China

My first glimpse on this return trip to China was the grey, oily fog stalking the Beijing airport.  Of course I had remembered the choking smoke that fills China’s cities, but experiencing it again, especially 18 hours removed from the breeze and beaches of Tel Aviv, sent a reminder to my nervous system: Ingest nothing!

I flew from Beijing to Chengdu, a city of about 15 million people in Western China, for my research.  Chengdu was much less crowded than Shanghai or Beijing.  I was a little shocked to walk on main boulevards with only a dozen or so pedestrians in sight.  Like many of China’s cities in summer, Chengdu was so hot and humid that I often stayed inside reading.

My hostel in Chengdu organized a bike tour of the city, which I assure you was an adrenaline-pumping and frightening event.  My biking, while functional, has always been highly imperfect and clumsy because I didn’t learn to ride until one boring Saturday when I was 17.  On this occasion I only crashed twice, into other bikers thankfully.

For the second year in a row I enjoyed my birthday in China.  I’ve never been one for holidays or special occasions, so I was perfectly content to just receive a free mojito and buy a ticket for the Chinese opera.  The opera in Chengdu was . . . very Chinese.  The players wore colorful traditional costumes, sometimes including masks that might recall Mexican wrestlers.  In one scene beautiful Chinese dancers with meter-long feathers in their hair playfully bobbled their heads to make the feathers swing back and forth.  Then they grabbed the feather at its base, curled it downward to their faces and put the ends in their mouths--yes, that actually happened.

In a solo performance, a musician played the famous folk dance Czardas on a traditional Chinese violin.  The fast parts were beyond his ability.  The section played in harmonics was out of tune.  I was more distracted, however, by the green steam shooting in from the sides of the stage and the flashing yellow stage lights that accompanied the music.  I’ve never seen a classical performance with less . . . class.  

Finally, during another dance by the Chengdu supermodels, bubbles descended from the ceiling to the audience’s delight.

I appreciate escapism, as opposed to only respecting art of the quiet and depressing persuasion.  Even so, there is something about as wide as the Pacific Ocean that separates my artistic values and the values of the audience in that Chengdu opera house.  I left my chair thinking the performance had been at least redeeming in how entertainingly bad it was when a Chinese girl who spoke English came to me and said excitedly, “Wasn’t that great?”  I told her I enjoyed it.

After a week in Chengdu, upon completion of my last research interview, I boarded a 40-hour train to Qingdao, a beach city on China’s east coast where I would meet my friend, April, who I worked with last summer.  As I did earlier this summer, I greatly enjoyed my lower berth, reading my books and looking out the window.  Although I crossed perhaps 1500 miles of China, the landscape was disappointingly consistent.  Dark green fields of corn and rice for miles.  The bed was the most comfortable I’ve had in China.  I luckily had a berth in the middle of the carriage; the ends of the carriage each smelled too much like the bathrooms, which deserve every nightmare that train lavatories might inspire to the reader.

In Qingdao I felt a little more at home, perhaps because many of the buildings are still in the German architecture of the early 20th century, when Germans ran the city.  In fact, Qingdao beer, the most identifiable brand of brew in China, was started by German ex-pats, a factoid that shocked my Chinese friends.  The beach was nice.  We climbed on rocks and rowed in the ocean.  I almost entirely avoided the beach sand, in keeping with my mortal fear of having sand all over me for days and weeks.

After two days touring the city, April and I flew to Shanghai, where I attended the Expo.  In a sprawling complex that might be about the size of ASU’s campus, almost two hundred countries have pavilions that are meant to communicate two things: We are pretty cool, and we want China to think we’re pretty cool.  I had heard that lines for the best pavilions could take three to six hours, a time-span that is simply unacceptable in Shanghai’s heat.  My strategy was to enter small pavilions during the day, and perhaps late at night find some of the busier ones.

I managed to get into about 15 pavilions, including Mexico, Cuba, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belarus, New Zealand, Brunei, Spain, Turkey, Nepal, North Korea, Iran, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Israel.  My personal favorites were Spain, Turkey, New Zealand, and Israel.  It was interesting to see how countries branded themselves.  Some, like Oman, were trying to convince tourists that their countries were perfect for investment and vacations.  Others, like Pakistan and Sri Lanka, were simple tourist traps selling cheap souvenirs that were entirely unworthy of their outer facades and the Expo itself.  Turkey and Israel emphasized their historical ties with China.

I’m now leaving China and finishing my circumnavigation in twelve hours.  Since these ten weeks have been an extension of my year of study abroad, I am very excited to finally go home, spend time with family and friends, and not go anywhere for a long time.  My research has been educational and the interviews I’ve collected are enough to make the thesis I have envisioned, assuming I follow all this up with continued diligence.  Ten weeks have brought me to seven countries and one occupied territory.  Most of these are places that the general public has little desire to see, but I’ve enjoyed them a lot.  I assume in the future I’ll look back on this period nostalgically, but for the last few weeks and at this moment, I’m only looking ahead to Tempe, school, friends, and home.

Are You a Terrorist, Sir?

