Peace Corps Georgia Assignment: a Brief Summary 2014-2016

As I close out my Georgia Peace Corps Service 2014-2016 I would like to answer a few questions, and also summarize my service. It seems like a daunting task, but Peace Corps thrives on qualitative and quantitative reporting, so I have at least had some practice. 

Questions that have surfaced from my supportive readers include:

What were my goals and what did I accomplish?

What was my daily routine?

Am I glad I did it?   

Personally what have I gained? and what plans for the future?

What were my goals and what did I accomplish?

It is most difficult to say what one ‘accomplished’ in any Peace Corps assignment.    The reason is that our job is to assist, support, enable, and facilitate our Georgian counterparts in what they try to accomplish. We are not supposed to lead but encourage, not to dictate but suggest, not to yell, but gently whisper. Personally it has been good training for me as my children grow and need support, but not by an authoritative mother figure. 

Also, it seems I spent more time on relationship building, integrating into the local culture, struggling to improve my language skills, and figuring out what and how to eat - which is all part of the Peace Corps experience.  But let me share what I have worked on. 

We have two programs in Georgia: the English education volunteers that support English teachers in the schools (EE), and the Individual/Organizational Development (IOD) volunteers. I am in IOD. This concise summary comes from my Description of Service, a mandatory report required before we leave our post.  

"Ms. Dixon was assigned as an IOD Volunteer in Koda Community Education Center (CEC), located in an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Settlement south of Tbilisi. The ex-Soviet military base was reconditioned and is home to 400 families displaced from the 2008 War with Russia in South Ossetia.  She worked with the director of the Center to help train the IDPs and village locals for new jobs, new business initiatives, and programs to support mental, physical, and financial improvements for the residents. 

Psychologist held weekly sessions

Ms. Dixon taught classes in Employability Skills, beginner English, Leadership, Project Management, and consulted and advised residents on business plans and ideas, job options, and simple emotional support.  Addressing gender issues and legal rights of IDPs in Georgia was a big focus of programs, and a series of trainings was held for these areas.  Ms. Dixon co-facilitated a US Democracy Commission Grant for youth leadership development in the region, in which 20 youth were selected to obtain training in healthy lifestyles as well as project management, leadership skills, and other career skills. 

Volunteering during harvest season with youth

The youth were then missioned to lead four campaigns in their individual towns on healthy lifestyle skills. In her second year she was involved in writing the grant and acted as mentor for the new coordinator as the project grew to a national level.   

Selling our wares at festivals

Art Koda, a nascent social enterprise grew substantially after the first year of Ms. Dixon’s service during which she helped establish its first growth strategy, goals, financial objectives, tracking, and formal income statements.  It established two new distribution routes, and supported canceling unprofitable programs.  Nine women currently have close to a living wage through Art Koda’s training and marketing initiatives. The profit allowed for and paid for one new full-time staff member, a Social Enterprise Director.    

In Ms. Dixon’s second year the residents of the Koda, having been deeded their apartments by the government, started making more permanent commitments to the area. Agricultural and livestock initiatives became more important.  ACWW, an international foundation, supported a new farm co-op initiative as well as new irrigation opportunities for 44 people which Ms. Dixon spearheaded throughout the proposal and implementation phases.  In a separate initiative she initiated and supported a crowd funding project resulting in a community garden creation, designed to continue yearly.   

Ribbon cutting on our new co-op irrigation well

   

Working on our community garden

On a smaller scale, but equally important, Ms. Dixon helped IDP youth to realize they had control of their future. They could earn money for their goals, not always depending on charity, as had been the reality of their young lives.  They did this successfully in the winter of 2015, selling sachets at Christmas bazaars to fund their Club. She also taught sessions on needs and wants, budgeting, savings and loans, and tracking expenses.

