Peace

  I am sitting in the office, alone, my co-workers gone to lunch.  I bring my own lunch, cause I am pretending to eat healthy, overall, this pretense works for most of the week, but then the weekend comes and ruins my diet with chips and bread and parties. Behold, next weekend I plan to make a pumpkin pie from scratch!
I don't mind sitting alone. This is, in fact, my only chance of privacy. Hubby has been spending all day at home lately and I can't come to work earlier than everybody else, as I often did in the Ministry. So this is my alone hour, spent mostly on writing this post.
  I feel surprisingly calm, peaceful, content with my life. Last week, I realized that I haven't been counting days of the week--Monday, five days left, Tuesday, four days left, Friday have to endure one day, Sunday need to stay up as late as possible to prolong the freedom. I come home and read, I am not tired for reading, I've read three books in last month and half, gave-up on many reality TV shows, cleaned my house...
  It's been almost two months I've been at this NGO. I still work in the field of inclusive education, however, instead of dealing with papers, I am dealing with kids. I evaluate their skills, write recommendations for care-givers and teachers, train people, I am getting my hands dirty. I travel all around Georgia and there is no better pastime for me than sitting in the car and looking out of the window at unknown places. I get bored easily. Tbilisi is small and boring. I'd rather spend a weekend with no decent bathroom but great hiking sites, than in my apartment in this dusty city.
  My co-workers are my fellow students from my M.A. program, others I met here, but we share the same attitude and interests so we get along fine.I hope. I mean, I get along fine with them, who knows what they're thinking of me :-)
 I just need to keep developing, take online classes or do an internship, otherwise I might get too comfortable. Just have to keep in mind why I left the Ministry, for becoming a better specialist in some field. Right now, I am not doing that.
Anyway, we might loose our house and car, if hubby doesn't get job soon, but somehow, I believe everything will work out. We can always sell our bodies :-)
 Also, this year,we went to Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Armenia, Netherlands and USA. Usually, in November I am restless and ready to escape, to run away from this country. This time though, I am actually happy to be here and to spend these holidays at home.I don't have to leave the country to leave in peace. My cell phone does not ring every five seconds anymore.
p.s. Pic taken in Kakheti during one of training, peaceful surroundings

Gremis Temi:Life in a Community

   It’s been a month since I’ve started new job and I like going back to fieldwork. Presently, we are in a Gremi community, training teachers, caregivers, cooks, gardeners and bunch of German volunteers about inclusive education.  It is quiet and peaceful in Gremi, we saw the historic places earlier and now we are sitting in our room, without comfort we are used to, but that’s OK, we are warm, we are not hungry and we are inspired.

   Gremi community, known as Gremis Temi is the only place in Georgia where people with disabilities live as functional members of the society, opposed to sitting in class where they are barely tolerated or being hidden away from the neighbors.  Here, everybody works according to own abilities and is involved in the communal well-being. I have never seen people with disabilities live such a full life in Georgia, life full of work, fun, happiness and disappointment, achievement and quarrel, taking care of self and others. People meet people here, people are people here. It is so unusual to find a functioning Georgian community of any kind, let alone one with many challenges: physical, emotional, behavioral, mental, fiscal…

    Gremi community is fully sustainable. Temi inhabitants grow, cook and eat their own produce. They bake their own delicious bread and prepare own lobio infused with fresh herbs from their own garden. They harvest grapes and sell Temi wine—after all, Gremi is in Kakheti, the wine-producing region. They have a carpentry shop where they build window, railings, tables and other necessary items. They harness the sun energy via solar batteries. They receive small portion of governmental aid and local and international donations.

    The place is so very cool that I can’t describe how cool it is. Eighty people sharing the same home, a home and not an institution. Eighty people!

     The community quietly sits in picturesque valley, surrounded by mountains, Gremi monastery seen from the dormitory widows, Nekresi just a hike away. Nature is breathtaking and I will be definitely taking some foreign guests to show off the views.

     From now on, we will always use their everyday life as example of involvement and inclusion.

Of course week spent in Gremi is not enough to full appreciate it or to notice downfalls, but it definitely made a lasting first impression.

    For five days we worked with the staff, who know a lot through experience, and six German volunteers, who came here to stay for a year and work along with the Temi, like everybody else, enjoying rare hot showers and sharing rooms with others, eating local food and learning Georgian, dedicated and unpretentious, simply nice, fun-loving, hard-working young individuals. Staff is pretty knowledgeable and what is even more important, is accepting and loving.

