Ahh...

I am here in the UK, and I’ve had a wonderful time. I really couldn’t be happier. Apart from getting the chance to see Stephen and Annette and their kids Tim, Oscar, and Esme, which is wonderful, it’s just a more comfortable place for me to be. It helps that I’m on vacation, so to speak, but just to be here is a huge relief.

On Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I decided that, in light of the fact that I had to get to the airport at 2:45 in the morning, I should just stay awake. It would be easier, I felt, than only being able to sleep for an hour or so. I packed everything up, and tried to find enough things to keep me busy until the driver came to pick me up. He arrived at 2:15, and we struggled downstairs with my mountain of luggage. After stuffing it into the car and bidding everyone a fond farewell, we took off for the airport.

Upon arriving at the airport, I was informed that the ticket office didn’t open until 3 am, which wasn’t too bad, I only had about 15 minutes to wait. I was one of the first in line, and was promptly informed that my ticket was for July 20th, my original date of departure, and they had no record of the date change in their system. This is not what I wanted to hear at 3 in the morning. I carefully explained that my travel agent had changed it weeks ago, and that I had re-confirmed my tickets twice the day before. They looked at me skeptically, and a guy took off with my passport and a piece of paper that had my original reservation dates on it. I looked at his retreating form with a growing sense of unease, and figured that I had to call my travel agent somehow and either chew them out or have them talk to the people at Emirates Air. I finally got through to them, and as I watched the guy who, at one point, was holding my passport, walk aimlessly to and fro, I explained my predicament, emphasizing that it was 3 am, and I was spectacularly ill-equipped to handle the situation at my current level of exhaustion. The woman on the other end, Tammy, was very sympathetic, and informed me that the changes had been made and accepted by the Emirates computer system as of June 17th. We talked for a few minutes, and as I saw the shadowy figure of the man who formerly had my passport flitting past me once again, I leapt to my feet and told him that I had my travel agent on the line, and that the reservation had been made for some time, and that I wanted him to speak to her. He condescendingly informed me that it wouldn’t be necessary and that it was alright. I looked at him, barely controlling my rage, and said quite curtly “Unless you are now holding a piece of paper in your hand that says I am supposed to be on the flight that leaves in two hours, it is not remotely alright.” He took the phone and said “okay, okay” a few times, handed the phone back to me and wandered off. I asked the travel agent if she would kindly do me a favor and call British Airways for me to confirm that I wouldn’t have this same problem if/when I got to Dubai. She did, and at that point, there was nothing more she could do for me, as the people at the airport in Karachi weren’t all that interested in helping me.

The supervisor then came out holding the same piece of paper and said “but you were supposed to be on the July 20th flight.” So once again, I explained that I was originally booked on the July 20th flight, but it had been changed weeks ago. At this point, my voice was shaking, and I was seconds away from losing it. I said that I didn’t care if I had to buy another ticket, but that I had to get on that plane to Dubai. I really couldn’t handle the thought of being stranded at the airport, or staying in Pakistan one second longer. He walked away, and I went to go sit back down with my luggage. I like to consider myself a fairly rational person, but when I am greatly deprived of sleep, when I feel powerless, and when I am in the middle of a situation where things that should work just don’t, I have a very unfortunate reaction. I cry. I hate that I do it, but the frustration and fatigue and all of those things just build up and it’s just what happens. My options were crying, or flying into a rage and beating to a pulp all the condescending men behind the Emirates counter who didn’t seem to care whether or not I got on the plane. I, however, cared very much about getting on the plane. So crying seemed like the way to go, because at least you don’t get thrown in a Pakistani jail for crying.

The supervisor finally approached me and said that they would let me on the flight. I made my way back up to the counter, over 90 minutes after the first time I approached it, and they were printing out my boarding cards. I asked the man for my passport, and without looking up, he said “I give back to you before.” This was really the last thing, and I curtly informed him that he did not give me my passport, he gave it to someone else who had walked off with it, and that I wanted my passport back immediately. He then bothered to look up and asked someone else if they’d seen my passport, after some shuffling of papers, it appeared, and with that and my boarding pass, I took off for the immigration line before someone else decided to think of something that was wrong. I couldn’t help but think about how things in Pakistan often felt like they were so much harder than they needed to be. I made it through immigration and up to security, where they made me unpack the entire contents of my laptop bag, which I was happy to do if it meant that I could get out of the country faster. We finally made our way onto the plane, and I settled into my seat, praying that nothing else was going to go wrong. The plane took off and landed in Dubai two hours later, and even though I wasn’t at my final destination yet, I somehow just felt lighter, knowing that I didn’t have to go back any time in the foreseeable future.

