Searching For A Drum

We bought a dhol . It means drum, and at the Mehndi, there's a lot of singing and a lot of drums. At all the Mehndis I have been to, the ladies & girls of each side sit in big circles adjacent to each other and take turns signing songs in a friendly competition. At the center of each circle is one woman who bangs on the drum. (Here's a link to a Youtube video I found of some people doing the same thing if you want a glimpse into what I'm talking about.)

In 2007 when we visited Pakistan for BIL #1's wedding, M went out and rented a dhol for about fifty cents a day. But this time I wanted to BUY one!

I wanted to buy one because our 3-year old son (who needs a name soon, I think) really LOVES music. I want to have musical instruments around the house to feed that interest, and I want to have specfically Pakistani instruments as well since they can feed both interest in music and interest in the heritage of his father. Two birds with one drum. Also, should our son want to include some Pakistaniness into his own wedding one day, he could use the same dhol that was used at his Uncle's wedding and other family weddings afterwards.

We asked around about where we could find a dhol to buy, and Abbu (M's father) said there was a music shop in Saddar - the center-of-the-city shopping area of Karachi. He gave M rudimentary directions and we set off one day to find it. We'd left too early, since the shops weren't open until after 11:30. The directions weren't exact, either, so we ended up wandering around for a while and asking around as the shopkeepers began to trickle in. As we started to get closer, M asked at one of the shops that sell decoration for Mehndis. It turns out that they also sell drums at those shops, so M bought one there for 1200 rupees - about $14.

After we bought it though, M kept asking around for the music shop. He thought perhaps Abbu had been talking about a different shop. After a while we did find it, and it was a real music shop. It was closed (of course, it was only 11:45 in the afternoon!) but there was a guy in what looked like a junk shop next door re-stringing a guitar who noticed us looking through the shop's windows and asked us what we wanted. Then he came over, unlocked the door, and let us in because he was the store owner!

It was a really nice store, too. Beautiful instruments that we obviously really well-made and high quality. Unfortunately, M had already bought his drum and didn't want to pay three times the price for another one. But they weren't just basic drums. The one we'd bought has a metal frame and the skins are fastened with nut & bolt, while the ones in the music shop were more traditional, hand tightened with strings. One day, maybe we'll go back and buy the real thing. Until then, my little drummer boy will have to make do!

The stringed construction of a traditional dhol.

Packing Things Up

So after we shopped for supplies, this is what we did with them:

 

All the trays of mehendi, waiting for us to take them.

We had to pack things up prettily and have them ready to take with us to the bride's house when we were invited to their Mehendi party. We bought some henna powder and mixed it up and put it in decortated trays. Each woman in our family carried a tray with her as she entered the bride's house. We also had gifts of clothing, shoes, jewelry and other accessories for the bride that we packed up in plastic wrapping and bows and we brought those with us too.

 

Gifts for the bride.

Some of the things we had to pack up and bring are more traditional, like a big arrangement of mixed fruit, a big basket of assorted nuts, and some Pakistani sweets.

 

A big basket of fruit, and a drum next to it - we'll talk about the drum next time.

There was a bit of a family argument about what kind of sweets we should take with us. My mother-in-law was adamant that we should bring 15 pounds of just one kind of sweet, while everyone else wanted to bring an assortment - who would want to eat 15 pounds of one variety of dessert, anyway? But my mother-in-law won, saying that this was the way things were traditionally done - just one kind. Then when it was the bride's turn, they brought a variety basket of mithai (sweets) and we were all happy not to have to eat just one kind for weeks on end.

Hazard

One of the hazards of living in a household with extended family is that all the laundry gets put into one pile for the maid to do when she comes in the mornings - assuming there's water, which is not always the case, but we'll get to that later. This may not seem like a hazard, I mean come on, at home I'd have to do my own laundry! But then, after the laundry is done, it gets hung out to dry. In the part of the house that is the entry, the foyer, the path to the bathroom, and at the edge of the dining room - basically in the area where everyone must constantly be walking through. What's the hazard in that you ask?

