Week 3 & Week 4

The last couple of weeks have been relatively quiet. We returned to the capital as Ramadan came to a close and the country slowed pace in anticipation of the coming Eid holiday. After a time enjoying crisp mountain mornings and enough isolation to subdue the mind a little, the city heat and ever-present political fervour took a little while to adjust to. However, the capital’s crowds soon evaporated with the sighting of the Eid moon and subsequent mass exodus of city-dwellers. Islamabad being relatively young and entirely planned (see Week 1!) there is a limited indigenous population here so the large majority of Islamabadites (?) ship off to villages and towns across the country to be with their families during the holiday. As a result I now have a fairly clear idea of what it must be like to spend Christmas and New Year all on your lonesome! You feel sorry for me right?...but its not all bad….no arguments round the dinner table, no need to buy loads of gifts and given the restricted access to alcohol, no morning after!! A further positive to my mind is that, with Ramadan tucked away for the next 11 months, we are all back to eating three square meals a day! Without the strength of the Faithful, I can tell you eating breakfast at 4:30am day after day starts to grind a little! Calls ring out from the mosques post these pre-dawn meals extoling the virtue of prayer rather than sleep but at that time of morning I know where my priorities lie!

Perhaps the most noteworthy event of the past weeks has been a protracted set-to with the boys at the Interior Ministry. I was obliged to make their acquaintance in order to obtain a visa extension - a service which they were initially unwilling to perform - so we began a lengthy process of negotiation and, with fluent Urdu a clear advantage here, the bulk of this advocacy fell squarely in the lap of a colleague of mine from Muslim Aid. The patience and resolve he demonstrated in undertaking this tricky task are commendable. You see, the men of the ministry are a special sort! I have already mentioned the rigorous uniform of the legal fraternity, white shirt, black suit, black tie…well my source tells me the only colour tie to be seen wearing in the hallowed halls of the Ministry is blood(tie) red; a family bond being the primary criteria for admittance to a privileged existence of extended nap breaks and complete indifference to the problems of the visitor-come-a-calling. These men possess a certain power and, as my Chief Negotiator later commented, “they always say ‘what’s wrong?’ they never say ‘what’s right?’! Still, we were eventually successful (my role consisting of staying quiet, smiling politely and projecting a look of sufficient gratitude at the appropriate moment!) and on the Friday, between the hours of 11:00 am and 11:40am as stipulated, I entered the Immmigration office to collect my passport. In this arcane environment every piece of information is meticulously logged by hand into huge, clothbound ledgers as ancient stamping machines are employed to mark the many passports strewn in disarray around the office. Struggling to remember where he left your documentation, the immigration man’s movements are trained to be slow and methodical, calculated to cause maximum frustration to the patiently waiting applicant. Everyone has to play this game, impatience only leads to an instruction to return tomorrow – or yesterday – it’s hard to say for sure as the Urdu word is the same for both of these! But after the obligatory too-long wait I departed a happy man, passport with newly stamped visa in hand.


Running various errands around the city I’ve had the pleasure of taking the taxis here which are yellow like the ones in New York and buzz up and down grand, arrow-straight avenues too but there the similarity ends. The many tiny Suzukis that populate the city’s roads are largely dilapidated vehicles. I’ve seen hapless passengers stood by the roadside as the driver changes a tyre and the first time I took a cab myself I had to get out and push to get it started - with hindsight surely worth a discount! The price structure too, in my experience, is a little haphazard. Inevitably when I enquire how much a journey will cost the driver fixes me with a twinkle in his eye and asks me how much I wish to pay! Foregoing the obvious response to this loaded question I begin the haggling process and each time, when the deal has been done, the twinkle remains and I’m left with the impression that once again I’ve been fleeced! If I’m being picky here I would also suggest that a man who drives a city cab for a living should know the city where he works, more especially so when it’s laid out with the kind of vicious logic present in the street plan of Islamabad. Nevertheless on one occasion I found my chosen Suzuki slowing up in the midst of the 7th Avenue (just like New York see!) while the wiry, confused cabbie leant over his seat to ask me if we were going in the right direction! My destination was far from obscure, still, this problematic case of role reversal was only resolved because I’d taken the trouble to look at a map before I left the hotel and had the simple route (straight ahead buddy…now take a left!) firmly laid out in my head. When dealing with an Islamabad cab driver, I’ve come to learn, preparation is key!