www.worldon2wheels.com 2010

Strong Women in Kutaisi

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:00:08 +0000

I did not think to mention the car accident we passed as we left Tbilisi heading west in the early morning light. Suddenly, we could see from a distance how people had gathered at the side of the road. I did not have time to make out what they were doing until I could see one person, or the remains there of, bleeding half way down the ditch. Passing 50 more meters: the car, which had rolled around, smashed and torn. Through the crashed back window of the car I could see the shape of a head. The crowd of people peeking into the car, neither the police nor the ambulance had arrived yet. It was just minutes after the accident. We slowed down, the hairs standing on my back. The sun was just about to rise through the cloudy skies. What rude awakening is waiting the families of these men.

We passed another man laying some 25 meters down the road, bleeding, not moving. Life seemed just so precious then, at the sight of this sudden loss of life. When we arrived in Kutaisi some hours later I could still get the shivers from the sight of the men scattered down the road.

The dramatic morning on the road moved into a yellow house, a large conference room, filled with energy, and conversations. Women refugees from Abkhazia and South Ossetia met for the first time to share their common lot in the ‘fund Sukhumi‘ women center. I heard, through a translator, stories abut overcoming hate for the future of themselves and their families. Many of them had been living as IDP’s for 17 or 18 years. It is time to move on.

The next morning, a wind from the north, breakfast in the cozy guesthouse. We took of to meet some of the women form the conference the previous day in the their homes. Many of the IDP’s are living in health spa hotels from the USSR era. Dwellings that has been falling apart for the last 30 some years, thatched with bits and pieces of material. Some 30000 thousand people live like this as I understood it. They have been for 17 years.

Some IDP’s have moved into newer buildings or restored old ones, raised too quickly and already, after some two, three months mold is breaking through the walls. I meet women that are leading schools, who have started small businesses to make last the 28 GEL the IDP’s get in support from the government each month. It is life on the very edge in some sense, there is still some hope I feel, I think the way the women here have organized and support each other is one very important factor to why everybody is not just plunging down in despair.

I come to think about the sudden destiny of the people in the car, the slow destiny of the people here. There is a great deal more to do here than about the situation of the people in the car, they could have used seat belts and maybe been better of. The analogy here is the organized women; they might hinder the fall and give life more meaning and a better and more peaceful future. I hope.

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Nagorno-Karabakh part 2

admin — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:31:56 +0000

View over Shushi/Shusha

I still think there are things to clear in my mind. When I look through my notebook I find I have just put down words to describe what I see. Churches, mosques, doors in arches but the house is gone. Garbage. The first morning the clouds are passing by outside the window, it cleared after an hour or so and the path I’ve walked the night before became details rather that nighttime outlines. Yellow gas pipes, a meter and a half or two over the ground. Little alleys that ends by a cliff. Views are stunning down in the valley, clouds in the distance, hovering over the mountains past Steparnakert. Trees with bare branches, It will be green here in the summer. It will become beautiful.

Snow, loads. will I get out? back to Yerevan? I need a beer, feeling of being overwhelmed by all the information and again, the snow. The trash that litters the streets is covered, the ruins take more round shapes. I slept at Armens, the french man I met the day before on the marchutka, who had paid my ticket and showed me the way. Woke up to the cold bright morning. brilliant hospitality. A house full of books, warming only one room at a time, sitting and listening to Armens stories about how the politics have gone rotten. Education in Karabakh is just a word, not an institution it seems. Armen says, give us jobs, education and rights and we will have democracy.

We were to visit the hospital, 40 people working there. Armen knows the man who runs it and he though I would like to see it for photos. But it is not open, no one there. Armen gets fired up and tells me that they have a hospital for surgery, funded by money from French diaspora, though Shushi does not need surgery, they need basic medical expertise. We pass through parts of the city and there seems to be the same in many places, things are built, people hired but things are not working. With some exceptions of course and in fact the people I meet and spend some time with are all fantastically energetic and very positive. It is the environment that makes me confused. The ruins of houses, again. and the horror of the history. wars for hundreds of years.

I walked with Armen, walked alone later in the day, I climbed around in the ruins and as night falls over the snow and the street lights turned on i took refuge in the art center that has been built with diaspora money for the children in the area. I was there on and off in the three days I was in Shushi, to see the work and to meet the souls that glow in a remains of what is said to have been a great culture center in the Trans Caucasus.

I had to leave before I was quite finished with seeing Shushi, took a taxi in the morning, paying the local bread delivery man some dollars to get down to the bus stop. I want to come back, stay longer, meet more people, get a better understanding. Still confused, but at a distance. always possible to distance oneself as a member of the more fortunate few in the world with roots in northern Europe.

Nagorno-Karabakh part 1 I came along for a ride. The swedish women rights...

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Nagorno-Karabakh part 1

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:56:20 +0000

Yerevan

I came along for a ride. The swedish women rights organisation, Kvinna till kvinna, was driving to Jerevan and there was room left for me in the car. The scenery along the 250km Tbilisi-Yerevan route is diverse, The mountains, the plains, lake Sevan, the industrial yards that has spent the last 30 years collapsing. Everything combined with good food, good company and a police stop that looked like it would cost us a bit.

