Wednesday, November 19, 2008

We went to the ambassador's house for a reception. A lot of Peace Corps and ex-Peace Corps folks were invited, so it was good to see people again. Number 2 wife did not attend.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Another day with the IDPs.

Preparing for the day's activities.

Gill took the younger IDPs to a puppet show in the local theatre. Tiko, Dmitri and I took the older ones to Khashuri for the football match against the Khashuri IDPs.

Puppet show audience.

Puppet show audience.

We rented a bus for the Khashuri bash. They just would not sit still! In the end we just gave up.

Dmitri coaching!

The fan club!

One of the matches. We lost both matches:
one 11-1 and the other 4-2.

Team tea!

On the bus back to Borjomi.

Monday, November 24, 2008

We attended a children's concert in Borjomi. It was very "patriotic" with many references to Georgia and freedom and explicit refernces to Russia as the invader. It was very good and Borjomi clearly has a lot of talent. Actually, the preformers were mostly from #1 School, so the talent base was quite small.

Older children.

Younger children.

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.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The US Election - we missed it, but went to a celebratory party in Tbilisi!


Saturday, November 8, 2008
The first program day with the IDPs.

Preparing the snack-food for the program
participants - sandwiches and Khatchapuri.

We took the older children to the National Park. Generally they were moderately well-behaved. Dmitri, a park guide, took them along a short trail and described the flora and fauna we encountered.

Start of the trail.

On the trail.

Monday, November 10, 2008
We have our hair cut in the kitchen!

Saturday, November 1
Today we had the IDP registration. About sixty children and parents turned up. We explained what the program was about – what the grant money was to be used for, and took their names, addresses, phone numbers where they could be reached, school and age. We also asked what they needed most and we would try to help with that. The most popular items were warm clothes, school books, computers and toys! We may be able to help with some of these, but computers are not likely.

Listening to our description of the program - the last time they will all sit quietly.
Teko and Mako register the children.

Gill had bought a witch’s hat from Asda (aka Wallmart) when we were in the UK and I wore this and all black clothes to school. I suppose I looked like Harry Potter’s teacher. The people I passed in the streets either didn’t notice or were somewhat confused. Halloween is a new holiday in Georgia, recently imported from America and many adults are unfamiliar with it. However, the children have taken to it. There was a “party” at #6 school. Balloons and other decorations were put up. Pumpkins had been carved and they were placed in a circle in the hallway.
My hat was temporarily adopted by Keti, the school’s director, and some of the children had made costumes – mostly the girls.

We went to a place where many Abkazian IDPs have been housed. These were IDPs from 1992 – not the ones from 2008 who have either returned to their homes or have been housed in many new houses recently built by the government. The place where the 1992 IDPs were housed was an old soviet “sanitorium” in Likani, just outside Borjomi proper. Borjomi and its surroundings have a number of these. They were rather grand in their day, albeit made in the fifties and sixties of ugly concrete – the favorite soviet building material. Essentially, the “middle-class” would come to “take the waters” and generally have a relaxing time with good food, massages and all the things we associate with a health spa. They are grand no more. The windows are broken, the concrete is crumbling, there are holes in the roof and the place is astonishingly cold and depressing. The scenery is nice. These people have been under these conditions for seventeen years. No child there remembers Abkhazia; they were all born in Likani. The government hasn’t done much for them and doesn’t seem to care about them. The recently built houses are for the recent IDPs. We were shocked and very depressed.

We returned to Georgia after visiting the US and the UK (twice). While we were away, we tried to raise money for Georgia, but our efforts were not very encouraging. People in the US were thinking mostly of the upcoming election and people in both the US and the UK were worried (almost terrified) about the sinking market and the banking crisis. It was not an ideal time to try to separate people from some of the little money they had left!