Back in Batumi or rain on the Black Sea

November 10 2011

There are some odd things about Georgia. One of them is change. Most merchants start the day without a ‘bank’, meaning a cash drawer with various denominations of coins and bills. They expect the customer to pay the correct amount. Does that seem backwards to you? Today I ate lunch at one of the hotel’s three restaurants. This is one of the larger hotels in Batumi. There are four floors of rooms, totaling 145 rooms. I had soup, bread and water for lunch. The soup was four lari, a steal, the bread was free and the water was three lari, ridiculous since the soup required more labor, ingredients, etc. My total bill was 7.70 lari as service is added to the bill here. I gave the waitress a 20 lari note and the cashier left the room and went into another restaurant to make change. OY! BTW a lari is about sixty cents.

We arrived Monday and it snowed overnight. Since then is has been raining. I got out for a walk the second morning here when there was a break in the weather but now rain is predicted everyday we are here. Fortunately there is a brief break everyday and I am able to get out for a walk. Otherwise I would get a severe case of cabin fever and go postal! 

I drew a name from the Salvation Army Angel Tree in TBS. The name I drew was a 77 yr old woman who requested warm clothes or food for her Christmas gift. I tried for two days to find a wool shawl for her. Since I don’t know her size it didn’t make sense to buy a sweater. After discovering I couldn’t communicate my need to store employees I asked Marika with whom Ron works to write out in Georgian what I needed. Bingo. I found it in the third shop I tried. I then continued the search and got wool gloves and socks, a knit hat and scarf. Shopping in developing countries is an adventure. You don’t have the luxury of a department store. Most shops are the size of a large closet with one sales person. The shops are often unlit and sometimes unheated. The stock is quite limited. It is hit or miss in terms of what you will find inside of the shop. I probably spent a couple of hours buying these few items. My feet were very tired by the end of the day.  

Batumi is under construction. Parts of town have lovely sidewalks. I don’t need to watch where I am walking as the sidewalks are new and level with no missing pavement. Most of these are actually quite lovely, made of pavers in various patterns with cut stone, mosaics with smooth river stones, etc. There are curb stones and no concrete. The sidewalks are made of cut stones and arranged in a variety of pleasing patterns using two or more colors. The streets are often the same. In other parts of town the sidewalks don’t exist. They have been torn up in anticipation of replacement. These areas I have to watch every step. There are rocks, gravel, mud, large holes for sewer access…well you get the picture.

 

Jason and the Golden Fleece

Ron finished up his first week of classes in time for us to have a brief outing. We went to lunch together, our first since arriving on Monday. Then we went to the art museum a few blocks away. It was a small provincial museum. When we exited it was pouring rain so we came back to the hotel. Ron read his book and I read the NY Times on line. We ventured out again for dinner. Being tired of Georgian cuisine we walked over to the Sheraton, a large, new hotel near by because the rain persisted. We went up to the 20^th floor and we were the only diners there. The menu was limited but we decided on pasta and were pleased with the decision. Half way through our meal a party of four arrived and joked about not having reservations. Ron quipped ‘I think you will be seated with no problems’.  The only English channel we can get in Batumi is CNN news so our viewing is limited. We read until bedtime. 

Today we have had a lot of rain, rain mixed with snow and then two healthy hail storms. Then we had a thunder storm with rain and now it is snowing to beat the band. Oy! I really need to get out daily but haven’t gotten out of the hotel yet today. It is cold here, in the high 30’s. Hopefully the rain will abate and I can get to the grocery store for more soy milk for tomorrow’s bowl of granola.