After a day of photographing Yerevan and the spring that paied it a visit I got an early start, a wild taxidrive to the wrong part of town and then right and finally a lone minibus ride to the disputed region Nagorno-Karabach. I had a number to call once I got there but was warned that the phone might not work in the region, from political reasons. Hours and kilometers on roads that climbed up to the high mountains, snow, men in leather coats and leather hats and lots of cigarettes. I was quite happy in the bus, I fell alseep a few times and woke up every time to more astonishing sights. We crossed the border with no problem, though the border guard asked for my phone which I kindly refused to give him.

Once we arrived in Steparnakert, the capital, I got my visa sorted with the kind athorities at the foreign ministry and found a women that could lend me her phone, mine was obviously not working. The women that lend me the phone alredy knew the women I was meeting, small place this is.

Another small ride in a minibus, packed beyond sanity, people, legs, arms, bags in a big bundle and the a couple of more people got on the bus before we left town. One of the a french man who gave me his Karabach story and who obviously devoted his life to the region and to the town Shushi we were heading for. He told me Shushi used to be the third cultural capital of the trans-Caucasus, in the last century, but now only hosted some 3000 people which were not quite content with their situation, few jobs, little education, few rights.

He also knew the woman I had the number for and called her to announce my arrival and then promptly showed me the way to her work, a cultural center for young and old. From there on impressions have been many. I spent one night a guesthouse, got invited to stay elsewhere, switched, ended up with the french guy, got into trubble for that, or he did at least. Snow, massive snowfall, worries about the return trip, assurances about the splendid road conditions, my own impressions from looking out the window. You see I need to sort out my impressions before typing them down.

For now, I look forward to eat some of the preserved veggies, look at my pictures and climb into the bed and cver myself with three blankets. @+

Nagorno-Karabakh part 2 I still think there are things to clear in my...

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Back in Georgia

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:31:41 +0000

It strikes me, as I walk to the office along with my Slovenian friend that strong feelings is part of daily life here, maybe thats why I like Tbilisi so much. I gain energy from the people in the the street, from their efforts in the market, from the run down houses, from the traffic, the traffic that also makes me fuming, someone honks the horn in a strange way and I get ready to meet the maker. Well, it is all good, maybe I have gained bit of the famous Caucasian temperament, one of the reasons there has been very little peace in this region for the last, what, million years?

Sweden has been fantastic, seeing that I can access both worlds make me positive, again, about the future. I love it at home, my friends, my family, the cold swedish winter. It was striking to ride from Stockholm to Falun, to see the landscape, the cleanness, the way people stick to the rules. Arriving here i took a taxi to town, the driver raced and was doing 170km/h when he decided to go multitask and write an SMS simultaneously, scared the skin of my face. But I love it, makes me sense the spirit in that moment of nervousness, can’t be without it.

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home and home

admin — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 23:09:08 +0000

It is, by any means wonderful to be back in Sweden, I met friends I have not seen for ages, some I had a proper talk with and some I just passed a few words with at a bar. It is all good. Outside the snow is knee deep on our lawn, it is almost crisp cold, at least at night and the fridge is, contrary to the one I had in Tbilisi, always filled with foods I have not seen for eight months.

Yet the differences between life here and in Georgia are puzzling. I just had a short talk to my parents about security. I feel that insecurity, even though it might bring loads of negative effects can have a positive effect on people’s behavior. I know people in Tbilisi who work full time and write a thesis at the same time sleeps four hours a night and still transmits energy. There is something about struggling and dreams that I feel I loose when I’m back here. I have it all, I don’t need much more. I feel more positive and energetic in an environment that has fundamental problems than one where most things are provided. Sure, I can always go back home, like now and feel the security my fellow Georgians might lack occasionally, that is a big difference. I could be and might actually be a tourist just enjoying that things are cheap and easy going, but I don’t think so.

There is so much creativity among the people in Georgia, I get inspired. I have very creative friends in Sweden as well but I never get the same kick out of walking down a street in any town in Sweden. I see thing that could be done everywhere, and there is actually a possibility to do things it feels like. There are so many directions in which Georgia might develop that I feel I need to stay a bit longer to find out just a bit more, it is great!

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stockholm sweden

admin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:27:31 +0000

Stockholm in snow

It took me some time to decide whether going back home was ever a good idea. At first, leaving Sweden I was determined to leave, complete the full lap and then return. Meeting Georgia I changed my mind, in fact already before entering Georgia, at the mere thought of Georgia I decided that this was a place to stay a while and a time to return home for some weeks.

I went through some rough talks with myself about this return trip. I was not sure if it would completely ruin my will to continue or rather strengthen it. When i realized i was quite in love with Georgia and that I was really a Georgian man in a Swedish mans body it was quite clearly not a problem anymore and I booked a ticket home.

The initial culture chock, in head first action, right in to the christmas rush in downtown Stockholm after not sleeping all night and arriving 7 hours later than the itinerary indicated i should, was brutal. I’m still somewhat shattered, more from lac of sleep but still.

