A Christmas in Georgia but not a Georgian Christmas

December 26 2009

Since we didn’t have any Christmas decorations, we have included a photo of our ‘Georgian Christmas’. All of the items were given to us except the card. If you can’t see it the card has a world globe with peas on top of it, a wheel of Dutch cheese and two guys. Get it? Peas on earth, Gouda wheel two men! Okay enough Bergman humor.

Christmas Eve we joined the Culpeppers in their home along with twenty others for a festive evening with good food and drink. Each year they prepare a feast of seven fishes, an Italian tradition and what a feast it was. We had mussels in tomato sauce, stuffed sole over spinach, seafood salad and on and on it went. Patty is a fabulous cook and loves to entertain and last night was no exception. We came home late and fell into bed as we were leaving at 9:00 the next morning to go explore more of Georgia.

We left the house at 9:00 on Christmas Day with Gia and his wife Tiko whom we had never met. She speaks no English so there wasn’t a lot of exchange. But Gia was more talkative than he has ever been other than one day this week when he and I chatted while he showed me photos of a dog he had befriended and taken to his uncle’s farm, photos of his wife and children and various other family members. We did this in his car while waiting for Ron to get off work.

The day was cold, gray and foggy once we got out of Tbilisi. The drive to Signaghi was about two hours. There wasn’t a lot of color along the way. The Georgian word for ‘nothing’ is ara peri, meaning ‘without color’ literally. The villages are much poorer than the towns, much like rural America. The houses are made of stone, concrete or brick and concrete so mostly everything is gray, beige or orange from the bricks made here. Along the way we spied various items for sale by roadside vendors with each village having a particular item they specialized in. For example, one village had an abundance of squash and pumpkins so there were numerous vendors with small stands selling squash. Another village had live black turkeys for sale. Each vendor had about 10-`4 turkeys standing near the road. I’m not sure if you buy the bird live and bring it home running around the inside of your car or if they kill it on the spot for you. Another place had dressed meat hanging outside on hooks. It was probably pork. And lastly we spied an area specializing in cheese. Vineyards were everywhere.

Like Tbilisi, we saw someone who had planted a grapevine by their front door and ran the vine up to the second floor balcony and across the front of the house to the second balcony. See photo. The road we traveled once we were outside of Tbilisi was a two lane road in better shape than I had imagined. Traffic was light for the most part. While riding in the car, I got a text message from Maia, the woman who has given us each a massage. Remember Georgians celebrate Christmas Jan 7th. Maia’s text read “My darlings, Merry Christmas’. I loved it. How thoughtful. Later in the day when we were having dinner with neighbors, I received a phone call from the other Maia, the woman we have commissioned to create a large wall hanging. She also was wishing us a Merry Christmas. Well back to the trip.

We walked around town after warming up in a restaurant with tea and hachapuri, cheese bread. The bathrooms were unheated. Oy! And the restaurant wasn’t exactly warm. We kept our coats on. We went into a wonderful archeological museum and into one shop selling paintings, rugs and wine. Signaghi is a walled city built in the 1700’s with 23 towers. Recently the government has poured a ton of money into this town and has restored 90% of the façades on all the buildings, creating a charming city with cobblestone streets and pretty stores fronts and residences. More work was in evidence.

From here we drove to Gia’s village where his uncle lives with his family. It was a humble place, requiring a drive up a steep hill on a muddy road, no pavement, just dirt and rocks. Gia drives a small Honda SUV. We might call this farm humble at best. His uncle was probably younger than us but hard to tell since I think his life has been difficult. He never stopped smiling the entire time we were there. Gia had called from Signaghi which is about three or four miles away and told him we were coming and Gia wanted to have barbeque. When we arrived Gia took us around to the back of the house. His aunt was making bread outside in a wood fired oven where the dough is placed on the wall of the oven. The coals are in the bottom and the oven is slightly conical shaped. She baked close to twenty loaves of bread while we were there, forming each one carefully as we watched, putting a small amount of water on the ends of each loaf before bending over the oven,, and slapping the loaf against the wall and then patting it firmly with her hand to ensure it stuck to the wall until done.

