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!