I had been off my flight from Tbilisi to Tel Aviv, Israel for less than a minute when three security officers took me aside.  Why did you come to Israel, sir? a young woman asked.  Tourism I lied.  My lying wasn’t just a stupid miscalculation.  A week before coming to Israel I had learned that, because I had a Syrian stamp in my passport, I would have to go through additional security in the Tel Aviv airport.  According to some backpackers with personal experience, I’d have to strip entirely--I suppose to make sure I wasn’t hiding a tattoo of the Palestinian flag near my loins--and someone would yell at me in Arabic to see how I reacted.  When I arrived in Israel I had already decided not to say that I was doing research about World Bank projects in the Palestinian territories.  I thought this would avoid an industrial-sized can of worms, and it’s not like they could prove I wasn’t there for tourism.  Right?

Why did you decide to come to Israel in particular?

I always wanted to see Israel.  My mom came here and loved it.

How long are you staying?

Two weeks.

Where are you going?

Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

You mean you’re here for two weeks and you’re only going to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem? Here a pattern began in which she restated my answers in question form as though to make me sound ridiculous. 

Yes.

Where are you staying in Jerusalem?

I don’t know yet.

You don’t know where you’re staying?

No.  I’ll arrange it later.

When are you going there?

I don’t know yet.  I have two weeks.

Why were you in Georgia?

Tourism.

You were in Georgia for tourism?

Yes.

How long were you there?

Two weeks.

Do you have an itinerary?

Yes.

Can I see it?

Yes.

She saw that I had flights from Phoenix to Macedonia to Africa to Georgia and then to Israel.  She began shaking her head and her eyes got wide.  

When did you leave for this trip?

May 31.  

From where?

Istanbul, Turkey.  

She threw up her hands and spoke to one of the other guards in Hebrew.  I knew that May 31 was the date when nine Turkish citizens were murdered aboard the Gaza aid flotilla, but it was also truthfully when I left Turkey to start my circumnavigation.  I could have just said Phoenix, Arizona.  My itinerary didn’t say Turkey, only my passport would.  But to be honest I was kind of enjoying my interrogation, and some second-hand Turkish nationalism made me want to engage them on this front, but only so far.  For example, I didn’t reveal to them that I had actually interviewed the director of IHH, the NGO that sent the Gaza aid flotilla in the first place.

Why were you in Turkey?

I was studying abroad at Bogazici University in Istanbul.

She returned to my itinerary.  Where did you go in Africa?

Bangui, Central African Republic.

Where? I am by now very used to people not knowing CAR.

It’s a poor country in Central Africa.

Why did you go there?

Tourism.  

I really began having fun at this point.  Clearly my itinerary was full of places that most people don’t visit for two weeks, but as long as I stuck to my story the guard just became more bewildered while I enjoyed my game more and more.

Why did you go to Macedonia?

I reeeally wanted to see Macedonia.

Do you have guide books for any of these places?

No.  I mean I don’t have room for a bunch of guide books in my backpack.

Then her eyes got really wide, looking at my 18lbs red backpack.  That’s your only backpack?

Yes.

So you’re traveling for ten weeks to all these different countries and you only brought a little backpack?  Her hands, head, and eyes now rolled in circles simultaneously, which I gathered meant that she thought I was lying. 

Yes.

You’re traveling all over the world to all these different climatic zones . . .

Well, actually they’re all hot, I interrupted.  You can search my bag if you like.

No that’s fine.  Who’s paying for all this?

The Circumnavigators Club Foundation in New York City.

So they’re paying you to go all around the world to these different countries just for tourism?

Yes.

Did they send you here?

No. I chose all the places I wanted to go.  They’re just paying for it.

Do you have any documentation from them?

I showed them the business cards the foundation supplied me with, but I didn’t mention the letter of invitation the foundation had provided.  I thought about whether the letter mentioned my research.  I couldn’t remember. They’d just have to find it and I’d deal with it if they did.

Exasperated, she left me with one of the other guards for the next ten minutes.  I got tired of standing and sat on the floor with my legs crossed.  I started whistling unconsciously, but I decided to keep it going as a sort of arrogant and unnecessary measure of civil disobedience.  Then a higher-up came and rushed me through passport control toward a special security screening area.  We went through a grey door in the baggage claim.  The entry was hardly noticeable, lacking any marking except a coaster-sized “Do not enter” symbol.  I expected that here is where I would derobe. I walked in and saw two female guards in the room--for the first and I presume only time in my life I had to wonder: Which of these two women will force me to take my clothes off and which one will be yelling insults at me in a language I don't understand?

They began to empty my backpack and put individual items through an x-ray machine.  I thought about the things I had that might be suspicious.  My laptop bag had more than $300 in USD and Euros--my reserve for if my wallet got stolen and I was in an emergency.  That might not look good, but it could be explained.  I also had my tape recorder--not an everyday piece of equipment for a tourist, maybe something a bothersome journalist would have.  Certainly the interviews on the tape player would support that conclusion.  

Impossibly, they missed both of these things.  They took my laptop out of its bag without noticing the cash inside it.  And I had placed my tape player, by chance, in a small pocket in my backpack, the only one the guard hadn’t opened.

After twenty minutes in this windowless cave, I was told Ok.  You can pack up and go.  Enjoy your stay in Israel.  As I thanked my handlers and victoriously replaced all my things, the irony occurred to me. They never noticed the stamp from Syria.  They were so pre-occupied with my suspicious around the world travel that they had rushed me through passport control and missed the clearest sign that I was a security threat.  Somehow by pulling me aside they had removed me from the standard procedure in which I probably would have gone through hours of interviews, not to mention the great revelation.  

