PEACE

My weary eyes have seen too much war and genocide, too much evil manipulation and dying. I have taken my turn at the entrance of the Sandeman Provincial Hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, near the border of Afghanistan, where I’ve watched hundreds of injured and sick line up on
the sidewalks, with family members holding the heads of the wounded in their laps and intravenous contraptions in their hands. There was simply no more room for the injured in the hospital. 

I’ve listened to the words of the Marxist leaders in Africa, who were routing the frightened people from their villages to the newly constructed refugee camps: “You don’t have to kill all these fish. You just have to get them to the lake and then drain the lake.” 

I stood in the neighboring country of Uganda as the Rwandan radio stations screamed, “Pick up the machetes now! We will have jobs, power, wealth, and homes as soon as every Tutsi in our blessed homeland is dead!” 

I was born before the United States became involved in World War II, and I was in grade school when the war ended. As kids, my friends and I spent our time after school wheeling around the neighborhood on our bikes, looking for discarded gum wrappers and foil candy wrappers. We’d carefully peel the aluminum foil from the paper part of the wrappers  and put the foil into rolled balls of aluminum. Then we’d take them with us  to school, where contests were held to see who could collect the largest ball of “tinfoil.” What we collected would be turned over to the US military to build “peace machines” so that we could win the war. 

After the war was over, we heard about the construction of a huge building in New York City called the United Nations. We were promised that there would never be another war again. Everyone who had a dispute would simply come to the United Nations, discuss their problems, and agree on a proper solution. Instead of collecting any more tinfoil, we put our efforts toward collecting “buffalo nickels,” and our class sent them to New York City to build the magnificent building with a flag of every country in the world waving out front. It seemed as if we sent a lot of money, but we knew it would be worth it to always have peace. 

It was hoped that peace would be a gradual process of changing people’s opinions, slowly learning how to tear down old barriers, and quietly constructing new ways of thinking. It was hoped that the power of love would overcome the love of power, and peace would reign everywhere for the rest of time. People said that the old way of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Exodus 21:24) was really ridiculous, because the end result would be that everybody would end up blind and toothless. So peace was better.

Once we were informed that peace now resided in the big building in New York City, we began asking ourselves where war resided . . . and what made it so awful and terrible? Was it possible that the awfulness lived inside us? Was it likely that war really grew out of the desire of certain individuals to gain an advantage at the expense of others? Had we forgotten the desire to make others in our world better off?

We all watched the experiment of the UN take place in New York City. Albert Einstein reminded us, “Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police.” There seemed to be a certain futility in thinking that the sheep could talk about peace with the wolves. Peace had to be more than just the “absence of war,” as Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza once said. It had to be “a virtue, a state of mind,” a spirit of kindness, justice, and righteousness on this earth.

In a speech to Congress on December 3, 1906, Teddy Roosevelt stated that “peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another’s keeping.” That’s why the slogan “peace at any price” won’t work.

I’ve discovered while observing human nature in more than 150 countries around the world that this doctrine of “peace at any price” has done more mischief than any other espousal afloat. It has promoted more wars and strife than any of the notorious and ruthless conquerors. It has undermined and nearly destroyed the dignity and equilibrium necessary to the welfare and liberties of the world’s fragile cultures. If you can’t find peace within yourself, you’ll be frustrated looking for it elsewhere. It’s always good to remember that peace won by compromise of principles will always be a short-lived solution. 

Before her death, Mother Teresa pointed out, “Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world.”

Thankfully that dysfunctional cycle can be reversed. You can find and experience peace within yourself and your family, and you can become a person who lives at peace with others. That inner peace can take root as you effectively embrace it regardless of all the dysfunctional circumstances around you. You will find the effects of that peace multiplying exponentially in your own life as you experience the joy of offering that peace to others. Blessed are the peacemakers.

Probably the most difficult thing you’ll experience as you embrace and practice your new life of inner peace is readjusting your heart and head in order to calmly and gratefully accept the gift of peace that God wants to give you. I like to think of it as an attitude of spiritual hospitality. As Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do let them not be afraid” (John 14:27).

