top 10 of georgia

I I have been meaning to do this for a while, but with my imminent departure, I wanted to present to you my assessment of the best, the worst, and the funniest/strangest things about Georgia.

Top 5 Peculiarities (couldn't really get to 10)

5. Georgian Orthodox priests and nuns dress from head to toe in black (priests in a little middle eastern hat, nuns in something approaching a burka), which really screws up my sense of symbolism that I learned in middle school English. They feel more evil than good. One morning I was out early, and I saw three nuns in flowing black robes approaching me, and I felt like the angels of death were coming for me.

4. Here, lemonade= any soda. So if someone asks you if you want lemonade with lunch, you are likely to get pear or tarragon (yes, tarragon! it's an eerie shade of green) soda. And by the way, lemon-flavored lemonade tastes like cleaning solution.


3. Speaking of lemon-flavored cleaning solution: try Barf detergent! "Barf means better."


2. Speaking of barf: the fact that the road to the airport is called President George W. Bush Street.


And the number 1 peculiarity/strange thing I've seen in Georgia: The picture on the sign for George W. Bush Street. What is he doing? Trying to direct traffic? Saying hello? High five? Not that it's out of the ordinary for our president to give a strange and ambiguous facial and hand expression.

Top 10 Bad things about Georgia (in no particular order)
10. Ugly soviet buildings
9. Power goes out unpredictably and at very inconvienient times
8. Coffee here= Nescafe. Turkish coffee= lots and lots of Nescafe in a small cup, with a splash of water
7. Dust and broken glass
6. Georgian food gets monotonous
5. Georgian food made me fat! (It has nothing to do with beer. Or willpower.)
4. The vast majority of beggars are elderly women. This makes me sad. Most of the time their husbands have died, and they have never worked, and they don't have enough money to live.
3. Gypsies who harrass me. Ok, I know it's not politically correct to say gypsies (they're "Romani") or to say that they're bad--I'm sure that 95% of Georgian Roma people are perfectly nice, they work, whatever-- but here I'm talking about the ones here who have literally hit me, thrown lollipops at me, dumped out peanuts on the ground that have been given to them, and stolen half-drunk sodas out of the hands of my friends.
2. & 1. I can't think of a ninth or tenth and nothing else really bothered me, so we'll leave it at that.


And most importantly:
Top 10 Best things about Georgia! (in order)
10. They have Chupa-Chups!
9. Cute stray dogs. I want one.









8. Cool Soviet cars. Volkswagen Rabbit (car of my childhood)+small SUV= Lada Niva.

I want one of these too.

7. Kazbegi brewery. Yummy beer, sun, river, and occassionally beerpong and the very friendly toothless lady who sells great peanuts.

6. Cool statues and sculptures.


5. Public transportation is convenient and very very cheap.
4. Georgian food: although monotonous and the reason for my pants being tight, it's damn good. My Georgian cookbook should arrive in Watkinsville from Amazon about the time that I get home. Khinkali anyone?
3. Green and mountains everywhere, even in the city. It's a really beatiful country.
2. Hospitality and generosity that has not waned and has not been beaten by any country I've visited. They celebrate guests, treat us with food and drink (lots), store keepers and cab drivers share their things and sometimes refuse payment, waiters allow us to steal beer mugs, they're always impressed and amused at any small attempt to speak Georgian. I will really, really miss this friendly culture.
1. Our Georgian friends! More than anything else here, I will miss Salome, Irina, Giorgi driver, Giorgi Emory, and all the others we have met and who have taken care of us, had fun with us, and also been so generous in the Georgian spirit.

This may be my last report from Georgia. I'm spending the next few days tying up loose ends, giving gifts to all the people at the AIDS center who have helped me out, possibly a cheap trip to the salon with Salome, packing, etc. We had a nice tourist day in Tbilisi on Sunday, visiting its historical fortress with amazing views of the city. We'd attempted to go before, but although you can see it from anywhere you are in the city, it is amazingly difficult to locate the one street that leads to it from among all the windy roads in the Old City. Saturday we had an interesting rafting trip with some visiting Emory physicians and their Georgian counterparts followed by a bonfire and the best picnic I've ever seen next to the river. I tell you, the Georgians know how to do it right, and I'm trying to take lessons.

So I'll leave Tbilisi on Thursday at 11:35 am and arrive in Atlanta (via London and DC) at 11:50 pm, about 20 hours later. I can't wait to see all you Atlantans and Athenians and talk to everyone else!

my georgian vocabulary

very useful words: hello, goodbye, good morning, thank you, thank you very much, please, excuse me, I'm sorry, I can't speak Georgian, I don't know, big, very big, a little bit, 1-10 & 20, right, left, stop, bank, church, cheese, bread, tomato, cherry, beer, wine, water, various other foods, bill/check, all the conjugations of "to want" (my biggest accomplishment), I like, I am happy, how are you?, good, fine, cool (as in, "Cool, man."), cheers!

words of debatable utility: elephant, baby elephant, puppy, penguin, cow, hepatitis, f*** off

The combination of all these things has lead to the use of some very interesting Georgian sentences (aside from ordering food):
I want cow!
I am very big happy.
Cool beans. (That was Julian)

happy to be "home"

It's amazing how you can get so used to and comfortable in a place (Tbilisi) without even knowing it, but you appreciate it after being away in a less familiar land...

Our long weekend trip turned into the majority of a week trip when we returned on Tuesday around noon to Tbilisi. Somehow I thought that overnight train meant that it was only during the night, even though I heard it was going to take around 16 hours. For the record, I am done with overnight trains for a long, long time, especially when it is around 90 degrees outside, and the AC only works when the train is moving fairly fast (i.e., not at 4 hour border stops), and especially when Azeri border gards are involved. I thought we might get kicked off the train when Salome shouted at one of them for smacking her on the leg to wake her up and get her passport. (It was totally uncalled for, by the way.) In keeping with their reputation, though, the Georgian border guards were very nice and civil.

