My Afghanis

Baghee, panni, Baghee, roti!
A simple request for bread and water. My Afghan kids are at the gate and if I don’t come out soon they’ll ring the bell, alerting the whole neighborhood to their noisy presence.
Eayk minute! I reached for a nearby scarf to throw over my head, Pak. style but not really. A woman isn’t fully dressed here unless she has her dupatta slung around her body in some fashion when she goes out of the house. As usual, I’m evolving my own style. This morning, my jalabiyya was so comfortable I didn’t change or go to the grocery to get something for their breakfast... Anyways, they eat whatever I give them: apples, biscuits, a little porridge left from my lavish breakfast. I added milk and honey, so I don’t think it was too bad. They ate it. They’ve also sampled peanut butter and jelly lately and liked that, too.
After eating, it’s time to play. Lailmina, Zargilleh, Zarmina and Shazia have brought clay with them, soft, red clay, dug up from the riverbank near a local construction site. Lailmina sets about making a whole kitchen set complete with a pot of chicken curry simmering in a pot. The younger girls each make a pot or two. We have a tea party complete with clay biscuits and fancy tea cups, a miniature pot and milk from the gayn (water buffalo) that Shazia has made. She is a real pip. Must be about four to five years old and wants to prove she’s better and tougher than anyone, boy or girl who tries to mess with her. But today she was at her creative and imaginative best, hosting a tea party for us.
Pakistan is a tough place to live, but you can easily fall in love here. Lailmina is about seven but she is tall, like a nine year old. She’s thin and lanky, but strong, and she has beautiful, brown understanding eyes. Arnagul is a little older, about 12 maybe, with the deepest, most glittering eyes of all. There is a whole group of them, including Heer Bibi, who wants to wash every chance she gets, especially her hair. There is no clean running water in the ramshackle huts they call home. They sleep three, four or more to a bed, a simple charpay meant for one. They dream of having a double bed when they get married. After the bed comes the swaddled baby lying on the bed Arnagul fashions from clay this morning. Not to be outdone, little Shazia makes a whole man and they all chuckle at her creation.
I noticed these Pathan, or Afghan, children, as soon I began living here in Chatta, about two weeks after I arrived in Pakistan. They were on the highway, cutting dry grass, and in the bazaars helping parents who had stalls there. But I didn’t start really seeing these children until I saw Lailmina.
Walking to and from the school where I help with English twice a week, I would observe groups of five to seven children with large burlap and plastic rice bags on their backs, picking up trash. Then one day I saw a group of them clustered around something on the other side of the high curb that separates the street from the muddy creek that the water buffalo wallow in. One of them called out happily and excitedly to her friends, Sayp, sayp! I went over to see what it was they were so delighted about. I looked down into a mess of rotten apples that had fallen from a tree.
I know they love apples, because they’ll eat as many as I have, along with cookies and any other treat I can find them. One day it was ice cream that made them happy. Another it was Pepsi and they were practically delirious with glee, even though each one only got a quarter glass full. These are things they love, just like all kids.
But what they really come here for is food. The fun comes second. They need the pot of rice I cook for them and serve with whatever is left over from our dinner the night before. Or I make daal, (lentils) which are quick, cheap and filling. They need the clean water that comes out of my tap to drink or to wash with. Sometimes they just need to use the bathroom and want to play with the flush toilet, a novelty in their lives.
These are my Afghan girls. There are also three boys. Ali is the oldest, tall and lanky. A younger boy is short and chubby. He likes chasing the girls and climbing the columns that flank the sides of our home. The third boy is quiet and dignified. He usually likes to stay out of trouble.
Ali recently found a broken MP 3 player somewhere in his ramblings and was trying to get it to work. But when he saw my camera batteries had died, he took the batteries out of that MP 3 and put them in my camera. It still didn’t work, so he tried some other batteries he had in his pocket. No luck. He collects all kinds of scrap metal, which fetches more money than plastic bottles and discarded cardboard boxes. So does the broken glass I’ve seen them stuff into their bags.
They eat lunch, and then play their games. They love the space of the courtyard for tag, climbing the columns and high jump games. They are highly imaginative and spontaneous. They’ve never been to school. One can’t even imagine their boundless energy being contained in a classroom. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have the opportunity of going to school. For now, the world is their classroom, with all the harsh and complex reality that is Pakistan today.
I’ll never forget the day Saima, Arnagul, and Marina, the older crowd, saved my life on the highway. I had gotten a taxi to go to the Daewoo bus station for my four hour trip to Lahore After I got in the taxi, the driver started asking me how to get there! As is our usual plan, if a driver doesn’t seem to know where to go, I call my husband, Asad, and he talks to the driver. It usually works fine. But this time, after yelling at the driver, Asad talks to me and tells me, Get out of that taxi and get another one. This guy doesn’t know where he is going. Okay………
I gestured for the driver to stop. It was less than a quarter mile from where we started out. I hop out and he has the nerve to ask me asks for money! Asad, still on the phone, tells me to just walk away, as I had already started doing. Suddenly, who should I see materialize by the roadside as if out of thin air? There were my girls, walking back to Chatta from Chak Shazad, a bigger town where they had gone to collect plastic bottles and other recyclable trash. There they were, walking in a graceful line, carrying bundles on dry grass on their heads and trash bags on their hips, the way mothers carry babies sometimes, looking for all the world like the beautiful young women they are soon to be.
We were delighted to see each other. They took one look at the cab driver, and then glanced quizzically at me. In my very poor Urdu, I explained the situation and they started yelling at the driver, all of them together until he drove away! I’d never been so happy to see anyone in my life! They stayed and chatted with me and then waved good bye as I waved to them from the new cab’s rear window. When I got back from Lahore this afternoon, they were already in the courtyard, making me more tea sets.
By the way, those bags they carry are not all that heavy. One kilo of plastic is needed to make 15 rupees, the price of three rotis at the local tandoor (bread bakery). Plastic is very light, so it takes a lot more than one bag to earn their bread.

