Mikheil Saakashvili

Last Thursday Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili openned a hospital in Tsnori, a town on the other side of Sighnaghi. A number of the older students, most of the teachers, and I attended the ceremony. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, after all I've never seen a president, but I didn't expect everything to unfold quite the way it did.

First of all, we rode there in style. I wasn't expecting an old-school bus. I also wasn't expecting the students to sing songs the entire ride there, but they did, even the older boys, especially the older boys. Now when I think of hospitals, I imagine some sort of grounds, but the whole idea of beautifying the outside of one's home or place of business hasn't really caught on here. Granted, it hadn't caught on in Egypt either, so I wasn't that surprised. Anyway, the brand new hospital was situated in a field of dust, and it was a windy day. It was a good thing I was wearing brown pants because my host mother's black pants turned gray in patches. The president arrived via helicopter and stirred up the dust even more, which was a shame because I had actually taken a shower that morning. (More about the showering situation later.) Mikheil gave a little speech, went inside the hospital, and then sped off.

The teachers kept asking me if I liked their president, but it's really hard to say when I don't know that much about him. All I could say was that it was nice of him to open a hospital. When I was in Tbilisi, I had the opportunity to spend one evening with some young Georgians, and a few of them really disliked him. I know that he's pro-United States, but that doesn't make him a good guy. Honestly, anything that I tell you about Mikheil is going to come from Wikipedia, so if you're interested, go check out his page. According to this article, the support at these events is all staged.