    Thanks Gremis Temi for your hospitality! I want to come back to you.

P.S. the pic taken form Gremi castle

Cancer

It’s a post-apocalyptic world. We walk up the hill, pass the huge abandoned hospital building, pass the pine trees, cell phone reception is down. “Where could she be?” we wonder, as we try to keep our feet intact—pavement has holes in it, like Misha never happened to this country. Pack of dogs jump out of the pines and I almost expect one of them to have a human limb in its mouth…

After wandering up and down in the dark, lighting our way with cell phones, we reach the hospice. Hubby’s grandmother got moved here today. This is the place where terminally ill cancer patients are placed.

We walk into the building and after-atomic-exposure scenes continue. Sheets, blankets and pillowcases dry on a long railing by the ramp. An A4 paper is scotched to the door with a sign: “Close the Door”. Well, at least there is a door. Last time I felt so depressed, I was walking through an abandoned hotel that became home for refugees from Abkhazia…

The room is divided into six parts via thin curtain. While we sit by hubby’s grandma, I can hear patient on the other side of the curtain coughing and choking. So this is what they see, hear and smell the last moments of their life.

There is one window in the whole room and luckily our patient is placed by it. I keep looking out and thinking, “what if I jump? Can I just jump?” I look down. The parquet floor is scraped and covered in stains. Few minutes later, I catch myself rocking back and forth. As neuropsychologist, I recognize that I start stimulating my vestibular system in order to calm down. It sucks when you can diagnose your own symptoms. You start analyzing everything.

I walk out and see patient records in the hallway, stacked on each other. The whole place screams chaos. They have been moved here from the larger building, what happens now? Do they move somewhere else? Is the large building renovated for cancer patients or is it sold for good?

Ironically, all the ugly Soviet vases that used to “decorate” hospitals are crowded in one corner, by an empty rolling bed. It’s a ghastly sight.

Egoistically, I am thankful that my grandmother is in the states and gets one of the best cancer treatments in the world.

We return home and FB lets me know that my friend’s wife, a girl my age, mother of four (the youngest is just three months old), has a breast cancer. I don’t know what it is lately, but news about people having cancer is everywhere.

So, now I am going to do what I haven’t done for two years of blogging. I am going to ask for money. This girl is going to loose part of her body tomorrow. The family has raised enough money for the surgery, but she still has to go through expensive treatment. Here is a bank account set up for donations:

  თიბისი ბანკის ქ/ქართლის რეგ. ფილიალი TBCBGE22  ანგარიში: GE71TB7080245063600038

 მიმღები: ნინო ვარდიაშვილი

დანიშნულება: მკერდის სიმსივნის სამკურნალო ხარჯები.

საკონტაქტო მობ.: 599 989 545

TBC Bank Kvemo Kartli branch. TBCBGE22 Account: GE71TB7080245063600038

Receiver: Nino Vardiashvili

Purpose: breast cancer treatment expenses

Contact number:  599 989 545

Thank you!

P.S. the pic: creepy vases at the hospice.

sick

dear readers,
I think I have flu, so sorry, but I just can't make myself write anything this week. I do have an interesting story about Gudiashvili square...so see you soon.
Thanx for still reading my scribble.
p.s. bundled in scarf and drinking lots of fluids (actually, this is a pic of Belgian chocolate I drank in Bruges, but it conveys the meaning well).

