Happy Birthday, Beka!

With balancing-act skills that you might see in the Chinese State Circus, all I am missing is the leotard and the stack of dinner plates on my head as I’ve got two breadbox-sized gift bags on one arm, a volleyball net and poles in the other, the volleyball in another gift bag slung over my shoulder like a school backpack, a birthday cake decorated with meringues and greetings written in icing in the fancy Georgian script, my coat pockets stuffed with chocolates, my camera and a bottle of the local spumante for the first toast and an umbrella in my hand as I head out to catch the bus, jumping puddles and wading through overflowing street gutters from a rain that hasn’t stopped in two days.  I am covered in mud to my knees by the time I get to the platform to meet Lela at Didubé Station but still upright and with all the bags, boxes, gifts—and the cake—in their places.

It’s Beka’s birthday—the second one we are spending together now—and we have come to celebrate not only a new year but also a new life.  He is standing by the gate waiting for us, wearing the pullover, Levis and a pair of bright white sneakers from other gift bags and previous visits, as his two grandmothers join him on the yard to make for a perfect welcome of three happy faces in a row. Eighteen months after the hearing aids were put on his ears and the dials adjusted to find their best places as we watched anxiously as years of silence transformed instantly into sounds, the young man who once could not raise his eyes to meet ours is now talking, engaging, interacting, joking, interrupting with the best of us, participating and, simply, living as he chides his two-year old niece for her chattering and tells her to be quiet when others are speaking as he smiles the smile, when she disagrees with his advice, that should have been on his face all the time.  Lela leans over and whispers in my ear what I have been thinking myself:  “The change is amazing…”

“To the people who brought us all together!”(clink-clink) Barely inside, the party has started.  Beka’s father, leading the table in keeping with Georgian custom and making sure all the wine glasses are filled, raises a special toast for everyone who has helped to make Beka’s new life.  Indeed, it has been the collective efforts of a group of different people in different countries whose interconnections and shared commitment to helping others has produced the results we have now. “To our new friends!  To those who have taken our pain as their own.”(clink-clink) The tone becomes solemn and reflective but quickly reverts to the original joy as it was when we arrived as we raise glasses to Lamara, Liza, Marisha, Paula, Lela, Mônica—and even my mother (clink-clink) who sent a birthday gift defying the odds that Georgia Post would actually be able to make a delivery in a country without even one mailbox—for the synergy of response and output.  “We will never forget.  We will always know why this happened.  Beka’s new life is because of you.”           

The hearing aids, purchased from Solar Ear in Brazil through the intervention of its co-founder, Howard Weinstein, mark the first introduction of the solar-powered technology in Georgia, in particular, and the former Soviet Union, in general, and underline the utility and practically ready-to-wear effectiveness of the devices in a country which still lacks the ability—or interest, perhaps better said—to provide affordable healthcare and treatment options for its citizens.  A look around the neighbourhood shows similar situations in Russia, Ukraine and the other republics of the old Soyuz where people still prefer to hide the community’s lesser-than-perfect under the bed—yes, these are my words and I am prepared to back them up—rather than doing something to help promote socially integrated happy and productive lives.  If we look at those with some form of deafness, unofficial conservative estimates put the hearing-impaired population in Georgia at six percent which means that a significant chunk of a country of four million people are facing an auditory handicap, in varying degrees, requiring intervention. For Beka, whose parents were without the financial means to help their son and with state assistance offering a one-time-only standard-issue hearing aid the size of a soup bowl—pink but probably meant to be flesh-coloured, worn over top like an earmuff and which buzzed and hissed and squealed and needed a fresh battery everyday—it might have been better to go under the bed than walking around like this.

I am looking at Beka from my seat in the corner.  He’s the tolumbashi, or assistant toastmaster as is the tradition, to his father’s role as tamada or head-of-the-table.  He is paying close attention to making sure all of his guests are looked after with wine glasses promptly filled after the toast has been made and the plates changed to provide clean palettes for the new dishes that keep coming from the kitchen.  I watch as he is having two conversations at the same time.  At his side, his father is telling him to fetch wine, bring another jug and pass Lela the juice as he replies, rapid-fire, that the wine is on the table, the jug is on the floor beside him and Lela prefers lemonade.  Across the table, over a plate of khachapuri cheese bread, fried chicken pieces and a crystal bowl filled with apples, pears and red grapes from the garden outside, he and Lela are discussing mobile telephone internet connections and tariffs, something about megabytes and downloads and setting him up an e-mail account.  I plan to interject with a third when the next toast is passed to me.