I am bone-tired of seeing and hearing the cacophony of strife and conflict throughout this otherwise resplendent world, and I’ve concluded that to be at rest with God is to experience true peace. It comes from the inside and alters all things on the outside. The world is a beautiful place, and we can do something positive about the discord. 

My prayer for your future is that you won’t lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, but that a calm spirit will trump every ounce of disquietude, even though your whole world may seem to turn upside down. Let your heart reach out to others in love, warmth, and encouragement and expect God’s peace to surround and protect you. Be assured that whatever happens to you is less significant than what happens within you!  

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GEORGIA JOURNAL - 2002 (Part 4)

Tbilisi, Georgia: Saturday, April 6, 2002: Following my speech many of the students stood and applauded. Others sat and clapped almost as if they were stunned having never heard anything like that before. Many students came up quickly to me to shake my hand and tell me how they were challenged by the new concept of the “compassionate capitalist.”
 
Once the students emptied out the lecture hall, we made a quick dash for the office of the president (called rector) of Georgia Technological University.  He had invited us to his office to talk about our plans to work with the University.  He appreciated our willingness to help the University and pledged to help out with influence and contacts wherever needed and where possible.
 
Dr. Raul Kuprava, chairman of the department of biomedical technology engineering, had become a good friend in the very short time we had been in Tbilisi.  He was like a family member of the rest of the clan and had joined us at several different meals.  Irina, one of the twin sisters, was a professor of computers in Dr. Kuprava’s department.  We were all anxious to see their department and talk about a plan that seemed to be forming by the hour since we had arrived in Tbilisi.  

Dr. Kuprava’s department at Georgia Technological University was the only place in Eastern Europe where students were trained to install, repair, and maintain pieces of medical equipment.  That service was non-existent in most developing countries.  The only pieces of medical equipment on which the students had to work were old obsolete pieces of Russian-made junk.
 
When Dr. Archil had verbalized at dinner two nights before that they wanted to start an official NGO organization of Project C.U.R.E. in Georgia, our minds all began to work in high gear.  I suggested that perhaps Project C.U.R.E. could send a partial container load of pieces of medical equipment directly from our warehouse to Tbilisi.  Instead of our Denver biomed volunteers spending time on checking out the equipment we could ship the equipment to Dr. Kuprava’s students to check out.  It would save the Denver people some time and would give the University students a great opportunity to become familiar with pieces of American equipment.
 
Once the students had checked out the pieces of equipment, Project C.U.R.E./Georgia could place the equipment in targeted medical facilities throughout Georgia.  They would then be able to maintain or repair the equipment at the different institutions in the country.
 
When the question came up as to how they would fund Project C.U.R.E. /Georgia, it was suggested that the pieces of medical equipment could be placed in the hospitals and clinics on a very minimal lease basis.  Payment would be determined by either a certain period of time or a certain amount per procedural use.  Each time the hospital or clinic charged a patient for a procedure on the machine a portion of that fee would flow to the organization and even some could go to the students for an ongoing maintenance agreement.  It was such a unique situation to see an organization actually training students to be biomed techs in the old Soviet Union.  We had lots to talk about.
 
Across the University campus there was a medical clinic that served the University students, local community, and a neighborhood of refugees.  Dr. Manana Nasidze, who was Dr. Nicholas’ wife, worked regularly at the clinic as an optometrist.  Project C.U.R.E. had been requested to do a complete needs assessment at the University clinic.  In a nutshell … they needed everything.
 
We had one last assignment on our list of appointments for Saturday, which was to finish another needs assessment study at the Border Guard Hospital in Tbilisi.  It was already 6:30 p.m.
 
While the Russian Army occupied Georgia until 1991 they maintained a separate military hospital in Tbilisi.  When they pulled out and went back to Moscow they totally stripped the hospital facility and even used their rifles to shoot out the windows thinking that it would keep the Georgians from being able to use the facility after they were gone.
 
However, a sharp young Georgian doctor, Dr. Guarm Amiridze, received permission to try to refurbish the facility and make it into a hospital to serve the Border Guard, their families, “high mountain tribe’s people,” and poor refugees living within Tbilisi.  He had already done a marvelous job considering that he had absolutely nothing with which to work.  As we toured the hospital he explained the Border Guard was not part of the regular Georgian military and did not have any medical benefits.  He wanted to help change that, and I promised him that Project C.U.R.E. wanted to help him see his dream come true.
 