Ms Dixon supported Georgian counterparts with management mentoring, business processes, proposal writing, translation, and editing.  She supported local high school and college students in career counseling and with English conversation which helped one youth receive acceptance at an English speaking college abroad, and one youth with a business opportunity grant which resulted in two new shops in the settlement, bringing in needed fresh produce and employing three to four women part-time.  As a secondary project Ms. Dixon joined her English Conversation Club to volunteer at the European Youth Olympic Festival 2015 hosted in Tbilisi and attended by 50 countries. It was a wonderful experience and good practice in English for the club. 

It became clear that Georgians as well as foreigners wanted to learn more about the Georgian IDPs and their status.  Thus Ms. Dixon began engaging international organizations to come to the Community Education Center for Open House Days, for Art Koda Georgian Handicraft Workshops, and for international school field trips.  During her service, two international school students attended days at the Center, with tours, craft making and traditional Georgian lunches. With the successful completion of workshops and field trips, the Center set a system in place to continue scheduling these events."

Craft workshops for visitors

    

What was my daily routine?

During the workweek (Tuesday-Saturday) I awoke with the sunrise and roosters, whenever that was.  It was the first time in a long time I never set my alarm.  After calving season, I also awoke to the cows mooing for their offspring.  They must have been separated, but what a racket!  Since we were in this low flat land with little vegetation,  the sunrises and sunsets were awesome.  Raleigh has too many trees and Vail has too many mountains to really see a good sunrise continually.

   The next three hours were spent with WATER.  Our water turned on from 6:30 to 8ish.  In that time, I would wash the preceding evening dishes, fill buckets for the toilet, wash up, wash any clothes that needed it, boil water for Turkish coffee, and make breakfast on my gas camp stove, (that worked great). After work the water turned on again at around 9pm for another hour. 

A few buildings in our settlement 

   The travelling magazias (produce stores, sold out of car trunks or vans) would come by and the neighbor women would call up to me on my third floor bina (apartment) if something special was being sold, i.e.” kimi, pomadoris aris marto ori lar kilo" (Kim, tomatoes are only 2 lari/kilo - $.80 for 2.2 lbs).  

Our large meeting room

   At 10am I would walk the 100 yards to our Center.  I had an office and computer, but usually preferred to work in the main office with our Director, Art Koda Manager, and other volunteers. Also, in the very hot and very cold seasons, it was more cost effective that we only kept one office heated. 

    A funny sidebar, a foreign ambassador to Georgia came to visit.  She handed me her warm winter coat and I suggested she keep it on.  She looked at me like I was crazy.  A month later I met her at reception and she asked me if we had fixed the heat yet.  Maybe she was new to third world assignments? My education PC peers wore their coats in the classrooms and offices all winter. 

   All day we worked on proposals, event planning for the Center, Youth club projects, class planning, reports for donors.  We also of course did budgeting reports and monitoring and evaluation analysis on all our programs.   We met with locals who had issues and needed help, or people that had ideas and wanted business planning advice.  We hosted and taught courses most days in the Center, and also had many visitors – from Tbilisi or other countries – people that wanted to help the IDPs, or wanted to see the status of their funded programs.

   At about 2pm we would stop for coffee and some sweets.  They did not usually eat a real lunch, unless visitors came.  

Relaxing in the office with Madona & staff after meeting

Neighbors share their bread

   Our day ended at 6pm, where I would sometimes stop at the local shop downstairs and buy fresh bread, or a frozen kingali or chicken leg to cook for dinner.  I did not have a well-functioning freezer so it was better to just buy something when I wanted to eat it.  It makes for a lot less food waste.    Evening  time was also when I went to haul drinking water from an underground spring about a mile away.  I would go a few times/week. This water would then go through our PC issued filter and I could drink it fine.

   Evenings were spent with neighbors, or my landlady, Lali,  who insisted I come to dinner as often as I liked.  She was so generous and fun.  And she loved to tutor my Georgian, much to the consternation of my real, trained tutor.  But both instructors helped!  I read a lot of English books from our Peace Corps volunteer library, and took advantage of the Vail, Colorado library’s OverDrive system, to check out electronic books remotely.  And I did a lot of office work in the evenings, because I loved what we were doing.  How nice to feel good about one’s work.

