He was diagnosed with congenital glaucoma when he was 4 months old. I was young and inexperienced back then so I trusted Georgian healthcare. He was 6 months old when he had his first surgery. He had the second one soon after and he continued to be treated for the next year and a half. When he was 4 years old, I noticed white spots on his left eye and realized that despite what the doctors told us, his condition was getting worse. The biggest problem was communication between the doctor and the patient’s parents, which, when done properly, is very important, helping the parents become strong and transfer this newfound strength to their children. I constantly asked questions that nobody could answer. I as a parent was interested in what chances we had and what kind of expectations should we have. Now I think that time was just wasted. Perhaps Nikoloz wouldn’t be completely healed but at least we could avoid the results we ultimately got: After long treatments in Turkey, Nikoloz, at the age of 4, had enucleation surgery (author’s note: he had his eye removed). Due to the treatment in Turkey, we were able to save his right eye. Nikoloz is 8 years old now. He has poor vision. In the right eye, his vision is – 12 and he can only perceive things in a one-meter radius.

He got so many surgical interventions from a very young age that he got already used to his condition. He is now 8 years old and he has to be careful all the time. For example – even though he really wants to – sports activities are forbidden for him. I warned children around him to be careful while playing with the ball with Nikoloz. Once he complained that the other kids weren’t throwing the ball as hard to him as others while playing ball. The doctors also banned smartphones and TV. In the 21st century, it’s difficult to forbid the child all this stuff. We’ve also changed our family lifestyle – we rarely watch TV.

It often happens that men often leave families with children of limited abilities and mothers have to take the whole responsibility. I got lucky. My husband, Giorgi, has always been involved in caring for Nikoloz and he was always by our side during surgeries and every step of the treatment. We are making each other stronger. I trust Giorgi the most when it comes to taking care of our child. When I have to go to training in another region, our child stays with him. Nikoloz is undergoing daily medical treatment and his eye prosthesis sometimes needs cleaning. Doing these procedures is only my husband’s responsibility.

I’m a biology teacher in one of the private schools in Bolnisi. When Nikoloz came of age to go to school, I really wanted him to study in an inclusive children school. The only specialized school where the environment is adapted for blind and low vision children is in Tbilisi. Since Nikoloz is depended on us it would be stressful for him to go to a school far from us, despite everyone around me advised to take him to the specialized school. However, I chose an alternative way for him to go to an inclusive school and brought him to the school where I teach. This decision also had another reason: Nikoloz has to spend his life in this city. if he goes to study in Tbilisi, when he comes back it will be hard for him to adapt himself. He’ll feel alienated and be isolated from his peers. In this school, he’s growing up people who live nearby, everyone knows him, he has friends and there are almost no risks of him perceived as ”different” or ”weird”.

I faced some difficulties. The school which should be open for inclusive education seemed to be completely unprepared for a student with special needs. Even though teachers had the basic knowledge of inclusive education, there wasn’t even one teacher who would help the child to adapt the education system to his needs. There was no such specialist in the whole region. By the way, that’s the reason that some blind people in our region can’t get an education at all. That’s exactly where I see our education system’s flaws: they enacted the inclusiveness law and they started looking for specialist teachers only after the law was passed. This makes the situation harder in schools and hampers parents’ and children’s’ development. So, I decided to become a special individual teacher for my son and participated in the training. In the last year, I took part in the certifying course organized by Germans, where I became a mobility-oriented specialist. This specialty covers being able to teach the skills to blind and low vision children to teach them living independently and help them take care of themselves on their own. For example, to learn how to use the white blind cane, perceiving space, identifying barriers. I remember, when I used this knowledge with Nikoloz, I got results right away.

Nikoloz was walking very carefully, thinking there were barriers all around. If someone walked by, he got anxious. First I taught him how to walk in school corridors: one wall on one lesson, second wall on another. Then I gave him a task – to walk in the corridor independently. (Before that I always held his hand). He ran and happily told me that he always wanted to run in this corridors like that.