So that’s my story of coming to the Holy Land.  I guess it started with a blessing.  Two weeks later I left Israel through the same airport, and I went through more interrogations.  For legal reasons I won’t write exactly what happened, but I’ll say that I won round two as well.

My Holy Blog-Post

Arriving in Israel has given me a chance to be a true tourist for the first time in my circumnavigation.  I arrived on a Wednesday night with my first research-related meeting set for the following Monday.  In those four days I have tried to see the best sites of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Tel Aviv’s western side is a beautiful Mediterranean beach that I jealously walked along.  I refuse to make any piece of clothing sandy for the next month, and I could surely have only spent ten or twenty minutes in the warm waves before ultraviolet rays would get the best of me.  Instead I walked half the length of the city’s beachfront in the shadows of tall hotels and beautiful people.

Tel Aviv’s central streets were a strange mix.  Some buildings looked standard Middle Eastern--brown and square with an abundance of satellite dishes.  But the very same streets had overpasses, small parks, or shops that reminded me of New York City--they either looked in decay or had a nostalgic appeal, depending on my mood.  And then there were condominiums and skyscrapers that I imagine are the most modern buildings between the Persian Gulf and Western Europe.  This all made for a confusing collage of under-developed, developed sixty years ago, and hyper-modern.

After some museums I made for Jerusalem on Friday afternoon, just before the start of Shabbat.  With the sundown of Shabbat I went to the Western Wall, the only remnant of the Second Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.  From a secular tourists’ point of view, the Western Wall is pretty underwhelming, although perhaps its plainness and modesty is well-suited to Judaism.  For all you hear about Islam being limiting for women, the Western Wall can only be approached by men.  There’s a mini-wall about 30 meters away where the second sex can pray.

The most interesting part of the Western Wall were the thousands of tiny prayers squeezed into its crevices.  I understand that Jews consider this the best line of communication with God.  I was so tempted to sneak away a handful of prayers to read.  After all, if you made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and now had your best chance to get a word in with God, what would you say?  My respect for others’ tradition and very small fear of a hypothetical God outweighed my curiosity.





The next day I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, marking where Christ is believed to have been crucified.  The church is quite beautiful, though it certainly could be much more glorious if it were not pettily divided between various denominations who have territorial disputes over specific stones and light bulbs.  I was most fascinated by the chapel dedicated to Christ’s actual crucifixion.  It was guarded by a Greek Orthodox priest who banged a staff and yelled at people not to take pictures (I took one of course, less afraid of Christianity’s God I guess).  I don’t know if it’s some kind of honor to guard Christ’s place of death, but if so this seems like an ill reward.

Finally, this morning I visited the Dome of the Rock, which houses the Foundation Stone, from which the world was made and where Adam was created, Joseph dreamt, and Abraham readied Isaac for sacrifice.  As a non-Muslim I’m not able to go inside the Dome of the Rock.  This seems unfair since--as I understand it--Judaism and Christianity also regard this stone as the foundation of life, but to some extent I respect it.  It seems more legitimate than the Christian priest banging his staff on the ground.  If they want one of their holiest sites to remain pure, it’s probably better that I don’t go in there and take pictures with which to increase my social capital.

For someone who regards these monuments for their history, rather than spirituality, I’ve found many of Israel’s memorials to be nearly or as impressive as its religious heritage.  In the Tel Aviv Diaspora Museum hangs the Memorial Column, dedicated to all the Jews who have been persecuted in history.  Situated in a tall, dark, and voluminous room, the Memorial Column is a hanging beam with small lights that actually radiate heat.  Surrounding it are layers of iron bars like jail cells.  Its symbolism is simple, dignified, and extraordinarily beautiful.

The Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem is just as effective in this regard.  Unfortunately I could not take pictures (Google images will have to suffice).  In one room designed like Professor Xavier’s special chamber in X-Men (sorry, but it’s a fair comparison) one is surrounded by a two story silo of bookshelves full of the names of Holocaust victims.

Easily the most haunting and well designed monument was the Children’s Memorial.  In almost total darkness, one walks into a room of dark mirrors, like obsidian or an extremely polished black marble.  In the center are candles that reflect off of these surfaces.  The effect is really like one is floating in space, amidst a galaxy where every spot of light represents a small human soul.  The loss of children was the museum’s most tragic theme.  I read a speech by the Jewish leader of one of the ghettos, in which he tells thousands that they must hand over their children under ten years old to the Nazis because they are too young to work.  He explains himself metaphorically to the horrified crowd, saying they must cut some limbs to preserve their bodies.  Moments like that make you pale.

Finally, there was an exhibition of art created by Jews experiencing the Holocaust, in which two pieces really struck me.  One was by Carol Deustch.  When his daughter was two years old he made her an illustrated version of the Torah, with 99 of his own drawings, some of which were on display.  He died in a concentration camp, but his daughter survived.  That book, which the Nazis seem to have regarded as worthless, was the only thing she had from her father.

