Visit to Dzegvi Homeless Shelter

Last Thursday, my friend Susie and I visited a homeless shelter called Dzegvi outside of Mtskheta, about a half hour away from Tbilisi. The shelter was established in 1995 as a home for street children, but has since housed homeless adults, mentally disabled individuals, elderly people whose families cannot take care of them, and internally displaced persons (IDPs are former inhabitants of the two disputed territories within the geographic borders of Georgia who have left their homes for safety reasons). In addition, some of the original inhabitants have chosen to stay at Dzegvi and establish families.

This has become a permanent community, but it is not self-sufficient. Some members of the community work at outside jobs to earn pocket money. School-age children go to school in Mtskheta, but there is no nearby facility for the preschoolers who live at Dzegvi. The disabled members of the community stay on the property full time, with no rehabilitation facilities available to them. According to the caretakers, people who come to Dzegvi stay until they die—it is their permanent home. Full-time caretakers at Dzegvi are Nana and Mother Mariam; a young man who came to Dzegvi at age 14 has taken over maintenance and handyman duties (Romani).

Romani and Nana

Because Dzegvi is not self-sufficient, the community members are dependent on others for everything. The Georgian Orthodox Church supplies food and pays for utilities. Various foreign embassies and other foreign entities provide grant money for major renovations. Individuals and organizations make various kinds of donations that benefit Dzegvi. Despite these generous contributions, the living conditions in Dzegvi are what we would call extremely basic. 

For the entire community of 75 people, including 22 children, they have a kitchen equipped with only two small sinks and five burners. They prepare hot meals for everyone in this tiny kitchen every day. They also have two small washing machines, one small broken washing machine, and no dryers.

Our visit was prompted by my work with a group called American Friends of Georgia (AFG). AFG supports a wide variety of charitable causes from housing homeless

children and single mothers to funding medical care for children with cancer to initiating hospice care in Georgia to preserving Georgian culture heritage and architecture. The Dzegvi shelter is one of AFG’s many projects. We were accompanied by Ana Koripadze, who works for AFG, and Koba Maisuradze, our driver for the day.

From what I understand, the Dzegvi facility is a former psychiatric hospital that was abandoned when the Soviets left Georgia. The main building has been refurbished and now has updated rooms, a working water supply, and a safe heating system.  There is a building on the hill that we didn’t visit. I believe it houses mentally and physically disabled residents. The object of our visit was a third building that is in complete disrepair and in need of complete renovation.

This third building is currently in a condition that would render it “condemned” in the U.S., but it is inhabited by about 10 people who have nowhere else to go. The state of this building is deplorable—the wooden floors are not just buckled, they rise up in waves maybe 1 foot high. The windows and doors are gone, some of the walls are gone, and banisters on the stairways are gone.

There’s no electricity except what they’ve rigged up by running it from other buildings through dangerous old wiring. A new water supply system has been installed, thanks to previous grant funds, but the piping system to use it will not be installed until the building is renovated. There is trash and rubble everywhere, inside and outside of the building. A pit toilet/latrine is being dug right outside the building, but it is not in use yet.

We met one family living in the building. It was a grandmother and her two grandchildren—a boy of about 3 and a girl of about a year old. This family of three lives in what used to be a single patient room. The windows are covered, although I don’t know if they have glass or plastic. The room is stuffed to the brim with a table, a sleeping space and a TV. There was a round electric coil heater on the floor within easy reach of the children; I couldn’t help thinking about how easy it would be for the children to burn themselves on it or knock it over and start a fire. The children appeared to be reasonably healthy and well fed, but the space they shared was smaller than a lot of bathrooms in the U.S.

The goal for the building is to make it a clean, safe living space for the 10 people who are currently living there plus 10 more. In addition, Nana and Mother Mariam would like to have a public space that can be used by school-age children to do their homework, by preschoolers to have daily activities, by adults for training sessions, and by the mentally and physically handicapped for rehabilitation sessions. There is currently nothing for the small children on the property to do during the day, so an indoor activity area would be especially valuable for their development—both mental and physical.