What I'm Wearing in Pakistan

I feel safer here in Pakistan on this trip than I ever have before. Which is strange when you consider that there is crap going on in the north of the country, but it's true. I feel like people stare at me less, or that the stares are different somehow. And I'm not just saying that because my mother reads this blog, either.

For example, my clothes. The first time we came here in 2004, I brought a couple of outfits from America but I never ended up wearing them. I just felt more comfortable in Pakistani clothes that every other woman is wearing, and even in those I felt like I stuck out a lot, attracted a lot of attention, and was extra-careful about what all the people around me were doing. Looking back on pictures of me out around Karachi during the first few days of that trip, I look terrified. The second time, I brought almost no clothes from America, and while I wasn't scare anymore, I don't remember feeling much different about sticking out like a sore thumb.

This time, I brought two pairs of jeans and a few shirts because I thought that at least around the house I wanted to be comfortable, since that is my daily uniform back home. But somehow I've ended up wearing jeans paired with a Pakistani shirt and dupatta when we go out probably as many times as I've worn shalwar kameez. We've even gone on several walks around the neighborhood and it feels totally normal and at ease. Somehow things seem different this time.

I was talking to M about it and we figure there are so many variables that could be the cause. This is my third time here, so many of the neighborhood folk already know about me - maybe I'm not such a freakshow. I also might be carrying myself differently since I was kind of skittish before and I've been doing this a lot longer now. I may be more familiar with wearing Pakistani clothes so that I no longer look as if I am drowing under yards of fabric.

But I don't know, it seems to me that Pakistan - at least Karachi - may have changed a bit too. I just feel much more at ease than I ever have before. Which is strange since people back home have asked me if I feel like my movement has been restricted these days, or if I have to wear a burqa everwhere we go, but it's in fact the opposite. (Although I do have the burqa for any big-ticket item shopping. We call it our "Discount Coupon.")

I've heard before that there is a line that cuts Pakistan in half North/South between Islamabad and Karachi and that if there is some issue happening in one half, it doesn't spill into the other half. As if it were some pendulum - when the north is undergoing soem turmoil, the south actually does the opposite. Perhaps that is where some of the difference lies?

But I do know one thing that has made a different - this website and you people. Talking about all these issue for the past year has really made me so much more comfortable than I ever was in this sometimes Pakistani-flavored life of mine. I started writing this stuff in case any girl ever needed help, but it's turned around and helped me more than I ever expected. Thanks to all of you!

Picture Policy

I put up pictures on this website of myself and my family. I blur the faces. In this day and age, you can never be too careful, and I share A LOT of information about myself and my life here. Too much, in fact. I've already been tracked down once by one determined soul to whom I gave too much information, and I'm trying to be even more careful these days.
I also put up pictures that include other people, and I don't always blur their faces. I have a policy for this: There are two categories of picture of other people. The first is pictures of public places where I cannot be responsible for who is captured in the picture and I cannot be made to ask every single person in a public place for their permission to use their photo on my website. I do this both in America, when taking pictures inside a desi restaurant, and in Pakistan when taking pictures outside a flower shop. This is pretty common - you have the right to protect yourself from having your picture taken and published, but not in public places where you can't have any expectation of privacy. That's why it's fine to publish photos of people who've caught a ball at a World Series baseball game even though there may be lots of people in the picture behind the lucky catcher. That's also why I have a 1984 edition of my then-local newspaper with me in the front page picture  - I was in a public place, at a local parade, so they could publish whatever pictures they want.

The second category is everything else, any pictures of people in non-public places such as their homes, or any one-on-one pictures such as at the bottom of this post about shopping for mehendi supplies. In these cases, M or I tell the person why I am taking their photo. (Like he did in this video as well.) We say that the picture is for  "reporting" or that it will be in the newspaper. Three times the person has asked for more information about where and M has tried to tell them how they can find it. On two of those occasions, the people didn't have a computer and on the third the guy didn't know what Google was, but that his son would know. M told him to tell his son to go to google and the search terms he could use.