That night we went to Dr. Marina and Dr. Nicholas’ house for Katchapuri and dinner.  The whole family was together again.  We talked and ate again until 11:30 p.m.  What could the possibilities be of Project C.U.R.E. in the country of Georgia?  It was raining and miserably cold as we made our way back to our flat and once again climbed the dark stairwell to the fifth floor.
 
Sunday, April 7
 
Dr. Nicholas and Dr. Marina wanted to take me to the open antique market that morning in Tbilisi.  It was so rainy and cold we decided to only stay for a very short time.  I opted to stay at the flat and write until about 1 p.m. when a radio show host came to the flat to do an interview with Jim Marlin and me.  Word had gotten out that international Rotary had teamed up with the local Rotary group of Tbilisi to bring Project C.U.R.E. to Georgia to aid the medical delivery system.  The reporter represented Main Radio of Georgia and was the same station where Georgia and all the surrounding countries heard “Voice of America” programs.  She told us after the interview that the program would be aired the next day between 12 and 1 p.m.

Monday, April 8
 
We were at the ministry of finance offices discussing Project C.U.R.E.’s desire to ship into Georgia without any taxes, duties, or fees assessed to the donated medical goods.  Jamze Machavariani, the woman in charge, really loved Project C.U.R.E.  Her brother was a Georgian doctor, and before her stint at the ministry of finance, she had headed up the NGO called the Children’s Foundation of Georgia.  She was happy to cooperate with us and was so very appreciative that we would come to the department first in an effort to establish a working relationship.  She assured me that there would be no problem getting our medical goods in as well as being approved for NGO status in Georgia.
 
Dr. Archil had brought his portable radio with him and the lady was very impressed with hearing the interview while in her office.  It was a good meeting. 

Next on our Monday agenda was to meet with the ministry of health and get their approval and blessing.  Dr. Gudashavri was very astute and knowledgeable.  She liked very much what she heard and welcomed our efforts in Georgia.  She agreed that the ministry of health would be available to work with us in any way.
 
Jim and I invited the whole extended family to dinner Monday night at a lovely restaurant along the river in the old city of Tbilisi.  On our way to dinner we made one last stop at an orphanage where 100 deaf, orphaned children were housed.  It was quite an emotional encounter.  The children put on a quick performance for us.  Colorado Rotary had given money last year to put a new roof on the orphanage. 

The trip to Tbilisi had been another whirlwind trip, but so much had been accomplished in such a short time.  We had been able, with God’s help and direction, to bring together the ministry of health, the ministry of finance, the Georgian customs department, international Rotary, Project C.U.R.E., seven or eight medical institutions, two universities, and one of Georgia’s most educated and cultured families … all for the express purpose of extending love, concern, and tangible items of health care to needy people of the old Soviet Union.
 
I was almost ashamed of myself for having had feelings of reluctance to go back to the old historic country of Georgia.  They were so needy and so appreciative of Project C.U.R.E.’s willingness to aid and help.  I really believed that we could make a difference in the old Republic of Georgia.

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GEORGIA JOURNAL - 2002 (Part 3)

Tbilisi, Georgia: Friday, April 5, 2002: Friday morning, Dr. Marlin and I were picked up at our flat and driven to our first needs assessment at the Emergency Cardiology Center at Tbilisi.  As we entered through the front doors of the gray, drab cement building I thought to myself, “I think I’ve been here . . . maybe it was in a dream.”  After 15 years of needs assessments in developing countries throughout the world, the old hospitals begin to blur a bit into a class of sameness.
 
Archil spoke to the white-cloaked doctor in charge who was running pell-mell with his stethoscope dangling from around his neck.  He walked over to me and grunted something in Georgian and took off like a shot motioning us to keep up with him.  He walked to one ward, flung open the door and made a sweeping gesture toward the patients.  Without slowing in motion he walked to a double occupancy room where he copied his swinging the door and sweeping of his hand.
 
At that point I reached out and took hold of his forearm and said, “No!  I am wasting your time and you are wasting my time.  I want to speak for 15 minutes to the director of the hospital and after that be taken on an appropriate tour so that I can efficiently determine the specific areas of this hospital where Project C.U.R.E. can assist.”  He stopped dead in his tracks and his stethoscope flopped limply down to his chest.
 
