While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
I have had a wonderful day celebrating the birth of Jesus here in Karachi. In a packed cathedral, we sang carols and listen to the Bishop as he reminded us of the real meaning of Christmas that God came into the world in the form of a baby to save us from the mess we had made of our lives.
From church I made my way to Kathy and Zulfi’s where a delicious feast was laid out and mulled wine and home made mince pies a plenty.
From there I headed to Judith and Bunny’s for Christmas dinner proper. There were 15 for dinner, representing the UK, the USA, Pakistan, Russia and Burma! A spicy prawn salad was followed by Roast Turkey and all the trimmings, including bread sauce (by my special request). This was followed by a fantastic chocolate trifle. At this point in keeping with Pakistani customs many of the guests moved on to their next stop!!
The six of us remaining had coffee and Christmas cake and whilst we chatting, Bunny got his guitar out and treated us to some Urdu and English songs, which was lovely.
I am now home with all the candles lit on my Advent Crown and the Holy Family and the Shepherds and Magi (they have arrived a few days early as I will be in Kijabe on Epiphany) surrounding the manger in adoration of the Christ child.
I have been reflecting over the last few weeks and I really do consider myself as truly blessed. I have a job I love, with great students and supportive staff. And for reasons I can’t quite explain I love Karachi. With all its faults and failings, I really do love living here. So a very happy and content Michael, would like to wish you all, Bara dyn Mubarak, awr bwhat kushi neya sal (Happy Christmas, and a very happy new year). It looks like I could be here for a few years to come…
Thursday, 25 December 2008
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
'Twas the night before Christmas...
I am sat typing this, in my ‘drawing room’ (they really do call it that here) with the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College, Cambridge on the CD player. On the bookcase, all four candles of my Advent crown are lit and next to Mary and Joseph wait by the manger for the birth of the Christ child.
In the kitchen my Christmas Eve meal of Sweetcorn Chowder is bubbling away nicely. Later I will head off to the Cathedral for our Christmas Eve Communion Service. This is the second time I have spent Christmas in Karachi and I am really enjoying myself.
This afternoon I head off to Clippers for my now traditional Christmas haircut, head massage and facial. Two hours of being pampered and spoilt can’t be beaten. I did attempt to do a little last minute shopping after my treat, but Park Towers was very busy so I shall pop in on Boxing Day as it is not a holiday here and the place should be a lot quieter.
The last couple of weeks have been very busy, with so much to do at school. I have also had the very odd experience of being in school until the 23rd of December!! Now I am aware that you out there with ‘proper’ jobs will hardly be weeping for me especially as school does not open again until 12th January!
Last night was taken to dinner at the Karachi Boat Club, Naseem and Maria, friends from school. It was very pleasant, and as is almost inevitable in this city of 18 million, we ran into one of the students from school! The food and company was excellent, and I partook of French onion soup, King Prawn Thermidore, with potatoes and seasonal vegetables, followed by Baked Alaska.
Itvar ko may Kenya ja raha hu. May Karachi me do hafte vepas ke bad aunga. For those whose Urdu has yet to reach the tiny heights mine has. I hope I have written ‘On Sunday I am going to Kenya. I will come back to Karachi, in two weeks.’ Urdu is going ok but I have missed far too many lessons of the last month. I am starting to get the hang of things but feel a little frustrated by my lack of progress. I am particularly frustrated by not being able to read. I can write my name and a couple of simple words, and I can read most letters on their own but once they are part of a word, I am lost!
Well my chowder has reached the blender stage, and the chapel congregation have reached the Ninth lesson which means my favourite carol is next, so the neighbours are about to be treated “O Come all Ye Faithful’ at full volume, with descant!!! This could cause a serious setback to Christian/Muslim relations…
In the kitchen my Christmas Eve meal of Sweetcorn Chowder is bubbling away nicely. Later I will head off to the Cathedral for our Christmas Eve Communion Service. This is the second time I have spent Christmas in Karachi and I am really enjoying myself.
