Back in the Heat

Leaving just before midnight from an unusually tranquil JFK airport in NY on 9/11, I arrive in the thick heat of Islamabad at 3 o'clock in the morning two days later - hundreds of men mainly in white shalwar kameez, caps and beards are standing outside the entrance hall, waiting, watching. Heavy, sweet odour penetrates immediately all pores. Back in the intensity of smells and colours, light and darkness, bright sun and sparkling stars!

All the news hitting me the next days let me wonder if the situation actually got worse over the month of August since I left or if I am just no longer used to the constant stream of bad news.

Floods again in Sindh in the South of the country with hundreds of thousands of people losing their homes, livestock and earnings for a uncertain period of time; more than five hundred lost their lives. Over five million people are living in tents. Not enough, cholera and other diseases are spreading fast and there is little help in sight. "Donor fatigue"is the word of the day, explained by so many disasters around the globe and a lack of trust.

Rapid spread of dengue fever in the Punjab, Lahore being the center of the outbreak. More than ten thousand people are affected, over a hundred died so far and the government finally sets up field hospitals to take care of the sick persons. Rumors have it, that passenger buses have been spreading the infected mosquitoes in the province undetected - having escaped the fumigation process that started much too late this year.

Flyers in newspapers give advice on how to avoid mosquito bites and a company named "Black Horse International" praises its ability to rid you of cockroaches, termites, snakes and lizards, rodents and mice, mosquitoes of course  - all with fumigation! Providing a "healthy and safe environment" with a picture of  a man well protected in his space suit with a huge fumigator...   and my love for horses winces over the name of the company - their logo a gallopping black stallion!

The hideous murder of Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the Afghan High Peace Council, in Kabul affects badly the peace process in Afghanistan and the alleged links with the Haqqani network, the recent attack on the American Embassy and ISAF in Kabul, not good news. Not a complete list, but I stop here.

The diversity and complexity of Pakistan's society is apparent on every social occasion. At a dinner last week I sat between a young editor of school books to the left, who had to stand a fight with the board of an elementary school who wanted a chapter of a book removed because the title "The Father dances with the Mother" seemed improper, apparently, for some conservative muslim parents, and a young politician of the Muslim Party, son of a former President of Pakistan, to the right - suspense at the table.

We go on with our daily life, shopping for food is part of  that and gives more pleasure, looking at the new fruits and vegetables coming into season now. First spots of orange appear on the shelves between the familiar greens and sweet tiny lemons and limes with that tantalizing citrus aroma. Grapefruits as sweet and juicy as refreshing, tingling lips and tongue with their own unique mixture of underlying sour tone and hint of bitterness, just enough to enhance the warmth and sweetness! The rose color of their flesh tempting for immediate bites.

Going to the butcher means a dive into the underground - that's the place to buy the best meat in Isloo! The way leading downstairs won't look very promising to a shopper used to buy at Bell, Lobel's or Agata & Valentina, but the steaks are decent, cut, sawed and hacked fresh on the marble counter. Fresh meat smells heavy and sweet; it stays with you for the rest of the day - I usually turn vegetarian for the next 24 hours.

On the way home I leave a pair of shoes with a shoemaker to get the heals repaired. Hammer and nails and little more working material neatly arranged on the floor. He locks my shoes in a small wooden box and promises the work will be done the next day. I wonder whether I will ever see him - and my shoes - again.
But there he is in lotus seat and looking like Mahatma Gandhi, opens the wooden box and pulls out the perfectly repaired shoes for 80 Rupies (90 cts.), letting me marvel how he did it - contemplating power or a magic wooden box??