Summer on the plains!

Saturday afternoon and I am lying on the floor of my room listening to the fan whirl overhead. I am resisting turning the air conditioner on – it won’t work with the generator anyway so I have to wait another hour.

Summer has definitely arrived! It is as if it was sneaking up on us and then all of a sudden decided to jump out if it’s hiding place. Three months ago the bill boards on the side of the road gaily announced the arrival of the new spring fashions. We laughed as we drove through the freezing rain with the heating still on full blast, But, just to be safe, we joined the hordes of other Islamabad women shopping for fine cotton lawn in brights and pastels. Wrapped in layers of wool and pashmina, and duly rushed off to the tailor – and then waited……

The days started to dawn slightly warmer, the roses bloomed and, the pomegranates were replaced by strawberries in the green grocer. On the weekend I was buying mine from the man who would sit outside our bakery, when I went to pick up our fresh baguettes. He also had bunches of beautiful red and pink roses.
Whenever I commented on how lovely the days were, and how nice it was not to be cold, Pakistani friends smiled and said ‘just you wait until June and July’.

 Well, if I get through May, it will be a miracle! I now know why the memsahibs were sent to the hill stations (although I do have my own theories about the swooning being related to the magnificent moustaches rather than the heat)! The roses are wilting on the bushes and the strawberries, when you do find them, don’t last the day. Although the peaches and cherries are perfect but sadly , not for long.

This morning we set off to do our shopping as usual. With the heat we have to adjust our strategy slightly – nonfood shopping first, then grocery, including the milk and cheese. At this point the air con in the car is turned on – much to our driver, Shakeel’s relief, as he waits for us – and we rush off for the fruit and salad. Salad greens have become noticeably rare, as with the heat, the vendors keep their perishable stock to a minimum. They are all open stalls – no air conditioning or chilling cabinets! But we have found one who keeps his greens covered in damp cloths which are regularly sprayed with cold water and so far it seems to be working. Returning to the cooled car I hand a very relieved Shakeel a paper cup of icy cold, freshly squeezed orange juice.

 Another hour or so and the sun will start to go down and with it the temperature. Hopefully we will have an evening below 30°C!

Meanwhile, I am giving thanks for the wonderful A.A. Shakir of Malindi old town on the Kenyan coast, The supplier of my beautiful light cotton voile tops and ‘beach dresses’ which, in the past weeks have really saved me from overheating! The tops (to just above the knee) have attracted many complements from female friends, Pakistani and European alike. They are very disappointed when I tell them they are from Kenya not Pakistan. Maybe I need to find a way of importing.

SO roll on July, when I will have to devise a way of keeping the laptop dry whilst reclining in a bath tub of cold water!!   

 

beautiful scented roses from our garden in Peshawar. For 2 days my room smelt divine

 

At least my feet stay cool!

 

I even went as far as taking photos and emailing them to Kenya asking if they did mail order to Pakistan (a bit like sending coals to Newcastle!)

 

Very light weight fabric but long sleeves and trousers are still the order of the day.

These are a few of my favourite things....

......about living in Pakistan

There are many things I have discovered over the past few months that give me reason for loving life in Pakistan and I am sure there are many more waiting to be discovered. Here is my top 20 so far (not in any particular order) -  

1. motor bike riders – not the young men in leather and helmets but the older generation hunched over the handle bars of their motor scooter, traditional Pashtun wool pulled down tight to the eyebrows so it doesn’t fly away, woolen shawl flapping around and swimming or safety goggles to protect the eyes. And the ladies riding side saddle pillion – carefully balanced with the kameez tucked in to protect their modesty, dupata and hair streaming out behind. I still have not worked out how they manage to keep their blingy flipflops in place at such speed!

2. Frontier Post – the first English speaking news paper in Pakistan. Always has lovely random photos totally unconnected to the articles

3. The article in yesterday’s Frontier Post announcing that the traveling tradesmen left Peshawar with their merchandise laden camels, heading for Afghanistan. The article was accompanied by an (appropriate) photograph of the said tradesmen and camels walking down the main thoroughfare of this busy city. If the date was not on the paper you would think you were reading an historical account (the photograph was black and white). But no, this centuries old activity continues to take place in the 21^st century. These men and camels will travel over the, still snow covered, mountain passes that their fathers and grandfathers followed. Somehow it makes me feel slightly insignificant. 

