Shah Jamal Fix it

I’m just three days away from leaving Pakistan and I can hardly believe that nearly a year has passed since I stood getting crushed by old ladies in the passport queue at Islamabad airport (now known as “Benazir Bhutto Airport”). It has been a difficult year but I am happy that I came here, it’s been an amazing learning experience and I have had some fun too. Unfortunately for you, two of the highlights of this past year have happened in the past few weeks so this entry will be a long one. One was definitely my recent trip to the North of Pakistan but firstly I have to try to describe to you the delights of the Shah Jamal Shrine.

Shah Jamal is a Sufi shrine where hundreds of Sufis and other well wishers flock every Thursday evening. Sufism (Islamic Mysticism) is a branch of Islam that, according to the Lonely Planet, pursues spiritual emancipation and unconventional manifestations of the religion. I wasn’t exactly sure what they meant by “unconventional manifestations” of Islam , but having now visited the shrine I can tell you that it definitely includes a lot of hypnotic drumming, energetic dancing, spinning routines and getting stoned.
When we first arrived in the upstairs section of the shrine we were ushered into a special “foreigners section” at the edge of the room which was already pretty packed. Everyone was staring at us, so I was quite relieved when the real entertainment arrived: the Saeen brothers, a legendary drumming duo one of whom is totally deaf. The room seemed to get more and more packed and we found ourselves the object of the attention of some young men sitting in front of us. Pakistan is known for its hospitality to guests and true to form these guys rolled and passed us joint after joint. We thought this was a very kind gesture but then it went too far and they decided to give us jewellery too, including the earrings straight out of one bloke’s earlobes, apparently saying to our Pakistani friend: “you know what we Pakistanis are like with guests!”

The revelry was rudely interrupted however, when someone in the next room was electrocuted. The ensuing furore caused the crowd to surge forcing a pile of people to fall through a narrow doorway to our right. Everyone around us leapt to our assistance, ushering us into the gated, highly decorated tomb of a Sufi leader. After the crush we decided to head downstairs to where the spinning takes place. We were sat in a pretty peaceful part but I felt a little unnerved when some crazy old dude started beating the people who were sitting at the front with his shoe and physically throwing them out of the way, just to make room for the spinning. We sat and watched while twenty men, in clothes colourful enough to make Joseph’s dreamcoat look like a dish rag, leapt and spun around the arena while 7up bottle-bongs stuffed with 20 “naughty” cigarettes were passed through the crowd. We got home just before dawn in time to hear the klaxon sound to indicate breakfast time for Ramazan observers. Shah Jamal was probably the most insane situation I ever have found myself in, I don’t think I want to go again though.

The next day I had to pack and leave for the North feeling tired and ever so slightly dizzy. 3 other volunteers and I flew into Gilgit and were met by our guide Fida, our driver and a bright green open-topped jeep which made me very happy indeed. We decided to take advantage of the clear weather and head straight to Fairy Meadows. Little did I realise that getting there involved an hour long jeep ride along a narrow mountain path, a journey so terrifying that my face contorted into expressions I was not previously aware I was capable of. Fortunately I had vaguely remembered some advice I was given to sit on the right of the vehicle so I wouldn’t be able to see the sheer drop down the enormous mountain face on one side. I was feeling slightly smug about remembering that tip and about the fact we had survived the journey when our guide announced we had a 3-4 hour climb ahead of us, with luggage.

In fact we made it in 2 and a half hours but I was in a lot of pain and bloody frozen when we reached the campsite. Admittedly it did seem almost worth it when I saw the view of Nanga Parbat, “The Killer Mountain” from the balcony of my wooden hut.

The walks we did over the next few days brought cute local children demanding biscuits as payment for being in photos and views that must literally have been breath-taking, given the puffing and wheezing coming from my side. Indeed having spent a long and sweltering hot summer spent sat by an air conditioner consuming mangoes, I was forced to admit to being an embarrassingly unfit slob. So it was that on the fourth day of the trip, climbing up to the base camp of Nanga Parbat that I decided to travel by horse.

