The place I call home these days is Zugdidi: a fairly small city and capital of Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti, Georgia’s western region. We are just a bunch of kilometres away from the breakaway region of Abkhazia. (I say ‘we’ as I share work and flat with Ella, from France.)
I am here to assist Association “Merkuri” in financial capacity building. Merkuri has been active in the community for almost two decades now. Their work is vast, varied and very much needed. They also run the only shelter for women survivors of domestic violence (and their children) in the Samegrelo region.
This first month spent here feels like a day and a year at the same time, it is paradoxical but that is how it feels. Everything, since I stepped into Georgia, has been pretty intense: new people, language (in sound and writing), places, ways of living and thinking.
So far, at work, I have completed a database to track and monitor funding opportunities for Merkuri. And I have started working on a proposal that could support the shelter, and its related activities.
I have also been taking Georgian language classes, which is extremely difficult but also exciting - especially because of the beautiful alphabet (… I may say more about it in the future).
P.s. I have just completed the first month here, and I celebrated by going to (and falling in love with) Tbilisi – some six hours away from Zugdidi. So here it is, in all its beauty.
