Ok folks… so I've been in Pakistan for about a week now – time really does fly. In this past week, I managed to get around to some important places in Islamabad – mainly work and the marketplaces but that's really about it. In my previous postings, I've noted how Islamabad seems very unreal compared to what I imagined Pakistan to be or at least what I've heard it is like. I've been told that Islamabad is a "dead city" compared to Karachi, Lahore and even neighbouring Rawalpindi. Well, little did I realize what those who said that really meant when they said it.
Back tracking a little, I finally met up with a very old and dear friend who lives in Rawalpindi (the locals call it Pindi for short). She had worked in my hometown, Malacca about 10-12 years back in the late 1990s with a few others as nurses in one of the private hospitals in Malacca. She and another Pakistani nurse attended the church I grew up in and befriended my parents. Over time, we became very close and they spent a lot of time with us. We visited them quite frequently and they would accompany us on trips out of town etc. Well, the whole lot of them left in 1999 and we all but lost touch. Strangely enough though, about 2-3 weeks prior to my departure for Islamabad, I received a random message on Facebook from someone who had a similar name, asking me if I was so and so from Malacca. I instantly recognized her profile and thus a long lost connection was re-established. Oh the wonders of Facebook and the internet at large!
Coming back to present day, my friend Rehana is now married with 2 kids, aged 9 and 7 and the whole family lives about 20-30 minutes away in Pindi. So we finally arranged to meet up today (after I got my necessary security clearance) and I spent the day with my didi (big sister in Urdu/Hindi) Rehana, her husband, Tahir and their two children – Rachel and Jeremiah. I thought we were going to spend the entire day in Pindi, but they had other plans. Anyway, they took me around Islamabad and showed me some of the sights. We went up to the Daman-e-Koh viewing point in the Margalla Hills National Park in Islamabad. The views from there are just spectacular!! Islamabad (I should really start referring to it as Isloo….) The monkeys we saw on the way up there had to be at least twice or three times the size of the ones who used to create havoc at my old office in KL. After lunch in the city, I got a drive-by tour of the Parliament, the President's & Prime Minister's residence as well as the Supreme Court – all magnificent structures. We then ended up in Rawal Lake, which sits between Isloo and Pindi and serves as the main water source for the city. It was HOT but the trip was worth it. We then left for their home in Pindi.
The drive into Pindi was quite an experience. I recall how everyone had told me that how vastly different Pindi is from Isloo. Well, one can tell almost instantly when the city line is crossed. In a way, Pindi is very much what I imagined Pakistan to be. The city is hot (not like Islamabad's any cooler, but the combination of exhaust fumes, heat etc. make the heat really stand out), bustling (read: chaotic) with traffic – pedestrians, cars, lorries/trucks, taxis, busses, auto-rickshaws and the occasional horse carriage or donkey cart. Pindi reminds me a lot of Kisumu in western Kenya but is somehow a tad more chaotic – I never imagined that there could be a place more chaotic than Kisumu. With that said though, Pindi is REAL. There is life all around and has a certain spirit to it, which is inexplicable. Isloo is filled with huge – and I mean HUGE mansions and houses in almost every sector. Most of these houses are owned and/or occupied by top military and civil servants, diplomats etc. Pindi on the other hand seems to be where the real people live – the ones who make up the soul of this country, who work extraordinarily hard and struggle to make ends meet. I'm sure there is an upscale section in Pindi, but I did not see it on this trip. I can understand why trips to Pindi require security clearance and why it is strictly off-limits on Friday afternoons – before, during and especially AFTER Friday prayers. (Apparently most suicide bombings tend to take place after prayer time).
As they say, all good things must come to an end (though I'm sure there are those who would question my definition of "good" with regards to Pindi). I returned to Isloo in the late evening. The drive back was an experience that calls for a separate posting altogether. Suffice to say that I was impressed with Tahir's cousin's driving and that I believe with all my heart that driving in Pakistan requires a healthy dose of chutzpah!!
I shall end my posting for today here as I must call it a night. Have a morning flight to catch to Karachi to begin my week-long visit to our project sites in Mirpurkhas in Sindh Province and meetings in Hyderabad (the Pakistani city, not the capital of Andhra Pradesh, India) and Karachi. Till then, good night!
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