There have been many instances where people didn't want their picture taken at all, and still others where people said they did not want to be part of any "reporting." You don't hear about those, of course, because I respect people's wishes and don't put them up here. So far I've thought it to be a fine balance, but of course I am open to constructive criticism.

Birthday Mac n' Cheese

Today is my birthday, but M gave me my birthday present early - two days ago.

It was a box of Macaroni and Cheese. Two boxes, actually. And I couldn't have been happier.

He brought them all the way from America, where he'd taken them out of their packaging and hidden them in ziplock bags where I wouldn't find them during the packing and re-packing stages. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to find them in Pakistan, although we've since seen some in a store here.

Thursday night was a difficult one here, with lots going on including the baby's two cousins being hospitalized for travel sickness (the baby is doing just fine so far, thank God.) So I'd spent a lot of the day in limbo and most of the evening home alone (well, with my BIL and FIL - but not M, whose side I like to stay firmly planted next to.)

I'd put the baby to bed around 10 and fell asleep next to him without having any dinner. At 1:30 in the morning, M came in and woke me up, holding a steaming plate of mac n' cheese. He'd brought it for my birthday present but the day had been so difficult he wanted to give it to me early. He'd figured that by my birthday, I'd be pretty tired of eating nothing but Pakistani food and would really enjoy a little taste of home. He was right.

Apparently he'd messed up the first box, cooking the macaroni in milk for more than an hour. Then he looked up the directions online and found you're supposed to boil the macaroni in water, of course. He said the milk was so thick here, there was no need for the butter called for in the recipe (and again he was right!) By the time he brought it to me, the macaroni may have been a little (read: a alot) overcooked, but to me, it was delicious!

Who knew that one day I would think a one dollar box of macaroni and cheese is the sweetest birthday present ever?

Interview with the Flower Guys

The video I told you about the other day, from when we went flower shopping:



Translation of the conversation:

M: I'm taking a video.

Flower guy 1: (unintelligible)
M: Please smile.
Flower guy 2: Don't give it to the police station.
Flower guy 1: We're already infamous.
M: Don't worry about the police, it will be used for reporting.
Another flower guy: Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Please come in! Please come in!
M: What's your name, brother?
Flower guy 2: Kashif
M: Are you making a sehra? (Veil of flowers for bride or groom)
Flower guy 2: Yes. Take some of my dad.
Flower Dad: No, no, no.
M: Salaamu Alaikum (Hello) How long have you been working in this store?
Flower Dad: Since I was born.
M: How many years? Sixty years?

News To Me

Apparently I look Australian.

I went to a beauty parlor with a cousin of M's today to have mehendi put on my hands and feet for the wedding. At first, we were almost the only ones in there, but after a while there were lots of women, even a few kinds, and lots of chatter. Some of the women who came afterwards hadn't heard me speaking in Urdu, so I guess they didn't know not to talk about me right in front of me. They decided I was from Australian, and they wondered what I was doing all the way over there since I was staying in Defense (the nicer part of the city with all the big houses.) Then they decided that it was nice that such a good beautician was doing my mehendi since this was the first time I was ever getting it done. Wrong on all counts.

Pictures From the Mehendi Shops

Pictures I promised you before:

The view from outside the shop, with garlands hanging on the awnings, salesman sitting at the front, and some people who were shopping for birthday stuff, I think. She was holding a tiara that said "Happy Birthday."

This is the view looking into the very narrow shop, with the walls lined with different kinds of decorations for all the upcoming holidays - including Christmas.

The salesman (left) and a cousin of M's (right) completing our sale. M asked the guy to smile but this was all we got.

