Busy!

Here's what I'm trying to juggle so far:

• Being a full-time student at Tbilisi State Medical University.
• Volunteering at the Chemistry Institute
• Volunteering at Ghudushauri National Medical Center (where I was this summer)
• Teaching English

Studies at TSMU have remained pretty much the same. That's to say that I'm not learning a whole lot from my classes except Anatomy. The other day in Biology practical, my Biology professor (whom I believe hasn't the faintest idea how to teach) decided to give us a practice test which he had written. The first problem was that the test was written in a find-the-mistake format. He had copied passages out of the textbook and intentionally changed terms--not the best way to test someone's knowledge when they haven't been taught it in the first place. To make things worse, some totally irrelevant terms were changed. For example, in a passage about the discovery of protein synthesis, he changed the date from 1950 to 1960--that was the mistake we were to have found.

Work at the chemistry institute has been slow, but you can hardly blame them given the conditions (I promise to take some pictures soon) they work in. Mzia, my chemistry professor, has been having a difficult time synthesizing her desired compound; more than a couple of times she has obtained a product that wasn't what it should have been. At least one of those times was the fault of using old chemicals (stockpiled from the Soviet days) which had since decomposed into something else entirely. I still manage to eat and drink every time I come, and now that wintry weather has arrived (it snowed last week), we've since moved on to spirits to keep ourselves warm.

I haven't yet actually returned to Ghudushauri to volunteer. I visited the hospital last Tuesday to speak with Dr. Merab about the possibility of my returning to volunteer and to ask him to write me a letter of recommendation for medical school. It was a strange experience to see all the people I had worked with for 6 weeks this past summer; some recognized me right off the bat, others didn't but kept glancing towards me trying to remember how they knew me. One huge difference I and my colleagues at Ghudushauri both noticed was how much my Georgian had improved. During my summer internship there, I was forced to communicate through someone that knew English, and therefore wasn't able to get to know many of the doctors and nurses as well as I would have liked. Now that I've made plans to return to Ghudushauri on a regular basis, I plan to get to know everyone better.

Teaching... As inexpensive as it is to live in Georgia, it never hurts to have a little cash on hand. And as it turns out, being a native English speaker in Georgia means you're a hot commodity. As with any non-English speaking country in the world (especially one that's trying to cozy up with the US), English is the new second language. Fortunately, as I've discovered, there are many very qualified Georgians who can teach English grammar quite well. But, thankfully, they understand that there are only some things that a native speaker can teach, such as slang, pronunciation, and conversation. And since there are relatively few native English speakers in Georgia, it wasn't hard for me to find teaching work.

I primarily teach four classes all at one school (it's actually in the teacher's, Anne's, house), once a week where my primary duty is to talk to the students and make them talk back to me. The level of proficiency in English among the four classes ranges from pre-intermediate to upper-intermediate, but even the pre-intermediate students (classifications determined by Anne) have a good grasp of English and don't have too much difficulty in communicating with me. The students are wonderful. In addition to being hard working, they seemed to be genuinely enthusiastic about learning English and using it with me. Teaching, as I've discovered, is quite draining. After 4 hours of talking and trying to explain concepts of my language that I've never had to think about before, I feel exhausted.

In addition to my 8 hours a week at Anne's school, I also have an 11-year old private student. He spent the last year in the States where he attended public school and by necessity, went from speaking virtually no English to having a good command of conversational English. His mother, who herself speaks fluent English, doesn't want him to lose the gains he's made in English and has hired me to come twice a week to speak with him and make him read books. I'll be sure to have him read my childhood favorites.

Just a brief snapshot of what's keeping me occupied in Tbilisi. I'll elaborate more when I have some free time.

Giorgoba, Riga

Gilocavt Giorgobas! Today is the feast day of St. George (Giorgi), one of the most important saints for Georgians. It is also the 4th anniversary of the Rose Revolution which swept Saakashvili to power. Either way, today is a reason for all Georgians to celebrate (i.e. drink lots of wine and eat lots of food) and I will surely join them.

I returned from Riga early Monday morning (4 am--almost all flights to/from Tbilisi arrive/leave around then) exhausted yet refreshed and at the same time glad to be back in Tbilisi.

Three days in Riga seemed to be just the right amount of time to explore the old part of the city, where I stayed. The city is relatively small (~700,000) and one can walk from one end of Old Riga to the other in less than 30 minutes. But that's not to say there isn't much to see. The architecture is stunning, from the 13th century Doma Cathedral to the Art Nouveau buildings along Alberta Street. At this time of year, days are short in this city at a latitude greater than 55 degrees; night came at 4:30 and the sun never rose very high in the sky, so that for all of the daylight hours it felt like morning.

When we weren't meandering through the city, Callie (my friend from College) and I visited the Museum of the Soviet Occupation, Museum of War--two museums that detail 800 years of invasion and oppression, not so unlike Georgia--and the Market. The Market is a huge complex of several buildings (it gets to cold to have a year round outdoor market) that sell everything from freshly slaughtered meat to delicious rye bread so dense that you can't compress the bread at all (I bought a 1 kilo loaf that looked half the size of one of our one-pound loaves of bread). Riga is just minutes from the Baltic Sea and fresh caught fish are sold every morning in the market. Fresh milk is sold from large steel drums by the kilo; buyers bring their own containers to take the milk.

