Monday, November 11, 2008
Finally we got to go to the Tbilisi Opera.

Aida.

Our host sister, Mako, celebrated her 20th birthday on November 12 which was a bitter sweet occasion for us. We are very fond of her and did not want her to know that we felt at all sad. We took her and her mother to see Aida at the Tbilisi opera: the chorus was really splendid, Amneris was quite good, Aida was passable and Radames was dreadful. He also wore a very bad toupe. I think that the last time we saw a Radames who wasn’t shorter than both Amneris and Aida, didn’t have spindly legs and didn’t sound like a chain-saw was when we last saw Domingo.

Both Mako and her mother seemed to enjoy it as did we. There is under floor heating at the opera and it was delightful to be bathed in warmth and listen to good music. The performance was well attended but the audience did not behave well and chatted happily throughout the opera. Bob handled this pretty well all things considered – after all it wasn’t Wagner, but when one woman started humming along (out of tune) and tapping her feet, he almost lost it. However, Georgia must have made him more tolerant, or perhaps he does not expect them to behave well – they don’t do silence very well at all. Anyway, how can you lose when it’s only fifteen bucks for the best seats?


Tuesday, November 12, 2008
Mako’s celebrated her birthday with a party at a Georgian restaurant (i.e. one that serves Georgian food) in Tbilisi. She invited a few of her friends and Gill, Marina and Bob joined the party.



Saturday, November 15, 2008
Another day with the IDPs.

Discussing the afternoon’s activities.

We took the boys to practice football in preparation for next week’s game against the IDPs in Khashuri. We shall be fielding two teams: the big boys and the small boys. So, we lines them up is size order and made the left half the big boys team and the right half the small boys teams.


Then we had to rush to get Mia’s birthday party in Tbilisi. It was good to see some of the RPCVs again – especially Bob’s second wife. She is returning to the US on Christmas day, so soon we shall not be able to see her until we return to the US. In fact, after Christmas, there will only be about four of us left.

Gill dances with Mako.

Small Brian, #2 wife and Mako.

Mia blows out the candles.

Tuesday, November 17, 2008
We met with met with PCSSO, Beth Ritterpustch, and Regional Director, Jay Catzen so that they could ask us about safety in Georgia. We gave them an encouraging report - let's hope they take our advice.