Is Climate change a MUTH?

For the first day of climate change week in Tbilisi, we were asked by my friend to march from Philarmonia to Parliament. She said that lots of people are coming and that we would stop the cars and make a statement. That everyone will see us marching and realize how polluted our air is. That Georgians will start recycling, stop using so much plastic bags, will start riding bikes and throw away their cigarettes. O.K. she did not say that but all of these statements have one thing in common—they are utopic!

We arrived at ten in the morning, sleepy and complaining. We expected a crowd—nobody showed up. Apparently, there is a new trend amongst Georgian people: promising to come and leaving you waiting in vain.

We were supposed to rally with the kids on bikes. They passed by, without stopping. So, we courageously started marching in the middle of the street, with cars honking at us angrily. Some environmentalists gave us booklets made of cut-down trees. Last time they gave us water in plastic bottles.

We carried a poster, stating: “Travel Smarter, Live Better”. It was confusing to the spectators and they probably thought that this was a demonstration of marshrutka drivers.

I noticed that many of the environmentalist girls rallied in high heels. It is beyond me how people can’t understand what counts as an appropriate attire for such occasions. It is a freakin environmentalist march! We are walking! And holding flags! And drinking water out of the plastic bottles! And giving out paper booklets! Put on some bio-degradable fabrics dammit!

Some important foreign guy walked along with us. Had something to do with integrating us in NATO or EU. In your dreams, Tbilisi!

Our dear mayor was waiting at the parliament. He said several sweet words about how important environment is and rode a bike afterwards. I missed that part because husband and I got tired of his talk and sprinted to the café Entree, where we sipped our coffees and ate our croissants, and lied to ourselves that we’re in a civilized city where people consume these things for breakfast. The lie was unsuccessful though, as the table was wobbly and we ended up spilling hot coffee on ourselves.

I do care about the environment. I love cute little animals and enjoy camping. I can’t do much, but I do what I can: I have a grocery bag that I use instead of plastic bags, I re-use my water bottle, I don’t litter. I will raise my kid the same way, making sure she does not throw garbage all over the place and does not abuse our cat Gaia. That’s all I can do in Tbilisi. I feel really sad for people who can contribute more, but end up rallying with no purpose. Like my friend, who wants to be an environmental lawyer, though such word combination does not exist in Georgia.

P.S. I opened the booklet. It said: “Climate change…it is not a muth, it is reality”. Sadly, it is.

Learning Abroad=Monster Georgian

Just recently church has spread the info that studying abroad is a bad thing to do. The reasons are plenty, for example " a 16-19 year-old young person is very sensitive towards the his/her environment, he/she is still unprepared. This is why it is dangerous to live abroad. There have been cases of psychological diseases" and " God has created you in Georgia and this is why you should live in Georgia"1.

I am not even going to refute this arguments, they are self- refutable in their essence. That was just the example of the logic why should Georgians stay where they are and never evolve professionally, psychologically, or culturally. I would like to address more tangible issue: one does not need to leave the country to study well. While I believe that this statement is partially true and that indeed, our country has many specialists that have never left their homes, this claim is not valid for the most of the students.

I have studied in two universities, Georgian and American. Both had flaws, but in the Georgian university, I felt more and more powerless with every semester. From inability to control what subjects I need to pass to get a diploma ( I had a B.A. from a university in America. Why the hell did I need to pass a test in English language in Georgia?!) to everyday classroom situations. For example, classes often started late. Or, we couldn't choose our classes. Or we did not have any textbooks in Georgian. So yes, I wanted to learn, and yes, I did all I could, and yes, I had great teachers, and but to this day I keep wondering, how much more would I have gotten out of it. Thus, when people try to feed me bullshit about how good our universities are, I just want to yell at them. Hello! Wake up! Isn't this all around us the result of our education?! Do we like what we see?! No?! Then why should we stay and keep repeating the same mistakes?! OR ARE WE JUST AFRAID TO GET EDUCATED, OPEN-MINDED AND CRITICALLY THINKING YOUTH? Is that it?! Then cut the crap about "cases of psychological diseases" and admit that we want a theocratic society! That would make us what, honest? At least, in that case, the likes of me will shut up and run far, far away from this country.

1. Tsitskishvili, D. Father. "Two Thoughts". Liberali. October 11-17th, 2010. pg. 8.

Fall Blues

I took my winter clothing out today. It is the beginning of that horrid time of the year, when you know what’s coming, and you know it ain’t pretty.

It’s officially here. The fall. The yellow leaves and last bits of sunshine. I never found it romantic, melancholic or whatever. Everyday you know that tomorrow is going to be colder, until it gets so cold that you need five blankets to stay warm at night. You turn on electric and gas devices. Your “Karma”, your “pechi” and your “radiatori” have as many people sticking to them, as moths to light bulbs in a summerhouse. You feel more comfortable outside, because you can wear a coat and you either move around or are heated up by the collective breathing of squeezed together marshrutka riders. You hang out your laundry only to discover that instead of drying up, the water has turned into ice-crystals; so you thaw your sweater by the radiator; and you put a “tazik” underneath, to save your floor. People constantly tell you that you got fat BECAUSE YOU ARE WEARING 5 LAYERS OF CLOTHING UNDERNEATH IT ALL! You hate it all and you want the sun back. That’s what’s coming. This is the preview of winter.

I took out my winter clothing today. It all looks grey and big. It’s 6 P.M. and dark as hell. My kitty lays curled up. Brown (yellow?) Tbilisi leaves get stomped into the mud by chilled pedestrians. The birds are flying away and taking summer with them. I’m cold, alone and jobless. Too bad I can’t play a guitar.