4. The amazingly colourful fashions allow me to never have to feel as if I have thrown together an outfit without any thought to colour or pattern matching! I have realised that here the objective is to have as many colours, patterns and textures as possible in one outfit. It is all about compatibility rather than matching.

5. Driving out in the country side and seeing the arrival of spring on one side of the road in the form of blossoming orchards and the snow covered mountain tops on the other reminding us that winter has not quite finished yet.

6. Being offered tea as you are shopping - so civilized, and a great sales strategy! Not just in the carpet shops, where some of you may have had this experience but all sorts of shops. Pakistanis love their tea and they love a captive audience. I do remember my friend Olga, in her beautiful shop in Darwin, having a pot of tea on the go for the customers pleasure. It would be interesting to compare sales data between those shops offering tea and those who do not.  

7. I have been here long enough now to be recognised and greeted at my regular haunts – the supermarket, vegetable shop and butcher, my dry cleaner, the book shop, and various clothing and handicraft shops that I frequent. Of course it does have something to do with being a foreigner, of course, but it does give a nice sense of belonging.

8. At this time of year, when the spring/summer collections have just been released and every woman in the city is shopping, wrapped in several layers of shawls and scarves, for fine lawn clothing, in anticipation of the coming 50°C summer days

9. Having pomegranates, blood oranges, dates, and other ‘exotics’ on our basic shopping list every week.

10. Not having to go out for a really good curry but knowing there will be a variety on the table everyday at home.

11. Buying strawberries by the kilo from the old man who sits outside the bakery. The strawberries are displayed in a beautiful handmade basket lined with leaves. He picks each one and examines it before putting on the scales. Those that are not good enough get put aside for the birds.

12. The moustache – the growing of is a true art perfected by, not just the gentlemen of the police and military but any Pakistani male worth his salt! My friend Jason would be so jealous.

13. Standing on the rooftop terrace in Peshawar and seeing the mountains of the Khyber Pass. It is a constant reminder of the mysterious, ancient part of the world that I am in. The Moguls, Genghis Khan, Hannibal and Alexander have all passed this way entering through the Khyber Pass from Afghanistan.

14. Traffic is not something I would normally put on a favourite things list but here it is so colourful and noisy in a different way. The usual cars and motorbikes compete for space with wildly decorated buses, mini vans, Lorries and tuk tuks; horse and carts, donkeys, and buffalos. The lorries and horses contribute aurally as well with, bells and fringes of chain chiming as they move.

15. Looking up as you move along the street. Because if you don’t you miss some of the most amazing architecture – beautifully carved window frames and shutters, onion shaped domes, minarets; eagles, hawks and other birds of prey riding on the breeze, surveying tha land and then swooping in on their prey and best of all at this time of year, the kites (the paper ones, not the birds) that are traditionally flown during the spring festival  (read The Kite Runner).

16. Wearing cashmere and pashmina as if they were the basic clothing fibre available. Which of course here they are very common and not the extreme luxury items that they are in Europe, Australia and America. One of the benefits of buying in the country of origin rather than as imports! Yesterday, following the purchase of my second carpet, we were seriously distracted by the scarves as we were leaving the shop. Of course we did not get out the door for another hour! In the process of the friends I brought with me (for advising on the carpet), making purchases the shop keeper presented me with probably the most luxurious garment I have ever possessed – a cashmere scarf so fine you can see through a double layer, so light that it moves in the breeze of a normal breath. He put it around my neck and I could not feel a thing, it was so light, it weighs nothing! After maybe 10 minutes my neck was self combusting – such is the magic of the cashmere. It is no wonder the goats can survive the bitter cold of the Himalayas, their coats are like being inside a central heating unit.

17. Watching the askari in the house across the road jog up and down every morning. At around 8am every morning he jogs up and down the 50 metres outside the house for 20 minutes or so. Very upright, he is at least 65 (judging by the moustache!). You can set your watch by him. In fact the other day he was missing and everyone was talking about his absence.

18. Not having to miss my regular samoosa fix. Samoosas in Kenya are very good and in Pakistan I may not be able to have my favourite Purdy Arms prawn and feta ones but the amazing pastry makes up for the loss.