So let's start with the good things. Like I had heard, Baku was indeed the most modern of all the capitals of the Caucasus countries. Its oil wealth was apparent, and unlike Tbilisi, most buildings looked freshly painted kept up with, at least outwardly. The geography is much drier and more arid than Georgia, and the city definitely has more of a Middle Eastern flavor combined with the Soviet and European. There was a large, very European and pleasant pedestrian section that held many nice clothing stores (of which we visited some). We got there around 9 on Saturday morning, and since I had some kind of respiratory allergy all night, I had barely slept and felt awful. Fortunately the others picked up the slack and found us a comfortable, cheap hotel. We went from there into the historical walled city part of Baku, which I loved. Its windy streets climbed a moderately-sized hill, at the top of which stood the Palace of the Shirvan-Shahs. It included a mosque, bath, and apartments with beautifully carved stone and wood, and courtyards filled with hibiscus and pomegranate trees. Also, around the courtyards there were lots of stone tablets filled with Arabic and human and animal forms that had been rescued from a mosque somewhere else in Azerbaijan that were really fascinating. Then we went to the Maiden's Tower, whose function is not really known, but one of the legends is that one ruler wanted to marry his own daughter, so she had him build her a huge tower to prove his love, and then when it was done, she jumped off it to her death (or something like that). It had great views of the city stretching out to the Caspian Sea. We spent a good amount of time walking through the old city and poking our heads in carpet/tourist shops, and I picked up a few nice scarves for gifts for the people I've been working with in Tbilisi.

Saturday night we picked out a few restaurants that the Lonely Planet book said had authentic Azeri food and some belly dancing and asked the taxi driver that hung out outside the hotel to take us to one. He instead suggested that he take us to a much better, cheaper, and more authentic Azeri place that also had belly dancing, so we thought, what the hell. We got a little suspicious when the cab ride took more than 5 minutes and seemed to be heading away from the center, but when we arrived to a parking lot filled with very nice cars, we started to feel better. We walked into a kind of garden filled with tables and lights, a stage where a live band was playing Azeri music, and absolutely no other foreigners- it was great! Fortunately for us, Salome speaks Russian, as do most other people in the region, so she could do a little better with ordering food for us. The food we were brought was probably the most beautiful spread I had ever seen. (I tried taking a picture, but it was dark and didn't come out well.) They brought two plates each of fruits- plums and little red berries, a plate of tarragon, parsely, and a cilantro-like herb, one of delicious cheese, yeast bread and flat bread, and fresh vegetables to start. Then we had two types of salads with cooked vegetables and chicken with mayonaise-like dressing, and for the grand finale, a beautiful plate of Azeri shashlyk (kebabs), with beef ribs and ground meat of some sort that was wonderful. We definitely partook in the dancing (more on that later) and really had a nice time.

Sunday was cool, cloudy, and a little rainy, so we decided to not go to the other side of the Abseron Peninsula to find a beach. Instead, we did a lot of shopping both for normal clothes and for souveneirs in the touristy street market, and then we went down to the waterfront for some beers and doner kebap. (At about $1-2 for a huge sandwich with fresh veggies on it, we had this very frequently.) We went to another Azeri restaurant and ate another delicious meal with much the same food, but this time with some other traditional food (I forgot the name) which is bread with meats (this time chicken and peas and stuff) baked inside. It reminded me of a chicken pot pie.

Monday we traveled 10 or so miles outside the city to visit the Zoroastrian fire-worshiping temple. Because the huge amounts of gas and oil in the region, there used to be spontaneous fire coming from holes in the ground there, and so the fire-worshipers built a temple around it. I read that now it is artificially fed with natural gas pipes, but it was still cool. We returned to the city and took a little ferry ride around the bay of Baku before getting back on the train for a long trip back.

So as I hinted, there were things that were not so good... we had become used to the enthusiastic hospitality and friendliness of the Georgians, and the Armenians were more or less indifferent to our appearance in their country. But the Azeris gave us a different feeling- they were somewhat suspicious, and at times somewhat hostile to our presence, in a way that made most of us feel uneasy for some or all of the trip. The most obvious manifestation of this attitude was at our first dinner on Saturday night, the great authentic Azeri restaurant. Perhaps it wasn't so good to go so authentic. We seemed to attract a lot of attention, first of all by being young foreigners, and second of all, with our exhuberant at the food, drink and dancing. In Georgia, people would probably be delighted if you appeared to be enjoying yourself that much with their culture; in Azerbaijan, they didn't seem so. While we were dancing (not at all provacatively by our standards), perhaps because us 3 girls and 2 guys were dancing together (not kosher in this Muslim country?), perhaps because we were being loud at dinner, perhaps because we were not welcome in general and from the start, an Azeri guy on the dance floor flashed an Exacto blade at Julian. There were other factors as well that made us feel unwelcome: from the beginning, the embassy gave us a hard time and made us pay $100 for the visa. Border guards were really rude and unnecessarily harsh. While one of the hotel desk workers was extremely friendly, another commented to Salome that we shouldn't have gotten such a good deal on our rooms and that it was strange that men and women were staying together (even in two rooms joined by one bathroom). Cashiers were unfriendly. There were some exceptions, but generally we weren't left with a good taste in our mouths. It's not that this kind of attitude is malicious (well, except for pulling a razor on someone), but it was cold and it was not expected by any of us, including Salome, and it took us by surprise.

So for that reason and others (like I hadn't had a shower for 3 days), it was great yesterday to get back "home" to Tbilisi. I took a 20 minute shower and brushed my teeth for 5 minutes straight. We went out to our favorite Khinkali House, where my love of Georgians was reaffirmed by this little gesture: I have been looking all over for a Kazbegi (Georgian beer) beer mug to take home. We were served beer in them at Khinkali House. Salome mentioned to the waitress that I had been looking for one and where could I find one. So, not only did the waitress ask her manager if they could gift me one (he said no), she told us that she wouldn't count the glasses when we left, and then she actually took one of the empty glasses, washed it, and brought it back so that I wouldn't have to drip beer in my purse when I stole it. It was amazing. I really haven't seen people so consistently this generous anywhere I've been, and I'm surely going to miss that when I leave.

Like I mentioned, Wednesday made the third 4th of July that I did not spend in the US, but the first one that I actually celebrated the 4th abroad. We had been a couple of times to a bar in the Old Town that is run by a feisty Irish-American woman named Rebecca, mainly because it is the only place in town that shows rugby games, and Julian loves rugby. Since there were always at least another table of Americans there (not so in any other bar we’d been to in Tbilisi), and it was run by an American woman, it seemed like a good bet. We got there to find that they had decked out the place with an American flag and patriotic tablecloths, and had a foosball tournament and fireworks display planned. I had a cheeseburger and fries, and the closest we could come to American beer- Czech Budweiser (or Budvar, which is a totally different beer than American Budweiser- and better, I might add). The fireworks were kind of comical because the big ones, which were nice, only lasted about 30 seconds, and then when they decided to shoot Roman candles off the top of the building and over the patio where we were eating, it rained ashes down all over us and our food. Everyone was groaning instead of cheering. As it tends to do, part way through the evening the power went out all over Tbilisi, but due to the frequency with which this used to occur, many places, the bar included, had a generator to put lights, music, and tv back on. And then, to top it all off, they were showing a BRAVES GAME in the bar! It was from July 3 and we lost, but still, it was the icing on the cake. Not to mention that we were joined by a very fun visiting Emory ER physician, Bryan McNally, who treated all of us to the whole night. It was really about the best fourth we could have expected in Tbilisi.

