Under Rugs Swept: Unseen World of Prostitution

Dear friends,
please check out my PIK blog this week!
here is the intro:
"Here I am, writing from the land of freedom, liberty and acceptance—and not in Tbilisi, of course. Just to be clear, it is not USA either. I am seating in the student dorm in Hague, Netherlands, attempting to finish this post while I’m still lucid. It’s December 25th, we have turned on the Christmas music, bought a miniature tree and hang mistletoe I ripped off a mistletoe bush somewhere by the peace palace in downtown Hague.
Being in Hague is interesting, as this country is implementing many practices that I preach in theory. Netherlands and Georgia are located on different planets in terms of how they approach many subjects, and I’ve been involved in one of them lately. December 17th was the day to end violence against sex workers and several events took place that day."
for more, see http://pik.tv/en/experts/story/26837-under-the-rugs-swept-unseen-world-of-prostitution/

Merry 2 Christmases and 2 New Years to You!

So,
it's the time when Georgians celebrate two Christmases-regular and Christian Orthodox- and two New Years--again, secular and religious.
Long story short, Russian empire used a different calender century ago, then it switched to the one everyone else is using, but our Orthodox Church still follows the old one (of course it does. how can it modernize?). Let me note that out of all the Eastern Orthodox Churches we and Russians are the only one who are playing this game. Talk about the influences...oh those damn Russians :-)
But, it gives us occasion two celebrate everything twice, so what the hell, it's all good.
It is customary among bloggers to summarize their year in the post, around this time.
I don't know how that's interesting, but some bored-to-death people wander in to read my scattered thoughts, so I will bore them even more by presenting Cliffsnotes of my blog (Cliffsnotes is summary of famous books in form of pamphlets for those too lazy to read the whole book).
This year I:
-Got a job and stopped feeling useless
-Realized how useless I was at my job
-Did not get pregnant (angry face)
-Had new windows and doors installed
-Met several interesting TLG aliens through the blog
-Went to Thailand
-Went to Turkey
-Went to Budapest
-Bragged about travelling :-)
-Bought only three pairs of shoes
-Acquired THE NOOK (an E-reader)
-Participated in some street walks
-Cut my hair very short, twice
-Saw Enrique live
-Criticized everything that moves
-Lost my religion
-Met tonns of new people
-Gained few pounds that all went straight to my...let's skip this part
-Spend last year soaked in the rain in Georgian fucking Barcelona (Batumi)

Thanx for being with me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wish you happy Christmases and happy New Years!! As for me, I will be spending these Holidays somewhere more exiting than Batumi...
P.S. Me and hubby in our Christmas PJ's and Christmas hats by our Christmas tree feeling Chistmasy :-) pic taken by my friend.
P.P.S. We are very cheesy. We own special Christmas PJ's :-)

A Lot of Awarness

It seems like all of the awarness days were shoved into Decemeber--you know, before the year is over. This week we rememebered AIDS victims and honored people with disabilities.
For AIDS awarness day an NGO LGBT Georgia organised an event that I joined at the last part. I brought some intertnational flare to the event--cool American and Scottish boys (plus an Indian guy joined us and asked what country did the rainbow flag represent).
NGO representatives raised the rainbow flag with black ribbon, arranged red candles in form of a ribbon and lit red Chinese lanterns. There was music and lots of frozen faces.
My friend and I were supposed to give away condomns and fliers,and we were joined by my girlfriends and the foreign aid (the above-mentioned boys). I was suprised by how energetically my girls forced people to actually take condomns. We even went to bars on Perovi street and gave those out.
Here are my observations:
1. Boys laugh but take the rubber
2. Some cooler boys are actually happy about it
3. Girls either refuse to take it, or are confused--think it is a gum, etc.
4. Couples absolutely refuse to take a condomn--hence admitting they have sex
5. Street kids are really fun and supportive
6. People will freeze but still raise flags, light candles and pursue passerbys to ensure safe sex in the country
7. When asked politely, police takes condomns from pretty girls

December 3d is disability awarness day. Unfortunately, I did not do anything on this day, though it is my field of work. Instead, I administerred SAT's at 7 A.M., cleaned the house and went to a birthday party in the evening. I did attend a boring conference on the subject the day before.
The conference had NGOs, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education representatives and lasted for dreadful 3 hours. Here are my observations:
1. High-ranking officials from Ministries react painfully to any critisizm
2. NGO's and other people in the field are never heard, so they do not let go of microphone and try to voice all of the concerns accumulated since last Decemeber.
3. High-ranking officials from Ministries act like High-ranking officials from Ministries
4. No one in the room--neither side--realizes that reseach should precede action (high officials randomely agreed to implement some of the proposed ideas, based on momentary decisions)
5. Nothing will ever change in this country until we teach kids in schools basic problem-solving skills. Otherwise, they will grow up into ambitious ignorant pricks
6. High-ranking officials congratulated us with the date several times. It sounded something like: "and again, we wish you a happy disability day", like it was a holiday

In that manner, my dear friends, happy AIDS and disability awarness days to you, may we all use condomns while having sex with strangers, may we read the info fliers and defend our rights at the conferences, may our shirts get full of different-colored ribbons and our minds--of ever-expanding awarness and may the next year this time we have 3 times more AIDS awarness activists (that would be 180) and 3 times less bitter participants at the conferences (no number, sorry). Merry December awarness days to you, friends!
P.S. After comments on the last post, I have to clarify that last passage was written with sarcasm and I don't really mean to congratulate people.
P.P.S. the pics: AIDS and disability awarness ribbons.