Saturday, November 6, 2010

Trip to Pakistan and Referendum in Sudan Part I

It's been eighteen months since I got here, and its seems like I left Minneapolis yesterday. Don't get me wrong I remember most of my most of my time here and its been a very tiring and rewarding time, its just that whenever I go back to the US or Pakistan I expect things, people, relationships to be just as they were when I left and that is almost never the case.
Take my recent trip to Pakistan a few weeks ago. As has been the case since I left Pakistan a decade ago, whenever I go back its a bigger cultural shock than when I go back to the US.

Part of it is cause things don't change at the same rate in the US as they do in the developing world. Whenever I visit Islamabad there is always more people, more roads, more traffic, more buildings, more shops, more police, more beggars, less order, less trees, less parks, less tolerance, whereas in Minneapolis things are not really changing at all - I think I like it better that way, I think I'll always keep a home there.

My trip to Pakistan this time was for my sisters wedding, my only sisters wedding, and those of you who don't know how big of a deal weddings are in Pakistan, go watch "Monsoon wedding" and multiply that by like four. That's how crazy it was - festivities that lasted for a week.

But I'll start my story with my journey to Pakistan. On my flight from Doha to Islamabad, I met this young lady who was on her first 10 day trip to Pakistan. She was going to evaluate the efficacy of a USAID funded program and was currently doing her master's in Public Policy. As it was her first trip to what "TIME" magazine calls the most dangerous place on earth she had many questions about Pakistan. How are the people like? Hows the food like? What are good places to go? etc etc. I answered her every question as truthfully as I could, maybe more truthfully than I think she would have liked I suppose.

Pakistan is a very confusing place, you will find extreme corruption and honesty at the same time, you will find apathy and enthusiasm also in abundance and it drives even a guy like me whose lived 18 years in the country absolutely nuts.

Lets take my flight back as an example, when boarding the plane from Doha all the passengers who were mostly Pakistani were relatively orderly, queuing properly, not being overly loud just like people from any other place, but as soon as the plane landed in Pakistan it was like all of them were bipolar. Even before the plane had stopped moving most of them got up from their seats and started removing their luggage, the cabin crew kept mentioning on the PA system that we haven't stopped yet but had no affect on what seemed like a herd of wilder-beast on their annual migration from the Serengetti to the Masai Mara. Bags were falling over, people started arguing and I was just sitting back and telling myself "yup, nothings changed, I'm back home".

I had told the USAID lady earlier during the flight that the problem in Pakistan is not that there aren't proper rules or policies in place, the problem is enforcement, and as soon as she saw these people getting up from their seats on a moving plane she looked at me and smiled.

Finally everyone got off the plane to get into the bus that had to take everyone to the terminal at the same time so God knows what the hurry for leaving the plane was all about. Once on the terminal, passed the immigration and customs to the baggage claim you could see signs everywhere which read NO SMOKING, in both Urdu and English but as I expected 6 or 7 people lit their cigarettes. I confronted one of them and pointed out the signs to him, to which he replied, I'm back home, I can do whatever I want. I pointed him out to a police officer who politely told me off "kuch nahin hota jee..cigarette hee to hey" - "doesn't matter sir, its only a cigarette". For the LOVE OF GOD, it is not "only a cigarette", its the law.

That is the problem in Pakistan, these same people who were probably day laborers, who are abused and overworked in Dubai but because there is someone who enforces the law no matter how inhuman that law might be, refuse to revolt or say anything, but in their own country take advantage of the fact that no one is there to enforce the laws.

To be contd.........................