July 26--in Sialkot

      I have to say, if you haven’t been to Pakistan and you think you know what hospitality is, you don’t.  Today I was reminded so many times what amazing hosts sister Javed and her family and friends are.

      We started by going to church.  I woke up early and finished my talk.  Church starts at 10 so we were picked up a little after 9.  Nosheen helped Lily put on the fancy Pakistan dress that she’d bought for Lily in Lahore.  Not only had Nosheen bought it, but she had stayed up late to stitch on the sleeves so that Lily could wear it to church.  

      The church in Sialkot is located in the cantonment (“cantt”) area of Sialkot.  A cantt area is an area in a military zone.  In Pakistan most cantt areas have been built out and include non-military stuff.  There are numerous such areas in Pakistan that are technically within a military base, but have grown to include extensive residential or commercial areas.  Sialkot is very close to the border with India, so security in the cantt is unusually strict.  And it so happens that my Pakistan visa has a stamp on it that says “NOT VALID FOR RESTRICTED OR CANTT AREAS” —probably put there by the Pakistan government as a result of my well-know nunchucks skills, bow hunting skills, and computer hacking skills.  So once I got my visa (and googled the word “cantt” since I had no idea what that meant), I told Nosheen about the stamp.  She said that typically it’s no big deal to go through the cantt areas, but that her branch members had told her that you should get an authorization letter to avoid problems.  One of the members was kind enough to do that.  And it’s a good thing too, because on the way to church today we got stopped.  Actually, passed through our entrance gate lane with no problem, but as we were driving off, the officer at the neighboring gate caught a glimpse of Lily and yelled at the officer in our lane to pull us over.  He shouted at us to stop, and we did. The driver took my paperwork, went over to the nearby building, and waited for 10 minutes for them to inspect our papers.  We were a little nervous (I can tell the Pakistanis never like to interact with the military, and it doesn't sound like much fun to me either), but we got permission and everything was fine.

      Once I got to sacrament meeting, I think my talk went well.  I spoke about temple marriage and how hard it is for Pakistanis to go to Hong Kong to be sealed.  I compared it to the “Honeymoon Trail” that LDS couples used to travel so they could be sealed in the St. George temple.  Hopefully people were listening.  There were perhaps 30 people there.  I was very sad that sister Javed’s family didn’t show up to hear it, though.  Her older brother, Junaid, had told me that he would show up, and sister Javed had told me that they were going to come as well.  I mentioned to President Waheed that I was a little disappointed that they hadn’t showed up.  He said matter-of-factly that they all had to prepare dinner for us.  He had made the trip down from Lahore (that’s a long drive!) to hear me speak and to have dinner with the Javeds afterward.  After the meetings were over, we took pictures of some of the primary kids and printed out copies for them.

      After church we went to the Javeds' for a fancy meal.  Lily and I and some of the family ate in the front bedroom, which has a rug and therefore kind of serves as a living room when needed.  They had set up a pillow for me to sit on.  No one else had one.  Lily and I, President Waheed, and Brother and sister Sohail from the branch presidency (who had translated for me during my talk) were there as well.  Sister Javed was there and so was David Anil and sister Javed’s older brother.  However, the members of the family who’d cooked the meal were nowhere in sight.  The meal was very yummy—rice, daal (a tasty lentil concoction), spicy chicken, mint sauce, and a couple things I’m not sure what they were.  It was really good, and the conversation was good as well.

      We took some pictures of the family and printed them out.  That’s always a huge hit.  We played the “Count Battle” game on my phone, which was also fun.  And we just visited and hung out.  Some neighbor girls showed up.  I guess they know the Javeds fairly well—they had come over to ogle us a bit the first day we were there.  I took their pictures and printed them out and gave to them.  They were very nice and had brought me three plastic ball-point pens as a gift.  They asked if we could come visit their house, and sister Javed asked me if it was okay.  I said sure, why not, we can go over for a few minutes.  

