As you may have seen on BBC or CNN, Georgia and South Ossetia have come to blows again (South Ossetia is the breakaway region just north of Gori). Gori, as you may remember, is where we lived last summer during training. This year, luckily, the trainees are in a different location. Gori is, still, however, on the main road between our site and Tbilisi. There's been fighting and troop movement for the past few days, as happens every few months and we were on Alert, but everything seemed well enough this morning. The highway is out and we're on standfast (meaning we're to stay put), so, conversely, I'm stuck in Tbilisi, while Brenden can't get here. Meanwhile, one of the bombs hit the major cell phone company's office in Gori, so cell phone service is unreliable. However, since I'm at the Peace Corps office in Tbilisi, I should be safe and have Internet access, and although Brenden isn't, he's with the Peace Corps staff. Neither of us are near the border with South Ossetia, so although things will probably get worse before they get better, I'm not worried about our safety.
PCV B & C Go To Georgia writes: "We Interrupt Our Regular Progamming..."
"We Interrupt Our Regular Progamming..."
There are more Europe vacation updates to come--Slovakia, Vienna, Budapest, and Prague are still coming!--but events in Georgia have come to head in a pretty substantial way. As you may have seen on BBC or CNN, Georgia and South Ossetia have come to blows again (South Ossetia is the breakaway region just north of Gori). Gori, as you may remember, is where we lived last summer during training. This year, luckily, the trainees are in a different location. Gori is, still, however, on the main road between our site and Tbilisi. There's been fighting and troop movement for the past few days, as happens every few months and we were on Alert, but everything seemed well enough this morning. Brenden and I were in Tbilisi this morning for various work-related reasons, but Brenden left for Khashuri this morning to go to a session for the trainees (Khashuri is on the main east-west highway past Gori towards Akhaltsikhe, our site), whereas I remained in Tbilisi. He was supposed to come back to Tbilisi this afternoon, but at some point after they passed Gori, the highway by Gori was blown up (this is my understanding--this hasn't been reported in English language media yet). So now Brenden is on the Akhaltsikhe side of the highway, which is unfortunate, because he's scheduled to take the GMAT tomorrow in Tbilisi. The highway is out and we're on standfast (meaning we're to stay put), so, conversely, I'm stuck in Tbilisi, while Brenden can't get here. Meanwhile, one of the bombs hit the major cell phone company's office in Gori, so cell phone service is unreliable. However, since I'm at the Peace Corps office in Tbilisi, I should be safe and have Internet access, and although Brenden isn't, he's with the Peace Corps staff. Neither of us are near the border with South Ossetia, so although things will probably get worse before they get better, I'm not worried about our safety.
With all that said, the situation here is worse than it has been in the time we've been in Georgia. This is my own personal opinion (not the opinion of Peace Corps or the U.S. government), but I think this might develop into a full-scale war. I guess we'll see, but keep us in your thoughts and prayers.
