I have spent the last six summers in Marelisi. It is a small mountain village in the Lesser Caucasus. This mountain strip divides Georgia into two parts, the west and the east. Marelisi is one of several foothill villages on the western side that belong to the sleepy settlement of Kharagauli. Lost among the hills, nondescript. The next larger town is called Zestaponi. A former Soviet industrial town for iron production.
Most of the people who stayed there, mostly old people, still live very traditionally and simply, have cows, horses, oxcarts, sell cheese, calves, honey. They live only from what they grow themselves. In recent years, many families have left the village to seek their fortune or work in the big cities. Many have gone abroad, to Poland, Greece, Italy. Those who have remained in Georgia return for a moment in the summer to their abandoned houses. The liveliness populates the forest and the fields. The animals rejoice. An illusion of the normality to which they were once accustomed covers the sky.