Without the crushing chest pain, suddenly everything seemed a hundred times more beautiful. I was able to appreciate the views of the mountain, the friendly locals strolling effortlessly past with miserable, heavily laden donkeys and the stunning farming village of Rupal, the home of our guide, where we stopped for tea with his family. Oh yes, I survived the journey to base camp with just a sunburnt nose and a sore botty.

At this point I started to feel pretty sad that I only had six days to make this trip meaning only a day or so in the Hunza Valley. We stayed in the highly recommendable Eagle’s Nest hotel that sits high in the valley overlooking Karimabad (previously called Baltit, the ancient capital of Hunza) and visited the two forts in the town. Again I feel compelled to comment on the amazing warmth and welcoming spirit of the Northern people who waved and smiled and chatted to us wherever we went. The children were especially sweet with their pale eyes and dark skin. Even very young children (boys mostly) were roaming free around the city, some in wheelbarrows like these two, who followed us through the winding streets with cheeky grins on their faces.

It’s hard to believe that the beautiful places I visited are in the same area associated with extremism and clandestine Taliban activity. I can’t imagine that there would be anyone living among these hospitable folk that would not welcome visitors of all kinds with open arms. During the course of this year I have tried not to think too much about such things, almost to the point of complacency. However, sadly the first day of the trip coincided with the attack on the Marriot hotel in Islamabad and I flew back into Benazir Bhutto Airport with my heart in my mouth knowing that there had been a bomb scare there as well only the day before. As I nervously awaited the return of my backpack, hopping from foot-to-foot desperate to leave the airport, I noticed how no one else there was showing quite so much of the whites of their eyes as me. Perhaps this nasty business has just become a part of life for them or they find comfort in their religious beliefs and that frequently used saying “Insh’Allah” (God’s Will).
That about brings me to the end of this entry which will be the final one on this blog, I don’t think the Pak’d off pun will really work for a blog about travelling in India. I will have to come up with a new title, something adventurous yet classy like “India-na Jo”. I’ll work on it and let you know. Bye for now.

Happy Ramazan!

A couple of months have passed since I last blogged and much has changed. The weather is still suffocating but the monsoon is here and Lahore is flooded on a weekly basis. Mango season is coming to an end so I have been filling my time in other, less fruity ways, like learning Pakistani cooking and going on zoo visits with a charming Rastafarian wannabe. I was actually pretty impressed to find the animals in Lahore zoo looking active and healthy and then I spotted a family feeding wotsits to an otter.

Another development is that I have moved placements once again. I am now on my 4th VSO placement in the space of a year and, given that there are only around 7 organisations in my programme, I think that officially makes me the (metaphorical) whore of the VSO Pakistan HIV & AIDS programme.

To sum up for first timer readers, it had become apparent that my previous placement organisation was not in the least bit interested in helping me achieve the objectives on my work plan and I was feeling most frustrated after enduring two other failed placements. One thing I did manage to do was to enlist the help of a web design volunteer to build the structure of a website I designed for them. I then set about autonomously researching, writing, getting pictures and putting the whole thing together.

I’m pretty proud of the end result although it’s not online yet (many issues there, best not to go into it). But after that was done it was noted that there was no point in dragging it out anymore and I have been moved to another, “rival”, organisation to sort out their website. It’s been 3 weeks and I’m pretty happy there. The people are all very friendly and there are two office mascots, they are called Office Dog and Office Baby. O.B. is a very cute little girl who just turned 1 and enjoys playing with office furniture.

However drama is afoot in the office at the moment! A few months ago the organisation sent a mobile testing unit to a village outside of Lahore, they tested 272 people and found 92 of them HIV positive, the majority of whom are female. This is a very shocking result for a country considered to be low prevalence for HIV & AIDS but what is more shocking is the reaction of the local institutions who should be supporting the newly diagnosed people. It seems that many of these people were infected via “therapeutic” injections from a local quack. The Quack’s practice was shut down but is working hard in the community to discredit the organisation and the local media jumped on that band wagon berating the Chief Executive and calling him a scare-monger. The local mayor has refused to let us work there unless he is given the names and addresses of all the HIV positive people and the local health officer and government official responsible for the HIV and AIDS programme in the Punjab are giving out false information about the individuals in question, writing them off as drug addicts and adding to the stigma.