In parallel to studying space orientation, I learned the education methodology as well. In fact, I was trying to research everything by myself, by collecting information from different sources on how to simplify the study process for my son. Nikoloz saw the lined notebook pages as blank. I drew contrasting lines with a marker so he could write in the lines. Then I found out that there is a large magnifier and it simplified the reading process. The school books are written in very unfriendly fonts. They’re hard to read not only for a child but sometimes for adults too.

I practically have to always be by Nikoloz’s side. Besides working with him directly, I’m also sharing my experiences with other school teachers. All of Nikoloz’s teachers now have the basic skills of specialty-teaching. We do it ourselves in our community. We don’t have any support from the government. I gave up my personal interests to help Nikoloz better. It is very important for me, for my family and for Nikoloz’s development to have knowledgeable institutions and their support.

I’m very excited to share my knowledge and experience that I have collected through my course of mobility-orientation and working with Nikoloz to help other people with special needs in our region. Nowadays there are 15 people with special needs around here, who are isolated from the outside world. I have an idea to create a center for blind people in Bolnisi, where they’ll get help on-site and will also help them integrate into society.”

Author: Maiko Chitaia
Photo: Nino Baidauri
Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

The post Khatia Razmadze, 30, Bolnisi appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

Legend holds that my village was once inhabited by ogres. There are two related spots in the village. One was where the ogres arranged grand feasts and baked large pieces of bread. Bigger ogres sat at the bigger table, the smaller ogres sat at the smaller one. The second spot, situated a little away, was for evil spirits. According to the legend, the king of spirits lived there. He had the most beautiful daughter. Once a year there was a dance ball on a field in the village. The daughters of evil spirits were prohibited to approach the ogres. But one of them fell in love with a young ogre, disguised herself to speak to him without anyone noticing and the two pledged their love to each other.

Near the land of the spirits, there’s a place named “Sakakilao”. One of the ogres impregnated the spirit queen there; the spirit king knew that she shouldn’t give birth and locked her up in a castle. The girl cried her eyes out and died giving birth. Today there remains a lake at the spirits’ place called “Lake of the tears”. After this, the spirits left our village and disappeared; the ogres never came back.

The village is very small but has a very interesting history. There’s a pagan temple here, Iskelita. Even today there are people who come from the other villages and ask it for more cattle; they bring walnut and bean bread to it. When the cellular network was being installed and the tractor paved the road, we found some old ceramics in the ground. We took them to the museum in Tsageri; a group of archeologists came to inspect them and it was established that the ceramic remains were of Colchian origin, from V-VIII millennium BC. In the village, there is a church; its bell tower is dated to the second half of the 12th century; the church was built by the Greeks in the second half of the 19th century. The church served as a literary center, where books were written and translated. ‘’Vepkhistkaosani’’ was copied by hand in Nasperi. Before a school was opened, literacy was taught at the church. The village school has a long history too. I researched its history, found out some materials, found the people who introduced literacy to our village and opened the first school.

After returning to live in the village, life has been quite difficult for me. But as it’s often said – “Strength and growth only come through continuous effort and struggle.” When I stayed alone and had to be in charge of everything, I didn’t know anything at first but with time I learned everything together with my children. We grew together. I had to do physical work to survive. I’ve gone through a very difficult road. Since my children grew up, I hadn’t had a reason to touch any technical weapons – they do everything we need themselves. Right now they come over the weekends, but in summer and we work together all season. I think children should learn craftsmanship because, in difficult times, I survived by making mattresses for a living – that’s how I started. My children were good students, helped me a lot, helped me stay strong and that’s how my family came to be.

Besides my newfound work as a teacher, my attention was drawn to the endangered fruit tree strains. I have records about which apple strains were grown in my village, which fruits were popular, how they were cultivated. For some of these trees I’m still looking in the ‘’kolmeurneoba’’ yards, I’m collecting them and I want to let them grow in Lechkhumi again – Abelouri, Turashauli, Kinula apple, which could be stored till spring. When a peasant was going to work, he took these fruits to eat. I have a farm, cattle, pigs and my garden is full of veggies and fruits. I learned how to plant them. In spring I cultivate new seeds and sell them; I plant every vegetable that grows in Georgia.

