A wake

Got up at eight this morning, extremely tired after having had two different dreams about being chased by dinosaurs (it was pretty tiring, they run fast). Ate breakfast, had a turkish coffee (would've needed two), then we went to the office. Three people showed up. There was no point going through all the things I wanted to go through to just three people, so we checked their homework and then they could leave. They have four classes left before the exam, now they'll have very little revision time. Not our fault, but it's damn annoying nevertheless.

We had a small tragedy play out on the yard this weekend. I'm staying in a block of flats, and two of the apartment buildings have a shared piece of land between them, with a playground, some parking spaces, a pear tree, a bench for the drunks and the gamblers and the obligatory motley crew of strays patrolling the area at night. In other words, a very useful public space. Most flats in these buildings, however, are very small.

So when it came to having a wake for a recently deceased resident, the flat wasn't big enough so they put up a tent in the yard, decorated it and on Saturday morning the mourners came. And there was wailing and gnashing of teeth. And, as the afternoon progressed and the temperature soared, there was also suddenly a fishy smell coming through the open windows. My first association was to surströmming and I wondered if perhaps the Skellefteå-shirt wasn't the only thing from Norrlandto have made it to this part of Zugdidi. But I think that now, I just know what a dead person smells like in 35-degree heat after 6 days of lit de parade.

The story surrounding this death is quite tragic, though. The man who died was only in his 30s and died from some alcohol-related problem. He took up drinking after his mother, who was supporting the family through her small business, decided to expand the business to drug smuggling and drug dealing, got caught and subsequently went to jail. The man ended up not having much of an income and turned to alcohol for comfort. His mother, who still has 8 years left on her sentence, had only seen him once in the last 6 years. Most people are incarcerated in Tbilisi and it was simply too expensive for her son to come and see her. She was given permission to come from the Tbilisi prison to Zugdidi to attend the final service, escorted by police officers. Her wailing and gnashing of teeth was definitely understandable, and deeply sad.