There were also some paintings by Bruno Schulz, who had been commissioned to paint the walls of a Nazi officer‘s villa.  Schulz painted fairy tale characters, like princesses and Snow White, but he did not give the characters “Aryan” appearances.  Instead he gave the characters the faces of his family members, including his father.  It was a show of resistance and a way of preserving his family.  Schulz was eventually killed indiscriminately by a Nazi officer.

With each art piece there was incredible suspense while I read about the artist.  First I’d learn their backgrounds, educations, influences, their struggle in the Holocaust, and finally, whether they were murdered or they survived.  Obviously the former was much more common.

The greatest lesson I took from the Holocaust Museum was that the Holocaust was not inevitable.  There were countries that refused or resisted deporting their Jews to Germany, like Bulgaria and Denmark.  There were people who hid Jews, protected them, and helped them escape.  There were even German officers who did not follow orders.  The Holocaust is not just the result of an evil regime with a fundamentalist ideology, but equally the result of inaction, cowardice, apathy, and--most disturbingly--people’s susceptibility to groupthink hatred and inhumanity.  Comparable situations have arisen since, in Cambodia and now Congo, and the apathy continues to run through my government, my people, and me.

Throughout these memorials were quotes from Jewish leaders and the Torah about the sanctity of human life.  Without overly politicizing the immense tragedy of the Holocaust, there’s an obvious and shameful hypocrisy at work here.  After all Israel has executed the wars in Lebanon and Gaza, in which civilian deaths outnumbered Israel’s total losses by about 60:1.  This doesn’t make Jews or Israel exceptionally evil.  But it suggests to me that every society will tolerate the murder of innocents, even the most intelligent, successful, resilient, cultured, and those most personally acquainted with evil.

The Low-Down: Part 3 of 5

In Tbilisi, Georgia I researched the European Commission’s grants to NGOs under the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR).  I was familiar with this funding instrument since I had also researched the EIDHR in Turkey.  As elsewhere, several interesting insights emerged regarding donor dependency and civil society sustainability.

I interviewed four NGO administrators implementing European Commission-funded projects.  This included the Justice and Liberty Association, which was conducting a project to monitor and prevent torture in the Georgian military; the Georgian Young Lawyer’s Association (GYLA), an enormous organization that does a lot of pro bono human rights advocacy; and the South Caucuses Network of Human Rights Defenders, which is establishing a network to keep human rights defenders safe from persecution.  I also interviewed two EU officials, the projects coordinator for the EIDHR and an expert on human rights and civil society.

Between Georgian NGOs and their donors there seemed to be a more dense social network than in other countries I’ve visited. For example, the executive director of GYLA explained that in the donor institutions, “There is a lot of people who are my friends, because they used to work here.  We keep contact all the time.  We consider ourselves as partners.”  Speaking about Georgian NGOs, the official from the Network of Human Rights Defenders described the civil society community as a “closed circle.  We’re maybe 100 people and we all know each other.”

These relationships seemed to be important for project implementation as well.  The GYLA executive director and the Network of Human Rights Defenders both talked about the EU’s dense bureaucracy, in which personal relationships can make the difference: “There are people working within the European Union.  You have to find the right person and it may take ages.  If you are with the wrong person, you are stuck.”

Regarding whether these projects are grassroots movements of top-down interventions, these NGOs seemed to be working more for the EU than for their local constituents.  The Justice and Liberty Association‘s project funding, which includes office supplies, printers, and a car, is for an idea that came from within the organization rather than demand of the general public, and the EU has funded the NGO extensively because of the importance of torture for the EC.

When I asked the director of the Justice and Liberty Association how he knew that Georgians--rather than only he and the EC--cared about this project and wanted it to be part of their development, he explained that generally in Georgia: “The trust to NGOs is big from society because we are trying to protect human rights, support democracy in Georgia, and people in Georgia love democracy . . . We have good experience, education, and people trust us.”  While his perception of Georgian society may be true, it leaves a very broad mandate to seek any project that the organization feels is good for democracy on the basis that Georgians want democracy.  The director did not offer any evidence or data about public support for his organization or this particular project.

GYLA was a little stronger in this regard.  Their executive director explained that, “We do conduct sometimes surveys.  Every year we conduct various surveys, we purchase this service from a specific company.  We ask about legal aid, what is needed.”  This response was a little vague, but it represented the greatest effort I could see by anyone in Georgian civil society or the European Commission to find out what is needed from the general public, rather than assuming that their own priorities are necessary and popular.

Importantly, on this topic I am criticizing the European Commission by my criteria, not theirs.  The EC’s method may in my view be undemocratic, since they do not seem to ask for or heavily value how Georgians might like EU funds to be spent in their country.  To them human rights is a foundation of democracy, and a basic requirement for getting into the EU, which of course Georgian people do want.

Moving to my primary research interest, sustainability of the civil society sector was neither a priority for NGOs nor the European Commission.  That is to say, in my view sustainability for NGOs would mean that they are financially self-sufficient, through some balanced combination of their own commercial activities, private donations from their society, and last of all funding from foreign donors.  But Georgian NGOs entirely depend on grants from foreign donors, and they are resigned to the fact that private society will not support them.  The director of the Justice and Liberty Association felt that private companies could not support NGOs because it would bring investigations from the government.  The executive director of GYLA, an enormous organization with multiple offices and hundreds of staff, explained that “We are donor driven, grant-driven, as a majority if not all NGOs in Georgia are because local philanthropy is not developed in this country.  We have a membership fee, but it’s symbolic.  2% of budget comes from dues.”