Later his uncle cooked the pork Gia had bought in town. This was done over coals on the ground with skewers laid across some stone. Inside we warmed ourselves by a small wood stove which was in a bedroom with two single beds. A beautiful woman was peeling small red onions and looking over her two gorgeous daughters. When the food was ready, we scouted around for chairs. There were two wood folding chairs, one very tattered chair, and several plastic stools. We gathered around the table. The aunt stayed in the kitchen, one of the grandkids stayed in the room but there was no where to sit and she did not eat. Gia, Tiko, Gia’s uncle and his cousin and the two of us sat at the table. Gia’s cousin held her younger daughter on her lap. There was a dish of pickled cabbage, pickles, fried potatoes and a bowl of pork with raw red onions and pomegranate juice and a pile of freshly baked bread. No butter, a rarity in these parts.

Here we sat in the midst of this family that many might consider poor yet they had an abundance of spirit and were delighted that we joined them in this simple repast. This is the fasting season so anyone fasting did not eat the meat. The uncle made traditional toasts throughout the meal which Gia interpreted for us. I forgot mention homemade wine was served. The women did not drink it nor did Gia. He never drinks if he is going to drive. God bless him! We couldn’t stay long as we had a dinner party at 5:00 so we left at 3:00. The toilet was an outhouse with a hole in the floor. Before leaving we helped Gia load up four gallon plastic jugs with wine which he brought back to Tbilisi.

It is always an honor to be invited into someone’s house and to be invited to partake of a meal. It is humbling to see folks who seemingly have so little be so generous. But Ron and I talked about it at breakfast and both felt these people had riches far beyond any material wealth. Everyone there, adults and children, smiled the entire time we were there. No one seemed to be suffering.

We raced back home, changed clothes quickly and walked over to Laurie and Jock’s house to join others in a lovely evening of fine food and good conversation. After a wonderful meal we played a game, dictionary and were laughing the entire night. Ron and I rarely exchange gifts anymore as we have reached the age where we just don’t need anymore things. This year will give to charities here and at home. It was the loveliest of Christmases and we feel blessed many times over by our experiences here.

Friday Dec 19 2009

After our language class that ended at 2:30 we went shopping for a light fixture for hanging over the dining table. We tried a different shop and didn’t see anything we liked. Choices are limited here and of what is available many are butt ugly! So we went back to the shop we went to last Friday and discovered our light fixture was on sale plus we got to use the dip card so we got a 40% markdown between the two. We came home and hung out for awhile then went out to eat at a new restaurant we had heard about. We took a taxi to Vong, an Asian fusion restaurant. It was a very sophisticated décor, very subtle and understated. We were THRILLED to discover they had a no smoking section! A first here for us. We ordered a Thai chicken soup. I had salmon as my entrée and Ron had a balsamic steak with spinach sautéed with fresh ginger. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was every bit as good as anything we have had at the good restaurants in Portland. I was so excited to have such a fine meal, I suggested we split a dessert: fried bananas with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. YUM! Afterwards we walked around the neighborhood to see what was there and discovered several more restaurants that looked good (Mexican, French and Italian). Vong was very expensive for Georgia and about the same as a good restaurant in the US. But it was worth every penney! We will definitely return.

We finally got our tickets for our trip back to the US in March. It turns out we will not be able to go to the east coast to see our kids due to a travel restriction with the feds. Bummer. Treasury bought Ron’s ticket and we got online immediately for my ticket. My ticket cost $1500 and his costs almost twice as much. His has all the options to change and cancel with no penalty plus his cost more because it is handled by a travel agency that has a contract with the Feds. Lucky me is all I can say to get the ticket for $1500. I am going to Paris in January and my ticket cost $660. Paris is three hours away. When you compare that to what I am paying to go to the US it is an outrageous amount but guess what ? It is the cheapest ticket available and it will take me 15 hrs to get to Paris. If I took a shorter flight without the 8 hour layover in Minsk, the price jumps to $1200 and goes up to $2400 for the three hour flight.

Saturday

We had planned to go to the flea market. We spent the morning around the house. Ron is baking his wonderful rye/raisin/walnut bread for Christmas gifts. By the time he was finished, it had started raining so we built a fire and studied for our language class. The sun came out around 3:00 so we walked to the grocery store and then to the stationery store and came home a new way, discovering another good grocery store but because it isn’t a chain., we doubt that they would take the dip card which saves us 18% VAT (value added tax). It would be a good choice if we only need a few items. We watched a DVD of an Israeli film in the evening.