Stuck in the middle of this grotesque circus is the organisation trying to focus on providing care and support to the newly diagnosed people. The worst of it is that no international donor is, so far, willing to pay for medical treatment and care and support saying that their budgets have ended for the year or they don’t fund that kind of thing. The whole situation is shocking/tragic/disappointing/horrifying...the list goes on really. Nonetheless, being here while all this is going on has been an eye-opening experience. I have learned a lot and feel that it’s a shame I wasn’t placed them earlier. I’ve only got another two weeks and that’s almost the end of my Pakistan adventure. The last leg is a trip North to see the Fairy Meadows, Hunza valley and Gilgit which promises to be an amazing experience.

I can hardly believe my time is nearly done. My feelings about leaving are mixed. I feel disappointed that my placement didn’t work out as I had hoped, but pleased that I managed to stick it out for a year in spite of everything that went wrong. There are many people I have met here that I will be sad to say goodbye to. I am also lamenting the end of my free Urdu classes now that I’m just starting to get the hang of it and freaking out my Pakistani friends with my linguistic skills. However, apparently Urdu is basically the same as Hindi which is spoken in India and it’s very similar to Nepali so will be useful on my post-Pak travels...

all the fun of the fair

The ubiquitous know-it-alls “They” say that living and working overseas is an emotional rollercoaster. Those daily ups and downs can feel ten times magnified when coping with the fun and games associated with living in an alien culture. The previous two entries were definitely tales from the trough or more accurately the office or the tr’office! But this week saw a change from the usual routine in the shape of some fun training sessions and a weekend away in the mountains.

On Tuesday and Wednesday the whole team took time out from our busy schedules to take part in some training sessions given by a refreshingly straight-talking American lady from UNICEF. On the first day we had a lot of fun performing role plays designed to help us come up with advocacy strategies to combat stigma and discrimination faced by children affected by HIV & AIDS. I gave a heart wrenching performance as a HIV + child being harassed by the ignorant owner of a fairground played to comic perfection by my colleague Moin, with Mary as a passing healthcare worker persuading him to let me play with the other children.

The second day was even more fun as we learnt how to give sessions on a creative therapeutic technique called “Body Mapping” which has been used among people living with HIV in Africa. The process starts with participants lying down on an enormous piece paper and having a partner draw around their entire body twice (in two different postures). Through a series of exercises participants build up a picture, in and around their silhouette, of their life, environment, their feelings about HIV and the challenges they face along with their support networks and positive thoughts that help them keep going. We made one between the whole group, so ended up with a wonderful mess of child-like drawings and a mutant body with a blobby hand protruding from what was meant to be my face.

The weekend started at 4am on Friday in Islamabad F11 Market when three other volunteers and I stood in strong winds, our faces getting whipped by sand waiting for a taxi to the airport to catch a flight to go Chitral in the North of the country. I say tried as we never succeeded. Although the others had spent about 5 hours trying to book and confirm the flights it turned out that they hadn’t played the game according to the elusive Pakistani rules and our booking had been cancelled. There was still hope however, we could go along and put our names down for tickets on the chance that some passengers don’t turn up. This option is also available on the Buses for anyone who doesn’t have a booking. In Pakistan anyone can phone up the bus company and book as many seats as they like without having to pay until half an hour before departure. 15 minutes before departure, unclaimed tickets become available and passenger-hopefuls rush to the counter, elbows a blazing, to get their tickets. This process is all part of the aforementioned ‘game’ and is aptly named “Chance” after the yellow cards in Monopoly (I hope). After 8 months in the country, I have become quite skilled at forgetting my British queuing etiquette in favour of elbow justice, however there were no chance options available on Friday’s flight to Chitral; it was fully booked. We spent a further 45 minutes trying to get a refund from the airline before catching a cab back to Islamabad. I wonder if the outcome would have been different if we had opted for “Community Chest” instead...