Give Us Our Daily Bread or Kali Kuxnashi

There are many pleasures in life and eating is one of them. Simply put, there are two approaches to eating, you either eat because you have to, or because you want to.

I was never the one who wanted to eat. When I was little, my mother had to remind me and even force me to eat. This attitude changed 2.5 years ago. I got married and my husband and I had to produce our own food. Otherwise we would starve.

The very first dinner that I cooked was fried chicken. I did not even know where to buy it (my friends told me that frozen chickens are sold in practically any store and I was very surprised, as I have never paid attention to any fridges but the ice-cream ones), I did not know how to defrost it (my microwave had a defrost button and I pushed it) or how to fry it (basically, if the fire does not consume it, it turns out edible). But I fried it anyway and my husband ate it. And he did not die.

Giga was very supportive, ate everything--whether he like it or not--and complimented my every meal. Soon, he got involved in cooking and we started coming up with dishes or re-creating hard-core, need-to-cook-for-two days kind of French-Chinese-Russian-Georgian-Italian dishes. All of the food in the pics were cooked by us ( except sushi pic, though I have made sushi too). And when we start missing food that we can't get here--we just cook it. Speaking of...when was the last time you had chocolate chip cookies? Maybe I will bake them when I am finished with this post.

Knowledge empowers. Even culinary knowledge.

P.S. the dishes are as follows: BEEF AND BEEN TACOS; SUSHI; TOMATO THAT I GREW ON MY BALCONY; CHICKEN SMOTHERED IN HERBS AND MAYONNAISE AND CORN BAKED IN CHICKEN JUICE; JULIA CHILD'S BEEF BOURGUIGNON ( TOOK ME A DAY AND HALF TO COOK).

Race, Gender and Sexuality--Who AM I?!

When people write that there was not enough time for discussion and in fact, we had more than an hour for it, this means that the discussion was good. Indeed, this time was not enough for the FLEX Alumni to express their opinion on race, gender and homophobia issues in Georgian reality during the two-day seminar that took place in New Art Café.

We watched three films and talked about three respective issues. I choose films that are not too artsy but not too Hollywood either. All three films have very high rating on IMDB, though some were better than others.

The event was held at the New Art Café because 1. It was moderately priced 2. It did not look like a classroom. Originally I wanted to rent a small screening room in one of the movie theaters, but their prices are just unreal, and their customer service…well, you get the idea.

My favorite discussion was about racism/ ethnocentrism. Alumni touched deep issues, knowledge of the official language was brought up, immigration seemed a problem to some and nationality and national identity were examined. One of the alumni asked why do we even need a sense of nationality, which definitely charged the air with controversy.

Gender discussion was not what I expected. None of the themes of the film were touched, though one of the guest speakers just recently worked with UN on a study about violence towards women in Georgia and she could have talked about how relevant the film was to Georgian reality. In the end, girls felt frustrated, boys felt outnumbered, and we concluded that pregnant women should move away to the village and stay there for 9 months J

And finally, we did not discuss, but asked guest speaker about homophobia, which was very informative, but not too controversial. I am still wondering what happened to the voice of the audience, since the last two discussions were so heated.

The goal of the seminar was to let the audience see that there are many opinions on the matter and make them question their beliefs. I hope that at least some of the alumni (and the guest speakers and organizers) will research these topics more to come to a solid conclusion. After all, critical thinking means re-examining the established truths and arriving at one of your own!

Homo: Phobia and Sexuality or How Do We React When Two Men Kiss?

This weekend I organised (with help of a team) seminar called Critical Thinking in Social Problems in Georgia. First of all, I am generally very pleased with seminar overall. The only thing I would change—replace “The Color Purple” with something more dynamic.

The last film is my favorite and the last issue—most controversial, so I will start discussing it first.

I was surprised that we did not have any discussion. Rather, it was a Q and A session with Paata Sabelashvili. And though I am very grateful for his informative, and I would say comfortably reassuring presentation, I expected more debates. What happened?

Was it that the audience did not know much about the matter and genuinely preferred to listen? Was it that the Alumni thought it would be rude to directly oppose homosexuality, when we had a gay guest speaker? Or were we all simply tired after two days of talking?

In the end, I think that “they are born that way” argument is bullshit. If I were anti-gay, I would say, so what, some people are born with a thyroid gland dysfunction, that does not mean it shouldn’t be cured!

I believe that this argument tries to validate homosexuality and that is wrong. It is like saying, well how is it their fault if they are born that way? This case automatically tries to find a cause that justifies wrongness.

I believe that we are born with an inherit free will. I believe that we have right to love, be in a relationship, marry and have sex with whoever—unless it hurts the other person. I don’t care what the cause is, because I do not consider that homosexuality needs explanation. How would you feel if a black person tried to justify her skin color by saying that she was born that way and there is nothing she can do about it?

When I was in college in the States, some of the kids on my campus wore shirts that said “Gay? Fine with me”. I thought that was atrocious! Can you imagine shirts that say “Woman? Fine with me” or “Black? Fine with me?”?! I think justification of any kind is humiliating and that human sexuality, whatever it is, should be taken as a fact. And yes—big surprise!--men do kiss men, and after you get used to it, you might even find it sexy.

Russia As I Saw It--Posolok Gorodskogo tipa

How Soviet is Post-Soviet?

My trip to Russia was fun overall and I certainly don't have enough time to write about it now--my tea is getting cold and I have a seminar to conduct in two days--but I wanted to share this picture of the local school located in a little town/village, or, as I was told in a " Posolok gorodskogo tipa".