It is cold in Stockholm, really cold and the streets are cowered in real white snow and people who walk side by side to keep an up-right balance. It is love to be home, it is a visit in the homeland while Tbilisi feels like my proper home-where-i-roam.

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Hectic days

admin — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 08:09:44 +0000

looking out from the exhibition

Last days before going back to Sweden over christmas are hectic and it seems, like so many times before, that the 24 hours between two dates are just not enough. My morning routin of running laps on the hippodrom has been cut short since I had to stay up the previous night to work on some photos. I enjoy this somewhat creative stress but it seems my body does not.

It is good then to have benefit of being in a country where most of the people are not affected by the same stress as my self. The cues are moving slowly, no matter what, the metro escalator is a cork that calls for a pause and a deep breath. It is just a matter of relaxing at this point and try to let the flashing peaks of stress die out into the mass of morningwarm bodies.

I have started taking lessons in Russian. Once a week I meet up with two of my students, a young girl and her grandmother, an elderly lady with more energy than the Duracell rabbit. I met the girl outside the sovjet block building, we take a dodgy elevator that smells from sewer and damp to the 7th floor where we meet Lea, my russian teacher. She has always prepared something to eat, some cheesebread or some cakes, some strong turkish coffee and some pumpkin. We spend a couple of hours by the dinnertable in the dark, heavily decorated living room, laughing at our mistakes (I teach her Swedish in return), looking up words and passing the notebooks around for help on spelling. She seems to me to be quite different from many other Georgians, she is not too strict on the roles of ost and guest and I feel quite at home. She used to be a professor at the academy, she plays the piano and the other week she gave me and her grand daughter a small concert in the living room. The grand piano desperatly needs tuning but the energy that transmitted through the room when her fingers ran over the keys was magic, it send shivers up my spine. Makes me love my russian, makes me want to have classes every day!

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Food culture

admin — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:53:43 +0000

The 24 hour restaurants are not busy at 6 in the morning but they still serve the full menu and the whole kit for anyone awake to eat it. I payed a visit to one of these god forsaken venues last night as they were cleaning up, chairs on the tables, half sleeping staff punched out by a table. The service was not bad for the late/early hour and compared to many places here in Tbilisi, including the up-market restaurants it would be considered really good service.

I have been working on the photos for a cook book on Georgian cuisine in one of the fancy restaurants in the old town by the river. The music played in this place has started to give grey hairs and full day head aches, it is really the very least attractive music available here in Georgia. They also follow a scheme where the volume is increased rather than the opposte when more guests arrive. anyhow we have managed to get some pretty fair photos of the lovely Georgian food.

Green bean sallad

stew

click the images to get to my Flickr page for more photos.

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Magnum

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:56:16 +0000

A new photo book about Georgia just came out. It was an order from the Georgian president and as I have understood he wanted to show the bright sides of Georgia. He brought some of the Magnum photographers over to document the spring of 2008 in Georgia in a different way.

For sure the photos are different, but not in the way Saakashvili anticipated. There are a certain degree of questioning in the pictures that he did not like. Some beautiful and simple photos of Tbilisi was added in the beginning and the end to dampen the emotions the rest of the photos might stir up. It is also very comic that the georgian text in the book got mixed up with complete jiberish at the printing house and the first batch was decided to be donated to libraries. But at the end of the day, it is a beautiful book with text and photos far beyond. it is as always the very vanguard of photography, an inspiration for the mind and eye!

Regional meeting, greens from Sweden and the Caucasus got together to talk about the future

I have started a photoproject about the Green party in Georgia, the Swedish Green party is engaged in helping them and supporting them. Now as my time is mostly focussed on the food photos and the teaching I have only met them a couple of times, I think there is potential for some really interesting work here, they have a big challange facing them or many rather.

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SIDA and the football

admin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:26:15 +0000

Diplomatic plates on the car and “pick up”-food from a french style bakery in the posh part of town. Equiped, with camera, a somewhat naive mindset and the sandwich i mentioned I came along for a ride out to a camp for Ossetian refugees. SIDA, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, is funding part of this camp and they were invited to see a small football cup organized by the mighty energetic souls at the regional football association.

On a small field, the size of a basketball field, divided in three along the long side, three teams of 8-12 year old were playing at the same time. Energy and happiness, mixed with a dose of anger over some foul play filled the air. We had a tour of a school they built about a year ago and it was already cracking up since the builders did not let the concrete dry out enough. Same goes for the mostpart of the 2400 dwellings in the camp and people are not quite fit to do much. There are no jobs and the men and women gets depressed, more so the men it seems and when alcohol gets involved thing start to rott from within. It might seem worse to me due to the cultural role of alcohol but clearly these people are very unhappy. For many of them it is the second time they are displaced one of the SIDA workers tells me.

It is a mean feeling to look out over the field of identical houses stretching for hundreds of meters in each direction. The drive back to Tblisi is one filled with reflections over the dilemma of displaced people from all over the world. One of the more traveled SIDA men tells me about the camps in Lebanon, outside Beirut where people have been living since 1948, still holdning on to the key to the house they once left behind. Still hoping to go back one day.

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