Goodbye Georgia

The summer is over and I’m heading back to New York in a little over 24 hours. The past few months have been an amazing experience. I really didn’t know what to expect this summer, and I must confess, it has exceeded all my expectations.

I arrived in Tbilisi without really knowing if I had a job or what I would do. My plan of action was to travel around, enjoy the culture, maybe drink some good Georgian wine, and generally live the lazy expat life. And while I did manage to get some traveling done—I got to go all over Georgia and to Azerbaijan—my original plan of lazing around didn’t exactly pan out.

To my astonishment, within 48 hours of being here I was offered a multitude of jobs and worked like no expat has ever worked before. Maybe I exaggerate, but I sure did work hard.

In the past few months, I’ve moonlighted as a journalist extraordinaire writing articles for the local newspaper and business magazine. I braved the government’s wrath by writing about democracy and judicial reform and upset the International Organization for Migration when I wrote an article claiming that they don’t accurately conceptualize the problem of human trafficking.

I then helped revamp the American Chamber of Commerce’s magazine and advised them on how to create a subscription service.

I advised the Minister of Economic Development on progressive customs policies then assessed pretty much all the working Customs checkpoints along the border and created a methodology for benchmarking a timing procedure.

I organized the 4th of July Embassy party and hobnobbed with local Ambassadors as well as with Freddy Cole.

I developed a project proposal for a trade forum in Parliament—the first official event in which the public and private sectors are meeting in Government buildings to discuss the future of economic development in Georgia.

And in general, I liaised with all sorts of individuals in the banking sector, NGOs, and government.

All this included long nights and weekends of me slaving away. I was so busy I barely had any time to socialize!...but then again, I may have been able to fit in a few fun evenings…

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