What the hell am I doing in Georgia? 

In the summer of 2021, COVID was raising hell around the world.  I was never, at any point, all that worried about getting sick; I was worried about the global out-freakage going on about it.  I was living in China, and had been on and off (mostly on) for the past 15 years.

I was worried about losing my job as a teacher, and I was worried about my legal status living in the PRC.

I was right to worry.  I lost my job, and though I quickly found another job teaching kindergarten (yeah, I know, yes, me, but, you know, any port in a storm), the government there was taking the opportunity to rid the country of “Western influences”.  Well, I’m an unmarried, long-haired, bearded white rock musician.  Basically cultural public enemy number one.  They refused to renew my work permit, forcing me to leave in 30 days.

I had two cats, tons of musical equipment, some furniture, a bunch of books…..basically, a lifetime worth of just stuff.  COVID had already decimated my nest-egg and now, during COVID panic, I had to find a place to go, both as cheaply and as quickly as possible.

I had to just let most of my stuff go.  I got it into storage with a lot of help from some very good friends, but I couldn’t just leave my cats behind.  They were my family and we’d been living together for eight years already: their whole lives.

It was hard.  I chose Georgia as a destination because I could go there and stay for a year with nothing more than a stamp in my passport on arrival.  I still had to find an airline that would take me and both of my cats.  That was really difficult; look for my post about The COVID Excuse.  But I eventually found Qatar Airlines.  That scared me a little because Qatar Air is sort of a high-level carrier.  But you do what you have to do.

It took us three days to get from Shenyang, China to Tbilisi, Georgia.  Shenyang to Guangzhou, overnight at a hotel, then Guangzhou to Doha, another full night’s layover, this time with the kitties being cared for by the Qatar Air veterinary team (who knew they would have such a thing?) and myself sleeping in an airport capsule hotel, and then Doha to Tbilisi, and having to hang out at the Tbilisi airport for several hours before I could go to to the boarding house I’d booked.  But it all worked out.

Then find work.  I ended up doing online tutoring because jobs are thin on the ground in Tbilisi and don’t pay much. But it all worked out.  I’m still here, and have decided to stay for another year – I just have to go sometime this month to Armenia to do a border crossing.  It’s just a day trip, so no worries.  I have a nice place to live, the people here are friendly, and thank the stars that the cost of living is pretty low.

It’s hard to just let go of so many things that I considered valuable. But I landed on my feet.  Things worked out OK.  Really, they all worked out pretty well, as badly as some people were ruined even within their own countries.  In the end, I count myself very, very lucky, once again.