Turns out having wifi is pretty important. I didn't have it in the new place for the first couple of days because my landlord doesn't know how it works and his 17-year-old son was out of town. Son came back today and all is well.
I'm slowly settling in. The house feels bereft of stuff, still, because it is. My boxes are still in Lahore (come on Wednesday, come on Wednesday, come on Wednesday) and I haven't been able to do a big shop. Went to the chemist (pharmacy) and grocery store in Super Market to pick up some essentials -- shampoo, hand soap, coffee, something to eat for breakfast, etc. -- and, funnily enough, ran into TR at the chemist. I was trying to explain to the guy behind the counter that I was looking for dish soap, and doing that excruciating we-don't-speak-the-same-language thing of pantomiming washing dishes while I spoke. Heard a voice say, "Hey," turned to my right, and there was TR. He's half-Pakistani so he was just standing there smiling as I struggled. Then he interpreted, confirmed that I had to go to the grocery store next door, and offered to come with me and then drive me home. It's a five-minute walk but I wasn't about to turn down a ride or company.
Have I mentioned that people here are friendly as hell? He came grocery shopping with me, and then when they didn't have anything to make coffee with at the store, drove me to another market about a kilometer away and helped me there.
So anyway I can't get some of the stuff I want without a car and I am not going to press anyone for favors, least of all people who are already being generous. So vegetables (best place is in the next sector over), meat (best place is in that other market in my sector, Kohsar), a proper trash can for the kitchen, a coat rack, a rotisserie oven, all that's going to have to wait.
The rest of the weekend was good, continued making friends and wishing the election would just be over already. I am American, there aren't many Americans around, everyone wants to talk Trump. Interestingly, one of the people I hung out with on Saturday night -- the one with the servant from a few posts back -- is pulling for Trump. Her reasoning: American interventionism in Pakistan (and other countries) has caused a huge amount of harm, and there's every reason to believe HRC will continue that legacy at best, and deepen it at worst. Trump is a wildcard and will be too preoccupied with stuff at home to bother with Pakistan. This is a deeply flawed theory, not least because Trump being preoccupied or, well, Trump, could very well mean that the people he enables just go off and do whatever the fuck they want. And he's not going to hire isolationist doves. Also our foreign policy isn't uniformly bad, so there's that. Tried to convince her, but in the end she stuck to her guns: The chance that Trump could be better for the rest of the world is worth a bet against the certainty that Clinton will be more of the same. Very interesting conversation. Thank god she's not a US citizen and can't vote.
Today I got to accompany a few diplomats to upper Chitral, about 15km from the Afghan border. My new team member LNT also came. I continue to be a fan of hers. Trip was good if ludicrously quick: we had little more than 3.5 hours on the ground. Thanks UK diplomat security. Managed to pack quite a lot into that time, including scrambling up a rockfall channel to inspect check dams that the community had built with our help over the past two years. The check dams are there to slow and redirect flash floods and landslides. Talked with a gathering of the villagers. Visited the oldest house in the village, which is more than 100 years old and has survived several major earthquakes. The people in the village we went to use very sound traditional construction techniques, unlike their neighbors in nearby valleys. Curious why that is. One of the Brits and I talked in the morning before we boarded the helicopter about positive deviance and how to explain and take advantage of it, and then by golly there was a perfect example right in our faces.
An interesting side note: The village is Kalash, which are a very small group living predominantly in a few valleys up there. They are animist (!) and speak their own language and exist mostly in harmony with their Muslim neighbors. We saw the outside of the village's temple, which had carved sheep heads by each door and some drawings on the outside depicting, among other things, a man milking a goat.
Now I'm back at home, have wifi, and have eaten a satisfyingly greasy dinner from one of the places in Super Market, just the first one I saw. Three parata rolls: one beef, one chicken, one veggie. Just what the doctor ordered. Oh and with milk that doesn't even taste weird. Can't express how much of a relief it is to have found drinkable milk.
I'm slowly settling in. The house feels bereft of stuff, still, because it is. My boxes are still in Lahore (come on Wednesday, come on Wednesday, come on Wednesday) and I haven't been able to do a big shop. Went to the chemist (pharmacy) and grocery store in Super Market to pick up some essentials -- shampoo, hand soap, coffee, something to eat for breakfast, etc. -- and, funnily enough, ran into TR at the chemist. I was trying to explain to the guy behind the counter that I was looking for dish soap, and doing that excruciating we-don't-speak-the-same-language thing of pantomiming washing dishes while I spoke. Heard a voice say, "Hey," turned to my right, and there was TR. He's half-Pakistani so he was just standing there smiling as I struggled. Then he interpreted, confirmed that I had to go to the grocery store next door, and offered to come with me and then drive me home. It's a five-minute walk but I wasn't about to turn down a ride or company.
Have I mentioned that people here are friendly as hell? He came grocery shopping with me, and then when they didn't have anything to make coffee with at the store, drove me to another market about a kilometer away and helped me there.
So anyway I can't get some of the stuff I want without a car and I am not going to press anyone for favors, least of all people who are already being generous. So vegetables (best place is in the next sector over), meat (best place is in that other market in my sector, Kohsar), a proper trash can for the kitchen, a coat rack, a rotisserie oven, all that's going to have to wait.
The rest of the weekend was good, continued making friends and wishing the election would just be over already. I am American, there aren't many Americans around, everyone wants to talk Trump. Interestingly, one of the people I hung out with on Saturday night -- the one with the servant from a few posts back -- is pulling for Trump. Her reasoning: American interventionism in Pakistan (and other countries) has caused a huge amount of harm, and there's every reason to believe HRC will continue that legacy at best, and deepen it at worst. Trump is a wildcard and will be too preoccupied with stuff at home to bother with Pakistan. This is a deeply flawed theory, not least because Trump being preoccupied or, well, Trump, could very well mean that the people he enables just go off and do whatever the fuck they want. And he's not going to hire isolationist doves. Also our foreign policy isn't uniformly bad, so there's that. Tried to convince her, but in the end she stuck to her guns: The chance that Trump could be better for the rest of the world is worth a bet against the certainty that Clinton will be more of the same. Very interesting conversation. Thank god she's not a US citizen and can't vote.
Today I got to accompany a few diplomats to upper Chitral, about 15km from the Afghan border. My new team member LNT also came. I continue to be a fan of hers. Trip was good if ludicrously quick: we had little more than 3.5 hours on the ground. Thanks UK diplomat security. Managed to pack quite a lot into that time, including scrambling up a rockfall channel to inspect check dams that the community had built with our help over the past two years. The check dams are there to slow and redirect flash floods and landslides. Talked with a gathering of the villagers. Visited the oldest house in the village, which is more than 100 years old and has survived several major earthquakes. The people in the village we went to use very sound traditional construction techniques, unlike their neighbors in nearby valleys. Curious why that is. One of the Brits and I talked in the morning before we boarded the helicopter about positive deviance and how to explain and take advantage of it, and then by golly there was a perfect example right in our faces.
An interesting side note: The village is Kalash, which are a very small group living predominantly in a few valleys up there. They are animist (!) and speak their own language and exist mostly in harmony with their Muslim neighbors. We saw the outside of the village's temple, which had carved sheep heads by each door and some drawings on the outside depicting, among other things, a man milking a goat.
Now I'm back at home, have wifi, and have eaten a satisfyingly greasy dinner from one of the places in Super Market, just the first one I saw. Three parata rolls: one beef, one chicken, one veggie. Just what the doctor ordered. Oh and with milk that doesn't even taste weird. Can't express how much of a relief it is to have found drinkable milk.
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