I’ve gotten into a fairly comfortable habit of the workday for at least 4 days out of the week (when we take our long weekends for travel). I try to get there between 9 and 10 since the person whose computer I steal gets in between 1 and 2, so I get a couple hours free. (Picture left: outpatient AIDS clinic and research center- literally crumbling. The building is so bad that the first floor isn't even used. Broken windows everywhere.) Twice a week around 12 I show up at the inpatient AIDS center, and one of two physicians take me around to show me the patients. Then, I either have brought some fruit and some cheese for lunch, or I go to the fast food place with the boys and get a lobiani, a strange construction that is a pita-sized piece of soft bread filled with beans of a refried consistency. I like to think that it is better for you than bread stuffed with cheese (the ubiquitous khachapuri), but judging from the grease stains on the paper bag they put it in, it is probably not. Then I steal someone's computer for another hour or so, half writing emails and the blog, half looking up papers, perhaps I talk to the epidemiologist for a little while. Concerned about the magic that Georgian beer and cheap Georgian feasts are working on my waistline, I have started walking to or from work each day, usually from since walking there in the morning I would arrive with sweat stains all over me. It takes a solid hour, so it's probably 3 miles or so, and a nice time to take in some of the city's goings-on. It's mostly quite nice, through the nicest neighborhoods in the city: Saburtelo, where the ID center is, and Vake, where we live, but I like to refer to the long street connecting them as "Taxi Drivers' Urinal"- it's heavily car-trafficked but not pedestrian-trafficked, and so taxi drivers like to stop there, whip it out, and take care of business right there by the street. On hot days it does not smell nice. None of the walk is dangerous except for the shards of broken glass everywhere that could make their way into my flipflops, which I guess should be a real concern of mine. I'll get home around 3 or 4, and I always intend to do more work, but half the time I get lazy and read my book or watch BBC news instead. Then we usually go out for dinner somewhere (the cooking at the apartment has fallen off when we realized it was much cheaper to go out), meet some other American or Georgian friends, and have a few beers.

The time I spend in the inpatient center is about my favorite thing I do for “work” for several reasons. First of all, the doctors are really great and friendly, and all of the doctors, the few nurses, and the medical students that work there are women, making it a unique little environment. It kind of reminds me of working in the hospital in Buenos Aires, back when the whole group was made up of women. Nato is one of the older (like, not my age) physicians that shows me around; she is really sweet and tries her best with limited English to explain all the patients and their treatments and to answer my questions. Pati is the other "boss" of the inpatient center. She is a very stylish woman who speaks even better English, and I have been shadowing her for the last few times. Although she gave me the impression that she is kind of stern-- not excessively friendly like Nato--once I spent a little time with her, I especially enjoyed it. I really loved the way she approached the patients, with obvious intrigue and curiosity about not only the signs and symptoms of disease, but also the social and personal details of the patient's life. Despite the fact that she is always impeccably dressed and styled, she really connects with and wins the trust of the mostly drug user or former-prisoner patients. She invited me for coffee after rounds and we had an interesting chat. On average, each patient stays for 2 weeks, so if I go a couple times a week, I can really see how their care is progressing (or not), and they get to know me and try to converse through the translation of the doctor. Yesterday I was told by one of the patients that I looked like a Siberian woman, not an American- apparently a compliment.

Yesterday I spent almost all day running around making arrangements to go to Baku, Azerbaijan tonight. Getting the visa was kind of a hassle but it was achieved: you apply, wait 3 business days, go to the embassy at 10 am, get a bill, go across town to the Caucasus Development Bank, pay $100, get a receipt, go back to the embassy at 3 and pick up your passport and visa. We also had to go across town (another way) to the train station to get tickets. It was a really busy day, but there is something really gratifying about being able to get business done in a country and a language that is not my own, taking 3 taxis and 2 different buses without any trouble. There were even some delightful parts about it: the cashier at the train station who spoke English, and so, unlike many Georgians, picked up on our strange playful mishmash of Georgian and English words and loved it; the cab driver that took us from the train station to home who somewhat aggressively insisted that we eat the cherries that he uncovered from a little compartment in the console of the car.

We're getting on a long train ride at 5:15 pm tonight until 9 am tomorrow morning (with a 5-6 hour stop at the border) to Azerbaijan. Apparently Baku is the most modern and wealthy of the 3 capitals of the South Caucasus, but also the most conservative due to the Muslim religion. Looks like it has all sorts of Middle Eastern food and some other international foods. The thing you're supposed to buy there is carpets, and even with the $200 ish price tag, I'm starting to think an Azeri rug would look really good on my hardwood bedroom floor in Atlanta. It's also right on the Caspian Sea, so that should be nice. Hope y'all have a good weekend.

news flash: the black sea isn't really black!

This weekend we had a rather lazy, anticlimactic (at least for me) visit to Batumi on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia. Probably more than any other part of Georgia, I was intrigued by the Black Sea coast and had been dying to go there. The main disappointment was the weather: clouds, chilliness, and rain were not conducive to living it up on the beach, and that weather dominated Saturday and Sunday. We finally got to the beach on Monday and had a pretty good time. It's a rocky, like big rocks, beach, and so it's not the most comfortable to lie on (and let me tell you, when a wave knocks you over you don't get a mouthful of sand, you get your knees torn up by rocks- take it from me). Nevertheless, we enjoyed some sunning and swimming, and the rest of the trip we mainly sat at the charming guesthouse, read, ate, and drank. Very lazy.

