Reprinted with permission of the News-Record, Goodhue, Minnesota, September 6, 2006

By Anita Ouerness

GOODHUE, MINNESOTA — Rusudan Tsereteli from the Republic of Georgia has been staying with a rural Goodhue family on her fifth journalism journey to the United States. The Republic of Georgia, a country of roughly four million people, lies west of Turkey. She is here as part of a Fellowship for International Journalists with the Macalester College in St. Paul. Her host families are John and Kathy Augustine of rural Goodhue and Ruth and Stan Nerhaugen of Red Wing.

Her fellowship through Macalester College is for four months. The training will encompass learning about American policy, international relations, American media, and American health care.

Rusudan is here with nine other fellows from around the world: Brazil, Australia, China, Chec Republic, Papa New Guinea, Africa, Liberia, Guyana, Burma, and Spain. On September 2 she returned to St. Paul to continue classes and lectures. She and the group will then be on tour in the U.S. spending a week in Detroit where they will visit the Ford Foundation, New Orleans to see the damage of Katrina, Washington D.C. to visit the Washington Post and the Pentagon, New York City to visit the New York Times, and California to go to Disney Land. They all return in October for more classes and lectures. They will be part of a forum to speak to students about their impressions and to answer questions. In November they will visit the Anderson Center in Red Wing and then graduate.

At home Rusudan is an editor for a local newspaper, the Rustavi-Info. Because there is little freedom as we know it in the Republic of Georgia, Rusudan say that, to keep a paper which keeps editorial independence is very hard. You have to put your life at risk. “We don’t have subscribers and no advertisement. There is poverty where not many people have money to buy a paper. We sold our house, car, everything to maintain the paper. It is my cross I have to bear, it is hard, and totally unsafe. When I go back I will take the knowledge I have learned here back to the School of Journalism where I will describe the life in the states. I will describe information I have learned on American policy and international relations, the war on terror, U.S. security, and the U.S. future.”