At the going down of the sun we will remember them...

We drove out of Alexs for about 2 hours today to visit the memorials to those who died during the North Africa campaign in the second word war. We saw the German, Italian and Commonwealth monuments and it was a moving experience.

I found it particularly poignent being there with Thomas and Will who are 20 and 17 respectively. As i looked at the ages of the dead they were the same age and not much older, than these 'boys'. I wondered what the world might have been if they had lived. I accept that the 2nd WW was a necessary war, but still it strikes me that we have learnt so little from it. Whilst looking at some of the graves of the nearly 20,000 who died on all sides, my mind wanders to Pakistan, Iraq and any number of other places where fighting continues, 63 years on have we really progressed that far. The only way we can settle our differences is with a gun! It's it a good job we are the civilised ones!

We are of out to the Fish restuarant tonight and then tommorrow a bit sight seeing before a concert in the evening and then back to thehotel for drinks and see in the New Year, 3 hours after Pakistan but two hours before the UK, my mind just about copes with the time differences. We have successfully booked hotels both in Cairo and Sharm, just got to find one at teh airport for the wayhome and then we will be sorted. Anyway, there are some king prawns calling my name so its of to eat we go...

Actually it's Michael in Egpyt

I left Karachi in the early hours of the 27th heading for Abu Dabhi, and then onward to Cairo, with Ethihad airlines. Everything went to plan and I not only arrived safely in Cairo, but obtained my visa and met the driver that Thomas had arranged for me outside the airport.

The drive from Cairo to Alexandria took three hours but as I had been up all night I spent teh journey sleeping on and off. The driving hereis just as bad as in Karachi, but far faster, which makes it more scary!!

It's been great to spend time with Thomas and the rest of the family and we have spent the last two days being tourists around Alex. This includes lots of cab rides which are an hair raisng exploit (yes I know not that difficult when you have as little hair as me), the worse one being the one Thomas and Ihave just got out of which only just avoided hitting another car!! We ended up side on to the flow of traffic, it was fairly scary!

Thomas has neither internet nor a reliable cable service in the flat and so I have only received sketchy reports of the situation Karachi since the assasination of Benazir. The message I have had tell be its calm, but tense. Please pray for the whole country that in the midst of this tradgedy, people will remain calm.

We are off to El Alamain tomorrow and have tickets for a Strauss concert on New Year's Eve. Then up to Cairo on Tuesday, where the rest of the Trews will head of to the UK and Thomas and I will go to the Red Sea for a few days break.

So may I wish you a Happy New Year and pray for a peaceful one especially in Pakistan.

Bara Dyn Mubarak

A very Happy Christmas to all my readers.

I do hope that you have had a wonderful Christmas, because I have had a great day.

Christmas started for me yesterday after my Urdu lesson, (I am now up to the future tense) when I went to get my haircut and this was then extended to a head massage and a facial, which was wonderful. I must have been in the chair for over an hour and I had a face as soft as a baby bottom afterwards! (and thank you that is where the comparisons should stop!!)

After that I had an evening meal of home made carrot soup and sandwiches, the carrots don’t look much in the shop but they taste delicious. Then I set off for church at 9.30pm.

The plan as published was as follows 10pm Carols by Candlelight, 10.30pm Communion (English) and then 11.30pm Communion (Urdu). Now dear reader, I am sure that you know enough about life here that Pakistani time keeping means that this didn’t quite go to plan. The Carols actually started at 10.20pm and we (the English Congregation) didn’t leave church until 12.20am so I have no idea what time the Urdu Congregation actually got started and then finished!

Then this morning the 9.30am service didn’t start until quarter to ten! It’s just not worth worrying about; you just have to go with the flow.

After church I began my ‘Vicar of Dibley’ Day. I went home with Jeremy and Kate Ellis, and their three children, Faith, Joel and Serene for coffee and a mince pie. From there I headed of to Kathy and Zulfi’s for a few more nibbles and a glass of mulled wine.