      When we showed up everyone in the house was thrilled and embraced us.  The house was small and made of brick, which were bare on the inside.  It adjoined the neighboring houses, as is the norm in this neighborhood.  I asked them about the house, and apparently they rent it.  Two of the daughters seem really smart and spoke amazing English (at least by Pakistani standards).  The dad is gone, working in Dubai (I’ve heard repeatedly that’s the best career path available to people in Pakistan today).  There was a grandma and several other people who were maybe family or maybe friends.  The group pulled together chairs and beds for people to sit on.  There was a lot of kid-jostling about who would get a seat and who wouldn’t, but it was obvious that everyone there was thrilled to be.  There was a white board in the house that said, “Welcome Sister Lilly.”  One of the daughters apologized for not knowing my name so she could put it on the board.  The girls excitedly presented Lily with neatly wrapped presents in pink boxes that contained plastic bangles, earrings and hair baubles.  Lily said thank you and that she was glad she had come.  They said, “We’ve been waiting for you for two days.”  We took pictures of the family and promised to give them those prints tomorrow.  They were so kind and solicitous when we were in their home.

      Nosheen’s cousin can’t drive us around anymore, so we got a driver with a tiny little van.   Of course Nosheen won’t let me pay him.  I really like him.  He’s a Muslim but often comes in with us to whatever we’re doing.  He’s a really nice guy.  Today he told Nosheen that he and she needed to be careful to take care of us non-Pakistanis and protect us from harm.  They’re extremely protective of us.

      About sundown we went onto the roof to play cricket.  Yeah, cricket on their roof.  They explained the rules to me, sort of.  It was a hoot and everyone had a great time.  It reminded me of when I was in Japan and people would play a sport just for fun, without worrying about scoring or winning.  After that we danced together in Nosheen’s living room—to music on my phone and to music on Nosheen’s brother’s phone.  It was a hoot.

      Later the power went out—no shock there.  When we drove home the power was still out, and although there aren’t traffic lights or many street lights, the driving seemed even crazier than it normally is because we could see even less than normal.

      I think I mentioned this before, but here we are always treated like royalty.  No one lets me carry my own bags.  No one eats until I do.  The one fan always has to point at me.  I am the one who sits on the family’s one sitting pillow.  I have to sit in the front seat of the van because the AC is better there.  And on and on.  It’s often uncomfortable for me, but I can tell that it’s very important to them to treat me as an honored guest.  They literally call me that all the time.  And Nosheen and her family will do anything for our comfort.  

      After dinner the driver brought me, Lily, Nosheen, her brother Jumshed, and David back to the hotel.  We brought a little food that her mom had prepared, and we sat around and visited for a while.  It was really fun.  After we’d chatted together for a while, they needed to go.  I had a bag that I’d promised one of Jumshed’s friends to bring back to the US, and I asked them if they would just take it back to their house that night.  Nosheen revealed what I hadn’t known—that the three of them were riding back on the family’s motorbike that night.  The hired driver had gone home, and in order for them to be with us in the room, the three of them needed to go back on the motorcyle.  This is exactly the type of behind-the-scenes generosity that happened all the time in Pakistan.  

      I also learned something similar about our upcoming ride to the airport.  A member in the ward had offered to drive us to Lahore for free.  But Nosheen had decided to pay for the driver instead, because then we could have air conditioning.  I never learned these sorts of things unless I happened to ask questions about them.  I’m sure there were many similar sacrifices that happened that I will never know about.  I was constantly humbled and amazed by what they gave up for us.

Just chillin'

 Flowers we received at the church

 Primary kids at church

 I like this photo of Junaid and his family.

 Lily and I with Presdient Waheed

 Nosheen and her niece Jenny

 Lily with several neighbor kids

 Visiting one of the neighbors

 Lily with a present from one of the neighbors

 Nosheen and her nieces

The Sialkot library

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.

 Getting the day figured out at the hotel in the moring

 With the store owner who gave me a deal on my "Jacko" souvenir

 The store where Lily bought her huge supply of henna to take home

 Anyone wanna buy a goat head?

 This is the security guard at the church in Sialkot.  Note the shotgun.

 At lunch with the branch presidency and their wives

 Buses and trucks are often painted brightly like this.

...or this.