Being in touch with land and nature led me to write new recipes for Lechkhumian food. I found Lechkhumian spices, sprinkled them and made a Lechkhumian, already forgotten spice – ‘’grandmas’ salt’’. I wrote down this recipe from my mother’s mother who passed away when she was 110 years old and she always prepared it herself at the fireplace. This is a mix of vegetables, which were made by Lechkhumian housewives in the autumn and was used in the winter until green herbs appeared.

I do everything with my own hands. I have two traditional grindstones. We don’t need blenders or any other tools. I want to do everything in the way it was always been done. I want Leckhhumian people to go back to their traditions. the process of preparing Adjika was also interesting. Lechkumian Adjika was created to be taken within the mountains – when people were going in the mountains and took cattle, housewives let them take something that would last longer. Adjika was prepared in May-June that’s the time when we have a lot of green herbs. It’s made from herbs, garlic, and nuts last longer and retains its ingredients. The old Lechkhumian tradition of producing oil is also very interesting. We harvest a lot of walnuts and it grows fattier here than in any other place. I found some old records and learned how to produce walnut oil, which is more delicious and healthy than any other oils. My family has been producing Khalami (ceramic bowl) cheese and pickles for a very long time now. Not every cheese can be put in the Khalami, it has its own rule – summer cheese is stored in the ground in a ceramic bowl, which is stored in the second section of the cellar, in a so-called ”dormitory”, which gets closed and is only opened on the last week of Lent.

After this, I attended the Oni Agro Festival, for the first time. The representative of the information center of Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti got information about my activities and decided to visit me at home to get to know me. I wanted to represent Lechkhumi and that was the reason why I wanted to participate in the Festival. I had to find something about Lechkhumi to tell people what Lechkhumi is. Lechkhumi has his own cuisine, its name, its place. I took sauces, Adjikas, ”Grandmas salt”, dried fruits, shashlik, which I made from pork meat, good quality food so that everything would be delicious and put on the table. I didn’t even know that I had to sell the products, I just took them to present. Everything was sold out and it gave me the reassurance and motivation to produce and sell. If I hadn’t gone there, I couldn’t realize this.

Now I want to build a brand. My dream is to build a kitchen house, to have a simple wooden house in the village. My goal is to employ women and engage them in this field. Also, I decided that women from my village have to study English. This will be useful to meet our foreign guests, to understand what they want and how we can provide the best customer service. Tsageri district government helped me in this. Twice a week, a teacher comes to the village and gives us lessons. Currently, there are eight women in the group and men are encouraging these women to learn. Men help with children and they don’t have a problem doing it. I want these women to be involved in the spice and Tkemali realization as well. As a result, people will not leave the village and there will be a desire and purpose to stay.
My morning starts at 6 o’clock. As usual, I wake up by myself, without any alarms. In the morning, I take care of cattle, pigs, and chicken. I have 7 cows, if I have to collect milk, I do so – I clean the place, give them food… I prepare a meal for my mother and then I prepare for school. Working in the school is the best part of my day. I call my students sunshine and they really are. When they make mistakes, I say that the clouds are covering their light and I’m here to help to bring them better weather. These students are the future of my village and I believe that every one of them will be even more successful than I am.

Now I have 3 students whom I teach a complex curriculum – in the first and third grades. In the village, there are places, Nazandurebi and Nakhorgali, where we planted varieties of wheat. I’m looking for young people, who will plant wheat – my students are actively involved in it. Any plant needs love to grow. I can’t live without them. The main thing is to teach the student how to love. When they see your love, they give back twofold.

Love gives me the greatest strength. Your attitude must be formed by love in any job. To work with the soil – that’s love. The land is a living organism, part of you, your protector, who gives you food, drinks and helps grow your children. This is a long road I went through. There’s a saying that every woman needs a home, but I can’t imagine Lechkhumi without warm homes. It wouldn’t exist without them.

