Where we were, what we saw

The greatest feature on the iOS platform is iPhoto.  What I love about it the most is the geo-location capability.  I have become a "red-pin" collector.  Here is the image from our trip.  The pins represent where we were and what we took pictures of.  We covered a fair representation of the Pakistani part of the district.  We will have to go back some day and map the rest!

Leaving Lahore

We got up and spent another hour or so packing before breakfast.  Today was going to be a traditional Pakistani breakfast, Once packing was done and breakfast was over we sat in the living room and went over pictures and discussed much of what we have seen and then meandered off to the airport to meet up with everyone else for fond farewells.  Once through Immigration and Customs, we had some time to take in the terminal and the shops.  Everyone found something they really liked... and that starts the journey back west and the next chapter of this blog. 

What I want to do now is reflect back on some of the pictures and experiences we have had and make some more generalized comments and relate some detailed thoughts….so, stay tuned!

Out of the Blindspot

After breakfast this morning, we went off to the Law College to do our Rotaract Workshop.  Bhaktiar and Faisel accompanied Tom, Julie and I for the morning (10-2 actually) with a group of about 40 rotaracters from around the city.  We led them on an abbreviated U journey with the intent that they would come out of the day with a series of initiatives that they had energy about enough to keep going.  The session went quite well, we generated a number of ideas as to what the problems were and then when we gathered around those ideas, they changed and morphed and matured into projects that seemed to be actually undertakable and be successful.  It was interesting how there was some good overlap and synergy between both other initiatives in the group and other initiatives currently being undertaken by rotary in the community.

Following the workshop we went back to Bhaktiar’s house, rested for a couple hours. We then dressed for dinner and had tea with the family, before going to the center for a trip retrospective with hosts and organizers, followed by the gala finish to our trip.  We got home after midnight, packed a little and flopped into bed.

The journey to Bali-wood

I don't care what anyone says, the only weather in Lahore is beautiful with traces of dust.  We had another wonderfully leisurely wonderful breakfast staring fresh orange juice and eggs and a most splendid firm ricotta, still warm from the pot.  This was a semi soft cheese and allowed us to slice it.  The milk, unpasturized, came from the bufalos down the lane at the local farm. After that, I don't remember anything else we had to eat - that was it...the culinary highlight for the trip.  Honestly, everything else was splendid, the curries and the naan and the other stuff, but the warm bufalo ricotta slices on toast was worth the trip. Moooooooo.

After breakfast we trundled over to shezhad's and I don't care what anyone says, the only weather in formed a posse to go out to Kujer and see Bali's village.  The program for the day was simple – go visit Bali’s village, see the library and some bufalos. Now to start with, my initial concept of Bali’s Village was perhaps some thing on the order of the little enclaves we saw out in the fields on the way to Islamabad – small, tight, little communities. First, the village was no where near at simple as this.  Second, neither was the agenda.
We started the itinerary with the drive out to Kujer, through Farooqabad, just to the north of Lahore.  The drive was about an hour and though became more rural, there was never a stretch that was not quite heavily populated. We passed a rice processing plant and huge overloaded wagons that must have been rice being towed by little tractors.  Then we went through an industrial area with oil tank farms and power plants puffing yellow smoke and polyester spinners, and all kinds of other places as well.  Outside the tank farms were huge concentrations of tanker trucks, all seemingly waiting to be loaded or unloaded.
And, through all of this, they were replacing the main road…by hand.  The road seemed to be dug up, a dusty dirt strip upon which tractors were dumping piles of large stone that people were smoothing by had and then other wagons were dumping sand and cement (dry – this is what it looked like) that was then raked smooth and then steamrolled and then, ast some future point, I assumed, tarmac would be laid.  So, all through this dusty undertaking, oil trucks were parked on both sides and traffic was trying to move between and around.  There was no semblance of trying to stay in lanes or even respecting sides on the road – it was like this big free for all with everyone moving where they wanted to.
We finally made it to our first destination, which was a boys school in Farooq.  We walked through the gates and into a gauntlet of rose petals! We were then accorded to a little ceremony where we awarded several of the boys who were able to answer some polio fact questions with books, caps, pencils, and other rotary stuff.  Julie gave a little speech and we had lots of pictures taken (by Bali, but not with!).
We were then swirled away and taken back the way we came, through a bunch of alleys, to a vocational training center where the rotary had set up a place to teach girls how to sew and had donated a number of hand crank machines that would be able to handle their needs.  We met the girls and saw the operation and took pictures and all, and then sprinted off for a visit to the village.