“Happy Birthday, Beka!  Happiness, health, luck, love, peace and all best wishes to you!” 

I begin with the same words you hear in every Georgian toast at every Georgian birthday party in every Georgian dining room but quickly, and deliberately, veer off course as I look back at these last eighteen-or-so months and talk about our first meeting, the medical check-ups at the clinic by the train station, the day the hearing aids arrived in the FedEx box from São Paulo, the fittings in Dr Kevanishvili’s office, the sounds and words he heard after so long and, now, the friendship that is fixed for all of us.  I echo the first toast of the day to the group of people—old friends and now new friends and with some of them here at the table—whose roles have been paramount to this success.  I end just in time with the final clink-clink as Lela points to her watch and reminds us that we need to leave for Gori now or we will miss the last bus home.  Outside on the yard and saying good-byes, the thoughtful finish to my birthday toast turns to gurgles of laughter from everyone as I slip and fall in the mud.  It’s been raining in the village, too.  My balancing skills from earlier in the day are gone.  I’m glad they lasted this long.

*   *   *   *

It’s Sunday morning.  I’ve been out for a run and I see there is a text message on my telephone when I get back.  It’s from Beka.  “Thank you for the visit yesterday,” he writes.  “Thank you for the gifts.  We’re already playing volleyball.  We’ll play the next time you visit, too.  Thank you for everything.”

My dream came true

Lela and I are late, as usual.  We’re in a taxi on our way to the clinic when we realise, all of a sudden, that we are heading in the wrong direction.  A friendly argument with the driver—assuring him that, indeed, we know where we are going, and, yes, Tbilisi is a lovely city—and we are back on track after an illegal U-turn.  Crawling at a snail’s pace for the last bit, past street vendors on both sides selling wheels of home-made cheese the size of orchestra cymbals, cabbages piled up to look like pale green pyramids and plucked chickens hanging upside down from their feet like a row of socks on a clothesline, and we are here.  I reach over from the back seat and give the driver ten lari—which was not bad considering his mistake with the address although the sour puss in the rear-view mirror showed me he thought otherwise—and we fly out of the car and up the stairs where Beka and his father are waiting for us inside.

We are at the Japaridze-Kevanishvili Clinic for ear moulds.  I have brought the hearing aids, pages of print-outs ranging from what the experts at Solar Ear in Brazil have told us, directions for the audiologist and, by mistake, my electricity bill which reminds me that I need to stop at the bank on the way home.  The technicians—two grandmotherly types in white laboratory coats and half-glasses sitting behind a desk next to a tall shelf with some books and a bunch of fluffy stuffed toy animals—are stopped in their tracks as I start speaking in Georgian, rattling on about where to pay and how long before they will be ready and joking that the office was as hot as Tashkent in August and it was probably a good idea to open the window.  “Your Georgian is great!,” they said, in turns, as they put a quick setting gel into Beka’s outer ear cavity, one at a time, which will be used as a reverse mould to make a soft plastic plug to seal the ear and provide for better results with the hearing aid.  “You should hear me after a couple glasses of wine,” I replied, as I took the toy mouse from the shelf and put it in Lela’s lap which made her jump in her seat and Beka laugh out loud.

It is Wednesday.  The ear moulds are ready.  We have an appointment with the audiologist for Beka’s fitting and Lela and I are late again.  I have brought the same bagful as last time:  hearing aids, battery chargers, a packet of extra batteries which were tossed in as a donation by our friends in Brazil, translations of the instruction manuals, B vitamins—which help make for healthy ears, so I have learned—and a bunch of bananas for Lela because she has missed lunch helping me to get everything ready.  Beka is there already, wearing the coat and the sneakers we gave him for Christmas, and breaks into a full grin when he sees us.  Gamarjoba!  Rogor khart?  “Hello!  How are you?,” he says as we start climbing the six flights of stairs which are too narrow for my big feet and make me stumble a few times to the amusement of the rest.  “We are here to see Dr Kevanishvili,” Lela says to the receptionist in Georgian, as we get to the top floor and where we need to be.