The project coordinator for the Network of Human Rights Defenders also emotively explained how Georgian civil society became donor dependent:

“They came in with quite a large amount of money, but they did not come in with an explanation of what is an NGO, how an NGO should be run, what are NGO ethics.  They did not start a public discourse about that.  They just gave money to people who were poor, who were struggling to survive.  We did not have electricity, water, food, and you see that if you open an NGO and start doing some work you can get money.  That brought negative consequences, and we have to get rid of that legacy.  Civil society has to step up which is a painful process.”

I asked the EIDHR projects coordinator in Georgia why the EC did not lobby the government to be more supportive to NGOs or fund projects to encourage Georgian private companies to donate more money.  First, she rejected the premise that the government is hostile toward NGOs, saying,

“Whatever the EU does with the government is obviously a negotiation of priorities.  Government is already somehow indirectly involved in identifying priorities for NGOs.  Government is not against NGOs.  I would not take the argument that the government would investigate private companies if they donate to NGOs.”

Then she explained that NGOs complain that they cannot raise money or conduct their own commercial activities, but seem to make little effort to test that belief.  GYLA’s admittedly “symbolic” 2% membership dues certainly confirmed this for me.  An organization or lawyers struggling to be financially (and therefore ideologically) independent could provide more than this if there was not such an abundance of grants from foreign donors available to them.

The same EU official said that she could not “recall anyone putting this issue strongly on an agenda in public debate.”  It seems that NGOs have not asked for the EC’s help in securing more support from government or local donors, even though they lightly lament that civil society is dependent on foreign grants.

What was most interesting was how the two EU officials conceived of sustainability in the Georgian civil society sector.  Much like the grants specialist for the US Embassy Democracy Commission Small Grants Program in Moldova, the EIDHR projects coordinator felt that grants and civil society sustainability did not really go together.  She said the strength of Georgian civil society,

“is certainly a goal, but we cannot provide it through our funding.  The European Commission funds actions, which means we do not pay for any organization--we pay for action.  We do not ourselves provide any support to help NGOs become self-sustainable.  Even though the European Union would like to see NGOs be more sustainable.  We fund actions.  We would, but we try to have as many actions funded as possible.”

It’s clear that the EU does not see the sustainability of Georgian civil society as its goal, but rather the completion of projects that align with the EU’s values and can be implemented by local NGOs.  Likewise, the human rights specialist in the EU Delegation to Georgia explained that the EU encourages sustainability of the NGOs they fund by giving them experience in applying for and executing grant projects.  By that logic, Georgian NGOs implementing projects for the European Commission and other foreign donors is the ideal stage for Georgian civil society.

I personally find the EC’s view of this to be refreshingly honest, but unfortunate.  I presume that Georgia’s society would most benefit from NGOs that are primarily funded by the Georgian public and represent the wants and needs of the Georgian public.  The ideal scenario is that if Georgians wanted to address some issue in their society they’d be entirely free and able to do it themselves and mold their society in a way that best serves their interests.  The EC seems to view things the other way around--as long as Georgian NGOs can get money from us, we can help them become a strong society.

What’s most strange is that the dangers of this donor dependency are entirely understood by the local NGOs.  In 2003, Georgia experienced its Rose Revolution, in which a new democratic, pro-Western regime came to power.  Every NGO administrator I talked to described how civil society was crippled after this because donors concentrated their efforts on supporting the new government.  Civil society was sent years backward in development as a result.  And yet, the consensus among the NGO administrators was: this is why we need donors to consistently give us money no matter what they think is happening in the country.  I of course am an outsider, but to me the logical reaction would be to tell the donors: help us become self-sufficient, so that the next time you decide to leave we can survive.

Maybe I’m wrong.

Georgia (the country)

Walking around Georgia’s capital city, Tbilisi, I felt the same surprise as I did when I first saw Budapest, Chisinau, and Bangui: this is more developed than I imagined.  Tbilisi isn’t Tokyo or Singapore, but there are wide boulevards, metro lines, Nike and Adidas stores, and the buildings light up in interesting colors at night.

Tbilisi is bisected by a river that runs a greenish brown.  It’s not the prettiest, but two of the bridges that cross it tell a lot about this city.  One is the Metekhi Bridge, built near a church from the 13th century.  According to one story I was told, an earlier incarnation of this bridge was the site where a Muslim conqueror demanded Tbilisi’s Christians convert and desecrate the crucifix by stepping over it.  According to the legend, no one converted and tens of thousands were thrown into the river.

Nearby is a very new bridge mostly made of metal and glass.  Its topped by a white symmetrical wave with a matrix-like design.  At night the structure lights up and people take photos.

On the western bank is a European-style street of expensive restaurants and hip cafes.  The adjacent Presidential Palace likewise has a glass dome in the center that loudly signals Tbilisi’s modernity, and among developing countries that produce this clash of old and new, I think Tbilisi’s version has been well executed.

