I was curled up in a Starbucks lounge chair at the Istanbul airport when I was rudely awaken by a strange man sitting next to me offering to buy me coffee. When I told him I didn’t want coffee he continued talking to me in his broken English, asking if I was traveling somewhere. I [...]
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Wednesday, November 26, 2008 – one more day in Istanbul [Turkey]
I had my alarm set for 2:30am but as usual woke up before it had a chance to go off. I was out of bed by 2:15am getting ready for my departure from my host family’s house at 3am. My host father was gracious enough to get up at that time as well and take [...]
Tuesday, November 25, 2008 – Georgian goodbyes [Tbilisi, Georgia]
This morning I took marshrutka number 41 to the Beteli Center and helped the kitchen staff prepare the noon meal for IDPs (internally displaced persons) and the elderly for the last time. The ladies in the kitchen didn’t give me much to do this time because they felt I should relax and let them serve [...]
Monday, November 24, 2008 – ladybugs… [Tbilisi, Georgia]
Today was my only chance to do some shopping for my family back home in Texas…just small gifts that I will give them for Christmas. Since my Dollar goes a lot further here with the exchange rate I figured I would take advantage of the opportunity! My host mom was with me the first part [...]
Sunday, November 23, 2008 – St. George’s Day [Tbilisi, Georgia]
Church service was really good today and the best part was that I didn’t need anyone to translate because there was a guest speaker from American! The topic was about helping others. One of the comments he made to the Georgians was, “Don’t rely on foreign aid and war relief donations before you start taking [...]
Saturday, November 22, 2008 – a hair cut, a World Vision competition & dinner in little America! [Tbilisi, Georgia]
I have been in desperate need of a hair cut and I was planning to wait until I got back to the States but when I asked my host mom how much a hair cut would cost in Tbilisi I immediately decided it would be in my best financial interest to get a hair cut [...]
Friday, November 21, 2008 – a visit with IPDs at Public School No. 40 [Tbilisi, Georgia]
This morning I went to the Beteli Center and spent about an hour helping my host father learn a bit about Power Point for one of the classes he’s taking for him Master’s degree in Business. I hadn’t been on Power Point in a while so it was a refresher for me. He had to [...]
Thursday, November 20, 2008 – a women’s gathering & my last day at World Vision [Tbilisi, Georgia]
Today I went to a women’s gathering at the home of a fellow American whose husband works for the American Embassy. They live in Embassy housing (a neighborhood that has been built specifically for Embassy staff) close to the Beteli Center. I felt like I had just crossed the border into the US…this was like [...]
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 – compiling information for the President-Elect article [Tbilisi, Georgia]
I spent most of the morning and early afternoon researching online articles about what Georgians are saying about America’s new President-Elect Barak Obama, as well as sorting through all the emails I received from the questionnaire I sent out to all of my contacts. I was overwhelmed with the amount of people that responded! I [...]
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 – get out of your comfort zone & go after your dreams! [Tbilisi, Georgia]
This morning I went to the Beteli Center to work on a few things and then I went to a seminar that was being led by the American we met for dinner last week who is a clinical family psychologist. His talk was on family values (of course) and also about being available to others [...]