I had slept for, at best, 20 minutes on the flight from Karachi to Dubai, and spent the rest of my time listening to the girl next to me tell me about her secret marriage and how she was going to go see her husband but her parents didn’t know and would never have approved. Very star-crossed lovers, and I was doing my best to be sympathetic and engaged, since it was an interesting story and all that, but my eyes were about to cross from fatigue. After landing in Dubai, I got to the British Airways counter and handed them all my baggage claim tags from Emirates, since they were unable to check my baggage all the way through to London. The guy there was very nice, but I had to go to a different counter to pay my excess baggage fee, which turned out to be $200. Yeeowch. But fine – I paid and made my way to the gate.

The flight from Dubai to London is somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 – 8 hours, and it was a fairly uneventful trip. I slept in bits and pieces, a few minutes here and a few minutes there. By this point I had already figured that it was going to be a fairly early evening for me. I got off the plane in London and headed to the immigration line. You don’t need a visa to enter the UK if you’re a US citizen, so I didn’t expect that it would take long for them to stamp my passport and have me on my way, which it didn’t. It did, however, take them a bit of time to get through all the people from Pakistan and parts of the Middle East who were in front of me, given recent events. However, people mostly kept their good humor, and as I said, it didn’t take long at all to get my passport stamped.

I made my way to baggage claim, and found two of my bags immediately. Since it had taken so long to get through immigration, most people had already found their bags, so the carousel was largely empty. The one thing missing was my huge suitcase. I waited a few minutes, thinking that, perhaps, it was at the bottom of the pile in the luggage hold, which I knew wasn’t the case, since I already had my two other bags. I rolled my trolley o’ bags over to the customer service counter, where the very nice guy from British Airways gave me the proper forms to fill out and looked through my baggage claim tags to see which one was missing. He was typing away at his computer and said “Mind you, luv, I’m not sayin’ it’s not ‘ere, let’s just have look. Oh. Sorry luv, it’s definitely not ‘ere, it’s in Dubai. Bad luck there.” I was, however, relieved that he could actually tell me where it was, so it wasn’t so much “lost” as “misplaced”. Misplaced is the far better option, if you have to choose between the two. After leaving contact information and all that, I finally went out through customs, with nothing to declare. I spotted Annette in the waiting line, and there was much squealing and hugging, as we hadn’t seen each other in years. She then told me that, since it had been so many years, she wasn’t quite sure if she’d know me when she saw me, and so had been smiling broadly and subtly waving at every tall woman who had walked out of the door for the last 30 minutes. She said that she was certain people must think she was a lesbian who went to the airport to pick up women.

We got to the car, and I briefed her on my little odyssey of the past 14 hours, and she was very sympathetic, bundling me into the car and saying that she was so happy to see me, and that everything would be sorted out soon. I knew it would, but it was nice to hear someone else say it. She also told me that Stephen had managed to get us tickets to see Guys and Dolls in London for Friday night, which I was SO excited about, I’d been wanting so very much to see it. She apologized for the dog hair in the car, and I said not to worry about it, pet hair didn’t faze me in the slightest. I asked how many pets they had and she said “one dog, four cats, and three feral children”. I adore Annette, and the way she expresses herself. Unfortunately, I wasn’t to see Stephen that night because he was stuck at work pulling an all-nighter. He’s a lawyer and this was much more a staple of his professional existence when he was younger. It’s not as frequent an occurrence, but it still happens from time to time. After the three kids went to bed, Nettie and I stayed up talking for a while, and by 10:30, it was getting painful to keep my eyes open. I went to bed, and managed to sleep until 8:30 the next morning. Given that, in Pakistan time, it was 12:30, that is very remarkable, particularly in light of my whole “I can’t sleep late, ever” thing.

Nettie and I planned to spend Thursday in London so she could show me around a little. We has breakfast with the kids, who are hilarious and energetic and very cute. Tim, the oldest, was the only one I had met, but he was a toddler at the time, so to say that he’s changed is an understatement. He’s a big fan of his X-Box, and asked if I’d play with him. We ended up playing some atrocious WWF game, and for someone who is generally lousy at video games and hadn’t played this particular game, I thought I did well. But Tim and I started to exchange some smack talk, with him issuing cries of “I’d never hit a lady, but you’re asking for it!” and “Oh! Right in the willy!” It was hilarious. He also kept either forgetting my name, or pretending to, and referred to me as “The Cousin”, as in “Oscar, come over here. You can sit next to the cousin.”