After that I moved on to Judith and Bunny’s house for Christmas Dinner. The original plan was that there would be a group of us there for lunch. However, when I arrived Judith told that everyone else had called to say they might not make it. So at 3pm the three of use sat down to dinner. As we were making our way through the Tiramsu, Ilena and her two children arrived, so they then started on the Turkey as we looked to the cheese and biscuits. A few minutes later Karen and here husband arrived and they started at the beginning at the Turkey as we moved on to the liqueurs and everyone else moved on one course! The final addition to this was when Gill turned up and she started on the turkey as the coffee and chocolates arrived for us!! It sounds crazy but it actually worked out really well, by the time everyone arrived we had 2 Scots, 1 Englishman, 1 American, 1 Russian, 2 Pakistanis and 2 half Russian half Pakistani! I was a lovely day and great to spend it in such international company.

I may have already mentioned this, but I love my life here in Karachi!

May the Lord bless you all richly this Christmastime

Khuda hafiz

'Tis the season to be jolly...

The Christmas season has begun in earnest here in Karachi.

School finished on Tuesday after a very successful Inter house Bowling competition, the winner being the Green house, which is something of a departure from the norm, as apparently Red win everything and green always lose!

I spent Wednesday and Thursday at home and doing bits and pieces of shopping, including buying Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Still arriving here I have read all the Harry Potter novels in order and am half way through The Order of the Phoenix. I am also watching the films as I complete each of the novels. I am thoroughly enjoying the novels and find them hard to put down. I will be taking one of them to Egypt with me when I go, but of course we are now are the ‘thick’ end of the series which will make it very heavy to carry!!

Friday was Eid-uk-Ahza, which is also know as Bakra Eid here in Pakistan. This commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son and God’s provision of a lamb to replace him. It is celebrated by the sacrificing of a ‘bakra’ (Urdu for goat) or cow or camel, if you are very rich. Here, people are allowed to do this for themselves and so I placed myself under house arrest on Friday and remained inside, as the streets can literally flow with blood! Also there is the messy issue of ‘intestines’ which are left out ready for collection and apparently a camel contains a lot of inards!

Saturday was also a holiday, more in line with Boxing Day, so a few of the smaller shops were open, but all the big ones were closed and people were out on the beach. Now a word about the beach-it should be a definite bonus that we live 5 minutes drive form the beach and I would be wonderful to be able to walk on the sands and swim in the sea. Unfortunately, the beach at Clifton is not very clean, in fact it is very dirty and the advice is not to go into the water, which is a really shame. When we want to go to the beach we have to drive up the coast to Hawksbay or French Beach where the water is much much cleaner and the sands clear of rubbish.

I ended up driving alone the sea front yesterday because I had a problem starting my car. When I came to start it yesterday the battery was flat and it would not start. Thankfully, Farouk was able to give me a push and he knows how to ‘bump start’ the car. He really must despair of me and the car, because I never quite get the parking right on the drive. This is a matter of military precision as we have to get three cars into a very small space. This is perfectly possible but for the fact that yours truly is fairly useless when it comes to parking! After about 6 weeks of trying to get me to park in one spot, Farouk gave up and has come up with a different way of arranging things. Also apparently you can’t bump start a car in neutral!! Well how on earth was I supposed to know that, that’s why I am a member of Green Flag in the UK! I did at least know that I had to take it on a long drive to charge the battery up, so I’m not completely useless. (oi less of that I can hear you chuckling from here!)

Last night it was open house at Neil and Maroon’s (Neil is from the UK and Maroon is from Tanzania). We were there to celebrate Christmas and part of this was singing carols in the garden. Unfortunately, the keyboard wouldn’t work and someone was required to lead the singing!! Yep and you’ve guessed it dear reader the lot fell on me! Despite my protestations, Maroon was very insistent and so off we went. So if you are looking for surreal, you now should now have the image of me (lover of Christmas that I am) leading the singing of ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’, by candlelight, in the garden of a house in Pakistan and then to my surprise I received three separate compliments on my singing!

Last night also saw the rain I have experienced here in Pakistan and boy did it rain. There was also somewhere in the garden a metal tank or something that turned into a rather noisy drum. So at 5am I was wide awake and totally unable to get back to sleep because of the constant drumming. I really struggle to block out a noise, and something as simple as a dripping tap can get inside my head and stop me from sleeping. The rain has also returned this afternoon which means that the roads will become even more exciting to drive on, not only do we have the loony drivers and the potholes and demon road bumps, we now have flooding and concealed potholes to deal with as well!! All the fun of the fair!