This is from another shop we had to go to when the 1st one didn't have some of the stuff we were looking for - a dhol (drunm) and some tamborines. This shop did have them, but we had to go to the backroom to pick out which color we wanted. This guy was back there making these trays that are used to display mehendi paste when you take it to the other side's house. M asked if he could take his picture and how long he'd been working there. His father had owned the shop before him, and they had their shop in that location for 35 years, 30 of which this guy had been working there. 30 years of gluing up trays for henna paste - it's amazing the things I get to see here!

Prepared to Party

We shopped for more wedding stuff too today, and I took pictures there for you guys. There are all these stores that sell decorations for various parts of the Mehendi parties. (The internet is really slow right now, but I'll put those pictures up soon.)

The Mehendi party is the pre-wedding party. I've seen videos from family weddings from 15 years ago where the Mehendi party was when the bride's family all came to her house and her sisters and other female relatives all sat around her and rubbed haldi - tumeric paste - into her skin to make it glow. They also painted intricate mehendi designs with henna paste on her hands, arms, and feet and participated in various traditions like feeding the brides sweets, waving money around her head that would then be donated to the poor in an effort to combat nazar, and covering her in bracelets and necklaces made of flowers.

Nowadays, the Mehendi party looks very similar in that all the same traditions are going on, but the purpose is really just to party down. All the Pakistani brides I've ever known go to a beauty parlor to have professionals apply thier bridal henna, and no one wants orange-glowy skiny from all that tumeric, so people generally wipe off the paste right away so that it doesn't leave a mark (which it does very quickly - just ask my kitchen countertops.)

I'm not sure if groom's families used to have Mehendi parties before, since the whole purpose was beautify-ing the bride and grooms don't go for henna designs and whatnot, but now since it's just a party and all about the singing and having dinner together, M's family always has a groom's Mehndi party or one combined with the bride's family in a rented wedding hall. When we came in 2007 for M's other brother's wedding, they had a combined Mehendi party. This time the familes are doing separate parties and rather than renting halls, each family is erecting a tent at their respective homes.

An elder sister-in-law has a big role in these wedding functions, and after my mother-in-law, I'm almost supposed to be directing the show. I'm thankful that I already did some of this stuff at my other brother in law's wedding - a kind of test run if you will. This time I hope to screw up less, but we'll see. Of course, I'll report back to you all the ways I messed up! Stay tuned for my foibles.

Flower Shopping

Almost as soon as we arrived in Pakistan, we were swept up into the wedding preparations. Weddings can be week-long events here, so there's a lot to be done. One thing we did first was shop for flowers. There are so many flowers in a Pakistani wedding. We were shopping for the following:

- Flowers to decorate the car the groom arrives at the wedding in
- Bracelets made of flowers for the ladies to wear at all four wedding functions
- Flower bracelets to put on the bride's family members when they arrive at our house as a welcome
- An insane amount of flowers that are strung around the bed to make bed curtains
- Huge necklaces made of flowers for the bride and groom to wear at the wedding receptions
- One small flower necklace for my kid to wear as if he's a little groom too.
- Probably more I'm forgetting about

Here are some pictures from the rows of flower merchants. I also have a video where M interviews some of the flower guys, and as soon as I can figure it how, I'll upload it. Either youtube is screwy in Pakistan or I have become an idiot here.

Combatting Jetlag

Pakistan is either 9 or 10 hours ahead of the time zone I live in, depending on Daylight Savings Time. That's a lot of hours to adjust to. In order to lessen the effects of jetlag, we have a couple of things that we do.

First, we try to stay up later and later in the few days before we leave for Pakistan. That way we're already gearing up for the switch. This is easier for me than for M, because even though his job is really flexible, he does still have to work fairly regular hours. And the baby, well, what can you do? Kids generally have an easier time adjusting anyway, so I don't worry too much about him.