Ivane Kevanishvili, or Iva for short, is the Managing Director of the Clinic—together with his colleague Shota Japaridze, they are Tbilisi’s best experts in the field of hearing loss and its treatment—and is helping us fit the hearing aids.  “It is going to be a long process,” explains Kevanishvili after learning Beka’s history of being without any sort of treatment for so long.  “He will need time to hear and recognise sounds again.  Some, like the noises of different things outside, like on a busy street, for example, he has never heard before.  Some of the particularly Georgian sounds, the sharp ones, will be difficult at first.  It is a process.  And it will be frustrating from the beginning.  But it is a process.  And in the end, it is all going to work out fine.”

 

Before long, Kevanishvili has the hearing aids on Beka’s ears and starts asking him questions about the sounds he is hearing for the first time in a long time.  The expression on his face says more than any words could as the silence turns into sounds with the flip of a switch and the proper adjustments and fine-tuning.  “How is it?  Too loud?  Too quiet?  Repeat after me,” he says as he starts counting in Georgian, erti, ori, sami… shvidi.  “Say the words I say as you hear them.”  Beka is speaking and answering the questions without hesitation.  Kevanishvili moves to stand behind him so that there is no lip reading to confuse actual hearing.  “Repeat after me,” he says again, as he starts counting.  Beka repeats but there are some small mistakes in pronunciation and some missed numbers.  “You see?,” says Kevanishvili.  “He’s relied on his eyes for so long to understand what people are saying.  He will have to train, now, to hear the sounds.  Not see them.”

It is later that night.  I am brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed when my mobile telephone beep-beeps with an incoming text message.  “Thank you for making my dream come true,” it reads in Georgian.  Of course, it is from Beka.  “Now, I can hear what people are saying.  On my own.  With no one having to help me.  Hope to see you soon.”

See you soon.  Indeed.

New Generation Georgia is committed to helping Beka continue to move forward in leaving the silence behind.  We are very grateful to everyone involved in meeting our first two targets of the round-one medical treatment and the purchase and fitting of the hearing aids.  Please join us in our project as you can.  All donations will be gratefully received and acknowledged.  As always, any alternative ideas or suggestions for meeting the next targeted interventions will be more than welcomed.  Follow us, too, on Facebook (New Generation Georgia) and Twitter (newgenerationge).

What we need:

Target 1:  USD 500 for speech therapy (three-month period and including travel of a specialist from Tbilisi)

Target 2:  USD 150 for medication (round-two of preventative treatment and rehabilitative therapy)

Target 3:  USD 20,000 for cochlear implant surgery (for one ear, based upon consultation with local surgeon)

*  *  *  *  *

“Hello!  Thank you, I am fine.”  It is a few words from Beka in reply to my daily text messages to check up on him since the hearing aids have been in place.  “I am doing what the doctor said.  Today, it is better.”  I write back immediately, although having to pull out the dictionary for a couple of words.  “Every day will get better,” I start, “and you have a whole team, in five countries, with you to help.”  I am reminded again that I have the best friends in the world.

BANK DONATIONS:

Bank of Georgia
Tbilisi, Georgia
Account Number:  176560200
SWIFT:  BAGAGE22
Beneficiary:  Jeffrey Morski
Notation:  New Generation Georgia, name, surname, home city

PayPal:

newgenerationgeorgia@europe.com
Notation:  New Generation Georgia, name, surname, home city

Something like this can only come from God

“He told his mother that something like this can only come from God.  He loves you all as if he has known you for his whole life.  He swept the floor and straightened the chairs ten times before you came and wanted everything to be perfect for the visit.  You’ve taken their pain as your own.  It’s already made such a difference.  A whole life is changed.” 

Liza—Kveshi’s school teacher, family friend and now our friend—is talking about Beka as we stand outside on the yard.  It is St Nicholas Day and we have come to the village to see him with Christmas gifts of a new winter coat and a pair of All Star sneakers wrapped in fancy red-and-green paper with drawings of snowmen, bottles of fizzy wine for Happy New Year toasts and a supply of the medicines he needs to keep the hearing loss from getting any worse.