This afternoon I head off to Clippers for my now traditional Christmas haircut, head massage and facial. Two hours of being pampered and spoilt can’t be beaten. I did attempt to do a little last minute shopping after my treat, but Park Towers was very busy so I shall pop in on Boxing Day as it is not a holiday here and the place should be a lot quieter.
The last couple of weeks have been very busy, with so much to do at school. I have also had the very odd experience of being in school until the 23rd of December!! Now I am aware that you out there with ‘proper’ jobs will hardly be weeping for me especially as school does not open again until 12th January!
Last night was taken to dinner at the Karachi Boat Club, Naseem and Maria, friends from school. It was very pleasant, and as is almost inevitable in this city of 18 million, we ran into one of the students from school! The food and company was excellent, and I partook of French onion soup, King Prawn Thermidore, with potatoes and seasonal vegetables, followed by Baked Alaska.
Itvar ko may Kenya ja raha hu. May Karachi me do hafte vepas ke bad aunga. For those whose Urdu has yet to reach the tiny heights mine has. I hope I have written ‘On Sunday I am going to Kenya. I will come back to Karachi, in two weeks.’ Urdu is going ok but I have missed far too many lessons of the last month. I am starting to get the hang of things but feel a little frustrated by my lack of progress. I am particularly frustrated by not being able to read. I can write my name and a couple of simple words, and I can read most letters on their own but once they are part of a word, I am lost!
Well my chowder has reached the blender stage, and the chapel congregation have reached the Ninth lesson which means my favourite carol is next, so the neighbours are about to be treated “O Come all Ye Faithful’ at full volume, with descant!!! This could cause a serious setback to Christian/Muslim relations…
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Banged Up Abroad...
As my regular readers will probably remember, earlier in the year, I took part in my first television production, where I played a British government official. I thought at the time that the programme was called 'Trouble in Paradise', however, I have just found out that my British TV Debut is on a programme called 'Banged Up Abroad'!!!
I have yet to see the programme as it was shown after I left the UK in September but I have found a link on the Channel Five website (http://demand.five.tv/Episode.aspx?episodeBaseName=C5140890004), sadly it is only available in the UK! If any of you knows how I can get to see this let me know...
I have yet to see the programme as it was shown after I left the UK in September but I have found a link on the Channel Five website (http://demand.five.tv/Episode.aspx?episodeBaseName=C5140890004), sadly it is only available in the UK! If any of you knows how I can get to see this let me know...
Sunday, 7 December 2008
Life is a cabaret, old chum…
Or so it would seem from the last four weeks or so!!
I have been so busy over the last 720 hours that when I thought about updating, I didn’t have the energy to lift a finger to type
The main news from Karachi is that the weather has turned cold. Now cold is a relative term, I am aware that snow and other wintery conditions have hit various parts of the UK, and although it is significantly cooler we are still having temperatures in the high teens. I am sat here with the fan going and wearing shorts and t-shirt. Some of the locals however, have broken out the winter wardrobe, including one man I passed onto the way to work the other morning wearing a very fetching tea cosy – on his head!
School has been incredibly busy since I last wrote; there have been meetings, and swimming club, and meetings, and diving, and meetings, and rehearsals, and meetings, and fire drills, and meetings, and in the middle of all of this I have also been teaching geography!
One of the meetings I led was for the parents to discuss security. We are constantly reviewing security here and have made some changes. We also went on to discuss with the parents, safety and security of students on the internet. It was a very useful meeting and I received several compliments on the presentation, apparently I am good a talking! Well you learn something new every day!!
Diving is going really well and the boys had their first open water dive last Sunday which I went along too as well. This was a new site for me as well off Cherna Island. It was rather rough drive in places, which was fine for the other two cars which were 4 Wheel drive jeeps. Whereas, I was in my 1 litre Chevrolet Joy which managed the journey, which was over sand in places, only not quite so quickly!
We have had a new fire alarm fitted in school which when it goes off sounds like the Final Judgement!! We have had a couple of practices so far and the kids are not bad at getting out of the building, we just need to work on standing in a straight line!