This morning was also our Carol Service, which I was leading and which was recorded by Radio Pakistan, and will be broadcast at 12 noon on Christmas Eve to the nation. We were also due to have a Bonfire this evening with a meal, unfortunately, due to the rain it has had to be cancelled, and will now happen in the New Year.

Tomorrow we have Carols by Candlelight followed by Communion, and then on Christmas Day we have Communion at 9.30am. I then have two invitations for coffee and one for lunch (popular aren’t I). Each day I am here, I feel more and more at home here. Everything about my life here is wonderful, and I can’t get over it. I really do feel like the luckiest man alive and for the first time in a long time I do feel that this is the season to be jolly.

P.S. On a completely different note, if you haven't discovered Boston Legal or House yet give them a go. William Shatner in Boston Legal is hilarious and Hugh Laurie is great in House.

In the Bleak Mid Winter

You would think by the way some of colleagues were carrying on that Karachi had plunged into an Artic Winter. Whereas, what has actually happened is that the temperature has dropped to a very pleasant 20 degrees Celsius! Granted that first thing in the morning it is a little chilly before the sun has risen properly, but I still need the fan on in my office and the AC on in the car during the day. I am still wandering round in short sleeves and haven’t broken out the woolly jumpers just yet!!

Term finishes for us tomorrow and after an assembly and a couple of lessons we are of to ‘Area 51’ (yes. I know it sounds like a place that has aliens in it) to enjoy an Inter House Bowling Competition. This has replaced the usually Beach Day, which is a good really as the temperature has dropped to such a dangerous low level, I suspect there would have been great concern over the health of our little darlings!

Last Tuesday I had a very pleasant evening at the BDHC at their Carol’s Evening. It was very enjoyable and I have never sung Carols by AC before! We had a variety of items including an item billed ‘for the children’ which turned out to be a rather confused telling of the Christmas Story as recounted in the Gospels. I did remember my manners and didn’t go for the guy! I did later think how nice it was to be in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and be free to tell the Christmas story without fear of offending the Muslims present. Maybe some of the local authorities in the UK could learn a thing or two about cross cultural relations!

It was really weird last Sunday singing the above Carol in church when it is anything but the Bleak Mid Winter! We are having our Carol Service this Sunday at 9.15 am, and I am leading the service. I also found out on Saturday that the service has in the past been recorded by Radio Pakistan and then broadcast on Christmas Day to the whole of Pakistan!! So it looks as if Pakistan is going to be treated to my ruminations on Christmas!!! Are they ready for this we ask ourselves?

Bobbing along on the bottom of the beautiful briney sea

We had a great day on Sunday on our first open water dive. We drove up the coast to Hawksbay, just a little further on from the Beach House, Andrew and I visited in October.

We arrived on the beach and found lots of little boats bobbing about on the Arabian Sea. Yousuf, our instructor, had hired one of these and after we had stowed all our gear we set sail (or in actual fact started our engine).

When we had gone out a fair way we kitted up and prepared to dive. This was not as easy as it sounds on land it’s not a straight forward maneuver; in a small boat it’s even more difficult. Once I had finally managed to put on weight belt, Buoyancy Control Device (BCD), SCUBA, mask, fins and snorkel I was some what cumbersome and moving around the boat was difficult. I finally manage to perch on the sill of the boat and then on command I rolled backwards into the water.

At first all was well and the water was warmer than the pool we used on Friday. Once we were all in the water we started our controlled descent following the anchor line. I had got down about 6 or 8 feet and was struggling to equalize the pressure in my ears. This meant I couldn’t go any further as the water pressure continues to build and would eventually burst my eardrums!! I made several attempts but couldn’t manage it. I have never had a problem in the pool; I think I may have a bit of an infection which caused the blockage.

When the others had finished their dive, we had some lunch and sailed a bit further up the coast to an area of reef and coral. We kitted up again and we had another go. This time I managed to equalize pressure and had a proper dive. There was some marine life and coral to see, but far less than you see in the Red Sea. It was really strange being able to stay underwater for all that time and still be able to breathe, but it was something I got used to very quickly.

