Sunday, September 27, 2009

The Sunday before Eid

It is sunday here in Lahore, and I thought I would take my first complete day away from the office and enjoy a bit of pampering. First stop on the agenda was the Avari Hotel, where I have eaten dinner before but not explored the shops or the beauty salon. For my first surprise of the day - the concierge broke the news to me that the beauty salon is not open on Sundays. Someone had recently mentioned that many stores were not open on Sundays, and the ones that were open did not open until noon, but somehow I assumed that this information would not apply to a hotel and its services. Guess I will have to wait for another day. So now while I wait for my car I will have a lazy breakfast.

BREAKING NEWS
The concierge just came and told me that the beauty salon is specially open today because of the eid holiday! I am in luck, and need to hurry there before the lazier Lahorites rise and come for pre-holiday pampering. I have a reasonably good excuse for not updating my blog recently- I still do not have internet at my home. Getting here during ramadan, the time when devout muslims are fasting during daylight hours, has been both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because there are iftar parties in the evening to break the fast and get to know people. A curse because every business has an excuse for low productivity of its employees. That is the excuse I have gotten from the internet provider. Eid happens this week Monday through Wednesday, and then we shall see what new excuse emerges :)

I have filled my days with getting to know the ins and outs of the consulate, hosting visitors from the embassy in Islamabad who want to know the same things as they also start their tours, and learning the talents and challenges of my staff and colleagues. I am happy to report there are more talents than challenges among my staff. I am in charge of the following functions, either through direct supervision or through chain of command - human resources, financial mgt, information managment, general services, facilities maintenance, commissary, travel, banking accommodation, tdy guest house mgt, phone system, mailroom and apo services and housing. I am also the backup consular officer. It is a busy work day. The consulate's staff is growing quickly in order to manage the increased project funding aid we are providing to pakistan. Each new American body here means more housing, transport, etc, and more local support staff, which means my little empire is exploding, as is our little consulate building built 20 years ago to hold 1/4 of the bodies in it now. My big project now is to figure out how to fit everyone here in an efficient workflow plan while searching for a new place to build a new facility. The building of the new facility is probably 5-7 years out, ruining my record of New Embassy Compounds in every tour.

Lahore is an amazing city. Population projections claim the city has about ten millions residents, and based on the traffic jams here, I can believe it! Everyone is friendly and smiling, even the 2 month old baby being held in his mother's lap on the back of dad's motorbike as all three whip through traffic together. Scenes like these are very common, but I am not fast enough with my camera to catch one...yet.My pedicure is going well. If only I could stop nibbling my nails enough to get a manicure too. A goal for my time here.

I have also given up diet coke. Week 1 of dropping to one per day is complete...this week I am down to none. My staff are lucky it is a holiday and that at the end of the week I will be in Islamabad for meetings. Hopefully the worst of my withdrawal will be over by then. The food here is really yummy. Lots of meat- lamb, beef, chicken, fish- not a good place to be a vegetarian. Also very spicy, even when they are trying to tone down for western tastebuds. My housekeeper-cook has been good about keeping my meals balanced with veggies and salads though. I also have a favorite restaurant called gunsmoke where the young waiters are dressed up texas style and slam things around. For a steak place it can't be beat here, especially the prices - about 12 dollars for a steak meal.

I really like my house. It is not the largest in the housing pool - and may actually be the smallest one- but I don't feel like - am rattling around in it. It has three bedrooms, each with attached bath, a kitchen, a living room, a dining room and a formal living room. It has lots and lots of closet space and storage - bliss! It took me until this last week to figure out how to get hot water out of the shower in the master bath though - user error not to know that knob directions might be reversed here! The shower unit itself is like climbing into a space shuttle, with jets possible from every direction. It looks like it will be fun for relaxing in the winter months when I will want to warm up.

The weather is now starting to cool from what can be described as a summer heat that was both hellish in its heat AND humidity. And I am told I missed the worst of it with my arrival in late august. I think timing of my home leave will be critical next year to strategically avoid the same.During one of the visits recently, we visited the closing of the border guard ceremony at Wagha. It is ceremonial, with both the Indian and Pakistani sides building a stadium and having cheerleaders on its side to outdo each other each day. A sight to behold - and I took some video which I hope to post on facebook soon. When I have internet :)

Gosh, my feet must be a mess, because he is still working away almost an hour later and still no polish to be seen. But my fingers are getting tired of blackberry pecking. So I set the blackberry aside for a while. The wonderful pedicure ended up being less than $10, including tip.