You can see the patio of the guesthouse to the left, and you can barely make out the hammock that looked up into grape and kiwi vines (did you know kiwis grew on vines? I didn't). It was great- situated kind of on the side of a mountain that overlooked the beach. It was actually not in Batumi but in a smaller town a bit closer to the Turkish border called Gonio, the whole of which was attached to the side of the mountain and filled with people's houses and lots of vegetable gardens and livestock. I think we basically took the amazingly charming Gonio by storm and were probably the talk of the town. It’s hard to figure out if all the locals were gathering at the guest house because that is the normal place to gather, or because everyone was interested in us. Although Batumi is the primary tourist spot in Georgia, I imagine it rarely attracts many Americans, and even if so, they stay in Batumi and don’t go to the surrounding villages. I am fairly sure that the children that gathered at least were there because of us. Scott and Julian, probably because they are still children themselves (and they will say so too, it’s not just an insult), were like the pied pipers of the kids. For a couple hours on Sunday they gathered a swarm of at least 20 children and taught them to play tag. They were having so much fun that the older men wanted to play too- it was hilarious. The little girls weren’t allowed to play. The little one on the right of the picture was my favorite- she was like a little doll and I wanted to take her home with me. Highlights, besides the town and swimming, also included: a baby calf walking into the kitchen of the guesthouse; making a “vodkamelon” from a watermelon on the beach; playing carnival games in the park in Batumi-- I never won that stupid hedgehog from the claw-grabbing-toy game; interesting but not so comfortable overnight train rides there and back, which the boys thought was a perfect time to drink all night and make friends with Georgians by sharing their vodka.

Well, happy July 4 everyone. I was thinking that this is the third time I've celebrated the 4th in a foreign country. The American embassy is throwing a big party at a nearby lake on Saturday, but unfortunately we will be in Baku, Azerbaijan. Giorgi-Emory is up for constructing some kind of cook-out, but as there is not a grill to be seen, we are not quite sure how we're going to arrange that. Perhaps we can find some activity at one of the expat-frequented bars around. Honestly, I don't get all that patriotic about our independence, but I do like the festivities that usually celebrate it in the States, so maybe I'll do like I've done in Bangladesh and Argentina and think about all the swimming and fireworks people are doing back home and smile.

sunday is one of the most important days of the year

... for it is the anniversary of the birth of two of my very favorite people in the whole world, Charles and my mom. I think it is fate that my boyfriend and my mother share a birthday. They both think it is the best birthday to have because it is exactly in the middle of the year. Unfortunately I cannot spend the day with either of them since I am on the other side of the world, but I will be thinking about you both: Charles, about how we spent your last birthday in a hotel and Chili's somewhere not quite in Chicago after missing our flight to Maine because we were watching the World Cup and drinking beer, and Mom, last summer's mother-daughter time shortly after to the Virgin Islands, one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. I hope you both celebrate doing something wonderful. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND I LOVE YOU!

a fat georgian man has seen me naked

Yesterday we had a new cultural experience, and we even got Salome to do something in her own city that she had never done before: go to the sulfur baths. These are like Turkish baths, only, as we were reminded several times, "They're not Turkish baths because they're in Georgia!" Hot sulfury water comes from somewhere inside the earth to fill the baths, which are covered, as you can see to the left, with brick domes. We also discovered the mosque in Tbilisi in the same district, the tower of which you can also see in the picture. (I ripped this picture off the web, but since it's from some address with emory.edu I figure it's going to be okay.) The guidebooks give vague descriptions of masseuses scrubbing, pummeling, and walking on you in these establishment. What the hell, we thought, when in Tbilisi...

None of us knew quite what to expect when we got there: would we have to be naked? Would we have to be naked with a bunch of other people? Will girls and boys be separated? If girls go with boys, would they think we are prostitutes? Are they really going to pummel me, and will it hurt? So we kind of randomly picked one out and walked underground. We had the choice of a bigger or a smaller (private) bath, and the girls could stay with the boys. Our bath-room had a sitting room with a television, some (waterproof) couches, and a place for changing. Adjoining it was the actual bath, which had a small pool or jacuzzi-sized thing where the sulfur water came in, a marble table for massage, and hot and cold showers. We all decided to order the ambiguous massage-pummel treatment, and we ordered a round of beers (that promptly became warm in the sauna-like bath).

My first impression of the place was that it was way too modern- I wanted something that was made of old stone with grafitti from the 10th century or something, something ancient. Instead, the inside was covered with newish tile like your bathroom at home. The floors and bath were marble. The dome had a little opening where the sulfur, vapor, and some of the heat could escape, and where we could see the sun coming through. It was really, really hot. The water was hot, and the rest of the room was like a sauna. In order to not become too uncomfortable, you had to get out every once and awhile and get under the cold shower. We had thought to stay for 2 hours, but after 15 minutes or so we thought we might get heat exhaustion if we stayed that long.

Then our pummeler-man came in: a fat, ugly Georgian. We were all a little scared, and no one wanted to be first, so I volunteered. He promptly sent all the guys out of the room and made me strip down (we were all in bathing suits) and lie on the marble table. First, he took a mit and scrubbed like a centimeter of skin and Tbilisi dust off me-- the amount of stuff that came off my body was kind of disturbing. Then he poured a bucket of warm water on me, and then a cold one. Then, he took this big sponge thing and actually scrubbed me down with soap. Now, I've had a naked massage before, but I've never been washed by a stranger. It was a little weird, but all the scrubbing was really relaxing, and afterwards my skin felt so soft. Then there was a light massage, and then done. It was great, and only about $7! And fortunately (or unfortunately?), no pummeling was involved. Might have to do it again before leaving.

Tonight we're taking the overnight train to the beach at Batumi. I've kind of abandoned the idea of Istanbul unfortunately. I'm kind of disappointed, but I should be able to be content with 3 countries for the summer. I'll make it back to Turkey some day, but probably not to Armenia or Azerbaijan, so that at least will be time well-spent. I think in its place I'll make a new commitment to see more of the sights in Tbilisi. I kind of lost passion for the city after the first week, but going to the baths and seeing more of the old town yesteraday reminded me that there are things I haven't seen.

In other news, we went to the embassy to apply for a visa to Azerbaijan, and we were almost denied simply because Julian was carrying a water bottle he bought in Armenia. They are not on good terms. Nice.

georgia peach

Weeks 3 and 4 of Tbilisi have gone much faster than the first two, when it seemed that we would be kind of doing the same thing every day. Most of us are (at least trying) to get involved in our projects during the week while spending a lot of time planning for travel on the weekends.

We've met several new friends as well. A couple of local social research centers mainly run by expats organized a seminar series on Georgian society, politics, etc., and after two of them we have a few more American friends. Jen is a masters student at Tufts studying public policy (and here for the summer), and Julie is actually a recent graduate of Emory's Rollins School of Public Health, and is working for an NGO to try to change labor and maternity practices in hospitals here to make them more woman-friendly. Julie's been in Tbilisi before, so I'm looking forward to her advice on some different things to do and see. We also met two Spanish guys, Gorge and Sergio, in the hostel in Yerevan, and they have been in Tbilisi for the past couple of days, and we've been hanging out with them. Salome threw a dinner party last night, including the five of us, Sergio and Gorge, Salome's sister Keti, Irina, and Irina's friend and fellow doctor Tami. It was quite fun, and after the Spanish guys made sangria, Salome and Keti showed off their professional dancing skills with Georgian and Spanish dancing. (Both apparently are very well-trained dancers in a variety of different styles.)