Nettie and I went in around noon, taking the train from where they live in the near suburbs, into Waterloo station. From there we took the Underground to Hyde Park and had a nice walk through the park. The weather was beautiful, sunny and mild, and we had a nice, relaxing walk. Hyde Park is quite large and there’s lots to see, including this lovely memorial fountain for Princess Diana. We made our way through the park, toward Harrods which isn’t far outside it, where we decided to have lunch. Harrods is an amazing place – it defies explanation. To say that it’s a department store doesn’t do it justice. Anything you could ever ask for or want in the world is available at Harrods. There’s a story that one time someone walked in and ordered an elephant, and all the sales associate said was “African or Indian, sir?” So we had lunch, as there were many restaurants to choose from. We then noticed that there was a shoe polish stain on Nettie’s shirt, because her nanny had decided to be nice and polish her bag. We went up to go buy her a new shirt, and ended up finding her a shirt, a sweater, and two jackets, all of which fit really nicely and looked good. (This is how you manage to justify a shopping splurge if anyone is interested.)

We came upon the hat department, and the first thing to know is that hats are serious business in England. They wear them to weddings, to social events, and they don’t mess around. As evidenced by the massive selection of elaborate furred and feathered creations on display. I couldn’t resist, and started to try them on, absolutely cracking myself up. Fortunately, Annette is of a similar mind, so we had a great time. You’re not allowed to take pictures in Harrods, so I don’t have anything to post, but just think “My Fair Lady” and you’ll get the picture. It’s amazing to me how much these things can cost – I didn’t see one cheaper than £200 – which is in the neighborhood of $400. There’s plenty of workmanship and detail involved, but I just can’t fathom that. We were weak with laughter by the time we left, and the sales woman looked slightly put out that we didn’t appreciate the majesty of the hats. But we had a great time, which was the main point. As we walked through, I spotted a beautiful jacket that I had no intention of buying (it was £640), but wanted to try on just for fun. It fit like a glove, as if it was made for me, which it really should for $1300. I sadly peeled it off and we moved on. After a little more wandering and shopping, we realized, with no small amount of surprise, that it was 6:30. We had been in that store, just the one store, for five hours and didn’t even notice.

We got home and all had dinner together, which was nice because it was the first time I’d seen Stephen since I got there. We had a really nice time catching up, talking about life and work and all that good stuff. Nettie and I were really excited, because we were to see Ewan the next night!!!

We went to go take Esme and her friend Jennifer to a kids show the next day – Postman Pat Live. Or, as Nettie says “Postman Bloody Pat”. It’s one of those kids programs that is, apparently, intolerable for adults. It was playing at the Richmond Theater, a beautiful, historic theater in Richmond, a very posh London suburb – home to Hugh Grant and other rich and fabulous people. I went to do a little shopping and explore the town, as I realized I had packed somewhat unevenly, and although I had plenty of clean underwear, I didn’t have much else. I picked up a black t-shirt, a white t-shirt, and a pair of jeans, figuring that would hold me until my bag resurfaced or I got home, whichever came first. Nettie and the girls got out of the show, and we all headed for the car. The girls loved the show, but I think Nettie is still working on recovering from the trauma.

We came back to the house and got ready to head into London to see the show. Stephen had gotten these ungettable tickets for a Friday evening, thinking that Ewan was least likely to use an understudy on a Friday night performance. We were chattering excitedly all the way in to the West End, and after making sure that we knew where the theater was, we went to find a place to have dinner. We settled on an Indian restaurant and had a nice dinner, watching the clock constantly for fear of being late. We arrived back at the theater and joined the crush of people waiting to get in. We quickly found our seats, which were in the middle of the third row – I don’t think I could have picked more perfect seats myself!

