After a long chat, Georgie and i have decided to come home earlier than we had originally planned to. There are a number of factors in our decision, such as the current security levels, our work and how long we really feel comfortable staying out here for. We have still to talk or our boss, sort out tickets and such like, but for now it feels like the right decision. So i hope you’re all going be ready to look through a whole lot of photos and hear some more stories from Pakistan because I’m coming home soon!

Posted: October 13th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 2

So we’re back in Islamabad. Back to the normal routine of getting up, going to work and going back to the guest house. There’s just a few small tweaks to this daily routine, a few people in the office are leaving and so this means lots of good byes and at the end of the week the odd party or two, one of which we’re supposed to be learning a dance routine for.  Over the past week i have had two dance lessons and one more tonight before we performed it at the party, been out for dinner to Nirvana, been to another leaving do for a lovely girl in the office called Nida, and then Seher and Phils leaving do on the Friday. 

Posted: October 12th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
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Well it is for me anyway.

Now I’m going to do my best not to confuse you and explain things (sorry if it gets a little confusing). After my last post which i actually wrote a week ago we had decided to go back to Islamabad for Eid, but when we got back to Gilgit we were put up in the Serena hotel, about as posh as your going to get in Pakistan. It was sort of reassurance from our bosses that they were looking after us. So when we had sat around for the weekend and taken calls from lots of people at the office the offer to stay in the hotel till Eid was over was put to us. I mean we weren’t exactly looking forward to going back there, almost everyone we knew in the city was leaving to go be with their families. (turns out not a lot of people actually live here, they just work here). so we jumped at the offer and have since spent the whole week doing a whole lot of nothing, and i mean nothing. 

absolutely everything apart from the hotel closes over Eid, our entire office, the local shops, drivers, everything. And since we have been recommended not to take taxis, yet another safety risk. we have been rather isolated.

i seem to have read almost my entire book collection, put up all my posts that i got behind with, looked up loads of things online, experimented with illustrator again, and taken a few more photos (i mean there’s only so many you can take of your room mate and the lovely mountain view, no matter how lovely they are). Georgie has filled up another sketchbook, explored the hotel and its grounds, got to know all the staff rather well and picked up a rather nice tan!

Oh and things between Georgie and i are a whole lot better turns out she just needed me to talk more, and i’m just trying not to take some things the wrong way.my conversation skills are certinally being stretched again, they definitely needed it. Seems sharing a small room and being confined to the hotel can be good for people, though i think it’ll be nice to have our own space back in Islamabad again.

So tomorrow when you guys all wake up, hopefully i’ll be back safe and sound in sunny Islamabad, in a guest house where the food is at least mildly edible. Boy am i going to be saying my prayers tonight. Love to one and all, x

Posted: October 4th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 1

Posted: October 3rd, 2008 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 2

The next morning I woke up and had beans (proper heinz beans!!) on toast with scrambled egg, oh and apricots, wonderful wonderful breakfast. Then the AKRSP girls took us to see the local gem cutting place where locals are taught how to cut and polish the gems to sell in the local market.

We were also shown a local sewing workshop and some of the products that they produce there. All very nicely cross stitched, and typically Pakistani products not quite to my taste but I did buy some beautiful friendship bracelets.

Before we set off to upper Hunza to meet some more artisans we picked up some food for Meher’s family who live in Gojal in upper Hunza, she was going to spend the night up there with her family.

Then we set off on the two hour journey to upper Hunza. Surprisingly the journey up was rather smooth save for the few sections in which a landslide had occurred or where the Chinese were still widening the road.

I was lucky enough to have the front window seat, so the view that I had was absolutely amazing. The road wound higher than we had been before, around every corner the view changed. About half way up we past two cyclists carrying what looked like rather heavy panniers,

but I stuck my arm out the window and gave them a quick wave, which was readily returned. I love the instant sense of camaraderie that we have with foreigners over in Pakistan, doesn’t matter which country your coming from your all here and very happy to be so.

