#Georgia Travel Diary: Leaving Home to Go to the Rainbow Gathering

Now that I think of the events of my travels, I feel I have grasped them and understood them after a while; and back then I was not that much mindful about those events.

I was in Misha’s house for a couple of days. I had perfectly forgotten about the concept of time and my life overall. Life in Misha’s home was extremely jubilant, vibrant and comfy. Certainly, the ones who have gone through my Previous travel diary called Tbilisi, A Travel Diary: My First Encounter with Rainbow Family
!, (or on my Website) remember that his place was not that much hygienic, but it was bereft of anger, worries, misunderstanding, and judgments. We would sing and drink and eat. When we didn’t have money, we would go to the street and play music and we would come back with money. However, we already had a little money each of us, therefore life was going on.

The next night we went to this club with my folks.

We were drinking and sitting around the table when I heard this voice behind my back who was talking about the mountaineering in Australia or New Zealand. It occurred to me that two dudes were talking about their experiences. At the end of the day, no matter how hard we try, every one of us has our judgments and we cannot deny that we possess them. If only two lessons I learned over the course of my travels, they were the idea of constantly letting go and not having judgments; No judgment of surrounding, no judgment of people and no judgment of my past actions, as these bring discomfort and it doesn’t serve me in any way. Anyways, at the time, I was thinking about these (mountaineering), when I turned my head around to check out the dude with a very fast glance.

In that very short glance, I saw the guy who was talking. I was immediately turning my head back to our table that on the way back I saw a very familiar face with a bald head. Then all of a sudden I was excessively overjoyed and filled with excitement, as the guy who was being addressed was my pal from the first night I arrived at Tbilisi; the friend that I had met on the train, the one who had lost his passport and went away, the one I openly let go two nights ago when I was pretty sure that I would easily meet him somewhere in this world.

In the past, I was told and taught by my great friend and teacher, Aziz, to let go and see that the world will be yours and the loving people, events and objects will come back to you. I clearly don’t need to mention that when our eyes came across each other, we were making some noises to celebrate this lucky twist of fate. We talked and talked and recounted the story of our encounter in the train and the night we spent finding polices and resolution for the loss of his passport. And during this process, we obviously bored the Polish guy, the one who was telling the experiences related to his mountaineering.

Then we easily became friends on Facebook and departed. I mean he departed when I was talking to the Polish guy and I loved talking to him for hours. I love when I get the chance to meet new minds. Afterwards, I spent my time with my friends. We were spending time and I was a newbie to the country I had no idea about the culture. Therefore I was yearning to grasp the culture.

I love Georgia abundantly and I long to go back there to meet my charming friends.
Then we met Misha. He came to the bar to give us a Video projector. At that moment I was confused since these are a little bit not the best accessories for these sorts of lifestyles. So he gave this video projector, which I didn’t know from where he took it, to Burak, the Turkish lovely friend I met at his house. Burak asked him if this actually works?
To which Misha answered “yes!”
And Burak’s comment was that “oooo! We are gonna watch some nasty clips on a big screen!”

I do not need to remind you that he was extremely drunk, by ChaCha. ChaCha is an extremely strong alcohol in Georgia which makes you go berserk. People keep tempting you into ChaCha almost everywhere and they would be offended if you reject them. Every time, I had to make a stupid excuse, like “This is not the best time.” Or “I prefer not to, as my mom would call and she would be worried about me.”, etc. The point about alcohol in Georgia is that people’s lives are considerably intertwined with it that sometimes you cannot help being worried about your close friends.

But regardless of that, I love this country immensely, and I mean immensely.
We went back to home and the folks helped to install the video projector and we were watching Tarkovsky’s The Stalker (of course not any nasty video, the dude was very drunk), while a couple was camping next to our screen; as you see in this photo.

When I say life was in harmony in Misha’s house, I mean exactly this attitude that people would live primitively but with understanding and a good heart. But this was not what I believed at those days. This is my recollection for this moment. Why?

Wordsworth has this manifest in which he mentions the highest level of poetry or literary production. He believes that:

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”

It means that in his ideas, the great work of art is when the artist experiences a scene and he is affected by its very magnificence. Then he/she goes to his solicitude and recollect it, recalls it and comes up with their production, rather than starting to write about that in that very moment of the event.