Nov 13 2011

We never got out on Saturday as Ron worked all day teaching, but we did today. We walked over to the ‘Dophinium’ at 11:00 and they had a show at 5:00 so we skipped that idea.. We continued our walk in the rain and went to the archeology museum. It was unheated and therefore cold as the temps are in the 40’s now. But it was dry and had a good exhibit of local area finds. The guard walked ahead of us and would turn the lights on the display case as we approached. When we finished viewing he would turn off the lights. It gives you an idea of how tight things are in this country. Afterwards we walked to the grocery store to get soy milk and some snacks for our room. We stopped on the way home in a small warm lovely café and had a light lunch. It was pouring rain for some of our walk and even with umbrellas we got soaked: our gloves, our pants below the knees and my backpack purse was wet inside and out. We stayed in our room for the rest of the day.  Ron worked some and I read and did e-mails. and ate dinner at the hotel.

November 14

Today the sun came out. Hooray! After seven days of rain I needed a break. I bundled up as it is still cold and took a long walk by the sea. Batumi’s fortune is its beach and it recognizes that fact. So there is a wonderful broad walkway along the sea that goes for miles. I walked for 40 minutes in one direction and still didn’t come to the end of the walkway. There are men out everyday cleaning the beaches of debris. Even though it is off season the beaches remain spotless. The beaches here are made of smooth, colorful rocks ranging from large stones the size of my foot to pebbles and occasionally mixed with coarse dark sand. For the most part they are mid sized stones making it difficult to walk and I would imagine very uncomfortable for sitting. Unfortunately this part of the world is way behind the curve when it comes to awareness about pollution so Batumi, a city of 122,000 (2002 census), puts all of its waste water (yes that does include raw sewerage) right into the ocean untreated so many people get sick when they swim here. No surprise there. Some how, no one seems to have made the connection between the various physical problems one has from swimming in polluted water. All the countries that border the Black Sea are polluters from industry as well as untreated waste water. We take a lot for granted in the US; things like clean air and water come to mind immediately.

Tuesday November 15th

We had another glorious day of sun until about 4:00. I took a walk after breakfast along the sea. After lunch I went on a photo expedition. There are some beautiful buildings here with some special features like the iron work on doors and balconies. Hopefully Ron will have time to post some. The temps are in the high 40’s to the high 30’s during the day. Many shops have their doors open because they aren’t heated. I doubt that many homes are either. So when the sun is out you can count on people flocking to the streets, sitting in the sun on benches, walls or stoops. They also come out because they live in such tight quarters. It is not unusual for families with children and perhaps a grandparent to live in one bedroom apartments. Again most of us have much to be grateful for in the US. On my walk I passed a street sweeper and asked if I could take his photo. He laughed and agreed. I wanted his photo because he is a city employee and his broom is made from branches from a tree or bush. It is not a manufactured item and this is all I have ever seen in Georgia.

 I just was reading about Batumi and learned it is the wettest place in Georgia, getting 107 inches a year. Well no wonder!

 Wednesday November 16th

The rain is back but I got in a short walk after breakfast before the rain came. I walked out onto the beach and never saw any sand, just stones. They were pretty with all the shapes, sizes and colors. I walked to a Ukrainian restaurant where Ron and I had dinner earlier this week. I was the only woman who was dining among about 12-15 men. As I sat at the table, I spied three holes in the curtains, just the size of a cigarette burn. We have one in the upholstered chair in our room the same size. We also have a burn in the carpet and two on the tub. We sit at the same place every morning in the breakfast dining room. There is a burn in the curtain there also.These Georgians love their cigarettes and their cars.

Travels in Georgia and some musing

November 8 2011

Last Friday Ron went to Borjomi, about two hours from TBS, and taught on Saturday then came back to TBS. I spent the night with our friend Kirsten and her son Aquil as we were required to move out of the Betsy (our hotel), as my expenses are not covered. On Saturday the weather was perfect: a blue, blue sky, sunny and warm where only a turtle neck shirt was needed. I walked to Old Town and ate lunch outside and then walked back to the hotel, 40 minutes uphill and the last five minutes on level ground. Oy! I have managed to stay busy even living in the hotel with no responsibilities other than hand washing in the evenings and occasional ironing. I found an inexpensive alternative to the hotel laundry and walk there to take our shirts and jeans. 