Author: Nino Gamisonia 
Photo: Nino Baidauri
Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

The post Khatuna Ghurchumalidze, 44 years old, village Nasperi, Tsageri Municipality appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

Let me describe the working conditions for you. On the very first day, when I went into a changing room, I found out that the Abashidze outlet (where I worked) of SPAR Georgia did not have a storeroom. Both new and expired products were kept in one tiny depository which served as a manager’s office, a place for storing the safe, and a dining room for the personnel. On the first day, I could hardly squeeze in through the open door as the staff was there, having lunch – some were sitting on the boxes, and some were standing in the corners. The manager, who was sitting behind a PC, looked up at me and asked: “Are you new?” It looked like a scene from a movie. They then discovered that there were no clothes for me, so they gave me a vest that the previous employee had left behind. It was so filthy that I could not put it on. The next day, the manager gave me a shirt that he/she had worn. They ended up never ordering a new uniform for me… Besides, there was only one hat in the entire outlet and it was worn by 20 different employees. I worked in the prepared meals department too and covered my head with a plastic bag there. I kept receiving reproaches so I wore that dirty hat over the plastic bag.

The staff had one hour for eating and resting. However, we could never use it fully because, as I said, this small room was multifunctional, coupled with the fact that the outlet was constantly short of personnel. Even if the contract clearly described the work, I could never adhere to the working schedule mentioned above. In fact, I worked from 9 in the morning till 9 in the evening, and the following day, from 9 in the evening till 9 in the morning, i.e. 12 hours a day. I did not complain. I thought it was my first job so I was ready to endure things for a while… Sometimes, due to lack of personnel, I had to work 24 hours. I carried out four different functions, those of a cashier, a shop assistant, a line producer (prepared meals department assistant), and sometimes a cleaner, as the staff in our outlet of SPAR Georgia did not include a position of a cleaner. Also, the shop used to have, and still has, outdated cash registers that you wouldn’t be able to find elsewhere. The equipment worked slowly, with glitches, causing long queues at cash desks and an additional stress for the cashier.

There was one incident worth mentioning. A delegation was arriving for inspection and we had to move everything that was arranged in the shop (an outlet of Spar Georgia) in violation of the standards into that so called storeroom/dining room/manager’s office, which had little space as it was. Of course, I did not have a uniform that I was to wear according to the standard (they did not provide one for me), so I was placed in that storeroom together with the nonstandard products. I have no idea how I managed to stand on the beer boxes. Finally, the box gave way and I fell down… There was another incident when an administrator was hit by a shelf in head while working. It’s fair to say that we worked under conditions that were hazardous for health and life but neither the company nor the government acted on it. Only the internal monitoring was periodically held in the company. We were always warned in advance, so we prepared for it.

According to the contract, my gross monthly salary was 377 lari. I was to receive 307 lari of net salary. I worked for three months and I have actually never received this amount. The first month’s pay was 109 lari, the second month’s pay totaled 295.61 lari, and in the third month (which marked the total of 208 work hours), I received 148.64 lari.

Obviously, 148.64 did no equal 307 lari. When I wanted to know the reason for reducing my pay, the manager explained that the shop had shortage and 40% was deducted from our salaries. Interestingly, the shortage of the outlet included some of the products that it had never received for selling, such as 365 cheesecakes that I’d never seen in the network during the three months I worked there.

Deduction of 52% from my salary was the last straw for me. I wrote a resignation letter and left, having made up my mind to do something about it. First and foremost, I wanted to share my experience with my friends and other job-seeking students. When I was paid 148.64 lari instead of the promised 307 lari, I posted about my work experience on Facebook and went to bed. It turned out that many people saw and shared the post. I realized that I could contribute to a social change. For this, I had to fight more vigorously and apply to court. I went to the Young Lawyers’ Association and we filed a lawsuit. Over a year has passed since the first court hearing. The next court hearing is set for the 9th of June.”

