Saturday. We have had Friday to shake off the week. The sun on a crisp autumn day inspires. I ask my host sister/daughter in this pigeon language of mine if she wants to go to Poti to the bazaar. She is sixteen so the yes is resounding.
The bazaar is Georgia’s version of the mall. It is full of fishmonger’s who shout from stalls, farmers in hawking fresh produce and any sort of made in China product one could imagine.
She is excited by the prospect. There is a flurry in the bathroom, and she steps out in the shortest skirt and the highest black boots. She has got her girl on.
We traipse down the pot-holed road, past the pig she has just brought swill to. We navigate around the ruts, puddles, and cow dung to wait for the rusty van that will escort us to Poti.
As we sit midsection-riding bumps and curves like sport there is a constant ding from her cell phone. And then a flurry of fingers in response.
As we walk through the cratered asphalt of the bazaar, her ping phone is ever present. Ding, ding, flurry flurry.
We stop in a café for a coffee and a respite. She is silent with me. She I preoccupied with the messages on her phone. She is so occupied with this far away love that she is oblivious to the coke and Pizza, which are long in arriving.
She becomes sullen. I am thinking she is bored or upset with me. We rush our stops as I can discern her hurry. In our haste I forget parcels of coffee and goods at a vendors.
At all times she is tethered to the cell phone and its pulsing’s. We board our crowded transport. Arriving in our village we pant as we rush up the hill. Her boots do not slow her gait. She quickens like the family’s cow does when nearing the gate of home.
Though I have had companion I have been without company through the day. I have that lonely that one gets in a crowded room. Our pleasure trip has become a burden for us both.
I understand though as she rushes the gate and takes the home phone to her bedroom that it is not just love that spurs her on but she is using up all her very precious cell phone minutes.
And here in this world ever so far away is one I have known and lived before.
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