“Come in, come in!  It’s cold outside,” says Beka’s grandmother in Georgian from the door as she smiles and waves her hands motioning us to move.  “What is everyone waiting for?!” 

Inside, the table is ready.  A plate of boiled pumpkin wedges set in a circle which looks like the rays of the sun, a pile of khachapuri cheese-filled bread right out of the oven and a jug of rose-coloured wine pressed from their own grapes make for the perfect lunch for this visit.  My friend Paula winks at me from across the table as she also notices that Beka takes the seat right next to me.  It seems that each of us has a new friend.  As the meal begins and the pile of khachapuri becomes smaller and then larger and then smaller again as new batches come hot from the kitchen and then disappear just as quickly, I catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye and try to imagine what it is like to sit in silence and not know what is being said or why everyone is laughing or be left out of everything all around you and for your whole life.  I am brought back to where I need to be with the clinking of glasses and the raising of the first toast.

“To Beka!”  It is Lamara—who has joined us for the party along with Liza and Rezo, from the newspaper—with a raised glass and she has taken the lead with what will be an afternoon full of best wishes, here and there, good thoughts, for everyone, and, by the time it is all over, too much wine, at least for me.  “To a new future!  To his new friends here at this table!  For a new life!”

A new life.

It is a couple of months later now.  We have been busy setting up the New Generation Georgia project, researching treatment options from Turkey to Brazil, looking for funds and asking a million questions in and outside of Tbilisi in order to make sure that Lamara’s toast comes true.  It has been the motivation and driving force behind each of us involved within a synergy of positive action which reminds me every day that I have the best friends in the world.   It is a team, as Paula always says and underlines through her actions, which can do together what one person alone is simply unable.  Recently, the team has gotten bigger.

Enter Howard Weinstein.

Howard is the co-founder of Solar Ear, a São Paulo based non-governmental organisation which works to provide affordable access and availability of hearing aids to the deaf and hearing impaired worldwide.  I have met him through my friend Marisha, in St Petersburg, whose research put us on the path to his door, and Mônica, my friend in Rio de Janeiro, who opened the lines and made the initial contact.  He is a Canadian national (Go Canucks!) whose list of activities and accomplishments in terms of helping others help themselves reads like a Who’s Who of people we all should aspire to be.  Before starting Solar Ear, he set up several sustainable small-businesses for people with disabilities in Africa as well as some equally sustainable social programmes for under-represented Brazilians.  His project Nem Luxo nem Lixo (Neither Wealth nor Poverty in Portuguese), which targets increasing opportunities for young people at high social risk in Brazil through providing education and training, won the Inter-American Development Bank’s award for the best business plan of 2008.

“We purchase the same materials as the big companies do so our quality is no less than theirs,” explains Weinstein as he tells me about making the hearing aids at Solar Ear.  “We did a test once between one of our 100 dollar models and one from Europe costing around 5,000 euros.  In the end, the user could not tell them apart.  The only difference is the price because our mark-up is deliberately minimal.  All of our products are assembled by young employees who are deaf.  By developing practical technologies for the region alongside creating employment, training and education programmes, the project grows into a sustainable professional enterprise which puts hearing aids where they need to be and changes societal perceptions or stereotypes about the skills of people with disabilities.”

Jump ahead to last week.

The first of Solar Ear’s hearing aids, special rechargeable batteries with a life-span of three years (unless the dog eats them, of course, as Weinstein jokes) and solar powered recharging stations, the size of a big bar of soap, to arrive in Georgia are here.  The experts in Brazil have read Beka’s audiograms and suggested two of their most powerful digital models.  We have not only received some free extra batteries but also a generous discount in the price which has come as a great and unexpected surprise.  “The hearing aid for his right ear will increase the sound he hears by 80 decibels,” says Weinstein in reply to my question about what degree of restoration Beka will have once the devices are fitted and in place.  “Every ten-decibel increase in a hearing aid is twice the volume.  So, an 80-decibel increase is quite substantial.”