With the weather getting hotter and hotter, I find that I was wrong- or at least misinformation from Giorgi and my guidebook lead me to make wrong assumptions- about women's style of dress. I have indeed seen not only shoulders but my fair share of cleavage and a few (but not too many) short skirts. What I was told about women not showing off their sexuality in their dress here was false. Perhaps its a recent trend. Also with the hot weather is coming tons of seasonal fresh fruits to the fruit stands of the city- peaches (in the other Georgia too!), red and white cherries (cherries make me think of my dad), watermelons, plums, and other delicious things. Warm weather also offers us a great time to plan a trip to the coast of the Black Sea at Batumi, very close to the Turkish border. We're going to take the overnight train Friday night to get there for the weekend. Not sure how nice the beaches are, but any beach is fun. I'm also dying to get to Istanbul, and Jen is on board with me. We are trying to put together a last-minute trip from Batumi (which should be cheaper than flying from Tbilisi) that will take up some of next week. We're also applying for a visa to go to Azerbaijan for the following weekend. Rachel has put the travel bug in me, and thanks to her encouragement I am getting ambitious. She has already made it to 9 or so countries this summer, including the Caucasus, Turkey, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and others. She's currently in Greece with her boy friend. Jealous.

Oh and work? In keeping with the trend from when I tried to meet with him in the states, Dr. del Rio neglected to answer my emails for 2 weeks, leaving me hanging without any feedback on my alternative project. I'm kind of trying to plug along at something, for lack of any specific knowledge of what I'm supposed to be doing. (One would think that spending $3000+ to send a med student to Georgia would kind of be an investment and you would at least want to facilitate her making something of it. Maybe he's really busy saving Grady hospital or something.) I've been collecting some epidemiological information at the center, as well as reading grant applications and talking to people to learn about health services offered to AIDS patients here. I'd like to make a little more out of it than simply updating the epidemiological information published in 2002. During 2002, a grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria allowed Georgia to offer universal access to antiretroviral therapy, so maybe some kind of evaluation of how that is changing outcomes for AIDS patients here. And as for Armenia and Azerbaijan...? The seminar series has actually offered me some really good contacts for information on health attitudes in the Caucasus. One seminar was on a huge survey of attitudes towards all kinds of social issues, including health and HIV in particular, that I can probably use in the paper, and the second was put on by a woman who has experience studying women, AIDS, and migration (as in, refugee kind of migration) in the Caucasus. And I've been visiting the inpatient clinic about twice a week. I'm not sure if I'm really learning a whole lot about medicine since my baseline knowledge about AIDS treatments are very low, but it's always interesting for me to get in and see patients. I think it also allows me to observe a lot about the state of health care and AIDS treatment in Georgia, since I can see it first-hand as I am reading papers about it. The other day I noticed that the doctor was speaking to the patient in Russian, not Georgian, so I asked where he was from. Turns out he came all the way from South Ossetia, a region of conflict in the western part of Georgia. Georgia is not providing any health facilities to this area, so people from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the other region of conflict, have to travel far distances to seek more than basic medical treatment. It's frustrating that I can't speak to the patients myself.

By the way, if you're in the Atlanta area and/or care about the state of safety-net health care, keep up with the news about Grady Hospital and the recent task force report, and if you are so inclined, do a little activism on my behalf. : )

yerevan

This is one view of the amazing Mt. Ararat over Yerevan. I have many more from different points of view because I just couldn't get enough. I'm back in the center after my long weekend to Yerevan. We really had a great time. On Sunday we went back to the market (spending probably a total of 4 hours there over the whole weekend), and I bought some really fabulous presents for Mom and Dad and some others (I'm not going to tell you Mom), as well as a green and blue wool and silk scarf, and a modern-ish painting of some dandelions in a glass for myself.

But before that, for our first activity of the day (so that we could cheer ourselves up with fun activities for the rest of it), we visited the Museum of the Armenian Genocide. I was impressed that I could get the rest of the group to go see such a downer of an attraction, but I though it would be really informative about the history and culture of Armenia and about a topic I knew nothing.

We were all extremely moved by the museum, which was wonderfully done, and left kind of outraged that not a single one of us, after 16 years of school, was aware of the Armenian Genocide, despite the fact that it was of the same severity and scope as the Holocaust, which almost everyone knows about in detail. I'd like to take the opportunity to raise some awareness since I assume many of you are as uninformed as I was. Between the 1890s and 1915 (although it began less intensely before that time), Ottoman Turks carried out systematic genocide of between 1.5 and 2 million Armenians. Despite eyewitnesses and photographs documenting the genocide, which are on display at the museum, Turkey to this day refuses to acknowledge that it happened. Just last year, a Turkish journalist of Armenian descent, an influential and outspoken protestor of the Armenian Genocide, was murdered "mysteriously." The Turks took over six historically Armenian provinces that they still hold today, explaining why Mt. Ararat is a symbol of Armenia even though it lies in Turkey. The genocide was carried out similarly to the Holocaust or even more brutally. It began with able-bodied Armenians-- soldiers and workers-- then intellectuals, then women and children. They were deported to work camps but most were promptly killed, sometimes by crucifixion or burial alive, and sometimes whole villages were burned alive. Many women and children died of starvation.

This may be kind of a controversial issue, and although I don't claim to be a great scholar of the issue, I saw the evidence-- letters and pictures-- of all of these things. Many countries have acknowledged and condemned the genocide, but strangely the US is only doing it state by state, with 40 having acknowledged it. They had on display the City of Atlanta's letter to that effect, as well as Schwarzenegger's signature from the state of California.

