The story below was collected during a Most Significant Change evaluation and was selected as the most significant change in the domain of "Attitudes and Global Perspectives."
“Changed Perceptions”
Davit Sioridze, Georgia
2010-11, Augustana College
I want to talk about how my experience has changed perceptions in my local community about the U.S. My community is so small – we have about 180,000 people in Batumi. As you know we have lived seven decades in the Soviet Union. Still we have reflections from the past, and people here think that in the US you can find easy money and people don’t work there, or that people are so cold you can’t really communicate with them. This is the biggest mistake I found out when I went to the U.S.
I have a professor from Batumi State who said he thought you go to States and you’re a millionaire next day. We discussed for three hours, sometimes arguing. He was bringing in old facts, and I was bringing facts from when I was in the States. I said that people in U.S. do their best to shape their own destiny.
Another false perception among my friends was that Americans don’t know how to be good friends. I was amazed. I came back from the U.S. and had so many good friends – they’re the best friends ever. The same thing was true about relatives. I found out that people are so friendly. My host brothers were my best friends, and my host mom and dad were my real parents when I was in the U.S.
These things have brought so many changes to my local community. I’m not talking about all of Georgia, but I’m talking about thousands probably, because this professor will go to class and talk to 100-200 people, and my relatives now know that people in the U.S. have the same strong ties, and that they love and adore each other.
My friends have totally changed their perceptions after I came back and they see on Facebook that I have a lot of American friends, and that I love them and they love me. It’s not global impact, but locally it’s brought a lot of changes.
When you have experienced something personally and you understand that the prevalent idea in this society is not correct, and when you remember so much warmth and good feelings from that one-year experience, you can’t be silent, you can’t stop and shut up, and say, I don’t care what they think. These people one day might come to Georgia, and they should be welcomed. If we don’t protect our values, nothing will be changed.