The show was amazing, the cast was fantastic, and it was just a wonderful experience, except for the cow who took frequent bathroom breaks and managed to tread on my toes each freaking time. Ewan was beautiful and fabulous and sang marvelously. Jane Krakowski, best known as the secretary from “Ally McBeal” was Adelaide, and with the exception of my friend Marsha, was the best Adelaide I’ve ever seen. (I may be partial, but I don’t care.) The choreography was also incredible - the whole production was just wonderful. Tim had begged us to try to get an autograph from Ewan because he’s an enormous “Star Wars” fan. We hadn’t planned on doing it, but as we were leaving, we noticed a clump of people standing outside the stage door and decided to wait for a few minutes. Of course, the longer you wait, the longer you’re likely to wait, because you start to think that just when you leave, the person for whom you’re waiting will come. A lot of the cast and crew made their way out, but it was clear that most people were simply waiting for Ewan. After a good 30 to 40 minutes, Nettie and I were laughing at ourselves for waiting out like groupies with another 15 or so people, and we heard a loud engine roar off down the street. A woman came over and told us that Ewan had just sped off on his motorbike, which was, to say the least, disappointing. I don’t know that I entirely blame him, as they were all working really hard and he probably just wanted to go home, but knowing that a crowd of people are waiting just to see you, to not even walk out and smile and wave at the crowd is a little sucky. However, I still lurve him…

Today was a relaxing Saturday with the family. I woke up to the delightful surprise of finding my missing suitcase sitting in the front hallway, totally unmolested. Hurrah!! Annette and Oscar went to a birthday party, and Stephen, Tim, Esme and I went to Hampton Court Palace, which used to belong to King Henry VIII, after he blackmailed Cardinal Woolsey for it. It’s an amazing place to look at, and the kids had fun running around. We went through the maze there, and I got to take some more pictures. Esme had emptied the contents of her change purse into her back pocket, and as a result, her pants kept falling down, which was actually funny to look at, as she periodically hitched them up in the unselfconscious manner of a three-year-old. It was quite chilly and began to rain, so we bundled back into Stephen’s new sports car and came back to the house.

It’s been so great to be here. I can really sleep, despite the pets and the kids and the general craziness of ordinary life, and it’s so nice to be around family and not worry about much of anything. I’ve had lots of crumpets (they are yummy things), and I love it here – if it weren’t so dang far away, I think I could easily live in London as well. Although, it’s horrifyingly expensive to live here, so maybe that’s a few years off. Or never. Well, I can always visit, just like with Paris. And who knows what will happen one day. But for now, I’m really looking forward to getting back to my actual home. Annette and I have an appointment at a posh spa called The Sanctuary on Tuesday, and I’ve got a day in London to myself on Monday. I’m so grateful for this time here, away from work, away from Pakistan, and almost home.

There's More Coming, I Promise!

I've had a fantastic time in London so far, my cousin Stephen, his wife Annette, and their kids Timothy, Oscar, and Esme are wonderful. One of my bags didn't exactly make it here from Dubai, I had a little drama getting on the plane (here's a tip: never tell anyone who hasn't slept yet at 3 am that you don't have their flight reservation in your system. It will not go well for anyone.) Apparently, British Airways is in the middle of some kind of strike, so it may be a while before I see my bag. Interesting.

In any event, I'm here in one piece, I'm off to go see Ewan McGregor in "Guys and Dolls" in the West End tonight (I HOPE it's not the understudy), and I couldn't be more excited. I'm having a great time, I love the UK, and I'm so happy to be here. And I'll be home in FIVE days!!!

But lots more later...

20-, 20-, 24 Hours to Go!

I leave for London in less than 24 hours – hurrah! I can’t wait, and I would really just as soon be at the house today, packing. I’m realizing that I really should have bought a big ol’ suitcase in Vietnam – not because my stuff doesn’t fit, it does so quite easily. But because now I have to pay some ridiculous excess baggage fees. Which I’m not too keen on – but since I do have excess baggage, I suppose it’s fair, and not, in fact, ridiculous. I’ll think this through a little better next time. In fact, I’ll do a lot of things better next time – let’s consider this trip a test run in a lot of ways!

I sent out a ton of e-mails this morning, among them was an e-mail documenting how I’d tried to make my time here productive, but had been largely ignored and therefore had no real option but to sit here and just read some stuff. I didn’t try to sugar coat it, but I also tried not to flip the b*tch switch – no need for that at this point, I just wanted to clearly make my point so that there would be no confusion about whether or not I’d done what I could. I also got a confusing e-mail from my counterpart in Vietnam who said that she was almost done with a section of the report. The section I had just completed and sent. And she didn’t mean that she was almost done reading it, she meant that she was almost done working on it, and then went on to talk about the things she’d tried to cover. All of which I’d covered when I wrote it. Makes me wonder, once again, if people ever actually read anything I write. So I wrote back and said “it should have been largely complete – let me know if it wasn’t, as I didn’t intend to send you something that would need more than a little polishing. Also, I addressed all of the following issues, so I don’t know where our miscommunication was, but it shouldn’t be necessary for you to re-do it”, or something to that effect. What the heck?!?!?!? At least Darth has refrained from any further comment, so that’s good.

