My Journey from, to, and in Pakistan.

It all started on that one night when I was sitting in my dorm at Kettering University, and my mom called me. She told me something that I had been waiting for quite some time, that my sister was getting married and the marriage will be in Pakistan, which meant that we all will be traveling to Pakistan.  Although, my last visit to Pakistan was not that long ago, I still wanted to go because Pakistan is not just a vacation place for me, it is the place that I grew up, place where all of my childhood was spent, and a place where I originally belong.
So, about two weeks after taking my finals at Kettering University, I was ready to go.
I had to take my flight from Chicago along with two of my cousins. My family had already left about twelve days prior, I was thinking that I would be able to talk to them everyday, but I was only able to talk to them 2 or 3 times due to my schedule and since time zone in Islamabad is +10(or +9 hours based on daylight saving time) hours compared to Eastern Time Zone.
So, the day came and we started driving to Chicago in the rain and then before we knew it, we were at the airport.

Sitting&Waiting at Chicago Airport(ORD).

After waiting at the airport for few hours, we boarded. I remember our plane taking off at 9:20 PM from that city of beautiful lights and it only took few minutes of being in the air when all of those lights were replaced by the clouds and the darkness. After that, it was pure darkness for most of our journey and it seemed like we were the only plane above the Atlantic ocean at that given time. It made me realize the power of technology and how much trust those 300 people including me had on that metallic box with wings. I mean, below us was the ocean, surrounding us was that dark night in addition to being at an altitude of 35,000 ft,  and we were sitting in that metallic box with wings to go to a place which was more than 7,000 miles away!mind-blowing.
However, after about 13 hours of flying, we landed in Abu Dhabi, the capital of UAE(United Arab Emirates).

On a lighter note, this place is historically known for the camels, because camels are one of those animals who can stay alive for couple of days without drinking water due to their amazing organs which probably have evolved over the years. Since these countries in middle east do not have a lot of water and have a lot of desserts, camel is an ideal animal to own for transport or even for pleasure. I was talking to my cousin the other day who is in Saudi Arabia and he told me that if you buy water there, it is more expensive than the diesel used for vehicles. So, I could not resist myself to get a shot with a camel while I was at it:)

 After we took off from Abu Dhabi, we landed in a city that we were all waiting for. A city, which is the capital of Pakistan and the only capital city in the world whose name contains the word "Islam" in it: Islamabad(To break down the meaning, "Islam" means peace and "Abad" means a town or a place where people live,so the word Islamabad means a "peaceful town").We got to Islamabad on Friday morning, I was so excited when I got to my house, that I decided not to sleep even after traveling more than 21 hours in the plane. Instead, I went to the roof and took a little walk around my house which got my dad mad because he wanted me to rest, obviously!
             When I left USA, it was raining hard and the temperatures were running very little above freezing points, but as the sun rose up in that beautiful morning in Pakistan, the temperature was running all the way in 80`s, which made it hard for me to even walk outside in the sun without getting a headache. It was so hot that by the time we left, except for one or two of us who went there from America, we all got sick to our stomachs. Some had Nausea&vomiting episodes and some had sore throats and runny noses, which was expected, because the sudden weather change and the food change was not what our bodies could handle in that short amount of time.
          Saturday was a big day, the wedding day, which involved planning and a lot of work. I got so carried away that even on the day of the wedding, I could not make a choice between two dresses and which one to wear. One was white and the other one was black. I wore the white one thinking that it will look better on me and then came my cousin, who told me to wear the other one because black looks nicer on me and the pictures will come out good. I thought about it and then finally decided to agree with my cousin and I do not regret it.:)


This is us(the bride`s family) welcoming the BARAT(which includes the groom`s family that comes to the bride`s house to officially take her to his house).