New Generation Georgia is continuing in its work to help Beka regain a happy, healthy and productive life through targeted interventions addressing his hearing loss and treatment options.  We are extremely pleased and encouraged to have met our first two targets of the purchase of round-one medical treatment and the hearing aids and battery charging kits.  Please join us in our project as you can.  All donations will be gratefully received and acknowledged.  Any alternative ideas or suggestions for meeting the next targets will also be more than welcomed.  Follow us, too, on Facebook (New Generation Georgia) and Twitter (newgenereationge).

What we need:

Target 1: USD 500 for speech therapy (three-month period and including travel of specialist from Tbilisi)

Target 2:  USD 150 for medication (round-two of preventative treatment and rehabilitative therapy)

Target 3:  USD 20,000 for cochlear implant surgery (for one ear, based upon consultation with local surgeon)

*   *   *   *

Our arrival in the village is with the same bag of gifts, another pair of All Stars, this time in a different colour, more fizzy wine, more khachapuri and a smiling Beka who is waiting for us at the gate.  Even Paula’s dog has come along this time.  We have brought the hearing aids with us and will make plans for a visit to the audiologist for the fitting next week in Tbilisi.  “He’s already changed more than you can imagine,” says Liza who has known Beka for years and was his teacher in school.  “He sees hope.  Some hope.  Maybe for the first time.”

BANK DONATIONS:

Bank of Georgia
Tbilisi, Georgia
Account Number:  176560200
SWIFT:  BAGAGE22
Beneficiary:  Jeffrey Morski
Notation:  New Generation Georgia, name, surname, home city

PayPal:

newgenerationgeorgia@europe.com
Notation:  New Generation Georgia, name, surname, home city

The Ghosts of Gori - For some, the war is over. For others, it never stopped. New Generation Georgia is looking to change this. One step at a time

Walking along Gori’s main avenue on a sunny Saturday afternoon, it is hard to believe that this city was under siege during Russia’s five-day invasion of Georgia in August 2008 and saw some of the worst tragedies of a war which no one wanted and no one deserved. Newly painted facades on pharmacies, patched asphalt, tiled sidewalks and neatly kept flower gardens of yellow and burgundy dahlias now mask the blown-out buildings, bleeding bodies and tanks rumbling through the main square—as it was in Gori in those days—but which still haunt the city and its people.

Two old men are playing dominos on the hood of a car as I come up and ask for directions. 0ne of them is Zura, a taxi driver waiting for his next fare, as he introduces himself and, as far as I can understand, the other is his friend who expects to beat him for the tenth straight time. In fact, I am right where I need to be as the men point to the rusty sign with a big blue Number 47 Chavchavadze Avenue written in the fancy Georgian script above a door which is falling off its hinges and a stoop which has seen better days.

I climb a set of rickety stairs to the fourth floor, knowing that I am a bit late and preparing my apologies as I am ready to blame the bus driver—“What?! Did you just learn how to drive today?!,” the man in the seat next to me shouts up front—for missing a turn and heading back to Tbilisi before realising his mistake. The door to the office at the end of the hall is already open. Before going inside, I try to put some life back into the now raggedy bunch of flowers I brought—always remembering my mother’s words that you can never show up anywhere empty handed—as I realise, all of a sudden, that there are more petals on the floor than there are on the hollyhocks.

I am in Gori to see Lamara Shakulashvili, a Gori native and Board Chair of the Shida Kartli Committee of the Anti-Violence National Network. I met her several weeks ago at a conference in Tbilisi where she was speaking about the continuing and serious problems being faced by many of the victims of the August war—those physically handicapped or otherwise incapacitated and many suffering from serious psycho-emotional trauma—and presenting some of the results of her research. Shakulashvili conducted post-war monitoring in 21 villages in the Gori, Kaspi and Kareli regions of the province of Shida Kartli and personally spoke with over 700 people in her interviews.

“0ur region was hit very hard,” she says speaking in Georgian, “and no one here has recovered from the post-armed conflict depression. 0ver 30 percent of the people lost family members, friends and neighbours. Houses were bombed, gardens were torched, apple orchards were razed and buildings which were left standing were damaged by the movement of heavy military machinery along village roads. The destruction was quite deliberate, in fact. The village out-patient clinic in Karaleti was bombed—and still remains in ruins without a roof—but the one-room wooden house across the road from it was left untouched. I can tell you the 700 stories I know. Imagine those which still need to be told.”

