Financail Responsibility

June 23, 2010

Okay I now have my favorite Georgian word which I learned in class this week. I don’t think I will ever be able to pronounce it however. As I have mentioned Georgians don’t think much of vowels and here’s the proof! Give it a try. The word is prdghvnis. It means plucking. And yes there really is only ONE vowel in that nine letter word. Fortunately I won’t have much call to be using that word so it will be okay if I never learn to pronounce it.

Saturday I was downtown and came home on the subway. When I exited it was raining so hard I had to wait in the underpass to it to subside. I tried to go to the grocery store but couldn’t cross the street due to the water four inches deep that was coursing down the street halfway across the street. What a mess!

This has been a week of sad stories, tales of woe in Georgia. It actually started before we left for ATL when Maya told us her mother’s roof was leaking very badly and they had put pans and buckets around to catch the water but they had no money to replace or repair the roof. Her mom lives in a village about an hour out of TBS. Maya is our massage therapist who works part-time at the embassy making $2.06 an hour to clean there. I am still upset that the US government pays so poorly here. Then this Sunday she told us a story about a widow who left her 8 months old son with Maya’s sister while she went to the Ukraine in search of work because she has had no income since her husband died. Maya’s sister was happy as she is unemployed and too proud to do housework. The mother was to send money back from the Ukraine so it would be a source of income for Maya’s sister. Maya and her sister live together in an apartment here. Well it turns out there isn’t much work in the Ukraine either. The widow gets work two or three days a week and sometimes she isn’t paid as the person who hired her that day knows she is there without proper documents (illegal alien in the US). Oy! Then she finds out that she needs an operation or she will die. She can’t have surgery there because…she is an illegal alien. She doesn’t want to come back here because she is afraid she won’t be able to get back into the Ukraine (why bother?). So Maya told her to stop sending money here and to take care of herself. So Maya now supports herself, her mother, her sister, the widow’s baby and helps support her niece and nephew of her deceased sister since her brother in law can’t find regular work.

Lala, the seamstress who is making our bedspread came over to measure something and told me her roof is leaking and she doesn’t have the money to fix it. She lives on the top floor of an apartment building. At the time of the fall of the Soviet Union, apartments were given to the current occupants. But no provisions were made for maintenance on common spaces such as entrances, stairwells and roofs. So if the roof leaks and you are on the top floor, you have to fix it, not all the occupants of the building. Lala is 60, works for two Americans cleaning their houses and sews to earn extra money. She is putting her son through university so she has nothing extra. And we are in the rainy season here. We have torrential downpours almost daily. They are short lived but intense.

Jamal, the fellow who sells carpets via house calls was in a terrible auto accident and was hospitalized for 20 days. He was hit head on by a drunk pastor! Jamal’s car was totaled and Jamal was told when he told the priest from whom he expected to be helped financially said that he would be taking from the church. I’ll say no more! Except that they build churches here all the time so I don’t think the church is strapped for cash! Sorry I couldn’t hold it in any longer. So now Jamal came to see us via taxi. He lived out of Tbilisi quite a ways.

Not one of these people has any financial reserves. My guess is this is true for most Georgians.

June 28
Ron has been looking at Russian jeeps, old Russian jeeps like 1960 something. Being a project guy, he wants a vehicle that will carry a full sheet of plywood. How’s that for screening criteria? So Friday after language class and grocery shopping we headed out with Gia to a village high above Tbilisi about 30 miles from here. Oh my god, you wouldn’t believe how beautiful the drive was. In the distance were mountains; closer were green rolling hills, and millions upon millions of wildflowers: wild lupines, daisies, roses, some relative of delphinium, three yellow flowers I couldn’t identify, pinks, purples and on and on it went. The three of us kept commenting on the beauty around us. We passed a few small villages on the way. We arrived at the place were the jeep lived and discovered it would be a two year headache to restore. It was just too far gone. I was thankful that Ron decided that it was more work than he really was interested in. The search continues.

Saturday we went to the flea market and thought about a couple to things and I did buy a salt cellar as it had a spoon with it and the spoons are very rare to find.. We discovered a covered area we had not noticed before and it turned out to be the antique area. I spied a beautiful copper art nouveau coffee urn but it was $600. Then I saw this beautiful vase with metal work and it also was art nouveau. It had a $1200 price tag. Not surprisingly we didn’t buy either item.

Now for a happy ending story. Today our housekeeper’s husband got a job at the US Embassy as a security guard. He has been trying to get a job there for 10+ years. I helped him with his resume for four different positions. Zura wanted to quit trying but I said he had to keep trying and it paid off. We are so happy for the whole family as this will mean a stable income, something Zura hasn’t had in a long time. He has a master degree in Economics. He will make about $600 a month which is a good salary here. Nino was alternately crying for joy and giggling. She is so relieved as she has been the chief bread winner for the family and this is a paternalistic/machismo society and having your wife be the chief bread winner is demoralizing. So you can imagine how big a deal this is for them. They also will have health insurance which they don’t currently have.

I am helping our massage therapist with her resume as well. She has worked part-time as a janitor at the embassy for five years. In addition she offers massages through the health clinic but that is a direct pay job. Now there is a receptionist position available at the clinic and she wants the job very badly. Remember she is supporting many people and could really use a stable income. We have our fingers crossed for her.