my wu-chi blog

Pretty sad

ja — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:25:26 +0000

I have been working so much that I completely forgot that I had pictures to post.

Last month I wrote about how I went to Chala for Easter. Well, now that I have a chance to breathe and think again, it is time to post some of the pictures.

First up, the family. Malkhazi’s sister and her family came to stay at the house for a couple days. Malkhazi’s other sister lives in the neighboring village and she came with her two daughters. Overall, a very crowded, but fun house.

This is a typical grave at easter. There is food and drinks on the table and a casket of wine close at hand so people can give toasts or prayers. All that is missing is the family.

This is Malkhazi’s grandmother’s grave. The food was just laid out and we are eating, drinking, and looking to see who else is at the cemetery. Next up is visiting other people.

And this is what happens when you go visit other people. You drink and you eat. Sometimes just once, but in this case I think I had about 5-7 glasses of wine before I moved on. For some reason that family just liked me, yet I have never met them before.

This is with the same family as the last picture. This is Nana’s uncle and we just did a toast where you finish by kissing each other on the cheek three times.

I think you get the general idea of what Easter is like in Georgia.

View the complete slideshow.

Making the world a better place

ja — Mon, 07 May 2012 07:59:25 +0000

Courageous actions from wonderful children.

From the video website:

In a small school a little north and a little west of downtown Durham, N.C., a group of eleven-, twelve- and thirteen-year-olds has been busy organizing a field-trip.

Watch as a middle school’s gay-straight alliance, GLOW, for Gay Lesbian or Whatever, embarks on an adventure in civic engagement with real consequences for many of the club’s members.

“They don’t really see kids as having an idea of how they want their future to be like,” said Sarah, a GLOW member, “but when we actually voice our opinion it really does make a difference.”

Production: Mimi Schiffman
Music: Phil Cook & His Feat
Additional Camera: Patrick Mustain and Vanessa Patchett

Special thanks to:
Lisa Joyner
Carolina Friends School
Phil Cook

How I miss thee

ja — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:22:16 +0000

This is a cool video.

I just happened to come across this video and was glad I did. Travel Portland put together an awesome video of Portland and its surrounding areas. Watching this makes me miss living there. The nature, the bookstores, the rain, the people, the culture, the beer (oh, the beer!), the hiking, and the weirdness. Someday I hope to return. Enjoy!

Love

ja — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 17:21:43 +0000

I don’t know why, but I just love this woman.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been in Chala all week. One reason for the visit was for Easter. The other reason was because the lady in the picture above, Jilda’s mother-in-law Mediko, lost her husband, Papuna, a few weeks ago and today was the 40-day supra to celebrate his life.

The supra started by traveling to the cemetery and having a glass of wine and some food, just like on easter. Mediko, was the first into the fence of her husband’s burial site, and naturally was distraught and crying. I watched her with admiration and sympathy. Mediko is a quiet, fragile, caring woman who has lost the love of her life and I have been allowed to witness and participate in this emotional event. After everyone had had a drink and said a toast to Papuna we went back to Mediko’s house for the supra.

While waiting for the everything to be ready, people sat around talking and socializing. I was near Mediko and was able to watch people express their sympathies to her. One man sat next to her for some time and talked to her and held her hand. This touched me deeply and I was glad to see someone, especially a man, try to console her.

A little later everyone went upstairs to eat and I sat with Mediko for a few minutes before I was pulled upstairs, literally. I too held her hand and kissed her on the head several times. Later I was able to sit next to her again and this time I put my arm around her to hold her and rub my hand across her back.

Before I left, I sat with her again and gave her a few strong kisses. She pulled me in and gave me some kisses on my cheeks and squeezed my hand. I waved good-bye to her as I left and she waved back. It was an emotional day and I was glad that I took the time to participate in this important event.

Now let me put this into perspective a bit. Mediko is very frail and cannot walk upright; she is always leaning over like many old people in the villages. When she talks, it comes out as a loud whisper. I am not sure why, but that is all that she can produce when she talks. Because she is an old woman, whenever I have been at their house for meals, she always sits in the back of the room instead of at the table. We have never talked except to say hello and good-bye. Given that, I have always felt a connection with her. I was glad that I was able to attend the supra today, sit with her, and tighten our bond even more.

I love you Mediko.

Wow

ja — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:33:43 +0000

Did not expect that to happen.

I am in Chala for the week to spend Easter with the host family, go to school for a day, attend a 40-day funeral supra, and to take a break from work.

This past weekend was Easter in Georgia (orthodox) and on Sunday we attended Malkhazi’s family cemetery and on Monday we visited Nana’s family cemetery. I was looking back through my posts from last year and found that I did not write about the Easter experience, so here it goes.

