Sakartvelo: October 19, 2011

The last two days have been a whirlwind of activity.  We began Monday  with a meeting with Elguja Gvazava, Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia (now in exile),  and another member of the Supreme Council to speak about AVP.  Both men seemed quite enthusiastic and asked if we would meet with the full Supreme Council which we will do next week.  I was presented with a book about Abkhazian artists which Elguja Gvazava inscribed for me.


Next we met with Dmitri Sanakoev, President in exile of South Ossetia.  I had met with him on my first visit to Sakartvelo in 2009.  He remembered our visit and our discussion about the Alternatives to Violence Project and asked if we would be able to do a workshop for Ossetians during this visit.  We decided to do a full day mini-workshop during our last week here.

Our hosts treated us to dinner out - Kinghali,  some filled with meat and others filled with cheese; Megrulian Katchapuri, baked mushrooms, Shishkabob (a fire roasted meat with salt and herbs), and Georgia's own Kesbegi Beer.  Then, back to the flat to collapse into bed.

I rose early yesterday morning (Tuesday) to prepare for our meeting with Alexandra Kalatozishvili, Director of Youth Union or Public Movement Multinational Georgia, one of her coleagues and Natia Giorgidze, a Board Member and Trainer for the Non-Formal Education Youth Center.  I was surprised and delighted to find that Natia had been an AVP facilitator and so was familiar and very supportive of our work.  We reviewed time slots and scheduling and were clear that it would not be possible to actually do a full workshop and so, on the first day we will do a series of exercises and light and livelies including an introducing myself and AVP and the transforming power talk.  I will then have a day when I do not present  and the third day of the Youth Forum I will do one more exercise "Building a New Society".  The Youth Forum runs for four days total and I have been asked to attend all four days - The full (very long) title of this conference is "We Do Not Have Time for Silence: Inter-Cultural and Inter-Religious Dialogue as a Tool for Combating Hate Speech and Hate Accidents in Europe".  The organizers have limited the number of participants to 25.  Those 25 will come from Ukraine, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, the UK, Russia, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Georgia.

Today I asked out hosts to please not schedule meetings for us.  Instead I took the day to rest and to prepare for the Youth Forum.  I worked on the schedule and timing and created the Mandala in English.   I have been invited out to dinner again tonight but won't leave until 8:30PM or so.

I find myself wondering about how AVP Georgia will survive without more support than my yearly to 18 month apart visits.  Many, many more facilitators need to be trained here and Georgian facilitators need to reach the point where they feel competent to do that training.  They need translations of the full manuals (they now only have part of the basic manual).  They need to experience and be able to lead advanced workshops. 

Before I came to Georgia this year I had begun questioning if this year would be my last, or perhaps next year.  I have health concerns and I know that the lack of sleep and the fast pace while I am here create physical stresses for me.

Each morning for 45 minutes to an hour,  I spend time in silent worship.  As I sat in prayer yesterday morning asking for guidance it came to me that I am one person: a person who for years, in prayer, has said to God "All that I am and all that I have you have given to me.  I give it all back to you to dispose of according to your good will......."  I realized that I have dedicated what remains of my life to the work of peace making as I believe God has called me to do.  How then can I say no to the work that I am given?