Within about four minutes I was ushered into the director’s office where we had a great interview with the director, Dr. Simon Kapanadze, and the chief of the cardio surgery department, Dr. Zriad Bakhutashvili. The rude doctor we had first encountered had completely disappeared by then. Later, as we toured the new heart cauterization laboratory, Dr. Alexander Aladashvili came rushing across the room to greet me.  “I remember you and the good work you have done for our department in the past.  It was Project C.U.R.E. who sent us wonderful cardiology supplies about three years ago when we so desperately needed them.  Thank you a hundred times for your help!”  I quickly recalled that on one of my recent trips to Georgia I had been specifically invited to that department to help them and we had included the materials in a cargo container destined for quite another hospital.  That was a good way to get the day started.

From the cardiology center we quickly drove to the expert facility of the radiology diagnosis center of the Georgia State University.  Dr. Fridon Todua was doing a remarkable job of assembling an outstanding center for Georgia.  His plan was for Project C.U.R.E. to help them by sending supplies to them for their procedures in order to keep the costs down for the Georgian patients.
 
On the way to our next appointment I had our driver stop at an Internet cyber hole-in-the-wall to try to check my e-mail messages from home and to send a short message to Anna Marie.  Their equipment was so slow and their phone lines so bad that I finally gave up without making any connections.
 
One of our hosts, Dr. Nicholas Nasidze, who regularly worked for International Red Cross and his wife, Dr. Manana who worked as an ophthalmologist, had donated a lot of their time to the Georgian Diabetes Education and Information Center in Tbilisi.  Our next appointment was to visit their work with diabetics, especially children.  Their request was for Project C.U.R.E. to help them secure test strips, needles, and other supplies, plus help in procuring a simple laboratory set-up with microscope, test tubes, and simple testing equipment.  They also requested picture posters and updated educational materials that they could translate into the Georgian language.
 
Our follow-up meeting with the executive board of the Rotary Club went extremely well and we walked away with all the necessary paperwork completed to activate the shipping process.  Project C.U.R.E. would supply up to $1 million worth of medical goods into Georgia and the Rotary groups would cover the cost of shipping. 

Between that appointment and our scheduled dinner, we had time to explore the “old town” of Tbilisi and visit one of their orthodox Christian churches that was built in the sixth century A.D.
 
At dinner Dr. Archil and Dr. Nicholous asked many, many questions about Project C.U.R.E. and its mission.  Finally, Archil said, “Well, we’ve talked it over here and we are so impressed with Project C.U.R.E. and your philosophy of being generous in what you’re doing around the world that we want to start a ‘Project C.U.R.E./ Georgia.’  We want to be a part of this great thing.”  Of course, that brought on a flood of discussion and, again, we talked until about midnight.
 
On our way back to the flat, Archil asked if both Jim and I would consent to speaking to the students the next day who were enrolled in the master’s degree program at Georgia Technological University.  “Jim Jackson, I want you to tell them about Project C.U.R.E. and the ideas of being humanitarian.”  We agreed.
 
Saturday, April 6
 
Twenty-two thousand students attended Georgia Tech University in Tbilisi, and there were 4,000 faculty and staff.  It was no small institution.  I had previously had the honor of being asked to speak at the University of Ukraine in Kiev, the University of Armenia in Yerevan, the Medical University of Brazil in Campinas, and the Royal College of Physicians in London, and now they had asked me to share a bit at the Georgia Tech University in Tbilisi.
 
We were ushered into the large lecture hall.  Soon the students began filing in.  Dr. Marlin was introduced first and spoke about the communists’ old way of determining economic market price as opposed to the way market prices were determined according to supply and demand in a free market economy.  He did a fine job and it beautifully set the stage for what I wanted to say.
 
Because only about 60% of the students were proficient in English, there was a translator provided for us.  When I got up to speak I announced my lecture subject, “I want to talk to you today about the ‘economics of compassion’.”  I went on to explain:
 
“I am a capitalist and a very successful capitalist.  But I am a capitalist so that I can be a more successful humanitarian.  You have no doubt been told in your past that capitalism was bad because it was selfish and greedy.  Let’s explore today some comparisons and some results. I am a lifelong observer and I want to share with you what I have observed.
 
