March 5, 2006

Hello My Friends.

I have now been in Pakistan almost two weeks. Because of the difference in the weather here as compared to there, it seems like it must have been much longer. It is like late spring, turning into summer. Everything is in full bloom and it is very warm. Mornings are pleasant to be outdoors, but by afternoon, you wouldn’t want to be in the sun for very long (unless you are a sun-worshipper, but then you better have a good sunscreen). I heard you had snow yesterday. Sitting here, it is hard to imagine!

These first two weeks I have spent getting acclimated to my new surroundings, and visiting the schools, hostels, priests and other sisters, and people involved with the school and convent. It is pretty busy most of the time, but in that busy-ness there is a difference from what we do at home. We are “busy” in the sense of having places to go and people to see, but once we get there, we have tea---and we sit and talk. When we visit schools and hostels, the children usually do a performance of some sort, and we have tea. Even when we have stopped in to visit other sisters and a couple of the priests unexpectedly, we sit and have tea. This morning, the novices wanted to do something special to honor their American Sisters. You guessed it---we had tea (and that was only about an hour after we had breakfast). Then we sat and talked, went downstairs, and it was time for lunch! I am grateful that we have had now about two hours without eating, but it is almost 4:00, which is normally TEA TIME! I am sure that by now I have more tea going through my veins than blood.

On Monday I should begin my work in the school, which I am anxious to start. I still am not 100% certain of my responsibilities, but I know I will be helping some teachers with their English so that they can teach the students correct English, and at least two of the younger teachers need help with classroom management. I hope that I can be of assistance to them.

Communication is not as easy as I hoped it would be. Sometimes we get connected to the internet, and sometimes we don’t. I tried a few minutes ago, and got a message that the password was invalid. Since the password is stored on the computer, I can’t imagine how suddenly it is invalid. It is part of the mystery of the computer world. So, I figured I would just type this letter in MS Word and connect to the internet later, when somehow, miraculously, the password will be valid again.

Transportation is a real adventure here. There is more variety of “vehicles” on the road than you can imagine. There are of course buses, trucks, and a few cars. Then there are rickshaws (motorized), bicycles (carrying entire families), motorcycles, donkey carts, bull carts, camel carts, and pedestrians. If there are rules of the road, they given little notice, as each person, animal, and vehicle vies for position. The amazing thing is that it all seems to work out all right. I have determined, however, that it would be actually impossible to travel at all here if there were no horns. Except for the animal carts, there is an almost constant blowing of horns, especially as you travel through the main parts of the cities.

As far as the animal carts are concerned, my observation is that if you want to get somewhere in a decent amount of time, you are best with a donkey because they move along at a good pace (for a donkey!). If you have a very heavy load, although the donkeys do pull amazing amounts, you might really want to use the bull because it is very strong. If you have nowhere to go and all day to get there, the camel will do. It plods along at a very slow, deliberate pace, and I am not sure you can force a camel to do what it is not inclined to do.

Community life here is very good. We usually go to Mass 6:30 a.m. and then pray together in our own chapel and then have breakfast. Usually the rest of the morning is devoted to whatever work one has to do. Lunch seems to be on a flexible schedule, but most of us eat together somewhere between 12:30 and 2:00, and then it is back to work. We gather again for evening prayers at 6:00 p.m. and then have supper. After supper, we usually all gather to watch the news. The novices like to watch a soap-opera type show afterwards. It is called Milee, and is about a young girl in college who is constantly being harassed by a boy who seems to have been charged by the head of the college to harass her. It seems he does not want her in the college for some reason and is using to boy to try to drive her out. It does not make much sense, and definitely would not entertain anyone in the States for very long, but they seem to like it here. It seems to just be something to watch together. Sometimes we watch movies together, which I like better. We have watched Ghandi and Fiddler on the Roof. Both of them are particularly poignant when watched in this very different world.

Today I met a very interesting writer named Chris. He is from England, I believe, but married a Pakistani woman. The fascinating part about that is that she is presently living and working in England and he is living and working here! He writes columns for The News here on a variety of topics, including some very risky ones. He only stayed for about 5 or 10 minutes, but I felt I knew more about him by the time he left than about many people I have known for a long time.

Well, I better end this now so that I can at least get some message off to you. I don’t want you to think that I dropped off the face of the earth, but if the time is long between communications, know that I am still thinking of you, but more than likely, not able to get through in the cyber-world. Your letters will get through to me, although I may have to wait a few days to connect and read them, but often by the time I reply to a message, the connection is lost and I have to start all over again. I will do my best to keep in touch.

Love always, Anne