Sunday

Today we went on a three hour walking tour of Tbilisi. A woman named Marika lead the tour and lucky for us we were the only people on the tour. The weather was spectacular, sunny and almost warm. We started at Freedom Square and worked our way through old town, seeing the remnants of the original city wall. There was a statue along the way (there are statues all over Tbilisi) and there were two older women sitting next to the statue. We asked if we could take their photos and they agreed if we would send them a copy. We agreed to bring them a copy as we learned they are there every Sunday. They were delightful. One was resistant as she didn’t think she was dressed well enough.

We learned about the civil war in the early 1990’s which lasted two weeks in Tbilisi only. It started the last week of December and ended two weeks later so they say the war was in 1991-92. There was an opposition to the first president (Georgia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991) and the war was a result of the opposition wanting the president to resign. Apparently much of Tbilisi was damaged or destroyed in that two week period. The current Marriot was riddled with bullet holes at the time. This is when the Betsy Hotel came into being as there was no place for visiting dignitaries to stay in the downtown area. She owned a large house and offered to have people stay there. The current Betsy Hotel is in a different building and Betsy no longer owns it although she can be seen there frequently.

We visited the National Museum which is under renovation but there were two exhibitions. One was embroidered icons done by a man. There were exquisite. They take 3-7 months to make depending on the size. The colors were so vivid and the detail was incredible. I would love to own one but doubt that I could even approach affording one. We met the artist and asked our guide to tell him how much we enjoyed seeing his work. The other exhibit was archeological finds from Tbilisi. There were some wonderful pieces from the 3rd century B.C. We went to the oldest cathedral in Tbilisi, 6th century. During the Soviet era, all the frescos were plastered over and they turned this cathedral into a museum of atheism! What the hell would that look like? We are one strange species. We also went to a mosque and Marika said during the Soviet times they turned one of the mosques into living quarters and her relatives lived in one. She said, ‘Imagine having ceilings seven meters high’. We also passed two synagogues. She said there has never been a problem with the different religions here. I told her the rest of the world has much to learn about tolerance and perhaps Georgians could teach lessons. We ended up at the mineral baths. The Georgian word for warm is tbili which is where Tbilisi gets its name. The story of the discovery of Tbilisi is that the king was hunting and shot a pheasant and when he found the pheasant it had fallen into a warm spring and was fully cooked when the king arrived. Sounds like an urban myth to us.

After our tour, we grabbed a bite at Entrée, a French eatery along Rustavili Blvd.  There is a lot of street art along this road.. My feet were way tired and I needed to sit for a while. Well after a light bite, I thought we should indulge since we were in this wonderful bakery with all those yummy French pastries so we split a chocolate tart/cake like thing that was too good to be true. On the way home, we saw a good view of the Caucus Mountains covered with snow.  We took the subway back to home and I have been resting ever since. Ron is downstairs baking more bread for Christmas gifts. He will now have four in the freezer and have four more to go. Since Christmas isn’t until January 7th, I think he will make it.

Travel planning, friends and a massage

December 15 2009

We woke up to rain, wind and cold weather yesterday but soon the sun came out and the wind and cold became fiercer. Today by contrast was brilliantly sunny but still windy and cold. I was at the computer trying to find suitable flights for a trip within the US when we are there in March for a meeting Ron has in San Francisco with Treasury. We want to see Sonia, Ron’s mom in LA and our kids in VA. It will be brief as Ron has limitations as to how much personal leave time he can take when traveling to the US on business. So we will fly from San Francisco where the meeting is to LA then on to VA for two days in before flying back to the west coast to leave for Tbilisi. OY! Welcome to our world. The flight back will be between 20-25 hours depending on the route we are given.

This weekend we showed our friends, Laurie and Jock Conly, how to manage the subway. The four of us met at our house and walked to the nearest station about 10-12 minutes from here and went to downtown then walked up the steep hill to the Betsy Hotel where we stayed when we first arrived here. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast together and came back home. I love the breakfast there. It was a beautiful day for an outing.

