Georgia on my mind

In the pouring rain, I headed out onto the not-mean-at-all streets of Tbilisi, Georgia. As anywhere when it's raining, it's hard not to judge the town by its temporarily slick streets and dreary pall. But I'm trying.

I found the restaurant recommended by the receptionist at the Tbilisi Marriott and although it was cafeteria style, the menu had all of the items Hayden and others have made me promise to eat.

I'm trying to get a handle on the place, something travelers do moments after landing anywhere. I have not been to this part of the world. It reminds me of Austria and Turkey mixed together. I suppose that's due to the geography. If I had ever been to Russia it would probably be more like that. But I have never been to Russia.

Smoking is a big thing here. I have been warned to schedule lots of smoke breaks in my meetings this week. People light up in restaurants. Waitresses change ashtrays. I remember when that was a thing. So glad we are post-smoking in the US.

As I navigated puddles, I was trying to figure out if the Georgian style architecture that prides people here is related to the Georgian style doors of Ireland. I have just embarrassed myself writing this. The answer is no. I should have known it when I was looking around and thought, "I don't see a relationship between styles." But it took writing this to remember that "Georgian" in Ireland is after King George. Sigh.

I ate a delicious eggplant and walnut paste dish (not mentioned by Hayden) that made me so happy. Eggplant is a dish that is so wonderful when cooked right and so terrible when cooked wrong. I have not been able to cook eggplant.

I drank a dark house special beer that has the weirdest taste. It looks like Guinness without the head, but has a sweet taste; not too sweet but surprisingly fruity. I can't think of an equivalent.

I spied another person on Metekhi bridge, taking photos in the rain. I felt a little silly, especially as I awkwardly set down the ginormous Marriott umbrella to indiscreetly photograph with my iPhone. But hey, the rest of my time here will be in a likely windowless room with election commissioners.

So when in rainy Tbilisi...

Giving

Today I got on the bus to start my Crystal City schlep and found myself standing over a woman and baby that I had given money to last week. An awkward exchange of hellos brought a flood of thoughts. I gave an enthusiastic greeting to her five year old. Did he remember me? I got a big smile. Was it for the cereal bars I gave him?

In an attempt to...I don't know what...equalize things? Not seem pitying? I asked how old the baby was. "Five months." She looked embarrassed. I felt embarrassed. Why?

Last week while making sure my dad didn't lock Austin in his car again, I heard a woman trying to get my attention. "Scuse me!" "Scuse me!" "Do you have a dollar?" She called from across the street. "No," I called, "I don't have my wallet." But rather than dismissing the exchange, I looked at her holding this tiny baby and with the small boy tagging along and I needed to act. She went a few more feet and called out to my neighbor. If she was doing that she must have been desperate.

Living in big cities means you have a personal panhandling policy. You try not to ignore a person on the street and maybe even smile a bit as you make brief eye contact without engaging them. You don't want to be the jerk that steps over someone, but you don't necessarily want crazy coming over for dinner either. The right thing to do is not give, because big cities like DC have good services and if a person is truly in need they can access the basics: water, food and shelter. That's all well and good, but sometimes your heart has other ideas. I usually give to someone performing a service or just performing, like a busking street band. Sometimes someone just looks sad or desperate, and, yeah I guess to make me feel better, I will give a dollar or two.

So I ran in the house, ran upstairs and found $10. $5 would have been ideal. I ran back downstairs, opened the closet and grabbed an unopened box of Austin's cereal bars and ran outside.

She was up the block so I ran to her gave her the money and gave the boy the box. She hugged me and said thank you. I said, "take care of these kids." And that was it, until this morning.

Hayden chastised me for all the reasons I mentioned above. But I figured that you don't aggressively panhandle with two kids in tow unless you are desperate. So whatever her situation is, in that moment she needed some help.

When my stop came up, I looked down again after riding in silence. The baby was asleep. The five year old was joking around with some kids. The mother had her eyes closed. I thought it best not to say goodbye.

Terrible Choices

Today we met Syrian women who were smuggled across the border to come to a women’s leadership training. They took this huge risk, because they are desperate to find a bright spot what is otherwise a bleak, bleak future.

One woman brought her 11 year old autistic son with her. Two girls, no more than 20, left behind protesting mothers. One woman tore her hands and feet crawling through razor wire, hiking up mountains and scaling walls. She is 6 months pregnant.

Today we met Syrian women from inside Syria. Everyone here is quick to make that distinction. There are, of course, challenges and pain for all Syrians, but for those inside, there is active war. There are daily “indiscriminate shellings,” to use a term that several used when describing life inside. There is poverty. There is depression and trauma. There is rape and death.

We spent the day crying with these women. A woman described how she had to lie to her 6 year old son, who she left in a town with the “indiscriminate shellings,” because the road she took was actually more dangerous than that. She told him she was in the village not too far away and would be back soon. This same son and her 2 other children had been living with her in Turkey for a while. Every day she would leave the house in this foreign land and look for work. She would tell her children to lock the door to their one room and not answer the door no matter what. She left them paper to draw on and eventually someone donated a TV. The children sat inside all day, from 7 to 7, freezing because she didn’t know how the Turkish heating system worked. They lasted a year and then went back to Syria.

“Camps are a humiliation,” said another woman who also went back to Syria, because camp life was handouts and mockery from the local population. Indeed, we had heard this from the refugees we talked with earlier in the week. They estimated that 10-15% of the camp population had left to return to Syria, despite the violence.

The women described their lives trying to make a living and hiding their fear from their children, alone, because the men are lost to fighting and death. As bombs rain down, they tell their children, “Do not to worry, because God is almighty and it is the word of God if we die.”