According to Nana, Dzegvi currently has a $100,000 grant from the Japanese Embassy plus an additional $50,000 (source unknown to me). They are planning to use both of these sources for renovations to the building we observed. Nana and Mother Mariam estimate that they need an additional $30,000-$35,000 to undertake the reconstruction project, which would cover the cost of replacing the roof.

My contribution to the current project is to help AFG find a source of funding for the remaining amount Dzegvi needs for the roof. The local director of AFG (there’s one director in the U.S. and one here in Georgia) asked me to visit the site and write a photostory about the needs of the community members, especially the ones living in the crumbling building. This photostory will be used to present the case to potential funders in efforts to raise the money needed to complete the project.

The Great Haircut Adventure

Before I left Ohio, I got my hair cut extra short because I knew it might take awhile for me to find a new stylist in Tbilisi. This kept prompting my cousin, who visited the first week I arrived in Georgia, to keep asking, “Do you usually wear your hair so short?” and “Do you really like your hair that short?” I guess he wasn’t a fan of the extra short cut.

My usual time between haircuts is 6 weeks, but this extra short strategy bought me an additional 6 weeks. Finally, I had to admit that I was looking pretty shaggy, so the hunt for a salon (sometimes called a saloon here) started in earnest. I asked a few friends, but the decision was made for me when my good friend Lena sent me a text saying she’d made an appointment for me at a salon within easy walking distance of our apartment. She couldn’t go with me, but she was sure they spoke English. Just walk up the hill to 34 Paliashvili Street and they’ll be expecting you, she said.

So, with plenty of time to spare, I headed up the hill to 34 Paliashvili Street. Big surprise—there is no 34 Palishvili Street! There’s a 32 and a 36, but definitely no 34. Just a lot of air where 34 should be. This is not a translation problem—the numbers in Georgia are the same as in the U.S. This is a problem of a missing building! Picture me walking back and forth between 32 and 34, looking really hard for a building with the number 34 on it, but finding nothing except a great expanse of sidewalk with nothing adjacent to it. Hmmm, I think, hmmm.

34 Paliashvili should be attached to 32!

Finally I decide that I have to phone a friend. I already have many friends here, but of course I call my husband. He picks up and says, “I can’t talk now, I’m in a meeting.” This leaves me wondering why he picked up the call. Then I decide the only logical thing is to call Lena, who made my appointment. She hadn’t told me the name of the salon, so I couldn’t call there directly. Lena double checked her info and confirmed that they had told her #34. She hung up to call them and said she’d call me back. Meanwhile, I’m looking kind of silly just standing there next to the air at what should’ve been 34 Paliashvili Street.

My phone rings. It’s Lena. The salon is really at 44 Paliashvili! Turn west and keep walking until you pass a park, a school, another park, cross the street, and it will be on your left up a short staircase. Ah, there it is. Wait, there are two salons right next to each other, each up a short staircase. Now what? Dig deep into the brain cells and remember that Lena told me a few days ago that the salon had white Christmas lights in the window. Finally, Salon Excellence is found.

The white Christmas lights are barely visible in the window.

I gather myself so that I don’t appear to be breathing too heavily and push open the door. I think I’ll be greeted by the sight of women getting their hair cut, but instead I’m greeted by the sight of two big, burly men drinking espresso from tiny, delicate espresso cups. It took me a second to realize that they were waiting for their wives. This doesn’t happen too often in the U.S., but many Georgian women don’t drive so they depend on their husbands or others to get around. I shared the waiting room couch with the guys and pretended to read the Russian language versions of The Enquirer and People Magazine until my name was called. There didn’t seem to be any magazines in Georgian, or of course I would’ve read those (haha!).

My stylist, Nellie, called my name and I entered the inner sanctum. That’s when I found out that Nellie speaks barely any English—although considerably more than I speak Georgian. I did my best to pantomime what I wanted by pulling my hair up and making finger scissors or pointing to shaggy parts and making stinky eyes. She gave me a lot of really confused looks until finally she said, “Okay, I’m ready.”