Why am I telling this? Let me tell you that we went to sleep after we watched the movie, and I was very much fatigued. Then these people came, k’vira, Migle (Lithuanian) and Emre (Turkish). When they came, they made too much noise. k’vira went and took one of the guitars and started to play guitar and I was shocked. And he asked us to wake up and have some fun, which I did, at 3 AM. At the moment I was vexed by this incident. But now that I recall it, I look at it differently.

So this guy, k’vira, was an exceptionally talented musician, restless and sleepless. I never saw him sleep and even I heard this shocking news from other travelers and friends saying:
“Does he ever sleep?”
So this guy’s name was k’vira. I should note that, this was not his real name; that I never got the chance to know. k’vira was the name that was given to him by himself, meaning “Sunday” in the Georgian language. He was 17 and he wouldn’t work and go to school and consequently, every day was Sunday for him :-D

Isn’t that a nice name?

(The one on the middle is K'vira)

He would play all kinds of musical instruments and he was restless and inexhaustible. He would play guitar very fast for half an hour, and just put it down and go pick up a didgeridoo and leave it aside, he would look at you, and then another instrument.

The next day we went to their home, without any plans. Over there I realized that he smokes weed with his family, which was not a very normal scene to my eyes, but obviously fascinated me. Anyways, I respected that very much. Then, He played this incredible Piano for us.

The next day, Misha came to me giving a necklace as a gift (having the mantra OM on it) to also explain stuff about the brothers and sisters in the mountain. He pointed at my heart and said:

“You should find it by heart.”

In the very same day, I got the chance to talk more with another girl, Migle; one of the three people that arrived in the middle of that night that made noises and asked us to wake up. Migle had been hitchhiking for a while and I asked about her experience as a solo female hitchhiker. At that point, I realized that how people can see differently and make life even more stunning for themselves.

My question was ostensibly regarding safety as a female hitchhiker. She said that she trusts that all the people have primarily good nature, and therefore nothing is going to happen to her. Notwithstanding, she also carries pepper spray. She had never had to use it, and she hoped that she will never have to do it at all in the future. When I told her that she can go on traveling and working with animals and providing services because she was going to graduate from veterinary school, she responded:

“I don’t know, for the moment my horse is eating all my savings!”

Having been captivated by the idea of having a horse, I asked how come she has a horse.

Then, she explained that in their town there was this very young horse that was restless and wouldn’t go under the yoke of anyone and wouldn’t succumb. The owner wanted to kill it and give the meet to butchery. She asked to have it and started a campaign to save the young horse and ever since she has been helping it grow and she is taking care of it. At the moment the horse is one of the most beautiful creatures that I have ever seen. I obviously hugged her at that moment.

I found out that Migle had lost her phone in the Rainbow, as they had just come back from the mountains. And she informed us that she is not worried at all since she is pretty sure that it will come back to her one day. In response to my amazement that:

“What the hell? You lost your phone and you believe that you will find it one day? If I lose my phone in the bus station, there is no chance I believe I will find it. And you have lost it in the mountains 200 km away from here and you believe you will find it?”

She described this scene for me.

Migle: “I saw this incredible scene. There was this guy from Iran who was riding a horse in the Rainbow gathering and floating and singing and expressing his joy. It was the first time I saw this guy. And he would ride the horse and say ‘I just lost my passport, I lost my passport. I don’t even know where to find it’. And that was very shocking and it simultaneously showed how free this dude was”.

Having experienced a friend of mine losing his passport and 500 Euros, I then came to this conclusion that maybe losing passports in Georgia is a totally normal event. But this is immaterial compared to my understanding of me and the fears I had. So what? You lose your phone, passport or money. Nothing is happening to you. And this was apparently the first steps for me to feel the freedom. Not the freedom as a privilege of being a citizen of this country or that country, but the inner freedom; the freedom from the unnecessary stresses that we force ourselves to undergo on a daily basis.
After some days, I decided to leave for the Rainbow Gathering with Burak. I highly loved this guy as he had a greatly pure down to earth character.

I loved his accent, his philosophy of life and his great down to earth lifestyle and clothing. So we left at 6 PM to hitchhike to Shaori Region where the rainbow gathering was held in the bewildering mountains and forests of Racha Shaori. We hit the road and Burak insisted on finding a market to buy some cloth as he planned to make a Teepee tent for himself in the mountains.