Contingency plan was implemented as follows... We took another chance on a bus to the mountains north of Islamabad. Thanks to some hardcore elbow action, within less than half an hour we had boarded a bus to Abbottabad where we stayed with an older Canadian/Pakistani volunteer called Mubarka. Mubarka was a great host and the fuss she made over us made me feel like I was visiting my Grandma! Abbottabad itself was unbelievable; a beautifully decaying colonial town set in the hills and filled with the friendliest folk I have met in my life. Before coming to Pakistan I had heard much about the legendary Pakistani hospitality but although I have made many lovely friends here, I had not quite been convinced by my experiences in Lahore as a whole, possibly because it is suffering from the same big city syndrome one finds in London or Paris. Having spent just a day in Abbottabad, I finally understand what the guide books were saying about the friendliness and warmth of the country. Locals were actually shouting “welcome, welcome!” as we walked in the bazaar. As usual we elicited some staring but it was modest and curious not sleazy as has unfortunately been my extremely common and very daunting experience. I felt really uplifted and just wanted to talk to everyone and thank them for being so hospitable.

On Sunday we went to Nathiagali and walked through the mountains: superb views and rolling fog giving an ethereal atmosphere which just cannot be effectively portrayed by photos. The small mountain town was full of Punjabi holidaymakers hoping to escape the humidity! As is frequently the case when we go to tourist attractions, we became the centre of attention while every passing tourist group asked us to stop for a photo. Being a bit mean and suspicious I refused to take part, Corrie agreed a few times before getting sick of it as well and giving flat refusals, much to the disappointment of our fans including one 12 year old girl who followed us into a restaurant and stood at our table for ten minutes having a tantrum! She had the most extraordinary howl I have ever heard but we did not wish to pander to a spoilt child so ignored her as best we could!

My final piece of news regards progress on the troffice side of things. Yesterday VSO came to visit for a partnership review on our tip-off that our placements aren’t working too well. One would expect that details like those I described in the last few entries would deter VSO Pakistan from investing time and resources in our organisation. We were disappointed but not surprised when the HIV & AIDS Programme Manager announced that, whatever the outcome of the review, VSO would continue to work with them because there really aren’t that many HIV organisations working in Pakistan. I have to say I find it amazing that VSO Pak have recently managed to procure a substantial amount of funding from the Dutch Government for the HIV programme when there are so few HIV organisations to work with in Pakistan and even fewer of any quality when you consider that ours is supposedly so pivotal.

Fortunately for us, the HIV team arrived accompanied by a visitor from VSO head office. He told us that VSO country programme offices were under a lot of pressure to form partnerships and place volunteers as the only means of quantifying the work of VSO to satisfy donors. However, this does not mean we should compromise on quality and he agreed that VSO should not continue to work with an organisation where volunteers can’t be effective just because there is no one else to work with. I am hoping that he will hold VSO Pakistan to this and that they will keep their promise to stop further volunteer placements if no improvement is forthcoming.

To finish on an upbeat note, it’s mango season here in Pakistan and I have been eating 1-3 of the heavenly fruits per day. The method of eating is to gently squash the mango so it becomes mushy below the surface of the skin, then you make a hole in one end and suck out the contents. Today I have already had two and it’s only lunch time. For lunch I had my favourite; potato cakes made with chilli and coriander. Small things! Ooo more mangoes have arrived!

Busted! Ok, I admit it, you've caught me slacking off work! Was it the blank expression that gave away the daydreaming or did you look over my shoulder and see that I'm engaged in some light internet surfing?


