I am up at 5:45 this morning. I think it is ridiculous to be up this morning, but I do get alot of work done while everyone else sleeps. Today, I submitted a Letter to the Editor of the New York Times about a Georgian article. If it gets published, I'll let you know! Everyone met downstairs for breakfast in the hotel at 830. We had tea and hot dogs - breakfast of champions! At 915, we left the hotel and walked to the ICCN for classes to start at 930.
Our first meeting was with an NGO called CARE. A representative named Anthony Foreman came and spoke to us about their mission to involve women in the peace-making process. He discussed the challenges of that in general, and then specifically to applying that to the Caucasus. Next, we had 2 girls from the Georgian Young Lawyer's Association- probably the most well respected NGO in Tbilisi. They were absolutely fascinating talking about the legal aspects of not only the breakaway conflicts, but also the domestic problems as well, including the protests and subsequent violence from last week. Nina and Tamar were extremely open and honest of their assessment of the government ministries and the police. Sometimes I couldn't believe they were telling us certain things.
After our meeting with them, we went back to Vino Veritas for some lunch. We were hoping to meet with the EU Monitoring people while we were here, but they were kind of busy, so two people came and had lunch with us so we could at least hear a little bit of their perspective. Ariel and I were apparently twinkies in our purple shirts...
After lunch, we walked down to the Ministry for Reintegration to meet with the Deputy Minister Porchakidze. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the outside, the policeman got mad when we pulled out our cameras. Inside, they had to searched all of our stuff and we even had to turn on our computers and take a picture with our cameras to prove that it what they really were. Interesting method. Inside, we listened to the Georgian minister for about an hour, and I have to admit I feel like most of what he said was pretty biased. Of course everyone we heard was biased, but some of his comments were bordering on entertaining. First off, he would not refer to the Abkhaz people or South Ossetian people - they may be ethnically those, but they are Georgian citizens. Instead of the breakaway regions, we talked about the occupied regions. He clearly HATED Russia and accused them of some pretty intense things, including ethnic cleansing. It was important to get his opinion, but wow. My favorite is that when he walked in, he asked us who else we were talking to. When we mentioned the Young Lawyers Association from that morning, he said "oh great, I'm sure they were critical of us." It's almost funny how nobody gets along. We snuck a few pics before the minister arrived
After the Ministry, we came back to the hotel and changed clothes really quickly for a walking tour of the city. Originally we were just going to be gone about an hour, maybe a bit more. We were gone about 4 hours and I can't even begin to imagine how many miles we walked.
Sorry this picture is kind of far off, but its a statue of Queen Tamar, aka Mother Russia. In one hand she has a bowl of wine for friends and in the other a sword for enemies. As you can see, Georgia is pretty black and white in its view of the world haha
We went from one side of the city all the way to the other, up hills, down hills, we crossed the river multiple times, and then finally walked all the way back. It was great to see the city, but it was exhausting! Plus, we aren't sure whether it is pollen, dust, pollution, or what, but my allergies are INSANE here. I probably sneeze 50 times a day, sniffle the rest of the time, and while we were out walking yesterday, my whole face broke out in hives. Made enjoying the scenery a bit more difficult.
By the time we got back to the hotel, we were completely whipped. I basically inhaled my dinner of chicken, yogurt and egg soup, chicken, nut stuffed carrots, and cold mashed potatoes. Side note- we also drink endless amounts of tea here. It reminds me of Turkey.
After dinner, we decided to go try out the Georgian banya - the sulfur baths. There were 6 girls and 3 guys. When we got down there, we ended up getting group rooms- one for the guys and one for the girls (thank goodness we did that!!!!) Our room was incredible. We had a sitting room with a couch and table and tea. Then you walked into a HUGE room that had a hot water spa, a cold water spa coming from a rock formation, and two rinse off stations - this led into a room with a massage table, a sauna, and our own personal restroom. It was unbelievable and the smell of sulfur wasn't actually that bad! After such a long day and all that walking, the water was unbelievable - I can't believe natural water gets that hot. We also all paid to have scrubs and massages which sounded so nice. What we didn't realize, is that when you sign up for those, this gruff Georgian lady comes in and demands your clothes. Yes, all your clothes. So whether or not the 6 of us girls were friends before, we are definitely all friends now! Naked banya-ing was not what we all expected, but it was still great. The gruff lady was a little rough in her scrub and massage, but we probably needed it. PLUS, we were able to use the unlimited hot water at the rinse off station to take showers and wash our hair! (this was before I knew about my new shower curtain). We all felt incredibly clean and relaxed when we left an hour later.[Sorry no banya pictures - I think it is obvious why!]
My intention was to blog all of this last night when I got home, but I could barely keep my eyes open and it was almost midnight so I totally crashed. Before I did, I happened to get a few pics of our room so you can see our living quarters.
They aren't great or anything, but they could be alot worse!!!! Well I've now been blogging for almost 2 hours and it is time for breakfast (Tuesday). I'll update more later!!
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