Brad and Lily in Dubai-India-Pakistan: July 25--in Sialkot

In the morning we had some shopping to do. Lily and I bought a couple small gifts, and I ordered one gift that needed engraving for a buddy of mine. I had a difficult time keeping Nosheen from paying for what we bought. In fact, mostly I failed at that. She and Lily walked around, having a good time while Lily picked out items for her friends and Nosheen paid. Some stuff I was able to pay for, but I had to fight for it.

We had lunch with the branch presidency at an expensive restaurant in town. From the menu it seemed like the meal was at least $20 per plate, which is a fortune here. Again, though—nothing to do but accept the kindness and the love when it was offered.

As we were driving around, David pulled out a cord that would allow my phone to play music on the cab’s speakers. When Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea’s “One Less Problem Without You” came on, I explained the meaning of the chorus to the Pakistanis. They thought it was a hoot and loved the beat and the words, and they asked to play it a couple times. We all sang along at the top of our lungs—until suddenly we had to turn it off. We were told that it was time for Muslim prayers, and if they heard us singing or listening to music during that time, it could cause us big problems.

One of the things Nosheen wanted to show us was a park on the Chenab River near Sialkot. It’s a huge river, made huger this time of year because of upstream monsoon rains. There’s a big bridge/dam across the river that has 66 gates, and the gates are designed to control the water flow. I guess there used to be major floods from this river during monsoon season (which is now). The volume of water was really high, and the current looking tricky and the water was bursting through the gates and roiling downstream.

There were a lot of people from Sialkot out by the river—hanging out, wading and picnicking. We found a group with a drum, and they let me play it for a while and then we danced to it a little bit. There was a guy with a snake so of course we had to play with the snake. Lily professed to be terrified by it but kissed it for the camera, so I’m not sure how genuine that terror was. There was a public well pump with really cool water that we enjoyed.

Some people were standing in water up to their knees or so, but I didn’t see anyone who looked like they were swimming. However, we learned that just an hour or two before, two young men had drowned in the river, with their bodies not yet recovered. There was a group of wailing, rocking women, and other family members had gathered too. One of the victims was scheduled to be married the very next day. I felt so bad for the families. Nosheen approached them and and comforted the women a bit, but of course there wasn’t anything we could do. Notwithstanding the tragedy, there were hundreds of other people doing their thing—wading, eating, visiting and whatever. It was a little surreal.

For men to show physical affection is much more common in Pakistan than in the US. That actually worked our really well for me. Of course my Urdu is terrible, but I could put my hand on Junaid’s shoulder for a minute or two while we were sitting on the couch, and that helped show my affection for him. Or in the car I could pat David or rest my hand on his back while telling him thanks for his help. In fact, when we were playing parcheesi yesterday, Junaid came up behind me and rubbed my shoulders, neck and head for a while. I joked a little bit about me being the king (“Meh RAJA hoon!” in Urdu) because I was perched on the family’s one sitting cushion, and because everyone had been serving me, and because I was just a tiny bit uncomfortable with that whole back-massage-from-a-sweaty-guy thing. Everybody laughed, and from that point on the guys mostly called me “Raja,” which is the Indian word for king.

In the early evening we went by the very humble storefront where the tailor works who had made my Pakistani outfit (shalwar kameez) at Nosheen’s family’s request. He was a nice guy, and we took photos together. Like a lot of people I met in Pakistan, he’s struggling. He’s taking care of a couple needy family members on a his meager income. He asked me to say a prayer for his business, so we all said that prayer together in the shop. The power was out, so we did it by the light of my cell phone, in the dark, sweltering store.

Then we went to an adjoining shopkeeper who also had heard about our visit and wanted us to visit and pray for him, so of course we did. He was very humble and grateful for our visit, and he dispatched a friend to run and buy room-temperature Cokes for us to drink. He also told Lily that he wanted her to have a free pair of shoes as a gift. I felt bad about that even more than I usually did when we were presented with gifts. After all, the guy had asked us to pray for him because his shop is struggling. I told him that I had come to help, not to bankrupt him. But he insisted and Nosheen nodded that I needed to take them. I found a smaller, cheaper pair of shoes that (hopefully) would fit Eve, and I suggested we take those instead. Bad move. He insisted that we take both, and simply would not be dissuaded.

Back at the house the power was still out, so we went up on the roof where it’s a bit cooler. I taught a lesson to the family about the illumination that comes from the Holy Ghost and from the light of Christ. I brought along a little package of small LED flashlights, and I gave one to each member of the family. They REALLY dug those flashlights, which come in really handy when the light goes out. We just hung out and enjoyed each other for a while. Because we’d been eating during the afternoon, no one was really hungry so we didn’t have a formal dinner. But Nosheen, Jumshed and David came back to the hotel room with some food, and we had our late, light dinner there together, all sitting on my bed. I relished that brief time together. Then they headed off for home.