Starting to feel at home here...

I know I have only been here 10 days but I am really starting to feel at home. It will be even better when my boxes arrive from the UK, some time in the next week, Ins'allah (if God will's it!). Then I will be able to really make the flat feel like its mine rather than a student flat.

Ins'allah, is a very important concept in this part of the world. Forget appointment times and arrangements, they just don't happen here. For instance my internet connection was definitely going to be sorted by 9pm on Saturday evening, the man finally arrived at half ten on Tuesday!!! and you have two choice you either get worked up about ti and start shouting and change absolutely nothing! or you just accept it and get on with life allowing things to happen as and when they do.

Managed to make it to church on Sunday morning, got slightly lost on the way, which included goingthe wrong way up a one way street, which had five lanes of traffic!! No one seem to mind and although I arrived 15 minutes after the published start time, and I still arrived before the clergy!! Different and yet reassuring similar, the songs were all ones I knew and the liturgy very similar to what I am used to in the UK. The difference are that the congregation congregate around the ceiling fans, instead of the heaters and the 'wardens' carry guns rather than wands!! A solution for some churches in the UK that I know!!!

Monday was the first day the children were in school and went very well. There are still some small glitches in the timetable, but we are ironing those out, hopefully by Monday all will be sorted.

After school I drove to the Cathedral again and meet John Hayward , who introduced me to Bishop Sadiq Daniel, the BIshop of Karachi. we had tea together and a very pleasant chat about many different things. At the end he inited me to help out at the Cathedral, preaching about once a month. That will probably start in October which will give me time to get to know the some of the people in the congreagation, which number about 100 and is a mixture of locals and some expats.

Tuesday saw some explosions in Rawlpindi which is several hundred miles north of here and the home of the Pakistani military. Polictically things are very much up in the air at the moment, with the Presidents future very uncertain, and what that will mean for Benizir Bhutto and Anwar Sharif who are both former prime minister that have been exiled from Pakistan. They are both talking about coming back and what that will mean no one is really sure. Some top official was heard to say 'this is the most important time in Pakistani history since Partition' This should make the next few months rather interesting!!

All that said, I really do feel that coming here was a good decision. I feel really upbeat and on top for the first time in along while. There are many many frustations living here but I seem to be able to rise above them (at the moment!). I am sure a time will come when the power cuts (we are an hour into one at the moment) and the other little niggles start to annoy me, but at the moment I am a very content little bunny.

Well i would go and make something to eat at this point, but the kitchen is pitch black so that will have to wait, so what with that and the 'free flowing' bowel movements, I should be losing weight at a reasonable rate!!!