Think Day of the Dead in Mexico. Everyone goes to their family cemetery, brings food and wine, has a picnic, and socializes with everyone else at the cemetery. Almost all family plots are surrounded by a fence. If the family plot is large, there may be many smaller plots instead of one large one. And either in the plot or just outside, there is a small table and this is where they setup the food and drinks. Oh, and on the headstones, almost all have a picture of the person etched into the stone.

When you socialize, the family gives you a glass of wine with which you pour some onto the grave(s), say a toast or prayer, and then drink. You then eat some of their food, talk, and then move on to the next family you want to visit. If you are close to some families you may be given more than one glass of wine. Ah heck, you do not need to be close to them, just friendly. I ended up staying with one family for at least 20 minutes and had at least 7 glasses of wine. It could have been longer than 20 minutes, after that many drinks time does not matter any more. There are some tears and crying, but overall it is a festive affair.

As I mentioned at the top, I visited two cemeteries, one on Monday and one on Sunday. I have not been able to determine if there is a set rule for determining which one you visit on which day. Maybe the husband’s first and then the wife’s? Maybe a village has its gathering on a certain day while other villages have it on other days. No idea.

Malkhazi’s family cemetery is in Chala on top of the hill behind my house where his grandma is buried. His grandpa died in WWII and I think I was told that he is buried in Germany. There were many families up there that I knew because they are neighbors or because they have students at the school, so it was nice to walk around and socialize on my own. Nana’s family cemetery is in Skvitori, her village about 10 minutes from Chala, and she has many family members buried there: parents, sister, uncles, cousins, etc. In Skvitori I did not know anyone, but some knew of me, so they called me over and gave me wine and food. It felt good to be accepted and welcomed.

Last year during my first Easter, I thought the whole experience was weird. I mean spending time in a cemetery eating, drinking and having fun? That just seems backwards. Well, this year my experience was completely different and I am now fond of this event.

Today I attended a funeral supra for the father-in-law of one of the teachers at school that died three days ago. While sitting through the supra and listening to the toasts, and still not understanding many of them, I was still struck by how touching it is to have this kind of celebration to mourn a person. And then to have another supra 40 days later and one year later to celebrate the person. I feel like there is nothing close to this experience in the states and upon thinking about the supra and the Easter celebration, I decided that if I spend many years in Georgia, get married, have kids, etc, I am going to want to be buried here. When thinking about my family and friends visiting my grave on Easter, toasting, laughing, crying, and telling stories, I could not think of anything better. In the states I never had any inclination of being buried, I just wanted to be cremated and spread out somewhere. But after these experiences, I think I have changed my mind.

On top of that revelation, I had another epiphany this weekend. After seeing the families at the cemeteries with little kids and grandkids helping, playing, and having fun, I finally experienced the desire to have children. I always had thoughts about it, but this was the first time that I can recall actually having a deep urge to have children. To share this experience with them along with sharing my knowledge and showing them the world. When I was saying a prayer at the graves, I would look at the picture on the headstone and tell them that they did a good job with their kids and grandkids. I want someone to say that to me many years from now.

Mziuri Park

ja — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 07:29:57 +0000

I finally went to the park that is below my apartment building.

The name of the park is Mziuri Park and it is a good size park. I woke up early today, 630 on a Saturday morning – what the heck is up with that, so I headed down to the park to check it out. There were a few people walking or jogging through the park, but it was mostly empty. It was weird walking to the park for I was pretty much the only person on the street except for a few occasional cars and the street cleaners.

This park is the only place in all of Georgia that I have actually seen a bike path on the street. It is possible that this is the only place in all of Georgia. Some of the trees started blooming with flowers this week so I was able to get a few good shots of the flowers in the park. Below are some pictures and be sure to view the slide show to see all of the pictures. I also updated my map so you can see where it is.

Looking up at my apartment building - the tall in the middle

Balance

ja — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 07:10:45 +0000

Not working so well for me.

Imagine sitting on one end of a seesaw and on the other end is no one to play with. That missing person would be because I am too busy working right now.

I did a calculation last night and realized that I have put in about 5 weeks of work in the last 3 weeks (assuming a typical 40 hour week). Yea! Go me!

So what happened 3 weeks ago to start all of this? Well, the story actually begins at least 6 months ago, way before I started working in the office. My group started a new project and the lead web developer, naturally, was in charge of putting the web application together. Apparently he was good at making promises on when features in the application would be completed, but he was not so good on actually finishing the features. He also refused to keep the project manager informed of the project progression and had meetings with the client where he told the client that they were wrong and he knew what he was doing. 5 months after the project started he left to start a new job. I am guessing the clients were not too sad to see him go.

