From Where I Sit: Salome Kuchukhidze '14

By Salome Kuchukhidze '14
FEATURES CONTRIBUTOR

Salome Kuchukhidze is a Hamilton first-year from Tbilisi, Georgia.

I remember how I used to hold my mom’s hand as she was making her way through a crowd of people in the street market in Tbilisi, Georgia. From left and right, I could hear the farmers praise their products, trying to convince the potential customers that only they could offer the freshest and the most delicious foods among dozens of their colleagues. I distinctly remember the delicious juicy plums my mom and I would buy. All kinds of skeptic, rushing consumers would examine the apples, tomatoes, onions and every other food the farmers reaped on Georgian soil. Tossing and turning, smelling and tasting, complaining about prices and eventually moving on to the other eager seller. The farmers got furious and would cry their lungs out offering the product for half the price, but most of the time, all they could do was throw a jealous glance towards their lucky colleague who had managed to entice their lost customer. All this buzzing and fussing, yelling, complaining and elbowing around blended in a chaotic harmony and subsided somewhere in the depths of my memory.

This may be part of the reason why I cannot adjust to the precise arrangement of Walmart.  An ordinary, concrete, rectangular building looks like a huge, grey box full of random order. The hydraulic door makes a sound and opens up against me. Inside, the unexpected abundance of products strikes me. Columns of canned vegetables, peanut butter jars, packets of candy and microwaveable dinners are miraculously piled up against the wall. I stroll down aisle after aisle. I see the huge packs of M&M’s, shelves of Hershey, Allen’s naturally liquid powder, rows of Campbell’s soup cans and baskets of Dove soap bars all around me. Everything is squeezed into tiny packaging, compact, square or round shaped  items as if to save time and space– all stuck into each every possible open space. I look around and there it is- the fruit department.

As I push my cart forward slightly, I consider whether I should buy oranges or plums. I see a pile of oranges in aisle nine and a pile of plums at the opposite end of the aisle. I slow down a little bit to take some time and think. I do like oranges. I think they taste fine. I am aware that they are full of nutrients and vitamins so they are good for me. That means that in the long run, oranges are better for me. They’re also big, yellow and attractive; they would catch anyone’s eye.  On the other hand, I adore plums. I know it’s a little weird to love plums. Plums are just plums; they are tiny and black and can be really sour. They don’t even have a lot of vitamins in them.  Plums are just sitting there and people go past them without noticing. I’d be better off picking oranges. That’s what anyone would do. I slow down more and more as I move along the aisles. I can’t just stop and stare back and forth from one aisle to the next.  That would be awkward. I can’t stay in the store forever either so I finally decide that I will never give up my plums for shiny oranges and I put them carefully in my cart, just as I used to in Georgia.

From Where I Sit is a column dedicated to the international voices of Hamilton’s campus.  If you are an international student and are interested in contributing a column, contact Barbara Britt-Hysell (bbritthy@hamilton.edu)