 We arrived at the first of the villages and Shakila jumped out of the car to go and inform one of the artisans that we would be visiting her later on that day. Georgie and I decided to have a quick bumble around and to stretch our legs a bit. An eagle circled overhead and the sounds of men working away in the wood-shop  buzzed away behind us,

Shaklia quickly returned and we jumped back into the car and drove further into the village. As we got out of the car all the local children were coming our of their schools full of energy and smiles. We wove through them all answering their greetings of ‘Hello’, ‘How are you?’ and ‘Asalam alakum’ and one ‘goodbye’ from a younger child, eager to try out his English on us. We stepped through a metal gate and looked over a wall, one of the artisans was teaching her own class of local women the same skills that she had been taught by the classes that EFU had set up.

Their work was beautiful and very small and detailed, almost as fine as some of the antique pieces that we had seen back in Islamabad. The artisan brought out the shawl that we had asked her to do, the quality of the work was fine but it wasn’t what we had asked her to do, there was meant to be an embroidered edge which showed hills and rivers and trees and linked with the embroidered pieces that had been appliqued on.

This was disappointing, even more so when she said that she couldn’t make the changes by tomorrow because she was conducting the classes. So I photographed her work and we took it to see if another artisan could work on it.

 As we walked back up to the car Shakila suggested we had a look at the local women’s shops, a building specially catered to women setting up their own businesses. When we entered we found out that there was actually an opening ceremony for a woman who had a machine for crushing nuts, mainly apricot nuts (which by the way are delicious!). There was a puddle of thick liquid on the floor, Georgie enquired as to what the liquid was and was told that it is traditional to slaughter an animal when things are celebrated here. Her face dropped and she slowly edged towards the door her eyes avoiding the pool of blood on the floor. 

We were invited along to the celebration that the woman was having back at her house. We took off our shoes and went and sat on the floor cushions, a plastic table cloth was laid out in front of us.

Two large plates of chapattis with equally large bowls of milk on top were then placed down and one of the women proceeded to demonstrate to us how we should eat this.

One of the chapattis was torn us into tiny pieces and then scattered into the very fresh warm goats milk, you then took you spoon and fished around for some of the chapatti and drank it with the milk. Georgie and I looked at it rather dubiously, our experience with milk over here hasn’t generally been a good one, but was guests of honour we were expected to try this first. We dipped into  the bowl and spooned out a small amount each.

It was delicious, the milk was warm and creamy, as close to British milk as I think we’re going to get out here, and the chapatti matched it all perfectly. I don’t think there’s really anything that i can compare it too, guess you’re all just going to have to try it when i get back. When this was finished more chapattis and Aloo Gosht (basically potatoes and Lamb or usually mutton in a spicy sauce), and fresh yoghurt (with a bit of cream on top) replaced it.

We were expected to eat all of this with no form of cutlery just your fingers and the chapatti I just about managed this, except when it came to the potato which was a little under cooked and I couldn’t cut through it with a spoon and slopped a little sauce onto my trousers.

All of this was them followed by a cup of mixed tea, with the tea leaves at the bottom (all those years of watching family guests drink their tea straight to the bottom and getting a mouth full of tea leaves, has made me a little cautious of the bottom of the cup). The artisan’s son, came in

he had been watching me take photographs through out the meal, so I got up took off my camera and handed it to him, pointed to the eye piece and pressed the shutter then showed him the picture he had taken, it seems it doesn’t matter where you go in the world, little boys are still interested in gadgets and cars.

The next artisans house was quite close by and soon after we arrived another artisan came to join us bringing her two boys along, they were both very fair children, the youngest with blond hair and skin almost as white as our own.

They were both dressed in matching outfits and were extremely shy

but the oldest went around (with the occasional shove of persuasion from his mother) and greeted each of us. we still had two more artisans to visit. One was supposed to have finished two pillow cases, but when we arrived, she was out and he sons showed us the pieces, they had barely been started. So we removed them and took them off to another artisan. To reach the next artisan we had to walk over a few fields, Iqubal had taken the car to go an visit a friend in the village

at the final artisans house we were offered more tea and food which we unsuccessfully tried to decline. when we asked to help us with one of unfinished pillow cases she agreed and said that some more local women were coming round to her house to do some work and that we could ask them to work on the other we all breathed a sigh of relief.