We want to see another part of Georgia so we have planned a trip to the east of here to Signaghi. Signaghi is a walled city with 28 towers, located high on a ridge overlooking the Alazani Valley towards the Caucasus Mountains. The city was built in the late 1700’s and has been compared to an Italian hill town. We have seen so many beautiful photos of Georgia and are anxious to see everything we can in the time we have here. Because it is a small country, about the size of South Carolina, we feel that we will be able to see most everything by taking excursions during holiday and weekends. We will use Gia, our driver for this one on Christmas Day. We didn’t bring any decorations with us so we are not planning on observing Chanukah or Christmas in a traditional way. I find the holidays are the hardest time to be away from home. Gia will celebrate Christmas, January 7th, the traditional day in Georgia. He said the town is close to his village. Many Georgians talk about their village. It seems many still have connections to the rural areas where they have more family and/or land which they farm. I think I have mentioned most Georgians grow grapes for making homemade wine and chacha, a form of vodka. Right in town here you will see grapevines outside of a house that has no yard. Sometimes the owners have strung wire going across the street for more growing room. I have never seen anything like it. But wine is a big part of the Georgian identity. There is a huge billboard near us that reads ‘In vino veritas’ (in wine truth). Correct me if I am wrong as I last studied Latin in junior high! There are over 500 varieties of wine here and someone told us recently that Whole Foods now sells Georgian wines in the US. It is probably their biggest agriculture crop and one of their main exports.

Today after spending most of the day inside working at the computer or reading about places to visit in Georgia to plan our Christmas trip, I decided it was time to enjoy the sunshine so I wrapped up in my warm coat, got my ‘flashcards’, a small spiral notebook, and walked up the road behind our house. It climbs up a steep hill. I practiced my vocabulary aloud while trudging up the hill dodging crazy Georgian drivers. As a pedestrian you must be super vigilant with the drivers here.

Lala came by today to pick up the fabric to make our tablecloths. Lala is a petite woman and the seven meters of extra wide cloth is quite heavy so I insisted she take taxi to her house and I paid for it. I offered to call a taxi but she wanted to flag one down on the street to save money. I offered to go out with her and carry the load but she said she had been carrying heavy loads all her life. I bet more than any of us can imagine given the history of this country with Soviet era, independence and civil war. During the Soviet era she was a computer programmer. Now she cleans houses and sews for extra income. She is a widow with a 19 year old son in college. Having a job here is a real blessing. So many are out of work. I think I mentioned Zura, our gardener who had a good job with a bank until the new administration came in and turned everything upside down. All the police force was fired due to corruption and many others were let go. In Zura’s case he was told he was too old! He is now 37 and it happened four or five years ago. At the time he had a good income so they built a large home but never got to finish it because of his job loss. Now they have lived in the house for five years with NO HEAT! Nino, his wife and our housekeeper asked to shower here because it is so cold at her place. I said of course. I can’t imagine how many other stories there are like this here. Ron’s assistant Marika’s husband has a similar story. He was very high up in the government and his job was eliminated and he can’t find another job. The most recent stats show a 12.6% unemployment rate but my guess is it is worse since these stats predate the war with Russia 16 months ago which totally wrecked the economy. All foreign investment came to a screeching halt. Construction which was booming at the time stopped mid project. All over town you see half finished buildings. There is some construction going on but it is a fraction of what took place prior to the war. Many shops have closed and there are lots of empty storefronts here. There are also a significant number of street beggars of all ages but the elderly predominate. I read there is a form of social security here then I read it pays a paltry 49 GEL a month. That would be about $30 a month. No one can survive on that. Many widows beg. They are dressed in black. One particular widow stands on a corner that we pass by on the days we go to the Embassy. She steps off the curb when the cars stop for a red light and walks up to the window asking for money. Gia always cracks the window and slips her some change. We give Gia most of our change to use for parking fees and handouts. Many Georgians will give to the beggars. Tim said it was because of their religion.

Last night we took Marika and her husband Koba to a chamber music concert. It was in a beautiful Rococo hall and the concert was great: Beethoven, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. It had been a long time since we have been to a classical concert and it was quite enjoyable. It certainly is affordable here. Our tickets were $6 each. On Friday we saw the world premier of a play by Jonathan Levi called Fallen Bodies and although it took us a while to figure out what was going on, it was a great play. It had English subtitles. Next time I will read the synopsis before I go to the play! DUH!