We started to hitchhike and I realized that it is also challenging to hitchhike in Georgia. That seemed so. After some years of doing so, I could very easily tune myself into that mode every time and easily make a deep relationship with the drivers even as an eye contact to start a journey and probably a long friendship. But it was not working again. I immediately diagnosed the problem and I saw the gloomy face of Burak. As I already said, I loved this guy’s philosophy of life.

I normally smile and dance and make stupid gestures so that the drivers get interested that I am not boring, that I am passionate and I have stories to tell them; and I want to also share, rather than being a burden. That was my own understanding of the concept of hitchhiking.
The fact is that we humans evolve. When something doesn’t work, we instantly run a troubleshooter, and evolve to survive or at minimum make our life easier. That’s what I had been doing on the road.

With Burak it was not the case. When I saw his glum face, I asked him to smile because no one would pull over for some desperate people. He didn’t do so. As I was experienced with my method of hitchhiking, Burak also had been hitching for a couple of years. His theorem was that the drivers are not doing him a favor. They are going this way and if they feel like to pick up some dude and take him with themselves, they would do it anyways. He couldn’t express himself more clearly.

But we get it. This is very honest and pure. He wouldn’t manipulate people to make his life easier. Here, I don’t want to decide if I was wrong or he was right or the other way around.
I would respect my drivers and talk to them and make interesting conversation with them even the times I wouldn’t understand the language. I would offer them the food I had and perhaps offer them souvenirs from Iran. Burak, on the other hand, would even sleep in the cars. Both methods are possible and fine. And, during my travel, I realized that we usually have this propensity to force our own understanding and methods on other people which is not necessary at all. We easily hitchhiked with each other and we enjoyed it significantly.

When we arrived in a small town near Racha Shaori in Georgia, it was super-hot and we were getting dehydrated. Therefore we sat in the shadow of a tree when I saw Burak wearing a jacket. It seemed very bizarre. However, his answer to my astonishment was that "it will protect me from the sun." With Burak I felt like the book On The Road. His character was abundantly close to those kinda old hitchhikers. He was not frothy and pretentious. He wanted to only go in the most effortless way conceivable.

After only a couple of minutes two very thin and sick dogs approached us. I noticed that they needed food and that they were sick. Burak started checking their bodies like he was fed up by it and impatiently started to remove some insects from their bodies. While he was doing so, he was also murmuring some Turkish sentences. It seemed he was talking to these fellow dogs. Every time he removed one insect, few drops of blood would come out of their bodies, and he was not disgusted by the fact that his fingers were filthy by the bloods. Then he went to his backpack and threw a few pieces of bread whilst again he was talking to them in Turkish.

To me, it looked like he was irritated by them that they wouldn’t care about their well beings, and he was reproaching them altruistically. This high level of acquaintance with and compassion for these animals, evidently made me inarticulate. In my long walks, hitchhikes and travels generally, every day I saw that I was in the wrong that there are still tender-hearted people in our midst.

We stood up and started to leave, and the dogs were following Burak, this amazing human, not me.

Then this other car picked us up and it turned out that the driver was Turkish and Burak was talking to him ceaselessly.
When we arrived at the mountain, and we got out of the car, we started to walk to the location of Rainbow Gathering. Whilst I was looking for the coordinates on my phone, I noticed that Burak went to a side of the road and checked the trees and then he was looking around for some specific stones on the other side of the road.

I evidently thought that the dude is attentive in finding this special stuff in his surroundings. But I was a fool. As I was a newbie, I had no knowledge that usually some people go to the desired location for the rainbow gathering and when they have chosen a specific location, they put some signs on the way so that the people track these signs to find their brothers and sisters.

(The red cloth on his backpack is the one that he bought to make a teepee for himself up there in the mountain)

At first, I assumed this dude is kidding me and is paranoiac, as we always have this fictional treasure map idea in our mind and we seldom believe that some folks may actually do that.

So he presented the signs to me; like the clothes on the branches of the trees and some stones which were accumulated on each other on the way to the rainbow.

We followed the signs and after nearly two hours of walking in the mountains we saw it. We saw the sign which was drawn in a primitive style, stating “Welcome Home”.

Yes. That was the home. For the moment it was only a few letters on a piece of cloth, and I do not deny that I was not exalted by the idea of finally being there. But, I should say that, back then, I was not that much engrossed in the idea of Home to the extent that I am now. Now, that is the real home for me.

To be continued…

Below you can watch the video I have made during my travel in Armenia and Georgia:

https://asbesiah.com/
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https://www.instagram.com/aghaye_siavash
@siavashgh

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