Has It Really Been 3 Weeks?

It is difficult to describe three amazing weeks in Georgia in one posting, but since this is the first time I've had internet access, I guess I'll have to try. Temi is a very unique place - 60 individuals from very different backgrounds living together and working extremely hard to build a utopian community that serves as a home to the socially vulnerable and lives close to the earth. Sounds like a cliché hippie idea, but this couldn't be farther from the truth. Temi has sprung out of the Georgian culture's deep sense of hospitality and community to fill an urgent need - replacing the failed Soviet era social care institutions for orphans and people with physical and mental disabilities.

Temi is a community for those without a community of their own, but feels more like one large family. Being an organizationally minded Westerner, I found the whole scene to chaotic and confusing during my first week. There are no job titles, no organizational structure, and no hierarchy. Despite this lack of formal structure, Temi is very efficient I was wrong to assume that anarchy prevailed. There is a very effective form of organization, that of interpersonal accountability and personal motivation for the group to succeed. There are no posted rules, no community meetings, and no formal system for punishing members, but problem behaviors and community issues are dealt with on a daily basis through mutual trust and respect between individuals.

My role at Temi has also been very informal - work when I want doing whatever I like. I still find this frustrating because I'm used to having a schedule and a task list at all times. I am definitely used to the schedule; breakfast at 10, work until lunch at 3 and then a few more hours of work until dinner at 7. My work has included harvesting vegetables from the garden, cutting firewood, helping with the various construction projects, gathering fruits and mushrooms in the mountains, and a little bit of grantwriting. Unfortunately this work has not been enough to burn off the thousands of calories that I consume each day. All food here is fresh and home-made - fresh baked bread with homemade cheese for breakfast, fresh salad and soup for lunch and some sort of Georgian specialty for dinner. Due to my weak will-power, the over zealous Georgian hospitality and the use of whole milk and lots and lots of butter in the food, I have gained probably ten pounds since my arrival. I think I need to fast for the next month in Turkey to get back to normal.

Not all aspects of life at Temi are as perfect as the above description may indicate. The facilities are dirty and overcrowded, there is almost no hot water, and there is no shower. Yes, I have gone three weeks straight without a shower. Bathing materials include a bar of soap, a big bucket and a small bucket of lukewarm water - I'll let you figure it out. Money is understandably scarce, so the children do not have the clothes or toys that they would like, and clothes are not as new or clean as many of the other children in the village school. Despite these difficulties, all the children are loved and well-fed, and are much happier than they would be at a large government run institution.

One child in particular has affected me deeply. Datuna is an adorable seven year old boy who is in a wheelchair due to a fall out of a seventh story window. His mother was abusive and chronically homeless, and he came to Temi about three years ago in bad health and with behavioral difficulties. He was immediately accepted into the Temi community and his development since he arrived has been very positive. He is a gifted child, he already speaks several English words just from listening to me speak. During my stay, a Scottish Physical Therapist has visited to assess his condition and to teach him exercises which may increase his mobility. The PT was accompanied by a Venezuelan filmmaker who will be producing a documentary about Temi and Datuna in particular. The most exciting result of the visit is that there is a surgeon in the UK who can repair some of his spinal damage enabling him to stand. Unfortunately there are many barriers preventing this from happening, mainly legal. His mother is technically still his legal guardian and she would have to give permission for him to have surgery, not to mention to get a passport and visa to allow him to travel to the UK. Transfer of custody of a child has never taken place in Georgia, so it will be no easy task. The Georgian Human Rights Ombudsman visited Temi to discuss the situation, so there is hope. I have learned so much from this situation - it is definitely "Intercultural Youth and Family Development" in action!

The entire experience has been both rewarding and humbling. Since I don't speak more than a dozen words in Georgian and only three people at Temi speak any English, my ability to communicate is very limited. I am known as "Luca" by many people here, but I am also known as "Lucasee" by many of the children - "-see" is a diminutive suffix added to the end of children's names when they are young. I think this is both endearing and appropriate because I am as helpless and ignorant as a child. I do not know how to do many things that all Georgians take for granted and I can't speak as well as a three year old. I realize now how absolutely integral learning the local language is to successful intercultural helping - this is the first time I have traveled to a place where English is almost completely unknown. It never ceases to amaze me that people are always apologizing to me for not speaking English -- I tell them that I am the one who traveled to Georgia, it is I who should be apologizing to them. Imagine a Georgian coming to the US not speaking a word of English and expecting people to understand Georgian. This is obviously a ridiculous scenerio, but the reverse should be considered equally ridiculous.

I have about a week left at Temi before heading Westward to Istanbul for four days of touring the big historic sites and taking long, hot, luxurious showers at every opportunity.