Ron is getting a massage right now upstairs. Maia came here last week and I really liked having a massage at the house. If Ron likes her technique, I want to schedule her on a regular basis. She survives by cleaning house and giving massages. She is probably in her mid 30’s and not married. Nino knows her well and said Maia took care of her sister’s children when her sister died. Maia also gives massages at the Embassy several days a week. She charges very little, $15 which is almost half what the other person I tried charges. Her technique is just as good as the first person I tried. But frankly nothing compares to our special guy back home, Don O’Dell. Boy oh boy do we miss Don!

How Bazaar

December 6, 2009
Today is Sunday. Friday night Ron and I went to the Sheraton to help IWA oversee the set up for our bazaar. We came home around 10:00 p.m. On Saturday I left the house at 6:45 a.m. and went to the Sheraton to help vendors, and Embassies unload and direct them to their tables. All the Embassies in town participated. They sold items from their respective countries, including food items. There were probably close to 100 other vendors who sold everything under the sun that was craft related: lots of items made from felt which is huge here, prints of paintings, typical Georgian souvenirs, quilts (we almost bought one but realized it was too small for a queen bed), jewelry, enamel which is also huge here, hand made clothing, rugs, ceramics and the like. In addition, a number of Embassies held a food court so participants could sample foods from around the world. The sushi was gone is a flash! The only food vendor left after 4:00 was the Georgian vendor and she endured until the end at 6:00. Ron and I bought two prints from a painter and a beautiful huge panoramic photograph of Svaneti in the Caucasus region. I bought some orange marmalade from the British Embassy, a print from Bridie, an IWA member who paints beautiful watercolors. I got some hyacinth bulbs from the Dutch Design Garden table and I treated myself to an amber necklace.
Ron helped with counting the money along with several other men who had volunteered or had been volunteered by their wives. There were four shifts and Ron helped to two of them and stayed until the end around 9:30. I was on the collecting detail so Mikki and I went to each food vendor at 12, 2, 4 and 6 to collect their money. All the Embassy food vendors donated money to the IWA as well as the Embassies once they covered their expenses. The vendors simply paid for table space. We took in something like 67,000 lari. I think that is around $54,000. This money will be used to help various individuals in need here. As an example I think I already mentioned a three year old girl who needs a cochlear implant and two years of hearing and speech therapy. IWA will be helping to pay for her expenses. We got home, bleary eyed and very weary and heated some leftovers, eating dinner at 10:00p.m. before taking hot bath and falling into bed.

This morning we woke up and didn’t move for a while. Around 8:00 we got up and had breakfast then I went back to bed to finish my book and take a nap. Ron woke me up around noon and we had lunch with his freshly baked loaf of caraway rye. Yum. We took the subway to the bazaar where you can buy anything. It is a rabbit warren of a place, crowded little passageways with thousands of tiny stalls about two people wide and one and half deep. The clothes section has clothes hung high and items can be retrieved using a pole with a hook on the end. It is totally claustrophobic. Ninety percent of the clothes and shoes are…black. We decided to try some of the coffee here so bought a small amount and will grind it in the morning and see what we think. I am pretty sure I will not be able to find decaf here much less Swiss water process decaf. What a fantasy that is! We also bought some thread and we bought oats, hoping they are not quick cooking oats. We will know when I make the next batch of granola. Our last purchase was some small drinking glasses that we will use as traditional Georgian wine glasses. Things at the bazaar are cheaper than in the stores but some things I can’t find in the stores so the bazaar is the only alternative. There is also a lot of junk at the bazaar, low quality goods. Because of the crowded conditions and the low quality it is not a place where I would bother to shop on a regular basis. We were curious to explore it and today we felt contented to have meandered through and bought the items we had not been able to find anywhere else. On our way home from the subway we passed by a vegetable stand where we have shopped twice. After we passed by it the owner came outside and yelled ‘friend’, I turned and realized he was pointing to Ron so I told Ron to stop and turn around. He walked back a few steps to the shop and he was invited in to join the men in a round of drinks (homemade) wine. This is a perfect example of the Georgian hospitality. Ron drank a small glass and we were on our way. None of the Georgian spoke English which made the gesture all the more charming.