19. Even if it was not the World Cup everyone is a cricket expert but of course more so now especially as the Pakistani team has taken a couple of significant losses. They play cricket all year round, all weathers where ever there is enough space to swing a bat and run.

 
20. Strange as it may seem, work is on the list. After having a two year break from professional life it is really good to be back at work, making decisions and having a reason for being exhausted at the end of the day. Oh and the disposable income feels nice as well.    

The streets are lined with gold.....

Not the glitzy shiny yellow version (although the bling would certainly not be out of place) but the darker, mellow glow….of citrus. Orange and lemon trees are everywhere! At first I noticed one or two, hanging over the top of garden walls, and of course, like many things that at first seem out of place, once you see one, you start to see them everywhere.

Every house in Islamabad and Peshawar (the two cities where I spend most of my time) has a hedge of citrus trees peaking over the front wall – except the one I live in, of course. We have a rather pathetic looking cumquat tree which had one rather pathetic looking cumquat that stayed green!

Schools too! Boundary fences of glossy dark green leaves and golden orbs. Unfortunately they did some severe trimming, in the name of security, and now the trees look like a strange character out of a Dr Seuss story – tall skinny one legged creatures with green pompom heads and orange bauble features. You can imagine the fun the children had! There were a lot of squashed oranges on the grassy verge and the road the day the trimming took place.
But really, how sensible. All we were given at school was warm milk. Here, the children get to pick fresh oranges everyday during their morning tea and lunch time – and blood oranges at that in many cases – for free!!

I think I actually laughed with delight when I realised that the main motor way, running through the centre of Islamabad, had, not the usual palm trees that you see down the middle of so many roads, but beautiful citrus trees. I was even more impressed when, within 200 metres I saw at least 3 people, cloth spread on the ground to display their wares, selling oranges! I wonder if it is intentional that the city council provides food and the means of a meagre income for its’ homeless.  

For me, the trees look beautiful and are another subtle reminder of home.

Why do so many town councils use palm trees to decorate their streets? In so many places, for six months of the year they are miserably cold wishing they were back home in the tropics! They may need pruning and I guess the fruit and vegetable shops might consider them commercial competition but an orange dropping on your parked car does a lot less damage than a rogue palm frond in my experience!

A few weeks ago I was very excited when having to make a visit to discuss house rental to find that the landlady had at least 12 cumquat trees in her garden laden with fruit.

ME: ‘What do you do with all the cumquats?’
HER: ‘the what’
ME: ‘the tiny oranges in the garden’
HER: : ‘nothing. What do you do with them?’
ME: ‘make my mother’s cumquat marmalade’
HER: ‘????'
ME: ‘orange jam’
HER: ‘do you want them, I never use them’
ME: ‘yes please, I will send someone’
 
That is how I ended up with 9kg of cumquats being dumped on my desk one afternoon. SO I soaked them for several days whilst frantically trying to find jam jars (I had to go into long explanations for these as well). In the end we went through the cupboards and fridge and decanted bits of things into plastic boxes!

Now we have about 20 jars of cumquat marmalade. With pips because I was too lazy to take them all out (I thought skimming the top as it boiled would suffice). It is slowly being eaten, very slowly! So I have had to invent way of using it up.

Here is our favourite so far
Make some sweet short crust pastry, roll out and line either a large tart tin or small individual tins (I used a muffin tray). Cook in the oven until lightly golden and crispy.
Take your jar of marmalade. Strain it picking out as many pips as possible and saving the ‘syrup’. I forgot to mention that I did not really measure the water so the marmalade was on the runny side.
Put all the solid bits in the pastry case, pile them up and pour over a bit of the syrup.
Melt some 70% dark chocolate, about 200gms with the same amount of cream. Once melted and well mixed allow it to cool. Pour over the cumquats in the tart shell, filling right to the top. Put in the fridge to set and voilà - Terry’s Chocolate Orange in a tart!

Put the syrup that you have saved in a jar and use it as sauce on crepes or ice cream. If you have any leftover chocolate mixture (very unlikely!) it is really good with crystalised ginger or just by the spoon full! 

 I am going to try Delia Smith’s Marmalade Bread Pudding next – yum!  