After driving across the fields we drove into the village with our 4 car entourage and parked in a little compound on the edge of town.  Most of the “streets” were dirt alleyways too narrow for a vehicle. We were festooned with rose necklaces and Bali made turbans for the men (these were a sign of respect for the wisdom the wearers were supposed to poses…but they did gave one to me, so perhaps their reasoning was a little suspect).  We then went off to the girls school and again were warmly welcomed.  We again made a little speech (Shazhad did)  and we handed out composition books to all of the kids.  Then we took pictures and walked around to the boys school.  It shared a wall with the girls, however, to get there we had to walk around through a lot that was growing fodder, past some cows (and a dead dog), and then back into the boys school.  They were doing exams in some of the classes, so we had a smaller presentation and gave out more composition books and took more pictures.
From here, we went through the village and over to the community center.  This was Bali’s ancestral home, but they had turned it into a center with a lending library and a computer laband a reading room.  It was quite spectacular, given where it was.  They also kept the records of the Bufalo Project here.  We saw the library, and the records of check in and outs (mostly Urdu books and frankly not all that many for a village of 6000, but remembering what the literacy rate was here, it was pretty phenomenal.  They explained that there were several folks in the village who had go on to achieve masters and a bunch who had don bachelors and many who had at least 10^th grade.  Over all, it was quite heart warming (btw, the last English book that was checked out was a Daniel Steele).  The computer lab was nice, not state of the art, but certainly better than the one at Teach a Child (I found this interesting).  The machines were off as the power was off (they had longer outages out here than in the city), but they had USB/Cellular internet connections (when they ran). 
All this was followed by a wonderful lunch (way too much food), of fruit and rice and curries and dal and and and and it was great.  And a wonderful rice pudding for desert.  After the meal, it was almost 2 and so we made to leave.  We walked down the alley ways past our new friends.  School let out at 12:30 and so the kids were all around now and many of them lined the alleys as we went by.  As we turned the last corner on the way back to the cars, from what seemed to be nowhere, a marking band formed.  It was spectacular.They marched us back to the cars, gathering more and more kids as we went, until we got back to the compound and it was so full of people no one could do anything…so Bali started to dance. 

After a bit, Shezhad and Bali had to quiet the band and the only way they could chase the kids away was to send the marching band out.  The walked way some what dejectedly and we got into our cars and began to drive out of the village.  It was not too long before we could see the band walking along up ahead.  They turned a corner to the right and we almost caught up to where they turned when they all came bolting back out around the building back towards us and across the street down another alley.  Half a moment later half a dozen bufalos came running behind them, back up the road and passed us at a full trot. 
2 lessons: You never know when a marching band is going to form around you, and bufalos trump bands. 









We drove out of the village, back the way we came and over through Lahore to the fort, We then spent a couple hours walking around both the Fort/Palace, and the Mosque.  We were there during prayers, so we got to listen to the call from the pavilion.  It has incredible acoustics!
From the mosque, we went and had a light tea and then went over to the Gymkhana Club for Anthony’s birthday party and got to meet the leaders in the Christian community (including the Bishop of Lahore).  Then it was time to return to our hosts (11pm at least) and the day was done.

Day #9 – back to FAST

Dawn broke to a very pleasant surprise.  There was power.  The nominal time for the DHA to have no power is 6-7 in the morning.  This morning, hey! When you pressed the lightswitch, you got light!  Nice way to start.

We started the day with a traditional Pakistani breakfast of eggs and French toast.  The toast was pre-sweetened – the egg batter having some sugar in it – so no syrup was used.  There were two kinds of toast though – regular and spicy.  The spicy was pretty neat – but sweet and heat in the same bite!  After a cup or two of tea, we packed up and Bakhtiar took us over to Shezhad’s and we split up.  Julie to go do hospital visits with the rest of the team and Tom and I to return to the National University for another agile day.  Shezhad accompanied us for the day and so it was quite nice.