Then, after the market, we rested for a little bit and went to look for the famous khorvati street (or as Julian likes to call it, the Meat District). This is where there is a high concentration of Yerevan's famous food, khorvati, or basically what we know as shish kabobs, aka meat-on-a-stick. It was quite a hike from the hostel, and we were invited into one little mom-and-pop place that wasn't exactly a restaurant as it had only 2 tables in 2 rooms, and we were the only occupants. It seemed actually like we were in someone's kitchen and they were cooking dinner for us. We got grilled vegetables, lamb, pork, and chicken kebabi (kebabi being ground meet on a stick). It was served with fresh onions and cilantro, and lavash (or kind of a thin flour tortilla to wrap it in). Of course we had some Kilikya and Kotayk, Armenia's main beers. I loved the pork, but the lamb kind of freaked me out when we realized (the little anatomists that we are) that we were eating around the vertebrae and that the spinal cord was still in the spinal column. Julian was the only one to sample lamb spinal cord, the rest of us passed on it. It was pretty satisfying for not having grilled meat in a while.

The outward appearance of Armenia is definitely more obviously influenced by the Middle East. The music and the appearance of the people are at least superficial evidence of that. They also seem to be better off, with many more ways of entertainment and more fashionably dressed people, possible (but I guess not necessarily) evidence of more expendable income. The infrastructure of Yerevan also seemed much more updated, unlike Tbilisi, which looks like it hasn't had a good facelift in 20 or 30 years. To the left is a park/monument called the Cascade, which goes up the side of a mountain with flowers and fountains at every level. At the big park near our house in Tbilisi, we have a similar large climb-able monument, but the flowerbeds and the fountains are all dry.

We were all kind of sad to be leaving Yerevan since it was a very lively and modern place, giving us many more opportunities for fun than we seem to find in Tbilisi. Actually, I feel a little guilty trashing on Tbilisi and preferring Yerevan, but I suppose it all depends on what you are looking for. The morning we left, we were talking to a Peace Corp volunteer staying in the hostel who was praising Tbilisi for its preservation of some of its history in churches and the Old Town (of

which Yerevan does not have very much), and the interesting and charming way the city crawls up the side of a mountain with small cobblestone streets leading to the houses there. It kind of made me see Tbilisi in a little different, and more positive, light. Yerevan, on the other hand, is a place that is easier for 6 young Americans to find fun and culture, and meet new people. There are not only more social opportunties and more people out and about, but also more art, museums, the fantastic market, and other cultural draws. I'm at least glad I got to see one of the other capitals of the Caucasus, but I think with a new perspective, Tbilisi might be starting to grow on me.

from the land of pomegranates

While I am waiting for my sleepy-head group to get up, I wanted to extend greetings from the land of pomegranates, Yerevan, Armenia! Apparently pomegranites are the national symbol, and while I have seen pomegranates on ceramic pieces, paintings, woodcarvings, and carved into the side of the opera house, I have yet to actually see a real live pomegranate fruit. Although it irks me a little that my buddies are sleeping past 11, at least I got the opportunity this morning to meet other travelers at the hostel- two Spanish guys, one Canadian-Armenian, and one South Korean missionary. This is the great thing about the hostel environment.

So we made a last-minute decision to come to Yerevan on Friday night, and we left early Saturday morning for the bus station. Here we first encountered some of the crazy adventures that only budget travel will provide. We were planning on traveling by marshrutka, a public transport van, of which many travel through Tbilisi and to other parts of the region. We soon found that for only a couple dollars more per person we could negotiate for a very comfortable car for four of us, economical, more comfortable, and faster than the marshrutka. The catch? Our cabbie had only one leg and what we diagnosed as a Parkonsonian tremor in his hands. He was really nice though, pointing out that he had automatic transmission lest we be worried about his ability to handle a car with only one leg, and he also guided us through the border crossing, stopped for a snack, and pointed out attractions along the way (although he didn't speak any English).

The ride itself was spectacular. The whole way was through mountainous terrain, but the lush, tree-filled hills of Georgia across the Armenian border gave way to sharp, rocky mountains with huge cliffs, and then further on, to large but rolling mountains covered by soft grass, some with snow on top (even though it is 80-90 degress on the ground). Then we saw what will stand out as one of the most breathtaking sights of my life- we came over a hill to see the hugh Mount Ararat in front of us. Its monumental snow-covered peak was circled by clouds, and below the clouds the sillouette was barely visible, making it appear as if it was floating. (I'll be sure to post a picture of this ASAP, but can't now.) Mount Ararat is actually in Turkey, and at that point was probably 200 km from where we were driving. It is the point where Noah's Ark is said to have landed after (or during?) the great flood. Spectacular.

The rest of the day we spent eating hummus, falafel, and baba ganoush (new and healthy food, yay!) at the arts and crafts market, climbing a huge monument in the park for a view of the city, and weaseling our way out of a sticky hotel situation to make it to this hostel (funny story I'll tell later), before going out to the cafe scene for a bottle of pomegranate wine. We are absolutely loving Yerevan, and fortunately or unfortunately spending a good amount of time talking about how much more we like it than Tbilisi. I'm not sure what's in store for the day, but at 11:30 I'm going to have to go wake up Rachel, Julian, and Scott to get a move on.

this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever done in a foreign country

Wé're pretty sure this is the first time beerpong has ever been played in the Republic of Georgia.

real world tbilisi

The cast of characters


Rob- our ringleader, owing to the fact that he was here 2 weeks before any of us and got the hang of things and met people, and because he is our liaison with Ken, the big man in charge of all our projects. Of particular interest to me- went to Stanford and ran cross country, and also came in second in the nation in the national high school cross country championships once upon a time. Wants to own a jet one day.







Gabe (aka "Goob")- been in Atlanta for his whole education, including Druid Hills High school, Georgia Tech, and now Emory Med. Lived in Isreal for a little while before that. Doing a project on emergency treatment of spine injury. Does and says silly things sometimes, thus the nickname. He's a big teddy bear.









Julian- from Guatemala and is of Argentine-Spanish descent. Went to Wesleyan for college. Doing a project on multi-drug resistant staph aureus. Kind of feels like he might become an OB like his dad. Is intentionally sketchy. Likes beer, as you can see.






Scott- fratastic guy from New Orleans suburbs, LSU grad. Former class president. Wants to be an ophthalmologist. Seems kind of bashful about the fact that his girlfriend of a few months turns him from tough guy to totally smitten.







Rachel- my roomie, from Florida and is a Florida Gator, but I might forgive her for that. Doing a retrospective surveillance of treatment of bacterial infections of CSF and blood from medical records. Is into infectious disease like me but is open to other specialties. Traveled around southeast Asia before getting to Tbilisi and lugged around a large gift from Thailand for her boyfriend. Is going to Greece next week with her boyfriend and I am jealous.








Salome- Georgian friend, lawyer for the air traffic controllers in Tbilisi. Got her law degree in Amsterdam. Has been fantastic to have around, and she comes on most of our out of town trips and comes out with us a lot. Has fantastic jewelry.