Rehearsals are ongoing for this year’s Secondary Production which is ‘And then there were none’ by Agatha Christie. It is quite a complex play to pull off technically, with a choking and two gunshots on stage and various other deaths of stage. Thankfully living here in Karachi getting hold of a gun won’t be a problem!!
One of the consequences of the cold weather is that I have had to suspend swimming club until the new year as the water is getting quite cold. The pool we use is unheated and even I had to admit that it was cold. Unlike the heated pool that the juniors go to which the PE teacher was calling cold, when I asked her what the temperature was, she said 28 degrees (and that’s centigrade). I felt duty bound to call her ‘nesh’ and point out that she does come originally from Birmingham!
We have also had a few days where the security situation has been tense. Some of the locals have been fighting with one another and this has made some areas dangerous, and resulted in some limitations on activities for a few days. Thankfully, things seem to have calmed down again, Ins’allah it will remain so.
We should have been diving again this weekend but because of the security concerns I decided to cancel, which turned out to be fortuitous as I came down with a bout of flu on Thursday evening and ended aching all over for two days. I missed school on Friday and then sewing circle and a dinner at the Sindh club on Saturday. As I type I feeling a lot better, though I still have a sore throat and a voice which Andy informs me, sounds like I should be working on an 0898 chat line!! His wife wanted to know how he knew this, though an answer was not forthcoming!!
Thankfully, the next three days are holidays here in Pakistan as Tuesday is the 1st day of Bakra Eid. Bakra (Goat) Eid remembers Ibhrahim (Abraham)’s willingness to sacrifice his son and God’s provision of a ram to take his place. This means that the number of goats and cows has gone significantly over the last few days, but sadly for them there time is short, by Tuesday morning, they will have all gone the same way as their divinely provided ancestor. I have therefore been to Musicka and stocked up on DVDs and have plenty of food in, so when I return from Bible study on Monday I will not need to venture out again until Wednesday lunchtime and will hopefully miss ou ton the blood an guts that will litter some of the streets!
I have also made my Christmas holiday arrangements. School will close on 23rd, and so on Christmas Eve I will head of to Clippers for a haircut, facial and massage and then later to church for the first communion of Christmas. Then after church on Christmas morning I have been invited to have lunch with Judith and Bunny as I was last year, which I enjoyed tremendously and am looking forward to it enormously. Then after a couple of days here I am leaving for Kenya on 28th to spend 2 weeks with my friends the Howorths, who live an hour outside Nairobi. Their youngest son Alasdair is also my other godson. Sadly, because of distance and incompetence on my part I have not been as involved in Ali’s life as I have in Thomas’, but this is something I am hoping to put right on this visit. I have not seen all the family since February 2007, but I have seen differing selections of the family in the intervening 20 months. In fact I won’t see the whole clan this time as Aidan, their eldest, started university in America this time and will be spending the holidays with girl friend’s family and his aunt and uncle and their family.
I have also been to the St Andrew’s Ball arranged by UKAP which included some passable food, but probably the worst provision of vegetarians. In fact their provision was to remove the meat and just give more vegetables!! The evening included some dancing and I was able to take part in a Cumberland Reel and a round of Stripping the Willow which was great fun. The ambiance, as always, was amazing. There may be many things we do badly in Pakistan, but when it comes to putting on ‘a bit of a do’ we are the world champions…
I have been so busy over the last 720 hours that when I thought about updating, I didn’t have the energy to lift a finger to type
The main news from Karachi is that the weather has turned cold. Now cold is a relative term, I am aware that snow and other wintery conditions have hit various parts of the UK, and although it is significantly cooler we are still having temperatures in the high teens. I am sat here with the fan going and wearing shorts and t-shirt. Some of the locals however, have broken out the winter wardrobe, including one man I passed onto the way to work the other morning wearing a very fetching tea cosy – on his head!
School has been incredibly busy since I last wrote; there have been meetings, and swimming club, and meetings, and diving, and meetings, and rehearsals, and meetings, and fire drills, and meetings, and in the middle of all of this I have also been teaching geography!