Maia Bazuashvili is the massage therapist we used when we lived here. On Sunday she invited us to visit her home in her village and her apartment in TBS. She came to the Betsy and her cousin drove us to the village, about 30 minutes west of TBS. Maia’s mother wanted to meet us as we had paid to put a new roof on her house which had been leaking badly. The home is quite old as Maia’s grandfather had built it. It is in a small village. It is a large home that is now divided into two separate living quarters. Apparently there was a family feud in the past and the result was the sealing off of one part of the house. Maia’s part includes an entry where wood is stored for heating. There a large room that will eventually we divided into two bedrooms, a small kitchen and dining area. From here you go outside to a large covered veranda and enter another room which was heated. There was a dining table, a couple of beds, a playpen for the two year old Maia has adopted and a crib. There was also a china cabinet in the room. Down below were tow storage areas, dirt floor basements. One is used for food storage and wine making, a given in any village. I assume there was an outhouse in the yard. We met Maia’s mom, her older sister and her baby. Maia’s sister will keep the baby in the village this winter as Maia’s apartment is not heated. Nino, Maia’s sister, has not been able to find work for five years. She will not do housework for pay so she takes care of the baby. The baby has Down’s syndrome. He doesn’t yet walk or talk. In addition he has had heart surgery and may require additional surgery on his aorta to improve the blood flow. Fortunately the surgery is paid for by the government but medical appointments, tests and medicines are not. 

After visiting the family in the village we went to a late lunch which Maia had insisted on. We ate Georgian fare: two kinds of meat, cheese bread, plain bread. Then we went to her apartment in TBS. Maia has lived there for all but 2 of her 45 years. She was two when the family moved in. The building is the classic Soviet style concrete box. She lives in the fourth floor and the elevator hasn’t worked for years. Unlike most places her stairwell is now lit, the lights were installed two weeks ago and are operated by motion detectors. There was a small entry way, a living room and a bedroom. The kitchen was small as was the bathroom. The bathroom had a corner where all the tiles were missing and plumbing was exposed. Obviously this was a result of a repair many years ago. On the other side of the kitchen was a small storage room. Maia had hung the photos Ron gave her when we left in June and she had a cabinet in the living room that she called her American corner where she has numerous items from events at the embassy’ This included red, white and blue foil decorations, small fliers and banners. It was quite touching. 

 Maia works half time at the US embassy as a janitor and makes $2.00 an hour. She supplements her income doing massage and housekeeping but her massage clients were Americans who worked at the embassy and they left this summer with the normal rotation. The woman who employed her as a house keeper left as well. Maia has been unable to replace that income. This is Georgia and how it goes here. Maia supports her mother, her sister, her son and helps support her niece and nephew whose mom, Maia’s younger sister, died six years ago from cancer. The father of her sister’s children finds work only occasionally. Although Maia was very embarrassed by her meager means she did want to share her life with us and we were deeply touched. She is a very special person and will always hold a special place in our hearts. Afterwards we came back to the hotel to pack for Batumi.

Ron and I came to Batumi on the Black Sea coast yesterday. Gia, our former driver who now works for MSI, the same company Ron is working for, drove us here. I was reminded how much I dislike traveling in Georgia. Ninety percent of the trip was on a two lane road, heavily traveled by Turkish semis that are bringing products to Georgia and Russia including a lot of Georgia’s food. Georgia imports 85% of its food from Russia, Turkey and Germany. In addition to the semis, there are many Georgians on the road. I don’t need to mention again how poorly and recklessly Georgians drive. Gia is an excellent driver and very professional. He obeys all rules of the road (except maybe the speed limit). We got 20 minutes out of Tbilisi it started to snow. After 60 minutes we had to go very slowly and questioned as to whether we could get to Batumi, our destination. However we passed through the storm. Our journey took six hours. We were supposed to leave TBS at 10-10:30 but left at 1:30 due to some poor program planning, requiring night driving. It is best to never drive at night in ROG due to driver error and drivers who drink and drive. In addition to all the traffic we had to contend with, there were numerous cows and cow herds crossing the road going home for the eveining. The worst was when we would round a bend in the road and come across cattle in the middle of the road. Oy! There were sheep and pigs beside the road as well creating potential danger. 