She proceeded to treat my hair like she was a great sculptor and my hair was her current masterpiece. I don’t know if this is the Georgian style of cutting hair or just Nellie’s style, but I felt like the center of her world for the next 20 minutes or so. She would lift, fluff, cut, clip like any stylist, but she was completely zoned in on my hair—or maybe I should say on each and every hair on my head. Maybe the fact that we couldn’t converse while she cut had something to do with it. It was definitely the quietest haircut I’ve ever had.

I never wear my glasses during a haircut, so it’s always a bit of a surprise when I see the final product at the end. I’m pretty sure Nellie was practically trembling with fear that I wouldn’t like it, but I put on my glasses to see a fresh new look. It’s a great haircut, and I especially love the back. She looked so relieved when I smiled and told her I liked it.

Believe it or not, all of the personal attention I got from Nellie only cost 23 lari (about $14). I was so happy with the whole experience that I gave my new stylist a thank-you kiss—Georgian style!

You Say Potato, I Say K'art'opili

Two days ago, I went to my first Georgian language conversation class. The classes are held at the Holiday Inn, which is either a long or short taxi ride from our apartment depending on traffic. Since I didn’t know which it would be, it seemed prudent to assume it would take longer. I called the taxi service an hour ahead, the driver picked me up 15 minutes later, and I arrived for the class—a full half hour early. Anybody who really knows me knows that this is unheard of!

Fortunately, my friend had told me that the class was held on the second floor. Feeling very smart armed with this knowledge, I exited the taxi and went straight up the lovely modern staircase in the middle of the lobby. I thought I would easily find my place, but instead I found a long, narrow hallway that didn’t look promising, an area that appeared to be for employees only, and an expansive lounge filled with people drinking their early afternoon espressos. Nothing in my field of vision looked like a classroom setting. Hmmm.

Apparently I was looking confused despite trying to look sophisticated and completely in control, because a server from the bar approached and asked in perfect English if I needed any help. So much for feeling smart. I explained that I was there for English class. She gave me a very quizzical look. I realized my mistake and said that I was there for Georgian class. That made much more sense to her, but she knew nothing about Georgian class. She called the hotel manager, who knew that the teacher would be arriving soon and would be holding class right in the lounge.

Back to feeling smart—I was in the right place and I was early! The server offered me a seat while I waited, and I ordered a cappuccino so I didn’t look too out of place. (Good thing I did because it came with a little chocolate treat that was a cross between a brownie and a biscotti.) I proceeded to play with my phone (yes, Facebook) and text my husband so everybody around me would think I was perfectly comfortable sitting there by myself not knowing for sure what I was doing.

After a few minutes, I saw two women walk in and had the feeling they were part of my group. My server came by, picked up my cappuccino, and moved me to their table. One was the teacher, Professor Nana Shavtvaladze, and the other was a very friendly American.

The book on the right was written by my new teacher.

My husband and I had purchased one of Nana’s books months before to help us learn Georgian, so I was very pleased to have her as our teacher. We were eventually joined by two other women—one from Hungary and one from France. It didn’t take long to figure out that the other students were on lesson 5 already. Back to feeling not so smart. Boy, do I have a lot of catching up to do!

Fortunately, all of the women in the group spoke fluent English. Our discussions were in English while we practiced and learned Georgian. Nana assured us that we would leave with at least 40 new words in our Georgian vocabulary. These all turned out to be “new” words such as interneti, iPhoni, aerop'ort'shi, t’aksi, shamp’uni. Georgian is a very old and established language, so these modern words have just been added more or less in their original forms because no word previously existed for the item or concept.

Passengers can get a t'aksi from the aerop'ort'shi into the city.

Nana told us some very interesting things about the Georgian language. Only 1% of all the words in Georgian end in a consonant. When she said that, I realized that almost every person we know has a name that ends in a vowel. The few who have first names ending in consonants go by nicknames that end in vowels. Store names generally have names that end in vowels, with a few exceptions. Another interesting tidbit is that there is no F sound in Georgian, even though there are 33 letters in the alphabet. However, F doesn’t seem to present much of a problem to Georgians when they are speaking English because it is a common sound in Russian, which many of them speak in their daily lives.