Next, since we take late night flights, we try to sleep as much on the planes as possible, as if it's a regular night for us. That's easier when there's a really long leg of the flight. In 2004, we had three legs, two of which were about 8 hours long. Last time, we had a long, 16 hour DC to Qatar leg that made a nice long, full night's sleep possible.

Then, when we get to Pakistan, we sleep a little bit in the morning if needed, but then we just jump right into Pakistani life. That way we only have one day of feeling tired and after a full day of activity, we go to bed at the usual Pakistani time and wake up the next day almost completely adjusted. This gets harder with age, I've heard, so we may have a worse time of it as the years pass.

Last time, the baby had no issues whatsoever, but he was still taking at least one - sometimes two naps, so he had several daily opportunities to catch up on missed sleep. This time he's doing pretty well too, but he's woken up both nights in the middle of the night kind of ready to start his day. We've just treated them like "night wakings" and kept shushing him and telling him to go back to sleep. Hopefully by tonight, he'll be totally adjusted and won't wake up.

Although, our first official wedding function is tonight and it starts - STARTS - at 10 o'clock at night. So perhaps we won't sleep very well tonight after all...?

Arrival

Our trip went very well. It's exhausting traveling that far, though. And I've never been good at sleeping on planes. And all three times we've come here, there has been a TV screen in front of each passenger with so many movies & game choices, usually with almost-brand-new movies. Being so out-of-touch in my normal life, I can't pass up the opportunity to watch movies I can't get to the theatre to see!

This time I watched 500 Days of Summer, My Sister's Keeper and another movie I can't remember. Then I watched three movies with the baby: Cars, Up, and yet another one but I can't remember that either - all I remember is that he interrupted it because he wanted to watch Cars again. I think he finally understood what all his classmates had been talking about, and he wanted to use his time wisely to bone up on his Cars knowledge.

We had no problems with immigration. Our previous flights had always arrived in Pakistan at 4 in the morning, and the immigration lines had taken a loooong time. But this flight got in a 2am, and there were almost no lines at all. M and I were split up into Pakistani passport & foreign passport lines, and M was done within minutes. The baby and I took maybe 15 minutes, but mostly because the line we were in was moving so slowly - the line next to us was moving much faster. When we got out, we got a porter to round up our luggage for us. It was easy for him because we'd used spraypaint to mark a large "M" on each bag. We've been using that trick for a few years now and I've seen other people's bags with large, spray painted letters on them twice recently - both times on the flight path we go through a lot, so I think it's people who've seen our bags and copied our idea, but perhaps I'm giving us too much credit.

When we got here, M's family was waiting at the airport for us. There's this one Uncle who ALWAYS comes, but he and his wife have gone to America for the beginning of his green-card process, so it was just the immediate family plus one other guy. M wanted to make sure there were enough cars there to take all of our luggage. It's common to strap luggage to the top of cars here, but M thinks that attracts the attention of theives, so he has always made sure we travel from the airport to home without any exposed luggage.

After getting home, we went straight to bed since we'd arrived at 2am. M said he didn't sleep at all, but I think I slept about 3-4 hours. One of M's brothers and his sister had come to Pakistan the week prior, but his last brother arrived the same day we did at about 6am, so we got up when he arrived at the house. Then we began opening all our bags and distributing all the stuff we'd brought and ate breakfast.

Then it was time to head out and start making the rounds. We always make sure to visit M's grandmother's house on our first day in Pakistan. She's 95! We tried to pack in a lot of visits to people's houses, because people in M's family seem to get offended if you don't actually come to their houses. No matter how many times you see each other at parties and weddings - you have to actually step foot into their house. We actually fit in SIX different houses that first day. Sounds good until you find out that M has 86 cousins - on his mother's side! There are a loootttt more houses to go!

Along the Way

We flew through the Abu Dhabi airport. The first time we flew here in 2004, we flew Emirate Airlines through Dubai. The airline is nice and the airline food was really, really good. But the Dubai airport - now THAT was an amazing sight! You could probably spend days there and not exhaust all of the dining and shopping options, and there were plenty of places to sit and relax away long layovers.