Yes, I'm a naughty girl, I'm here as a volunteer to do my benevolent bit for humanity and instead I am checking out the news online and sending personal emails. I hang my head in shame at the sorry state of my philanthropic endeavours and admit that progress has ground to an absolute halt. I'm certainly not happy about it but it's not easy to work with people who don't want your help and don't actually do anything for me to help with.... Indeed if you look around me you'll see that no one else in the office is doing anything either.

The management team are out of the office on various training courses and meetings but this is not unusual and does not support my claims of abandonment. Even when they are here, very little can be done withut the authorisation of the Director. I haven't yet figured out whether this is down to the personal preferences of the Director or a cultural tendency to show unquestioning respect for ones superiors.... Either way, this poses a problem for the organisation. The Director of the NGO is increasingly absent and when she is here, she is busy on the phone or with visitors leaving the staff sitting idle.

I have started many peices of work as per my job description and only gotten so far before having to ask questions or get help for the next steps and am still in suspense. In the interim I have started on other things and have now run out of things to make a start on. The Director shows little to no interest in helping me to complete my aims and I'm not the only one. Here we have 4 outreach workers and a psychologist most of whom I have never seen leave the office except at the end of the working day.

I concede that the organisation is not completely inert, but this the case for most of the staff. It's not their fault though, the Director seems to be obsessed not only with making all the decisions but also with doing all of the outreach work herself while those hired to do the job sit twiddling their thumbs.

As you may have gathered, I'm concerned about the stagnancy of this orgnisation which has the potential to acheive so much, But I'm also concerned about my placement. From the volunteer perspective we are here to help the organisation improve but none of our work can be finished without the cooperation of the organisation in question. The staff seem willling but the Director is not prepared to support it.

I have been told that it costs around £10,000 to fund a VSO placement and most of this money comes from the UK's Department for International Development (DfID). From the numerous training courses I attended before VSO shipped me out, I have gathered that mine is quite a common outcome for VSO placements. However, far from making me feel better about things, I'm more inclined to wonder actually, if so many volunteers return home feeling that their work had no impact, then shouldn't VSO be trying to improve this?

whose rights?

I know it’s only been a short interlude after my previous blog entry but something happened last week that shocked me to the very core and I felt the need to share it here.

As happens regularly in the office, one of the HIV+ members of the organisation came in to visit on Monday. He brought with him his two young daughters and wife wearing a full “shuttlecock” burkha, which consists of a fitted head compartment with a mesh over the eyes, the rest of the material billowing out from the chin. The husband went into the Director’s office while the woman sat facing the wall in the room where I sit and tended to her grizzly 18-month old. Some of the female staff chatted to her while the men talked among themselves in the other room.

I didn’t see anything unusual in this but then a colleague came over and told me in a whisper what was going on, the husband has been an HIV + member of the organisation for years but has never disclosed his status to his wife. Now their 18 month old daughter was very sick and the man feared that the virus had been passed on to her. He had brought the girl to us to be taken for testing, having told his wife that we were "doctors". If the child was HIV positive, this would mean that the mother was too. Unless some unspeakable abuse had happened to the girl, the most likely way she could have contracted the virus was through mother-to-baby transmission in the womb, during delivery (the most risky time) or through breast feeding. Therefore, the mother must also be HIV positive.

Now, given that the man had been a member of the organisation for years, I am assuming that he will have been equipped with all of the knowledge about the modes of transmission and methods of prevention. He will also have been encouraged to disclose his HIV status to his wife. However, somehow his wife and therefore unborn children had been put at risk. I was confused as to why the organisation were working with a man who would put his wife and child at risk like that, however apparently disclosure rights include the right not to tell the person with whom one is having sex. This applies in the UK as well. I find this surprising given the level of risk involved and the legal ramifications involved in putting another person’s life at risk in any other way. I read somewhere that the UK recently brought in a law that made it possible to prosecute people who knowingly transmit HIV. The booklet in question condemned this, claiming that it added to stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV. The issue is a difficult to assess. I agree that this could lead to “witch hunts” or unfair prosecutions, likely to get nowhere with evidence so difficult to provide and achieving nothing but adding to the stress of living with HIV. And if we start prosecuting for HIV transmission, it probably wouldn’t stop there, I can imagine the situation spiralling out of control leading to newspaper reports of successful prosecutions for transmissions of the common cold!

