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.