Oregon Public Broadcasting

It's not easy taking the temperature of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Georgia.  The two countries have exchanged some prisoners. But today  Russian soldiers took about 20 more Georgian troops prisoner at a port on the Black Sea.

Last fall, Portlander Jim White traveled to many of the Georgian cities that are now battlegrounds:  Tshkinvali, Gori, and small towns in South Ossetia.

He's a vice president at Mercy Corps. The aid agency has been working in Georgia to cool the very tensions that Jim White notes fed into this month's conflict.

Jim White: "It's an area that has huge differences, in ethnicity, and language and even religion. So it's an area that has a potential to always be a turmoil point. In Georgia, in particular, as they were transitioning from a Soviet-style economy to a market-style econ there were a lot of problems. It remains a very poor state outside the main provincial capital and Tblisi itself."

White says Mercy Corp was setting up cross-culture conversations with young people, trying to get understanding between different ethnic groups. That's made the fighting between Russians, Georgians, and Ossetians particularly hard for him to watch.

He's also fascinated by the way a shared military culture has played out during the conflict. White notes that Russia's had military bases in the region for decades. In other times, Russians and Georgians actually fought side by side under the Soviet flag. Now, they're going head to head.

A Mercy Corps team reached Gori Monday, and has started working on food, clean water, and other essentials. Towns outside of Gori are a problem, since they're both hard to reach, and probably the most in need.