I was walking into the house last night when the watchman stopped me and said something I didn’t quite understand. It took a few minutes, but we finally got it figured out. He was asking me for a cell phone. Um…it’s normal to leave some money or something for the servants, and I planned to do that, and I know, I really do know, that in comparison to him I’m probably fantastically wealthy. But I still can’t afford to go buying cell phones for people! I didn’t bring my own phone, because I didn’t want to have to try to replace it if anything happened here, so it’s not like I can go around picking them up in bulk or something – the one I bought here is going to be paid for by my company, and it will be for company use only. It was just very strange, because…well, because I guess it’s not something to which I’m accustomed.

Moving right along.

I’m going out with Lois tonight, which should be lots of fun. And after that…it’s back to the house to finish up packing and get ready to leave. I can’t tell if the time is going to fly or drag…but either way, I’m taking some Benadryl before I hop on the Dubai to London flight so that I can get some sleep. It’s an 8.5 hour flight, so there should be time to doze, I just reeeeeally hope they don’t put me in a middle seat again – that was excruciating. Although, who am I kidding? With enough Benadryl, I probably wouldn’t notice if they duct-taped me to the wing.

I saw another drag queen begging at the intersection last night – always unexpected. Kind of like the Spanish Inquisition. After all, I’ve heard that no one expects the Spanish Inquisition… I was on the phone with my mom and told her, and then said “Hey Hamid – that’s a man dressed as a woman, right??” and he said “No is woman!” and started laughing. Hamid is, however, gone now. On his way up to Peshawar for small brother’s wedding, so I won’t see him again – very sad. I’ve got the driver set to be at the house at 3 am, which isn’t likely to be a lot of fun for anyone. But as long as he’s there and I can get to the airport, that’s enough. A little help with my copious baggage would also be reeeally nice, but I’ll try to keep my expectations reasonable. I imagine that the normal phalanx of porters will be somewhat diminished at 3 am.

Have I mentioned that I have no ability to concentrate today? None whatsoever? Yeah…

I just wolfed down my last two samosas. Ever. I wolfed them down so that I would actually be able to get some lunch into me and keep it down. I’m kind of done with fried things in general for the time being, but I think that, if I even look at another samosa again, I am likely to get queasy. Since I’m here for just a few days, I didn’t feel like cooking stuff for lunch, so they were really the only option, but it was a bit dicey there – my stomach has been a little funny these days as it is. But I’ve made it past that hurdle, so I think I’ll be okay. At least, I hope I will be! I’m chasing them with water…lots and lots of water. And a little more water. And now, I’m fighting the nausea…good times!!

I just spent a good 20 minutes sorting out some issues with my tickets for tomorrow – so I suppose I’m really glad that I called. Better to deal with it now than at 3 am, right? Right. I have an aisle seat from Dubai to London, so that is very happy times for me. The thing that is frustrating is that our company travel agent was supposed to have taken care of this for me. In addition, I sent them an urgent e-mail last night, saying that they needed to take care of this for me, because I called to confirm my flights yesterday and that’s when I found out about this issue. Did they do it? Nope. Did they switch my tickets from Ho Chi Minh City to Karachi? Nope. It’s no great wonder why the company is switching to a different travel agency… However, I’m glad I called, all is well, and I can drift through the airport in a state of semi-consciousness tomorrow, as God intended for all those stuck on a 5:45 am flight from Karachi to Dubai.

And I just found out I actually have to leave for the airport at 2 am.

I think semi-consciousness is going to be an overly ambitious goal. But, on the plus side, I don't think I'll need to drug myself with Benadryl to sleep from Dubai to London.

And the Countdown Rolls On...

I’m going to see my friends Faruq and Samina tonight, which should be fun – they’re the furniture designers, and they’re lovely people. Tomorrow night, Lois and I will be hanging out one last time, and then I’m debating whether or not it’s worth it for me to try to sleep for a few hours before heading to the airport at 3 am. It probably is, but that will also depend on how close I am to having everything 100% packed up. I’m actually not doing too badly at the moment, it’s just a few last things that need doing – like finding another luggage lock. I’ve also been making a point of taking more pictures. I went to my dad’s hospital the other day – that place is huge. I hope I took pictures of the right part, because I know he told me something about it being built in phases. Well, we shall find out, I suppose. But really – well done, Dad!