We did pretty much the same program as last week with a couple of changes – Tom updated the slide deck so there was less swapping and switching between computers, and we tightened up our presentation approach.  Shezhad also tightened up the Rotary pitch based upon the response from the crowd last week. We again had about 150 people, more students than professionals this time, but still some.  Again, the only volunteer to sing the invocation was a young lady, so much for that preconceived notion of inequality.  I still find the female students more reserved than their male counterparts, but that is true in many US universities as well. About 6 slides in the power went off and the switch over period was non-trivial in terms of time.  After a moment or so, I figured I needed to do something, so since the laptops were on battery and were still vivid, I just kept presenting and promised to show them the slides later on.  I did refrain from wandering around the stage, just so I would not end up falling off J (that would be bad form).  After about 5 minutes, the auxiliary lights came on, but the AV guy had inadvertently taken the remote for the projector with him and we had no way to restart that.  So I continued and promised to catch them up on the slides later.  Eventually the remote came back in and we got the visuals back up, but no one missed a blink.  The power outages are so much ingrained in the society at this point that except when there is an occasional glitch in the switch over , no one notices them.

We had a good 3-3 ½ hours and then did lunch (pizza hut).  The chancellor came swirling in towards the end and we sat for another 10 minutes talking about the University, who he was, his team, his background, and all that.  He seemed much more positive and engaged this week (maybe cause his exams were over).  We presented a stack of agile books to the University and met the librarian (who wore a burkah, though not a black one).  There was a moment of concern as to what the americans would say, and so they explained her credentials to us before introducing her.  I find it funny how sensitive they all are here as to what we think of their dress.  I have been lent a Punjab dress outfit and when I wear it here, apparently I pass as a local.  There is a sect of lighter skinned folks form farther north and apparently until I open my mouth I am transparent to them.  There is indeed a certain amount of “the dress makes the man” in all of this, but where does it leave being the identification of success level of the individual and start being socio-economic prejudice?

After presenting the books, we went upstairs and had the advanced seminar.  There was a larger crowd this week, but we had changed this program slightly as well so that we relied less on the slides and more of a free flow of ideas.  Instead of the coffee game, we estimated how long the tea break would be (it was put into the 21min bucket and actually too 30, so probably should have been put in the 34min bucket, but then that would have probably stretched too).  We reduced the amount of discussion before the game and played all three iterations and it was great.  At the conclusion of it all, we spent some time answering questions and making contacts and receiving more wonderful gifts and taking pictures.  Then we went off to Max’s for dinner and discussion.

I never did hear how the hospital visits went, but I heard they got to play with eyeballs (not really).

Monday is school day!

Back in Lahore.

We started the day with breakfast at Bhatiar's house and then we met up with the rest of the team at the Rising Sun academy. On the way we saw a little chicken butcher, so we stopped in...

Rising Sun is a school for the special needs children in and around the campus. They have almost 300 enrolled and they handle just about every need and every level of need. The interesting part of the there work is the very high teacher to student ratio. One can clearly believe it is because labor is cheap over here, but at the same time, one can also believe that it is because it is effective. They have made great strides with their work and the children seem to become quite adept. Those able to excel, but with physical disabilities are challenged to the greatest extent. Those who are not are taught both vocations and basic skills by which they can look after themselves. Again, they do quite a bit with out very much. They have a strong autism program, again very manual, but quite effective. I talked to them about linking with some of the specialist schools from the states and maybe doing exchanges of approach, if not people.

The second school we went to was the Aabroo school (aabroo.org). They have 8 buildings across the city and work with 2500 students. They work with those children who can not afford anything else and who would not be going to school at all. They have been operating for 10 years now and though started in the headmistress' house, is now fully enclaved in purpose built buildings. When we visited, the power was off, but school was still operating as if nothing was different. They have battery backups that run a couple lights (and the tea boiler), and windows to keep things light. This building was running two shifts of school - and was able to thus deal with a great number of students.