I also learned from Nana that there are some English words that simply do not exist in Georgian and vice-versa. The example she gave us was the word maintain or maintenance. The concept doesn’t exist in Georgian, therefore there is no word for it. We had noticed that most things here were only dealt with once they reached a pretty bad state of disrepair, but assumed it was a matter of not having the money to attend to the problem. Instead, it turns out it is a cultural phenomenon; problems are dealt with when absolutely necessary, not prevented beforehand.

Before we left the Holiday Inn lounge, Nana was valiantly trying to pronounce some of the Georgian letters that have very similar sounds so that we students could hear the difference. For instance ts and ts’, k and k’, p and p’. The first letter in each pair is the softer version, while the second has a sharper sound. It is very hard for non-native speakers to hear the difference, but Nana explained that the tongue points downward when you’re saying the sharper sound. Maybe eventually I’ll be able to make the sound properly, even if I can’t hear it.

Georgian words can have up to 5 consonants in a row!

Probably the best thing I learned from Nana is that many of the most difficult sounds are easier to make if you smile when saying them. This is especially helpful for the sounds made at the back of the throat, which are the hardest ones for me to say. My plan is to practice these smiling sounds when I’m walking down the street so that the Georgian people I pass will at least think I’m friendly, even if I can’t yet say a single intelligible sentence to them.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Back home in the U.S, almost everybody we know is thinking about what they are thankful for this week. Thanksgiving is a holiday when most Americans pause at least briefly to consider what they have in their lives that makes their daily existence something special. Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday here in Georgia, so my husband doesn’t have the day off, but I think we’ve both been thinking quite a bit about things we’re thankful for.

Just like every year, we’re thankful for our family and friends. Our kids are doing really well, all three of them will be here for Christmas, and each of them seems to be finding the right path to follow. We’re thankful for the job that supports us, because we know that many people are in a less fortunate situation. And we’re thankful for all of the electronic communication methods that help us keep in touch with our loved ones, such as email, Skype, Facebook, and Instagram.

But this year, we have a new aspect of our life to be thankful for. We knew that taking the position in Tbilisi would open us up to new experiences, new places, new people and new knowledge. We just didn’t know how jam-packed our days would be with all of these new things. It’s fairly unusual for 24 hours to go by before something or someone new crosses our path.

Ten Feet...Five Countries

In the short time we’ve been here, we’ve met people from Australia, England, South Africa, Hungary, Estonia, Russia, Ukraine, Germany Netherlands, Georgia (of course) and other countries. On Saturday, we are going to a Christmas bazaar organized by the International Women’s Association of Georgia; people from all over the world will be selling goods and foods that represent their home countries. Like many big cities, Tbilisi has a cosmopolitan atmosphere. Fortunately for us, it is a very small (population 1.4 million) big city where everybody seems to know everybody. We have been fortunate to meet an amazing variety of people here.

One of our new friends is the wife of an ambassador; she is involved in more things than I can count while also raising two young children. Another is his country’s military attaché for Georgia and two other countries. One of our closest friends is an artist who was trained under the Soviet system; she told us she wasn’t even allowed to choose her own colors when she was in school because everything was so tightly controlled. Our new friend from Budapest marched this week to protest violence against women; she reminds me of my politically active friends back home. Another friend is such an animal lover that she has taken on the cause of finding homes for the stray dogs of Tbilisi. Our very good friend Tamar told us that our country is a “paradise” because of the freedoms and opportunities we have in the U.S.

We have one new friend who is an Internally Displaced Person (IDP), which means she is from one of the two disputed territories in Georgia but can no longer safely live there. South Ossetia is in north-central Georgia; Abkhazia is in northwestern Georgia. Both territories have been occupied by Russia and are also beset by internal strife from separatist movements. Many of the Georgians living in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, fearing ethnic cleansing, left their home territories in order to live in the free Georgian state. When they moved, they left everything behind except what they could carry. IDPs have specific legal protections and can move freely throughout all of Georgia, except the parts they consider home. Our friend has been a refugee in her own country for 23 years.

Our newest friend is Mother Mariam, the Abbess of Transfiguration Convent (Georgian Orthodox Church). We met her while working on a grant to restore the property and structures where her church and convent are located; I was helping with the writing of the grant and my husband was taking photos for it. Mother Mariam has started two orphanages; a shelter for single mothers where they learn life skills to become self-supporting; and the first hospice and school for hospice nurses in Georgia. Several of the children from the two orphanages have gone on to receive university degrees and are giving back to their community. The social changes this modest woman has been able to make is inspiring, to say the least.