The second time we flew Qatar  Airlines through Doha. The airline was okay, not great and not very family friendly, and the airport was terrible. Small, boring, not very good shopping and almost no food choices. Our 4 & 6 hour layovers there were like torture.

This time we flew Etihad Airways through Abu Dhabi, and I'd say it was somewhere in the middle. Better than Doha with more dining & shopping options, but nowhere near Dubai. The airline was okay too - the people were nice & helpful, but the air conditioning on our longest leg was broken in our section of the plane, so it was almost unbearably hot. Also, one of the seats we were seated in didn't have audio, so M and I kept switching seats depending on who wanted to watch a movie at that time. But the baby was amazing on the flight, sleeping for the first six hours and watching three movies back to back without moving for the next six. What more can you ask for besides a well-behaved baby on a plane. Actually, the real baby was M, who suffered a bout of naseau during the flight - annoyingly so. He's the type who will refuse assistance and suggestions that would likely help him such as "Why don't you walk around and get yourself a glass of water." But we got through it and I tried to not roll my eyes too much. I don't want to look like a terrible wife in front of all the Aunties on the plane.

Inside the Abu Dhabi airport, which looks like and exploded peacock.

Embarking

Stay tuned! Our trip has officially started. And also, be warned! If you're on a plane with M and me and stare at us for half of a 12-hour leg of the journey, I WILL take pictures of you when you look like this:

Working My Way Through To-Do Lists

In the final stages of preparations for our upcoming trip to Pakistan, I find I'm going a little bit crazy. I've currently got at least five different to-do lists floating around in both paper and electronic form.

Even when I'm traveling just in the U.S., I'm a fretful packer. I'm just sure that I'm going to forget something and with my personality - I usually do. But in America, I can always just run out to the nearest store and buy whatever I need. And while I know that I can certainly go out and purchase whatever necessitities I need for my son while we're in Pakistan, there isn't always the same stuff I'm used to - those little conviences I've gotten so used to. So I'm trying to make sure I don't forget anything. Hence the lists.

There's also a lot of other, non-shopping related things on my lists. I want to remember to take some of my old jewelry that I don't wear and look into getting it melted down and made into something new that I would use often. I need to have the post office put a hold on our mail while we're gone. I have to tell my neighbors that we won't be around and should they see any activity at our house - be alarmed!

I also need to find some kind of anniversary present for M since we'll be in Pakistan for our 6th wedding anniversary. I have no ideas as of yet.

I also have to go to the post office because I've been meaning to mail something to someone for a few days now and if I don't do it soonSOON, it won't be mailed until we get back.

And lastly, in our ongoing what-the-heck-are-you-people-thinking travel visa idiocy, I just realized that our 3-leg trip flied through Abu Dhabhi, and I haven't yet looked into whether any of us will need some kind of transit visa to get through there. So I'm off to go look into that, and y'all better wish me luck because we don't exactly have a lot of time on hand to go apply for a visa!

Getting Our Visas

For our upcoming trip to Pakistan, we're going to need a visa. Before Pakistan, I had only ever traveled internationally to Canada - where an American doesn't need a visa. And in fact, back then I didn't even need a passport, just my birth certificate. Pakistan is among those countries, though, that requires Americans to get a travel visa to enter the country.

(There are other ways to travel to Pakistan without a visa, like NICOP and POCs, I just don't know  much about them.)

The first time we were planning a trip to Pakistan, we sent off months in advance to apply for my visa. We included all the paperwork the application required, as well as lots more. We sent our marriage certificate, a copy of M's passport, copies of our bank statements, and an invitation letter from my in-laws - none of which was required. Thank God, I got my passport back a few weeks later with a five-year, multiple entry visa in it, as well as a stamp that said "Except from Registration with Local Police." I hadn't even known that might be a condition, so I was pleased to be exempt from it!

