Wu Wei

In my new apartment

Despite the frustration of moving somewhere new and not quite getting the hang of things, not having everything I need, and not feeling like going out shopping in the cold and dark after work, I'm enjoying my new flat.  Living somewhere new means getting used to another set of arrangements, the same but still not same as where you lived before. 

Having to spend two evenings in waiting for the internet man to not come, I have had to find other ways to amuse myself than the internet.  Each time I come in, I don't unlock the door and turn off the signalisation quickly enough (within 10 secs), so I get a "welcome home" call immediately I get in from the security firm.  I think I have managed it once so far.

There are only 4 keys I need: "turn this one 4 times and this one 2 and you can use this one if you only go out for the rubbish".  I was completely fooled trying to get in the front door of the block.  Press 35 and call, said the landlady.  I thought this was to contact the security men on the door of the block, but it seems it was for the entryphone.  But I wasn't in my flat to let myself in.  Eventually it dawned on me that this was what the 4th key was for.  It's quite hard holding the little LED light on my key ring and getting right key in the right lock in the right sequence.  Finally I got in and then had a call from one of my colleagues who is having similar problems but has a bad key.  Eventually after enlisting the help of neighbours she managed it.  Not the best way to come home after a long day. 

Somehow although the flat is warm, the hot water isn't.  At 7.30 am this is a real pain.  I ventured out this evening onto the balcony, putting my coat and boots on, to inspect the boiler and turning everything to max, but still not much better, though it does improve during the evening.  Eventually I worked this out as well.  The water flow controls the water temperature, so you have to run off the cold water first, then turn the flow down till it heats up, then turn it down again to a reasonable temperature.  It's the same problem in Britain if you have one of those new-fangled condensing boilers without hot water storage.  Either you fill the bath with cold water quickly or you throttle the water flow down so it has a chance to get heated.  That means it takes so long to run a bath that the water has gone cold.  Foreigners are so clever not even bothering with baths.

This weekend I went out to the hypermarket call Good Wil (l) near the fortress which is the American Embassy.  It's a big shed* just expanded to twice the capacity without getting filled up yet.  It had most things, except fresh chicken, but I got everything I needed (bottles of wine, glasses and bottle opener).

I have what is called a 2 and a half room flat: a living room, a bedroom and a half room which actually is rather big, giving room for a sort of bunk bed and a study desk on the other wall.  It's really big enough to count as a proper bedroom, but is divided off by a sliding glass door so when that is open it makes a rather big living room.  When I get the internet fixed it will be perfect.

Searching the TV channels to see what the TV package has, I found Mezzo.  Since Beate is not here to organise me to go to concerts, I am enjoying myself staying in.  Last night I watched Carmen for the first time, which I really enjoyed.  The TV has really good sound.  This evening I am watching and listening to early music - it's mostly English dance tunes played by a small group with a large number of old instruments which they are playing to an open air audience somewhere with a great deal of enjoyment showing on their faces. And since it is all dance music, it's great to see them hopping about too, as I hop round the floor to the music.  It seems to be an ancient music festival in Brittany, with some people dressed in costume, though I'm not clear where the morris dancers fit in. For some reason it seems to be a festival of English music even with some college choir from Oxford.  They even managed to find some Brits to speak passable French and be interviewed.

I haven't listened much to live music on TV before, but I'm really enjoying spending cold winter evenings this way.  The only problem is getting the timing right, since we are so far ahead: 3 hours from France.

The adverts are strange.  I think I saw one where people stood on each other's shoulders eventually to form what looked like a rather tall viaduct in a valley, but I missed what it was an advert for. 

For bedtime reading I have Tove Jansson's  Fair Play, but more on that when I have finished.

* For Lithuanian readers it is Acropolis size but not nearly so well stocked.  The only competition is lots of supermarkets smaller than Minimas called Populi.  Otherwise there are minimarkets on every corner just like Pristina.   Incidentally today I saw a van going round saying "Lithuanian bakery".  Seems a curious thing to export.

Technorati tags: Tbilisi, Georgia, home

Reforming the health service in Georgia

My friend Beate has split her blog into two: music on Viola in Vilnius and Eastern Europe on Good Buy Lenin.  Recently she was grumbling here about the young things in Saakashvili's government and their overwhelming reliance on American ideas, regardless of whether they are right for Georgia. 

How about this one as an example?

Saakashvili's government has apparently privatised 35 (might be wrong with the number but it doesn't make much difference) city centre hospitals throughout Georgia to private developers.  They have to build new hospitals on a green field site outside the city before they get their hands on the prime real estate.  They also have to run the hospitals now and for 8 years on the new sites.   The hospitals have been specified by size and whether they are simple or multifunctional.

Ho hum! Is there anyone in Georgia who knows about any of the following in a market economy: 1) running an old badly equipped city centre hospital? 2) building a new hospital from a minimal design spec 3) operating a modern hospital?  I don't think so, but I'm sure it will be easy to find some American consultants to help them.  But who will pay for them?  It seems that Georgian banks are rubbing their hands at all the fat loans they are going to make to the new owners to fund these hospitals.

It is, however, very easy to see how hospitals will be badly built and equipped and how new offices, shops and blocks of expensive flats will appear very quickly on the newly vacated  sites. 

Don't hold your breath for these hospitals to appear in Georgia.  I can think of so many things which could go wrong that I won't even start making a list.