Many of our friends thought we were a little crazy (“gizhi” in Georgian) to take this assignment, because this part of the world seemed a little scary to them. I have yet to feel a tiny bit nervous, let alone scared, even when walking on the streets of the city at night. Instead of feeling scared, I feel privileged to have this opportunity to meet so many interesting people from so many different places. We have found that our new friends are very similar to our old friends in all of the fundamental ways, and that things like geographic borders and language differences can’t stop people from being friends.

So what are we especially thankful for this Thanksgiving? I think we are especially thankful for this chance to see the world through a new set of lenses, to meet people whose histories are vastly different from ours, and to see parts of the world we never imagined seeing. And despite the many differences we encounter here, we’re thankful for this opportunity to experience the things that make us all the same.

What's the Difference?

What's it like to be the stranger, odd person out, the one not like the others? I've had to ask myself this a few times before in my life, but these days I'm asking it almost every day. I don't stand out here because of my skin color; after all, I'm a Caucasian living in the Caucasus. Instead, it's my blond hair that's a give-away that I'm not from here. From what I've seen, it seems like 90%-95% of Georgians have black--and I mean black--hair. On top of that, Georgian women love to wear their hair long. Pretty sure I only need one hand to count the number of other women I've seen here with hair as short as mine. I find it very hard to blend in when my crowning glory is telling everybody that I'm not from this neighborhood.

But seriously, the real differentiator between me and everybody around me is language. In various travels, I've been in places where I couldn't speak the local language, but I at least had some familiarity because the local language had commonalities with English or French. Here in Georgia, I am completely stymied by both the written and spoken language. The Georgian alphabet (33 letters) is beautiful to look at, but as yet indecipherable. It doesn't have any straight lines and looks a lot like a flock of sheep walking across a page. There are no capitals to help me find the proper nouns in a sentence or a paragraph, and none of their letters remotely resemble any of ours. Speaking the language also presents a challenge. The Georgians make sounds that we don't have in English, and even when I think I've mastered a word with one of those sounds, a Georgian friend will nod and give me that "isn't she cute" smile, like an adult listening to a toddler who's just learning to talk.

I'm still mystified by the buses, because the destinations all look like a secret code. Many of the foods in the grocery store are labeled in Georgian, Russian, German, Arabic, and other languages; I found one labeled in 8 languages, none of which was English. I'm limited to only saying hello (gamarjoba) to our apartment security guard because of my paltry Georgian vocabulary. Often I find myself completely detached from a lot of what is going on around me because I can't even pick up on a single tidbit.

This feeling of "otherness" has made me think a lot about what it's like for so many people who come to the U.S. with no ability to communicate. Even if you learn a few simple phrases, you're still completely at a loss when someone asks you a question or expects something more than "hello" to come out of your mouth. I couldn't fill out a form here to save my life, I can't read the text messages from my cell phone provider, and I will probably never really be able to read a Georgian book even if I do eventually master the letters of their alphabet.

On the other side of the same coin, what is it like for a Georgian who wants to leave Georgia? When you speak and read a language that is only spoken in a country the size of South Carolina, are your chances of success in the outside world so limited that you might not try? Like most Europeans, Georgians usually speak at least one other language (usually Russian or English), but they may or may not speak that second language very well or read it well enough to fill out the paperwork necessary to get a job in another country.

The saving grace for us is that a good number of Georgians speak English, many of them fluently. Even in the grocery stores, the clerks are likely to know enough English to answer our questions. Menus are usually in Georgian and English, some street names are in both languages, and our landlord speaks enough English to help us out with issues in our apartment.

As many immigrants and expatriates before me have proven, language is not an insurmountable obstacle in adapting to a new home. Fortunately, the Georgian people are very warm and welcoming. They want to teach us about their history, their food, and their wine, regardless of what language we speak. They are happy for us to be here helping their country move forward while they help us become just a little more Georgian each day.