A Day in the Life

Due to the volume of responses from the last entry, I felt encouraged to get another post up.

This is what we did on our day off today-- Saturday.

We started off the day visiting a school for the disabled. Joe had met a teacher from the school when he was out at the bazaar one of our first days here. Around 70 students go to this school from surrounding villages and have various diablilites. Joe's friend gave us a tour and took us into each classroom. Upon our entry into each classroom all the students would stand and salute us. (I held back from saying "at ease students"). First we visited a class for the blind where they are learning to read Braille in both English and Urdu. Then we visited 3 classes for the deaf. Next we went to a class for the physically disabled, and lastly a class for developmentally disabled. You occasionally hear horror stories about the life of the disabled here, and in Karachi you see many on the street that are beggars. So it was encouraging to see this school and the commitment they have to teaching these kids. Joe's friend became vision impaired as a child when a firecracker blew up in his face. Since then not only has he gone on to become a teacher, but also an international para-olympic athlete. He will be going to China in June. He carried the torch when it came through Pakistan.

One of the teachers invited me to come with her back to her village to attend a relative's wedding. I really wanted to, but due to eating some bad local food the night before that was just starting to show its effects, I decided I needed to get back to the comfort of my own bathroom. She is getting married in June so I told her I would come to her wedding.

So we hopped on the school bus and they dropped us off at the road that leads back up to where we live (about a 30 minute walk). I thought I could make it and thought the walk might do me some good. About 5 minutes into the walk we ran into a young Pushtun boy selling shawls. Taking every opportunity we can to talk Urdu, we stopped and had a chat. This lead to a cup of hot green tea on the roadside, which then lead to going up the hill to the tents where his family lives and sharing some lunch with them. At first we both sat in the tent with the men, and I said to take me to the women which was just the next tent over. She unfortunately didn't speak Urdu (only Pushtun), but one of the teenage guys came over and helped translate. This family comes every year from the Afg border. They set up tents in the exact same place every year and sell shawls by the roadside for about 6 months, until Ramadan they told us. Joe and I both reflected how much we enjoyed our time with this family. Its that culture of hospitality we experienced so much in the earthquake and at other times in rural places. We both delight in sitting on a carpet in a tent/mud hut and enjoying tea and conversation with locals. And now we are able to enjoy it so much more now that we speak some language.

I lasted for about 45 minutes before I started to get real uncomfortable again. I don't have the Urdu to ask about personal needs if you know what I mean. While I know how to ask for a bathroom, this wouldn't really serve me since they only have bushes. We decided it was just best to get a move on. 5 more minutes up the road we ran into some private apartments. They didn't have public toilets, but said I could use the one in the "servant's quarters". While it was private, the bushes would of been better. Enough said.

We continued our walk and made it home in 20 minutes. The rest of day we did a mix of work and rest. Joe did NGO stuff, while I continued reading a book about the history of the partition of India and Pakistan. Then I did my own NGO stuff finishing up a budget and proposal for a medical team that will be coming here in August.

And then we enjoyed a beautiful sunset looking over the mountains.