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.