We had a great day but unfortunately I had forgotten my hat, so I had to adapt my clothing as shown in the photo to cover my head, it may not look very classy but it served the purpose!

mere pas ek choti kali murgi hey

Translation for those who need it - I have one small black chicken!!! This is not a statement of fact but it is something I can say in Urdu. I can say lots of other more useful stuff and really enjoying my Urdu lessons. I now know lots of vocabulary can say hundreds of sentences - this is a reassurance Akhtar keeps giving me.

I have also started my diving lessons, so that's another new skill I am adding to my repertoire. We have had one pool session and it went well. I used to snorkel when I was teenager and I was pleased that many of the things I could do when I was 13, I can still do 24 years later!! We are off up the coast on Sunday for our first open water dive. If we rush we could complete the course before Christmas, but we have decided to take our time and finish it in January.

Rehearsals are still on going, and the new cast members are starting to shape up. There is still a lot of work to do but Lubna and I are confident that we have a winner!

I am down to lead the Carol Service at church on 23rd Decemeber, and then I will be there for Midnight Communion ( well it will be 10.30p..m. as the Urdu service happens at Midnight and my Urdu is not quite up to that yet!) on Christmas Eve and then for the Family Service on Christmas Day. At the moment I have no plans for Christmas Day, but I have seen that one of the channels is showing all six Star Wars films in order one after the other!!!

On the 27th I am off to Egypt for 10 days to see Thomas and his family. Angela, Phil, William and Lucy are arriving on 20th and will be there for Christmas. They go back to the UK on 1st January and then Thomas and I are of to the Red Sea for a few days. I am really looking forward to seeing him as I have missed spending time with him. We speak every week but the last couple of weeks the connection has been a bit ropey and we have had difficulty hearing one another, it will be great to be in the same place at the same time,

The Christmas Tree has gone up at school, and thankfully I have manged to dodge the role of Santa! Apparently some of my colleagues mistook my charm, sense of humour and general bon homie to be the same as "Christmas spirit'! I quickly disabused them of that, and have thankfully, regained my 'Grinch' reputation!

It's not just me that thinks Pakistan is great!

How to take a holiday in Pakistan By Hugh Sykes, BBC NewsPublished on November 18, 2007 in Pakistan

Suicide bombs, battles in tribal areas, and states of emergency tend to put off casual tourists. But the impression such events convey can often be misleading and unrepresentative of a country as a whole.

A few days ago I was sitting in a cafe sipping best Italian espresso and reading a news magazine. The front page was full of furious faces and clenched fists under the headline, The Most Dangerous Nation in the World isn’t Iraq, it’s Pakistan.

Hugh Sykes journey took him to the Chitral Valley in north west Pakistan. The cafe was in a smart bookshop in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. I sighed and turned to the article inside.

It was a revealing analysis of some penetration of a few places in Pakistan by the Taleban and al-Qaeda. I pondered the magnifying-glass effect of dramatic news coverage. The suicide bomb attack on Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming parade in Karachi in October, which killed an estimated 140 people, and the assault on a Taleban pocket in the Swat valley, a tourist destination, took place while I was in Pakistan.

But neither event had a noticeable effect on the general sense of security and stability where I was in Islamabad or on the road. The notion that Pakistan is more dangerous than Iraq is absurd. Until recently suicide bombs, murder, and kidnapping were routine in Iraq. And there is no way I would do there what I have just done in Pakistan: take a holiday.

Never alone I hired a car in Islamabad and headed out onto the partially completed M2 motorway that will eventually connect Lahore (near the Indian border) with Peshawar (the last city on the road to the Khyber Pass and Afghanistan). But motorways are boring, so I left the M2 and re-joined the ancient Grand Trunk Road, which links most of the main towns of northern Pakistan.

For much of the route it is lined with eucalyptus trees, their almost-autumn leaves and silvery bark shining in the clear October sun as I drove along. Driving in Pakistan is fast and sometimes chaotic, but not competitive. They even hoot politely. And one great danger at home you hardly ever have to contend with in Pakistan is drunk drivers and people with concentration blurred by hangovers.

My destinations were Chitral, an isolated valley in the far-north-west on the Afghan border and Gilgit, close to China and Tajikistan. The round-trip was more than 1,200 miles (nearly 2,000km) and included mountain passes almost half as high as Everest. And although I was driving alone, I was hardly ever on my own.

