have to come back (to Lahore)

A lasting impression of Lahore, an eastern city of Pakistan, close to the Indian border, where I spend about a week before I went on, is:

I need more time to go back, understand, float through the city, taste the local cuisine and enjoy it.

Although this is mainly what I did, as these were the first days for me being alone in pakistani streets and orientating myself, I was overwhelmed and too buisy coping with my impressions as to extract the very important single features of the city.

Of course, the common knowledge about Lahore: it's the „cultural capital“ of Pakistan with art and the -so the locals said- most yummy and delicious cuisine. The influence from India seems to manifest itself at least in the shared history and in an incredible buisy buzzing traffic with uncountable motor-rikshas.

As words can sometimes even harm the impression one can give about a place, I will just shut up and let you look unto the photos until I will gather more knowledge about the place myself and until I will return to enjoy it and to give you more insights about...

Eid (spoken german Iid, english way ead)

After experiencing Ramadan, the muslim fasting-month, in five islam-influenced countries (Syria, Turkey, Iran, the united arab emirates, Pakistan), searching for food in closed or hidden stores that only opened in the night and mainly drinking or eating indoors on toilets or in my own room, had an end and Eid, the final celebration of Ramadan approached.

The first time I heard about Eid, some pakistani couchsurfing friends told me that it would be hard to get a train in the days before Eid, because everyone would be on the way home to the family into the villages or into other cities. When I came to Lahore, where I initially just wanted to stay for a day or two, I realized that I was stuck. I wouldn't get a bus to Islamabad -all full and not frequently going- and I would stay in a big pakistani family, celebrating Eid.

Eid is in the eyes of the children comparable to the christian christmas. People go and buy new beautiful clothes and the pakistani way to enrich the beauty includes gold-shiny bangles and mandis (the henna-decoration on hands).

There are feasts being cooked and the families gather. No more fasting. And the children get money and little presents from the adults.

Officially there are two days off. But honestly: all week long was celebrated as a holiday, no one went to work, the banks weren't open and the people enjoyed the free time in parks or with movies.

What did I do? I played „baraf pani“(/“ice water“), a traditional game with the children of the family, in which one person catches the other, who is „baraf“(/iced) and cannot move until another person touches you to make you „pani“(/water, fluid, moveable) again. And this definitely enriched my Urdu skills. So, if you really want to learn something: get stuck somewhere, celebrate what's being celebrated and play around. You're a child in the new culture anyway.

where the colours are

My first walks alone in pakistan were guided mainly by my own insecurity. Where is it ok to go? How should I act and what should I wear? How shall I react on staring or on approaches by men? Are there areas that aren't safe to go as a single female?

To be honest: I was thrown back onto my own role as a young western, fair skinned, blonde woman. I felt uneasy walking the street and had a constant tension in myself. How to behave, what to wear, where to look or where not.

Buying a shalwar kamize (the local dress) helped a lot as I felt I could hide a bit in it and blend in. Although there is no general rule in Pakistan to wear a head scarf, it sometimes helped to put a scarf over my hair (a „dupata“), so that not everyone from the far can see the blonde shine of hair. (In the first weeks until I came to Islamabad and met some travellers I didn't see any person with blonde hair!).

But there are some other things that helped me understand and get along. A friend of mine told me: „No matter what you wear, if it is with long or short sleeves, if your trousers cover your ankles or not: wear a loose piece of cloth, a scarf or something like this over your brest. This will make the conversation with people and especially men easier and more respectful.“

Pakistani streetlife is maledominated. In some cities or even just areas of a city you might feel it stronger in others lesser. So how do I know where to go and where not? „Look if there are women. When there are local females in the park or in the street, you can go there aswell.“ another couchsurfer lectured me.

How do you find out if there are women in the street or just men at the first glance? You look for the colours. Men usually wear white, brown or grey. Women dress up in bright colours, the shalwar kamiz mostly come in one colour with the fitting dupata (scarf).

Another beautiful thing I've learned: it's safe where the colours are!

in the train

„How did you meet your husband?“

„He was the neightbour of my aunt. As it became time for me to marry, my aunt asked him if he would be interested. So my parents met him. And his parents met me. They decided that we would marry. We didn't meet before the marriage. The night of our wedding in our bedroom was the first time we spoke with each other.“

Silence.