However, can it really be the case that no responsibility be placed on people knowingly living with HIV to prevent their passing the virus on? Yes, people are responsible for their own sexual health but in a “trusting” relationship or marriage it is much less likely to be a consideration especially when trying for children. Furthermore in countries like Pakistan, people do not have the knowledge or access to services to look after their sexual health. STIs are not seen as a problem in a culture where people are expected to “save themselves” for marriage. Indeed it is highly unlikely that the woman in the burkha has any knowledge about sexually transmitted diseases (as is the case for the majority of the Pakistani population most of whom do not receive even basic education) and her husband did not deem it necessary to educate her either. Furthermore in Pakistan many women do not even have a say in their own health as it is seen as the responsibility of her family or husband.

Indeed, the sad and shocking end to this story is that a few days later, I found out that both mother and baby were tested, without explanation as to the purpose of the test. Both tested positive and from what I have heard, the lady has still has not been informed about the status of her baby or herself.

6 months gone.

Apologies again for the long intermission between blogs. I’ve been suffering from the little known condition “bloggers block” and a severe keyboard allergy. However when I looked at my calendar last week and noticed that I hit the 6 month anniversary of my arrival, indicating that I’m now halfway through my time in Pakistan, I felt that I really should mark the occasion with a blog entry.

First I’ll start by summarising the events of the past month. I’ve actually been pretty poorly, suffering from various symptoms including upset stomach, fatigue and dizziness. I went to two doctors who were completely over the top. I was prescribed an antibiotic for giardiasis, some caramel flavoured medicine (dunno what for but it was tasty), two types of pills for IBS, some bubble gum flavoured oral rehydration salts, a pill for stomach cramps, a yeast drink and some anti-anxiety pills(despite my protests)! I was also subjected to a blood test and a urine test, neither of which gave much indication of what was wrong. A day later I shelved all the ridiculous medicines and checked out the side-effects of my anti-malarials on the instruction leaflet. BINGO. I did not need to take a thousand medicines, all I needed to do was to stop taking the one medicine I had been taking all along.

So that’s paludrine and chloroquin binned. Until I sort out an alternative, I’m being extra liberal with the mossie repellent which is definitely required as it has started to become unbearably hot. Today I’m happy because the temperature has finally retreated, for the first time in weeks, from the early forties into the “coolness” of the mid-late 30s. Unfortunately this makes little to no difference to the clay oven that is our home and which somehow consistently manages to achieve a temperature around ten degrees higher than it is outside. In a bid to soothe our boiled body parts, last Thursday the other volunteers and I joined up to an ex pat club where there is a pool and spent the entire weekend in it, or basking in the shadey bit next to it. This will make things alot more comfortable over the summer. As will the house we’re moving to at the end of the week. Thankfully VSO have also kindly agreed to let Mary and me move house and we have found a place that stays cool, even in the afternoon, has a little garden, is near to all sorts of conveniences and most of our friends’ homes and is close to the centre of the city. I’m very excited indeed, ceiling fans and coolers are all very well, but the regular powercuts we have here ensure waking up in a pool of sweat at least two or three times per night.

So, it seems I’ll be looking forward to a summer of swimming, sunbathing and evenings in my house and the houses of friends (those who have air con) and of course, working. Which brings me to a point that I think summarises my feelings about the past 6 months in Pakistan, which is this: It’s not exactly the cultural experience I was looking for, when I signed up to VSO. Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite happy here. I have made some nice friends and we always have a good time and of course, I can’t complain about spending my weekends lounging by a pool and having food and drink brought to me. But the whole point of VSO is that we’re supposed to live like locals, on a local wage and really experience the culture. This is what attracted me to the programme. However, the latter has not been an easy feat to achieve given the restricted social life here. I have mostly found myself slipping very comfortably into friendships with other volunteers, British Pakistanis and Pakistanis who have studied in the west, and I have very easily found that we can live a life not unlike that we lived at home (minus the swimming pool).

