I got lost on my way to an improv show last night. We wound through the Boston-like traffic of Karachi for about an hour and only saw the latter half of a two hour show. It was extremely funny to hear improv done in an accent that was not intentionally put on. I am going to start practicing with them soon and will either play or guest coach depending on what they want. They have a pretty solid audience of about fifty for weekly shows. Very impressive.
I am exhausted right now and cannot write properly. I will flesh something out later on. I think I might be a bit sick.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Monday, July 11, 2005
Mungo Pir
Crocodile Saint. So, I mentioned this shrine in the last post and remembered how interesting the story behind this is.
A long time back, there was a Hindu man and he converted to Islam. He moved from what is now India to what is now Pakistan, in a pattern that would be replayed centuries later on a grander scale, more reminiscent of two large groups of people murdering millions of each other. His, however, was peaceful and succesful. Through the course of his journey, he became known for his devotion and holiness. Upon arriving to the spot he felt he wanted to be said to have arrived at, he setted in to wash off the dust of a long journey. The place was a natural sulfur spring so he had plenty of healing water to do his hygenics in. After his bath, he sat poolside and combed his hair just like any of us would do. However, when he pulled his comb through the overgrown locks he had cultivated during his travels, he knocked loose the lice that had established residency on his skull. Through the power of his holiness and God's limitless sense of humor, the lice became crocodiles when they hit the water.
When he died, a shrine was erected in his honor and the crocodile pool became a healing bath for those with physical ailments. To ease the danger of getting the healing power, capitalism has provided a bottled version that you can enjoy on the comfort of your couch, if you don't mind a sodden sofa. It is on the walls of the alligator enclosure that I saw the sign for Pepsi.
The Islamic appropriatness of shrines is a pretty contentious debate but if you were interested in it, I suggest you check it out on your own. Basically, purists say you ought to only have a very simple grave stone for the practical reason of having people not dig holes and be surprised by skulls or rotting corpses or what have you as generally, Muslims do not use coffins. They (purists) would say that to even have a distinguishing marker is haraam (forbidden, bad). However, more easygoing types feel that those people who were very good are probably going to get the ear of Allah better than those of us who are serial sinners. They, like the catholics, use the intermediaries of saints to try to get God to be better buddies with them. Gnerally, you will see more shrines in South Asia and fewer the closer you get to the Arabs who are widely known as flawless and thus have no need for saints.
A long time back, there was a Hindu man and he converted to Islam. He moved from what is now India to what is now Pakistan, in a pattern that would be replayed centuries later on a grander scale, more reminiscent of two large groups of people murdering millions of each other. His, however, was peaceful and succesful. Through the course of his journey, he became known for his devotion and holiness. Upon arriving to the spot he felt he wanted to be said to have arrived at, he setted in to wash off the dust of a long journey. The place was a natural sulfur spring so he had plenty of healing water to do his hygenics in. After his bath, he sat poolside and combed his hair just like any of us would do. However, when he pulled his comb through the overgrown locks he had cultivated during his travels, he knocked loose the lice that had established residency on his skull. Through the power of his holiness and God's limitless sense of humor, the lice became crocodiles when they hit the water.
When he died, a shrine was erected in his honor and the crocodile pool became a healing bath for those with physical ailments. To ease the danger of getting the healing power, capitalism has provided a bottled version that you can enjoy on the comfort of your couch, if you don't mind a sodden sofa. It is on the walls of the alligator enclosure that I saw the sign for Pepsi.
The Islamic appropriatness of shrines is a pretty contentious debate but if you were interested in it, I suggest you check it out on your own. Basically, purists say you ought to only have a very simple grave stone for the practical reason of having people not dig holes and be surprised by skulls or rotting corpses or what have you as generally, Muslims do not use coffins. They (purists) would say that to even have a distinguishing marker is haraam (forbidden, bad). However, more easygoing types feel that those people who were very good are probably going to get the ear of Allah better than those of us who are serial sinners. They, like the catholics, use the intermediaries of saints to try to get God to be better buddies with them. Gnerally, you will see more shrines in South Asia and fewer the closer you get to the Arabs who are widely known as flawless and thus have no need for saints.