The most fascinating part was that the schools, all within the slums, do outreach to the nomads who set up tents on the empty lots. If the children won't come into the school, which they often won't, the school sends vans with teachers out to the tent communities for half a day or so. They also have started funding the school by collecting "dry" trash from people's houses (in bags) and bringing it to a building near the school to separate for recycling. They are funding 30% of their budget with this.

Not only do they provide education, but uniforms, books, and meals. It is the full spectrum, because their philosophy is that the second 3 pieces are necessary for the first to happen properly.

From Aabroo we went to another school (the Rukhsana Association) that had also been started in someone's house. This one was in the city, rather than the slum, but was still for disadvantaged kids with not enough money to even cover uniforms, and so they were given to the kids as well. We brought notebooks and pencils and got a great welcom from these kids. At Aabroo, they conducted most of the lessons in Urdu. At KB, most were conducted in English. I was astounded to see that when you looked at the kids, all lined up, they could be from any school in the US (OK, maybe not in NH, but at least in norther california). RA is now housed in 3 adjoining houses and treats 300.

After we were done with the RA visit, we went over to Ali's Dream Lounge for lunch and a smoke. The food was great and the company wonderful, but it really was too smokey for me. We lingered at the lounge until 5 and then went over to a healthClub for a tour and a movie. We saw Bol, which was nominated for an oscar (but did not win) last year and was a local product. It talked to but fundamentalism in pakistan and how honor killing is an accepted practice. It was a good movie, long, and controversial, but good. They even gave us popcorn. We had dinner in the restaurant there at the club and tried to sneak out as early as possible so I could prepare for tomorrow's sessions at NU/FAST.

Day #6 - Lahore Bound and the Defense Housing Authority

We had breakfast early at Pervez’s farm house and hit the road by 8:30.  We would have gotten going earlier, but we forgot Tom’s cupcakes (again) and had to send a runner back for them.  They were delivered to us enroute by a motorbike courier.  We wove our way through Sunday traffic in Islamabad, but though is is a work day for some, traffic was very light.  Pervez said this was the way it was in the good old days (10 years ago) during the week, but no more.

There was lots to see on the way out of town and we took many snaps. 

As we entered the salt range, we saw (finally) a major accident – they had brought a crane up to pull a car back up out of the ditch.  It apparently slide/ran off the road on the mountain side and into a drainage channel that was at least 6 feet deep.  Only the trunk was visible from the road.  The second car of folks (Tom and the Brooks) said the car was already on a flat bed trailer when they came by, so the extraction must not have been too onerous.  We went up the range and back down the other side – the rock striations are pretty fantastic. 

We pulled off again at Bhera and hung out at the little rest area off the highway for a bit, waiting for the entourage from Lahore - our own little slice of heaven.  A wedding came through and many busses.  When every bus pulled in and sounded their horn, droves of salespeople swarmed the bus with trays of goods, from oranges to popcorn to french fries to sodas and coconut.  Didn’t seem to be many takers, but then it was tough to follow the commerce.  Finally, Shezhad and his posse pulled in.  Tom, Julie and I were to ride with Ali from I2C (the sponsor of the Agile workshop at the university) so he could ask questions about Story Points and Release Planning and oh so much more.  In return, we got treated with the Pakistani view on the War on Terror.  I think we ended up with the better side of the bargain. 

Once back to town, we were dropped of at our new hosts – Bhatiar and family over in the DHA.  Since it was Sunday and everyone was off, there were cricket games going on everywhere.  It was quite ingenious to see all the different things that folks were using for wickets.  We had a later lunch with our Host family an checked our emails and then a short rest.  We were due to the Spring Carnival in Eden Avenue for the evening and so trundled off to that obligation. 

We spent a little time at the rotary Polio Eradication booth and then had dinner with Satwat’s club at Javel’s house to talk about the potential for an Eden Avenue library and then followed it up with a brief stop at the musical evening at the carnival.  We all got introduced again with many pictures and Julie sang to the community and then danced a traditional Pakistani line dance with about 50 kids.  What a night.