I could be accused of not making enough effort to get into the culture, many of the Pakistani people I have met on the street, in shops or driving rickshaws have seemed very friendly indeed and are keen to welcome foreign guests into their country. Unfortunately one always has to exercise an upsettingly large quota of caution because there are also many people who see westerners as walking ATMs or the western women, as “easy” (though I prefer the term “sexually liberated”). In addition to that, women in general here have a hard time. Being both white and female has made me the target of a very distressing groping incident right outside my home and a horse-n-cart drive-by wanking, again in the vicinity of my home. I’m so glad I’m moving.

As for my job, well I’m quite happy with that. I’m disappointed that the first 4 months of my time were effectively wasted but I guess there’s still an experience there to learn from and it has made me even more determined to achieve something where I am now. And actually, most of the time I am getting stuck into something which I find interesting and gaining some really good experience. I’m also getting quite a unique insight into some of the social problems facing the country, just from talking to colleagues and hearing the stories and circumstances of the various positive people who visit the office. Also, in spite of the whole spy/toilet/manipulation debacle of March, I like my colleagues and think there is a good atmosphere. I do hear snippets of gossip that there are more politics afoot than my limited Urdu allows me to understand and for that I am pleased. Hearing some shouting followed by just one or two sides of whatever story is unfolding at the time can be more unnerving than knowing nothing at all. As a result of this realisation I have adopted the policy that ignorance, in the face of office politics, is bliss.

Given the experiences I have had and the amount I’ve learnt since being here, I could make so much more of this 6 month review, however I’ve already written so much. Therefore I have decided to round things up with a few top 5s of my time in Pakistan

Top five things about Pakistan
1) The food (see below for more details) – I really like Pakistani food, fresh coriander features everywhere, meat is always present and the thought of rich spicey flavours is making my mouth water right now (where’s my lunch?...)
2) The clothes. Salwar kameez have really grown on me. I thought covering up in the heat would be really uncomfortable but there is a wide variety of cool, thin cotton material available in amazingly funky patterns. I love haggling for a nice material and then collecting it from the tailors later on. Also tailoring is so cheap, I have been getting stuff from home copied in material I have purchased here.
3) Decorations – Pakistani people really know how to decorate for a good party or every day. Fairy lights are a staple of extravagant weddings to simple bazaars.
4) The friendly people – as I mentioned before, I regularly meet with people who will go out of their way to be helpful and friendly, especially the people you find outside of the touristy areas who are often genuinely pleased to receive a foreign visitor.
5) Anything is possible. Yes, the country is corrupt and the police system unreliable, but the flip side is that people are less restricted by the types of over-cautious rules we have in the UK. Driving for example is hilarious chaos, yet somehow seems to work as well as it does in western countries.

Top five food and drink items (in no particular order). So much to mention but I’ve wittled down a list.
1) Chicken Handi – a delicious type of curry that is slightly sweet and made with ginger, nuts, garlic and coriander.
2) Special Roll Paratha from Karachi grill near liberty Market – Chicken tikka with salad, onions and mayonnaise wrapped in a greasy flat bread called a paratha (it’s the same as “roti” sold in Thailand) serve with mango chutney dip. Yum.
3) Freshly blended fruit juices and milkshakes – available from all over the city, notably the aforementioned Hafiz Juice near anarchali. Favourites include strawberry and apple juice and strawberry banana mixed milkshake.
4) Mutton tikka. Served with mint and yoghurt. Yum.
5) Mutton chops North West Frontier Province style, cooked in salt and very tender.

