Five-Year-Old Gia Janelidze -“I will go to the City. What Shall I Do Here?”

A dream about the city he saw on TV. Half-empty six villages with just one school. No road and a problem of “broken bridge” in Adigeni District.

Mokhe, Dertseli, Kikibo, Naminauri and Tsikhisubani are within the Mokhe Community. Two hundred and fifty families live in those villages in total which are ten-twelve kilometers away from the district center. Winter lasts five months here. Heavy snow is followed with landslide and destroyed road. Local people cannot get to the district center for several months. However, they do not need to go there; they keep their families with subsistence farming. The only problem for them is their children who have not seen city life at all.

“We are sorry for children; they have no chance to entertain. In winter we are isolated from the world. There are so many inventions in the world but our children play with just a ball that is torn. They have seen the city on TV only,” said one of the villagers.

“The city is big and beautiful,” said local children in excitement. They have similar opinion about the city from foreign films.

“When I grow up, I will live in a city, what shall I do here? I will have a big house, a beautiful car and I will overtake the cart of my grandfather by my car,” said five-year-old Gia Janelidze.

“I want to live on the thousandth floor. My father told me that the whole Georgia can be placed within the thousand-storied- building. Well, can you imagine how many Georgias are in America?” Temur Zoidze, who is in the first grade at school, spoke with us with his eyes widened.  

You can hardly meet young people in these villages. They abandon the place day-by-day.

“One-fifth of the population moves to Tsalka. Last year nearly sixty families resettled there. Who had chance to leave the place everybody moved there. It is hard to live here,” said Badri Markoidze.

There is one secondary school in the Mokhe Community. The children have to walk ten-twelve kilometers to get to the school.

“The children walk to school every day. They have no more way out. In summer it is easier but in winter it is so difficult to get there, that children almost never go to classes. We do not rebuke them for missing the lessons,” said Temur Beridze, the director of the Mokhe Secondary School. “It is not a new problem. But nobody speaks to resolve it. The roads are in terrible condition here and buses cannot run here to transport the children,” he added.

“I live in Naninauri and I leave home at eight in the morning to get to school in time. It is quite dark at that time and I am afraid. Though I go there together with other children and it the fear disappears. It is really difficult but we should go to school,” said Tsira Iakobadze, who is in the eleventh grade.

“I go to school from Kekhovani. My village is too far from Mokhi but I know short paths through the forest and manage to get in time to school,” said Malkhaz Dimitradze from the eights grade.

“I am from Chechli. My village is the closest to Mokhi but there is such mud on the roads that I hardly walk to school,” said Sofiko Markoidze from the seventh grade.

“Thirty-seven children go to school from Naminauri. It is the most difficult for the children in the first grade to get to school. In snow I have to carry my child on my back because he cannot walk in the mud,” said Badri Markoidze.

The District Governor commented on the problems. “We have planned to repair the roads in the Mokhi Community this year and we will do it by all means. The population will never have road problems,” said Zura Chilingarashvili, the head of the Adigeni Municipality. 

The director of the school speaks about some other problems as well. “The biggest problem is in the village of Kekhovani. There is a very narrow bridge over the river which is too difficult to cross for children,” said Beridze.

The governor premised us to repair the bridge too saying, “The Bridge will be restored too.”

Gulo Kokhodze, Adigeni