A Six-Minute Car Ride

A Six-Minute Car Ride

            Last Saturday I went to the town of Vale, pronounced Wale-ay, with some teachers who also live in Akhaltsikhe to visit two TLG teachers who live in Vale. Saturday around noon, we piled on the very old looking bus with a sign that said Vale on it. None of us knew exactly where we were going, how long it really took, or how much this bus ride was going to cost.  After about fifteen minutes, we noticed that the sign had changed. So we were fairly confident we had missed the town of Vale. 

We contemplated getting off at the next stop and hope a bus came along on the other side of the road to take us back. But the next stop was by an empty field and one intelligent person suggested we wait for at least a few buildings to be around in case no bus came by on the other side of the road. Five minutes later at we were in Vale. So it’s a good thing we didn’t get off in the middle of nowhere.

As we got off the bus we each dropped one lari in the basket to pay, one lari is about the equivalent of 60 cents in the U.S.  Nothing in Georgia is that expensive because no one here has money. For example, a full time teacher makes less than 400 Lari a month and they are happy because they have jobs.

            Once we were in Vale, we were greeted by our friend who lives there and shown the village. We went back to our friend’s house where his host mom prepared a feast for us (picture below). After we ate we went on a mission to find some fruit, but apparently that is not possible to do in the village of Vale on a Saturday.  Then we went to our other friend and TLG teacher’s house. There her host sister, someone that taught herself to speak Spanish and play guitar, serenaded us.

We rushed out of the house at twenty-till-six in order to catch the last bus (that we thought left at six) for Akhaltsikhe. We were walking down the side of the mountain and I was taking pictures of the mountains on the horizon in Turkey when a man, who happened to have all gold teeth and spoke some English, stopped us and asked to take pictures with us. This is something a foreigner gets used to in this country especially when there are four of you together. 

He explained to us that the Peace Corps volunteers who used to be here taught him some English. He also said he wanted to be our friend.  Then we asked jim where the bus was and he said we were too late. We were trying to figure out what to do about it when our new friend told us not to worry. He said for three lari he would find us a ride back home. Here, many of the unemployed men put a taxi sign on their car and drive people around. It would cost us more than three lari to get a cab so we didn’t contemplate it very long. A bit hesitantly, we got into the car with someone that our new friend said would take us home.

            There was a guy driving and his friend was in the passenger’s seat.  Neither of them spoke more English than we spoke Georgian. They refused to take our money because they said they wanted to be our friends. I know that the idea of getting into a car with a stranger goes against everything you are supposed to do, but here it is not that different than getting into a cab, especially when you are in a country where cabs are in no way regulated.  I didn’t do it alone and I am obviously still alive to talk about it.

            So I think the driver was trying to impress us, but I don’t personally find fearing for my life all that impressive. We were flying down the mountain, sometimes going around curves honking because we were on the wrong side of the road. We were passing people and I am pretty sure at one time we were part of a race. I am not going to lie: I started to pray in the back of that car.  Approximately six minutes after we left Vale, we were in the center of Akhaltsikhe. I was very grateful to get out of that car and walk the rest of the way home.