Blog: EVS in Georgia – Part I
The learning part should be recognised and probably written down in order to avoid a simple inventory of some concepts that should be “known”, because this informal learning from life is not that linear. What I really miss is the tool to recognise own learning, or form, or proper feedback, or way to put it in words nicely. However, I’ve got some ideas on how to see relevant and important things and how to use them in future. The learning outcomes should apply to various situations and settings, not just specific tasks, it should stay and hard/soft skills should remain beyond the project ending. By that point I’m sorry for not being able to name a specific recognisable skills and knowledge that I gained during this period of time.
I hope that those tiny tips, tricks and bits which I had will be well integrated in my future activities on a project and after.
Now I’ll freely explain without real structure what was happening with my learning.
Adapting
The last two months were pretty intense, full of activities, thoughts and emotional rollercoasters. I’ve learnt how to adapt myself to local reality and take things easier. Acting like a local, which is not the best option sometimes, but this way you get less stress, life becomes brighter and it’s possible to think clearer. I realised that comparison is not the best thing to measure good and bad. Sometimes it’s just there and you have to take and see things just like they are. Mimicry is the way to be well in an inclusive society like Georgian one. There are different rules and patterns of behaviour which are better and more productive to follow.
One more very important thing which I realised is that you shouldn’t go mad or angry because of the people or stuff they do/don’t do (and how), just because you are used to have stuff done in a certain different ways. In theory, you have the support and power to make changes, be initiative and so on, but in reality some guidance is really missing and needed.
By the April deadline me and other partners/friends applied two projects, youth exchanges. None of them were approved, but it was still an experience and good practice for writing.
My time management skills dropped down, but I feel more energy to stand up and be very productive and reliable with a very short notice. It could also mean that things could get very random, even messy and the outcome might be positively surprising and unexpected. At some point you might see that there’s no support on your podcasting ideas and it’s just creepy to talk with yourself about yourself, but at some point you just speak with other people (instead of recording own boring story) and come up with a beautiful interview.
Inspiration could come from outside of this EVS bubble when you meet locals and they are just active on the local level and you end up helping with graffiti related to human rights and support of LGBTQ community. It’s a very contradictive topic in this region, for some people deeply offensive and for others deeply disturbing. Even local NGO’s who are working with LGBTQ people very closely refuse to support this graffiti-activity because they’re afraid of some people get hurt or injured.
Barricades and the toilet
The cultural shock some would say, but ney, this is a feeling of loneliness and being lost in a place you don’t understand fully, that is what stops from being inspiring for others, or if put it in a different words to have an initiative and step on barricades. You are still guest here and sometimes locals can really show you ‘your true place’.
All those observations brought me closer to local culture explorations, I drowned in local movies, folk music, fairytails which every kid here knows, in exploring the country regions and small villages, talking to people who fled from the war, who lived all their lives next to muslims or being ones, who live in a very poor conditions in a places where nothing grows and blossoms, but their hearts.
Sometimes it felt like my project is more about the image of a work but not the real activities, however, flexibility of my coordinators allowed me to dig deeper in a local reality by myself and also join some existing projects, ideas of which would never be born in my head.
One of those was Outdoor Cooking project where I was invited to help and observe. With a group of international participants we went to Borjomi-Kharagauli national park and… build a toilet there, which is a big help for keeping the area of national park clean and pure. We had sessions about first help and general surviving outdoors, orienteering, cooking amazing stuff from very boring and easy to get products, and simply learned how to live together this easy half wild life without modern life goods. I think I wouldn’t come up with an idea of supporting the rural area with a toilet.
Local projects
Speaking of rural areas – we’re still running this book gathering campaign for Udabno. You might see the visuals and some descriptions about this here. Shortly: it’s a long term project of one of DRONI volunteers, with a help of Dutch funds and volunteers we reconstructed an abandoned place in Udabno future library and made some cosmetic cover up. Now the place just needs some books to start operating. Local authorities will provide locals with a working spot in this library.
Local DRONI volunteers are really hard workers and sometimes it’s impossible to reach them or distract because they’ve been working on project ideas and their implementation for years and still do and still passionate about that. However, it happens that they go outside of their own project shell and share some useful and interesting information. it’s a beautiful opportunity to do own stuff and ask some stupid questions. So that I did. I decided to deliver a music related workshop to local youth.
I really wanted to make it on a high level, so it wouldn’t be a workshop where everyone is just clapping hands (though it’s also nice), but would actually receive some decent information from professional speaker (watch the guest speaker bio), exchange their knowledge between each other and listen to some nerdy stuff I find interesting. The saddest part is that not a lot of people could come and attend the workshop, but a lot of people were interested and applied for it. Those who came were really into it and they loved the workshop. I also learnt some new stuff from a speaker I invited from Tbilisi Conservatory. I’m planning to continue with these workshops and have really high hopes about that.
The whole atmosphere and environment in the office spreads the fluids of writing and inventing new project ideas. I have three a bit raw ideas which I plan to build from a scratch and then apply and implement.
Just recently I’ve helped short term EVSers on a GEM Fest (the longest electronic music festival, which took place in Anaklia). The idea was to have a social bar and some sport activities on a festival. This year organisers were really obsessed with delivering more active and sporty activities to the guests of the festival. We had slack-line, football, volleyball, frisbee, table-soccer, surf-imitators, trampoline, fifteen international volunteers and about 10 local ones. It was a big challenge for all the volunteers, those who came before festival started had to design, build, decorate and make the bar workable and comfy. From scratch.
The hard part was to live together in different times, ’cause of festival and our bar operating 24/7. People changed shifts, coming and going constantly. An obstacle was also a transportation from Zugdidi (place we lived) to Anaklia (place we worked), it was an hour long journey. The festival organisers put up the rules that no food or drinks were allowed to be brought to the festival area. You had to buy everything there, cook something at home (if your goods are not eaten yet) and pay(!) for the toilet at the Festival. Of course, there were moments which made everything easier and brighter, like sea and nice people around. However, it was one of the most challenging moments of the EVS.
Other things in life
A bit of a side project life. I have some friends in Tbilisi whom I know for some years already and it helps me a lot, when I lack the attention from sending/hosting organisation I can go to my friends. One of them is an art-historian obsessed with architecture, this is the best mixture of qualities in a person you want to have around in a city you don’t know that well, but really admire. We travel together a lot and exploring the local colours, faces, habits, culture, etc. Going outside of Tbilisi helps me a lot, I wish I could do that more, but money…
Summertime in Tbilisi is a very hard time, it’s hard to breathe, it’s hard to be next to the melting concrete. Most of the locals go outside of the city to visit their relatives in villages, hang out in a summer houses, hike in mountains, swim in the sea and so on. The summer is not finished yet and it’s hard to get back to work, but time..
There’s so much to do and so much to learn.