After the pedicure, Tim, a friend from the office, and I went to the Lahore Zoo. It was very quiet at the zoo, because everyone else was out preparing for the three day holiday. The zoo is better than one might expect, with some very natural habitat areas for some of the animals. The collection includes lions, tigers, camels, hippos, monkeys, chimps, elephants, zebras, giraffes, rhinos and many different kinds of birds.

Eid Mubarek!

A trip to Islamabad

I made my first trip to Islamabad and it was a very busy couple of days. I went mainly for a Management bonding day, but went a day early in order to meet people and get in some consultation time. It was really good to put faces with names and voices and to gather ideas within the management team for what we will all be trying to achieve this year. I felt very motivated by our great ideasm attitude and progress in just a simple day.

The city itself was really fun to see. Islamabad is a planned city, and was built in a perfect grid pattern. The grids are lettered and numbered, so that it is quite easy to drive from one point to another as long as one knows the letter and number of the starting point and destination.

Each grid block has a park and market area built into the planning, so each area has a reason to know neighbors and gather as a community. It really was well-planned and there is a lot of green space.

I am told that the city is quiet and quite sleepy, being mainly a place for bureaucrats and government and embassy people, but that might be just my speed. As I arrived about 10 pm, that did seem to be the case, as compared with the crazy traffic and throngs of people in Lahore. I was pleasantly surprised with Islamabad, perhaps I will have to bid on a job there someday.

Exploring Lahore Fort, Hyperstar and the markets

In the afternoon, Tim and I went on a tour of Lahore. Kenny was our driver and our first stop was the Lahore Fort. There we were met by a tour guide who showed us around to the various museums and buildings of the fort. The UN is doing a lot of restoration in the fort compound, but one can still imagine the extravagance that it would have been long ago for so many hundreds of years under the Moghuls and Singhs and Brits. Tim took a bunch of photos of the crew of Police bodyguards that followed around me. I look forward to seeing the photos, because it was surreal to have an entourage and be treated like a VIP.

The tour was hot, hot, hot. I have to remember to plan things for later in the day when the sun is lower and less warm. I am looking forward to the fall arriving. We got some water from a vendor and went next to the clothing market. It felt like being back in Nepal, all of the shalwar chemises sets in super bright colors and all of the wonderful fabrics. The first task was to find a shawl to wear over my black dress. I found one at the first shop- it was one long piece of cloth and had a leaf patterns that swirled many deep rich colors, including reds, blues and yellows. It was stunning and not terribly expensive at 1000 rupees ($12.50). The shop owner cut it in half, so that I actually ended up with two shawls, one of which I will probably have made into a shirt. The normal shalwar chemise set has three pieces, a top, a pair of pants and a shawl. The three pieces usually have similar colors and patterns, but are not identical. Usually one buys the fabric sets and then pays to have them cut and tailored to fit your body. They are incredibly comfortable, much like wearing pajamas to the office. Tim was a great companion, but was not the right person to help me choose shalwar sets that are appropriate for me. First, he is a boy, second he is a westerner. I will need to enlist one of the Pakistani women at the office to help me choose both a vendor and sets that are the correct quality and fabric. Despite the fact that I know that I need some local help, there were still two sets that I decided I had to have. Both have a base of dark blue, and are quite conservative. They are a silk or poly fabric that is light and flowy, which was always good for my body shape in Nepal. The market was overwhelming- an entire block of small shops, lots of people and overwhelming colors and textures. It will be fun to explore further in the future.

The first person we met at the shop was a nice kid who was visiting his uncle who had the shop. He is studying to be an astronaut, and seemed very smart and motivated. Tim exchanged contact info with him. Tim is such a nice person, always striking up conversations with everyone. I really appreciate his good humor and kindness. He is married, and his wife is back in San Antonio. She has kids who are grown.