She brought out the shawl that we had given to her, the work was good and with a few suggestions on improvements we left, full of tea and hopefulness. We dropped Shaklia off at her house, she invites us to stay, but we decline and ask if we could stay next time when we have a bit more time to spend up here. Then it was back down to Hunza, dinner and off to bed.

Posted: October 2nd, 2008 under Uncategorized.
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Wednesday morning we woke up at the leisurely hour of nine o’clock! Breakfast arrived and we ate as we packed and trotted off downstairs to meet the girls of AKRSP (our equivalent up here)  and set off for Hunza. The day was quite cloudy and grey, and bits of rain kept hitting the windscreen as we drove up the Karakome highway.

We arrived in Hunza some two hours later, stopped off for a cup of mixed tea (where the milk is brewed with the water and tea, very creamy and quite nice) and our packed lunches. I ate my way through the chicken paste sandwiches, boiled egg, chicken leg, pack of ‘Souper’ biscuits and I decided to save my Rhino bar for later on (later discovered not really chocolate at all).

Our first artisan of the day had two pieces two show us, the first a cross stitched seaweed design really quite beautiful and the second piece was one of the six scarves commissioned by a designer. I wasn’t entirely happy with the finished result, there were things that could have been filled in and wern’t and some of the designs were off centre. But the finishing was up to scratch, so I was relatively happy, I’ll left Georgie to worry properly over the design aspects of it. The woman then brought out two cushion covers that Meher had commissioned her to produce and they were really stunning,

nicely traditional. What rather annoyed me about the pieces was the standard that they had been produced to was quite a bit higher than that of the scarf. Hummm. Anyway we left her with a new set of instructions and set off for the next artisans house, almost getting run over by a boy with a wheelbarrow full of rocks coming down the hill towards us.

The next artisan was over in the next valley, along more roads with steep drops, not unlike those that you might find on the mountain sides of Switzerland.

The differences being it hasn’t snowed yet, the roads aren’t tarmac their dirt and stones and there are absolutely no barriers to stop you from going over the edge. I’m actually beginning to really enjoy these sorts of roads, their so much better than any roller-coaster ride! When we reached the town we got out and walked through a maze of stone walled back streets/alleys with actual drain covers and they were all beautifully swept and clean.

I hadn’t seen anything else like it yet in Pakistan, you learn or see something new everyday when you’re up here.  We arrived at the artisans house and stood outside as she went in to collect the piece.

It was still unfinished (which was mildly disappointing, but that’s why we’re up here check on these things). While we were waiting a little girl came and joined us,

she let me take a few pictures of her before we set off again. As we wound our way back through the back streets all these ladders and tiny doors backed on to them leading to these wonderfully traditional houses.

 The girls told us that about two years ago, prince Charles had visited the area and told them that they should not change it, as it was very special and things like this shouldn’t be lost. I think I quite agree with him, it was wonderful and I just remember that thing that struck me the most was how clean the whole area was (usually there’s a lot of litter on the ground and mountain streams that have picked up bits of this and that flowing beside the roads.

After our last visit of the day we were taken further up the mountain side to a hotel called the eagles nest, it boasts one of the best views of the area and I couldn’t agree more. Even through the mist and the cloud it was still breath taking.

Eventually the rain drove us all inside and so we tottered around the shop, looking at all sorts of gems, rubies, aquamarine, quartz tourmaline and a number of others. There were also numerous amounts of scarves, shawls, old pots, teapots belts and tribal jewellery, I held off against buying anything at that point in case I found something better over then next few days and regretted my buy (I couldn’t get out anymore money even if I had wanted as there are no banks up here, at least not ones with ATM’s). Georgie bought a very nice shawl that was pure wool with silk embroidery all over it, it was stunning.

The evening I tucked into a bowl of delicious dawdo soup,  a very traditional dish that I has sampled last time I was up in Hunza, and toast with Lurpak butter mmmmm….. Filled up and ready for a good nights sleep, I pulled on my warm socks and cashmere jumper and fell asleep.

Posted: October 2nd, 2008 under Uncategorized.
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