They are all our children.
For more pictures, please see http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/emailAlbum?uname=sommieh&aid=5537432693344912721&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fsommieh%2FAFC%23
11/9/10
Sommieh Stephanie Flower
Chatta Baktawer, Pakistan

Up on the Roof

Up on the Roof

Last night, not being able to sleep, I went to the roof to do some prayers and zikr under the starlit sky. That was beautiful. There is rarely a time when I do not find the roof a beautiful place to be, except maybe in the heat of the mid-day sun. That’s the time to retrieve the laundry, when everything is dry but the sun is not yet fading the colors. It’s fall here now, though the leaves don’t change color and I’m told winter will be here very soon.

The morning, right after prayers is also prime time on the roof. The sky will still be dark when you get there, but the sun is about to come up. Some of the small bats are chirping but will soon go to sleep.

The first birds start singing at fajr, along with the roosters. I prefer waking up to them, like I did in Michigan than to the loud wailing of the mullahs all over town who intone, Prayer is better than sleep. Are they sure about that? Now they’ll start to fly. There are some large birds, akin to vultures but much more graceful. They’ve got a large wing span that makes it easy for them to flap their wings a few times and then glide, soaring and dipping at will. They head to a field not too distant from my house where they hold their morning conference. Sometimes I can see them flying with long pieces of straw or sticks, perhaps to take back to their nests.

Crows and smaller birds prefer to confer on the telephone wires. They perch there or congregate in the trees. Some of these trees brush the rooftop of our one story abode. It’s marvelous to watch them squawk at each other, like quarreling spouses. The crows here are larger than in the States. Their bodies are a dusty black and their faces a grayish white. These smaller birds land on our lawn as soon as I’ve scattered any leftover bread, proudly carrying the bigger pieces off to the nearby trees. Their shrill squawking implies that they do not share the booty they’ve made off with.

On one occasion I saw two hood-hoods. That’s the Arabic name for a brown and white bird with a fringe of feathers on its head, somewhat like a Mohawk haircut. They are small and need to flap their short wings quite often as they fly, as do the crows and sparrows.

On top of the neighbor’s chicken coop, just below my back wall, I found Diana, our adopted cat. She was curled up in a ball, fast, asleep after her evening adventures. I caught a shot of her sleeping with my camera. When I went for the second shot, she suddenly opened her green, green eyes and stared straight up at me. I got a great shot and then told her to go back to sleep.