It’s hard for me to discuss much about Georgian people as a whole, because 90% of my interactions have very fortunately been with my friend Tato and his family.  Tato works for an NGO that I visited on my first full day in Georgia, and ever since he’s been taking me out for Georgian meals, giving me tours of the city, and inviting me into his home where I watched several World Cup matches.  Next to Tato, my best friend in Georgia must be his cocker spaniel, Choppy.


Coming from Moldova, or the land of terrible food, Georgia has been a blessing.  Most dishes are some combination of potatoes, peppers, onions, lamb or pork, and a surprising amount of cilantro.  Eating sausages for multiple meals per day has reminded me of Hungary and Romania two summers ago.  Overall I’d say the cuisine is excellent, albeit shy of Turkey’s gold standard eats.



I was also impressed with the number of churches in Tbilisi.  They’re almost--but not quite--as common as mosques in Istanbul.  In Avlabari, they recently built the enormous Trinity Cathedral.  The central church is part of a complex of nine chapels that is about 4/5 the size of a football field.  The church is actually most attractive from the outside.  The interior, like many orthodox churches here, has bare walls in favor of ground-level altars and icons.

Once inside the central church, the amount of space is somewhat underwhelming.  Large pillars shrink the floor space a great deal, and while the architects created a very tall church, they didn’t make it exceedingly wide.  For someone who has been in Mimar Sinan’s Selimiye Camii, where the pillars are ingeniously integrated with the walls to make the interior entirely open, the Trinity Cathedral was in this way a little disappointing.

Perhaps the best surprise of Tbilisi was a movie theater that twice a week plays films with English subtitles.  I was lucky that both films they played while I was here--Good Bye Lenin! and In July--were good films, and ones I hadn’t seen before.  For a film buff who hadn’t been in a movie theater in more than a month, this was a welcome treat.

Tomorrow I leave Tbilisi for Israel, which will of course be a unique experience.  Apparently, the Syrian stamp in my passport means that I’ll have to go through an additional level of security where I will strip completely and someone will yell at me in Arabic to see if I respond, among other stations.  Wish me luck!

The Low-Down: Part 2 of 5

NOTE: So, me talking about trains or movies and telling travel horror stories is great and all, but this here is the real reason I'm going all over.  This is from a boatload of hard work and money, so if you're at all interested I encourage you to take ten minutes . . . or just pretend you did.

In Moldova I researched the partnerships between various NGOs and the U.S. Embassy Democracy Commission’s Small Grants Program. My primary interests, as always, were whether the development projects represent grassroots movements or top-down reforms and the sustainability of the development projects and the organizations themselves.

My investigation of these topics was particularly information-rich in Moldova for two reasons.  Since I was researching the U.S. Embassy, most of my interviewees spoke English fluently, and a shared cultural background made the important interviewer-interviewee dynamic easier to manage.  Also, I had access to many different role-players in these relationships.  At the U.S. Embassy Democracy Commission in Chisinau, I interviewed the Grants Specialist, a Moldovan working for the embassy since 2003, and the grants assistant, an American and former Peace Corps. Volunteer.  I also interviewed the founder and director of the Independent Journalism Center, the administrator of Promo-Lex (a group of human rights lawyers in Moldova), and the director of a project for teaching youth about using media.  Most interestingly, I spoke with several Peace Corps. Volunteers who worked in these organizations.  Because they were American students interested in development, quite like I am, they had neither loyalty to their NGOs nor to the granting institution.  In essence, I had a guarantee of their sincerity.

My first question is whether the U.S. embassy’s grants reflect grassroots movements that an NGO’s “constituents” have asked for or the priorities of the donor institution simply being implemented via local NGOs.  In Macedonia, for example, the USAID project I researched seemed to have a major democratic deficit.  The project, which was meant to increase transparency in local government, was proposed by USAID and contracted to a team of three NGOs who started civic centers and gave recommendations for increasing transparency in local government.  Importantly, no one ever consulted the communities about whether they really wanted more transparent governance, or if they wanted something else more. 

This previous experience contrasted with the Democracy Commission’s small Grants Program.  Projects are proposed by the NGOs, and grants that are awarded have “no strings attached.”  The U.S. Embassy funds according to a mandate of helping Moldovan democracy consolidate, but even this is interpreted liberally and pragmatically.  For example, if regional or local governments are hostile to the idea of projects for strengthening democracy, the Small Grants Program may fund environmental or social projects as well.

Most importantly, the NGOs themselves claim to have a mandate from their constituents, which they have experienced or tested.  In the case of the Independent Journalism Center, the director explained that, before her project:

“We did needs-assessments for the media in Moldova every two years or every year.  We were asking managers of media organizations what kinds of projects were needed, what were their biggest concerns,  what are the qualities of their employees, what are the problems with the graduates of the journalism departments . . . The graduates of standard journalism departments were educated academically, but when they came into the newsroom they didn’t know how to hold a microphone. They didn’t know how to construct a story.  They didn’t have any practical skills.”

Her solution was to found the School of Advanced Journalism in Chisinau with funding from the U.S. Embassy.  At this school, the same members of the media sector who complained of a lack of professionally trained journalists now actually teach the classes.  In this story, there’s a very clear demand from a group of Moldovan constituents, and the eventual project seems well-planned to address those constituents’ needs. 