      

Magic Carpets and Eccentric Aunts

Did Scheherazade give Aladdin’s carpet the power of flight? Did he even have a carpet or was it all the inspiration of Walt Disney?

I can’t remember, it is many years since I have read the tales told on one thousand and one nights by a Persian princess to delay her execution.
I do know that from the very first moment you lay eyes on a genuine handmade carpet from this part of the world; whether it is a rustic one made by tribal nomads or the most perfect example in silk originating from the city of Qom, they are all certainly endowed with magical qualities.

My introduction to carpets, other than the wall to wall variety, was during my first visit to England when I was about 21 and I stayed with my Great-Aunt Joan in London. Being an artist she was slightly eccentric. The memories she recollected, of her life before and during her marriage to my Grandfather’s youngest brother Robert, certainly rivaled the tales of Scheherazade. The difference being, A.J’s stories were true, if slightly embellished for the benefit of her 40 or so great nephews and nieces!

On the floor of her apartment she had 2 massive Persian carpets. They were purchase in Persia in the days when the name Iran was not even a dream. At the time she and Robert were married (she in a gold dress carrying long stemmed dark red roses) her Godfather was the British Ambassador in Tehran. Where better to honeymoon? I can’t remember all the details. Apparently it was Uncle Robert who became the carpet fanatic and I like to think that I have inherited, if not the carpets, his passion for these beautiful works of art.

Since arriving in Pakistan I have resisted the urge to buy every carpet I see. I keep telling myself I am here for at least a year; I have time to look around. On Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago we headed out to a well known traditional furniture warehouse. We took a ‘quick’ stop at our regular shawl dealers which turned into several hours because, this visit, I went upstairs.

Upstairs is the carpet show room. Piles of folded and rolled carpets, up to the ceiling. Wool and silk, kilims or knotted, rustic or refined; whatever your hearts’ desire, and desire my heart did!

As the sales assistants cover the floor with each carpet we show an interest in and the owner keeps up a running commentary of history and qualities we realise that this is the magic of the carpet. They are alive with glowing colours, the stories contained within the patterns and the lives of the people who have spent at least one if not more years producing such amazing pieces.

Each one is more beautiful than the last and soon it is difficult to remember what we first saw. After several cups of green tea and much deliberation I settle on one that will fill the area of bare cold tiles in my bedroom.

Against one wall there is a pile of rolled carpets. They must be at least 3 metres wide and 5-6 metres long. I have been looking at the pattern on two of them. I turn to the owner ‘You know I am not going to buy any more today but would it be possible to look at those two?’

‘Madam’ he says ‘you have a taste for the most beautiful things’

As each one is rolled out we all fall silent. They are so, so beautiful. Words can never describe them. I feel tears pricking at the back of my eyes. They are both about 70 years old, I put my bare foot out to touch and it is like walking on – well, yes – silk. Maybe if I save really hard, resist buying shawls and kameez, but really, how would I ever get it home?  

So, as my friend Tara commented when I wrote that I had made my first purchase, my slippery slope of carpet buying has started.

I can’t remember which cousin inherited the carpets when Aunt Joan died. What I do know is that I have 5 nieces, 2 nephews and 4 Godchildren so I have the joy of 10 more carpet purchases to look forward to so when their children and grandchildren ask ‘where did that carpet come from’ they will be able to tell tales of the adventures of their eccentric Auntie Cath.      

  

 Footnote: I was intending to add photos but my internet connection this evening is so weak that it wont upload the photos. I will try again tomorrow, inchallah.

And 3 days later here they are!

The first purchase

With Yasin, the most persuasive carpet merchant!

Dream One

Dream Two

The oddest things that bring thoughts of home

I feel as if I am sitting in a Banjo Patterson ballad as the phrase ‘I am sitting in my grimy little office in the city’ keeps running through my thoughts – most Australians will recognise this as the first line of ‘Clancy of the Overflow’.

Having just returned from lunch, it is an unusually warm afternoon so I have turned off my heater and opened the large sliding glass door that opens my office onto the rooftop terrace. The sounds of an Islamabad afternoon waft in on the breeze and distract me from work and the deadlines I have to meet.