One of the meetings I led was for the parents to discuss security. We are constantly reviewing security here and have made some changes. We also went on to discuss with the parents, safety and security of students on the internet. It was a very useful meeting and I received several compliments on the presentation, apparently I am good a talking! Well you learn something new every day!!
Diving is going really well and the boys had their first open water dive last Sunday which I went along too as well. This was a new site for me as well off Cherna Island. It was rather rough drive in places, which was fine for the other two cars which were 4 Wheel drive jeeps. Whereas, I was in my 1 litre Chevrolet Joy which managed the journey, which was over sand in places, only not quite so quickly!
We have had a new fire alarm fitted in school which when it goes off sounds like the Final Judgement!! We have had a couple of practices so far and the kids are not bad at getting out of the building, we just need to work on standing in a straight line!
Rehearsals are ongoing for this year’s Secondary Production which is ‘And then there were none’ by Agatha Christie. It is quite a complex play to pull off technically, with a choking and two gunshots on stage and various other deaths of stage. Thankfully living here in Karachi getting hold of a gun won’t be a problem!!
One of the consequences of the cold weather is that I have had to suspend swimming club until the new year as the water is getting quite cold. The pool we use is unheated and even I had to admit that it was cold. Unlike the heated pool that the juniors go to which the PE teacher was calling cold, when I asked her what the temperature was, she said 28 degrees (and that’s centigrade). I felt duty bound to call her ‘nesh’ and point out that she does come originally from Birmingham!
We have also had a few days where the security situation has been tense. Some of the locals have been fighting with one another and this has made some areas dangerous, and resulted in some limitations on activities for a few days. Thankfully, things seem to have calmed down again, Ins’allah it will remain so.
We should have been diving again this weekend but because of the security concerns I decided to cancel, which turned out to be fortuitous as I came down with a bout of flu on Thursday evening and ended aching all over for two days. I missed school on Friday and then sewing circle and a dinner at the Sindh club on Saturday. As I type I feeling a lot better, though I still have a sore throat and a voice which Andy informs me, sounds like I should be working on an 0898 chat line!! His wife wanted to know how he knew this, though an answer was not forthcoming!!
Thankfully, the next three days are holidays here in Pakistan as Tuesday is the 1st day of Bakra Eid. Bakra (Goat) Eid remembers Ibhrahim (Abraham)’s willingness to sacrifice his son and God’s provision of a ram to take his place. This means that the number of goats and cows has gone significantly over the last few days, but sadly for them there time is short, by Tuesday morning, they will have all gone the same way as their divinely provided ancestor. I have therefore been to Musicka and stocked up on DVDs and have plenty of food in, so when I return from Bible study on Monday I will not need to venture out again until Wednesday lunchtime and will hopefully miss ou ton the blood an guts that will litter some of the streets!
I have also made my Christmas holiday arrangements. School will close on 23rd, and so on Christmas Eve I will head of to Clippers for a haircut, facial and massage and then later to church for the first communion of Christmas. Then after church on Christmas morning I have been invited to have lunch with Judith and Bunny as I was last year, which I enjoyed tremendously and am looking forward to it enormously. Then after a couple of days here I am leaving for Kenya on 28th to spend 2 weeks with my friends the Howorths, who live an hour outside Nairobi. Their youngest son Alasdair is also my other godson. Sadly, because of distance and incompetence on my part I have not been as involved in Ali’s life as I have in Thomas’, but this is something I am hoping to put right on this visit. I have not seen all the family since February 2007, but I have seen differing selections of the family in the intervening 20 months. In fact I won’t see the whole clan this time as Aidan, their eldest, started university in America this time and will be spending the holidays with girl friend’s family and his aunt and uncle and their family.
I have also been to the St Andrew’s Ball arranged by UKAP which included some passable food, but probably the worst provision of vegetarians. In fact their provision was to remove the meat and just give more vegetables!! The evening included some dancing and I was able to take part in a Cumberland Reel and a round of Stripping the Willow which was great fun. The ambiance, as always, was amazing. There may be many things we do badly in Pakistan, but when it comes to putting on ‘a bit of a do’ we are the world champions…
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