Technorati tags: America, hospitals, Georgia, private developers

Growing up and leaving home

Sloph left home again this summer, though she actually only moved down the road.  This seems to work much better for all of us.  Bee is enjoying having a house to herself and almost resents me coming home and interfering, apart from paying for extra food saving her housekeeping money. 

As a result I feel that in some way I also have grown up and left home, striking  out again on my own, in moving to Georgia for 18 months.  You aren't suppose to leave home at 60, you are supposed to be settling down to your retirement home.  But there's a curious sense of freedom, that I don't have to bother about them anymore and I can do what I like in my home now.  It's such a relief that I don't have to do all that travelling and no more living out of a suitcase in a hotel. 

Technorati tags: leaving home

Progress on the alphabet

I am  making progress on my alphabet learning, but it's a slow process.  I realised after a bit that the alphabet in the book I was using didn't make it clear whether the letter was written with the loops above or below the line, so I was doing some of them completely wrong.

Anyway I am religiously (well sometimes) writing out letters in lines just like in primary school.  Yesterday I made a leap forward and started copying out 20 times the names of towns in the guidebook.  Interestingly, only the Lonely Planet Guide has names in Georgian (it must be it's only advantage).  The Bradt guide only has the English name, which doesn't help much when you need to look at the front of a bus or a marshrutka.

Anyway after writing out several names of towns 20 times, I managed to learn quite a few new letters, so much so that I could actually begin reading the names of streets.  I can now tell recognise I am not in a street with a name beginning with K, but one beginning with P and I could just about spell out Petriashvili. 

Some letters are very simple, but others have little hooks that make all the difference or 4 twiddles, not to mention two versions of some letters, with or without a glottal stop.  Still it's quite satisfying.  Only lately I began to recognise that the alphabet looks different in the "gothic" font used for street signs from those used for the adverts for the bank we are working with.  This has the easy to read name of TBC Bank, even in its Georgian form of TiBiSi Banki. 

Technorati tags: Georgian alphabet

Small demo in Tbilisi (updated)

The opposition was threatening a demo in the capital but I wasn't taking much notice about it.

However I just turned my music down in my hotel room and found I can hear the speeches on the microphones. Of course I can't tell what they are saying. Looking out of my window down the hill from Betsy's I can see a few hundred people hanging round in the cold on Rustaveli square. Not enough to fill the road, and traffic on Rustaveli seems normal.

Doesn't look very exciting. And nothing much on the news.

But stories about election violations are now starting to come out from observers from OSCE eg here. read the comments as well.

Bolshaya Aviatika

Progress on learning the alphabet not so good but pleased to find I could read "big" ბიგ as in Big Mac, at the airport.

Christmas lights very pretty and the big freeze continues. Taxis are refusing to come when called to the hotel on the top of the hill, but the ones hired on Rustaveli manage to slither and slide their way up to deliver us home.

We went with some friends to a new restaurant called Bolshaya Aviatika, near the City Hall. We got there by directions rather than with an address so if you want to try it, go down Rustaveli past Freedom Square and straight on down the side of the City Hall. It's on the lefthand side and signposted well if you read Russian.

It is kitted out like an aeroplane inside, even with overhead lockers for your handbag, though it is somewhat wider and more comfortable to sit in. The mile high club would not find the toilet much of a challenge, as it was quite roomy.

The room is decorated with clouds, fake windows and Austrian airlines posters. Despite the Russian name the menu is in Georgian and not too bad English. The only other place I have been offered a Cold Collation is in Jane Austen. The food is Georgian (ie interesting and good), though the service is not quite clear what it is for. We were the only people in the restaurant but it was still quite hard to get attention. We went straight after work, to save going up the hill and down again, so perhaps people come later in the evening.

We heard some stories of election monitoring from our friends, but the most interesting point seemed to be the story that the opposition leader had apparently won most votes in the big towns (where disillusionment was perhaps more likely, whereas Saakashvili had won in the rural areas where he had been dishing out largesse. So how did he get such a big majority? Don't most people in Georgia live in towns? I think we should be told. No wonder Levan Gachechiladze wants to protest.

Back in Tbilisi

Here we are back in Tbilisi.  We had a diversion arriving via Munich rather than Istanbul, because of the snow.  Sloph has come for a quick snoop before going back to uni.  Sightseeing a bit limited due to heavy snow.  Excellent view from Betsys if the cloud hadn't come down.

Yesterday we went to see Manana, my only friend with much of an interest in politics and watched the TV.  It seems Patarkatsishvili (now I can spell it), the Russian millionaire opposition contender was caught out on a tape with a government official plotting a coup and is now dead in the water.  At 3pm yesterday, the turnout was only 15%, perhaps due to the snow.  However by the end of the evening, Saakashvili seemed to have got more than the 51% he needed to avoid a run off, at least from the exit poll.  No one mentioned a low turnout so it must have picked up again. No clear information on when the result will be known, but "in some days".  I guess they don't need to stuff the ballot boxes so it will quicker.

BBC World coverage has been very basic, not even an interview with any of the opposition. It seems the opposition are claiming the poll is more irregular than the observers have observed.  They are calling people to demonstrate on the streets, but everything is very quiet.  As we look down the hill to Rustaveli, there are only a few cars to be seen.

Only at Imedi TV is life not normal.  The journalists have walked out in protest against being politically manipulated. 

Technorati tags: Tbilisi, Georgia, elections