In the mid-1700s Adam Smith proposed economic theories that included elements of freedom of decision, economic growth, division of labor, free market movement, self-determination, and minimal government intervention.  About 100 years later Karl Marx proposed that Adam Smith was wrong.  In order for a society to be successful Marx held that the economy needed to be controlled at the top by the politburo and subsequently determined by intelligent people who knew what was best for the society.  Otherwise, class struggles would continue between the “haves” and the “have nots.”  The only fair thing, according to Marx, was to take from those who “have” and redistribute to those who “have not,” then there would be peace and equality.
 
It was a case of free, creative compassion vs. controlled and arbitrary distribution.  Now we have gone another 150 years.  The experiments have had opportunity to run their course and today we can observe, as history, the results of the contest of ideas.
 
One concept, when having run its course, ended in bankruptcy, poverty, and misery.  The other enabled society to dip into a wellspring of resources to cure not only its own national ills but to reach out and be more compassionate than any other civilization in history.
 
The results had taken place in our own lifetime and we could observe and draw our conclusions.  You see, ideas have consequences.  Theories and their results find their way into the pages of irrefutable history.  We can judge for ourselves.
 
I am a capitalist today because it allows and enables me to be successfully compassionate.  I have the opportunity to employ theories and principles that can make the lives of others better.
 
A week ago I was in India assessing the results of some natural disasters.  In the state of Gujarat an earthquake of a magnitude of 7.7 on the Richter scale killed 30,000 people in about two minutes.  Everything was left in devastation.
 
I also traveled to the eastern part of India, in the state of Orissa, where some 20,000 people were swept into the Bay of Bengal by a super cyclone.  Who went to meet the needs of the disaster victims?  It was the compassionate capitalists not the bankrupt communists.
 
Ask yourself:  Which system became more compassionate as the experience progressed?  Did communism?  No, as control expanded so did graft and corruption.  In the final stages there was more greed, selfishness, and class separation between the powerful and the impoverished than ever dreamed.  The military establishment once again became the czars, the very ones against whom they were trying to revolt.
 
Free market entrepreneurialism has never had a free chance to operate.  But even to the limited degree to which it has been allowed to operate, the results have been astounding.  It has enabled people to generously express their ideals of compassion.  There has never been anything like it in history.
 
I believe that, built into us, is the need to help one another, as well as the need for helping ourselves.  We would never be truly fulfilled and happy unless we purposefully included the element of compassion into our economic process of capitalism.  But capitalism and compassion are not elements in diametric opposition, as we are often told.  Rather, they are concepts of compatibility.  One strengthens and fulfills the other and makes it possible in a viable and sustained way to give generously to the needs of others.  It is not through controlled direction but through industrial incentive and fulfillment.
 
When I was a little boy I determined to become a millionaire, and indeed I did become a millionaire many times over.  But I discovered that the pursuit and accumulation of goods did not bring happiness and fulfillment in and of itself.  I have observed that you could never accumulate quite enough to make you fulfilled and happy.
 
One day I asked God to change me, committing that I would never again use my talents and experience to accumulate wealth just for myself.  My wife and I decided to give our accumulation away, start over, and see if we could get it right the next time.
 
By still employing the mindset and principles of capitalism and growth and individual expression, but tying it all to the element of compassion, we have experienced 30 years of wonderful fulfillment and worth.  The results of the experiment culminated in part in an entity called Project C.U.R.E. where we collect millions of dollars worth of medical supplies and pieces of medical equipment and donate them to the neediest around the world.  Presently, we have shipped into 89 different countries around the world and just this year alone Project C.U.R.E. will donate somewhere around $20 million worth of goods to the needy.
 
I know what you are hearing sounds strange and unusual, but here at the university I present the concept to you for your consideration.  You need to think about the concept of “compassionate capitalism.”
 