   Sundays and Mondays were my days off, to do wash,  visit with friends, or cook American dishes to share with the neighbors.  I was also invited for hiking or touring with georgian friends,  or some wonderful American friends in Tbilisi, about 45 minutes away.  I would also attend Catholic Mass in Tbilisi about once a month and see a rainbow of nations represented, including 3-4 Ambassadors.  Other Sundays I would attend the Georgian Orthodox service in Koda, to be with my local friends and neighbors.

Am I glad I did it?  Was it fun?

Yes, I am glad I did it.  I wouldn’t call it fun most of the time, but gratifying is a better word… and humbling.  I met incredibly kind, sharing, generous, spirited, hardworking, non-complaining  people and I hope I am a better person for it.  Two years is a long time away from family and friends,  but I am pleased all in all.  

My  PST Host Family - the Best!

  

Good friends in Tbilisi kept things sane

Personally what have I gained?   

First of all I have special new friends and learned so much by their sharing their lives with me. I have an appreciation for how people handle relationships and conflicts in other regions. I am less judgmental and more accepting of others' ways of life and views.  I hope I am more flexible and have a changed some priorities.  I also should say how much I learned from all the other countries in the world sharing their money and expertise to help those less fortunate.  It isn’t just  Americans helping. I also learned that war is not the answer. Diplomatic understanding and respecting others is harder but the only way to lasting peace. Who knows what the future will bring, but I hope to take my learnings and apply them to help in the US: new job creation, bringing jobs back to America, and demonstrating the importance of family values and education to a successful democracy. 

Finally, I think Peace Corps says it well:

“While different people join the Peace Corps for different reasons, most Volunteers hope for what we might call the Peace Corps experience. That is, they seek a profound encounter with a foreign culture, a series of experiences that changes forever the way they think about the world, their own country, and themselves. They expect-and very much want-to be challenged, to have their patience and their mettle tested, to be pulled, pushed or otherwise forced into new ways of thinking and behaving. They want, in a word, to grow. And the Peace Corps itself wouldn’t have it any other way; this is, in fact, a large part of its mission and raison d’etre.”

Celebrating my birthday with neighbors and Lali

As I leave my service, I hope that I perhaps left people a little better off,  gave enjoyment to a few, led by example, and maybe touched some of these Georgians in the same way they have touched me.  And maybe we are all better people for it.  We can only hope. ch’ven shegvidzlia mkholod!  Thank you for following me these past two years.

Experiencing Italy and Italian Culture through SERVAS

SERVAS – Peace and understanding through travel and hosting

In the past 2 years as I lived in Georgia, I was given the privilege of being introduced to another international organization, Servas International,  which encompasses an international network of hosts and travelers. Quoting from their website,  "The purpose of the network is to help build world peace, goodwill and understanding by providing opportunities for personal contacts among people of different cultures, backgrounds and nationalities.

"Servas promotes trust, tolerance, open-mindedness and respect, so that people can live in peaceful coexistence. Our members value understanding of different cultures, gender equality and diversity in ethnicity, ideology, sexuality and nationality.

"In times of increased movement of people and globalization, there is a growing need to promote understanding across borders and cultures. Hospitality and cultural interaction are the essential tools for achieving conditions for people to live in peace and unity."

And in my words,  I have found a group of committed people -  members quietly validating the belief that each person is responsible for the world around them: environmentally, politically,  physically, spiritually and with compassion.  It reinforces our commitments to these active choices. For me it was a reaffirmation that normal people live their beliefs and commitments, quietly and consistently, which isn't always easy. 

  Galaxidi from downtown with Mt. Parnassus

My first trip with Servas was two years ago, to a small town near Delphi, Greece.  I spent two nights experiencing Greece from the local's viewpoint.  I was hooked.  If I never see another hotel or big resort again I felt it will be too soon. 

The next year I took a road trip from AIX en Provence to Paris, and stayed with a lovely couple that had been Servas' members for a long time.  They helped me understand the purpose of Servas and how to best share cultures and be great hosts.

