Semantron

There are a number of monasteries here around the village. They use semantron to call the monks and the nuns for prayer.

This is how it looks (took this shot on our Spring visit):



This is how it sounds:

http://neuropoetry.tumblr.com/post/10575321089/a-recording-of-a-semantron-calling-monastics-to

Georgians descend on the village

A busy and super fun night today here.

One of the girls from the village married her brother's friend a while ago, the guy was Georgian. He became friends with her brother at wrestling competitions both of them took part in. After the wedding she left to Georgia where they live in her husband's village. They have four kids already.

Every year they come back here to visit the girl's family with the whole extended family from Georgia (husband's brothers and their wives and kids, etc). The party arrived today in eight cars, five of which were 4X4s full of Georgian wine, children and presents. The whole village joins in the fun, the dinner tonight looks like a medium-sized wedding. They cooked some Georgian food too, which is awesome.

I am very happy they are here, the men will be helping us with our project and it will be very welcome. We have volunteers now but they are hipsters and cannot drive a tractor, use a chainsaw, etc. They also wear very tight pants and the girls from the village tell them that if they want to wear pantyhose then usually the skirt should be added on top, which sensitive souls as they are, they don't take very well. These guys though are a real deal, it is clear that we are going to make some serious progress with their help.

And oh man, Georgians can sing. Their youngsters are loud and it is laughter and singing all around. We have this going on here now and I am told it will go on for at least a couple of hours non-stop. This song is popular with them.