Monthly Archive for November, 2007

Day 177 – I am in Pakistan

Published on November 24, 2007 in Daily life and Thinking mood. 0 Comments

‘World’s most dangerous country’ … I wanted to write about how does it feel like. And now somehow dont know how to start. How would You write about Your home?

Well, first of all, its not an adventure. I dont know if this is how life feels like in cities like Baghdad or Kabul, cities that are supposed to be very dangerous, I dont know (yet).
All I know when I look around at my Karachi, is that this is not a battle field, nor dangerous ground, nor police state. It is a normal city, city of a kind I have not seen before – which is logical, because when it comes to its size and cultural background of this country, I have never been in any other one. Its not that safe as my homecountry, but I am finding out that there are few places where it is as safe as back home-home (Slovakia).

My life here is normal by many standards. I dont walk out on my own too much, just to shop and back, very few times I have actually walked somewhere else. And I do feel a touch of nervousness and look around me more often than in Slovakia, but sadly thats how most of the world is. And it is the price I am prepared to pay. Pay for what? This is what I have written about my stay here for the package for MC applicants:

“If you come here to Pakistan for whatever purpose, be ready that your head will just sometimes feel like blowing up. If its work, culture or opinions of people, its all so different that sometimes you just feel really surreal, feel like “this is a dream”…and than you feel your assumptions and mindsets brake down and find out that you just got another lesson of real life.

Nothing is the way it seems. Mindsets and truths are changing every day. The more paradoxes the more interesting challenge of understanding there is. The more You have to try to look through the eyes of the other people – and that is what makes me feel special.

Not every day seems amazing, but than you just look out of  the window and find out how special the day was, because you are on a special place and do stuff you never thought you would. Pakistan really is the land of Pure, because it will help you discorer the pure YOU.“

Day 164 – Beach again and dandia

Published on November 11, 2007 in At the sea and Cultural. 0 Comments

Ok, I guess first of all You are interested what is Dandia. Well, even most of the people who went for this event didnt know for sure :)

Simply said, Dandia is dancing with two sticks, one in each hand, where rythm is made (following the music) by banging of sticks of Yours or with a fellow dancer. Its originally a hindi tradition that had something to do with rain (I didnt understand that very clearly). In this case the DJ was kinda bad in playing any original pakistani or indian songs and thus the whole thing changed into a disco with sticks in Your hand :P

Now what took the most of the day was the beach… We (MC and interns) took part in annual IBA University trip along with few AIESECers from IBA who invited us. Beach house, loud music, amazing food, games and lots of people (5 buses).

My affection for the sea and the beach looks like not to be a temporary one. I enjoy immensely every single time we go. I have been swimming, playing in sand, walking the beach… really feeling relaxed and having some beautiful sights (eventhough didnt take too many pictures). Thank You guys very much for the invites, anytime again!

Apart from all of that one moment was interesting. A man came to me and asked “Do You know anybody here? And do You actually enjoy it here? Because I was watching You during the day and You have been always alone, if swimming or walking, not talking to people much.”
…Thinking back, its true, I have not been. For some reason I enjoy being alone in the middle of a lot of people – seing them have fun, looks like that it shows again that despite all that clownish masquarade, I am still a lonely shooter.

Days 152-7 – National Youth Development Seminar

Published on November 4, 2007 in AIESEC time. 0 Comments

A 5 days long conference aiming to get theory and practice (and a load of fun) to new members and get some knowledge to the senior guys.

I dont intend to tell You about the agenda of it, if You are interested in that, just ask me for the Output (I dont have it uploaded on the server any more).

What I want to tell You is how does it feel to be culturarly shocked in a way I didnt expect. When Kartik, the chair, asked about how should he behave and how will the people be, me and my team tried to prepare him for the worse. “Most people will go to sleep straight after sessions”, “Dont expect rollcalls and dancing in general will be rare”, “A part of the people will be not very much in fun and will be rather withdrawn“…

The truth was quite shocking, in a positive way. Kartik forgot about all what we have told him as soon as he entered the plenary (which was 4 hours late, like always). He started to cheer and be really outgoing and as soon Islamabadis unleashed their dance… Suprises had no end :)

I can tell You that after 6 years in AIESEC I have not seen a conference with so many jives, friendly talking and night random fun… and that all without alcohol and behaving all appropriate. Was actually also the first time I have properly been an ambassador of Slovakia, explaining where is it, how is it, even why is it (as the chapter of separation of Slovakia from Czech republic was of an apparent interest to Pakistanis).

Thank You guys… Was a very deep experience, ups and downs, deeps thoughts and pure random fun, and a State of Emergency, but thats a different story… actually my next post.

Day 156 – day of State of emergency, a.k.a. Happy Emergency!

Published on November 3, 2007 in Politics and Weird and random. 0 Comments

Well, this happened during the conference, so to get You into the mood…

Sesion is over, me, Jeremy and the Islamabadis are sitting at the pool (the venue was perfect) with feet in water and just doing random chats when…

…understand, most Islamabadis are actually from Rawalpindi. And exactly in this moment of pure relaxation, one (and than another and another one) gets and SMS that in Rawalpindi was a bomb blast with I dont know how many people dead.

Worried expressions come, followed by calls home and checking on everybody possible if they are all right. Thanks God, nobody from their circles got hurt. (…would You care about other circles?) And as the home-checking calls slowly diminish, somebody gets another piece of news…

…a State of emergency was imposed on Pakistan!

Calls start all over again, everybody trying to reach some cousin, brother-in-law, uncle, family friend who ranks the highest in military to find out WTF is going on.

Pieces of news come: TV channels cut off, consitution dumped, flights cancelled, arrests, Islamabad and Rawalpindi closed down… And after a while some of them start to prove exaggerated.

Thats the real story. But the most fascinating was the behaviour of people. As soon as the safety of personal circles of the guys there was checked, the discussion went to for me into quite surreal ways. Seriousness got turned into sarcasm, biggest concern became if they will be on time for exams and all of them sure that the university (in Islamabad) will not do a shit about the chaos and keep up to the schedule. The speed with whitch people accepted the status, adapted and started to think and act as nothing has happened was astonishing.

Some people actually started to wish each other Happy Emergency Day :)

Observing this something became clear: stirring any kind of revolution in here will be difficult. People of pakistan have seen a lot and actually expect to see even more. They actually remind me of the character of Donkey Benjamin from “Animal Farm” by Orwell that I read recently. His approach is very clear – things wont change, I will get old and see new things come and become old and I will try to be still there and live my life.

And thats the story, not very entertaining, but giving an image, image that calms some of You down, that might frustrate some people and maybe might explain a few things. Heck, I guess it pretty explains why nothing has changed after all the rallies by lawyers and all those arrests, because the basic question is – why should anything change, why should I change?

Last thing… this article shows how much I suck in trying to be a journalist stirring peoples emotions. If You want some better stuff go to e.g. blog of this guy Emad…

There are two images that stuck in my head… The Black ribbon, symbol of protest against the State of emergency and the pic of the character “V” from the movie “V for Vendetta”… A friend came with a pretty chilling slogan for it “Remember, remember the 3rd of November!” (if You have seen the movie, You know what am I talking about…). What will be remembered? And who except of Wikipedia will? I dont know, ask Benjamin.