Friday Dec 11
Happy Chanukah!

I ground the coffee we bought at the bazaar and won’t bother again. Thank goodness for the internet! As for the oats, apparently we left them on the counter at the bazaar because we couldn’t find them once we got home.

I have started paying more attention to how Georgians drive. Elza, our language teacher said Georgian love their cars so much that the word for cars is considered an animate object as opposed to an inanimate object which determines verb usage. That in itself is an interesting fact. This week I observed two lanes of traffic heading in the same direction stopped at a red light. A driver went to the left of the car in the left lane so that he was actually over the mid road line and into the oncoming traffic lane. Since two lanes of traffic to his right were stopped for the light, he turned in front on them to the right!!!!!! I have seen that happen several times since then. Near our house is a complicated intersection and I am always mystified as to how it is supposed to be negotiated. On Sunday when we were trying to cross the street with the light in our favor I discovered that cars that want to turn left against opposing traffic would get in the lane next to the driver in the left lane creating a lane that doesn’t exist and turn left against a red light since the opposing traffic is stopped. I hope that makes sense. What is means is that as a pedestrian even with the light in our favor, we can get killed by a ‘creative’ driver. Gia told us the story of an American who had lived here for several years and drove his own car. You apparently have to drive like a Georgian to survive here. The American has over $800 in traffic tickets from when he last went home and drove in America. That should give you an idea of how Georgians totally disregard the rules of the road as we know them.

I had two forays with Lala into looking for fabric for tablecloths. We ultimately found something quite suitable very near our house after spending five hours searching. It is a high end store that caters to upper income folks and carries expensive bedding, curtains, bath towels and the like. We were delighted to end the search and happy with the find. Lala had done some looking on her own and had spied the fabric earlier in the week.

Yesterday when I was out running errands with Gia I noticed the hills around town are dusted with snow. So far none has fallen in the valley where Tbilisi is located. We took in 13 enlarged photos to be framed this week. These are photos that Ron had taken when we visited the botanical gardens earlier in November. The house is big and most of the walls are bare. The quote for 15 pieces (we had two prints to be framed also) was 179 lari which is $107. We couldn’t believe it and we were told they would be ready by 2:00 the next day. Well you get what you pay for. The mats are a little thinner than ours, I think. The frames although they look like wood are plastic and the backing is primitive with string that is stapled to the frame. But they serve the purpose of filling our walls with beautiful photos so I am not complaining.

sick, sicker, better, and a relapse

Nov 29 2009


Tomorrow is our 24th anniversary! How did that happen? Just the other day we were kids, sort of…it was a busy week. Monday was a Georgian holiday. We had lunch with our neighbors, Joakim and Ireni who live quite close by. Yoakim works for USAID and he is from CA. His wife is Georgian. Laurie and Jock Conly were also there. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had a Georgian feast with many delicious dishes.

On Thursday we had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at the Culpeppers. There were 20 of us present and I can remember six Americans and I think the rest were from Great Britain who thought it was a great tradition to have a day of thanks. Patty’s dinner was delightful as always.

We only had one language lesson as the two holidays were on our language days. On Friday we had our traditional Friday night date: dinner and a movie. We walked to our neighborhood Italian place. We had eaten there once before and after our second meal decided it wasn’t that great. We then took the subway to town and saw Inglorious Bastards. I asked to come home in a taxi as I discovered on Friday after a visit to the medical clinic at the Embassy that I had bronchitis. I got some heavy duty drugs and will return on Monday to see how I am doing. We want to avoid pneumonia at all costs. Saturday I had no energy so I stayed in bed the entire day. Ron made the meals and did the clean up. You can see why I am still married after 24 years with a man like that! I am not sure if it was the codeine cough syrup or just fatigue but I slept a lot in between reading my book. The contractor came and hung our new wooden blinds and they really dress up the place. They were very efficient and were done within a couple of hours. I was supposed to staff a concession to earn money for IWA on Saturday night but had to cancel when I realized there was no way I could go out and stand up for an hour. Ron had an invitation to a Georgian dance performance which he said was incredible with about 50 dancers at times on stage. He said the crowd was like rock fans: yelling, whistling and applauding during the performance.