There is public transport but not a lot. So, people walk long distances along these high stony roads and if a car passes, they hold out a hand hoping for a lift.

One morning, 12-year-old Kashif sat with me for a while. He had been expecting to walk for more than an hour to the nearest town, to buy a new pair of shoes. He showed me the pair he was wearing. The right shoe’s upper was half split away from the sole. Kashif spoke almost perfect English, good enough to warn me as we turned a tight bend, “Be careful, uncle, road badly damaged round next corner from earthquake.” Earthquake damage from 2005, still unrepaired.

I spent the night at a hotel next to the old fort at Mastuj, near the snowy Hindu Kush peak Tirich Mir which is 7,690m high (25,200 feet). The hotel consists of small timber and stone cabins set in a wood of walnut trees and poplars and a plane tree reputed to be 200 years old. I woke to autumn colours every bit as wondrous as anything I have seen in Kew Gardens or New England.

My next hitch-hiking companion was Mohammed, an English Literature student at Peshawar University.
“So you study Shakespeare?” I asked.
Mohammed, an English Literature student at Peshawar University
“Yes, and Wordsworth.”
And John Donne, I wondered?
“Ah, John Donne,” he raptured.
“John Donne… the poetry of love.”

I do not know any Donne by heart but when I attempted Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man from As You Like It, Mohammed completed every line as we bumped along the dusty road.

Parts of Pakistan are deeply conservative, devoutly Muslim places, and I was not signalled for lifts by many women. But there were some. A mother and grandmother, sitting in the back, their heads covered but not their faces and one-year-old Anis and his father Samir in the front with me. He protested when I took a photograph of the two women but they did not object and posed happily as they waited for the flash.

When I delivered them to the Gilgit hospital where the little boy had an appointment with a heart specialist, his father was so pleased and grateful he gave me a bear hug, and a massive smile that erased his earlier stern objections to taking a picture.

I gave lifts to more than 20 people, learned how to say “no problem” in Urdu (Koi Batnahi), and had to hold back tears when two children said thank you for their lift and offered me money to help pay for the petrol.

Whatever the rest of the press are telling you this is a side to Pakistan that have seen. Lovely people who are trying to live their lives just like anyone else in any country of the world. And all I know 13 weeks in that I feel very much at home here and that as my Urdu improves that can only increase as I am able to comunicate better with everyone.

I have started my PADI course and we have our first pool session next Friday, and then off to open water the following Sunday. I have also bought my gear so am raring to go.

Rehearsals continue for 'An Inspector Calls' which nearly came of the rails when a couple of the cast left us on Tuesday siting too much work to continue. After some serious persuasion from a couple of the Year 11 girls, a couple of Year 11 boys have been 'encouraged' to take parts an save the production.

Tuesday also saw me getting somewhat lost whilst heading to a meeting in Sadar. I knew exactly where I was going, but unfortunately, one bridge and a road were closed and I got hopelessly lost. I did find Empress Market and Jinnah's Tomb (neither of which I was looking forward) and thankfully also found my way to where I was going. Though it was a close run thing at points!!

Tuesday also saw Lubna and me going to a Performance of Don Quixote, and if I tell you that we left at the interval, it will give you some idea of the standard of performance.

To finish this post a little bit of humour sent to me by one of my Year 11 boys, I am starting to see many of this things in me...

You know you're from Karachi when...

1. You get shocked when someone stops at a yellow light

2. You never really know what to say when someone asks you what there is to see in Karachi

3. You've never really seen a tourist

4. You've met a Parsi

5. You feel you never have to wait in line if you are with "lay-diss" (ladies)

6. You've bought a dvd of a movie that hasn't even been released yet

7. You actually go "out for coffee"

8. You say that you really like that restaurant/shop and someone says "oh yea, my family owns that"

9. You roll down your car window and you can actually touch the car next to you

10. You go by landmarks not street names

11. Your only argument in the Lahore/Karachi debate is "well we have a beach"

12. You own either a Corolla or a Civic

13. You've always wondered what "khayaban" meant

14. You blame everything on K.E.S.C

15. Your school gets closed when it rains

16. You know your city is a hole but you love it anyways

It is, but I do!!