Giorgi (now known as Giorgi-Emory)- has been previously introduced. Georgian who has lived in India (11 years) and Atlanta. Is going to Harvard in the fall for a masters in public policy. Is a great tamada.






Irina- Russian physician living in Tbilisi. Has two jobs, one as an abdominal surgeon and another as the physician to the air traffic controllers (must make sure they're not ill or intoxicated before they're directing flights). Is allergic to almost everything, including the outdoors, wine and beer.

Giorgi-driver- Georgian, our driver and friend, and must do something else with his time but I haven't figured out what. I heard some vague reference to working for an NGO. Doesn't speak English unless he's drinking. He and Irina are a recent item.




You know me. This was my birthday present.












We've been very social with each other, despite coming from different places and having different lifestyles and being different ages. Actually for me, we've been amazingly cohesive, usually agreeing on doing the same evening entertainment and weekend excursions with really no disagreement (except for the time I rounded up a group to go to walk to the English bookstore with me, for fun and for exercise, and we diverted to the Kazbegi brewery instead-- overruled).

So, after a few weeks of surprisingly relatively easy coexistence, we are beginning to feel the strains of 6 people living in an apartment together and the s*** is hitting the proverbial fan. Rob is actually leaving tonight (also going to Greece with his significant other before heading back to the US), and I think he is getting antsy to get out. Gabe and Julian, starting to feel the strains of keeping up relationships at home, got into a little spat about the quality of doctors trained in places other than the US (and with Julian's dad an OB trained somewhere in South America, you can see why this is a personal subject). And then last night we had a ridiculous situation that escalated into a serious issue that has yet to be resolved, so of course I'm still steaming:

We had had a big night out since it was Rob's last night here. We ended up at karaoke and left a few at a time throughout the night. Rob and Scott were the last left, and when they arrived home, they had a 12ish-year old homeless kid with them, claiming that he was going to sleep in the apartment for the night. They were incredibly touched by the kid, who refused money but just wanted a place to stay. Rachel and I vehemently protested-- for our safety-- but we were completely shut down by Scott, and in the process, felt insulted and disrespected. I also really resented having to sleep with all my valuables in my pillowcase. Today there will be some clashing and I assure you, Mom and Dad and whoever is worried about my safety, it will not end with this or any other child staying in our apartment ever again. Yikes. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Borjomi

This weekend we had a couple of experiences that really highlighted what travel is all about. Borjomi, which is known for its natural scenery and carbonated spring water (which, as I mentioned, is bottled and sold throughout Georgia as a refreshing drink and a cure-all, provided the boys with the hope to use the tent they'd been lugging throughout Europe. The first morning we were there, we packed up and went to the "park," which surprisingly to me, was not a natural park but more of an amusement park with several springs throughout where you could sample the famous waters. We were gathered there, some of us with huge packs full of camping equipment, surrounded by children riding bumper cars and other rides. (Okay, that's not to say we didn't also partake in the bumper cars and that boat ride that swings you horizontally.) After a couple slow hours there, I was feeling like Borjomi may kind of be a bust, we finally reached the end of the park, and the paved path turned to dirt and continued into the woods... so we went.

The path wound through the woods and along the river that flows through Borjomi, crossing it on rickety bridges several times. Outside Tbilisi, everything in Georgia is really lush and green, and the with the river, made for a beautiful hike. After a mile or 2, we came upon a pool fed by either river or spring water where a lot of children were playing. We made plans to revisit the spot and then found where a smaller path led up a very steep hill for about a half a mile until we reached a grassy ridge surrounded by huge evergreens where we decided to set up the tent.

After that we still had several hours of daylight left, and we wanted to hike some more. Climbing a little higher, within 5 minutes, we came upon a little town-- so after an hour or more hike, we find out that we are actually extremely close to a road. We took the opportunity to get some food and supplies, as the only thing the campers had been very conscientious about buying was vodka, plus some cookies.

This town was one of the most pristine, idyllic rural towns I have ever seen. Houses lined the single road, and behind them the fields of crops, all enclosed in a valley by huge green mountains. There were all manner of livestock running around in the streets- cows, pigs, goats, chickens- as if either they were all communal property or they would know how to return home at the end of the day. Instead of returning to the woods to hike, we were so charmed by the town that we wandered, visited the small old, church, and enjoyed the cozy feel of the place.

On our way out, though, we passed a yard where 5 men were sitting at a table having some food and talking. We heard our favorite word, "gamarjos!"(cheers if you don't remember) and responded merrily "gamarjos!"-- which, apparently, made us immediately a part of the supra. (See left the scene we came upon. Notice the huge container of wine on the ground, which was only about 1/3 full when we left.) The guys insisted we come over and they poured us each a glass of wine. We introduced ourselves and within minutes the toasts started. They acted like we weren't strangers at all. They toasted to how touched and happy they were that we had come to visit! That we must come back! That it was an honor we had decided to say hello! And all this time they were thanking us, they were feeding us their food and wine, which they had prepared for 5 and now shared with 8 more people. Poor Salome spent the whole time translating for the men. One of the men was very taken with Rachel and me, repeating over and over that I was like a daughter to him, but as he was looking for a wife for his son, he would like Rachel to be his daugther in law, and that she must come back and meet his son and bring her whole family and all her relatives too. I don't know if the guys were drunk before we came, but they certainly were by the time we left, as were some of us. They never let a glass stay empty, and one of the men looked at me and said, "Daughter, you must drain your glass every time."

And the food! It was mostly traditional food that we had had before- bread, cheese, tomato and cucmber salad, some eggs and sausage- but the thing was that it was all made right there, in the home of the guy whose yard we were in, including the wine. I told him I loved the cheese (which was delicious), and he said, oh, my wife made it. The vegetables, cheese, eggs, everything had been produced by the man who was serving it. Amazing. The wine definitely had a farm-like taste, kind of like it had been made in the barn with the cows, but still, the freshness of it made it wonderful to drink. Making it even more charming, there was a little calf wandering and frolicking around the yard as if it were the family dog. We had to tear ourselves away as it started to get dark, but we walked back to the campsite in a wonderful mood.

<-- I loved this Soviet-era bulldozer.

We went back and Julian and Scott made a fire, where we sat for a few hours, and after it got dark, we made treacherous walk down the very steep hill to the spring-fed pool and did a little night swimming. Irina and Giorgi (driver), who had abandoned the hike, drove the car to the village and joined us around the campfire for awhile, bringing lots more food and drinks, and after people got sleepy, me, Rob, Giorgi and Irina abandoned the campsite to sleep in the guest house. (I know, kind of lame, but I thought that if I had a night of 2 hours' sleep I might not make it.)