Today I felt much better so after lunch we headed out for carpet shopping. It was our third day in a row of sunshine and I have to admit I LOVE sun in the fall and winter. We took a taxi to Old Town where we had visited a particular shop before during a lecture/tour a few weeks ago. We managed to buy four carpets: two small ones for each side of our beds, one for the bedroom and one for the living room. We were quite pleased with our finds and the price.

From here we walked to the main town square and took a taxi to La Maison Bleue Studio, a decorative textile shop with wall hangings, scarves, etc. We found a wall hanging we liked which has a quote from a famous Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli in The Panther's Skin: "Kindness triumphs over cruelty always.  The person without intimacy is his own enemy". We will hang it over the mantel. From here we came home and rested and studied our Georgian. I do not feel prepared for tomorrow but that’s the way it goes some days.

Monday November 30
We managed to get through our language class with no great disaster. The physician’s assistant said my lungs were better and continue to take it easy and that I that need any more antibiotics as I was on the mend. Yeah!

I came home to help Nino order some clothes online then headed over to Patty’s where a group of IWA women were working on Saturday’s big bazaar. We worked the rest of the day and I left when it was time to pick up Ron after work. We came home for an hour or so and then headed out to celebrate 24 years of marital bliss. We tried a new restaurant and it was in Old Town. We dined at 24 Rue Chardin and had a great meal. We came home and stayed up too late working on our computers.

Tuesday
Today Lala came over and we took a taxi to a part of town where there are fabric stores. The traffic was very bad so we got out of the taxi and started walking. We stopped in several shops and found one that had linen for the tablecloths she will make for us. However they only had a very dark almost black color so we decided to look at the bazaar which was close by. We discovered why the traffic was backed up when we saw a pedestrian lying in the street who had been killed by a reckless driver. This place is worse than Sri Lanka when it comes to a disregard for pedestrians. As I mentioned earlier in a blog, the color of the traffic light means nothing, pedestrian walkways means nothing. You take your life into your hands when you cross a street here. The body was covered and there were many policemen around to direct traffic.

We proceeded to the bazaar and visited several vendors. Shopping here is a trail as each place we visited did not have enough material, the right color or the right weight of material for our needs. Once again I am reminded of the abundance we enjoy in the US. Not so in developing countries. None of the fabric is wide enough for a tablecloth so Lala will piece it so it will have a nice drape over the edge of the table. Tomorrow she will call to see if this one vendor can get the quantity of material we liked and I will go back on the subway to buy it. Lala lives an hour out of town and tomorrow is her day to stay home and sew. I am supposed to go to a Christmas party for IWA but am not sure I will be able to as Gia is tied up with Ron’s meetings and the party is some distance out of town. Most of the shops were without electricity today and we haven’t even had bad weather yet. I saw several small generators outside of some others shops. I can hardly imagine what it will be like once we get storms or snow.

Today I was trying to finish up an online order for Nino when I discovered I have no phone service and of course no internet so I called the Embassy who in turn calls the phone company who in turn calls here and speaks Georgian as I dumbly mumble that I only speak English. But the phones are now working so I hope I get internet soon. I never remember having this much trouble with phones and internet as we have here. I looked and found I had 13 emails in my outbox. Oy! Surely I will learn patience here.

I didn’t sleep well last night so I am coughing more today than yesterday. I get pretty impatient with myself and want to be well yesterday! It is a busy week because of what needs to get done for the bazaar. IWA sponsors the bazaar and all the Embassies participate. They sell items and give IWA all the proceeds after they take out expenses. IWA also has a raffle, a used book sale and a white elephant sale. Because we did not sell all the holiday decorations and crafts at the open house we will also sell those at the bazaar. Most of the money comes from table sales and proceeds from the embassies. Apparently many artisans participate and over 1000 people attend this event. All the money raised by IWA goes to community needs, often to individuals who fall through the cracks of social service agencies. This year we will help a three year old girl get a cochlear implant and the follow up therapy she will need to learn to hear and speak. Before I arrived IWA helped two people get prosthesis.