I challenge you today to become aggressive in fulfilling all your growth and potential, and accumulate skills and understanding of free market enterprise concepts and entrepreneurialism.  Become excellent.  Become the best capitalists possible.  But do it not for self-accumulation and aggrandizement and selfish consumption, but for the greater good of others around you who are less fortunate.  Allow the principles to work for the benefit of you and others around you.  Do that and Georgia will blossom like a rose in a fertile garden.
 
I hope you have heard something very different today and I hope you will never forget the words of the happiest man in the world.”
 
Next Week: Developing biomed technicians in Georgia

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GEORGIA JOURNAL - 2002 (Part 2)

Tbilisi, Georgia: April 4, 2002: Tomaz had been quite proud of his recent purchase as he showed us how his new showerhead worked the night before.  Georgian houses didn’t usually have hot running water, but his did!  There was a white plastic pipe running up the wall along the back side of the bathtub.  An electrical cord attached directly to the showerhead.  With a pull on the nubbin in the center of the showerhead, electricity heated a little coil inside of it.  At the top of the bathtub’s single faucet fixture was a hose that carried water from the spigot up to the plastic showerhead.  As the water coursed over the electrical coil it was heated to a tepid temperature and released to sprinkle over my body.
 
I closed the door to the wash closet behind me and stood for a while looking at the plastic contraption.  Was I really crazy enough to get inside that bathtub, put my feet down in two inches of water and have a Ruskie made gizmo pour water over my body when the water was directly connected to, not 110 volts like American electricity sources, but 220 volts of European electricity?  I was aware of how you spelled “electrocute” but had no desire to get zapped or fried just to prove an electrical engineering theory.
 
But after a while, the desire to feel the warm sprinkling water over my travel-worn body won out, and I gingerly hunched myself into the tub and under the supercharged plastic showerhead.
 
For breakfast, Irina and Marina fixed us fresh Katchapuri and black tea, (in fact, I believe I had Katchapuri for each meal I ate while in Tbilisi).  The Katchapuri was like a six-inch cheese pizza with a second thin crust cooked over the top of the cheese as well.  They felt it their Georgian obligation to get us rested up from jet travel on Thursday so that we would be fit and ready to go for the next week of meetings.
 
While we recuperated, the women suggested that we pay a visit to the state museum of antiquities and treasures.  I told them that I was eager to go but was surprised that Stalin had not stolen all of Georgia’s goodies while he was dictator. 

“We have been trying to become capitalists since we became independent from the Russians,” Marina explained to me.  “Archil and I now own a small market close to our apartment.  It’s not much, or like you have in America, but we are trying.”
 
“Can we go to your market on our way home?”  I asked, “I would very much like to see what you are doing.”  The little store was situated on the main level of an old communist, bloc-house apartment building.  Inside, they had built shelves and stocked the store with a wide variety of items ranging from stacks of unwrapped loaves of round bread, cheese, toys for kids, canned meat, kitchen utensils, and soda pop.  The specialty seemed to be the back display counter filled with freshly baked pastries and a juice dispenser filled with vodka.  I was surprised with how busy the little market was while we were there.  “Marina, I am proud of you.  This is the kind of thing that more Georgians will have to do in order for Georgia to successfully change from communist thinking to the free market.  You are now a successful ‘entrepreneur’.”  Both women beamed with delight.
 
At 2:30 p.m. we met up with Archil.  He had finished teaching his classes at the university and would go with us to an appointment he had set with the customs people.  “Sandros” would go with us to translate into English.
 
Dr. Manana Nasidze was married to Dr. Nicholas Nasidze.  Manana was the younger sister of the twins, Marina and Irina.  Sandros was the oldest son of Manana and Nicholas, and was finishing his university training at Georgia State University.  Three years earlier he had been chosen to become a Rotary Club exchange student and had traveled to Arizona, where he studied for a year and graduated from Lake Havasu City High School.  Like everyone else we had met on the trip, Sandros was a sharp and intelligent Georgian.  I was confident that he would do just fine as a translator.
 