The city of Gori, located in the Georgian province of Shida Kartli approximately 80 kilometres from the capital of Tbilisi, and its surrounding regions bore a disproportionately violent brunt of the Russian-backed aggression. The city was occupied for nearly ten days in the early part of August 2008 during which time airstrikes in civilian areas resulted in numerous deaths, injuries and widespread destruction to its infrastructure. Human Rights Watch reported that Russia deployed “indiscriminately deadly” (the quotation marks are theirs but also mine) cluster bombs but the story remains refuted by Moscow as slander despite the evidence of the exploded sub-munitions or so-called “bomblets” in and around the historic centre. Nearly 60,000 people fled the region overall. From the middle of August, military blockades denied access to the entry of international humanitarian aid missions trying to assist those who remained. Pull-out, at least on paper, was on 22 August.

It is later in the afternoon and we have just entered the Buffer Zone, a more or less ten-kilometre swath of rural countryside running along the new and de facto administrative border with South 0ssetia. It is a line on the map which only Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and a tiny Micronesian island recognise as legitimate and legal. Two years since the aggression, Russian soldiers remain inside Georgian territory with travel to the Zone and movement within still controlled. We are stopped at the Georgian check-point in Karaleti, some five kilometres from Gori, and asked to produce passports, show notebooks and tell about our visit before being allowed to continue on.

Six of us are packed like sardines into the car, my knees pulled up under my chin since my legs are too long to fit in the seat up front, as we follow Lamara’s lead—she is making one of her regular visits to make sure that everyone is doing as well as possible under the circumstances—for the afternoon. There is me, the school teacher from the village of Kveshi, a reporter from one of Gori’s most popular newspapers, Rezo Okruashvili, and my friend Lela who will jump in as an interpreter when my Georgian runs out. The news of her arrival quickly brings everyone into the street with smiles and hugs for a woman who is known as the Angel of Gori for the work she does and the people she loves.

0ur first stop is in Kveshi, about 14 kilometres from Gori. Last year, Russian soldiers tried to relocate part of the new border between Georgia and South 0ssetia by entering the village and moving the marker posts a half-kilometre further inside Georgian territory which briefly incorporated it into the breakaway republic and effectively partitioned the settlement into two halves. The village, within eye view of South 0ssetia, was witness to much of the brutality and destruction which left its residents too fearful to leave their houses and, some two years later, still picking up the pieces of their once peaceful lives.

* * * * *

Beka’s days are silent, spent watching television, mostly, but it is only the images moving across the screen that catch his attention. Introverted, hardly raising his eyes to meet yours and with a quiet—almost painful—introspection that can only come from having internalised everything for most of his life, he waits and hopes and prays for the day when the silence is over, no matter how.

Beka is deaf. A childhood trauma at the age of three took all of the hearing from one ear and left only residual abilities in the other. He is 19 now, living with his parents and his sister in Kveshi, isolated by this rural environment and even more isolated by the deafness whose treatment is beyond the reach of his parents and outside of any state programme, here or there, looking after its citizens. His father is without work and his mother teaches school in the neighbouring village. Communication is arduous and heavy and difficult to watch. The government did provide him with hearing aids and a monthly disability stipend of 70 lari (approximately 40 dollars) but the devices broke down and the assistance stopped a long time ago.

Georgia, as with most of the other former Soviet republics still on the long road of transition ahead, does not have a universal state system of healthcare despite a list of reforms dating to the collapse of the USSR. Nearly 90 percent of health related expenses are out-of-pocket payments which means that most of the population goes unprotected and untreated and typically borrows money or sells personal items when emergencies arise.

“It’s one of the greatest problems facing the people,” Shakulashvili says and which she has underlined in her monitoring and research. “0nly one percent [of those in my study] can afford to see the doctor or buy medicines or get some treatment. 0ne percent. In Georgia, if you face any kind of medical problems, it can destroy a family, and not only financially. He’s traumatised and in a deep depression because of this handicap,” she says in reference to Beka. “What kind of life can this be if the next 50 years are spent like this?”

