The real deal – Zainab market!

Today at work we continued our case studies reading and became more familiar with our co-workers at WAR: Kiran, our boss and program coordinator; Asia, the in-house lawyer who comes to office around noon, because she usually is at the courts in the morning; Farzana, van driver and handyman who doesn’t speak a lot of English but we talk to quite a lot anyway (also, when we go and get food from outside, like chicken rolls from Milano’s, then she is the one who accompanies us and helps us order); Rukhsana and Sheraz, our survivor support officers; and Ayesha the accounts and admin manager. WAR also has a clinical psychologist employed, but she doesn’t work from office, so we don’t really know her.

After work we got picked up by our friend Narissa and her sister and went to drop her sister at their house. Narissa’s family lives in a Parsi colony (yes, gated communities are quite common here) which might just be the most liberal (as in Western-like) place in Karachi.
The best thing about that afternoon, though, wasn’t seeing the colony, but it was that Narissa’s driver tried to teach us to ride his bike and even let us try it ourselves!

It was a lot of fun, obviously! Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to keep practicing, as we still had to meet Moomal at the university.

So my first attempt was also my last attempt…

I nearly drove the bike against a wall. Nearly.

We then drove to uni campus to pick up Moomal and from there to Zainab market. By the time we got there it was dark and dodgy, so I didn’t really feel like taking out my camera.

Zainab market is in the center of Karachi and therefore was our first experience outside of Clifton/Defense which according to Wikipedia is “an affluent neighbourhood located in the Saddar Town of Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan“ and has a reputation as a “residential place of the rich and famous people of Karachi since the independence of Pakistan“.

The reason why we just had to go to Zainab market with Moomal out of all people, is that Moomal is very good at bargaining and Zainab market is all about bargaining!
It really came in handy having her there: while I was trying on jeans (in a tiny changing room, euphemistically speaking), she talked to the sales people in Urdu and by the time I had tried them all on and decided for one, the price was already remarkably down. When Vivian and I both decided for the same pair of jeans, she got the price down to 1100 rupees for both, meaning 550 rupees for each – that is less than 4€. Yeah, right?! I know you are reading this, Moomal, so thanks again!

The first stalls we entered were all located outside, along the street where people were selling street food from their carts, but we later also went inside. Inside it was the same scenery of small stalls, overloaded either with clothes, bags or shawls, seperated by narrow aisles. After our glorious jeans shopping we went shawl hunting and let me tell you, that is really not an easy task. With jeans it is way easier to decide because they either fit you or they don’t, you either look good in them or you don’t,  but with shawls… they come in so many different beautiful colours andlovely patterns that all look great and you can wear them here as a shawl (or rebozo as it is known in Mexico) or internationally as a scarf, any way you want – so there is not really a reason NOT to get a shawl if you like it…

So here is a piece of advice to those out there with the same “I like them all” issues as me: Instead of stopping at the ATM on your way to the market, just don’t take so much money with you. At the market it’s all cash; if you really liked something and run out of money, then you can always come back, but be smart and prepare your purse in emptying it to a certain extend in advance – it helped me decide for 2 shawls instead of buying 5.

Karachi Youth to Business Forum

It is not uncommon for students here to have uni on Saturdays, so if you’re an ambitious student, Sunday is the day for you to attend some other studies-related but not grade-relevant activities to pimp your CV; such as the Youth to Business Forum which AIESEC in IBA held for the 3rd time this year.

This was basically a mix of conference, motivation speeches and tracks sessions at IBA’s main campus in the city center. It was under the motto of planning for success (or not planning, as we heard in the first lecture and I personally tend to believe in).
I had never attended such an event before and was unsure of what to wear, as we knew we’d be the only “internationals” at the conference, and, of course, we showed up over-dressed, but it was too warm for the blazer anyway, so I quickly got rid of it.

“Youth to Business Forum is an international conference hosted by AIESEC around the globe. It follows a comprehensive structure presented by AIESEC’s international community with a common agenda, pressing on economic, social and cultural issues, that is universally followed. The conference aims to develop, hone and transpire the talents of potential young leaders, thus enabling them to impact the community and the world on a much larger scale. Selected individuals are given a unique opportunity to broaden their corporate network while communicating and interacting with distinguished speakers and notable personalities from the social and corporate sector; impelling them to be engaged and inspired by them, and encouraging them to develop actionable ideas for society as mature and sound leaders. This year, AIESEC in IBA aims to achieve this through the theme ‘Planning for Success’.” -http://aieseciniba.com/karachiy2b/

The whole thing started in the morning at about 9/10am – on a Sunday! – and lasted all day long. There were some food breaks, obviously, and the food was great! It was very interested, but still, in the late evening we were quite exhausted by listening to lectures which not all were in English, but also partly or fully in Urdu, so our friends Moomal and Aruba showed us around the campus instead. We found this foosball midway, and just had to play a few rounds – of which the German team won all (two, to be exact) as we are proud to announce! 😉

We took our time, having a chat about different schooling and educational systems in different countries while sitting on the football court (mosquito repellent was working, luckily) and watching the early sunset. By the time we came back to the conference, it was dark and time to take the final pictures (see first and last picture in this post) and then soon to go home – or some other places!!

Aaqib and Sufian (two guys, for those unfamiliar with Pakistani names) took Vivian and me to that coolly decorated cafe called The Hot Spot Cafe where Vivian ordered a Chocolate Fudge Cake with vanilla ice cream and I ordered a Chocolate Chip Cookie Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich – fancy name, right? 
Two more friends joined us, we grabbed some tea and spontaniously drove to seaview, the commercialised area of Clifton Beach in Karachi. Seemingly (and sadly) it is not a very safe area to be at this time of the day evening, so the guys insisted on sitting in an ugly and loud place, because it was well lighted. Well, I guess you can’t have it all, but we still had a damn good time and conversations as entertaining as eye-opening, before we were driven back to Faria’s place – where we continued chatting until late about deep shit and stuff, ahem. 😉
About these (and also later) conversations I’ll just give away that apparently it is true that commonly Pakistanis (of all income groups) stay virgins until they marry. This was slightly surprising for me, I have to admit, because I had thought it to be just the official version of something still happening in secrecy, but I was wrong and I highly respect the honesty Pakistanis show for themselves regarding their religion / tradition / beliefs. They do have a point in arguing how, because of saving oneself for marriage, problems such as teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases are not an issue in Pakistan, whereas in some so-called first world or highly developed countries they are. It’s not all black and white, guys!