We both look at her child, a girl with such clear eyes she seems to look through my skin onto the shock that has frozen my tongue.

I cannot ask about what they spoke when they saw each other the first time. I cannot ask what she felt before, then or now. I cannot ask if she is happy or if she will do the same to her daughter. I cannot. I stay in silence, unable to ask. It's different when you read about it than from getting told.

Cause, where are the borders of intimacy? And, when do I hurt someone and might not see the line that I might have already crossed?

As we say „chuda hafez“, her face is closed and far.

And as she closed the door of the traincabin behind her, there's suddenly an empty space next to me that I cannot fill. Should I have asked?

In betweens

The train, bus or hitchhiking is an „in-between“. You're out of your normal context, out of your home or working place, displaced in a way from your family and friends to whom you remain in contact with via mobile phone or thoughts. The „in-between“- time can be an hour or two, but it can be a day or several ones, depending where you're travelling, if the traffic is smooth or gets stuck caused by street blockades or belated transportation.

In the „in-between“ you can close yourself to your own memories and thoughts, to another world in reading (in the european context this starts to get displaced by watching movies on a small laptop) or listening to music or you can make the experience of getting in touch with the other travellers.

In Pakistan, it seems, a lot of things happen in the in-between of travelling. Trainrides are long (Karachi-Lahore 15 calculated hours which turn out to be 24 in practice), busrides even longer (for example on the Karakorum Highway) and from wedding invitations, to „we cannot close the window, we need the cold air as this man has got a dead body with him“, everything can happen.

Karachi. welcome

I arrived in Karachi, one of the biggest cities in Pakistan with over 14million inhabitants and the economical hub ob the country.

Karachi lies in the south of Pakistan on the arabian sea. It feels a bit like an urban octopus that is fetching workers and is always expanding its boundaries (now stretching over 3500 sq km). Karachi is a cosmopolitan city where different ethnicities and religious groups live (not always) peaceful next to each other. There is a big Hindu, Christian and a Zoroastrian community to be found and I lived with some great open minded and well (better than me) educated christians for some days.

My first impressions of Pakistan?

I saw a lot of motor-rikshas, colourful busses and heavy loaded motor bikes in a crazy traffic that seemed to have no system (worse for me as they drive here left side, a british-colonial left over).

Modern clean shopping malls with fancy clothes co-exist with street bazars, where you can see the animals before they're being slaughtered.

I visited the tomb of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of the pakistani state, who lies in white marble silence in the middle of the rumoring city.

The camels on the beach, which carried local tourists around on the fine and silvery sand amazed me

aswell as the sight of pakistani women bathing in full clothes (yes, we're not in bikini-showing europe anymore, swimming goes in full shalwar kamize for women. Just some westerners seem to have hired the right for jumping around in minimal clothing on the French beach, which is a beach just accesible for foreigners or for high society members (as there has been a scandal recently about a ministers daughter bathing in a bikini on the french beach).

Another thing that amazed me were the first unsecure spoken sentences in Urdu that I exchanged with a local family...

And then, after some days, which were like a rush of colours, smells and tastes to my head, I left the city, but for sure to come back there.

blanc page. Pakistan begins

What kind of pictures come to your mind, when I say „Pakistan“?

Bombed busses on muddy streets with wailing women crying aloud over the loss of their children?

Mountainous little villages without electricity, where children are being taught to be Taliban fighters?

Mullahs with turbans condemning America and the west?

I don't know what you saw on TV or on the news, but... have you ever thought how streets look like in Pakistan or a normal living room? How does an urban city centre look like or a university? Are there shopping malls? And what kind of sweets do the kids prefer? What is fashionable and what kind of music is on the radio? Do they write sms to each other? And what does the taxidriver think about his job? Maybe he's not a poor fellow without education, but recites a poem for you?

My imagination on Pakistan was basically a blanc page. The only pictures produced in the west about Pakistan are political meetings or about attacks on military infrastructure. A good friend of mine put it in very good words in saying: „they report about schools being closed or bombed or women not being able to teach there at the moment, but no one writes about the fact THAT there are schools, THAT there is a normal life and THAT there are women teaching. They're not interested in showing how life is, but on how bad the world is.“

So what happens when you go there and just find out? Come with me...let's try out some months at a university in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan!