"The cigarette deal is OUT. Bring conservative cotton shirts to donate to the circus instead." Such were the final instructions issued by Haggis McLeod to a group of jugglers assembled at a preliminary meeting in Verona a week before their departure for the First International Juggling Festival held in Tbilisi, Georgia, last September.

We all looked forward to the trip, but had little idea what to expect beyond the spotty news reports of violent protests in the streets, over­shadowed in the media by the Russian coup two weeks earlier. McLeod, an accomplished juggler and performer from England, reassured us that our hosts were still enthusiastically awaiting our arrival, and warned us to expect the unexpected in a country which just achieved independence from Moscow last April.

He described some of the moving experiences he had a few years ago while working as an actor with a Georgian theater troupe, an experience which inspired him to organize a juggling convention in conjunction with the Georgian State Circus.

A week later, almost all the 160 registered jugglers representing at least 17 countries from Wales to New Zealand managed to assemble at the airport in East Berlin, where we met American­turned-Dutch co-organizer Lee Hayes. The airport resembled a circus of sorts, as islands of juggling sprouted up amid piles of baggage and oyful reunions. The jubilant atmosphere con­tinued on the plane to Moscow with club-pass­ing blocking the aisles as people studied their Georgian language sheets. The majority of par­ticipants came from England and America, with large contingents from Spain and France.

Upon our arrival in Moscow we met with our first minor catastrophe: New Yorker-in-exile Alex Pape lost his passport en route to Berlin, and was taken into captivity by several uniformed immigration officers. The embassy was closed on Sunday, and there was nothing to be done but abandon him to his fate and hope he could follow the next day.

At the Moscow domestic airport the "We're not in Kansas anymore" phase of the trip began. Informed of a possible 10-hour delay, Frank Olivier and Jeff Daymont led a 3-ball workshop in the departure lounge. Henry Camus, Markus Marconi and others did some spontaneous busk­ing for appreciative Russian travelers, while Ollie Crick from England entertained the jugglers with his inimitable sense of humor and mandolin playing. We arrived in Tblisi at 3 a.m. to find the host families still waiting for us.

For many of us, the most memorable part of the trip was the host family experience. Since each person was assigned to a different family, everyone experienced the convention in a totally different way. At the airport I was introduced to my 19-year-old host, Sophie, and her younger brother George, a cherubic 11-year-old. George gallantly carried the luggage up­stairs to an apartment where we were warmly greeted by Granny, who isn't really their grandmother but has become a permanent fixture in the house.