August 28th: Final preparations have been done today. We had a sort of ceremony to mark the end of our Peace Corps service. We are no longer PCVs, but RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) – except that we have not actually returned. The G8s went from PCTs to PVCs to RPCVs over the course of a couple of days!

Country Director Rick and his wife Dorothy

Tom and Erik

A group of G8s

In the evening we had a goodbye party. Besides the food, we awarded certificates and prizes to the PC staff. The Sargent Shriver award went to Mamuka, who drove many miles to bring PCVs from their sites to Bakuriani when the bombs were falling. He did deserve it, but really all the Georgian staff did too, because they had performed their allotted tasks when they were worried sick about their families.

Staff and their "certificates".

August 29rd: A small group, including Erik, left at 5:00 this morning! We, Gill, Brenden, Carissa, Amy, Ruth and I left at 10:15 and we were very touched as just about all the other PCVs came and waved us off. It was a very emotional moment.

We were driven to Yerevan in Peace Corps cars. We checked in our guest house, got money, arranged flights, repaired to the Armenian/Syrian restaurant we went to last week and had a great meal!

August 30th: We were up at 5:00 this morning because we were told that the only marshutka to Akhaltsike left at 7:00, 8:15, 7:30 and 9:00 according to whom we enquired! and if we wanted to be sure to get a seat, we should get there an hour before departure. However, it left at 9:00 after much trouble with starting the engine. However, that was not the main reason for our late departure. We had simply been misinformed; the intended departure was 8:30. None of the departure times that we had been quoted was 8:30!


It was a reasonable trip to the border – the same crossing that we had come through three weeks earlier. This time we were only about half an hour at the crossing, but there followed the long, hot and very bumpy ride on the Georgian side to Akhaltsike. We arrived at about 2:00 local time, so the journey took about 6 ½ hours. (Georgia does not have a summer time, while Armenia does.)


We had left Carissa and Brenden at Akhatsike. We took the Khashuri marshutka and got off at Borjomi. Amy went on to Khashuri. Marina, Valeri and Chiko welcomed us back - the rest of the family being in Tbilisi.

August 31st: We have started contacting people to let them know we are back and explain what we are hoping to achieve. So far they all sounded very happy that we have returned and perhaps this is a moment when something significant might be achieved. Everyone is saying that these are “bad times”, but I think that they might be persuaded that it can also be a time of hope (and hard work).

It’s raining. Regardless, we have to go to the ATM to determine the state of affairs in our Georgian bank accounts. Let’s hope that the ATMs are working. We never managed to get the online access working, but since the Borjomi telephone lines are down, we would not have been able to access our account data anyway! I hope that the phone lines are working by the time we come back to Georgia in a month, otherwise life will be very tiresome.