Being Friday, the mosques are calling the faithful to prayer. I am reminded of the times I have worked in Darfur, Somalia, North Sudan, Indonesia Turkey and Syria. Even in Kenya when the wind was blowing in the right direction we could hear the call to prayer from the mosque out on Kitengela. I smile at the thought of all the friends I have made and am still in contact with, in these amazing places.

There are the birds, big grey crows, ‘cawing’ as they do all day. Probably excited about someone’s lunch leftovers they have discovered; the distant hum of traffic, one of the staff singing as he walks down the stairs, and the rhythmic ‘plop’ ‘plop’ of the badminton game taking place on our small lawn. The staff plays every lunch time. They are extremely competitive. They are quite a sight with the tails of their shalwar kameez flapping and the girls’ scarves fluttering as they leap for the shuttlecock. The men wear grey, brown or navy, the girls are like butterflies in every colour of the rainbow.

However the sound that catches my ear and really sets my mind wandering is the consistent slamming of the screen door. It takes me back to my childhood to the farmhouse built by my grandfather when he arrived in Australia from Wales. The house where my mother and then my four cousins grew up and my brothers and I spent holidays each year. He named the farm Cambrian Grove after the country he had left behind. With seven children – my brothers, myself and our 4 cousins -  running in and out all day the screen door saw a lot of action. Just as well it led onto a small verandah and the actual door into the kitchen and the main house was always open. At my parents house we also had the screen door into the kitchen. It was a simple timber frame with fly wire unlike the very fancy metal security door that my mother now has installed. Nothing at all secure about it – the screen easily torn and the main door unlocked, by children arriving home from school before their mother was home from shopping!

The door banging again and again brings me back to the reality of where I am (in a minute I am going to turn into my mother and scream down the stairs ‘will you stop banging that door and close it properly!).

A military helicopter circling over head reminds me sadly that it is 16^th January, exactly one month since the Peshawar school was attack, and how this country has change so much in such a short time. The mosque starts its call again. Unusual for this time of the day even for a Friday but maybe the clerics feel the same as many of us, that with everything going on in the world at the moment, it needs all the help it can get and a few extra prayers never go astray.

 

Layer upon layer upon layer.....

No, it is not about the 1970’s advertisement for Sara Lee Danish! It is about having to get dressed every morning in a house without great central heating (we have the hot water wall radiators which have a mind of their own when it comes to efficiency) and the early morning temperature is still in low single figures. Kenya is cold in the winter but our house in Nairobi was built for it and despite the chilly morning, most days the sun was shining. Here, the houses are full of cold surfaces – tiled floors - and massive rooms which take so much energy to heat. Better suited to the tradition of extended family living rather than just five girls.

My nose is my thermometer – it is so cold it is painful, and when my feet hit the freezing ceramic tiles on the floor they ‘burn’ (time and funds have prevented the purchase of carpets so far). After steaming up the bathroom getting dressed is a race against time!

Several layers of tee shirts, woolly tights; the heaviest cotton Kameez that I own (a size too large to accommodate the layers underneath!);jeans; socks; my old bright green cashmere cardigan (a bit of taking coals to Newcastle as it was purchased in France) and to top it all off the pashmina shawl that wraps around twice!

 The debate between fashionista and dowdy but warm is one we have had to face in the past few weeks. It seems that Pakistani women suffer for fashion’s sake. There is no denying the newly released Winter Collections are beautiful but they are still only cotton. Corrinne is on a mission to own the men’s heavy wool suit (trousers and tunic much the same style as women but without the embroidery and colour) and the cream or fawn shawls. However, everytime she tries to sneak one past the shop attendants they shake their heads and say ‘no, no, madam. This is only for the gentleman, not for ladies’ and they direct her to the lighter weight garments. Our suggestions that she is buying for her brother or husband are not successful, the sizing is a dead give away – she is tiny and hardly reaches 5ft!

Ajin returns home one day, having been slightly more successful. She has persisted and has found a lovely very light wool with beautiful crewel embroidery (marking it as women’s wear). We all put it on our wish list for the new year shopping!