I was all set to be snippy with the house staff for the whole gossiping thing, but I found that when I got here, I just couldn’t. Whether or not it was ill-intended is kind of beside the point. It’s just the culture here, so while I thought it was unkind and invasive, my perspective on this is completely colored by my upbringing, my experiences, and my culture – and it’s the same for them. It’s also one of the main reasons why I don’t know if I could continue to work in a country like this, certainly not without substantially more in-person support than I’ve had here. I have met some wonderful, kind men in Pakistan, but I have also met guys like G-man, and I just don’t know that I want to voluntarily return to a culture where a lot of men feel entitled to women – to their space, their bodies, their lives. And where being a foreign woman makes them all the more likely to do it, contrary to the popularly-held opinion that foreign women are treated with kid gloves. Although most local women, particularly in poor communities, absolutely have it worse, I can’t say that I have the most positive impression about how women are treated here in general. Again, not every man here is like that – but I’ve run across enough who are to make me feel as though coming back here would be making it harder on me than it needed to be. And as much as men here have told me that the type of behavior exhibited by G-man is very un-Islamic, which it absolutely is, that doesn’t mean that some men here don’t indulge in it without a second thought. Don’t get me wrong – plenty of guys in the US behave that way as well, but it feels more accepted here – or at least that people are more willing to turn a blind eye.

I don’t know why they’re doing it, but some guy is walking through the office with an aerosol can, spraying some wretched, sweet-smelling substance that’s making me sneeze. Kind of like if they made Right Guard a candy and put it in spray form. It’s also making me not want to inhale too deeply, because the pollution here is bad enough outside, I want to give my lungs a break at some point!

My shoulder is starting to feel a lot better, so that’s good – just in time for me to hurt it wrestling with my baggage again! I’m actually not sore from my marathon swimming session yesterday, which is exciting. I realize that for people who actually swim on a regular basis, 20 laps can hardly be considered a marathon, so it’s a relative term. For me, the best I had done at one time was 15 laps, which was six weeks ago, and I’ve been swimming all of two times in the interim! I’m still harboring the dream of doing a triathlon one day, and I figure that my training should involve me being able to comfortably do at least double the racing distance in each event, that way the race itself might not kill me – or make me wish that it would. I suspect running is still going to be the hardest part for me, as I’ve quite taken to swimming, and I know that I ride far longer than a sprint-distance triathlon bike distance in spinning class. I’ll start with a sprint distance and see how I do – although I still maintain that people who do an Iron Man are crackheads. But we’ll see what happens – I’ve got to be able to really train in order to think about really doing it.

Here’s something I didn’t miss about Pakistan – the daily power outage. As long as it’s less than two hours, it’s okay. After that point, the battery on my computer dies, and I’ve got a nice paperweight to play with for a while. And…we’re back with the power. These things rarely last for very long, and the office probably has a generator, but I think I could count the number of full days I’ve spent here where we didn’t have a power outage on my hands, without using all the fingers. (End of day tally: four power outages)

I have one major priority item that I need to get done today for Vietnam, I’ve called my local counterpart here to try to talk to her, and I think that will make up the majority of my day. It’s okay, because I think my brain has already left the country – or is, at least, busy packing up. So if I had a hugely full schedule for today and tomorrow, I think it would be a bit of a disaster. As it is, I think I’m pushing it, much as I hate to admit that. The sleeping thing still isn’t going too well for me, so that’s not helping, but the bed I have here is so much more comfortable than the one I had in Vietnam, which is a huge step up.

I just asked one of the guys in the office to help me make sure that the driver is at the house at 3 am on Wednesday to take me to the airport. Unfortunately, Hamid won’t be here, as he’s going up to Peshawar for the wedding of his younger brother, or as he refers to him “small brother”. I’m sad about that, as he’s such a nice guy, and has been an ever-cheerful presence here, even when I’ve had crappy days. The other drivers, however, don’t all speak very good English. Fair enough, they’re in Pakistan, but I want to make sure that whoever is stuck driving me to the airport knows that he has to be at the house at that horrifyingly early/late hour.