Next we went in search of a table cloth for Tim. The astronaut guy suggested a location, and wrote it down for Tim. Kenny, our driver, did not really understand what the kid had written down, and took us to an amazing shop where they do sell table cloths and all kinds of high end housewares, but it was not the kind of place that Tim was looking for. After further consultation with the sales guy there, we think we finally figured out what the first guy had written down (maybe he was not so smart after all, because he did not transcribe the Urdu very well.)

Tim and I stopped at Hyperstar on our way home. Hyperstar is an amazing store. Because we were pressed for time I was unable to really spend time exploring, but it seemed to have everything I could ever need, including a cheese and cold cuts deli area, a bakery, and a meat counter. The second floor is like a Target, with everything from clothes to home improvement goods to electronics. I am going to need to stay away from there if I am going to manage to stay on a budget.

Lahore- a first few surreal experiences

I arrived in Lahore Pakistan more than a week ago, and the time has flown by already. I have had normal settling in experiences so far and also some surreal experiences.

Surreal KFC visit: One day in my first week here, I had a late night crazy long conference call and did not leave the office until 8 pm. I was hungry for dinner, and knew there was no food in the house I wanted for dinner. I asked the driver where we could stop to get dinner. He suggested KFC or McDonalds. I opted for KFC, thinking it was a bit better for me and would feel a bit more “home cooked”. Little did I know that the whole experience would be surreal. First of all, how often does one pull up into the KFC parking lot in a fully armored SUV with a driver? Second, everywhere we go we are followed by a police truck of bodyguards and they also roared into the parking lot. Third, two of those police guards followed me into the shop, guns raised for my protection. The look of the clerk behind the counter and the other patrons was classic “what on earth?” It did not make the service any faster though :) In the end I got a two piece chicken meal with French fries, a roll and seven up (no diet soda :). It smelled heavenly the rest of the ride home, and the chicken was a golden brown fried color. I took my first bite of the chicken, and it was a crunchy, fried delivery mechanism for spices. Completely unexpected spices…imagine the KFC spicy chicken of the US stores times three! It was delicious, but unexpected in its spice level. I liked it though, which is more than I can say for the French fries (like eating small pieces of cardboard) and the roll-like substance. Will I go back to KFC? Yes. Will I get a chicken only meal? Yes, unless there is a Pakistani side dish menu that I missed in that surreal take out experience. PS: did I mention that KFC will deliver and thus I can probably avoid the gun-wielding visit in the future?

I arrived during Ramazan, which means that some people are fasting throughout the day and waiting to break their fast (Iftar) each evening. In honor of this tradition, we hosted a series of Iftar events for our friends and colleagues. One evening I attended an Iftar for the American Business Forum members. I arrived a few minutes late, and all of the businessmen were already there. I am very glad I had done some reading about some of the local businesses- it allowed me to be a bit knowledgeable about some of the more local companies. The consumer products companies were easy to chat about- Levis, Apple, Coke, etc. I also knew a lot about GE, but the other chemical and less well known companies are still a bit of a mystery. It was interesting that the consumer product companies were run by very outgoing and gregarious people, while some of the other businesspeople seemed to be less outgoing. They were really quite fun, in a teasing way. They enjoyed teasing each other about their wives being the bosses of the house. One of the beverage company people was the most vocal of the bunch. He does not drink, and spent a lot of time talking about the sales of soda during Ramadan (the strongest sales month they have!). Later we speculated that more people turn to soda because they have turned away from booze for Ramadan. It seems like a possible reason. Anyway, we started talking about the topic “It just takes one person to change the world.” It led to some great discussion of various international and domestic people who live by (and some who have died by)that motto. It was a great part of the conversation.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Lahore, the garden spot of Pakistan

I arrived in Lahore less than a week ago, and I am determined to be a better blogger here than I was in Baghdad. Life and work there just kept getting in the way. I am going to try to at least add train of thought ramblings on a more regular basis from Lahore.

My first impressions of Lahore...

- The people are so very friendly! Everyone in the Consulate has gone out of their way to make me feel welcome and a part of the team. The normal tour here is only a year, and despite the number of people who have extended for a second year already in my incoming group, the current group is mainly a one year crew. Very soon I will be the one with the long-term memory, even though I won't have been here very long myself!

- My house is spacious and has lots and lots of closets. So exciting!!!

Time for a new meeting, so my rambling thoughts must end for now.