Giorgi Rekhviashvili Literacy

Giorgi Rekhviashvili

ENG 11000-B 

02/18/15                             

Book never has an ending 

My  sponsor  of  literacy I would say  is  mr. Kostas, 85 years old man who was doing  anything and everything to help me  learn the  language.

It was 2008, middle of september, I had just come to the New York City,  weather was still nice and warm, everything for me seemed so different, different like I was visiting another planet. I used to leave with my aunt Tamar’s family in queens, and she was treating me like her own son. The first  gift I got from her was  a  2008 calendar which had a picture of statue of liberty on back. She  told  me  to  learn  at  least 10  new  words every day if I wanted to become a successful man and go to the college. The first words I learned were the  names  of  the  weekdays . I was so happy  to  say  my  first  words  in  English you  can not imagine! 

After a couple of  weeks living in USA,  my cousin  Nick  told  me  that  his friend’s parents were looking for someone to take  care  of  his  grandfather,  as  they  were  moving  to  California  because of  his father’s  new  job.  I’ll  do  it! without thinking I said “yes”!  My aunt told me “ you know its not  going to be easy right”?  She sat down and explained what exactly my responsibilities were:

Clean  the  apartment,  wash dishes, go food  shopping, make meals, do his laundry.

I  was so happy to have a  job opportunity,  everything seemed so easy by the time and I still agreed to start working for this man, but first I had to pass the interview. This family was from Greece, and I knew it would be really tough because I wasn't speaking either language. My aunt come with me on interview because of my language problem. While she was discussing the working hours with the son of the older man, I was watching the old man all the time and trying to discover his character. He was in his late 80’s, had white, white hair like it was bleached. He looked at me a couple of times and smile at me, like he was telling me with his eyes “little man don't worry, everything will be alright”

I got hired. I had only to watch him morning till late evening and then another lady would come to stay overnights with him.On my first day I woke up early at 7am. It was Monday and I went to my new job. I got there at 8:30 am and when I buzzed, a lady opened door for me and told me that Mr Kostas was sleeping and when he woke up,  just give him the breakfast she had made for him. I waited like another hour to hear from him, then he called me “hellooo where are you”?? I went inside his dark room and said, “good morning”. He looked at me and said, “I’m thirsty“. ( Like I mentioned before, I was really good at naming weekdays and when I heard familiar words, I got very excited)  I replied “Monday!”  Thinking this old man got confused, he had lost track of the days this week. He said again, “I'm thirsty thirsty !!!”  I said again, “Nooo, Monday, Monday Monday!!”. After fighting 5 minutes that it was Monday or that he was thirsty, finally he realized I had a language problem and he shoved me with his hand acting like he was drinking  water. 

After this Mr Kostas taught me so many other new words.

 one morning he called me to his bedroom, open his drawer on the side of his bed and got a red box from here. I was very curious about this red box. I took one step towards to him very slowly didn't want him to realize me moving towards him, he looked up and told me “come here this is for you” show me with his hand to go towards to him. I got confuse and asked  just in case to make sure “me?!” he said “yes, yes you!” I got there and he gave me a red box, gave me and told me “open it “  I got very shy for a moment but, I was so curious to see what was inside the box I pushed my self and opened it. Inside I  found children's book called "Goldilocks and The Three Bears”  very beautiful with lot of colorful illustrations on. Oh,  I was very excited, but then I remembered that I didn't know how to read in english.

well turned out that it wasn’t really a problem, because mr kostas and I read the book almost in 2 days. Yes, 2 days! For me this was a big thing. He's technique to teach how to read was just amazing. He told me to always read loud, it would help me to memorize the words easily as well. When we were reading and there was an unknown word, he would give me a couple of example how the word could be used in a different sentence. We read many other books together, day wouldn’t pass without reading a book or a news pepper, and time to time it become a mandatory.

“ A book is the only place in which you can example a fragile thoughts without breaking it “

This was he's favorite quote. 
He didn’t only teach me how to read, but he also taught me how to use my imagination. Since then every time I read a new book I have a different connection with them, I'm getting lost in there and don't come to the reality until the book ends, but as mr. Kostas would say “book never has an ending” which is true, the story always stays in my head and time to time I think of many ways of how book ending might  be continued. 

I really wanted to say that I'm such a lucky person to have had the chance to know him.

85 year old man who took me like he's own grandson, and who's amazing personality will always be remembered by me and my family.