Don't Listen To Your Husband (At Least Not Always)

Before we left for our recent trip to Pakistan, I wrote about how I was worried about how my son would fare with the nefarious, illustrious Pakistani squat toilet on. (Illustrious? Word Choice Fail.) The dreaded hole in the ground...cue scary music...

Image credit: Leshuimat 

On that post, Faisal.K of Deadpan Thoughts wrote a comment that I was likely to find plenty of "western" toilets for my son to use while we were in Pakistan. He also said "One of the hurdles i fear ppl who marry Pakistanis face is that they get stuck in their husbands time warp, as in the time they remember this country from...ergo the time they left it which was a bit in the past."


And I was like - YES! Exactly! (except I still did come across a lot of squat toilets - but still YES!)

I think this is a really important point for anyone in my kind of situation - an intercultural marriage where your spouse has elected to be an expatriate of their country of origin. He's right that even if my husband visits Pakistani every year, his vision of the country is skewed to what it was like when he left. Case in point - he's forever surprised by the prices of things and quoting what things would have cost back in 1999. 

But M is skewed on even more variables than time. He's just one guy, he knows of things from only one guy's perspective. It's not just about the time warp. It's important to discuss things with your spouse, sure! After all, as Gori Girl said, he or she is The Best Cultural Resource You Have. But Faisal's comment, I think, perfectly illustrates that your significant other should not be the ONLY cultural resource you have - at least not if you want to get a broad view of that culture. 

One of the worst ways this problem manifested for M and I was when it came to Pakistani women. He's not one. Of course. But whenever I had questions that pertained to Pakistani women, in the beginning, I still only had him to ask. I ended up elbow deep in one man's version and memories of an entire people. Luckily my husband had some small bit of diversity among his friends, so I did know that there was more out there to explore. But you know what he didn't have - not at all? He didn't have an female friends. It was years before I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about the Pakistani woman's experience. Or what I did know was what had trickled down through M - a Pakistani man's view of the Pakistani female condition. Which was perhaps worse that not knowing anything.

That is decidedly NOT the best cultural resource available. Your (and my) husband doesn't know much about what it's like to be a woman in Pakistan. My husband once told me that his sister wasn't allowed to drive or take the family camera to school on her last day because she was naive and might break it or lose it. When I asked him how his sister felt about these restrictions - she's a doctor for God's sake, responsible for human lives but not trusted with a digital camera - he said she was fine with it. NOW I think, maybe she is/was, but how the heck would he know? Pakistani men, especially in or below my husband's socio-economic class, don't always have much interaction with women on a daily basis. In my experience, this can lead to very skewed, inaccurate portrayals of Pakistani women's lives. I have at times felt that Pakistani women and I had nothing in common and would probably never make any kind of lasting connection, (or worse, that some of them were out to get me) but thanks to a few amazing women I met who blasted that perception out of the water and helped me see things from their side. I came to appreciate even Aunties . Well, not all of them. Some of them really are judging every move I make. But some of them are really lovely people who can teach me a lot of things! Because things are better when I have a more accurate, fuller picture things.

However, I still haven't figured out how to get M to stop complaining about the prices of things. (It's been more than a decade already, what the heck does he expect!??!)

Kicking 'Em Out & Putting 'Em to Work

This was a very busy weekend. We are in full preparation mode around here. Chachoo's wife may (or may not) be coming to live with us this week. They had purchased a plane ticket for her to come this week. But, it turns out her visa has a minor problem which necessitated her mailing it back to the US Embassy in Islamabad to have re-issued. It has not yet arrived, and if it doesn't arrive today they have to change the plane ticket. If it DOES arrive, however, there will be another person living in my house in like, 72 hours or less. So we had to get to paintin'. ALL of us - Chachoo included!

But first, we had to do some dismantaling. We spent all day Saturday (what is supposed to be relaxation time, I though?) moving all of the furniture out of the downstairs bedroom and prepping it for paint. That room will soon be Chachoo and his wife's honeymoon suite, I suppose.

Poor Chachoo, not only does he have to help dismantle his own bedroom and paint the walls (and ceiling), but he also gets kicked out of the room in the meantime. Right now he's sleeping on a tiny twin mattress that's been shoved behind the couch of the downstairs family room - which is stuffed to the brim with various pieces of furniture and decorations left there from the great bedroom empty-ing. The mattress on the floor even has the baby's firetruck sheets on it still. So much for trying to make Chachoo feel at home I guess.

Nothing says "Welcome home!" like baby firetruck sheets on a floor mattress shoved in a forgotten corner of the basement. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now. Hopefully we finish it all very soon - otherwise Chachoo's wife will have the same warm welcome and sleeping arrangement her husband is currently enjoying! I'm secretly hoping I'll get a few more days to prepare. Not so secretly, actually - I told Chachoo as much. He (selfishly) doesn't care about the room preparations at all and (selfishly) wants his wife here as soon as possible. The nerve!

