December 26 2010
It is the day after Christmas and my geraniums are still blooming in the pots on our front porch. What ever happened to winter here? We continue to have warm sunny days in the mid 50’s and cold nights in the low 30’s. We have had two days of rain in about 12 weeks.





Alexi & Gigi



Last weekend we were invited to go to the wine region called Kakheti east of TBS with Sophie and Gigi who used to work with Ron at the ministry and now works for a small city outside of TBS as a Deputy Mayor. We were later joined by Alexi, the finance director from Telavi, another small town and by Tina and Dato, the former finance director for the City of Tbilisi, and lastly by Paata, the interim finance director for TBS. Our first stop was about two hours out of TBS where we visited Akhali (New) Shuamta, a 16th century church and monastery for nuns. The church had beautiful frescos that were being restored. As I have mentioned before, the Soviets in their infinite wisdom and fear of religion, white washed all frescoes in the Georgian churches during their regime here.

From here we stopped briefly in Telavi to view a 900 year old tree that appears to be on its last leg. Onward to see Gremi, a citadel that stands on a small hill about 19 km outside of Telavi. We visited a very small museum, church and palace. From 1466-1672 Gremi was the capital of Kakheti. The church of the Archangels was built in 1565. The ground floor of the palace contained a small museum of local archeological items. We climbed very steep stairs in the tower. At times I had to put my hands on the next step in order to pull myself up. My quads felt it the next day. It was a fascinating place to still be standing and in as good a shape as it was. Restoration continues here. They hope to have the wine press working in the next six months. This is a large stone vat requiring pressing with your feet and then draining the grape juice into subterranean vats, the traditional method of Georgian wine making. By now all our group had joined up and we headed for our last tour stop, the Nekresi Monastery with churches from the 4th and 16th centuries. This was a large complex with several buildings and churches, one with murals. We had to park at the bottom of the hill and take a minibus to the top where the structures were. This was a very steep and narrow road. We had a grand view of the valley below including the foundation of a ruined pagan temple.

Afterwards we drove back to Telavi where we were Alexi’s guest in his home for supra. We arrived around 4:30 and ate until 8:30 when Ron and I had to get back to TBS for a Skype call with Sonia, Ron’s mom. It was a pleasure to be invited into someone’s home. Alexi’s house had a large dining/living room on the first floor as well as a den and kitchen and half bath. Upstairs were three bedrooms and a full bath. The balcony off Alexi’s bedroom had a panoramic view of the Upper Caucasus Mountains. I am not sure I would get anything done if I had that view on a daily basis. It was spectacular.

One member of the party who joined us at the house played his guitar and sang Georgian songs. A fire in the fireplace was used to cook the barbeque or shish kabobs. I lost count after 24 different dishes. I will try to recall some of them now but it has been a week. We had fish, beef meat balls in a rich red sauce, fried chicken, chicken salad, pork shish kabob, mushrooms sautéed, mushroom caps baked with cheese, cottage cheese bread, plain bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, eggplant with walnut paste, chicken with walnut sauce, spinach with walnut paste, three kinds of cheeses, fresh fruit platter, three or four kinds of dessert pastries/cakes. Wine, more wine, more wine…fruit juice and carbonated mineral water. I have obviously forgotten some of the dishes but this is what you eat at every supra. The menu is identical whether you eat at a restaurant or at someone’s home.

My life has been hectic for the past two weeks. I volunteer at Tbilisi State University and we have been planning a reception with high profile government and business people to announce the alumni office. Georgians do not plan so imagine hand delivering invitations two days before the event. There is no viable postal service here. In addition, Georgians require coddling so you MUST call to remind them to come and assure that they are coming. As I said it was hectic. The good news is the event was Thursday and it worked well in spite of some ups and downs. And I do hope my life will not be so hectic. My contract ends Dec 31st but I offered to help when we return from our R&R in mid January. We leave Dec 31st for Thailand and Sri Lanka. We are so excited. We will be seeing friends in Colombo and staying at a friend’s house all but the first night. We plan to take an empty suitcase to do some serious shopping there. We never shop here as things are more expensive than the US but Sri Lanka is heaven for shopping. We have a favorite store that sells beautiful men’s shirts that are hand woven, hand dyed. So very colorful in the tropical rainbow. They also sell placemats, tablecloths, women’s clothes and jewelry. There is no shortage of things to spend our money on! We have arranged to meet friends for dinner two nights while there and will see more during the day. I want to go to Shilpa children’s Home where I volunteered when we lived there. After Colombo we fly to Bangkok and go to Phetchaburi where we have the use of a house of our friend Nattawan. Phetchaburi is a small town and a much slower pace than Bangkok. We can walk to the end of our street to an internet café that is usually filled with kids playing violent video games and a few who play non violent games. Fortunately the owner makes them use headphones as the noise was intolerable before: sounds of rapid gunfire, grenades, tanks etc. Oy! If their mothers only knew!