The sun is rising in the eastern sky. Slowly but surely, its spherical redness rises in the sky. Today it is quite distinct and self contained, its ruddy reds, pinks and oranges are not bleeding into the sky, which is turning from its dawn grayness to a bluer than blue beauty.

A Walk Down the Road

Sept. 29

Today Tahera and I took a walk out to the main road. This is not the first time we’ve done that. Once we are out the gate, we have two choices. We can go through the bazaar, a motley collection of stalls, small shops and the occasional goat, sheep or chicken. Or we can go down Greens Ave., the more part of town with new houses, imposing gates and manicured lawns. We tend to take the former during the day and the latter in later afternoon early evening.

Once you get out of Chatta, you turn either left or right on Park Road and just walk to see what you can see. Park Road is a four lane paved highway with a grass divider in the middle. When you walk here you see many types of vehicles, from brand new four wheel drive SUV’s carrying army officers to wooden donkey carts carrying timber or grass! There are also bicycles, motorcycles and plenty of pedestrians. The most interesting vehicles on the road are the heavily decorated large trucks and small public vans. There have been whole books written about these trucks and taxis. In fact, my husband and a photographer friend of his are putting such a book together right now.

Roadside, one can see plenty of farmland. Narrow dirt lanes lead down to crumbling brick and mortar homes of two or three rooms. A dirty curtain might function as the only door. There are usually goats and maybe some sheep, definitely chickens and roosters. Occasionally we see a herd of water buffalo. In the heat of the day, these large creatures, the cattle of Pakistan, love to wallow in a mud hole to keep cool.

There are also some corporate type office buildings, schools with signboards and drug rehabilitation centers. Those are very big in Pakistan right now due to a large percentage of heroin addiction. People also smoke hashish, but that’s not considered a harmful drug here. And of course, just like in any other destitute country, every other man you see smokes or chews tobacco.

There are some very large and elegant estates in this area as well. One of them was one of the estates of ex-president Musharraf. It is reputed that he never even visited this particular home of his. It has since been sold to some wealthy buyer. These mansions are set well back from the highway, down long paved roads with their own guard houses and sentries at the gate. Believe or not, they are also called “farms”! This is supposedly to be inconspicuous, but everyone knows who owns these homes: higher ups in the government and military.

We stood on a small bridge overlooking a river and saw a herd of sheep grazing. A man was praying by his taxi near the riverbank. Tahera thought he was there to wash the car.
On the way home there was a particular poignant scene. There were some Pathan children cutting the tall grasses at the side of the road. They had small sickles in their hands, but the oldest couldn’t have been more than ten. He was the one with the bicycle. The children were trying to pile the grass on top of the bike, but it was a difficult task. They themselves were as dusty and ragged as the hay. There was one girl in a dirty brown dress and pants. She looked at me with a mixture of shyness and confusion. These children had the look of hunger and thirst in their eyes. The grass is either for sale or for their cattle. May God grant them some benefit for their efforts. Government statistics place Pakistan literacy rate at 40%-60%, but those in the know say it’s more like 6%. When I see children like this at the roadside in the midday heat, I’m more inclined to believe the last figure.

Dinner is Served!

Sept 27th Dinner is Served!

Note: this entry was written by an American friend of mine who does not have a blog of her own, but wanted to reach an English speaking audience. Please give her your feedback and I’ll pass it on.

To spice or not to spice: That is the question. If you are serving Pakistanis, heavy spices and lots of oil are de riguer. But to my American palate certain foods should be eaten as they were meant to be: salt, pepper, garlic and onion, maybe some paprika or basil. I’ve already made concessions by adding a hunk of fresh ginger to my vegetable soup! Very good, by the way. The answer to the dilemma of muliticultural palates lies in making accommodations, or setting aside my own separate mashed potatoes, and soup sans masala, (Indian spice mix). Then I let Zaynab, our house keeper, tamper with the rest of my creations to suit everyone else’s palate.

This vegetable soup is a story in itself. I have been trying to think of ways to be thrifty in the kitchen by making something out of whatever I might find, like kitchen sink eggs. Hence, the mashed potatoes, which were the main course two night’s back.