What kind of life, indeed.

It is not even a week later and Beka and his family are in Tbilisi. We have set up doctors’ visits, hearing tests and some consultations in order to find out where he is and what can be done as concerns the hearing loss. It is good to see them again but there is a nervous energy in everyone as none of us knows what to expect or what the results will be as his last medical check-up was over ten years ago. The tension is broken, at least for a bit, when I trip in my pointy shoes on a loose cobblestone on the way to the clinic which makes everyone laugh—it was very funny, in fact, especially when several peppery words in Georgian also came out of my mouth—and it made Beka laugh, too. In this moment it was like looking at a completely different person. His eyes lit up and the smile stretched right across his face. I thought to myself: That’s what is inside. And that’s what needs to come out, again, after so long.

“Beka’s condition is of a degenerative sort,” says Dr Zurab Kevanishvili, Director of the Centre of Audiology and Hearing Rehabilitation at Hospital Number 9 near the Turkish Embassy in reviewing his old records and making the new tests. “Without treatment, the remaining hearing ability will eventually be lost, too. Strong hearing aids are required now to retrain his ears as he has been without anything for so long and also to prepare his ears for surgery. He is a good candidate for an implant which means, in fact, that, in the end, his hearing will be better than yours or mine. He will have his life back.”

New Generation Georgia is a new and independent aid and assistance project looking to help people like Beka Loloshvili and is taking its inspiration directly from him and the many others who have been most disadvantaged in and around the war of August 2008 in Georgia. Friends in Georgia, Canada, the US, Russia, Sweden and Brazil have listened to my stories, share the concern and have joined me in creating and implementing this initiative together with the input and assistance of local Georgian activists, journalists and others working in the sphere of providing development and humanitarian aid. It is a strong and generous team and I am privileged to work with and alongside each and all of them.

“He’s a wonderful boy and a very good son,” Beka’s mother Lia says though a sad half-smile. “He finished school but is not studying now. He rarely leaves the house. I will say to him, put on a nice shirt and go out and make some friends but he can’t. He won’t. He’s ashamed of what he sees is wrong with him. We are so worried about his future. I would love for him to get married and make a family but he tells me ‘No, Mother. I can’t put this [condition] on anyone else.’ How do you respond to that? It breaks my heart.”

* * * * *

We are at the bus station waiting for our return to Tbilisi. I am lost in thought at what I’ve seen and heard, the faces I’ve looked into, the sad eyes, the good-byes as we repacked ourselves into the car and drove off, 2,000 Russian soldiers and snipers where they should not be, old women selling bananas and a set of used poetry books on the Square to try and earn some money and everything else. I am so lost that I trip on another loose cobblestone and realise that it is time to get rid of the pointy shoes. “Come again soon!,” Lamara says as she buys the bus tickets for me and Lela and says that she told the driver to be careful—No speeding!—and make sure that we get home safely. “All of us are waiting!”

I know that we will be back.

New Generation Georgia is working towards its first goal of raising the money required to help Beka with the medical treatment, hearing aids and surgery he needs to regain a happy, healthy and productive life. All donations will be gratefully received and acknowledged. Please join us in our project, as you can. 0ur blog will keep track of all the updates including names and home cities of donors, news about the project, news about Beka, questions-and-answers and photographs. Follow us also on Facebook (New Generation Georgia) and Twitter (newgenerationge).

What we need:

Target 1: USD 400 for medication (annual supply for one year, preventative treatment and rehabilitation therapy)

Target 2: USD 1,600 for two hearing aids (based upon consultation visit with local specialist)

Target 3: USD 500 for hearing aid batteries and service (per one year)

Target 4: USD 20,000 for implant surgery for one ear (based upon consultation visit with local surgeon)

BANK DONATIONS:

Bank of Georgia
Tbilisi, Georgia
Account Number: 176560200
SWIFT: BAGAGE22
Beneficiary: Jeffrey Morski
Notation: New Generation Georgia, name, surname, home city

PayPal:

newgenerationgeorgia@europe.com
Notation: New Generation Georgia, name, surname, home city