Day #5 - Islamabad

Today was a black day for the team.

Dave, Shelly, Michelle, and Julie all fell to “taliban tummy” – an equally derogative term for Montezuma’s Revenge.  Dave fell first, followed by Michelle and Julie but to a lesser extent.  Dave was on bed rest all day, though the rest trooped with us for the morning.  Shelly was initially buoyed by her better ability to with hold, but suffered a double stroke in the afternoon and she and Michelle returned to base camp to rest and recover (hopefully).  Shelly thought that she and David were probably done in by eating roadside coconut (no – don't do that!).  I am thinking, given the wide spreadedness, it was more likely yesterday’s lunch at the guest house.  There must have been something in that….from the salad to the oils or chicken.  Something….

We had fresh eggs for breakfast and the morning call to prayer was accompanied by the roosters crowing.  A nice touch.  At one point during breakfast, a car alarm went off and the Peacocks answered.  Another nice touch!

After breakfast, we went to the Islamabad Club and had tea while we waited for our rides for the day.  They actually had coffee (served black, to the aghast of my hosts) and better yet, a speedy wifi signal! (yea!!).  I used both!  Then, we went out to Taxila, the museum of Buddhist artifacts that have been uncovered in several villages (or remains of villages) around the east of Islamabad.  Accordingly, Buddha started here and they have a trove of artifacts to prove it.  The most phenomenal thing with these artifacts is how sharp all the edges are, as if they had never been handled, as if they were newly fashioned.  These were all carved out of various stones (limestone, onyx, etc.) but, there were also some spectacular terracotta figurines as well.  As part of the excavations, they also found trinkets and other bits of daily life in all materials from bronze to gold to wood and other metals.  From cookware to toys to urns et al.

The curator was so taken with the fact that he had half a dozen keenly interested americans, though his associate/underling told us more than once that he was the best curator, he had to because the Prim Minister of Sri Lanka was here last week and he gave the tour; the curator kept saying it was more of an honor to show americans his treasures.  He gave me a book and his name and his cell phone number and told me to pass it around and get more americans to come over to see what he had!

After the tour, we had a soda in the garden while the ill tried to still themselves for the trip back.  In the parking lot of the museum, there was a man with a cart with a fire underneath heating a large iron wok-like skillet that he would spill some corn in and pop it.  It smelled heavenly….should have bought some!  Prior to hitting the road, we stopped briefly so that our guides, from the rotary club of Islamabad bought us presents (agate bowls and necklaces for the women) – what generosity everyone has shown. On the way back to the main road, we stopped at the train crossing for a train and then headed back to town.

On the way out, we drove through a market area and passed what seem to be a goat market (many of the buyers, sellers, and goats were still there on the way back) and a cow market (which seemed to be over – there were no cows left, but we did see some on trucks). The road was lined with dealers of heavy machinery (all used or very used) and truck stops where multitudes of the funky spectacularly decorated trucks stood being fixed or awaiting loads or unloads.  Instead of driving around town, we drove through and split up – one car taking Michelle and Shelly back for some rest.  Those remaining went on to the Butterfly Valley Golf Club for lunch with a couple more clubs, including Peshawar South.

Butterfly Valley is a new development (a huge one) of concrete houses and apartments and office space. Curiously, they have dinosaur statues in it too.  It if more formally Bahria Town, but I think that is made up too.

We had lunch with some great people, all wanted to let us know that the areas to the mountains were not dangerous, and that any danger comes only from the fanatical fringe, which is in the US as well.  You could not disagree, particularly when they ask how many murders there are every day in the US cities.  I talked with a man who used to work for IBM Global services until he decided to come back to Pk in the 90s to start his own offshore company.  They did well until 9/11 when all of his contracts were canceled.  He could not keep the company together while he looked for more work and so the company went under.  I have now heard it from 4 people that 9/11 was the deathnell for the Pakistani outsourcing.  The most vocal about the need for americans to not quiver in fear but to get out and see for themselves that there was nothing wrong in Pk was a commercial banker.

To close out the lunch, the staff had the keeper bring out one of the two pet lions.  A junior male cat of about 150 pound.