The post Shushanik Chubinidze, 22, Sazano (the Terjola region) appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

However, this was only a little stimulus. I realized independently what would be better. Because of the influence of my family “Hi”, “How are you?” were the only phrases I knew in the Georgian language up to the eighth grade. People speak only the Azerbaijani or the Russian language in our community and families. I appeared among Georgians when I attended a training course in the Marneuli Youth Center in the eighth grade. There were Georgians in the parallel grade in our school but to us they were the “other” as we were the “other” to them. From the Youth Center I was sent to a five-day training course in Tbilisi. I will not forget this period. My birthday coincided with that period and at 12 a.m. training participants – people who were strangers to me – threw a surprise birthday party. I thought for the first time that day that these “strangers” were people like me and maybe even better than me. I thought then that ethnical identity brings more harm than benefit to people. I also remember how my Armenian friends and I found it difficult to chum up. This was because it was ingrained in our memory that we were enemies. But when you get to know each other better, you realize that things are much simpler. These Armenian girls are now my best friends. Therefore, I think that integration and relationships will help resolve conflicts.

During the training organized as part of the ANI project I talked in the Georgian language for the first time. Even though I studied everything by heart to make a presentation, I became more interested in learning the language and studying sociology in the Georgian language. Before that I toured Marneuli villages and ran training courses in the Azerbaijani language. I ran training courses about family violence against women. But the community is less interested in the topic. Families do not allow girls to attend the training course because most of them think that as soon as a girl finishes the 9th grade, she must get married…

For the very reason that girls get married or are engaged, the last school bell for them rings in the 9th grade! My first classmate got married in the 9th form. She did not want to and cried but she was persuaded anyway that this was a good outcome. Eventually only two girls (including me) finished our school from our grade.
Generally girls are under the influence of their parents. Parents think that the earlier they will give their daughters away in marriage the better they will protect them from danger. They lure girls into marriage by painting a colorful future for them: that they will have a rich husband, a big house, they will not lack anything, parents will support them and they will never be hard up. Giving a daughter away in marriage is a huge burden for families. They take USD 15, 000 and even more in loan to furnish son-in-law’s house and it takes them the whole life to repay the loan.

I remember that one day one of my friends called and invited me to her engagement party. I got mad because I knew that she was not going to get married yet. She told me that it did not make any sense to resist as they had already drank a sweet tea. There is a tradition in our community, when the parents of the girl and boy arrange a marriage, the parents of the bride-to-be invite the parents of their future son-in-law. If they offer sugar to their guests when they drink tea, the matter is already settled. The girl does not take any part in the arrangements.

What do girls like in this proposal? That there is nothing new in their life except for Turkish soap operas. I always say that there are three entertainment opportunities in Marneuli: Shawurma, the furniture store and “Zapchasti”. It is good at least we have a new Smart (a chain store), where we can sit in a café. They were also going to build a movie theatre but ended up with building a supermarket. The situation is disastrous in villages. Do you know what the only entertainment for teenagers is?! Weddings. They compete, whose wedding is ‘”better”, who has more beautiful dress, who has the best cuisine served during the wedding… When you are at the wedding party, you wish you were in the bride’s place because wedding is the only entertainment we have… If a girl is engaged she visits Tbilisi together with her fiancé once a week to have some fun. This is also some kind of allurement.
Even though I am only 19, people are surprised when they learn that I am not married. When my relatives come to visit us they never ask me how I study. They only ask me when I am going to get married, “You have already graduated from school and enrolled at a university, what else do you want? You have even visited the United States!”

I went to the United States in November. I am probably lucky to have such amazing people like my mother around me. The UN Association of Georgia (UNAG) nominated me as a candidate for one of the programs of the US embassy. I won the competition held by the embassy. I could not believe that I was going to visit the USA. My relatives even met my brother. They wondered how he could let me go to the USA, they also asked the same question to my mother. They do not know that my mother cried tears of joy together with me, when I got a positive response via e-mail.

Currently part of my tuition fees is financed by SOCAR. I pay the remaining part myself from my salary. I work for the Marneuli community radio and prepare some stories. During the period of studying I would like to visit villages and run training courses. I am going to embark on a tour of villages as part of the PITA project. Maybe I am capable of making miracles happen.
I also started learning English. I would like to get a master’s degree abroad. Women’s rights advocacy is my future.“

The post Shalala Amirjanova, 19, Marneuli appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

I lived with my first husband for 13 years. I had 4 children with him. Through those 13 years he married other women about four times. Meanwhile, I lived with his parents and suffered. He used to come back home when he abandoned any of those women. It is accepted practice in the Roma community to have two or three wives. But I am Georgian and I could not put up with living together with my husband, when he had the second and third wife.

