I haven't read many blogs but the list would seem to be an uncreative cop out for people who cannot trust themselves to write complete paragraphs that flow together in some way. However, I am experiencing a whole ton and not all of it works as a narrative. Just because I am doing it does not mean I won't call you out in the unlikely event I read your blog. I now know even better what sort of a move it is.

A list.

Office small talk is exactly the same here as it is in America: same awkward tentativeness about when to end it, same desire to aknowledge one another with as little commitment as possible.

The pace of life is so much slower here that it makes the difference between the country and city in America look tiny. There are a few laborers who work very hard, everyone else seems to be on a leisure pace at all times.

Cricket is more fun to play than baseball. Baseball is a much better spectator sport. Basketball and soccer beat both senseless with their simplicity and elegance. It is like if Bruce Wayne fought crime without the need to get all goth and weird. That made a lot more sense before I wrote it out.

Even if it were not a in a desert, the difference in cleanliness between Karachi and anyplace in America is amazing. Not sure why the difference in caring but it is just one of the problems people have an aquired helplessness about.

The cockroaches I have seen scurrying about on the apartment floor are bigger than the lizards.

As bad as the reputation of Karachi is, I hear more gunshots a night in Chapel Hill or in Durham than I have my entire time here. Oddly enough, there are assault rifles and large shotguns visible everywhere. Traffic is roughly equivalent to Boston (same aggression, less crowding but more wanton disregard for the rules of traffic) but no one gets as angry about it.

British people are very snooty about their humor. Also, I am not funny to the British. Unless I am being mean. My guess is that this is rooted in some national shortcoming.

When I was buying a fake designer shirt to wear to a rich folks get together, the guy at the store was asking my friend Talaak (nee, Talaal. Talaak means divorce in Arabic. Famously, repeating this three times to your wife officialy divorces you in Islam) where he was from. When Talaak told him London, the guy responded "boom boom!" making explosion gestures with his hands. 50 people died there in those boom booms but in Karachi, around half that number of policemen are murdered a month, so I guess that the impact is a little less here.

If our leaders and representatives are talking past each other as much as the little people and media are between the US and Pakistan, we are in trouble.

There are good people and there are narrow, ignorant people everywhere. It is heartening and a little disenchanting to see just how similar folks in Karachi are to folks anywhere I've ever been. If you or I are ever mystified about the actions of someone somewhere else, it is probably because we are missing a lot of relevant information.

Pepsi ads were painted on the walls of the crocodile shrine.