Compared to Tbilisi, Riga feels like Western Europe to me. And if it weren't for the large Russian population (about 50% in Riga), most would probably agree with me. It was interesting for me, coming from one former Soviet Republic to another, to see how much more successful Latvia has been in catching up with the rest of Europe in terms of economic growth. Any street in old town looked nicer than the nicest street in Tbilisi. There are malls and grocery stores; Tbilisi has neither (the closest it gets is the bazaar). A great deal of Latvia's success is due to a combination of being closer to the rest of Europe and having only been under Soviet rule for 45 years (as opposed to Georgia's 70), but one still can't help but ask why it's taking Georgia so long. Interestingly, Callie, who's been studying in Prague, felt that Riga was the Eastern European Post-Soviet city she had hoped Prague to be, but apparently isn't.

But I don't want Tbilisi to feel like another Western European city. As beautiful of a city as Riga is, I felt that it didn't have half the character of Tbilisi. True, I was only there for 3 days and could be completely wrong, but I think that along with economic prosperity comes a threat to culture. Sure, Tbilisi is poor but the people are thankful for what they have and know how to celebrate every bit of good fortune that comes there way; strong families and close friends are the result of a necessity to help each other out during difficult times.

I do realize that life is difficult in Georgia and I do hope that Georgia finds economic prosperity, but I just hope that when I return in 20 years I'll still find Old Georgia in the people.

PS All the pictures of army vehicles and soldiers are from the Military Parade, part of the celebrations for Latvian Independence Day.

Off to...

Riga, Latvia!!

I know it sounds totally random, and, well, it is. I'm going there to meet up with a friend from College who's studying abroad in Prague this semester. Since we're both in the same general region of the world, we decided to meet up. Unfortunately, Tbilisi is both expensive to fly to and to fly from. Thanks to former Soviet bloc solidarity, there are relatively cheap flights to Riga... so that's why we're meeting there. I'll only be there for 3 days, but it will be a nice change of pace.

On the political front, things have stayed quiet here. The state of emergency is still in effect, though it's scheduled to be lifted Friday evening. Things don't look good for the opposition, however, which is trying to defeat President Saakashvili in the January 5th snap elections. Imedi TV, the opposition's megaphone, did not only see its equipment destroyed when the police invaded their studio last week (damage that might keep them off the air for three months), but was told yesterday by the Tbilisi City Court that their license to broadcast had been revoked. Meanwhile, the President has had the airwaves to himself, the privilege of an extended state of emergency.

Media blackout, early elections

Continuation of previous post...

One noticeable difference in life in Georgia now is the lack of media. On the evening of November 7, the day of the violent crackdown, riot police entered the building of Imedi TV (one of the main TV stations) and pulled the plug. The same thing happened to the smaller Kavkasia TV. As it happens to turn out, both Imedi and Kavkasia sympathized with the opposition; meanwhile, pro-Government Rustavi and Mze and Government-owned Georgia Public Broadcasting continued to broadcast. Later that evening, Saakashvili placed Georgia under a State of Emergency, declaring that the only GPB would be allowed to broadcast news during the maximum 15-day State of Emergency.

And true to his word, the next day (yesterday) there was no news to be found except on GPB. In my apartment, we have cable which includes CNN and BBC, but even these two channels were removed and replaced instead with an Italian channel and Eurosport respectively. Strangely, neither Imedi nor Kavkasia have returned to the air yet; Rustavi and Mze have remained operational, but they are only broadcasting South American soap operas and reruns of Friends. To add to the information black hole, I was without internet for all of yesterday (just an isolated incident as I found out).

Last night, tensions eased when the President '"yielded"' to the oppositions demands for an early Presidential election. There has been talk that the State of Emergency might be lifted before the end of the maximum 15 days; already, CNN and BBC have returned to cable. I say "yielded" because it's easy to see that Saakashvili is using the early elections to his advantage. First of all, the elections are to be held on January 5th, a date earlier than even the opposition was hoping for, which is less than 2 months away. It's hard to imagine that the currently fragmented opposition can come together and unanimously support one opposition presidential candidate in such a short amount of time. The campaign time is even shorter once you take into account that effectively no campaigning is allowed during the State of Emergency. One can't help but feel that the January 5th election is a strategic move, especially when you realize that Georgia's constitution requires the President to resign 45 days before the election day--which just so happens to be November 22nd, the last day of the 15 day State of Emergency.

Update

Sorry for disappearing for a while--I didn't (and still don't) have internet access at my apartment.

The State of Emergency, by making it an arrestable offense to protest, has put a halt to all demonstrations. In an odd way, life has returned to normal and there's almost a festive atmosphere because the Ministry of Education announced that schools and universities would not resume classes until Monday. For the Georgians I've spoken to, the announcement of the State of Emergency and the restrictions it imposes is no big deal--they're used to this sort of thing happening every few years. (Remember, Georgia is a country that hasn't had a peaceful transition in government since the fall of communism.)

More later.

If you want the latest info on Georgia...

I've just woken up to discover that the entire country of Georgia has been declared a State of Emergency after a day of riots. I don't know how this will affect my daily life for the next couple of weeks, but I'll be sure to keep y'all informed. Meanwhile, for those wishing to hear the most recent news concerning developments in Georgia, I recommend civil.ge.

Political Situation

Note: If you are looking for up to date information about the current situation in Georgia, please visit my other blog where I provide translations of Russian and Georgian news items.

As many of you are already aware, the political situation here has become a little tense. Demonstrators, numbering as many as 100,000, depending on whom you ask, turned out last Friday demanding early elections as well as listing grievances committed by the President. Well, they're still protesting (this is day 5), though the numbers have dwindled significantly, but things have taken a more serious turn now that the protesters are demanding that President Saakashvili step down. I'll give a more detailed rundown of what's happened and what's still to unfold later this week. For those wondering, the demonstrations have been peaceful and I'm quite safe!

[Edit: Things are a bit more scary here after riot police used tear gas and water cannons to force the protesters from their camp outside of Parliament. They've regrouped with renewed zeal a few kilometers away.]