 On the bridge/dam by the Chenab River

 At the park near the Chenab River

 Snake mistreatment

People at the Chenab River.  The relatives of the drowning victims are in the group that includes women dressed in red. 

 Me and Nosheen's younger brother Jumshed

 One of the canals that comes off the dam

 On the way back into Sialkot

 Hanging in Nosheen's living room

July 24--finally arrived at Nosheen's house

      Today we woke up and drove to Sialkot.  I was in the car with Nosheen’s cousin again, and it was pretty clear he wasn’t real sure about directions.  By some miracle, Google maps on my phone worked well enough to give us directions from our location to Sialkot.  But he didn’t seem real interested in following those directions.  Anyway, after some slowing down, consulting  with random pedestrians, and speculating, we got on the right road.  

      Some of the trip was on the Lahore Ring Road, which is a nice, modern highway that encircles the city.  It had rained the day before, I guess, and there were laborers using crude brooms to sweep puddles into drain holes. Nosheen’s cousin told me that all these workers were Christians, who can’t get better jobs because of their religion.  He says that these people make $70-80 per month.

      A couple funny things happened on our three-hour road trip.  Shortly into our journey we stopped for gas, and the attendants told the driver that he needed to have a nicer car if he was going to be driving a foreigner around.  Next, Nosheen’s cousin pointed out to me the place where they’d gotten caught in traffic, which made them late to pick us up at Wagah yesterday.  He said, "Yesterday we are slowly slowly slowly like ant,” which struck me as hilarious for some reason.

      As we drove, poverty was everywhere.   I think that Pakistan is the poorest place I've ever seen, though I understand that I don’t exactly have worldwide experience at these things. I saw more crippled beggars in Pakistan than I have anywhere else.  I saw legless men in the middle of the road where there are speed bumps, reaching out to cars as they passed.  I saw crippled people asking for money in medians and along the road.  I saw legless men pulling their bodies behind them on the sidewalk.  And for the first time I saw a person who had the same condition as the “elephant man.” 

      I don’t see the presence of any foreign tourists at all.  We didn’t see any in Lahore yesterday, even though the mosque was fairly crowded and that’s the place not to miss in Lahore.  I never saw a single souvenir shop or other store that seemed to be devoted to stuff that only a foreigner would buy.

In other developing countries I’ve seen a lot of people sharing a motorcycle, but in Pakistan it seems like you hardly ever see a motorcycle with only one person on it.  

      It’s very common to see a motorcycle with three adult passengers, or a family of four with two small kids.  Once I even saw a family of five, with the smallest kid on the bike about 10 years old.  It’s hard to believe that people don’t get killed all the time.  Maybe they do. 

      We passed lots of fields on our way to Sialkot.  It’s rice planting season, and that work is done by hand.  Tractors here have big circular metal frames on the outside of the normal wheels, to keep them from sinking into the mud.  

      As in other places, I saw some awesome English mishaps on the signs here.  We passed a “Tuck Shop,” and a “Butt Store.” 

      On the way to Sialkot, Nosheen warned me that the roads in her hometown weren’t very good.  She wasn’t kidding.  There are lots and LOTS of potholes, formal and informal speed bumps everywhere, and areas where the pavement was completely gone and the road was an ungraded, bumpy, muddy dirt road.  Mind you, these are busy roads we’re talking about—the equivalent of Brown Road near my house.  And the traffic is basically horrible in Pakistan all the time, with very few stoplights and frenetic uncontrolled intersections.  For that reason, a car can seldom go faster than 25 mph, and often no more than 10 or 15 mph.  

      Because the car was small, we couldn’t fit all our people and all our baggage.  Nosheen’s little brother Jumshed and her ward member David took a bus and each took one of our suitcases while we drove.  This was just one example of the kindness they showed to us.  They would not let me carry my own bag, ever.  And they would not let me pay for the bus tickets they had to buy.

