Doctor killed, relatives mourn in Sighnaghi

Returning from the demonstration, we heard the news that one of Ketevan's relatives, a doctor from Tbilisi, had been killed by tank fire in Gori. We rounded a corner, and there were a group of people gathered outside his house, so Jonathan, Keto, Sergo, Shalva, and I entered to pay our respects.

War is so frightening, especially when one sees how close and personal it becomes. For each person killed, there are dozens who mourn and grieve. Grown men with tears in their eyes standing around on the porch. Everytime another relative or friend showed up at the house, there was a fresh sound of wailing from the female relatives seated around the open casket in the dining room.

This man, a doctor, never even saw the enemy shooting at him. The person shooting also wouldn't see the doctor, that he would kill, when he fired his weapon.

According to local history, Georgians as a people, as a nation, have survived for millenium against all odds. Inhabiting the most fertile land in the entire region, every empire from the Urartians to the Arabs, Persians to Turks, Russians to Soviets have occupied this land. I've asked people why they think Georgians have survived, and they answer, 'because of heart.'

Right now, the Georgian heart is seething towards the aggressors, wanting to avenge the insult of being bombed on one's own territory, and having to retreat from one's city and watch it being burned on television. And yet we're not living in the Middle Ages, where one can avenge a wrong according to the Georgian mentality, fighting in hand to hand combat. Modern combat is with weapons that fire from miles away, and battles are won based on the military budget that supplied more bombs and bomb delivery systems to their militaries.

The fighting may cease for a moment, but another layer of resentment has been added to the complex interpersonal relationships of the Caucasus.