Happy Birthday, Beka!

With balancing-act skills that you might see in the Chinese State Circus, all I am missing is the leotard and the stack of dinner plates on my head as I’ve got two breadbox-sized gift bags on one arm, a volleyball net and poles in the other, the volleyball in another gift bag slung over my shoulder like a school backpack, a birthday cake decorated with meringues and greetings written in icing in the fancy Georgian script, my coat pockets stuffed with chocolates, my camera and a bottle of the local spumante for the first toast and an umbrella in my hand as I head out to catch the bus, jumping puddles and wading through overflowing street gutters from a rain that hasn’t stopped in two days.  I am covered in mud to my knees by the time I get to the platform to meet Lela at Didubé Station but still upright and with all the bags, boxes, gifts—and the cake—in their places.

It’s Beka’s birthday—the second one we are spending together now—and we have come to celebrate not only a new year but also a new life.  He is standing by the gate waiting for us, wearing the pullover, Levis and a pair of bright white sneakers from other gift bags and previous visits, as his two grandmothers join him on the yard to make for a perfect welcome of three happy faces in a row. Eighteen months after the hearing aids were put on his ears and the dials adjusted to find their best places as we watched anxiously as years of silence transformed instantly into sounds, the young man who once could not raise his eyes to meet ours is now talking, engaging, interacting, joking, interrupting with the best of us, participating and, simply, living as he chides his two-year old niece for her chattering and tells her to be quiet when others are speaking as he smiles the smile, when she disagrees with his advice, that should have been on his face all the time.  Lela leans over and whispers in my ear what I have been thinking myself:  “The change is amazing…”

“To the people who brought us all together!”(clink-clink) Barely inside, the party has started.  Beka’s father, leading the table in keeping with Georgian custom and making sure all the wine glasses are filled, raises a special toast for everyone who has helped to make Beka’s new life.  Indeed, it has been the collective efforts of a group of different people in different countries whose interconnections and shared commitment to helping others has produced the results we have now. “To our new friends!  To those who have taken our pain as their own.”(clink-clink) The tone becomes solemn and reflective but quickly reverts to the original joy as it was when we arrived as we raise glasses to Lamara, Liza, Marisha, Paula, Lela, Mônica—and even my mother (clink-clink) who sent a birthday gift defying the odds that Georgia Post would actually be able to make a delivery in a country without even one mailbox—for the synergy of response and output.  “We will never forget.  We will always know why this happened.  Beka’s new life is because of you.”           

The hearing aids, purchased from Solar Ear in Brazil through the intervention of its co-founder, Howard Weinstein, mark the first introduction of the solar-powered technology in Georgia, in particular, and the former Soviet Union, in general, and underline the utility and practically ready-to-wear effectiveness of the devices in a country which still lacks the ability—or interest, perhaps better said—to provide affordable healthcare and treatment options for its citizens.  A look around the neighbourhood shows similar situations in Russia, Ukraine and the other republics of the old Soyuz where people still prefer to hide the community’s lesser-than-perfect under the bed—yes, these are my words and I am prepared to back them up—rather than doing something to help promote socially integrated happy and productive lives.  If we look at those with some form of deafness, unofficial conservative estimates put the hearing-impaired population in Georgia at six percent which means that a significant chunk of a country of four million people are facing an auditory handicap, in varying degrees, requiring intervention. For Beka, whose parents were without the financial means to help their son and with state assistance offering a one-time-only standard-issue hearing aid the size of a soup bowl—pink but probably meant to be flesh-coloured, worn over top like an earmuff and which buzzed and hissed and squealed and needed a fresh battery everyday—it might have been better to go under the bed than walking around like this.

I am looking at Beka from my seat in the corner.  He’s the tolumbashi, or assistant toastmaster as is the tradition, to his father’s role as tamada or head-of-the-table.  He is paying close attention to making sure all of his guests are looked after with wine glasses promptly filled after the toast has been made and the plates changed to provide clean palettes for the new dishes that keep coming from the kitchen.  I watch as he is having two conversations at the same time.  At his side, his father is telling him to fetch wine, bring another jug and pass Lela the juice as he replies, rapid-fire, that the wine is on the table, the jug is on the floor beside him and Lela prefers lemonade.  Across the table, over a plate of khachapuri cheese bread, fried chicken pieces and a crystal bowl filled with apples, pears and red grapes from the garden outside, he and Lela are discussing mobile telephone internet connections and tariffs, something about megabytes and downloads and setting him up an e-mail account.  I plan to interject with a third when the next toast is passed to me.

“Happy Birthday, Beka!  Happiness, health, luck, love, peace and all best wishes to you!” 

I begin with the same words you hear in every Georgian toast at every Georgian birthday party in every Georgian dining room but quickly, and deliberately, veer off course as I look back at these last eighteen-or-so months and talk about our first meeting, the medical check-ups at the clinic by the train station, the day the hearing aids arrived in the FedEx box from São Paulo, the fittings in Dr Kevanishvili’s office, the sounds and words he heard after so long and, now, the friendship that is fixed for all of us.  I echo the first toast of the day to the group of people—old friends and now new friends and with some of them here at the table—whose roles have been paramount to this success.  I end just in time with the final clink-clink as Lela points to her watch and reminds us that we need to leave for Gori now or we will miss the last bus home.  Outside on the yard and saying good-byes, the thoughtful finish to my birthday toast turns to gurgles of laughter from everyone as I slip and fall in the mud.  It’s been raining in the village, too.  My balancing skills from earlier in the day are gone.  I’m glad they lasted this long.

*   *   *   *

It’s Sunday morning.  I’ve been out for a run and I see there is a text message on my telephone when I get back.  It’s from Beka.  “Thank you for the visit yesterday,” he writes.  “Thank you for the gifts.  We’re already playing volleyball.  We’ll play the next time you visit, too.  Thank you for everything.”