Likewise, the Promo-Lex director emotively explained the demand for his NGO in the community:

“People come here and they cry.  They cry because we don’t have a mechanism to protect them . . . We ask them what can we do for you and for others in your situation?  Many times they give us ideas you need to help us to do this this this.  After that we have meetings, brainstorm, and we identify solutions.  This is the difference between us and others.  Others just look who propose some programs, some money for activities, and after that they decide what activities they can do.”

As the Promo-Lex director articulates, these projects are ideal because they respond to the needs of the community, not the donor agency, and because the grants are a means to serving that constituency, not the financial survival of the organization.

It’s important to credit these organizations, rather than the U.S. Embassy, with the virtues of these projects.  They are not democratic and successful mission-driven organizations because of the U.S. Embassy’s grants.  The U.S. Embassy’s credit in this situation is giving these NGOs the authority over their own projects, rather than imposing the will of the donor institution. 

By far the most interesting aspect of my research in Moldova, with the most diverse range of insights, was how institutions address sustainability--after the money goes away, can the project and the organization survive? 

In Macedonia I found that the institutions did not seem to have a clear idea or strategy for sustaining their projects in the future.  In Moldova, the two very strong organizations I worked with talked seriously about how their projects and organizations are sustainable.  But the U.S. Embassy Grants Specialist--to my enormous surprise--spoke very pragmatically about the sustainability of these projects:

“Sustainability is a long unreachable goal at this point . . . We’re working with the democracy-building NGO and they’re relying only on foreign funding because no local companies will fund democracy-building NGOs . . . Of course we want the results of our projects to continue.  So far the only sustainability is the hope that someone else will jump in to fund this project for the next twelve months, or maybe the mayor’s office will jump in.”

The last sentence is certainly disconcerting, and by all accounts an accurate depiction of Moldova‘s civil society sector.  Essentially, the strategy for the sustainability of organizations and the sector as a whole, in the view of the U.S. Embassy Grants Specialist, is donor dependency.  Pursuing this question further requires an understanding of the legal and cultural barriers that face the civil society sector, and thus necessitate grants for NGOs.

Legally, there aren’t policies to incentivize donation, like giving tax credits for donation to NGOs.  Also, companies fear that donating to charities will bring unwanted attention from financial authorities.  This is related to the high levels of corruption throughout Moldovan society.  According to the grants specialist at the embassy, many companies use double accounting, and might report very low or negative profits to the government.  Thus, donating to charity would make their reported income dubious.  There is legislation now that might address some of this, which would allow companies to divert 2% of their taxable income to foundations and charities, rather than paying it to the government.  The NGO administrators I spoke to all felt that this would be a positive development.

A more long-term barrier is Moldova’s cultural disposition toward NGOs.  The U.S. Embassy Grants Specialist described NGOs as being associated with “mismanagement of funds and doing nothing for really high salaries.”  He continued,

“Partly the NGOs are to blame because they do not work good enough with the constituency . . . You only hear about all the money that is coming to Moldova, and since NGOs aren’t transparent . . . You have this lack of trust and this negative attitude because the NGO doesn’t work with the people and try to explain what they do . . . Only about three or four percent of people have very high trust in NGOs.  Since there’s only three percent of trust in NGOs, a company doesn’t have the motivation to fund NGOs because they’ll be funding structures that are negatively viewed by people.”

A Peace Corps. Volunteer echoed this observation saying,

“In Moldova there’s a distrust of NGOs . . . There’s an active resistance to the services of an NGO by the church in my town . . . The whole notion of volunteering your time, fundraising, giving to charity, is completely foreign to them . . . There’s also the element of corruption . . . NGOs are mistrusted because they think people are getting funding and just pocketing, which sometimes that’s true.”

What results is a civil society sector financially dependent on foreign donors because of a lack of support from their constituents, private companies, and the various levels of government.  Across the board, my interviews reflected that the civil society sector in Moldova was awash in grant funds, and there was a myriad of theories about how this might negatively affect the society.

The group of Peace Corps. Volunteers explained how many NGOs select broad mission statements, for example, “helping disadvantaged groups,” with which they can “jump from grant to grant” and adjust their mission statements according to the donors’ priorities in a given year. 

The U.S. Embassy Grants Assistant suggested that the abundant funds in the civil society sector may be diverting talented individuals away from government service and private sector jobs. 

The U.S. Embassy Grants Specialist even suggested that the donor agencies which pay higher salaries than NGOs and try to hire locals were in-effect poaching the most talented staff from the civil society sector to help implement their own grants programs. 

From talking to the NGOs, it’s clear that NGOs do not even ask the private sector for money, since apparently enough is available through grants.  For example, Promo-Lex, which claims it could be financially sustainable without grants, says it receives no funding from private companies.  When I asked why, the director explained, “Because we didn’t ask.  Because we have a lot of activities and we’re full.  It’s not necessary.”  The NGO director who implemented a project to educate youth about using media likewise said, “I have experience getting funds from businesses, which is really complicated.”

It appears that NGOs have stopped asking for funds from private donors, because it‘s become accepted that companies won‘t help and because there is enough funding from grants that it‘s not “necessary.”  Most striking are the comments that getting funds from businesses is complicated, or that the NGO is too busy to be financially independent.  This reflects an unhealthy relationship between donors and civil society.  Presumably with fewer grants, these NGOs would find time, due to necessity, to ask more private companies for support.

