My friend Peggy visited me for a week in Georgia and we had a blast. I was able to show her some Georgian cultural experiences and share numerous stories <3

Peggy was an exchange student from Germany at my undergraduate university in California. We have remained in contact mostly through Facebook. When she found out that I’m still in Georgia, she booked a flight from Berlin to visit me!

Instead of boring you with some of our touristy details, I thought it might be more entertaining to point out some of Peggy’s observations about my service and Georgia in general. I haven’t experienced Georgia in a lense of a foreigner in a while- I am basically local at this point (not native, but definitely local).

The first thing that she learned when she arrived at my apartment was that my shower was not working. It was the first or second week that we started living in our new place. Instead of a normal stream of water, the shower was trickling at best. Peggy casually asked when it stopped working and Justin and I responded nonchalantly that it hasn’t worked for a few days. With a slightly confused look, we clarified to Peggy that things in Georgia break down often and there isn’t a particular sense of urgency to fix them either.  I told her that I have bucket bathed a couple of times and wasn’t even worried about the shower. To prove my point even further, when we returned from Tbilisi over the weekend, the heater also decided to give out. I felt bad that Peggy was not able to shower at my place or even sleep that warmly. The heater took another few days to get fixed, despite me trying to get it fixed as soon as possible.

Over the weekend that she was here, Peggy and I took a trip to Tbilisi and Sighnaghi (a wine town) with my friend and fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Tiffany. When we got to our affordable hotel room in Sighnaghi, the hotelier provided us with one key- instead of one key per guest as it is typical in the United States. I told Peggy that in Georgia, they only give “one key” even if there are half a dozen guests in a single Airbnb or hotel room. She thought I was slightly joking. Then when we had lunch with my friend and PCV, Olivia, she told us a story of how something went wrong in her apartment while she was out of town. Since she had the only key to her apartment, her landlord was essentially in a pickle trying to figure out how to enter the apartment. I told her that when I moved into our apartment, we had to convince our new landlord for two sets of keys- one for me and another for Justin. She could not fathom why we needed two sets. It took multiple reminders and nearly two weeks to get the other set of keys.

Another thing that I completely forgot about is that in Georgian, red wine is actually referred to as “Black Wine.” In Georgian, we say, “Shavi Ghvino / შავი ღვინო” where “Shavi” means “Black” and “Ghvino” means “Wine.” In my three years here, I’ve only been corrected once by a Kakhetian winemaker that it is “red wine” and not “black wine.” Granted, I live in the Imereti Region of Georgia. Sighnaghi is in the Kakheti Region of Georgia, which is known for its wine. Thus, I could chalk this up to a regional dialect difference than anything.

Speaking of wine, when we were at Pheasant’s Tears Winery, guess how old our sommelier was? Seventeen years old. Tiffany and I were not surprised. I’ve seen young children drink some wine with their parents at parties. I’ve seen an eight-year-old buy a huge bottle of beer for his grandfather to drink later. Dato, the 17-year-old sommelier at Pheasant’s Tears, was very knowledgeable and provided us with great detail on each wine that we tasted.

It is going to be odd going back to America where I’ll have to be carded and checked to see if I’m of age. I’m probably never going to see a seventeen-year-old sommelier in the U.S., at least legally. But I’ll definitely appreciate having my own set of keys at a hotel or an apartment without protest again. I also miss the American sense of urgency when it comes to fixing necessary things, such as a heater or a shower.

I remember Peggy asking me if this was my daily life and I said yes. She was a bit impressed that is how I live like each day because in many ways Georgia and the United States are culturally different. With that being said, I’m looking forward to returning to America next month. I’ll also miss Georgia a ton- this country has been my home after all for the past three years. Even with all the cultural differences, we all love the same. Georgians and Americans care just as deeply, we might just express that love and that care differently.