It is not unusual to pass through the center of towns driving 40-50 miles per hour. On the open road 80 mph is normal. I sat in the back and could see the speedometer. Gia’s car came from the US although it is a Japanese car. But his odometer is calibrated in miles not kilometers. We will be here for 12 days and Ron will be teaching workshops for local government participants. Alas we arrived at 7:30, tired but alive. We dined in the hotel’s Italian restaurant as we are quite tired of Georgian fare.

This morning we woke up to a dusting of snow in Batumi. This is very early for snow. When we lived here in 2009-11 snow usually occurred after the first of the year. One of the cars traveling after us with staff yesterday had to turn back to TBS because of snow and many accidents. I am grateful that didn’t happen to us as Ron’s schedule is full and doesn’t allow for any wiggle room. He works six days a week here and usually has a few hours of work on Sundays as well. But he is happy to have work.

It is interesting being back and for a short stay. One day this week as I was walking around TBS I was observing and analyzing my experience. Sometimes when I am in a developing country I grow weary of the experience. I was thinking about why that was. When I got home this summer after 21 months in Georgia I summed up the country by saying it was grim. This week I said ‘grim and broken’.  Georgians are grim and I don’t blame them. This is a very poor country with very few opportunities. Even if you can find a job which many cannot, the pay is not a living wage. When the Soviets left in 1990-91 they took the jobs by closing the factories, and they took all the money in the banks so Georgians saw their savings and livelihoods disappear overnight. Then there was a civil war to add to their misery. There is a small middle class here but those in the rural areas are desperately poor and there are many poor in the cities as well. Consequently as you pass people on the street, they are not smiling. Even if I can make eye contact and I greet the person, I often get nothing in response and smiles are rare. That is what makes Georgia grim for the most part. The broken part of Georgia has to do with everything else. The sidewalks are atrocious. They are either heaved up by tree roots, missing pavement, or are gravel or mud or have large holes or divots, enough to turn your ankle or experience a dangerous fall if you don’t watch every step. I have to look at my feet when I walk. The roads are missing pavement or manhole covers. This week while walking I discovered tree trunks in the streets that had been sawed off a few inches above the payment and three inch metal stubs sticking up about eight inches from the curb. These must have been sign posts at some point but someone cut them down but left enough of the post to do damage. As a pedestrian I often have to walk in the street as drivers park their cars on the sidewalk leaving no room for pedestrians. It is rare to see a building that doesn’t scream for attention: broken railings, loose tiles, concrete siding sloughing off the side of the building, painting that is so long overdue, stained walls, mildew and mold abound, etc. This is what I mean by broken. There area few historic buildings that were once grand, even beautiful but now they are falling apart in disrepair. However, some have been restored and the government is trying to focus on key areas and make improvements to structures and the city infrastructure.  The one thing the Georgians know how to do is light up buildings.  Tbilisi and Batumi are at their best at night.

Due to foreign investment there are areas in TBS where there is restoration occurring. Old Town is a prime example where Ron likes to say ‘it has been restored to a condition it never was’. All the homes and commercial building have been or are being given new facades. This is also true of Signaghi, a tourist town two hours east of TBS and Mskheta, a town west of TBS. The same goes for the central parts of Batumi.  Unfortunately the Georgian government is not doing anything to develop the economy in a sustainable way. If the foreign investment left, the country would have little measurable economy. There are a handful of extremely wealthy Georgians. Some of these men made there wealth in Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed. I previously mentioned Bidzinia Ivanishvili who is worth $5.5 billion. He has done wonderful things for Georgia. He is paying for the restoration of the TBS opera house and the restoration of the original administrative building at TBS State University. Both are huge products costing in the millions of dollars.  In his village he built a community center as well as repairs on residents’ homes. He built the French School in TBS, a private school. He also contributed heavily to the construction of the Orthodox cathedral.