The girl is Anna a.k.a. Maya from Hungary… The tickets from Budapest to Karachi sounded expensive so she took a flight to India and from over there took a bus to Lahore – Pakistan, we picked her up right after crossing the Paki-India border…

Since her arrival till now she has:
- been to Shalimar Gardens
- been for a cinema show of a 3-hours long Punjabi movie called Gulabo (rosebud)
- took a ride on a rollercoaster for 0,5 USD
- felt sick because of all the spicy food
- bought her first Shalwar Kameez
- been to Badshahi Mosque, old city of Lahore and Food Street
- took with the MC a 23 hours long train ride from Lahore to Karachi
- got bitten by miriads of mosqitos and found the miracle of Repellent
- had the first day in company (Unilever) and was busy since first minute
- been to Mohatta Palace and the Beach park in Karachi
- organized an AIESEC+Hungary presentation for the company people
- on weekend suggested that we go to Thatta, so we did

…time limitations are only in Your head, maybe I should be little bit creative with my time too.

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.“

The building is very massive and is visible from far, it is actually very simple in architecture but the closer You get the more impressive it is. As the park around the mausoleum is huge (53 hectares), a lot of people are coming here just to hang out, but picnics are officially forbidden.

Few facts: The dome is 43 meters high and 75 meters wide/long, built on 4 meters high platform. 15 successive fountains head to it. Finished in 1970.

We have come here during sunset and have seen not just the tomb itself but also the procedure of putting down the flag and also how the lights went up. We have left to early to see how it looks like during night.

Definitelly a place to go to… not just to see the tomb, but also because of the people as for most of the visitors take this as an occassion and come in very nice colourful clothes, all parfume and make-up… As example, in one moment (dont ask me why) maybe 50 girls with all colours of clothes showed up.

Today morning I am chatting with Cileia from Switzerland who is in Islamabad working for Mobilink… …I knew that exiled prime minister Sharif is planning to come back from articles already a while before, but since than it was so quiet that I have forgotten.

And today morning she is asking me “How is Karachi?”… As there was absolute no difference between this day and the day before for me, I said “nothing“.

And only than she told me that she is at home, because whole Islamabad is closed down, roads blocked, offices and shops closed (actually is holydays), communal right canceled… Sharif is comming and gov is afraid about uproars…

How did it finish? As soon as he got out of plane, he got busted and sent back to Saudi Arabia.

…Asking me what it means? I dont know, his rule was not considered by very good by anybody I asked (said to do corruption BIG time), so his talks about bringing democracy back are quite questionable. What I know is that Pakistan is supposed to have elections this Fall. But nobody knows if they happen in 3 weeks, 3 months or not happen at all.

I guess only very few understand what I mean, but those who do know exactly what it means… It means that You think, what a nice dream, just to realize that You are living it

For me Islamabad is a city of green, city of peace, city of quiet life…

Islamabad was created by plan. Its a grid, G4, F6, E1… There is still a lot of space for trees and grass, it all looks to me, a Slovak guy used to free nature, like a big park, but still its a nice feeling. Seeing all the green and open space after brownish and crowded Karachi is relaxing. The hills, strange shaped, covered by jungle are an interesting sight. The jungle that I have seen looks like a common forest anywhere in Slovakia, but I have not seen its wild part, only the civilized part… I am so much looking forward to see the real one… and the Himalayas…. My Ithaca (those who read my posts, they know what I mean)

How anybody can do anything in the name of hatter in this place I can not understand…

We went to a restaurant high above the city, what a beautiful place. The Shah Faisal, the biggest mosque in the world, hills around the city covered by forests and I dont know what else…

Here are few pics…

Hi, this will be a short post with some updates…

First, as You might have noticed the pictures I have uploaded are here: www.picasaweb.google.com/klepo.pakistan .

Second. Today was the “say Goodbye to Joanna” evening. Joanna is my predecessor and is leaving on Thursday to be the president of AIESEC Sweden. What we did? Smoked some lemon shisha, ate some (very) spicy chicken and went for a mango-milk-shake (strange tastes day)…

(third and fourth are outdated so were deleted)

Fifth. We did some shopping today. Sum up:
- get out of Zamzama and get everything cheaper by 1/3
- You can buy books (english) from up to 30 rupees (15 SKK, 0.5 EUR). I bought three.
- Its best not to know where does the meat come from…

Sixth. These are some random thoughts of Pakistan that I wrote to a friend, maybe there are worth posting… if not , just dont read them…:

…there are some small things that I really enjoy and its hard to take a picture of them, like a toilet being cleaner than those in Romania, a guard going around the house during the night and blowing a whistle to make people know he is not asleep (and scare away the thieves?), lots of crows and eagles and seagulls in air, air that sometimes stinks like trabant has just passed around, a poster of a girl with naked tummy in a shopwindow and a walking-by girl completely covered except of the eyes, a woman covered like this with a mobile phone in her hand, an older woman driving a new class mercedes coupee, the point that people wash hands AFTER eating and not before (food is being eaten bare hands), the shop where the guy doesnt really speak good english but is selling any branded (Unilever, Procter and gamble, maggi, kraft, coca-cola) stuff You can imagine in a shop 3 x 4 meters, the fact that we dont have running water most of the time (we have buckets as reservoars), that the best place to work here is the rooftop at 3 am (when it is only 30°C) and much more stuff… I also HAVE to get out of the city. The thing is that Karachi is supposed to be biz center, Lahore culture center and Islamabad Goverment center each with a totally different style…

What was I told about PK?
1. there is heat (You will die by heat…)
2. the food is spicy (You will die by shit…)
3. there is a lot of soldiers (You will be afraid)
4. there is a lot of people (You will not be able to cross the street)
5. people there are so nice and friendly (that You will like them and be sorry to leave)
6. alcohol is forbidden (so You will die for a beer soon)
…thats basically it.

