Who you know

"Ala, come over here," my host uncle calls me from across the street.  He is standing next to the pea-green Lotta that has just pulled up in front of my house.  "You're going to Batumi, right?"  I nod.  I know that he already knows where I am going.  I told him as I left the house five minutes ago to stand on the street and wait for a marshutka.  "To see my Georgian tutor," I clarify.  For his friends, I guess.  He nods.  "Where do you want to go?"  I tell him, and he is silent.  I pick another location, a little more central.  Silence.  Finally, I pick the biggest church on the biggest street in our regional capitol.  This brings a smile, "Ah, okay, that is good," he agrees.

"This is my girl," he tells the men in the car.  The driver is short and the passenger is thin.  They're both over forty and have the same Eastern-European droopy eyelids.  The driver nods, but does not respond.  The men in the car have salt-and-pepper stubble and tan, lined faces from the sun, from smoking, and from, undoubtedly, a copious number of days spent drinking cha-cha and playing backgammon on street corners.

My host uncle nods at me again.  "These are my friends."  I know now that I am waiting for protocol others wouldn't bother with.  "Get in," he tells me kindly.  And I do.

Wait.  Back up.  Allow me to translate this for you into America-speak.  Undoubtedly, if my father is reading this, he already has.

I just got into a car in with two middle-aged men who I did not know in Eastern Europe.  On the recommendation of another man who I have only known perhaps just upwards of a month.  In America, I would never do this.  In America, an intelligent man in my host-uncle's position would consider that his offer might look creepy.  I am stupid, maybe, for accepting.  Am I crazy?  Probably definitely, but due to the nature of the beast, that's a little difficult to self-diagnose.

However, there were four key words in the exchange above that told me what I needed to know:

"This is my girl."

This is my girl.

Once we started to get into the city, we took a turnoff that I was not familiar with.  I knew it was taking us away from the road where the church was.  A minute went by, and although I was confused, I was not yet concerned.  It was quickly clear, though, that my driver had an unusual route in mind.

"Where are we going?"

He replied, but I didn't catch the whole meaning.  Yet another shade of my life in Georgia.  However, I understood enough to know that he still planned on taking care of me.

Two minutes later, we pulled onto a busy little street, he parked the car, and motioned for me to get out.  We were still far from the church.  I looked at him, puzzled, but obeyed.  After all, we were in a very populated area that looked affluent enough by Georgian standards.

A city marshutka was waiting on the other side of the street and I followed my guides to it.  The Lotta driver held up a 50 tetri piece for me and made an exaggerated motion of giving it to the marshutka driver.  He was paying my fare.  He then spoke quickly to the passenger in the front seat and that man left and got into the back of the marshutka.  As directed, I got into the front.  The thin man, the passenger from the Lotta, got into the first row of seats in the back of the marshutka.  My Lotta driver nodded to me.  I nodded back and thanked him.

And in this way, I arrived at the biggest church on the biggest street in my region's capitol.  With a nod and a "thank you" to the thin man, I was able to get to my Georgian language lesson.

This is my girl.

So much meaning in four little words.  It's not the first time I've encountered Georgia's system for protecting girls, and it won't be my last.  Rather nebulously referred to as the patroni system, it gave me a lot of pause for thought on that particular windy mountain ride to Batumi. 

The rightful owner of my house is my host uncle's brother.  Who spent years as a police chief in my region.  My host uncle's son lives with us here, he's 14.  My host uncle himself is a very well-liked man, clearly socially connected.  His friends are at our house constantly.  He is recently returned to Georgia, and so in the midst of his looking for work, our house has become supra-central.  Not that it wasn't already.

What I'm trying to say here is that everybody knows them.  Thus, everybody knows us and me.  When I am in Batumi, people often ask me where I am teaching and living.  When I tell them the name of my host father, many people know him.  They nod and smile then, and it's a kind of relief on their faces, almost.  In their internal maps of their home, Georgia, I am placed.  I have a last name, and it is not my American one.  Anybody who crosses me crosses my host dad, crosses my host uncle, crosses my host nephew, even.  Once under my host uncle's care, any man in his circle must give me his utmost respect.  And in this way, I am safe.

Welcome to the patroni system.

It goes against everything I was taught as a child in America.  Don't talk to strangers.  Don't tell them your last name.  God forbid you tell a strange man where you live.  But here what is truly dangerous is to have no last name to tell.

I'm not saying that it's not dangerous to get into a car with two men that I don't know.  I am a girl living in a mountain village in a 2nd/3rd world country.  The world is dangerous.  Marshutka drivers drive like maniacs.  Half-wild dogs roam the streets.  Who knows what's in the tap water.  Taxis have only recently become safe under this government.  My partner teacher remembers days not long ago when she would never use a taxi.  She remembers days of heroin dealers on every street corner.  When everything took a bribe.

When it all came down to who you know.

This is my girl.