This is what it looked like, with the groom in the middle and the musical band in the front. This Barat included about 100 to 150 people. The bride`s family(us) has to arrange everything from the seating arrangements to the food for everybody which I think is the same in western world if I am not mistaken.
It was a really fun day and a day that I will never forget. Time spent, working,enjoying and taking a lot of pictures with my cousins,aunts,uncles and grand parents was the best.Anyway, the event ended at about 6 PM.
 So, this concluded the wedding day but the story does not end there my friends.
The next day was the Walima Day, which essentially is the groom`s family holding a big party and inviting every one they know and the bride`s family to it. The main difference between the wedding day and the walima day is that on the day of walima, nothing significantly traditional happens, it is more of a "come and eat food" type of an event.

People getting food from the food table.

It turned out to be a great event as well but this time my dress was not a last minute selection but I had been pre-planing it for about 2 months but due to the really hot weather, I had to call it good without my jacket.

Walima went great, and then that concluded my three days of being in pakistan. The main event was over, and then now came the time to discover my country even deeper and see what has changed since my last visit.
Sargodha: 
Few days later, we got an invitational phone call from my brother-in-law`s grandfather, who wanted us to visit his village, which was more than 5 hours away from our place. Driving 5 hours in America is not a problem at all, I mean, everyone has a vehicle with a navigation device or majority of people have navigation apps in their phones, no big deal right! You just get on the highway and drive.
Well, in my part of the world, things are bit different.
First thing you need to do when you are about to make a road trip that long, you need to arrange the transport. It is cheaper to take the local transport, but it is not worth it, when you have to get off from one bus to another and know where to go next, and that entire time, you do not have a piece of mind because you are worried about the personal things that you have in your pockets:). So, renting or booking a vehicle is the best option. When you rent a vehicle, you need to know how to drive it because obviously it does not come with a driver. Since, more than like 80% vehicles have manual(or shift) transmission in Pakistan plus the steering is on the right side instead of being in the left side as in America and I have never driven a car like that before, I was not the ideal driver for it.
So, we decided to book a vehicle, which means you have to talk to people who own a vehicle, are willing to drive you there and can spend a night with you and in return, you pay them. These people own a vehicle(known as CARRY) and they take people to places in it, and make money that way. It is like renting except it comes with a driver.


If I remember right, my cousin called 6 people, none of them were willing to take us that far and stay overnight. However, we finally found a guy who agreed to take us there. So, the first step was over.
              So, we all get into that carry and he starts driving, it was about two hours into the ride til the driver looked at me with a confused face thinking that I will have the answer of where to go from that intersection. We had no GPS, not even any paper maps, and we were about to take a trip of more than 200 miles in which only about 50 miles was the high way, the rest was the local roads, where you needed to know when to turn right or left. Obviously and unfortunately, I did not have the answer to that question of which way to go, so I looked around and there were few people walking around that intersection, and asked one guy for the directions, I think he guessed but fortunately, he guessed it right.
           
FOLLOWING ARE COUPLE OF PICTURES ON OUR WAY TO SARGODHA.

This is the city of Chakwal, it is a really big and a busy city to drive through during the rush hours.

Beautiful Mountains of my country, more than half of our ride was through the mountain areas. "Pakistan is a land that holds 4 out of 14 most highest peaks in the world. K2 the second highest mountain in the world"(Pak News). Despite some people thinking that it is the dangerous place to live, our tourism industry shown growth in past few years.

It would be great to have a house on top of one of these hills.

Passing above the Daria-e-Jehlum(River of Jehlum), "it is the largest of the five rivers of Punjab, and passes through Jhelum District. It is a tributary of the Indus River and has a total length of about 480 miles (774 kilometers),"(Hydrological Study).

The journey was long and confusing, but the best part was that I saw all of these historic and tremendously beautiful places that made me forget everything else and start to feel good.
As far as the figuring out the map was concerned, it was just as they say,"if you don`t know where you are going, every road will take you there,"we were not quite in that situation because at least we knew where we were going, but I think every road we took kind of took us there.

