Jamie Solves a Mystery

When I arrived at my host family's house, I did not see my host dad for 3 days. No one really mentioned him, or his absence for the first few days, so I was left to wonder whether maybe he had died or they had gotten a divorce. According to our cultural training, divorces are common here, but shameful. Therefore, not something you would bring up to the foreigner who just started living at your house. 

The I broke my adapter, and asked where I would be able to get a new one. My host mom told me, "Mein hosbin, Tbilisi, am Morgen!!" This, in host mom language, which is a sort of pidgin German-Georgian-English, means "My husband is currently in Tbilisi. He can get one for you and bring it home tomorrow."

So he exists! Interesting. 

Two days later, he came home. I was not told his name, he was just referred to as "mein hosbin." And he looked exactly like his brother, my host uncle, who I'd already met, as we spend a lot of time at their house down the street and they at ours.

I tried to stay one step ahead of the situation, and on the next occasion where both brothers were in the room together, I made a quick assessment of their minute differences in appearance. I found that their hairline was the feature that distinguished them from one another the most. My host dad had just a little more hair on the top of his head than my host uncle. So every time I was in the same place as one of them, I would just check the hair to see who I was dealing with. 

Then things started to get weird. My host dad was looking at something on the computer at our house, and my host aunt was standing behind him rubbing his shoulders. My host mom would sit weirdly close to my host uncle on the couch. What is going on here? Is this sort of touchy-feeliness between married-but-not-to-each-other adults acceptable in Georgian culture? Is there some sort of strange wife-swapping/brother-sharing arrangement? Gross. 

I don't see my host dad a lot. I have no idea what he does for a living, but he spends a lot of time working in Tbilisi, so I'll see him maybe a few evenings a week. Last week I noticed that my host uncle was spending a weird amount of time at our house. He was eating dinner with us, then staying to watch TV late into the evening, until after I had gone to bed.

One day my host mom was running through the house shouting and told me "Mzia, hosbin, doctor, Sagarejo. Movidivar. Shen, Mari [points to ground]." Translation: "I am going to the hospital in Sagarejo with Mzia (my host aunt) and her husband. You and Mari are going to stay here."

This meant that the neighbors were soon to show up at the house and tell us to come out into the street with them, where we sat on the bench and waited (until they drove 20 min to Sagarejo, visited the doctor, and drove another 20 min back? Yes, I later found out.) From the neighbors' conversation, I gathered that Mzia's husband, whose name I finally learned after 3 weeks, had an allergic reaction to something and had to be rushed to the hospital. 

Later that evening, my host uncle showed up at our house for dinner. He looked fine. Not like someone who'd been rushed to the hospital earlier. And then the lightbulb went on. I had spent the last 3 weeks thinking my host uncle was my host dad and vice versa. There was indeed no spouse-swapping going on. Just me, being an idiot. A perfect example, however, of how utterly clueless I am in my surroundings.