Top five confusing things about Pakistan
1) The sideways head tilt – it’s seems to mean “yes and/or no”
2) Numerous staff members in every shop and complicated mechanisms for purchasing things . One staff member to point out things you might buy, another to negotiate a price, another to take it to the till, another to calculate the cost, one more to take the money. It’s not over yet...some other person wraps your goods, another takes it to another place where you collect your purchases from yet another individual. Phew.
3) Salt in Juice?
4) Time doesn’t seem to exist – people will keep you waiting and waiting for things and when they finally get around to arranging them, they can be done in an impossibly short space of time.
5) Marriage. I’m slowly getting used to the idea, but I still can’t get my head around the fact that a wedding between two people who have never met can be arranged by relatives and take place within 3 weeks of the proposal.

birthday frolics

You’ll be pleased to hear that this week’s blog entry sees the author a lot more upbeat and enthused after a fun birthday extravaganza weekend. The day itself saw many highly appreciated well wishes, thoroughly amusing e-greetings ranging from soft porn to Christian in theme. People at work provided a cake, flowers, the required fuss and a happy birthday girl once again feeling like part of the team.

The afternoon brought more flowers and cake and an enormous fruit basket all of which Mum had somehow miraculously managed to have delivered to my place of work. I’m telling you, the woman is an internet shopping guru, I was stunned by the enormity of the basket filled with melons, oranges, bananas and apples and an enormous bouquet of flowers decorated with a big red bow. The delivery guy was extremely proud as it was his first fruit basket/flower ensemble and seemed genuinely touched by my promise to send a picture of it by email and proclaiming the gift “hoopserat” (beautiful).

In the evening we went for a delicious steak meal and the following evening Carmel, Andy and Corry some of our VSO colleagues came to visit for the weekend. Some of our local friends joined us as well and booze, cake and a ridiculous hat were enjoyed by all.

The following day four hung-over VSO volunteers enjoyed bacon, eggs and beans for breakfast while one poorly VSO volunteer (Andy) looked on longingly (Mwah ha!). You might wonder how we got hold of the aforementioned booze and bacon...um...and you can just get on with that cos I can’t tell.

Eventually we decided to venture out to a bazaar in the old city called Anarkali which I’ve not visited before. We all rode together on a Qingqi which is a motorbike with a little carriage attached which has seats facing backwards and forwards. We let the three visitors sit on the back and laughed as the mad Lahore traffic continually sped past missing them by literally a hairs breadth.

Anarkali is a bustling bazaar filled with a diverse range of shops and friendly local faces. We stopped for fresh juice and milkshakes at Hafiz Juice, a very famous and popular spot among Lahoris. I recommend apple and strawberry but remember to tell the waiter that you don’t want salt in it (potentially eurgh unless you like that kind of thing).

On Sunday Corry was keen to go to the Wagha border and Cat’s boyfriend Joe had just arrived for his 6 month placement so again Cat and I found ourselves watching the ministry of silly walks. It’s still impressive and entertaining though and this time around we arrived early enough to see the procession of Indian spectators arriving on the other side of the fence. Ijaz our taxi driver who came with us commented on the fact that the Indians all managed to arrive together, in good time and in an enthusiastic procession while the Pakistanis continued to arrive in drips and drabs: “it’s because the Indians are more organised”!

Indeed it was strange to watch this group of people only 20 metres apart from us and living only 30 kms away from Lahore in Amritsar, yet the differences are immense. Indian men and women along with foreigners tourists (many more on their side than ours) all arrived together in the parade whereas the Pakistani side had three entrances: a seperate one for each group. Brightly coloured clothing was worn by everyone yet the gender segregated stands on the Pakistan side contrasts the drab greys and greens of the men's clothing with the bright fabrics on the ladies’ side. On the Indian side and everyone sat down together and there were no Burkas or hijabs to be seen. This brings me on to the final observation, the numerous Sikh turbans bobbing through the Indian crowd really brought home what I already knew about the partition of India along religious lines, but the contrast was suddenly so clear. It made me want to cross the border and go and explore and see more of the differences between the two countries. That said, the performance by the strapping Pakistani border rangers is clearly FAR superior to that of the skinny Indian guards with the girly fringes on their hats so maybe the grass isn’t always greener...