Sean awesomely surprised me with a Kindle Touch for my birthday in December.  I’d always said I didn’t want one, especially here (Oh, hi, Georgians!  I know many of you struggle to make ends meet, but look – I have a touchscreen computer just for books!) but Sean was totally right in getting it for me.  I’m in love.

I'm on a Russian history kick and just downloaded a book about Stalin (we are going to visit his birthplace next month - he was Georgian, you know!) and one about Catherine the Great. We don't have wireless here but the cord method is still pretty slick.

It was a good experiment for my first year here to have to read what I could find – what was passed around from volunteer to volunteer, would I could find at the Peace Corps lounge, what was at our local American Corner.  I read a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise.  But I am so thankful that I can now read up on whatever topic I’m interested in while I have ample time to do so.  (For example, I laid in bed for three days straight and read the Hunger Games trilogy, during the down time between New Year’s and back to work.  Lovely!)

And best of all?  I can lay in bed, totally wrapped up in blankets, and only reach a pinky out into the cold air to turn pages.  A great its-freezing-in-our-room activity.

(Sean gave me a great birthday present last year, too.  I’m a lucky girl.)

On one of the long, multi-marshutka rides from the coast back to Akhaltsikhe, I listened to a TED Talk by Melinda Gates about what health organizations can learn from Coca-Cola.  Specifically, she talked about how health advocates need to model their distribution methods off Coca-Cola’s in order to reach the really far-flung places where health promotion is most needed.

This guy, surprisingly, isn't Georgian. We tend to get a handful of German backpackers on their way to Vardzia. Either way, he was blocking my shot...of the Pepsi cooler. Which doesn't have any Pepsi in it.

Sitting in our favorite cafe today, I realized she is right.  Because not only does our little cafe have a brand-new Pepsi cooler (with the new-ish Pepsi logo), but our little town – in a minority region 12 kilometers from the border of Turkey and in a corner of a tiny little country – is plastered with Coke Zero and Pepsi Max signs, banners and advertisements (and has been for awhile now).

I can’t help but wonder:  how did they get here?  Who is running this incredibly effective marketing and distribution campaign?  Here, in a city where many things are in a state of disrepair and almost as old as I am?  Here, where most operations are run in such a seemingly backwards, inefficient way that often boggles my Western brain?  And why is it we can get Coke Zero in most mom-and-pop shops around town but purchasing contraception is almost impossible?

I read whatever I can get my hands on here.  I’m luckier than most volunteers because Akhaltsikhe has an American Corner – a section of the library filled with random textbooks, encyclopedias, year-old magazines and some fiction all in English.  Combine that with the books passed around from volunteer to volunteer and our occasional Amazon purchase, and I find that I can always be reading something.

When we visited Rustavi, our former teacher lent me Ali and Nino, a book I’ve read about but hadn’t been able to find.  Her copy is worn and, I’d like to think, well-loved.

Things That Are Now Irrelevant: the quote reads, "If Kurban Said can't push Erich Segal off the bestseller list, nobody can!"

Per usual, I couldn’t put this book down and read it in a few days.  It tells the story of a young Muslim Azeri man, Ali, and his love for a Christian Georgian girl, Nino, around the time of the Bolshevik Revolution.

I adore this book; it’s beautifully written (although no one knows for sure its author).  It’s hard for me to decide if I would love this book objectively having never been here or come to appreciate Georgia.  I’d like to think so.  But it does an excellent job of illustrating the divide between Christian and Muslim, modern and traditional and East and West that continue to be issues in this region today.

The book was written in 1937 but so much still remains relevant.  In light of the current administration’s desire to Westernize Georgia – something I assumed was a new idea after the fall of the Soviet Union – this passage demonstrates that it is not new but rather how Georgians have seen themselves for some time.

“But this country is held between the two claws of a hot pair of tongs, Nino.”

“That’s just why,” she was stepping lightly over the cobbled stones again, “that’s just it.  Seven times Timur the Lame destroyed Tiflis (Tbilisi).  Turks, Persians, Arabs and Mongols have overrun the country.  We stayed.  They laid waste in Georgia, raped it, murdered it, but never really possessed it.  St. Nino came from the West, carrying her vine (bringing Christianity), and it is to the West we belong.  We are no Asiatics.  We are the furthest eastern country of Europe.  Surely you can feel that yourself?”  She walked on quickly, her childish brow furrowed.  “Just because we have defied Timur, and Ghengis, Shah Abbas, Shah Tahmasp and Shah Ismail, just because of that is that I exist, I, your Nino.”

I suppose every person living in a foreign country will say that there is something special about their adopted home.  Perhaps what I loved about this book – outside of the storytelling – was how well it described Georgia as unique.  Not East, not quite West; constantly being conquered by someone yet remaining solidly Georgian; proud and joyful of its hospitality, wine, religion and culture.