Gas Money

This could be the most frustrating and confusing culture on the planet. A small small example of one of those days here…

Today, we woke up and considered visiting G’s relatives in Rustavi, a big city about ½ hour away. G has an SUV here that we’ve been driving but it only has temporary plates and they expire today. Rustavi is the city where we need to pick up the permanent plates. Not really a problem but for the fact that Gocha needs to be with us because the car is in his name. Enter complication. Gocha is busy today. G asked Gocha and he might have too much to do, so he can’t commit to anything social in the evening, but he’ll take the car to get the plates. A visit to the relatives was hence far too complicated, lest we take two cars and waste money on gas.

Sooooo, G took the car to Gocha, where he was working on another car. Then Gocha took G to their other car (a Montero) that was already at the car mart waiting to be sold, but we would take it for the evening in case we needed a car while Gocha was in Rustavi. G and I decided to go for a walk while we waited for Gocha. We did make use of the Montero in that we put some veggies in the back that we purchased at the beginning of our walk, so as not to go all the way up to our apartment to put them away. We proceeded on our walk, went to a little restaurant in Vera and ate salad and pizza. During our meal, Gocha called to say that he was in Rustavi, but forgot the paperwork, so he’d have to come back the next day (Saturday) and we’d have to risk driving without plates until then. So G and I walked home and G then needed to take the Montero back to the car mart lest the perfect buyer come along and it’s not there.

Then G made a few more phone calls to Gocha to find out when to take the Montero back to the car mart at the right time for Gocha to pick him up and drive him home again, again so that they could save on gas money (a recurring theme here for some reason). I suggested that a cab ride home from the car mart might be cheaper than the amount of time, money and energy it was taking to make all of these phone calls and organize schedules enough to make all of the necessary things happen.

At around 7:00 p.m. I started writing, as the one small task that needed to be done today had not yet been accomplished and it seemed to be all in the name of gas money. What had been accomplished, however, was that one car had driving approximately 1 hour out of the way and the other has driven approximately ½ hour out of the way, neither of which accomplished anything (except holding my veggies), and all to save on gas money!

To top it off, G then came home earlier than expected after leaving to take the Montero to the car mart (I eventually convinced him a cab ride home might be better than waiting for Gocha) only to announce that he couldn’t make it to the car mart because the protestors were blocking the streets and he couldn’t get anywhere. Ah - Georgia!