Do You want to know the truth?
I have decided to divide it into “chapters”, hope they wont turn out long…

1. Heat :.
I was warned LOTS of times about this. When I got out of the airport a breeze welcomed me, not really cold, but refreshing (because of the sea, the wind in Karachi nearly never stops), on the way in car with my head out of window the air was there again, entering the flat the ventilator at the cealing made me feel too cold… Yes, its true that 30°C at 3 a.m. and I have to wait for tommorows noon, but right now I can say: “Is this all You have to offer, I thought You can do better?!”

.: 2. Soldiers
It sounded scary: “get ready for a lot of soldiers walking around with guns!”. Looking back I can say that I dont really feel like that there would be SO many of them… they just like it BIG. In Slovakia You would see cops and security guys with pistols at belt, the guys in here have Kalashnikovs and Shotguns, I dont think they would make much impression with lousy pistols…

3. People :.
This was the only really positive thing that I was able to find out
Everybody told this and now I do believe. I had an offer of help from a student at College of dental medicine and invitation for an “underground metal concert” before setting my foot on Pakistani soil. The people are really great, offering help anytime they can, laughing a lot and enjoying their life, maybe its just the AIESECers, but thats what I have seen..
And for the amount of the people – everybody drives cares or motobikes, so not many pedestrians are left

.: 4. Spices and food
I have been training at home for the spices by visiting the asians and having some vietnamese chilli. Well, after eating a semi-spicy and spicy chicken, I have to say… dissapointed. My fingers have been burning more than my mouth, because… the eating is done by bare hands. This is the only thing I consider a culture shock till now, sorry

5. Alcohol :.
I was told that alcohol is forbidden and so I decided not to drink it…
Since I came I have already been at a bottle-party, tasted the PakiBeer (tastes like raspberry juice, costs 1.5 EUR per bottle, nothing to miss), have seen the booze shop so ocupied that the cars blocked the street and no customs has found my 250 ml of 80% Alcohol I brought for dissenfection purposes (really, I am not drinking that sh*t)…

.: 6. Clothing
I was told: no shorts, longs sleeves, girls wear hidjab and You can see only their eyes. Well, partly true… If You are a girl, You cant wear anything that leeves Your legs and shoulders naked, but a face-covering hijab is worn only by some local women and the normal hijab covering the head by like 2/3s of women. If You are a guy (and white) shorts are fine and very helpful. Just last thing to add – enjoy the wind, but dont take off Your shirt (difficult for me).

7. Traffic :.
Ever felt like You want to speed the road with wind in Your hair in one moment and fight for every centimeter of space in the next moment? Go for Pakistan! A strange mixture of Rikshas (made out of motobikes and scrapmetal), Buses and trucks (that look like a mix of Jewelery shop window and Gallery on wheels), motobikes and cars of all ages (including boxes You would not risk to enter and newest SUVs or Mercedes).
But most important is the rule: “No rules, bigger dog fu*ks”

.: 8. Language
Pakistanis officially speak Urdu, a kind of Arabic, but in fact for a lot of them their native language is English. For Karachi, a lot of the young ones studied at English spoken schools and with the Young ones its nothing special to see two Pakis speaking English. Even in side-street shops they speak English or You can get someone who does. But true is that learning the numbers in Urdu is something You should do.

9. Customs and cross-border rules :.
I was told not to take alcohol, medicaments or anything that could look suspicious, only 20 kilo luggage per person + max 7 kilo for one handluggage. I am not sure they have ever weighted my luggage (for sure they didnt weight my 3 pieces of handluggage). Concerning the content, the Vienna guys took it seriously and checked all the EU rules, the guys in Qatar were doing it in a way that looked like “I am bored, cant You move faster through the scanner?”. I think they wanted to have a look in my bag, but when my pants fell out (as it was really packed full), they gave up and closed it…

.: 10. Shopping and prices
For me as a Slovak its pretty easy, 1 Slovak crown is 2 Pakistani rupees. Prices in Zamzama district (my new home) are the same (or little lower) as in Slovakia.
Concerning the range of products… You can buy Kellogs, Coca-cola, Pringles, Signal, Persil, Marlboro and all the other stuff… In a shop which is big as Your closet

11. General feeling from the city :.
I was in Bucharest (Romania) recently and I have to say it has a little bit similar outfit, like a mix of big town and sea-side district of Croatia.
The whole town is in a rush, a lot of car honking, low houses, little bit too much trash in street for my style, crows and sea eagles, sweat on people and wind in streets, smog in air (that makes You sometimes feel like walking the highway) and air in general like in a kitchen (full of humidity, heat and various smells).

Well, I start to feel fine in here, the way how the city is makes the people enjoy and appreciate what they have, live the day, eventhough they honk like crazy, You dont really see an angry face, I might actually get bored in here