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Tuesday September 16 Today, I learn rather a lot
about Georgian customs, particularly their sense of time.
Nino, my translator and I have agreed to meet at the TransManager office at The participants are not
actual trainers as I thought they would be. They
seem to be a kind of Advisory Board to TransManager. They
are all working toward improving/creating an international trucking industry. So it turns out that I am not really doing a
Train-The-Trainer project as I had expected, but more of a general overview of the
trucking industry in
The fellows in the group
are very pleasant. They are well educated and
seem to be sincerely interested in learning about the North American trucking industry. Ghiorghi, Vaso and Godesdze are engineers who work
for the Ministry of Transport and are concerned with vehicle design and safety.
Tamaz actually works for a trucking company, but unfortunately, he is very shy
and my questions about his trucks, their engines, transmissions, suspensions etc, seems
mostly to embarrass him.
David (left) is
a bus driver and his ambition is to drive long-distance tour buses to
After another lovely lunch at Cafe Nikola, I walk all the way downtown to the main
shopping street called
One of the things I like to do to learn a new language is to practice by reading signs. I am standing in front of a building with my dictionary trying to puzzle out what the Georgian letters on the sign mean. I recognize the first one as a B. I look up the second one in my book and it seems to be an A. In a burst of inspiration, I guess that the third one is probably an R and go inside to see if I am right! Actually, many, many people speak at
least a few words of English. The second
language is definitely Russian, but there is no doubt that English is the language of the
future and everyone wants to learn it. The
Russian is actually a help because nearly all signs and street signs are written in
Russian as well as Georgian. Even if I
dont know what the Russian words mean, at least, I can puzzle out the Russian
letters easier than the Georgian ones.
The guesthouse where I am staying is a beautiful old apartment on the top floor of a six-story building. The ceilings are 12 feet high and the apartment itself is probably 2,000 square feet. It is filled with beautiful heirloom furniture, including a grand piano in the living room.
Dea Antalava, in her mid-thirties, has a graduate
degree in biochemistry and molecular biology. When
the Soviet era ended, she realized there would be little funding for studies in that field
so she is now working on a PhD in eco-tourism. She
lives with her mother who I first mistook for an elderly, housekeeper-sort of person. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wednesday, September 17 The session seems to go well
today. Everyone arrives nearly on time and we
finish the Professionalism in Trucking module. They
find many of the topics very interesting and spirited discussions erupt several times. I try to emphasize the importance of customer
service, as the old Soviet bad habits must be overcome if they are going to succeed in
developing an international trucking industry. The
old ways wont get them very far in doing business with On the way back to the
guesthouse, I stop and buy a bunch of flowers from a street vendor for three Lari (about
$2.00) and bring them to Dea and her mother, Marina. What
a timely impulse! Dea invites me join her and her guests for lunch. The guests are:
Nino, the radiantly beautiful lady that I met on Sunday evening, and Nino,
another radiantly beautiful lady who has been Deas friend since childhood! I hardly remember what I had for lunch! Nino #1 is a classic Georgian beauty with very
black hair and eyebrows, black eyes, a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones and a narrow
chin. She has a Georgian nose,
full lips and olive skin. Nino #2, Dea tells
me later, is typical of the original Georgian
people before they were invaded by the Mongols, the Turks, the Persians and just about
everyone else in this part of the world. Nino
#2 has light brown hair, which was probably blond when she was young and the most
incredible eyes I have ever seen. They are
bright blue, shading to turquoise and almost hazel in the centre. She is a model and fashion designer and has lived
and worked in
There seems to be only about
six girls names in Georgia. At least 65%
of the girls are called Nino, after St. Nino of Cappadocio, who brought Christianity to
It is
spectacular! The first act is a new ballet
called Madame Lioneli. I usually
dont care for modern dance, but this one is very interesting and extremely well
done. The second act is excerpts from several
classical ballets. The best one is The
Dying Swan danced by Irma Nioradze. I have never seen anything so beautiful
and moving in my life! I wonder if we could
book the company for the Entertainment Series.
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