Ferekeeko Lives & Conquers!

Intrepid Iphigenia and I needed to go out to buy some fruit and veg.    We had just arrived in Tbilisi a couple of days before.    Tense and touchy, we start arguing about where to buy the said goods. Iphigenia spots a stand in which she says the produce looks agreeable.    But I’ve been to that one before during a previous stay in town and I say, “No, let’s go to another.” She doesn’t understand why, of course, and I have to explain, but I don’t have time to expound on Patrick Leigh Fermor’s brilliant theory of the way in which locals perceive outsiders.* Instead I tell her that the lady is a bit nosy and she wants to marry her daughter off to me, probably because I know how to string together a few sentences in Georgian.    Iphigenia replies with a   Don’t be silly , but I am adamant.    I am cold, cranky and, as such, determined to avoid niceties, conversation, explanations — hell, all human contact, fo...

It was while I was extolling, rather formulaically, the virtues of Athens that I learned to appreciate life in a small town. O Nonós, the Godfather, rhapsodized (swift, tight flicks of the wrist, palms always open, furrowed brow) over life in Agriá, from which I interpreted the following : I, Iphigenia’s godfather, the free spirit of Agriá, am fulfilled. Insouciant, I jump on my creaky moped and speed off. With both legs hanging over the same side of the scooter, I wave and smile at each passer-by.  A large cup of coffee and a chat at the same café every morning — this routine is not to be broken!  I know everyone, and everyone knows of me. I am practically toothless now, a testimony to my love of sweets, but also to my je m’en foutisme. My shirt is dangerously unbuttoned, the top four or five ever undone regardless of the clouds or sun. Tufts of grey hair emerge with confidence, virility and enthusiasm. I am old now, but don’t you go telling that to ...

When they think that they know the answers, people are difficult to guide. When they know that they don't know, people can find their own way.  — Tao Te Ching , chap.  65, v.  2, ll.  4–7 Teaching English was a good way for me to earn extra cash in my spare time in Tbilisi. Passionate and eager students of all ages would get in touch each month to seek my infinitely vast and untapped knowledge of The Bard’s tongue. But surprisingly, all of my students secretly turned out to be know-it-alls, often having a grasp of English far beyond mine. During our lessons they would indicate such knowledge in Georgian by saying ‘ ho, vitsi ,’ which means ‘yes, I know.’ Now, this may sound harmless enough, but let me tell you why I often had to fight off the urge to reach across the desk and administer a swift smack upside the head as if it were 1805. Ho, vitsi ’s literal translation does not convey the meaning in its truest sense. In partic...