In 1991-1992 during the presidency of Gamsakhurdia, when we lived in Gurjaani, the Romani were ousted from Georgia. They told me that I could stay because I was Georgian but my husband was leaving so I had to go with him. We took everything I got from my parents – whether it was a bedroom set or blankets and matrasses – by a big trailer and left for Russia. We stayed there for several months, renting an apartment. Then we went to Chechnya, as we could no longer pay the rent or buy a house. We suffered a lot and had to leave things at different places because we could not afford to rent a truck and take everything with us. From Chechnya we moved to Baku, from Baku to Kirovabad, and then to Tsnori. My sisters live in this borough. When I got to Tsnori I head only a car and one tent, we did not have anything else. We sold the car and bought a house in Tsnori. Three days after buying the house my husband left me for his fourth wife. Later he had a child with her. Three years had passed since he left. He had never visited me during that time. People saw that I was a single woman and both Romani and Georgian men bothered me so much that I had to marry again. My husband had two children. We brought them up and had one girl together. I have five children in all.

I had a terrible nomadic life. None of the Georgian women would have been able to withstand all the sufferings I had gone through. My family used to tell me all the time to come back until I had a child, to leave the family and go back to normal life, but I loved my husband and at the same time I thought what people would say about me. In short, even though I suffered a lot, I did not have enough courage or did not want to leave my family… I was even abused physically – by my husband, father-in-law and sister-in-law, all of them used to beat me if I dared to speak out.

A woman is responsible for doing everything in the Roma community. She is supposed to be out from morning till evening to earn some money. When she comes home she has to cook, split firewood and bring some water. Neither my first nor my second husband had ever brought any water home. I have no idea how I survived. When I married for the second time, believe me, sometimes I got to the point that I even beat many men when a fight broke out among them after they drank together with my husband. My mother-in-law and sisters-in-law just drew me crazy, I do not know what kind of persons they were to mistreat me like that… But I was so fed up I did not meet them half-way. Yes, I had to become stronger and stand up for myself.

In 2009 representatives of one organization were visiting our place. They took Romani children to a Georgian school in Dedoplistskaro. I helped them because I knew the Georgian language. After that George Sordia offered me to take some training course in Tbilisi. After attending the training course, I founded an organization with their support- Kakheti Roma Alliance – Roma. I could hardly do anything from Dedoplistskaro, so I decided to move to Tbilisi and rent an apartment to work in this direction and get in touch with organizations/people who would assist me. Currently I am also a member of the Council of Minorities at the Public Defender’s Office and work on Roma rights through the implementation of the projects of my organization. This community has a great confidence in me. I have gained their trust since I founded the organization and started implementing different projects for the Roma community. I work in Gachiani, in Telavi, west Georgia and I help them with passportization, education of children, writing applications to different agencies and preparing documentation, in court… So I accompany them everywhere. All of them contact me because they trust me. For example, when some Television or organization visited them before, they did not allow them to come any closer because they were afraid all the time. But if I called them or accompanied the visitors, they accepted us well. Moreover, they call me and ask me whether they should meet someone, who is interested in meeting them. When I agree, they allow them to make video recordings and talk to them.

Roma women live in much worse conditions than Georgian women. I am rather sorry for them because I went through that nightmare myself. Therefore I also work on issues related to violence against women, discrimination and gender in the Roma community. I have called the patrol police many times to prevent family violence and accompanied the women in court.

