pakistan 2007

Pakistan  Log 26 Dec 07- 1 Jan 2008

(Note: - This diary was written contemporaneously on aircraft and in Pakistan as events unfolded. The only subsequent editing in this version has been to delete some of the more boring material i.e. technical notes which I wrote about teaching materials etc.and which are only of interest to a very few of us; and to correct a few grammatical points.  A few points have been added in italics)

26/27th Dec

Kate and I en route to Lahore.

We eat turkey (more or less) over Turkey; I doze fitfully; and, a couple of hours away from Pakistan, realise we are overflying Uzbekistan (of blessed, if mixed, memories). To the north is Nukus. If there is a more god-forsaken hellhole in the world than Nukus, I have yet to find it; it makes Cumbernauld looks like paradise. But then we more or less overfly Bukhara (like the better known Samarkand, a gem on the

Silk Route

) a place to raise the human spirit in its legacy of mankind’s arts as much as Nukus can lead to a diametrically opposite conclusion.

27^th Dec

We came into Islamabad at 6.40 a.m., almost on time, with dawn beginning to streak the eastern sky.

Off to the guesthouse for an omelette breakfast; then we begin the 4 hour drive to Lahore, along the private toll road. All quite pleasant and smooth; and the weather is better than predicted: cloudless sun and a temperature that is well into the 20’s. We are in Lahore by 1.30 p.m.; and go to the DPD where the peacocks and peahens stroll on the lawn. Tea with the estimable Saadia; then off to our guesthouse.

Apart from our tiredness and jetlag, everything seems in order. Quite frightening and (for Pakistan) quite unusual. What is usual is that we keep having power cuts.

We have a 90 minute meeting; going through the materials for tomorrow with Saadia and with Safi, our two co-tutors. Rubina, the Head of their Department of Professional Development, is also present.

(Much much later).

It was a text message from Glasgow that alerted us to Bhutto’s assassination. We watch CNN for hours in a state of shock, send reassuring messages home and both Rose and Rubina phone: initially to say the course will go ahead as planned; but then to postpone at least the first day until they can assess the situation better. As always, they are quick to choose and implement the most sensible option. The situation in Lahore is far from clear. Initially it is described as quiet; then there are reports of some demonstrations; all we hear directly are what appear to be a series of fire crackers going off – but some distance away.

28^th Dec

Up at 6.30; and dawn is appearing. There is (unusually) hot water for a shower.  The FCO website advises UK nationals already in Pakistan to stay indoors. We watch CNN and BBC World. There has been violence overnight, including some here in Lahore: how much is initially not clear.

There is a text from a colleague, advising us to hide under our beds.

With a high pressure area over the Indian continent, the sun is cloudless and the air is still. With its broadband access and its satellite television, the guesthouse is a good work environment; and we have Fatah the servant and the ex-army guard to look after us.

 I send Fatah on his bicycle for a supply of cigarettes.

(Later) Rubina phones: the offices are all shut for all day. They will be in touch in the evening.  We send e-mails home reassuring a lot of people that (with us) things are well and secure.

Out on the roof, it is a pleasant day. Two lads next door are flying a kite in the zephyr of a breeze (kite-flying is of course a passion in Lahore): they greet me with a “Salaam aleikum”. Back to the assignments.

(Late evening)

Rubina phones again. Stay indoors until at least midday tomorrow. By then they will have reassessed the situation.

In a flurry of e-mails, there is advice to get the first flight home. No: we will stick with the FCO and the local advice – i.e. stay indoors until the situation improves. But there is an issue about how we will exit. TCS have not so far told us at all how they had intended to get us on an 8.30 a.m. flight on 1 January from Islamabad to London. A car journey from Lahore may, or may not, be the only option; tomorrow I will raise with them the options of either a connecting flight from Lahore or an earlier Lahore to Islamabad flight and an overnight in their secure guesthouse in Islamabad. If tomorrow they are back in some sort of semi-normal operational mode, they should be able to check out these possibilities.

Dinner has been good, as indeed was lunch.

 Fateh returns from one his bicycle forays to the market with a supply of clementines and pears. The clementines, still with long stem and leaves attached, are large and excellent. So different from imported fruits.

A cup of tea, a last look at e-mails, some internet searches of airline sites and Expedia to look at fallback travel options; and off to bed.

Saturday 29^th December

The mobile networks were overloaded last night in the evening, so instead I phoned home at 0230 our time. The UK intelligence is that there is rioting in Lahore; and that we are being strongly advised, whenever we travel, not to go via a road journey to Islamabad. The latter of course fits the general FCO advice (now and indeed at all times) about much of road travel in Pakistan; but whether it applies in the same way to a journey on the privatised motorway between Lahore and Islamabad as it does to a journey to Peshawar or to Gilgit is perhaps a moot point.

I get up before 6, have a leisurely and hot shower with the sound of the muezzin in the background; but when I go downstairs at 6.30 I am still too early for Fatah, dormant in his normal overnight site on the living room floor wrapped up in a blanket.

So I go back to my own room and sit weighing up the options, and writing down the following text:-

Let us assume we have three objectives:-

1. (the dominant one by far): to return safely to Glasgow.

2. (important up to a point) : to keep our family, friends and colleagues (three not mutually exclusive groups) as content as they can be that we are doing the right thing (this, of course, is not necessarily quite the same thing as actually doing the right thing).

3. to keep the City School content that, under the circumstances, we are doing our reasonable best for them. This is not as important as the first two, but it is non-trivial, at least to me and to Kate. (A point I need to verify with Kate).

As always, it is useful to write these things down as an aid to thought.

So, at 7 a.m., I go out to watch the dawn from the roof of the house and wait for Kate to read this and give me her views.

(1.30 p.m.)