So this is why my office had an opening and why I started working there. However, I started working at the office 7 weeks. So why did I not get the project until 3 weeks ago? Well, the director and project manager decided that it would be best to not throw this project on me when I first started, which I am thankful for, and instead hired a consultant. This new guy, which ironically has the same name as the last web developer that quit, works at a tech firm that I have been told has a good reputation. If you made it this far, I think you can see where this is going.

The consultant was horrible at communication with the project manager and so we were kept in the dark as to his progress. At one point the consultant set up a meeting with the clients, without us knowing, and when he got to the meeting he called the project manager to ask how to load the site onto the server so he can demo it. Uh, maybe you should have done that before the meeting started.

Anyways, 4 weeks ago he told us that he was pretty much done and that he would come into the office to show us. Then he delayed a day. And again. And again. Finally, on Friday he tells us he will come in on Saturday, give us the site and show us how it works so we can test and load the data. He shows up on Saturday, but he does not have the site. Instead he explains the database a bit and then goes home to continue working and push the site to our server. Sunday comes and there is still no site. We call him and he says that the power was out at his house last night so he couldn’t do any work. Ok, possible. So does he do any work on Sunday? He adds a couple new tables and about 20 records. Still no site. I am now pissed for I had to spend my weekend in the office twiddling my thumbs waiting for the site and nothing happened. I don’t even know anything about this application or what the clients wanted, and I am frustrated. Not good.

On Monday, many things happened. I vowed that if we still had nothing from the consultant I would suggest we fire him. The project manager started his first day as being the new director. I told the new director my thoughts and he agreed. Apparently, the client had been telling my office for some time to fire the consultant but the old director said that we should just give the consultant more time. Well, times up. The new director called the consultant to check the progress and give him his final option. Deliver or be fired. Fired he was.

Now this is where I officially step into the story and lose my social life. We scrap everything that had been created up to that point and start over. Three weeks later all of the major functionality is complete and there are only a few minor items to take care of. On Thursday, I showed the last major feature that I just finished to the new director and he was ecstatic. He shook my hand and said thank you so much. That night was the first night in three weeks that I did not work at home and that I was in bed by 10pm.

Time to start trying to find where my social life is hiding.

Ledi and Ciso

ja — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 18:35:59 +0000

My friendly Kwiki-mart.

Ledi and Ciso are two ladies that work in a little store about two minutes walk from my flat. They are very nice ladies, probably in their 40s, and always make me feel good when I walk into their shop.

Tonight I went in and was just staring around trying to figure out what I wanted to eat for dinner. Keep in mind that this shop is about the size of 1/2 of a two-car garage, so not huge, but on a Friday night after a long week, it felt enormous. They could tell that I needed some guidance so they started asking if I liked this or that. It took me a couple seconds to recognize some of the words for I hardly hear Georgian any more. One of the items hit the spot and soon found its way into my stomach.

Thank you ladies for your help!

Bringing it back

ja — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 18:28:29 +0000

Remember the popular slogan from the 90s – No Fear! It applies very well in Georgia.

Why does it apply? Driving. For instance:

Are you in the left lane and you need to turn right, across two or three lanes of traffic? No Fear! Just do it.
Are you coming out of a side street or parking lot? No Fear! Don’t bother stopping to wait for space for your car to fit and just go.
Are you driving down a busy street and miss your turn? No Fear! Simply stop, put the car in reverse and go back to the turn.
Are there three lanes of traffic and they are not moving fast enough for you? No Fear! Simply create your own lane in between the other lanes.
Are you in the left lane and you want to pass the car(s) in front of you? No Fear! Simply drive into on coming traffic and pass the car(s).

You get the idea. Seem appropriate?

I knew this day would come

ja — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 18:19:12 +0000

I have avoided it for at least nine years.

My new adventure in the city is keeping me busy and things are going well. I just finished my 5th week at work and the time really has flown by.

One day last week, I wake up, go into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. As the grogginess wears off and my vision improves I realize that I have hair! It has grown so long that it is no longer sticking straight up, it was laying down.

I stare at it dumbfounded wondering how such a thing could happen. I try to think back to when my last hair cut was and realize it was the week before I moved to Tbilisi. That would make it about 5 weeks since the last cut. I normally go 2-3 weeks between cuts. After that I start having a small afro and I just can’t stand it.

So how did I come to let it grow and grow without not liking it. Honestly, I think it is mostly due to wearing a beanie at home. I don’t keep the heat very high in my flat and so I wear a beanie to help keep the noggin warm. The beanie contributed in two ways: one, I just did not see my hair that much, and two, the beanie kept my hair flat and did not allow it to stick up.

After looking at myself for a couple days in the mirror, not non-stop, I have decided that, for now, I am going to keep it and see what happens. I am purposefully not posting a picture of what it looks like just to bug you. I have come to the conclusion that it is starting to look like my Grandpa George’s hair, just not as long or as grey. Sorry, but true.