Romani girls are given away in marriage at the age of 13-14. They are not even asked what they want; they are forced into marriage. Can you imagine what kind of life they may have?! They are victims of violence from the very first day of their marriage. Sometimes they are married to an older man, whom they do not love, so their whole life is suffering. It is also the violation of children’s rights when they force minors to marry, is not it?! On the contrary, sometimes a boy is 13 years old and a girl is older, 15 years old. Often this 13-year kid is not able to have a sexual intercourse with a girl… So, if no sexual intercourse takes place during the first night of marriage, they take the girl to a specially selected woman to undergo defloration. Can you imagine the extent of violence they are subject to?! What is their life supposed to be like after that?! Everyone should know this because this is a crime which has been practiced to date in the Roma community! My girls were subjected to the same violence and I could not stand up for them because I lived in the community and my husband would have probably killed me if I had done that. I have campaigned against this practice in the community since the foundation of the organization. I could not protect my children, I was absolutely powerless when they were given away in marriage at the age of 13 but maybe I will be able to protect my grandchildren and eventually put an end to such cruelty?!

I am happy that people have become cautious since the law on child marriage changed and they learned that infringers had to pay penalties. For example, one of the boys kidnapped a girl two months ago, but returned her back to her family without touching her because they got afraid of the police. A 14-year old girl has been engaged in Gachiani but they are not planning to have a wedding until she turns 18. I wish they introduced this practice! At least they will come of age by the time of the wedding and girls will decide either to marry or not marry. The law has been enforced and I am rather happy to already see its positive consequences.”

The post Venera Martkoplishvili, 63, Gardabani appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

When my son grew up he ran into debts. I had to sell my apartment to repay his debts. We bought a smaller apartment and moved there. Maybe nobody would have taken me to court because of the debts but I could not ignore those people he had taken loans from. He continued taking loans and I continued paying his debts. I remember there was a period when I used to take food from garbage to repay the loans with the money I had. Then I had to sell the second apartment and found myself in the street. As I had not been able to repay all the loans, the creditor sued my son and he was taken to jail. He was sentenced to 6 years and 9 months. Three years have passed since. I promised, I threatened him that I would not visit him. And I have never visited him in jail. But I miss him so much I cry all the time. My mother stopped talking to me because I had done so much for my son without having any rewards. But he is my son, how could I leave him. I had a cousin, who was also in prison, but we never turned our back on him. Eventually he turned into a respectable person. I believe that my son may mend his ways if I give him another chance.

The land, where my cabin is located, was bought by an investor, who transferred temporal ownership of some part of the land to me. I brought some boards and with the help of my neighbor, who is an artisan, fixed 4 boards together and roofed it. This is my house today, I am trying to make it look better to create a welcoming space for my son when he returns. I made a toilet behind the house. I did not have sufficient number of boards so I made a curtain from canvas instead of the door. When it rains my house is flooded. During that time I cannot get off my bed and I have to wait until the water level reduces and the place becomes dry.

I applied to the Cleaning Service and asked for a street cleaning job. My acquaintance provided references. Now I sweep the neighborhood. My salary is 280 GEL. This is the only fun I have in my life. I leave the house at 5 a.m. and sweep the street. Kind people have given me a calf. It is already one year and 4 months old and will also give me some relief pretty soon. I have hens, which I sell. I also sell nuts and send money to my son, about 100-150 GEL a month, so he has something to eat. Moreover, he needs winter and summer clothes all the time and I also save money for that. They stopped giving me social allowance, they told me that I am not eligible anymore because I have a salary.

I have rather serious health problems. I feel dizzy and weak. I have to lie down whenever I feel this way. I cannot call an ambulance, so I go to the gasoline station to ask the girls there to help me. I do not know why I cannot call the ambulance, maybe because I am ashamed to bring them into this room. There is hardly enough space here for them; how are they supposed to find this place, when I do not even have an address?! I go to the dining hall for poor people to bring some food. Sometimes I cannot go there because I do not feel well. I say that I live in the 19th century. Sometimes I want to cry out loud ‘what a life I had before and where I am now!’ I want to be strong to be able to welcome my son, I know that he will need me again. I have forced myself to stand on my feet.

This is the story of my life, my dear girl, but I thank God that I am alive. I am rather afraid to look back, I do not have anything good to remember. I have worked so hard but have ended up in this cabin!“

The post Zhuzhuna Gabaidze, 59, Kobuleti appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.