Racha, Part 2: We're Going to Need Another Turkish Toilet

Proprietor's mother and Tengo, our marshrutka driver

About 5:50 p.m., we arrived at the guesthouse in Oni, whereupon Mariami informed us that dinner would be ready at 6:00, and we must be there promptly.

Just prior to our arrival, we passed an old farmhouse that Stalin may or may not have slept in.

The guesthouse is large. The dining room is out on the enclosed front porch (unheated). There are three bedrooms on the main floor, a central living room, and a kitchen in the rear. The kitchen is small, but it is both literally and figuratively the "hearth" of the home, as this is where the wood-burning stove is. After dinner, we all crowded in there along with family members, which seemed to include Shorena and her husband (the proprietors), the husband's mother (presumably), a couple of children in late adolescence or early adulthood, and maybe a neighbor or sibling.   


Upstairs are two wide and long corridors, walled on one side by windows; three bedrooms, and a central living room - a parlor, really. A pair of twin metal beds in each bedroom, pushed together in traditional Georgian style. Duvets atop each. Each room was cold.

In the corridors were tidy rectangles of drying corn still on the cob. 

There was one Turkish toilet to meet the needs of some 15 guests. It is outside in a neat building at the other end of a muddy, slippery path between the house and same. I discovered later there is an older outhouse on the opposite side of the house, presumably for family members.

After dinner, as I said, we crowded into the kitchen for warmth. But eventually, we had to make our ways to bed. After some scrounging around, we found blankets to supplement the duvets. I wore my hat to bed. Sandy, in the bed next to mine, wore not only her hat, but her jacket to bed
 
We laughed so hard before we fell asleep as we recounted to each other the differences between our trip expectations and the cold, cloudy, cold, wet, cold realities!
 



Next: Racha, Part 3: Resorts, Cousin's House, and the Best-Designed Turkish Toilet in Georgia