All Ramadan, I’d been fasting and thinking of food, certainly not the objective of fasting, but it happens. Around here, I have to be careful about what I ask for. When I first arrived, I made fruit salad with yogurt and mentioned we liked to eat it at home during Ramadan. Now, every day, without fail, Zaynab presents me with a big bowl of it and we end up having to eat it until it turns too brown to be palatable!

Back to the veggie soup. On Saturday, I woke up and asked my husband if he had any money. He said,” zero.” I said, “Oh, I’m asking because I want to make vegetable soup and a meat bone and some veggies in small quantities would be nice.” Since the means were not readily available, I looked in the kitchen and found tomatoes, onions, garlic, and two old carrots. Thrifty homemaker that I am, I had saved the water from the boiled potatoes the day before. Full of minerals and flavor, its a good base for vegetable soup.

Everything I had went into the pot, skin and all for color and flavor. I added a big hunk of ginger and some large garlic cloves for flavor, salt, pepper, bay leaf and some zeera seeds I found with the bay leaf. They ended up adding a nice flavor. I boiled the whole thing and then left it to simmer for some hours, about 4-5. The end result was some sharply flavored consommé. My plan was to add the vegetables when I got them, hopefully next day.

Saturday proceeded uneventfully until my dear husband informed me we’d be having guests in about 15 minutes! I wasn’t even dressed and was worried about what to serve them. I prayed asr and hid out in my room till Zaynab ironed my clothes. Thank God for small favors!

The friend who came brought his wife and their five month old baby, a very cute, alert little girl who kept us entertained for hours. Her mom, a young woman, had lived in the States with her mother and brother while going to high school. We had quite a good conversation in English. Always a plus for me. I served her some crackers and the ever present fruit salad, using the same to break my fast.

Meanwhile, my dear husband walks in with a big bag of fresh fish. This had been bought exclusively for me. He and Zaynab both have a strong aversion to it, but he knows I like it and it is relatively cheap here. I also recalled that the man who was visiting also liked fish and fortunately his wife did too. She even gave Zaynab and I a tip on how to spice it with ready-made fish masala. Zaynab trotted off dutifully to the market to get some. Still no veggies, mind you.

I washed and cleaned the fish. Hubby translated the masala package directions which called for ½ hour marinating. No time for that. Zaynab came bustling back from a second trip to the market and I graciously let her take over, opting to hold the baby instead. Then my husband came in to ask what we’d eat with the fish and how about the soup! I gave him a doleful look and told him it wasn’t fit for company. He said, “We can’t just have fish” and told Z. to go back to the market for two plates of ready-made curry. What a night for her!

Dinner was served. The male guest and I ate the bony fish with zest. Some lemon cut the spice of the masala for me. His wife picked delicately at her plate and Zaynab and my husband ate curry. The baby gummed tiny bits of bread with delight. Everyone was happy and relatively well fed.

This morning, before I got up, Zaynab was sent to Abpara Market for vegetables! She came home with quite a variety of squash, peas, beans, potatoes and other stuff for future meals. I was happy and proud of her. The way the market works here, is seller chooses and packs the bag, so he wants to give you a large quantity and always seems to throw in some stuff of poor quality along with the rest. If you try to choose the produce yourself, he’ll get annoyed.

So, I happily cut and chopped, boiled and simmered the veggies and then added the consommé, which had improved in flavor overnight. Since I was fasting, I had to wait to taste the results. I was very pleased. A perfect American vegetable soup using no meat at all, even for flavor. The fresh veggies, ginger, onions and coriander had melded into a beautiful mixture of flavors. Trouble is, American vegetable soup is not popular in Pakistan, unless you developed a liking for it at British boarding school, as my husband seems to have done.

So, I’ve greedily set aside at least two days worth of soup for myself and the rest will be spiced and served to our guests tonight, who happen to be all male. In fact, as I write this, the chauffeur of one of these men is in the our kitchen, cooking up a chicken! Will wonders never cease?

Islamabad nights

Sept. 26

If someone asked me what we do for fun here in Pakistan, what would I say? The pace of life is entirely different than back home.

Evenings, we sit on the roof and watch the rain. We watch the storm clouds gather in the sky, observe the lightning, wait for the thunder and try to determine how far way the storm is. Our rooftop seats are piled up bricks, four bricks to a seat, just the right height for tea and conversation.