We came home and dressed for dinner. Pervez’s daughter in law made red velvet cupcakes for tea, but I was the only one around to eat them (everyone else had gone off for naps).  They were quite nice, particularly with a cup of strong tea.  We dressed for dinner and went back to the Islamabad Club where we had a short meeting and a nice buffet style meal.  I sat next to the Assistant Inspector General for the Police and across from the retired Defense Attaché to Germany and Central Europe. I also talked to someone from the local internet provider who was a bout to embark on an MBA at MIT Sloan and another gentleman who was going to a freight forwarding conference in Boston in April.  Julie sat next to a woman who split her time between here and England, but when she was younger, lived in Derry NH for a year.  Tom sat at the inner wheel table next to a Japanese woman with a greencard who was working for some NGOs in Bangladesh and Islamabad.  She has been working on developing Sesame Street in Urdu and getting it through the regulation (and ensuring appropriate content).  Small world.

Day #4

Today was Trade Day.  Our destination was Islamabad and we were going to trade hosts from the great folks in Lahore to a new set up north.  The drive is about 5 hours and so the plan was to break it into two parts and take a couple hours around lunch to stretch our legs at the Salt Mine in Khewra in the Salt Range.  It is supposedly the second largest mine after the one in Poland, which I have incidentally been to, without knowing it was the largest.  Now, apparently, I need to find the third largest.....

Once we were off the highway, we got to drive through a couple little towns.   The first was on the old sea bed and though the land was pretty desolate and arid, there seemed to be a vibrant business harvesting what little firewood there was.  And the most popular way to do this seemed to be with camels.  

We were traveling in three cars and our lead car almost ran into a wayward bufalo that decided to cross the road.  We successfully wound our way to the mine, past all the humanity, on the terrible roads, dancing among the tractors and trucks and bikes and donkeys and motorbikes and cars. 

The mine was great.  there was a bridge across the river/outflow and then a little electric mine train that took us about a mile into the mountain.  Then we walked around the mine (levels 6 and 7 out of 17 - 5 up and 11 down from us) and saw some of the chambers and some things they built with the translucent salt bricks.  It would be really cool to get some of the bricks, but they turn out to be fairly unstable outside of the mine.  Without constant humidity, they dissolve in the damp and crumple in the dry.  (Spoiler - we did get some crystals to bring home and we were given a gift by the Rotary Club that was sponsoring the visit).  The coolest room was a passage that had grown crystals on all the walls - there were salt crystals in white/clear (NaCl), pink (MgCl) and red (Fe-based salt).  There were also gypsum crystals that were growing, too. 

When we went to one of the little places to buy souvenirs, the most interesting thing was the stalactite-type crystals they were selling that seemed to have started growing auxiliary crystals from the humidity.  

After the souvenirs, we went to the guest house and had a presentation from the sponsoring club and lunch (ah.....lunch...sigh), and then drove back to the highway, past the camels and goats and bufalos and everything else, and met the delegation from Islamabad to exchange vehicles and drive us the rest of the way.  We all went up to Gov. Prevez's house, on his little farm and had a great dinner - then split up again for the night.

Though they had a great generator at the place we stayed - you barely noticed the power going on or off, but the internet was about as weak as could be.  Sigh.  Can't have everything.  The big big plus was fresh oranges from their trees and a rooster for the morning (and peacocks too....lots of peacocks!)

Day 3

Today we split into three groups: Michelle and Claudine did the library tour and spoke at the national library; Julie, Dave, and Shelly went to the veterinarian college; and then the five all went shopping (and saw a camel). Tom and I started at 9 at the university, spoke to about 150 folks - a mix of young professionals and college kids, with shezhad and Bali. Nevil introduced us and shezhad did a bit on polio and rotary and then we had a young lady sing an invocation from the Koran. That has to be the most beautiful way to start an agile training course I have ever seen. We did the presentation somewhat more free form than usual, I tried to keep the group engaged without any major cultural faux pas. We got through about half the slides before the SW eng class had to go to their midterms. They all seemed to enjoy the talk- I even worked in an anecdote on Julie's wedding shoes and all the women in the audience tittered. Language was not a problem. Tom got to do his task board pitch after the kids left to the remaining 20 or so professionals that stayed and we had several rounds of great questions.