Had a wonderful time with our Servas friends near Lyon.  And a REAL french meal.  The most relaxing and interesting time of our entire trip. Great food, new and different drinks, local cheese, interesting conversation,wonderful hosts.   

Next the Servas Georgia organization hosted a regional meeting of Servas in Tbilisi.  I was able to be a "day host," since my housing in the settlement wasn't really adequate for visitors. (Hosts don't have to have wonderful homes, but full-time running water  is a big plus).  We hosted people from about 8-10 countries including, Poland, Ukraine, Israel, Australia,... See my write-up on it here. 

Finally, I had a week to travel this July before heading home to the US, after my Peace Corps service.  As a member, I received the list of many hundred Italian members.  I settled on three wonderful hosts and had a fabulous experience in Northern Italy. 

Teresa and Eugenio outside Lake Como helped me plan the trip, figure out train options and schedules, and even picked me up at the train station. They explained Italian meals and great foods, and we shared recipes.  When it was rainy they suggested popping down to Milano for the day- which was sunny and beautiful as ever. I found a piano concert and questioned why I had deprived myself of this beautiful classical music while in Georgia.  It was my own fault, but hearing Bach made me realize how much I had missed it. 

And best, they introduced me to the Green Way del Lago di Como, a fabulous 15 km hike in and out of the small hillside villages on the lake.  It was a fabulous way to experience the rich history and culture of the area - one that you can't find in a travel brochure.  

I also experienced the diversity of the local towns and heard their thoughts on the refugees coming in to Como, religion, environmental issues, etc.  When I insisted on taking them to dinner my last night, they suggested a fabulous place on top of the mountain, arriving by funicular.  It was fabulous and I never would have discovered on my own. 

Of course I shared my experiences in Georgia, the people and attitudes and their kindness toward me.  But I was also asked a litany of questions about America.  Being gone for 27 months, it was hard to answer queries about mass shootings, pedophiles, Trump, and the European trade agreement. It still is!  The best part was I gained some new friends that have touched me so much, to hopefully make me a better person by their example.  

Next I was visiting Angela from Colle di Val d'Elsa, small medieval town near Siena.  It was good to see a real community that was also an ancient fortress. It was lovely to roam around, nice and quiet, and then visit Siena the next day with Duomo, floor mosiacs,  and fabulous tourist attractions. 

This was the view from my window in Colle di Val d'Elsa!
 It was crying to be painted.

Siena

My lovely hostess is an avid reader

Finally, another member invited me not to her Milano home, but her 'summer home' on the coast.  I couldn't find it on the map, but it was just north of Cinque Terre.  What a treat I discovered, with beautiful coast, swimming, lovely postcard towns, but no tourists!  Eugenia was ready to have some summer fun.  We had a dinner party with such interesting people, of all professions. They even commented what a group of famous people they had assembled- an author, chef, geologist and professional comic creator! Of course it was over my head since my Italian lessons stopped after my Roman study abroad many years ago (lungo tempo fa!) But I did learn to appreciate and even like anchovies, which appear to be the specialty of this region.  We had them prepared 4 separate ways.  The good wine added to the festivities.  

Swimming was exciting, especially the 'private beach' we rappelled into. :-) And the hikes were magnificent.  AND NO TOURISTS.

        

This is where I got lost trying to find the
right cove to swim back to.

Our secret beach

 

I also visited an American who was renovating an old olive press building, into her home. 

On a different level, my Italian Servas hosts led me on a spiritual journey.  As fellow Catholics we discussed and I appreciated their insights.  We discussed Pope Francis,  the Francis Way pilgrimage  and religious meditations. One woman was an avid reader of Pope Benedict and made me promise to read one of his books.  

It was an incredible week, with wonderful, kind, strong people, and beautiful nature and history thrown in as an added benefit.  I will continue with Servas in the US, hosting and travelling more I hope once I get settled.  I am sold! 

Find out more about Servas at www.servas.org.