Leaving the house is not so bad as the journey to the office is by car. However, the time of departure determines whether we arrive to  slightly heated office or an ice box! My office has 2 walls of windows – lovely in the summer I imagine but not so at this time of year. The thermostat on the gas heater tells me that the room temperature is 10°C. A the day progresses, I watch the figure slowly climb higher – I know I don’t help by having the door open but I hate sitting in a box locked away from everyone else (in Nairobi, at the Wilson Airport hanger, I shared an office and it was also used as the meeting room so I always had company). By the time I am packing up to leave in the evening, the temperature of the room has struggled to an amazing 17°C! I feel a bit mean turning off the heater knowing it is going to have to start all over again tomorrow, but we all have our job to do!

Arriving home, we test the temperature – has the heating been efficient today? We move from room to room feeling the radiators and testing the hot water taps.

The warmest room is the sitting room as it can be closed off completely from the rest of the house and has heavy curtains. I assume my usual position sitting on the radiator until my hands and feet have defrosted.   

Escaping from the rush of everyday life

SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! A dull monotonous sound although it shatters the peaceful quiet of the Saeed Book Bank as I push open the heavy glass doors and enter my idea of heaven – 3 storeys of books waiting to be discovered!

 
SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! As I peer up the nearest aisle I catch sight of flying feathers. The attendants are carrying out their morning ritual. Sweeping away the fine layer of dust that has settled during the night on the shelves and thousands of volumes.

This is my first visit and I am initially overwhelmed, but quickly logic kicks in and I turn left into the first aisle, planning to weave my way around one side of the room.

I find myself surrounded by the glossy covers, of what are commonly known as coffee table books – textiles, jewelery, pashmina and shawls; architecture, geography, people, cities and countryside; Pakistan, China, Nepal, Afghanistan and India – it is all here. Luckily many are wrapped in protective plastic so my selection for browsing is limited. I settle myself on the floor and pull out a couple of volumes and for the next 20 minutes or so I am immersed in the peoples, culture and history of this fascinating region.

SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! – I am suddenly aware that the duster has entered my aisle and is standing over me. Not that he is concerned with me sitting and reading. I have always thought that the sign of a really good book shop is when the staff are happy for customers to read and appreciate the books rather than rushing in and grabbing the first thing that comes to hand. Books are like people – when time is taken to choose wisely, they are friends for life.

I realise that I am actually holding up the proceedings so with a history of the paisley shawl clutched tightly, I move on.

Travel guides and how to look after a wide variety of pets from goldfish to horses and on the other side ring binders and an assortment of stationary items (I slot this away in the memory for future reference). The wide variety of international magazines is tempting but not in today’s budget. Interesting to note Pakistan does have its’ own edition of ‘Hello’; this week is the bridal issue and it weighs over 1 kg!!!!

The back wall is lined with reference titles ‘The History of Islam’; ‘Understanding Islam’; ‘Women in Islam’ and editions of the Koran in Arabic and English. I linger here; Our Western perception of Islam and the peoples that live by the teachings of the Koran are so influenced by what we see on news bulletins and read in the papers. But the people I have met in the past few weeks, the friends I have made who have welcomed me to their country, are so far from the public picture of fanatics that I need to read and have my own understanding. I add a few books to my pile.

Pakistan is only 67 years old as a country but the number of titles on the next shelf would do a country 4 times that age, proud. The short but tumultuous history has been documented in minute detail.

‘Taliban, Jihad and Terrorism’ announces the sign hanging above the next aisle – not sure I really need to spend time here, tempting as it may be to see exactly how one writes about these subjects! Surprisingly, at the end there are two boys sorting through Christmas decorations – electric tree lights, shiny glass balls, tinsel, glittery stars and a memory from my childhood – multi-coloured tissue paper bells The ones that you have to fold back on themselves and secure with a paper clip. I make notes for future purchase.

I am just heading  to the novels and paperbacks, having spied two whole shelves of P.G. Wodehouse when my phone rings. It is Helle. She is coming to pick me up to go out to lunch. The next 2 floors of the shop are going to have to wait for another weekend. I sort through the books I have accumulated and choose 4 – History of the Paisley Shawl, Birds of Pakistan, A memoir of Kashmir and Women in Islam – they are packaged up, I hand over 4,500 Rupees (about $40), and reach the door just in time to see Helle pulling into the car park.

‘You must have known’ I say to her, ‘the next aisle was the cook books, you would never have got me out!’