The controller and his deputy were very cordial toward us.  They told us that they fully respected anything where Dr. Archil Samadashvili was a part.  I explained what we wanted to get done in preparation for sending loads of donated medical goods into Georgia. I emphasized that we wanted to work with their department and that we would never engage in anything that would violate their wishes and policies.  I explained that before a shipment would be sent Project C.U.R.E. would send an inventory list to them, to the finance minister and to the minister of health.  They could review the proposed inventory and if they found anything which did not meet with their approval to be shipped into their country, they would have an opportunity to strike through the item listing, initial it, and then return the corrected inventory list to Project C.U.R.E.  Only upon receiving the approved list would we load the shipment and send it to Georgia.  But we would fully expect that when the shipment arrived at the border there would be no conflict or hassle since it had already been pre-approved.
 
“We wish everyone would work their business with us like you are doing.  Most people and organizations just send things and then try to push them through us.  We now know the face of Project C.U.R.E. and we assure you that there will be no problem with getting your medical goods into Georgia.”
 
“On our way to the next meeting," Archil told us as we got into his little HNBA (Neva in English) car manufactured in Russia, “I want to introduce you to another new Georgian entrepreneur.  He too is trying very hard to become a capitalist.”
 
We drove through an old industrial complex that had been run by the communist state.  All of the factories had been abandoned and the facilities were in bad disrepair from neglect of the previous 20 years of communist rule.  Through the rusty gates of one complex we drove up to the open shipping entrance of the main building.  Rusty, junked pieces of machinery sat around everywhere.  The waste and inefficiency of the communist industrial complex could be seen everywhere.
 
We piled out of the little Neva and were met by a graying man in his 50s with nicotine stains on his fingers; he was smoking a foul-smelling Russian cigarette.  He was a gregarious enough chap and obviously a very good friend of Archil.

Stacks of smelly, bloody cow and horse hides were piled on goop-soaked pallets.  I turned away to catch a breath of fresh air.  About 15 workers were scurrying around in the front part of the warehouse dragging the hides to different pieces of large, yellow equipment.
 
Within that area of the building they made the old bloody, hairy hides into beautifully, tanned, dyed, flexible swatches of leather. After snapping some pictures of the process I followed Archil into another section of the old building.  There men and women were laying patterns onto the leather and cutting the swatches into little uniform shapes.

The factory was making shoes.  They were performing the entire process from start to finish right there in the old abandoned buildings.  We watched the rest of the operation as they sewed the pieces together, put them on foot molds of different sizes and stitched and glued the soles onto the shoes and strung the laces through the eyelets. I was pretty impressed. 

At 6 p.m. we were scheduled to meet with the president of Tbilisi Rotary Club.  There were lots of things to discuss and certain papers needed to be signed for the matching grants being partnered with the Colorado Rotary Clubs, if the medical goods shipments were to be commenced.  Mr. Elavja Meladza, the president, was a short balding man of exaggerated intensity.  Had he been 20 pounds heavier and with a birthmark on his forehead, I would have thought I was talking to Mikhail Gorbachev of yesterday’s Russia. Mr. Meladza promised to convene an executive committee meeting of the local Rotary Club Friday at 6 p.m.
 
The business day seemed to start in Tbilisi about 10 in the morning and ran until about 7 in the evening.  Dinner was hardly ever planned until at least 8 p.m. Thursday night our hosts had prepared a dinner gathering at Dr. Archil’s flat.  The entire clan – the three sisters, and their illustrious husbands, and all available children, plus the shoe-manufacturing entrepreneur, his wife and sons – gathered together to eat dinner.  All those people were crowded into an old two-bedroom flat, previously made available to the professor for free by the communist party.  It was very cramped.
 
But the food that was served and the friendship which flowed was something to behold.  The three sisters just kept bringing additional dishes of traditional Georgian food from the kitchen.  The only time they stopped eating was to give a toast to whatever they could think of to toast.  No one seemed to mind that I continued to toast with club soda; it was just a happy, happy time.
 
About 11 p.m., Irina went to the piano and began to play.  Her teenage daughter, Keti, who aspired to one day be an opera singer, began to favor us with Georgian folk songs.  Soon everyone was joining in, either singing or playing.
 
Each of the twin sisters had graduated with honors from Georgia’s finest music conservatory before they had gone on in their professional education.  The old Georgian aristocracy was well represented in culture by our newly discovered friends in Tbilisi.  It was past midnight before the party broke up and we were informed that we had a full schedule of important meetings starting the next morning.
 
Next Week: Considering Compassionate Capitalism 

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