I'm Not a Tu-tah...

Hong, the girl from the tailor shop, came over last night so that I could tutor her in English. She didn’t have any books or anything with her, so I didn’t quite know what to help her with. We talked a little about what she wanted to learn and she said that her written English was her big problem, so I had her write a few paragraphs about herself and I went over them with her to correct them. I’ve also realized just how much I don’t remember about the technical grammar of my own language. I can tell you how to properly construct a sentence; I just can’t always tell you why a given way is the right way. So telling a Vietnamese girl who’s learning English that you should make a certain word choice “just because” probably isn’t too helpful. But I was able to figure out the main things she needs to work on, I gave her some tips for practicing, and I think we’re meeting up again tonight…? She said that if I come back here longer, she’ll teach me Vietnamese, which would be really fun. I told her that, since her writing skills are what she most wants help with, she can send me e-mails even after I leave and I can try to help her out that way. She’s a very sweet girl, though, and she works in that shop for not a lot of money, and only two days off every month. But her entire family is poor, so she makes better money than the rest of them, because she’s at least in a bigger city. I was, once again, reminded of just how fortunate I am. If I *do* get to come back for a longer chunk of time (doubtful, unfortunately), I think I’d have to insist that she let me pay her for lessons or something.

Once again – if I *ever* mention anything about being “so poor” again, someone please smack me. Really, really hard. It’s all about perspective, isn’t it?

Yesterday was a good day – another long day at the office, but those tend to be typical when we’re in the field, from what I understand. The PM’s wife came by the office at lunch, so she and D and another woman here and I all went out to lunch – by way of a place that sold pashminas and pretty lil’ silk things. D had a silk shirt made, which looks lovely on her, so the rest of us browsed while she tried it on. I was looking at some of the things in this store, and I still can’t get over how little things cost here – you can buy a ¾ length, hand-embroidered silk coat for $60 - $75, but if you tried to buy it in the States, it would cost several hundred dollars if it was any kind of decent quality. However, I’ve gotten better at impressing upon myself the distinction between “want” and “need”, so I left the lovely coat on its lovely hanger in the store. (The sleeves were too short anyway…) The PM and his wife leave today, so we said our goodbyes last night, sadly. They’ll be in the US for a wedding in August, and she’s coming to DC for a couple of days, so I told her to make sure she lets me know when she’s in town. I don’t know when I’ll next be in Addis Ababa, so I doubt our paths will cross any time terribly soon.

Uh-oh – the IT guy is back. Apparently, he told D that he felt really badly about messing up her computer and wanted to fix it for her. Like I said – not a bad guy, just perhaps in over his head. So he’s here trying to, at least, get her administrator login changed back. The thing that makes me nervous about that is that my IT guy in DC said that changing the administrator login can be tricky, and he doesn’t like to walk people through it over the phone, because you can end up with a really nice paperweight instead of a functioning laptop, if you’re not careful. I clearly know nothing about this. I did, however, pass this little nugget of information along to D. I suppose she trusts him, so I *do* hope he can fix it enough for our IT department in DC to fix it. I, however, have learned my lesson and have no plans to let anyone touch my laptop ever again.

I just had a chat with the new PM about what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks (I decided not the mention the new bed linens and the Christmas shopping, as those parts didn’t seem really relevant), and once I said it all at the same time, it actually sounded like a lot, so that was a good feeling. Now I just hope that he doesn’t read the methodology that I’ve written and say “wow – what a moron”. Although he’s from Norway, so he might choose different words. I also haven’t heard him speak enough to really capture his accent yet. Just give me time…Like I said, however, he seems quite nice, so I think we’ll get along well for the one week that remains before I take off. Actually, less than a week – including today, I only have four days left in the office. Gah! Time is just flying these days, it’s all moving so quickly! He asked if I was available to come back for short periods of time in the fall, and I said that yes, I was. So maybe I’ll have a little time to return once again. Who knows? I am going to guess that I won’t know for a while. Since I already have a multiple entry visa that’s good through the end of December, a lot of notice isn’t likely to be required, despite the impracticality of last-minute travel. I would, however, like the opportunity to continue with this project, as it’s been a really good learning opportunity. But coming back for a few weeks would be preferable to a few months, all things considered. We’ll see.

So, do you know what I hate about Microsoft Word? Okay, that’s actually a trick question because I hate many things about Microsoft Word. But today the thing that I hate the most is when it decides how it wants to format things for me, despite me objecting and making it clear that I would, in fact, like my document to be formatted a different way. No, no that’s okay Microsoft Word, you know best.

Grr…

In any event, life moves on, and I should be able to wrap things up here fairly well. I have no idea what I’ll be doing in Pakistan, but it will be nice to see Lois, and Faruq and Samina. The rest of it…well, I hate to admit it, but I’m glad that it will only be a few more days, I think I’d start to suffocate beyond that. I’m going to ask Hamid to take me around on Saturday afternoon to take some pictures, though. I’ve taken tons of pictures since I’ve been here in Vietnam, but not so much in the ‘stan, even though I’ve spent nearly equivalent amounts of time in each place. With everything that’s going on in the world these days, I’m also thinking that keeping my time in Karachi to a minimum is a good idea.

We went to the market to get some produce today at lunch, we browsed a little, and I got a few last things for folks. It’s funny, when you’re bargaining with the sales girls, you’ll say, for example, that you’ll pay 55,000 dong for something when they’ve just told you the “price” is 75,000. They say 70,000, you say 55,000, they say 60,000 (last price!), you say 55,000, then they say “okay, 60,000, thank you, Miss!” at which point you have to say “no, 55,000!” because they’ve already started wrapping the stuff up, at a price that isn’t what you said you’d pay. Interesting sales technique – I wonder if it works often. As soon as we left Ben Thanh, my old curse came back and we were pelted with massive rain drops as we made our way across the street and over to our lunchtime destination. Unfortunately, D’s shoes aren’t made for running in the rain and she lost them halfway through the intersection we were running across. She recovered and managed not to get hit by a car, but we were all basically soaked from head to toe by the time we got to the café. One great thing about linen pants? They sure do dry quickly. Hurrah for that!

The afternoon dragged a little, because I still can't sleep well and I was fighting to stay awake. However, I'm back in my litttle studio apartment, which may be mine for even longer than I thought - my boss is coming and we may want to overlap our time here so that we can all have some time to be on the same page before I leave. I don't know what people in Pakistan are going to think about that, but...well, I like it here better. So I suppose I'll let everyone else work that out. Or something like that.