25 Feb 2014

THE BOY AND THE WITCH

by Ioseba Amatriain Losa

Once upon a time there was a boy who wanted to keeptraveling around the world, meeting new
people and experiencing new cultures. Lets call him “Soso”. He had been in his little town for
almost a year, and even though he was doing many things there and was comfortable surrounded by
his family and friends, he decided that it was not what he really wanted, and he decided to change.
He had been looking for a job for a long time, but a very bad witch in his country didn't allow
young people to get a job easily. He said to himself that this powerful witch was not going to decide
his future, so he looked for a voluntary job far away from his small town where he could get rid of
the witch. He tried to go to some different countries, but it was in Georgia that he found a lovely
organization to spend time working for young people.
When he arrived where he was going to live for a while, a very quiet and peaceful city, he felt
straight away that Georgian people are very warm and hospitable. He received a very nice welcome
and he met a lot of people who were going to be hisfriends and colleagues for the next months. He
felt very lucky to be surrounded by people from Georgia and other countries around the world. He
knew that it was going to be a very good experience. He learnt a lot from all of them.
He felt very confident in this new experience. He had traveled around the world and lived in many
places already. He thought it was going to be easy to fit in that new environment. It was not. The
first month was not easy for him. Everything was different than other experiences he had, and very
different from his own culture. The main issue was  the language. He had to start from scratch. It
was a very strange language for him. New alphabet, new logic, and above everything, new sounds
which he could not even make. At the beginning, he was afraid to go out to do anything. He could
not communicate which put him on edge. But he started to learn, and after a while he was quite
independent and was able to do anything he wanted.
He was happy around there. He enjoyed all the activities he was doing. Everything gets easier if you
are surrounded by nice people who support you. Of course, life there was not as easy as he thought
it would be, but time flies and now he only remembers the positive things he learnt and all the
anecdotes and funny situations he experienced. Everything became good memories.
One day, he received a good offer to move to another country. It was a very interesting job where
he could keep learning and improving himself, both personally and professionally. Before he knew
the position was for him, he did not want to make the decision to leave. It was better to be rejected
than to have to decide to leave Georgia. The good/bad news came, and he decided that it was an
opportunity he could not let go.
For the next few days, he had very weird feelings. Was he happy? Was he sad? He did not know.
The only thing he knew for sure was that he did notwant to leave anybody in the lurch. Finally,
everybody understood he had to leave. He thanked his friends, colleagues, and everybody he had
met. It had been a very good experience and he would remember it forever.
The little boy packed his stuff and he started his new adventure. He was glad the bad witch was not
standing in his way again...
The End

10 Feb 2014

How Georgia taught me to appreciate small things

by Anna Cwynar

I woke up with the feeling that I had overslept. I slowly opened my eyes and noticed that it’s seemed dark outside. Is it possible that it’s still early morning? No, according to my phone it was 10:20am. Time to get up. But why is it so dark? Maybe…
I opened the curtains as fast as I could and realized that I’m right. NO sun!! Clouds are everywhere. And I could even noticed a tiny puddle close to my window. So it must have been raining during the night. Oh! What a pity that I didn’t hear the rain. Maybe that’s why I slept so well: the sound of raindrops makes me feel relaxed.
I would have never imagined how much I could love the rain.No, in Poland it was the opposite – waking up with the sun was like a promise of a good day. But here, in Rustavi, on a semi-desert, when the rain comes only once in 2 months (at least during the winter time) it made me so happy! Less dust in my room! No cleaning on Saturday! Taking a walk with truly fresh air!
I went to the kitchen and asked my flat mate whether she has noticed that it was raining.
-Yes, she replied. It made me so happy. “I want to know, have you ever seen the rain” she hummed quietly.
I started thinking about the role of water in our Georgian life in general:
·         No water more or less once in a week.
·         Boiling hot/freezing cold shower every day.
·         Bathroom and kitchen full of water bottles (in case there is no water)
·         Washing machine crying and begging for water – Hee haw, hee haw, hee haw!
Information from someone: “No water again” often totally changes our day.  Not only our plans (“How can I clean when there is no water”), but even moods are dependent on it (“I woke up and there was no water, so I went to bed again”).
One can say that living in Rustavi isn’t very comfortable. Yes, that’s true. Sometimes it’s not. But it makes us appreciate the things that we wouldn’t notice in our normal European life.
How could I experience the pleasure of a warm shower without my stay in Georgia? Would I notice that having a water is a luxurious thing and not something obvious? How about the rain: could I even imagine that it would make me simply happy?