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Karachi City is HOT HOT HOT!
Wow, holy sweet Jesus hot. Imagine the hottest day in NC. Now, pretend you are in Florida instead. Then, pretend you are in Nicaragua. Then, pretend that you've hit a heat wave and it is smoggy and humid. 112 degrees on the beach with a sea breeze is socks rockingly hot. It is not the oven heat of the interior of a car sitting in the sun in Chapel Hill. That complete absence of oxygen is not there. However, for someone of my age and fitness level to have copious knee and back sweat from moving to take a sip of ice water is pretty spectacular.
Internet, phone and even electricity are relatively scarce resources here (the power just died and now my palms are sweating from lack of a/c), so I apologize to all of you that I told to keep up with me here on the blog. I will do better from this point on. That is because rather than sharing a phone with the twelve girls in their apartment (the guys' place has no phone or beds) I have begun my internship and can update from work.
That's right. Long rumored to be a namby-pamby liberal, I've kicked the closet door clear across the jungle-themed bedroom and step forward into my life as an intern at WWF. Not the barely hidden, ultra-homosexual wrestling extravaganza: they changed their name. This is the World Wide Fund for Nature: they also changed their name.
I work at the Wetland Center in Sand Spit, just outside Karachi. It is nice because I am a five minute walk from the Arabian Sea and because next to my seat there is a tank with baby Green sea turtles swimming in it. Please see the forthcoming photoplate a:. I plan to take on the task of caring for them as soon as I can. Also, in my remaining six weeks here I am going to try to update the marketing plan for this center and to produce a field guide for children about the wildlife in the mangroves around the center and in the ocean across the street.
Also, I got into Georgetown Law. I am still waiting on offers from Columbia (they'll get back to me after tuition is due in July) and UNC. These people have been suspiciously silent in their lack of dealing with me. They must be completely overwhelmed with applications or else I had some unsightly pants stain last time I went to visit them and they are too embarassed and polite to talk to me anymore. Only time will tell. Columbia is a certain first choice for me but UNC vs. Georgetown is a much bigger decision than I would have anticipated when I was first applying.
Internet, phone and even electricity are relatively scarce resources here (the power just died and now my palms are sweating from lack of a/c), so I apologize to all of you that I told to keep up with me here on the blog. I will do better from this point on. That is because rather than sharing a phone with the twelve girls in their apartment (the guys' place has no phone or beds) I have begun my internship and can update from work.
That's right. Long rumored to be a namby-pamby liberal, I've kicked the closet door clear across the jungle-themed bedroom and step forward into my life as an intern at WWF. Not the barely hidden, ultra-homosexual wrestling extravaganza: they changed their name. This is the World Wide Fund for Nature: they also changed their name.
I work at the Wetland Center in Sand Spit, just outside Karachi. It is nice because I am a five minute walk from the Arabian Sea and because next to my seat there is a tank with baby Green sea turtles swimming in it. Please see the forthcoming photoplate a:. I plan to take on the task of caring for them as soon as I can. Also, in my remaining six weeks here I am going to try to update the marketing plan for this center and to produce a field guide for children about the wildlife in the mangroves around the center and in the ocean across the street.
Also, I got into Georgetown Law. I am still waiting on offers from Columbia (they'll get back to me after tuition is due in July) and UNC. These people have been suspiciously silent in their lack of dealing with me. They must be completely overwhelmed with applications or else I had some unsightly pants stain last time I went to visit them and they are too embarassed and polite to talk to me anymore. Only time will tell. Columbia is a certain first choice for me but UNC vs. Georgetown is a much bigger decision than I would have anticipated when I was first applying.
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