Burkas and Boat Basin

Today at work we sat down with our boss and elaborated our working schedule and plan for the next few weeks which includes a hell of a lot of tasks which we probably won’t be able to finish all in these 6 weeks (I mention the most important tasks under the page “NGO – War Against Rape”) but we also had some fun: Three of our female co-workers take the bus every day for around 1,5-2 hours each way, which is why they cover themselves for with a scarf (meaning they cover their heads) as travelling on public transport isn’t as clean, organised or – most importantly for women here – as safe as in, let’s say, Berlin. It is not that you immediately get raped if you don’t cover your head, of course not, but from what we have heard men here will stare. That is why some women who don’t feel comfortable with men staring at them prefer to wear burkas, and one of our co-workers is one of those women. No, she does not always wear the burka, only when she takes the bus home and needs to change and therefore wait for the next bus about 3 or 4 times for a total amount of travelling time of nearly 2 hours, as stated above. Understandable, right? I wanted to understand that feeling even better and asked her if i could try on her beautiful black burka, which she allowed and which actually brought some fun time to all of us, as everyone was either helping me to wrap the scarf around my head properly once I was wearing the kurta part or commented with a laugh how much I looked like a Pakistani or even a Taliban woman. In fact, I really liked the burka, but after a while you get hot…

In the evening we went for dinner at boat basin with quite a few AIESECers… I am not sure I remember all their names, to be honest, because some of them I met for the first time then, but somehow it is always nice and cute to see how many people are genuinely interested in you just because you are a foreigner and because they feel you are “their” intern. Boat basin is a long “food street” with many small restaurants next to each other, with only a parking lane seperating it from a big and busy street. Awesomely enough, we went to a Lebanese place where you could either sit in normal, boring plastic chairs, or – what we obviously did – on wooden platforms with a big carpet on them and some cushions. The food was served on big plates which were just put in the middle of our cosy round and from which everybody helped themselves. Although everybody got their own plate and spoon, we still ate mainly with our hands and with ruti or naan, as it is commonly done. YES, the food was delicious! And yes, I had a semi-upset tummy the following night/day, but also some of our local friends had, so it’s not a big deal. http://vimeo.com/87774445 My friend Faria was supposed to take a picture of me eating Pakistani food – this is how it turned out 😉 For dessert, Sufian took Faria, Vivian and me for some damn chocolaty ice cream at a place close by before driving us home – and letting me sit on his car’s bonnet for the last few metres. 😀 Goood food day, overall!

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.