In fact, there is evidence within Moldova that this is true.  According to the Grants Specialist from the U.S. Embassy, one NGO comprised of college students, AIESEC Moldova, does get financial support from companies.  When AIESEC applied to the U.S. Embassy for funding, the Grants Specialist negotiated a deal in which the U.S. Embassy would fund half the money for a project, but AIESEC would have to get the rest from private donors, so as not to become donor dependent.  “The donors have to take this into account, not to destroy something that has been built,” he said. 

One Peace Corps. Volunteer echoed my sentiments on sustainability in development exactly:

“Helping Moldovans to solve problems by themselves and improving their ability to solve problems for themselves should be the overall goal of development.  If grant money was spent on helping organizations look past getting grant money, then that would be a better use for this money.”

If sustainability is a priority in Moldova’s civil society, and I think it should be, donor institutions would better spend their time and money lobbying for changes in policy and funding projects to change the cultural stigmas surrounding NGOs in Moldova.  The U.S. Embassy is doing an admirable job of this, evidenced in its negotiations with AIESEC and their encouragement to NGOs to be more transparent to the public.  More institutions doing the same would be a much greater help to Moldova than the status quo.

On Train Travel

My train from Chisinau, Moldova to Kiev, Ukraine left about two hours ago.  It’s just a small, unnecessary adventure en route to Tbilisi, Georgia, where I’ll be in about thirty-six hours.  Right now I’m alone in my four-bed sleeping compartment, and I’m surprised at my own affection for this locomotive. 

Unlike most Americans my age, I actually have a lot of experience with trains.  When I was five and six I made the trip numerous times between my grandparents in Arizona and my home in New Orleans.  Last year I rode China’s bullet trains all over.  My great grandfather was even a railroad conductor and head of the union.  I remember his photo on my grandmother’s living room mantle-piece, standing straight in front of his train.  I heard the train still exists, probably resting on retired tracks in an overgrown field outside of Duluth.

Whatever experience or family lineage I may have, riding in this sleeper compartment is an original experience.  I’m alone, where I can contemplate, and for once I’m not wholly focused on how many more hours I‘ll be sitting up.  This specific train--a leftover from the Soviet Union I suspect--is old, heavy, and tired.  It brutishly thunders ahead.  Still, upon setting my mattress and pillow, stale-smelling and slightly damp though they were, I found myself giddy.  The train, I have quickly decided, is the perfect way to travel.

Watching Moldova’s green hills under dark clouds pass me by--beautiful, but not unique--I considered some different explanations for why this train and I are such fast friends.  Psychologically speaking, one must note the train’s phallic shape, which has served as a useful metaphor for men before me--opening Renoir’s The Human Beast and comically closing Hitchcock’s North by Northwest.  I suppose this is the kind of sub-conscious association that might draw a young man.  But this wouldn’t be unique to trains of course, considering Boeing jets and submarines.  There is simply a coincidence of anatomy, psychology, and aerodynamics in the universe.

Another possibility is that my sleeping compartment, population me, is the only form of transportation I know where I don’t have to deal with other people.  My disinterest in strangers makes this a big plus.  But I don’t seek solitude.  In fact I’d pay exorbitant amounts if it meant I could choose any one of several friends to accompany me on this train.

Nope.  The locomotive is just the best metaphor. 

Cars confer a false sense of power, an illusion of agency.  The driver controls speed and direction; jostles for favorable position; secretly races opponents; tries to make “good time.”  Generations of muscle cars, or worse--Hummers--express what shiny armor might have five hundred years ago.  Hybrids aren’t much better--yes, with incremental baby steps you can save the world.  This cannot represent life, with GPS systems like prophets, lifeless and all-knowing.  One would have to include a lot more drunk drivers and runaway brake pads.

Buses are simply too uncomfortable to be a favorite mode of travel, regardless of any usefulness in analogizing life.

Flying is too far the opposite of driving, divorcing the traveler from the journey.  The change of location is abstract, not experienced.  For people in a hurry it’s perfect, but that’s not how people live their lives.  No one actually wants to arrive at their final destination.

The train, or maybe this train in particular, is different.  You have freedom.  To sit, sleep, or go to the dining and lounge cars with other warm-bodies, a mix of solitude and community at the discretion of the passenger.  But this free will is bound within larger constraints.  You don’t control the speed, and the train will get there when it gets there.  One can feel the bumps of the journey, but it’s not unpleasant.  It even sounds a rhythm, mimicked in the big band jazz standards I played in high school.  The train lulls and slumbers, while its passengers sit, talk, think, and wait.

P.S. Several hours after writing the above paragraphs, I was joined by four Moldovan hooligans.  For three hours their drinking and laughing kept me awake.  I didn’t say anything, only tried to communicate my contempt with vain body language.  Not speaking Russian was one problem; being outnumbered was another; the decisive factor was probably cowardice.

It reminded me that the unfortunate problem with trains, for me, is the other people who ride them.  It’s elitist and prejudiced to say so, but not inaccurate.  How I wish I could have traveled by train a hundred years ago or more, when it was the choice mode of travel for the cultured and well-behaved.  I suppose there would have been train robberies to worry about, but at least that would leave a better story than four Moldovans drinking wine from a two liter bottle in my sleeping compartment.