Anyway, we all made it there in about 6 hours before the sunset, and stayed there overnight.

I took the following pictures on my time there and coming back.

Buffaloes are a pretty common animal for most parts of Pakistan. Their main advantage is their milk that most people use for their own families and some sell it to make money. However, these animals require a lot of care from their owners to give the best final product and most owners never fail to do so.

Orange trees along the road by Sargodha. These are usually privately owned and require a good amount of water everyday which cannot all be acquired from the rain because the average annual rainfall is pretty low in that area. So, they rely on the water from a stream or from the tube well.

Beautiful bridge.

Not what everyone here thinks a third world country would look like, Not saying that my country is the best, we have got problems just like every other country, but we are not the worse. Nothing describes my country`s situation better than JFK`s speech that he made at American University in 1963 stating that: "Our problems are man-made; therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings,"(Quotation page). So, everything is fixable, Pakistan just needs right type of men.

Some Road signs that I was able to capture with my camera skills when the carry was running  100 km/h.

MOTORCYCLE:
So, as I said earlier, transport was a big problem in Pakistan. So, to get over those miserable feelings, I decided to re-learn how to drive a motorcycle. My grandfather owned this 1992 Yamaha motorcycle, this bike does not get used a lot, so I decided to take it out.
In simple terms, a motorcycle is a bicycle but with a motor(cannot make it easier than that:).
I learned how to drive it when I was like 12 or 13 right before coming to America but it had been like more than 5 years;hence, I needed a quick refresher. So, first, I needed to get it fixed which I did and then I needed to practice on it. I made a lot of mistakes when letting go of the clutch too early would turn off the engine or forgot to lower the gear when trying to stop;however, I never gave up:) and even after my cousin told me to not take it to the city or anywhere with somebody sitting behind me, I still took it to the city and took my younger brother with me, he loved the ride though.

THIS IS ME, Practicing my skills and trying to turn the bike on.

PTI or the POLITICS: 
          So, I had never been interested in politics as a kid until 2008 when I saw a man making history, running to be the president of the world`s most powerful country, running for change, running for something new, a man who proved what Martin Luther King Jr. said about 50 years ago that "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of my character." This man was Barack Obama, he proved Dr. King right by being elected from the content of his character rather than from the color of his skin.
I may disagree with some of Obama`s political decisions, but I like him a lot more as a person.
      So, the reason I am talking about this is because during my visit, the election season was going on in Pakistan because the National elections are taking place this Saturday May 11th,2013. This election will be very crucial to our country because a country where billions of rupees are spent on corruption every year, where all the crucial industries for the economy of our country like PIA(Pakistan International Airways), railway, electric companies, CNG (Compressed Natural Gas-used for vehicles as a cheaper source of fuel), and especially our health system has suffered a lot from bad policies and governance not to mention the terror that is going on in our country. I can really go into details in these areas, but I think but I don`t need to do it because that is not the reason why I wrote this blog. 