I Love Georgian Service

Yesterday I spent five hours learning about old Tbilisi on a wonderful walking tour, I will elaborate on it next time--I really liked it. This scribble is about a post-tour cafe experience.
Five hours of walking. Starving, we walk into a cafe in Abanotubani, a touristy street. It is empty. A girl form the other room walks out and asks us what would we like to order, thought we haven't even seen the menu yet. My friends leave to wash their hands and I can't understand, what am I supposed to do, sit at my table and wait or walk to the waitress who stands by the bar. I catch her attention and walk to her. I order everything except water. At this point another waitress tells me, in a sour voice, to sit down and she will come take my order there. I am like, but I am almost done, can I finish my order? No, I have to sit down. After some time, the girls yell FROM THE BAR what would we drink. Now, did it matter where I told them about my water, sitting or standing up, if they never came to our table?
Scene two. A hungry man walks into the cafe to take food with him. He looks at the menu, orders chebureki, then looks at the bar and notices a way longer menu displayed there, and re-orders pirogi which is not that different from chebureki--both are dough containing meat or potatoes and fried. The mean waitress goes in the kitchen, we can all here cook saying that pirogi will take 30 minutes (chebureki was promised in 10 minutes). Waitress comes out and informs the man that he will have to wait slightly more time, around 20 minutes. He asks, 20 or 30? She answers 20-30. The man is understandably freaked out and orders cheburekis again--reassured they will be ready in ten minutes. Meanwhile, he orders a beer.
Scene three. Big gorilla-like security guys with earphones and all the security gadgets  walk in. They look so scary. They stand in the middle of the cafe and look around. I feel extremely uncomfortable and want to disappear. They are trying to figure out what to do with themselves. They are like extras in a play, a background for main action.A comic relief of muscles and faces with lost expression.
Scene four. at the same time,10 minutes pass and the man does not receive his order or his beer (seriously, it was just us and him in the cafe before the muscle attack,  just give him damn beer). He reminds her several times and then...he explodes.
The man: I want to retreat my order, return my money.
The mean waitress: you can't, you already placed an order.
The man: I do not want your cheburekis anymore. Give me my money back.
The mean waitress: YOU CANNOT AND I WILL NOT GIVE YOUR MONEY BACK!
The man: YOU ARE RUDE AND I DO NOT WANT TO BUY YOUR PRODUCT!
The mean waitress: YOU ARE EVEN RUDER AND YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO TALK TO PEOPLE.
The man: LET ME TALK TO YOUR MANAGER  !
The mean waitress: FINE!
The standing gorilla security: Ummm....we are lost. What is going on?
My hubby: pasumonok, close your mouth.
The mean waitress return with a cook from the kitchen, in apron and hands covered in flour.
The cook: What's the problem?
The man: Firstly, she did not greet me right, I came in and she was eating in another room. Secondly, she confused me about timing of food and what food was available, thirdly, she is rude (I swear he really did tell her this in orderly manner).    
The cook (calmly): I have already began cooking your food, it will be out in two minutes.
The mean waitress: YOU ARE RUDE! YOU ARE RUDE!
The man: Is there a man in this establishment?!
Me: This is sexist. He implies that he can't make these women understand his situation.
Hubby: No, the man is so desperate, he wants to swear at someone and he can't swear at women.
Me: Got it.
The mean waitress keeps screaming. I want to leave, but I realize that we've already placed our order and if we cancel now we will get beaten and trampled over by the screaming harpies of Georgian food industry. Plus, the lost-looking gorilla security still stand in the middle of cafe acting like lost-looking gorilla security. I am afraid to get up and stand by them.
Scene four. The climatic scene.
Cook returns to her kitchen.
The mean waitress keeps insulting her costumer. Finally she yells: Here is your 10 Lari and 30 Tetri!-- and throws the money on bar counter, with change falling to the ground.
The man: YOU ARE LOCATED IN THE CENTER OF TBILISI AND YOUR SERVICE SUCKS!
The mean waitress: YOU SUCK AS A HUMAN BEING!
Everybody else: what?!
The mean waitress: Go, leave the place right now, or your face will get ugly (implication of beating up his face).
Everybody else: WHAT?!  
The man leaves furious. I just blink and drink my water, afraid to move.
Security man: Can we order? And I would like to give you an advice: you cannot talk like that to the costumers.
The mean waitress: But you saw how rude he was!
Other girl comes out and brings security people drinks but no glasses. The mean waitress disappears into a kitchen. New costumers come in. We get our cheburekis--delicious!--we finish our cheburekis, we ask for the bill, we pay the bill, new costumers walk up to the bar counter and demand to place order. Security guys receive their food and their glasses. We leave. The curtain.

The Georgian Chronichles

Dear friends,
please visit my second blog this week. I wrote a little summary of recent events.
Also, sorry for lack of pictures. I need to go out in the city and take some new pics.
Here's the beginning:
"End of summer—Tbilisi looks like an archeological site. Due to long-term memory problems of voting population, roads, bridges, buildings are being erected right before the elections, to remember our caring government.  During the Shevardnadze era, road lines got painted only before the elections. Oh, and the stadium in our yard got a face lift too. Happy simple times.

With just enough bridges, people will forget everything that took place in the last four years...