We watch the moon is all its phases of brightness, shining in its glory as it waxes, beaming its holy rays in our direction. We marvel at its halo when masked by the clouds.

An hour before sunset, we bring the charpoy, small table and chair outside to the veranda to enjoy the cooling air. We catch a breeze or two and watch the kites launch from neighboring rooftops, enjoying their dips and rises.

If a storm develops, we move the furniture closer to the house, or back inside, and watch the rain soak the new grass we are struggling to grow. We watch the water flow from the drainpipes and cascade as a waterfall down the steps that lead to the roof.

In the morning, just after fajr, it’s the birds’ playtime. We watch them swoop down on our grass, picking up whatever scraps they might find. We witness their morning conferences on the telephone wires just above our gate. We admire the bird who chooses to stay behind when others fly away. He’s the one who serenades us back to sleep.

We also watch Diana, our adopted street cat. I named her after the Roman goddess who loved to hunt, and hunt she does! She chases and catches frogs and large bugs, then lets them go in a wonderful game of cat and mouse. She amuses us as she holds a creature and bats it with her claws, grasping and releasing it to run for its life, only to be caught and toyed with again. She will only put it in her mouth if challenged by a larger cat, or if she is actually hungry after the milk and scraps we’ve already fed her.

The pace of life is different here in Pakistan. Somehow there is time to unwind, reflect and observe, time to experience the open book of Allah’s universe and offer a prayer of acknowledgement and appreciation.

Of Music and Movies

Sept. 20, 2010

It’s hard to believe I’ve been here a month and two days already. I was able to fast the six days of Shawwal after Ramadan and continue in the same elevated spirits as during Ramadan. Now there is the resolve to fast on Mondays and/or Thursdays and/or on the 13/14/15th of the month, as the Prophet(pbuh) did. Inshallah!

The nights have gotten much cooler. Soon it will be time for blankets and quilts. I’m already wishing I’d brought my winter pajamas! But we do have hot water and that is a blessing. When I return in January, I will know what to bring: CEREAL, herb tea, something to make coffee in, potholders, my warm cashmere shawl (chador), among other things. And dvd’s, lots of them, especially movies from the 80’s and 90’s. Tahera loves them and Asad and I have been enjoying them with her. So far, we’ve watched Thelma and Louise and Dances with Wolves. She loved them both. The first was great because she has never seen women in roles like that (i.e. bank robbers and killers on the run). She thoroughly enjoyed the chase scenes and the scenes where men are shown as fools and the women are the heroes. Asad did a lot of explaining for Dances with Wolves but I know she enjoyed the story line, scenery and Native American lifestyle. We also watched Avatar, but Asad and I were both very surprised to find out she had already seen it on cable four or five times! In Pakistan! That was a surprise.

We are doing some cultural exchange. Tahera has already asked someone to get a bunch of Bollywood dvds to show me. I’m also acquiring a taste for Indian music. Asad likes the classic ghazals recorded in the 50’s and 60’s. There are modern remakes of the same. Ghazals are a genre of poetry. They are love songs that can be appreciated on more than one level. The singer is usually yearning for his lost love, or beloved. The Beloved can be a woman or man, or it can be a yearning for Allah (SWT). The lyrics are heart-rendingly beautiful and sad. I’ll include a sample at the end of this entry.

And then, there are the ever popular qawwalis of Nusrat. Last night we listened to a fascinating fusion of sixties rock sounds and jazz played on classical Indian instruments and electric guitars. These were absolutely wonderful, intricate masterpieces of music. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting on our charpoy, outside in our courtyard, drinking tea, eating nuts and dates and listening to this magical music.

Now that Ramadan and the heat are over, we take walks in the village. Tahera and I go to the corner grocery, the phone card store and the fruit and vegetable stalls to get daily essentials like milk, bread, eggs and cell phone cards. Chatta Backtawer is essentially a village with just a few stores and stalls along one or two streets in town. The rest of the area are houses. I have noticed one school so far, two masjids and one shrine. In the early evening there is often a means’ volleyball game going on at one end of town, or a cricket game

When you walk the dirt paths or streets, it’s not uncommon to run into chicken and goats. Yesterday Tahera and I discovered a herd of water buffalo at one end of town. They were grazing behind one of the old homes and a boy was herding them. Asad tells me these buffalo are considered cattle here and are the main source of milk and other dairy products. Behind the homes on that end of town is a vast area of land with rock formations and a river. We have identified it as a potential place to walk one day, as it is very scenic.