      Nosheen’s house is off a busy but poorly maintained two-lane road.  From there you take an unpaved one-lane road—really an alley—that runs at random angles through a maze of brick and concrete dwellings.  Her house is concrete—or maybe concrete over brick.  It has a metal garage door gate for a front door, as do most of the houses in the neighborhood.  When we arrived and knocked on the door, Nosheen’s family members shouted from within for us to wait a minute, so we did.               When they called to us to come on in, they were all waiting, grinning and holding baskets of rose petals, which they showered us with.  They also had large flower arrangements for each of us, similar to the ones that Nosheen had bought in Lahore.  They smelled really good.  And they had made rose petal necklaces for us.  It was a pretty incredible reception.  We came in and met everyone.   

      The house is one story with an inside staircase up to the roof.  Other than the one metal exterior door, and one other exterior door, there are no other doors in the house.  Rooms—including bathrooms—are separated by hanging curtains in the doorways.  There is one common area perhaps 20 x 30 feet.  There are two bedrooms, each with a bath/toilet room.  All the floors are concrete, though one of the bedrooms has a couple rugs on the floor, and people don’t wear their shoes into that room.  The roof is also available to sit on or look out from.  It has a wall around it about four feet high.  Nosheen’s older brother, Junaid, is the head of the household.  He has a wife and two-year old daughter.  Others who live there are Nosheen’s mom, her younger sister, and two younger brothers.  Junaid embraced me with tears in his eyes and thanked me for coming.  

      They had prepared lunch for us—awesome Pakistani food.   It was a little uncomfortable because a big part of the lunch was us eating and them watching.  This was something we had to learn to get used to.  They treated us like royalty—we got served first, got the best food, were always offered more of everything.  They scurried around to help and serve us. 

      After lunch we played a Pakistani version of Parcheesi. Everyone was animated and it was fun.  

It rained some that first day.  The rain runs down the street outside Nosheen’s house and into a field across from her front door.  It collects dishwater and other refuse, and must be horribly dirty.  There’s also a big garbage pile right across from Nosheen’s front door.  She told me that they’ve asked the neighbors not to put their trash there, but everyone does anyway. Several boys were playing the the field as it rained.   About four inches of runoff had accumulated maybe for inches of rainwater runoff.  There were also cattle grazing in the field.

      There is a mosque maybe 100 feet from Nosheen’s house.  It it not very big, but it has VERY loud speakers that blare the prayers at the appointed times, five times a day.  When the mosque megaphones are going, you literally have to shout to make yourself heard to a person right next to you in Nosheen’s living room.  It’s very annoying.  And if you’re playing music or anything, you need to turn it down during those times because if you don’t the Muslims will get angry with you.  Christians have been murdered in Pakistan for blasphemy, so it’s important to be careful.  (A couple days later we were on the roof when Lily unthinkingly kind of mimicked the blaring prayer.  Nosheen’s family immediately shushed her so no one would hear that.)

      The branch presidency came to visit us in Nosheen’s living room in the evening.  We sat and visited with them, and the branch president brought me a new watch as a gift.  After the presidency left it was raining lightly.  Lily, Nosheen and I took an umbrella up on the roof and just looked out on the area for a while.

      Junaid works at the nicest pizza place in Sialkot.  I was thinking that it wouldn’t be very good, but they actually had really good pizza.  The GM was thrilled to have foreigners there and gave us our dinner for free.  He also brought us right in and gave us a table despite the line of people waiting—which earned me the stinkeye from a group of women in hijabs.  The table right next to ours was a group of friends out for someone’s birthday.  They were taking selfies, so I went over and took a couple photos for them so their whole group would be in it.  Then the restaurant started a big, loud happy birthday song, and flashing lights and lots of bass and everything, so we started kinda hooting and doing fist bumps and stuff, and the group saw us and got all stoked and told me and Lily to come over and dance with them and generally go nuts.  It was hilarious—like being a rock star.  Afterward Nosheen told me that will really help Junaid at his job—since he’s affiliated with Americans he might get a promotion. 

Nosheen is by her front door on the right.

At our reception at Nosheen's house

At our reception at Nosheen's house

 Nosheen and her sisters and sister-in-law and niece

 Our feast was ready for us shortly after arrival.

 Playing parcheesi

 Junaid and his daughter Jenny

 Selfie at the pizza joint, Mazzeo's

With the birthday people who were in the booth next to ours