Mid September—videos of prisoners being tortured are released. We loose it.   Demonstrations all over the place. We no longer are able to lie to ourselves, facades have crumbled, and we finally realize what we’ve known all along—we’ve been using humans as means to achieve perceived peace and stability. Everyone is outraged, angry, blaming the government, but really we’re just feeling guilty. Scales tip to anti-Nationalist side dramatically. Ideas, parties, promises, even particular people one votes for is of a lesser importance. The emotion of guilt and embracement dictates “either with us or against us” war mentality. You’re either anti-Natsi or Nazi.  Never mind who is on the other side."

For the rest, please click here http://pik.tv/en/blogs/barabadze/49096-the-georgian-chronicleshttp://pik.tv/en/blogs/barabadze/49096-the-georgian-chronicles

Election Fever

No, I did not watch the torture videos. I was in the middle of the Hunger Games books and watching prisoners tortured seemed a bit immoral. They have a right for privacy, the incident did not occur for our entertainment. How quickly we turned it into something about us like, we're sick of living in this country; politicians lied to us; ministers should leave their posts; we should get rid of these torturer government through elections; we deserve better. WE.WE.WE. The video served it purpose,stirred some emotions in US, served some political purposes and it is over now. Has anyone considered that those prisoners maybe did not want to become part of the reality show? Do we even know that they are real people or are they just characters on TV? When we were appalled and storming the streets were we sorry for them or for us?
I went to elections feeling dizzy. Till the last moment, I had no idea what I was going to do. Just like eight years ago, I was disgusted by the ruling party but hated the alternative. Then, last time, I crossed out everyone but we still ended up with a party and a president I could not stand. Well, majority voted in their favor, so I couldn't complain. Now, I am having a deja vu. I am hearing the same slogans, the same sentiments, only this time from other party. Once again, I will have to endure government elected by the majority, government I don't support. But really what is the alternative? Staying on the same old dysfunctional course with the same dysfunctional leaders?  
You know, all those people that actually support someone, one way or the other, they believe in something, they're happy. I look around and I am desperate, I am heartbroken and I am helpless. I want to believe in someone, but I can't. I can't,  I can't support a party that employs discarded members of the ruling party, people who deserve no trust, who have done so much wrong in the past. But most of all, I can't support what I don't know. I have no idea what their party platform is. Never did they bother to actually explain what their agenda is, what will they accomplish and how.  All I hear is nationalistic bullshit. Just like I heard it eight years ago from the ruling party. There is no unifying idea. If we gather a focus group of random voters and ask them to express a concept of Georgian Dream in two sentences, we would get different responses. What is it really? Cause I keep hearing different sentiments put on the same scale of importance. Important issued lumped with bogus ones. The same ad promising territorial unity--very important, increased pensions--very important, restored national dignity--what the hell does that even mean, giving farming land back to Georgians--bogus issue and end to gay parades--bogus issue. How will they end something that does not exist? Is that how they are planning to increase pensions too? What is it that they want, besides replacing existing monsters?
On the other hand, I am happy that the party I had to endure  for so long, that the man I never elected is not the sole ruler of the universe anymore.  Here's for trampling over human rights, here's for destroying our media,  here's for giving us false hopes, here's for monopolizing our businesses. please leave us alone. I have just witnessed how bunch of men in from black jeeps beat the crap out of the dream supporters and took their cameras away. In the middle of the day. Right by my house.
It's wrong, it's all wrong, you get there, you look at the ballot and all you  see are clowns.
I am forced to choose sides but for me, it's all catch 22. So yesterday, I made a very odd choice. And for all the conspiracy theorist out there the pen worked. Ink did not disappear--I scribbled something on a piece of paper,took it home and voila, it's still there.That was easy to test.
But really is disappearing ink our biggest problem?

This is how I feel

“You have a morbid aversion to dying. You probably resent the fact that you're at war and might get your head blown off any second."

"I more than resent it, sir. I'm absolutely incensed."

"You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don't like ... bullies, snobs, or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate."

"Consciously, sir, consciously," Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously."

"You're antagonistic to the idea of being robbed, exploited, degraded, humiliated, or deceived. Misery depresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you. Corruption depresses you. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if you're a manic-depressive!"

"Yes, sir. Perhaps I am."

"Don't try to deny it."

"I'm not denying it, sir," said Yossarian, pleased with the miraculous rapport that finally existed between them. "I agree with all you've said.”

Catch 22