The End-ish

I sit at my desk - in the middle of a building site - covered with building dust. Today is my last day here at the foundation and rather like the last day of school I am hanging out with the secretaries downstairs, eating chocolates with the last few people not to have abandoned Tbilisi and generally singing and running up and down the stairs as I remember all the final things I need to sort out. Every time I whistle (I just can't seem to help myself) the guard - Dato shouts at me - it's bad luck to whistle inside in Georgia - it means that all the money will drain out of that house. I think I might jsut about have drained this entire place of money as when whistling is forbidden it becomes increasingly tempting.

I am not quite yet ready to offer my last reflections of Georgia - partly because I don't quite want to believe that I'm leaving yet - and partly because in the last week there has been a death in my host family - and so all our energies have been focused on sorting out the wake and the funeral - which makes my departure seem unimportant and far off. The family will follow 40 days of mourning after which there will be another wake, then the closest family members will continue wearing black for another year. I am deeply pleased that I am here with the family as they face this difficulty. Every night Vasha, Tata and I sip blackberry vodka and toast the ancestors and the spirit of the dead. Then, I take Tata outside of the house so that she can get away from the tears and the need not to smile or sing or dance. Outside the house there is some respite and the week has been full of late night talks about life, random taxi drives, interviews with more and ever more internally displaced refugees. We spent all day Wednesday sipping wine from Abkhazia - the most priced possession in most IDP homes - unfortunately Abkhah's wine is often prettyy old and bitter - so we ended up pretty sick. Amazingly symbolic of the entire conflict - the bitterness of the IDP population.

Anyhow - I must leave and apck up my things. So please await reflections and ponderings soon.