        Two main political parties have ruled our country for more than past 20 years(one a little longer than the other). The top leadership of both of these parties  was mostly if not fully family limited. These parties called themselves democratic but none of their actions showed anything that was democratic.
         These elections will be pretty decisive for the country because the past five years have been disastrous for its economy. One of these parties called Pakistan People`s Party, was in control at the federal government and the other PMLN(Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz) had control of the provincial government in Punjab(Pakistan`s biggest province based on population). These two have failed miserably in terms of governance, because the inflation is at all times highest, our national debt has increased massively in past 5 years, load shedding(power shortage-which causes all power in the area to go down almost 6 hours every day), and according to NEPRA state of Industry report 2011, there is a 5,700 mega wart shortage and there are no plans in place to overcome it, CNG(compressed Natural Gas)shortage and the government shuts down the supply for like 2 days in a week and based on all the statistics most importantly our regional security has gotten worse than what it was 10 years ago(Insaf).
        So, for the first time in our country`s history, we have a third major political party emerging named PTI(Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or the movement of justice in Pakistan). This party lead by a former cricket star of Pakistan named Imran khan who have done a lot for the country in terms of philanthropy,like the SKMH(which is the only cancer hospital in the world which treats more than 75% of patients with cancer for free. All the money comes from the charity), Namal University and Imran Khan Foundation. In my opinion, making institutions is one thing, but it is a lot harder to keep it running for a long time when your spending goes up every day with more patients and you are making so less because you are treating the poor people of pakistan for free, you really need a good planning to do that. So,Imran khan has that experience that no other politician in our country does to build and maintain institutions because countries are made up of institutions.
         This party has definitely attracted a lot of votes from the youth of Pakistan because it is in a real sense a democratic political party, all the top leadership assets are declared(so proof of no corruption), they have done policy seminars on all the major issues of Pakistan unlike any other party in our history, and most importantly Imran Khan is not afraid of Pakistani people,and leadership wise, Khan stands 3rd in the list of top 9 politicians in the world followed by Barack Obama on number 2.(Siasat) .
        So, as I admire Obama as a person, I admire Imran Khan twice as much as a person and as a politician as well so far. This is because, Imran Khan has given a lot to our nation without being in politics, he has given the people of Pakistan a new choice, he was one of the most famous cricketer and could have stayed in that luxurious life in UK, but he gave up all of that so he could come and fight for his country. He is crazily optimistic about the future of Pakistan, and I admire him for that because I know," it is the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

Princess Diana visiting SKMH with Imran Khan on her right.

          
So, my prayers and best wishes go to PTI and Imran khan because as Einstein said"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,"the other political parties have been tried, people of Pakistan would be insane if they would vote them again because they should not expect different results from them.
The people have to change themselves and their way of thinking on who to vote, if they want their country to change.
                  Another great lesson I learned was that no matter how many books you read or how many videos you watch, in order to really understand the situation, you have to set your foot on the ground and experience it. That is the reason that doctors do residencies, because schools and books cannot teach you everything you need to know to really understand something.

My Grandfather(father`s dad).

ENOUGH OF POLITICS:)...then came the time to leave Pakistan. Saying good-bye`s to my grandparents and friends was the hardest. My lips are smiling in the pictures, not because I was happy to leave them but because I am happy to have these great people in my life.
        I had really good, hourly long, talks with my grandfather and from all the people I have met, I have never met a man who is that organized, knowledgeable and kind.

My Grandmother(Mom`s mother).

                                                                             






My grandmother is also a very sweet person, and I like her a lot as well.

PTI flag on our roof, to show support for a good cause.

Our village from the top of our house`s roof.

Our house, is as big as a football field, we play cricket there all the time.

 So, yeah, returning to America was pretty restless in addition to being sad and depressed just like anyone else would be coming back from a great vacation, but hey I made it.

So, I hope you all liked this blog. I did not want to put all of my pictures on facebook, as an album, and have everyone click through them and have no idea what is what just like I did with my previous trip. So, I thought of doing this blog for the first time, and teach my friends here and around the world something about me and Pakistan. I probably have made some or a lot of mistakes, but no worries because I would have not made any mistakes if I would not have tried to write this blog, so at least I tried. 
I had couple of editing issues, so please do not mind the different text or background colors.
So, please give me some feedback, it will mean a lotttttttttttttttt a lot to me and any type of criticism will also be taken positively.

Take care of yourself, PEACE.







References:

• PAK NEWS: http://paknews1947.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/intresting-facts-about-pakistan
• HYDROLOGIC STUDY: http://www.slideshare.net/aliajazch/hydrological-study-of-jehlum-basin
• QUOTATIONS PAGE:http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/8212.html
• INSAF:http://www.insaf.pk/Policies/Energy/tabid/314/Default.aspx#.UYr5H7XP3IU
• Einstein:http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins133991.html