The next day, and the campers were still on top of the mountain, I went to a very popular Borjomi spring to get, from its source, the waters that are supposed to cure hangover (which, after our little supra, I needed). The water is an acquired taste I think. Before it even gets to your mouth, you smell the sulfur, and it has a very strong minerally taste. Straight from a cold spring, it is pretty refreshing if you can stand the smell, but warm it is atrocious.

There are so many more details I could add, but for now I guess I should do some work. Hope you all are well.

the spell of the white coat

Being a first-year (or just recently completed first year) is kind of interesting. Everywhere you go, when people know you are a medical student, they expect you to immediately have all this knowledge and all these skills, when really we are not in the slightest degree prepared to be treating patients. Furthermore, in professional situations, we wear this white coat that is supposed to symbolize the possession of this knowledge and these skills that we do not have. Put on the coat and poof! Almost universally, people think you're trustworthy, smart, and that you have the knowledge required to save lives. I was asked to don the white coat to see patients in the inpatient AIDS ward and the same thing happens, but this time it's like, not only can I not answer your medical question, I have no idea what you're even saying! Convenient that I know the right phrase, as I said I do not speak Georgian no less than 5 times while wearing the coat for 1 hour today.

So some of you have astutely noticed that there has been no mention of work among everything I've said about Georgia. I've been waiting until I was really doing something before I started to explain what it is that I'm doing. Honestly, last week, my first week, I didn't even attempt to work for 2 out of 5 days because I had nothing to do, and one of the remaining days all I did was meet with someone for 20 minutes.

The story is that when I expressed interest in going to Georgia and doing some sort of infectious disease research here, I was immediately matched with an AIDS doc at Emory. He's a really important person at Emory and in the AIDS field, so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to get to know someone with connections, do some really interesting AIDS work, etc. As it turns out, though, he is so connected and so important that neither he nor his secretary had any time to get me set up here- they just threw an abstract, some money, and a plane ticket (barely) at me and sent me on my way.

So I get here with this abstract, the project being a 2-year, fairly straightforward project that actually there is no place for me in. They were like, I'm not really sure what you want to do here, and I'm like me either! So I spent most of last week trying to figure out what my Emory mentor had in mind for me, finally concluding on my own that I could not work on the project because he did not, in fact, set up any project for me at all.

While hanging around, I learned how sequencing of HIV genes for resistance testing is done, which was really cool- but not as cool when you are participating, and at $400 an assay, I didn’t want to ask if I could give a try. I got discouraged pretty quickly when all I was doing was following people around with no clear objective. I have been in this situation before in other countries, and when I am in a resource-poor area, I get to feeling really guilty about consuming more of their time and supplies only for my own curiosity.

So finally, my mentor suggested that I update a paper on the emerging AIDS epidemic in Georgia that he published several years ago, and, if I want, to expand it to include Armenia and Azerbaijan to produce a paper on AIDS in the Caucasus. I absolutely love the idea, because it would justify my inquisitiveness, allow me to learn anything I want about AIDS- for a purpose, and it even seems like a superb excuse for some “business trips” to Armenia and Azerbaijan. I’ll continue to spend a little time with the sequencing/resistance work, AND, the highlight of it all, I’m seeing patients in the inpatient AIDS ward at the ID center a few times a week with one of the physicians.

The clinical exposure I've had has been quite an experience. I guess the people that end up in the inpatient facility are the worst of the worst, and indeed none of them just has one complication. “This patient has HIV, toxoplasmosis, and he might have stomach cancer. He was diagnosed 5 years ago when he was being treated for leishmania.” (Did you know there was leish in Georgia?) “This patient has HIV, cryptococcal meningitis, and he might have TB. He also has heptatitis C.” When I saw patients on Tuesday, there were 4 in the 12-bed ward, and I was almost sure that when I returned on Thursday, 2 would no longer be living- they were extremely sick and had CD4 counts of 2 and 3. Fortunately, both, one with cryptococcal meningitis, and one with tubercular meningitis, had made it to Thursday, but as I was on rounds, one had a crisis and I was again fairly sure that I was going to witness his death right there. His eyes started rolling back in his head, he began breathing very hard, he turned red, and I was wondering if this is what it looks like when someone dies. I haven’t really seen anything like that before and it was pretty traumatic for me. I was starting to feel a little weird and I started to fear that I might throw up, faint, or both. They stabilized him to some degree, though, and when I left he was looking (relatively) better.

Despite a paper I read that HIV/TB coinfection is rare in Georgia, 60% of the patients I’ve seen in the inpatient facility have TB. One particularly touching patient is this woman who came in with a suspicion of TB and was diagnosed with HIV. Her husband is an injecting drug user and she contracted the virus from him. She’s quite dramatic and talkative, and each time I see her she pleads with me to go home and find a cure for AIDS. Judging from the age of her children, she must be fairly young, but she looks 60- rough life probably. When I first met her, we came into her room, and she was reading a book that I recognized as the Georgian-language guide to preventing maternal-to-child transmission of HIV. She was incredibly distraught because she had suddenly realized that she could have unknowingly transmitted HIV to her 2- and 4-year old children. By the time I returned 2 days later, they had been tested and were negative. I got a little choked up by the thankful look on her face.

Now that I have some direction, I’m settling in more here. It’s challenging to be in a developing country when you have no idea what you’re supposed to be doing there, but now I’m on a roll. I’m learning a lot in the clinic and in the lab, so I’m pretty excited now, and if I can get this paper off the ground, it’ll be a great 5 weeks.

We’re headed to Borjomi tonight for the weekend. It’s a resort town in the mountains that was very popular within the Soviet Union, but a little less so now, and the source of the panacea Borjomi carbonated spring water. Hangover? Stomach bug? Just drink some Borjomi! Hopefully the medicinal waters will clear up my little stomach friend I picked up. I’m sure to return with some spectacular pictures, so stay tuned.

Have a good weekend and love your dads. HAPPY FATHER’S DAY DAD!

sampling of pictures

View of Tbilisi from Betsy's Hotel

This is how you eat khinkali

Full picture of the view from Jvari

9th century church at the top of the cave city. (I realize that it's sideways, just go with it for now.)

Looking up at the main temple-cave of the cave city.

The famous Giorgi from Emory and Brian the American health care consultant, making a toast at the supra about something sentimental like brotherhood.