha. Ha. Actually, there was a time when we did think we’d get married. Even looked into getting married in Georgia. So that wasn’t a total lie. I laugh now because of how absurd it was in hindsight. How frightening of a prospect. But I’m writing too much about background and not enough about the actual experience.
So imagine this. We stayed up too late in Tbilisi the night before and had to rush to get to Kobuleti, a 5 hour car journey across the country. We’re hot and disoriented when we arrive in town. The director of the school is supposed to pick us up in town, take us to the village, and show us a house he found for us to rent. I call and he says he’ll be there in a minute. We stand sweating in the sun, not knowing what will come next. A school marshrutka picks us up. The director is there with the sports teacher and two women teachers from the school. No one speaks English… It is up to me to translate. Here is what I remember of the conversation:
Teacher: Hello, nice to meet you! Is this your husband?
Me: No, no.
Teacher looks appalled, tsks.
Me: No, not yet!!! Not yet!!
Teacher: He’s your fiancé?
Me: Yes.
Teacher, somewhat mollified: Good, good. How well you speak Georgian! You’re a good girl.
Me: Thank you, thank you.
So from the start I said we were engaged. I quickly regretted not just telling the school we were already married because the first day I drank coffee with the teachers, this happened:
Teachers: Your man, he’s not your husband?
Me: Not yet.
Teachers: But you will be married!?
Me: Yes, of course.
Teachers: When?
Me, panicking: I don’t know!
Teachers: (unsatisfied looks)
Me: Maybe October, maybe December!
Teachers: Good! Where? In Signaghi?
(Signaghi is a popular place to get married in Georgia)
Me, lying my butt off: Oh, maybe, yes. Or maybe Tbilisi.
Teachers: Oh, we want to come. We will have a party.
Me, hating myself: Oh, yes, yes, maybe!
So the Georgians were expecting a wedding while the long-neglected cracks in our actual relationship were becoming impossible to ignore. It was kind of like ignoring a leak, hoping it isn’t a big deal, only to have your roof cave in. Or like thinking that you have indigestion and it’ll work itself out but it leads to a fatal heart attack. Having too much faith and hope can make a person downright stupid. For months I had been that stupid person, ignoring the warning signs, hoping for the best. Until I realized it would never get better. There would always, always be excuses and control issues. We were away from home and nothing had changed. The thing I knew but didn’t want to accept was staring me straight in the face. Even the Georgians knew I wasn’t happy, they knew we had problems. They almost seemed to relish digging in, making me uncomfortable. I swear I had more or less this same interaction almost every day at school:
Teachers: You’re working in Batumi too?
Me: Yes, I work here and I work in Batumi 2 days a week.
Teachers: And your qmari (they called him husband even though they knew we were engaged), he doesn’t work?
Me: No, he’s studying.
Teachers: But you have two jobs, and he has none?! This isn’t good!
Me: But what can I do?
Teachers: He can work at a school. Georgia needs English teachers!
Me: Maybe.
Teachers: He can work at a restaurant!
Me: Maybe
A casino, a bar, picking mandarins….
Maybe, maybe, maybe….
Our host family was just as bad. They couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t study Georgian, why he wouldn’t work, why he spent most of his time in our room. Almost every day:
Host mom: Why doesn’t he study Georgian?
Me: I don’t know.
Host mom: Why doesn’t he work?
Me: I don’t know.
Host mom: he could work at _______ (insert place here). I know people, we can find him work.
Me, at the end of my rope: He doesn’t want to work, ok! Ar unda!
Host mom: Why???
Me, about to cry: I don’t know! He doesn’t want to.
Co-teachers knew we had problems. Host family knew we had problems. One night he packed his bags and left. Host mom saw and was flipping out. I couldn’t translate, so I called my co-teacher. I tried explaining, and she just told me: “Ashley, all husbands fight with their wives. They stay together. It’s normal. We are always fighting.”
Maybe in your culture. Not in mine. But we weren’t living in my culture, were we? No. I was in Georgia, a country where guys can pretty much (literally) get away with murder. A country where women are supposed to cook and clean and smilingly watch their men get plastered as they clear the dishes and bring out dish after dish of home cooked food. Where it’s not uncommon for the woman to have a job, do all the cleaning, all the cooking, and take care of the children and animals while the man sits around doing god-knows-what (nothing. Some (not all) Georgian men are experts at doing nothing). A country where women are supposed to look the other way when their man cheats. And, most alarmingly, a country where one study found a staggering 78% of respondents believed domestic violence was a family matter and 34% believed it could be justified. This was not a culture where I could just say, “whoops we broke up” and still be a kargi gogo (“good girl”).
Except, maybe, just maybe, if we could both agreed it wasn’t working out, he could go to America and we’d tell the Georgians he went back to work and we’d get married later. They’d understand that. Many Georgians go abroad to work. But no, if we were going to break up, it wouldn’t be peaceful. He wouldn’t be respectful. He was going to ruin my reputation while he was at it. He threatened to post things and send messages on Facebook to my friends and host families. He threatened to kill himself, he threatened to hurt me. And what could I do? Call the police? Would they and could they help? And even if they did, I’d be judged and gossiped about forever. It became clear the only way to break up and save face was to go home with him. So I bought a ticket and left two days later. I haven’t seen him since we returned to America. I deactivated my Facebook and haven’t spoken to any Georgians since. I don’t know what they would think of me now. It breaks my heart to think they might shun me for living in sin and not marrying the man.
So, there’s a long-ish post without an especially happy ending, but two important lessons were learned. First, don’t ignore your gut feeling and second don’t tell Georgians you’re engaged if you’re not 100% sure about your partner.
PS- Writing this has been a bit cathartic and I’m considering rejoining Facebook, finding out if my host families still love me. I miss them; I want to know how they are. And because I didn’t go into detail, I’m not sure you can tell how awful that whole experience was for me. But I wanted to say that despite all of it, I feel very lucky. I did have a way out. Many Georgian women, sadly, do not. If you want to read a thoroughly depressing yet informative article about domestic violence in Georgia, check out this article: http://www.eurasianet.org/node/71181.
PPS-Also, if you doubt my skepticism about calling the Georgian authorities, read this excerpt where a woman “recalls the time when she called the police after her husband severely beat her and threatened to throw her out of the house. “As soon as the police came, my husband quickly put on a mask of a polite person, apologized for his temper and told the police that he would never do anything to hurt his family. The police then took me aside and told me – ’In a family, who doesn’t fight? One day you fight, another day you love each other. You are a woman after all; you should try to find ways to make things better with your husband.’” – See more at: http://www.unfpa.org/news/domestic-violence-georgia-breaking-silence#sthash.04P5YlFo.dpuf
I think we have a Turkish toilet somewhere but I’ve never pooed in one and I’m scared. Where does the toilet paper go?
Ashley's Adventures Abroad 