My lists of things to do are getting smaller, which is good, because my available time is getting smaller as well. Unfortunately, one of the things on my list, “get money” was not in the cards for today. Hamid drove me to *six* different ATMs, three were out of service, one didn’t take my card, one was closed, and one was out of money. The entire way there we were wedged into this access road that runs parallel to Sharae Faisal, and ends up serving as a de facto parking lot, because people have nowhere else to park their cars. Needless to say, this impairs the flow of traffic quite significantly. This is actually one of the main reasons that everyone in Vietnam drives a motorcycle – they can park them on the sidewalks, in buildings, wherever. This is because, in Ho Chi Minh City, as here in Karachi, there is absolutely no parking. It’s not planned for, it’s not part of a building design requirement – nothing. So these side streets get more and more clogged every day. But when we’re stuck in traffic, with no way of dislodging the car without 20 other people getting their act together as well, I start to think about how much I stand out, how we’ve been given no security on this project because it’s not in the budget (everyone who works at the American School and the US Consulate has a car full of armed guards that follows their main car as a mandatory security requirement), and how, if someone wanted to do something to me, it would be really, really easy. People staring into the car and beggars coming up and banging aggressively on the windows doesn’t help me to feel any more comfortable. These thoughts also make me glad that I’m leaving, because I don’t like to have to ponder such things. Although, it's funny - because driving around with Faruq and Samina, I feel perfectly safe.

I just finished my document for Vietnam, so I’m glad that’s out of the way – it has been sent out into the void, and I hope they like it. Since my local counterpart here in Pakistan has yet to return my phone call, which she said she would do when I called her at 8:45 this morning, I have to admit to being at a bit of a loss as to what to do tomorrow. I have some errands I can run, but that’s hardly beneficial to the project, since they’re my personal errands that I was planning to do at my lunch time. Very frustrating. Particularly since I really am trying to do the right thing here. Well, I can’t force people to call me back if they’re not so inclined, and I can’t make documents materialize out of thin air, unfortunately. I just really don’t want this to end up being my fault somehow.

Last Day at the Pool

Yesterday marked my last day hanging out at the KAS (Karachi American School) pool with Lois. *sigh* Almost all of the expats are back in town, so if I were to stay, I'd have much more of a social life! Not that I want to stay, however. Things here are getting more and more dangerous, and I mostly just want to get the heck out of here and go home.

Via London, of course.

After swimming 20 laps (go Mandy!), we left the pool and went to our respective homes to get ready for the KAS Cricket match against the US Consulate staff. It was something of a grudge match, as the Consulate staff had lost the past two games, and they were quite determined. I still don't really understand cricket, but that's okay - I suppose I don't have to. One of the guys who was playing for KAS was a recent arrival from Austin, TX. A very friendly guy who had semi-recently been in a motorcycle accident, and therefore had to wear a neck brace when playing, since he had broken his neck. Cricket looks funny enough to me, but to see a guy swinging a cricket bat and fielding the ball wearing a neck immobilizer was just too much for me. I took pictures, and now that my return date is almost here, the odds of me getting around to posting them soon are quite high!

After everyone left, Lois and I had some dinner and decided to watch my DVD of "The Motorcycle Diaries". Well, we're still waiting, because there was no way for me to change the settings so that it wasn't both dubbed and subtitled in Vietnamese. Darn shame - I'll have to watch it when I get home, I suppose. Instead, we watched "King Arthur", but since...well, since it sucked we didn't quite finish it.

I have a lot of work to do for the Vietnam project before I leave here, so my reluctance to try to get re-involved in the project here is growing. Ah well. The office had a party on Saturday after work, so we went for a short while. It was a mango party, so clearly I haven't completely missed the end of the season. The girl that I am friends with there and I were talking, and peeling some mango for ourselves. I have my way of doing it, which isn't perfect by any stretch, but it works for me. She looked at me pityingly as I cut pieces off of the mango I was holding and said, with a note of sadness in her voice "you are not a very good domestic woman, I see..." I didn't know whether to laugh or take mild offense, but since she clearly wasn't being mean, I just laughed and said that her mango technique was obviously better than mine. She was also asking me about graduate school in the US, which I think would be a really interesting experience for her, if her parents would let her go. So I was telling her about steps she should take to see what's available, what kind of financial support she could get, etc.

I'd best be going, as I want to squeeze in a workout before heading to the office this morning, and I think I'm already pushing it as it is.

Only nine days until I'm home!!