(The luck coin from the Greek cake)
Happy new year to everyone!
I feel so tired. There is no other way to legitimize my laziness. Followers may think I am talking about not writing to my blog. However, I mean the last three days which I want to do nothing at all. Sleeping till midday and being sleepy the rest of the day... Even after new year I spent an hour sleepy, lying on the bed. But pushed myself out after 1 o'clock to the private late night party at Anya's cafe (Glitsinia).
(I turned my back when they cut the Greek cake and I was the one to tell who would get which piece)
I did not stay till the end of the party since we were afraid they will rob our house. What is to be stolen if they break in: my computer which became my life in the recent months due to the research projects. Well I would lose only some photos few months ago- but now: posters, photos, reports, questionnaires, the latest version of my methodology book, and many more. That is everything I have managed to build after 3 years. I know it is necessary to backup your most important documents online. The reality is I used to do that very often back in the days when I did not have a laptop but used university computers. I tried to find some docs recently and I managed to find nothing! Some questionnaires for example, or data, or even some reports that I participated in writing. I have no copies of the latest versions. So I decided to load things when they are ready only. But this creates a risk of loosing them- when a computer crashes or gets stolen!
(The late night cooking: shashlik)
Well I know that we are being paranoiac but thats normal after being robbed once. A few years back my grandfather was robbed by armed gangsters. He passed away afterwords. Than they robbed our car when I was in turkey stealing my camera with photos from the first fieldwork on the topic of political participation-bad luck.
Than they tried to rob me on the bus (2 times) - one received the reaction he deserves at least from me (the other people did not react which is a shame) thats why the second time I preferred to play a game with the boy!
Anyway, these events are distributed to the last 4 years so maybe it is really paranoiac but if you have knowledge to lose you care...
Anyway, it is important to tell what new year means in Abkhazia since in every country understanding is different. The new year joy starts mid december, by bombachki (çata pat in turkish, small size explosives) blowing around. The 31st is much more noisy together with thousands of fireworks and gun shots.
Of course the new year is also identified by non-stop drinking, no work (even for shops which sell PRESENTS were closed on the 31st!!!), long tables (no bread in the few open shops for three days-they say "dont you know how to bake achof??"- kind of covered cheese pizza), many calls and messages (luckily the phone companies make many campaigns but sure they will take it from us in the end), and 4 different days of celebration: 24th of DEC-Catholic Christmas, 31st of DEC- New Year, 7th of JAN- Orthodox Christmas, 11th of JAN- Abkhaz New Year-The Day of the Blacksmiths.
The new year is celebrated with family on a long lasting table. Young people ran away to the streets at midnight. Come together and spend time cooking again in the middle of the night.
