Flow

Island man, with roots at the Manchur lake. Antithesis to the commotion of the last weeks.









All things flow. The Netherlands has lost its image of tolerance after last week's elections, a new micro-life got shape in Khaipur and the blog has changed skin. And what could be more appropriate than an orange font with the 'machina orangina' playing in two days time. The arm chairs in the cantina of the guesthouse have moved towards the television set.
A great place, that cantina. A rectangular shape building, with tables and chairs from the carpentry of the organisation. A few standing fans and a sitting corner with a couch and a two arm chairs. Sparrows that have nests near the ceiling fly in and out. When you sit still squirrels appear and gently move around, looking for something to eat.
The cantina is under supervision of Mr Najeeb, the cook and caretaker. A great cook: his dishes - dhals, curries, fish and rice - make you go 'hmmm' after taking a bite.


(Picture: mangoes served with the meals in the cantina.)

The world cup has started, and by now it's clear that watching a game of football will never be the same again. It's like sticking your head in a beehive; a monotonous buzz throughout the whole match. The vuvuzela. I got reminded of the so-called 'stadium horn' - an invention of my early childhood friend Serge, with whom I spend some time in the play pen. Luckily he didn't have a stadium horn back then.


(Picture: water buffaloes having a splash. Speaking of antitheses: buffaloes and donkeys. Slowly the buffaloes trudge towards the pond in the morning. There they bathe until the late afternoon, ruminating oats, panting loudly. In the late afternoon they stumble back. Of course there's the milking in the morning, but compared to the heavy loads that the donkeys bear, it's an easy life.)

Since a week Steve has joined the Indus Resource Centre (IRC) to teach English during the summer programme. The schools are closed because of the holidays, but children and teachers get the opportunity to improve their English.
Our travels have influenced each others. He got me a job in Yazd, I set him up in Hyderabad. Then, when I decided to move up north and got in touch with the people of IRC, I paved the way for him to come over. It's good to share time and tell each other about the experiences we go through.
Funny text messages that come in, being told off by Pakistani's because you don't wear the rope that serves as belt inside your shalwar, or unctuous fawning behaviour as it is so beautifully called. "Unctuous Fawning", it's like an Irish name, Steve told me. I had to look up the meaning: eager to please, excessively suave, or smarmy.
"They would cut off their right arm to please you", Steve illustrated. "They'd say, you want my right arm? Here go on and have it. No, no, it's no problem. I'll probably need it, and it will hurt, but if you want it, here it is."
It's a phenomenon that Maria, the girl with whom I travelled through Turkmenistan, called 'Pakitos' - after the stereotypical 'Pako' of Spain. A good guy basically, that's willing to go out of his way to help you. Be it by giving you an escort to where you have to go (instead of just giving directions), or offering food and drink. Or a place to sleep. By now I see this as hospitality, but if I take a few steps back and compare it to home, I've got to admit that there aren't many excessively suave people left.
Pakistan's full of them though, and it creates a lot of good moments.


(Picture: 2 o'clock.)

Of a different nature, but equally funny. A late afternoon a few days back, work had come to an end and Steve and I had changed into our football kits. When we walked out one of the boys from the neighbouring slum that waited for us gestured Steve - a two metre tall Welshmen - to lean forward as he wanted to tell him something privately.
The boy put his hand between Steve's ear and his mouth, and asked:

"Do you have a wank jacket for me?"
"A wa-hat?", Steve replied.
"A wank jacket.."


(Picture: a flooded pitch, with Steve at the ball. Advantage of the water was that it seriously diminished the amount of players.)

So we play football each day after work. By now word has spread and about 40 guys gather on the pitch just outside our office to play. It's sheer chaos. We tried all sorts of things to get some structure in the game, but it seems impossible. The kids are really keen to play, but have no idea about the rules. It's a kind of football where hands are used continually and the two teams clash in a rugby-like scrum. The mob moves like a living organism from side to side. Pastel-coloured shalwars, with bare feet sticking out, go everywhere. The ball moves around like in a pinball machine. Everybody tries to influence its directions, including the people that stand by to watch. Many a goal is scored because a spectator works the ball back into the game, passing it just in front of the goal.


(Picture: spectator)


(Picture: one of the students of the school in Sobhodero that I visited last week.)


(Picture: train triviality. A rainy station along the railway from Hyderabad to Khaipur on the day of the storm.)

How different from the visit to the Manchur lake of last week. We got there just before the storm that moved from the Gulf of Oman to the Arabian Sea, hitting the coastline of Pakistan and 'eying' Karachi as the English speaking newspaper 'Dawn' had sensationally called it. When some students from Karachi came to the guesthouse a few days back, they described the 'cyclone' as "rain, not even that much." Infrastructure had been damaged though, especially around Hyderabad, which gave us a remarkable amount of electricity for a couple of days. Remember that there's a loadshedding scheme in the whole of Pakistan. A couple of hours of light and then the humming of generators. Off and on.



But when I got to the lake, the storm was yet to come. The air had turned gray, people where getting ready. The area around the lake is just as much pestered by drought, deforestation and poverty as the rest of rural Sindh. Farmers divert from the natural pattern of sowing after the monsoon rains, because they are not at all sure that they will come. They water their freshly sown lands with tubewells of which thousands have been installed over the last decade. When the rains do come, they wash away the seeds, and all is lost.
There are also people living on the lake: fisherfolk living on houseboats or in houses made of reed matting on islands. In 2003 torrential rains caused floodings in this area of Sindh, and many people got stuck without shelter, food and clean drinking water. They would drink water straight from the lake, without boiling it, so that water-borne diseases spread rapidly.
Now things have turned to normal, but it doesn't look like an easy life. They are dependent on an ever declining fish stock, and water that is turning saline.

Island man came on shore, and asked me for money.