At 9.30 Rose phoned. The security assessment was that the Lahore Cantt (i.e. centre or cantonment) was totally safe. They had moved the course to two of their offices within that area and called in the participants. We would be picked up by her and Zali (her naval commander husband) at 10.30 for an 11.00 a.m. start.

By the time she arrived, I had reassessed the FCO website; and, more importantly, been back into Expedia.

So we discuss with Rose on the car journey the relative merits of catching our 8.00 a.m. Tuesday flight ex-Islamabad by going there by plane or car. Rose (who herself had done the reverse journey last night by car) says that the car option is safe; but, because people in the UK will not appreciate that, TCS will get on with trying to find us a Monday flight to Islamabad . I tell Rose that we had resisted pressure (understandable pressure) to exit yesterday or today  from Pakistan. She is understanding of what would have caused that pressure, but grateful that we have stayed. She says the FCO advice was good: the TCS view is that yesterday (and to some extent today) the high risk was not in being in Pakistan per se; it was in being out and about in (at least certain parts of) Pakistan.

We start the course by about 11.30 or so. Only 26 hours late.

The arrangements are pretty ad hoc and having to move cars for security reasons and lunch not arriving on time do not help matters. But the participants seem OK; and we all accept that a scenario that is chaotic even by Pakistan standards is so for understandable and tragic reasons. The Day 1 and Day 2 materials are however robust against disruption: they need minimal or even no AV input (although with the TCS multi-media centre we do show some of them additionally as PowerPoints); they need little lecturer input; and they are amenable to shifts in timings. We had designed them that way; but had not envisaged such a drastic testing out of these properties.

The sun is shining and there is a pleasant and enclosed lawn on which to stroll. It is hard to imagine a more secure physical environment: located within the heavily militarised Lahore Cantt area, enclosed within a gated and walled perimeter and secured by armed guards.

We go on running the course to 6.30.

Tomorrow we will run 9.00 to 4.30; and Monday will be a final half-day.

Back to the guesthouse in the TCS car with Zali as escort (probably armed, would be my guess).

The sound of army pipes and drums come across the park as I stand on the roof terrace under a starlit sky late in the evening.( I cried a little). The Scottish military tradition has left a legacy (much of it shameful of course) in this sub-continent.

Sunday 30^th

Off to work again on a beautiful morning. The streets seem quiet and relaxed in the sunshine, partly because of the petrol shortage (most stations are shut) and partly because it is Sunday.

I am beginning to get tired: but also quite elated. The real work being done in their schools following our July modules is inspiring.

By lunchtime, the day is still sunny and now quite hot (20+ C) Tables are laid out on the lawn and tandoori chicken, a yoghurt sauce, nan bread and coke are served. It is my first ever picnic lunch on the last Sunday in December. Rubina explains that yesterday the emergency made the supply of any kind of food difficult. Today the difficulty has largely gone.

We have dinner in the evening with Rose and Rubina at the Defence Club. Clearly very safe (as it should be, being  essentially restricted to military officers, their wives and their guests, as I understand it): it is packed with people. Inside a large marquee, there is “ barbecue”, a variety of dishes including barbecued chicken, various bean-based dishes and salads.We adjourn for coffee and cakes and then home.

Monday 31st Dec

Today we are due to begin to head home i.e. make the journey to Islamabad in time for an early morning flight on Tuesday.

The morning course runs smoothly; and three HMIe/LTS-.produced videos which we have brought across on our laptops are particularly well received. We get the course members to fill in evaluation forms and, at 1.00 p.m., as planned, we are finished.

Both halves of the course, Kate’s and mine, rendezvous to have lunch on the sun-soaked DPD lawns - with the tame cranes and the peacock and peahen happily mingling with us.

By now, 4.30 p.m., we have known for some time that we have to be driven to Islamabad. This does not dismay us much: there cannot be a safer highway in the whole of Pakistan We are driven to the guesthouse, collect our luggage, say goodbye to Fatah and head off to Islamabad. However, in a country with desperate fuel shortages, our car is running short of fuel so in fact we spend an hour dodging around the city of Lahore in a hunt-the-Diesel search (this is possibly the most dangerous hour we have had to date). Eventually we are successful; and head on to the toll road.

As we climb up the toll road, the temperature drops; Islamabad is 500 metres above sea level.. By 10.30 p.m., I am able to text various people “Safely in Islamabad”. Back comes Rose’s reply “Thank God”.

We tuck into a late supper of chicken and spiced vegetables and nan and head off for a few hours sleep.

Tuesday 1 January 2008

I was up just in time to catch at 5.00 a.m. (0000 GMT) the UK New Year coming in: and watched the Edinburgh and Central London firework displays on Sky television. Spiced omelettes, tea and toast for breakfast at 5.15. Syed is back to escort us to the airport and we depart with him and our driver. It is a cold and clear morning with the crescent moon and the stars above in the Indian sky. The airport is efficient and not too busy; and has a smoking area. For an airport that was bombed recently, the security, if rigorous, is certainly largely unobtrusive. By 9 a.m. the big 777 has lifted up into a cloudless sky, climbing towards the rugged Afghanistan frontier. We should be in London at midday.

Were we right to stay on? Hard to say. But, given that we were out here to run a leadership course and that our 30 students and our 2 Pakistan co-tutors were prepared to emerge from their homes by last Saturday, it might have seemed odd to them to find that their two Scottish tutors had headed home: the Johnny Cope leadership strategy.

From Heathrow I cannot resist texting my friends and family: “After many adventures, we sailed safely into the port of Heathrow on this day of the 1^st of January in the year of our Lord 2008”. (This a vague parody of the Portuguese arriving on 1st January circa 1500 in what they called Rio de Janeiro)

Iain Smith

1 Jan 2008

pakistan 2007