Life under the sun of Karachi

Life has become stable. I have lived in Pakistan for almost four months and ahead are still six months of culture shocks and home sickness but also positive things, such as learning new at work and on my free time, hanging out with wonderful people and of course warmth and good food. I have acquired the basic knowledge of Pakistani culture and now it’s time to deepen that local knowledge.

Karachi is in my grip and has been for a while now. I know how to move about in the city of nearly 20 million people. I know at least four different routes to work and sometimes even guide the rickshaw driver. Despite the metropolitan nature of Karachi, it is not very difficult to roam around and recognise places. Learning urdu can be slow sometimes. Especially when my teacher and flatmate is away for a month consiquently due to work and eid holidays. At work I sometimes ask my students to teach me urdu. I often tell them to choose the important words and this is what they teach me: democracy, politics, and all the names for maternal and paternal aunts and uncles and their spouses etc because they all are called differently. I mainly need urdu with the rickshaw drivers and when in contact with the non-educated lot so I have learnt the basic vocabulary somehow. Numbers I know well and I have learnt to bargain although my Sri Lankan flatmates are on a completely different level when it comes to bargaining.

During workdays the alarm goes off at 7am and as a night person I find it hard to get out of bed so early. Luckily the sun rises early so it gives me energy to wake up. I commute to work either by rickshaw or taxi, depending on which one passes me first on the street. Normally my working day is from 8am to 2pm and on Fridays, due to Friday prayers, we finish at 1pm. Teaching can be tough so usually I have a nap and eat something small after reaching home. I spend my spare time doing various things. I have found a singing partner and while training for our Halloween gig, all my evenings were spent singing. Currently the singing is in the background as dance practice has become more important. One of the functions in a Pakistani wedding is mehndi, which is when mehndi (henna) is put on bride and groom’s hand (wiped away right away these modern days) and their closest friends perform to the couple. These mehndi dances we have been practising for weeks now because in this wedding there is a small competition between the friends about who performs better. The main idea, however, is to have fun and not take the competition too seriously.

Every now and then we cook together with my flatmates and whenever we feel lazy we order in, and very seldom we go out and eat. At the moment my flatmates consist of 3 Finns, 2 Sri Lankans, one Canadian and one Russian, who is soon leaving back home. We also have 2 Pakistanis living with us and one of them teaches me urdu and local cooking. Besides these, I have loads of friendly and amazing Pakistani friends, whom without my life here would be boring.

Now that the winter is finally approaching the temperature has started to sink and people get sick easily. I managed to have my share of the misery and suffered from frontal sinusitis for a week, which was my first time of this horrible disease. The headache and sick leave lasted for a week and that was probably the most boring week of my life, especially when the internet wasn’t working at home. Yesterday was the first day when the day’s highest temperature didn’t rise over 30 degrees celcius. How I could instantly notice that I have got used to the local weather when I was freezing in the morning and of course I managed to catch a cold to top it all. It’s not like I wouldn’t be used to the cold in Finland and have to collect all the possible illnesses. Now I am finally writing this blog as the internet is still not working at home and I have to kill time. Internet has been down for a couple of weeks now and we have been going to the nearby cafe to update our facebook statuses and check email. Prioritisation is important haha.