Lunch was then with the faculty. They were mostly US educated- the dept head  did his phd at nyu. Apparently many professionals come back to PK when their daughters get to marriageable age. The faculty was curious about rotary- it was not something they were familiar with and kind of dismissed it.
Shezhad explained what rotary was and what they did and I went through how my stuff (agility) and rotary went together. We got polite nods, but I am not convinced they got the concept. A little disappointing.

The afternoon session was for 35, including several 'C' level folks from several companies. In the introduction we talked a bit about poising PK for a 'pole' position in IT outsourcing for when world capitalism has forgotten all about the current issues with fundemtalism and political corruption. People nodded politely, but their assessment was pretty negative on the forgetting part.

We spent an hour or two on slides and discussion and tried to keep the game to two, but by the time we overcame technical difficulties with the game pieces, almost three hours had gone by. After a short wrap up we left the room to be cleaned by the staff (it was a mess) and went to visit Nevil's office, and then to dinner back with the rotary group at Irtezah's, where he wanted me to show his mom the pictures of colored eggs!

On the way home, we stopped at no less than 8 banks on the way back to shezhads with no joy. We will need to find a bank when we get back to repay the rupees we have borrowed!

Last thing to do tonight is pack for Islamabad, where we are off to first thing in the morning!

Day 2

Tuesday started with a simple breakfast of a sliver of omelet, toast, jam, banana, and tea or instant coffee.  Julie chose instant coffee for us, but it was not quite enough to hit the spot.  I feel like I have been in a perpetual caffeine withdrawal daze.  The tea is liptons, but even so, it seems light in the caffeine department.

We then did two school visits with the entire entourage.  First to an affluent school – a small school that does essentially k-12 and is conducted all in English.  Charming kids and wonderful teachers, many who have been to the states for study and pleasure and who have kids or relatives there.  One of the Rotary leader’s kids goes to the school and they are going to participate in Claudine’s letter campaign with the Amherst schools.  The have both a rotaract and an earlyact group there.

The next school we went to was the Teach A Child school (teachachild.org).  They cater to a unique group – those who have IQs of 110 or above and live on $2/day or less.  They offer a premium education for those too poor to buy one.  The concept is being run as an experiment to see if the children are offered the same level of education as their more affluent contemporaries if it is not a viable way to help them break the cycle of poverty for themselves and their families.  They are 12 years into the experiment and if they can remain viable through out, they believe they can help make a major shift in the socio-economic situation over here.  The Rotary is already supporting them in a big way.

We have a pretty compelling video that I need to upload, but here is a picture of the $150/person lunch Julie and I had.  We left them with $300, enough to sponsor a kid for a year (and incidentally, the same money we were going to use to spend on presents for everyone back home….oh well.  Sorry guys).

After the time at the school we came back to the house and cleaned up and drove out to the Wagah border for their fantastic flag lowering ceremony with India.  It was pretty cool – here are a couple pictures form the area an a link to a video with some of the action!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeSX6AZ5xEI . Actually, the coolest thing was the dove that sat on the Indian flag pole for the entire ceremony.

one of the Rotarians taking pictures of Indians taking pictures of Pakistanis

After the ceremony, we drove back to town and had a formal meeting of all the Lahore clubs, gave flags and received presents and had dinner.  Then it was actually over to Max’s for certified non-muslim beer, replete with the required license that Anthony has.  The local Pakistani beer is a high alcohol lager (why doesn’t that surprise me).

Daybreak Redux

The first thing we did on the way back to the airport was go through another of the roadblocks.  For reasons Shezhad was not able to suggest, we got stop and asked to get out.  Could be Shezhad was driving through talking on the cell phone or it could be there were white guys in the back seat, but who knows.  They were very polite (so it seemed, most of the conversation was in Urdu) and we had to show our papers (passports and visas) and our presence had to be both explained (the Rotary business card) and registered.  Our information was dutifully written down and we had to sign the book.  Then our passports were returned and they wished us good day and a pleasant afternoon in flawless English, which mostly seems the way here.  One thing I can say, the post had a fair amount of reasonable fire power, including a heavy machine gun or two.