I don't know if all the extra paperwork made any difference, but I know of another wife of a Pakistani who (I think) has never gotten a Pakistani visit visa that was good for more than one year. In fact, after talking to her, I was really nervous about what kind of visa I might get this time. My original visa is five years old - how time flies - and set to expire this December.

With my youngest brother-in-law's plans still (STILL!) up in the air because of the dreaded "administrative processing" of his US student visa, we weren't sure about travel plans until recently. But one thing neither M nor I had even thought about was the visa. It was after our plans were finalized and plane tickets set that M suddenly came home from work one day and asked me about my visa. We seriously could have shown up at the airport without a valid visa for me and been sent home.

Thanks to M, we prepared and sent off a similar more-than-required visa application packet and waited anxiously. With such a time crunch, I had thought about going in person but that would probably not have been any faster. We live so close to the Embassy that with overnight shipping, it took only a week. Going in person would have meant two trips, one for drop off and one for delivery, and countless hours of waiting in line while more important people got to schmooze their way past those of us unconnected folks who have to wait our turn.

Within a week, my passport came back. Five year, multiple entry again, thank God! So now with tickets purchased, and a valid visa in hand, we're set for travel. Just a mountain of shopping and packing and we'll be on our way!

These Are the Things I Think About Now

A friend of mine recently went back to Pakistan to visit for the first time since she moved to America more than five years ago. She took her daughter with her, who was almost 5 at the time. We talked at length about her trip when she got back. (And she showed me all of the wonderful, beautiful clothes that she had bought. She went for her sister's wedding and her sister, who is a clothing designer, had designed all her clothes for the wedding and to bring back.)

One of the things she told me about was how her daughter had difficulty using the squat toilet.

Having been potty trained for some time now, and having only used American-style toilets in America, a squat toilet was a new thing for the daughter. My friend said her daughter refused to try it for a long time, then complained of her knees hurting and it being difficult to keep her legs so far apart. It wasn't a big problem, though, since they had a "commode" or western-style toilet at their house. This only became a problem when they were out and about in Karachi at places where there was no choice besides the squat toilet. It became such a problem at one of the wedding functions that the daughter actually made herself sick from refusing to use the bathroom.

Having that talk with my friend got me thinking about what we would do with our son. He's newly potty trained and we'd never talked with him about or attempted the squat toilet kind of maneuver. M definitely wants to teach him how to use it eventually, at the very least for his own ease of travel throughout the rest of the world that might not have western-style toilets. Because of course, plenty of children live perfectly fine lives with squat toilets. But right now when our son's potty training is so fresh and new, why throw a wrench into the works?

That got me thinking about alternatives for baby potty-ing. We, too, will be out and about a lot. We, too, will have a lot of various wedding functions to attend and many of them will last way into the wee hours of the night. M has family members whose homes we will visit that only have squat toilets. I was concerned that there will be many times when there will be no option available, and what if my kid has the same difficulty?

Luckily, an American mommy friend of mine had told me some time ago about something she'd bought to help her daughter with on-the-go potty training. It was a portable potty that could be folded down flat for travel. They keep it in the back of the car should they ever be caught off guard by an urgent potty need.

I bought one recently and plan to take it with me to Pakistan. I can fold it up and keep it in my diaper bag, or in the back of the car along with us to our wedding functions. Should a squat toilet be available, it can be placed on top of it. Otherwise, it comes with plastic bags that hook underneath it. Maybe my kid won't have any trouble at all, but I was grateful to talk to another parent who had gone through the same thing, and I thought that $15 was a small price to pay for our potty training to stay on track while we're traveling in Pakistan. Just in case.

It's so strange because before our first trip there, I was so concerned about what clothes I would take, making sure my eyebrows were nicely waxed and that my shoes were fashionable so that I made a nice impression. Now my biggest concern is whether my kid will have a comfortable potty to use at all times. Time changes all things I suppose, and these are the things I think about now.