I have been treated to some surprise evening excursions lately. These were Tahera’s ideas to entertain me. She is a sweetheart. She usually has to talk Asad into joining us, as he’d often rather stay home than take public transportation and taxis are expensive. But lately he’s been persuaded and we went to two prime places: Margalla National Park and Lake View Park. In both places, Asad was pleasantly surprised to see how much these areas had changed in the last 30 years, when he’d last visited them as a young man. Back then, they were places of natural beauty and relative solitude. Now they are public vacation spots with carnival rides, food stalls and picnic areas. Still beautiful, but commercially developed. With no admission fees, they are popular recreational places for families in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. There is a sprinkling of tourists, but just a few.

Margalla National Park is up in the hills and we took a taxi there. We went in the early evening after maghrib. This park offers wonderful panoramic views of Islamabad. The city fans out to the east and west from a central sector called the Blue Area. Since it was dark, all the lights were twinkling and it was a pretty sight. No less pretty was the sight of the nine days moon as seen through the pine trees that abound through the park. We walked some paved and dirt areas and told ourselves we’d come back during the day.

There were many attractions in the park as well. Near the parking area, we saw a trained monkey. As his owner told a story of visiting the in-laws, the monkey acted it out, complete with gestures and facial expressions. As one point, he monkey sat on a small chairs, crossed his legs, clasped his hands on his knees, and swung one foot back and forth, just like a proper son in law. It was fun to watch, especially since the monkey himself looked healthy and well taken care of.

An older man sat playing the rabab, a classical Indian string instrument. We stopped to listen and gave him a few coins. There was also a man sketching portraits. The most interesting display to me was a man selling paan. He had set up a stand consisting of a large chest, or pan box, with all its accoutrements. He himself was dressed in green with a special hat. He had dolls on exhibit dressed in native costume, doing common activities, like spinning wool, riding horses and reading Quran. The funny thing was these were American dolls, both Barbies and baby dolls, dressed as classic Pakistani characters. I really liked the spirit of enterprise this guy showed. It looked like he was doing a pretty good business, too, as people were lined up to buy his product, a cone of pan filled with various ingredients. Tahera and Asad enjoyed these but I have never developed a taste for paan, a combination of a leaf, covered with a paste and filled with various herbs.

Lake View Park is another example of a scenic place that has recently been developed into a major recreation area. When Asad last went there, about 35 years ago, it was just a lake, named Rawal Lake and a dam which had been built to supply clean water to Rawalpindi, the twin city of Islamabad. That is a story in itself, as the dam was built without machinery, using only donkeys and manpower. A wealthy contractor from the tribal areas commissioned the project and actually built a village to house the laborers and their families. It is sort of like what Henry Ford did in Dearborn.

When we got to the site, we found it had been re-named Lake View Park. There is a wonderful stone boardwalk and promenade leading down to the lake. It is lined on either side with restaurants, snack stands, carnival rides, an aviary and an ATV race track, of all things. There are beautiful trees, shrubs and flowers lining the walkways. Down by the lake, there is a well-designed rotunda with plenty of seating areas and trash cans, a rare sight in Pakistan. There are gazebos and other structures looking out over the lake as well. It was evening, with a bright moon shining in the sky and reflecting in the water and music playing in the background, quite a lovely evening.

Here is the translation of a ghazal sung by Makesh and translated for me by Asad:

I gave my heart for you to keep.
You set it on fire.
Fate gave me love
And you put my heart in agony.

The beetle, who loves the rose
And hovers over it,
Cries all the time.
The rose is always smiling.

The pain the world is so afraid of,
The heartache they so fear
You, with your first glance,
You buried it all in my heart.

So I kept you in my heart
And lit the lamp of hope
One blow of fate
Extinguished it.


I think that serves as a good example of the romantic soul of Pakistan. One may hear the athan blaring from a hundred microphones five times a day, but the soul of the people has been captured by ishq. And what will convey the true meaning of ishq? Ask your own heart and then let me know!