Shezhad said the check points look for people trying to bring explosives into the crowded(er) parts of the city and cause general disruption.  While we were having out information copied down, they seemed to stop closed trucks, panel vans, and the occasional decrepit non-panel van.  Each was looked in and search visually, but it seems to be enough of a deterrent.  Another of those things we don't hear is that they have had several instances where explosives have been discharged at the checkpoints, but none in the populated parts of the city.

Dinner was a family affair at Shezhad’s house, a pleasant mix of dishes and rice and fresh orange juice with tea afterwards.  Balti form the countryside (and the buffalo project) is in the city with us this week, staying at Shezhad’s as well.  He and Max and Tom and Shezhad’s inlaws came for dinner.

I would write more, but the power has gone out again, so it is time for bed.

Daybreak

Daybreak

So the first thing I did this morning was look out the window to see what the view was I photographed earlier this morning…it turned out to be the neighbor’s wall and their air conditioning (with a doves nest on top and a sparrow inside). 

We went back to the airport for Noon to meet Claudine and Melissa and to have a grand fete with beaucoup rose petals and much much pictures!  After that, Tom and I went off to have lunch with Max and Saleem.  Max is a HypnoTherapist who helped the 2009 Cricket team to their world championship.  Saleem is the CIO of a small College.  We had lunch on the grass at the Gymkannah.  It was very pleasant with the golfers all around and the Peacocks screaming in the background.

After lunch, Tom and I went to Max’s to work on our presentation.  Saleem went with us and we talked of many things, ceiling wax and all, but we did not make significant progress on our presentation.

Alas. 

Softlanding

The flight into Lahore was rather uneventful. After flying on a 380, it is amazing how small a 777 feels. What is more, I have to say that Emirates is an exceptional airlines. We flew 14 hours from JFF and then 3 hours from Dubai and both flights were more or less packed full and yet the service was quite a standard above what I am used to from American carriers, and perhaps even Europeans. The food was edible at all the meals and they actually gave you menus from which to pick from. Now, you did get foil wrapped tin plates, but you also got real metal utensils.

I tried to tweet a picture of us in Dubai, but it would not load - I am assuming bandwidth problems from my phone, but who knows - here it is...the intrepid group of us, less Michelle and Claudine who went to try to crash the lounge.  Here is us and the Brooks' and my friend Tom Looy from California.  Julie felt so much better with her coffee!  Tom was aching for a HagenDaaz (on the other side of the walkway) and the Brooks' were pining for the spruces! (behind us).

Getting off the plane in Lahore seemed to take longer than in Dubai, even though there were about 150 fewer people.  When we got out of plane and got down to Immigration, it seemed to be mostly a free for all with folk forming a soft kind of queue.  It took about half an hour for us to ooze our way to the front and get processed.  They looked over our passports and visas very carefully and no, we were not the only americans traveling in.  We met a young lady (25ish) in the queue who was Pakistani by descent, but had never been to Pakistan and was coming to find relatives.  She was wondering if we were in her hotel.  She was from New York (Brooklyn, it sounded like), wonder if we will see her again while we are in town.  Once out, Shezhad and Satwat were there with a small contingent to welcome us.  It took about an hour to find our luggage and get it scanned (not sure what for), and we were off into the cool humidity of the Pakistani night. 

On the way into the city, we passed through a military checkpoint.  A curiousity, but not really out of place.  The folks manning the check point were actually quite well armed.

Once at Shezhad's we moved our stuff upstairs and fell into bed.  But before we did, i took a picture out the window to tweet back home showing we were here.  I was a little surprised at what I saw - not so much the legos on the windowsill, but how pitch black it was out there.  It had been lighter in the street.  (btw - Shezhad did give us a little torch for the bathroom in case the power went out - they have common scheduled and unscheduled blackouts where different parts of the city has no power as there is more demand than supply.  They have battery powered UPS' that cover some of the lights, but not all.)  Here is the picture I was not able to tweet.