georgification

chapter 2, nikas birthday

the next morning, nika was awoken at 6 am by the sound of his neighbors rooster. he got dressed and ran downstairs, and saw that manana and his mother were already up. otto was sitting in one of the chairs around the kitchen table, scrolling through his phone. when he saw nika enter the room, he got up and walked over to him.

"gilocav dabadebisdjes brat (happy birthday bro)" he says to him and pats his shoulder "mere mogcev shen sachukars, kai? (i'll give you your present later, okay?)". nika nods, and walks over to his mother, who already has tea and hachapuri prepared for him. he eats and waits for the rest of the house to slowly wake up.

he walks outside and sits on his swing, waiting for elene, ana, and naruto. when they all come outside, they wish him a happy birthday and then play different games like hide and seek and tag. by 12 pm, his other friends who go to saguramo during the summer arrive. tornike, gocha, rezo, tea, ketevani, and tamuna. they all put their gifts inside the house and and play creshi burti, a game with two people on the sides throwing a ball at the people in the middle.

as they're playing, they notice zura and otto preparing a fire for the mcvadi, and see manana, temuri, and maia cooking inside. eka, luca, and andria are sitting outside, but pain has gone to the nearest super market to get more ingredients. almost everyone is busy with something, but kakashi is nowhere to be seen. suddenly, the door flies open and kakashi steps out, wearing a black choxa with a sword attached to his belt.

the kids stop playing and stare at him with confusion. everyone that's in the house runs outside to watch the performance.

without saying anything, he puts on a traditional georgian song on his speaker and puts it on the ground.

as the song starts to play, he starts doing a traditional georgian dance, to show that he appreciates the countries culture. everyone watches intently, and manana starts to tear up.

"eg chemi bichi levaniko aris! (that's my boy levaniko!)" she cries out.

in the middle of the performance, ketevani, one of the neighborhood kids, joins him. the two of them honor their georgian roots, even if they're only georgian by association. this causes manana to cry more.

at the end of their performance, everyone claps. naruto stares in shock at what just occurred, he has never seen anything like this. the children walk over to kakashi, and kakashi shows them how he uses his sword to chop up wood for the mcvadi. naruto starts clapping, and wants to try the sword, but kakashi doesn't let him.

"es ratom gaakete? (why did you do this?)" asks nika. kakashi says "sheni dabadebisdjistvis (for your birthday)". but he was lying, he did it to show nika his culture so he would stop being an american. also he wanted to impress his new families.

soon enough, everyone quieted down and went back to work. pain came back and also helped with the food. after hours of work, everything was ready and they all sat at the table and ate. kakashi was invited to be the tamada, which is someone who leads the feast.

all the children drank georgian limonati (lemonade), and the adults drank wine. except manana, she just drank water because she was too old and she had high cholesterol. as soon as the kids finished eating, they left the table and went to their shtabi (base) while the adults stayed there.

their shtabi was near the forest, and it was made out of pieces of wood they found and blankets. they went inside and discussed how they would terrorize the other neighborhood kids.

(i will write the dialogue in english for this part)
"we need a plan on how to defeat them," stated nika.
"we should have a rap battle, ketevani and i got this," chimes in irakli, who makes georgian rap that no one listens to.
"yes," says ketevan enthusiastically.
"no no," elene shakes her head, "we should throw rocks at them."
naruto is sitting there confused, not understanding a single thing they're saying. nika translates for him and he agrees with elene's plan. it's pretty similar to what they do in america, except in the u.s they shoot with something else other than rocks.

when they've decided on what they're going to do, they leave their shtabi, and see kakashi dancing again. eka is recording, manana is crying of happiness again, and otto and zura are laughing.

by then it's gotten dark, so the neighborhood kids leave, and nika, naruto, elene, and ana go to sleep. nika can hear the loud voices of the adults outside, but he is tired so he slowly drifts to sleep.