Things I Hate About Traveling to Pakistan (Volume 1)

I'm often telling people all about the things I love about traveling to Pakistan, but do you want to hear about one thing I HATE instead? I get really frustrated whenever I'm in Pakistan. Most of the time that frustration stems from the same two issues. The first is gender segregation (which we've already discussed but I'm sure it will come up again) and the second if feeling like a complete bumbling idiot who can't accomplish even simple tasks.

"What?" you say? Here, let me explain.

It happens a few times here or there every day. Someone will come to the house to visit and ring the doorbell. In America, in my own house, I would just answer the stupid door already. I am an adult, I know how to open a door. But in Pakistan, I can't. I have to sit there, staring at the front gate completely helpless. Who knows who's on the other side? Even if I do answer it, what if its a beggar? I can't always speak enough Urdu to get by. What if it's a political party seeking "donations"? I don't even know where Ammi's stash of money that she gives to beggars is kept. But it's even worse than that - even if I DO know who it is (like if M had run across the alley to the neighbor's and then called out from the other side to let him back in) I can't even OPERATE the front gate! It's got weird latches that took me forever to learn how to use, or sometimes there's some new lock or chain or bolt that I don't know how to open.

There's another gate that drives me crazy too. The front veranda - which is actually used as the dining room - has a front gate that gets locked every night. But there's only one bathroom and it's on the other side of that gate. So if you want to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you have to be able to unlock the gate. But where are the keys to the gate? And it's dark too, so you have to be able to navigate through the house in the dark. BUT - in every single room there are people sleeping on the floor. So you have to be able to navigate through rooms, NOT STEPPING ON ANYONE, find the damn keys,THEN find the 1 key out of 30 that unlocks that particular gate, go to cross the outdoor courtyard to the far wall of the house where the bathroom is, look at all the bugs that congregate there at night while you take care of business, and then reverse the whole process to lock the door and get back to your room. It's exhausting and frustrating and I feel like a complete fool. I have had to wake up M on more than one occasion just to get his help so that I can go to the bathroom. And some days, it feels like EVERYTHING is just one big challenge like that.

The microwave - I can't figure out how to turn it on, none of the buttons are working. It turns out you have to turn on a stabilizer machine first before the microwave will be workable. Then it turns out that the power was off and we were running on generator power - but the microwave is too powerful for the generator and when I turned on the microwave, the generator starts shaking so violently that it falls off it's stand and then all the power in the entire house goes off. (True story.)

The iron - don't get me started on the iron, either! First there's always a godforsaken line for use of the iron, and someone's always got to iron something, so you'd better be quick. It's also too powerful for the generator, so if the power's off I have to wait until the last possible minute to iron my clothes. It's a really old iron, extemely heavy and you have to actually spray your clothes with water from a spray bottle kept nearby. The frayed plug doesn't always work, so you have to use the iron just so or else the plug comes out of the wall every.two.freaking.seconds. M told me that if you loop the cord just right over a nearby door handle, the cord stays in the plug longer. And anyway, how in the heck am I supposed to iron all those folds of that shalwar (pants) anyway?

Don't even get me started on plugging things in, either. I am an adult, yet I have to ask for guidance every time I need to plug something in!?!! Some things can't be plugged in without an adapter, some things need a converter first, some things can't be used at all (useless American hair straightening iron!) There's always some shortage of these various adapters & converters too, so after I've asked M how exactly I'm supposed to get this camera battery charged, I'm sent from room to room to hunt one down. Which thing can I unplug? Then I have to go around and ask everyone ELSE in the house - can I unplug your computer? Can I unplug this, can I use this converter for just a short while? I'll bring it right back - M says I need it.

The kitchen is the worst of it all rolled into one terrible, humbling experience. I mostly don't go into the kitchen when I'm in Pakistan - my image as the perfect daughter-in-law who helps out in the kitchen be damned. I can't navigate in there, not even to make lunch for the baby. Where are the pots, where are the serving spoons? The worst was when we went in 2007 and the baby was still drinking formula and I would have to make bottles for him multiple times a day. I can't start the gas range, you have to flick some spark thing to get the gas to ignite and somehow I've never gotten it to work. By the time I've tried a few times, the whole kitchen smells like gas and then I'm too scared to try anymore. Even if I get M to light the stove for me, I never know which milk to use - there's always a few different pots of milk in there and I'm not sure which one is from the buffalo, which is from the cow, how long they've been sitting there, which one is for use in some dessert recipe later and which one is for tea.  If I wanted to make some tea, I don't know how much tea to use per cup - it always comes out tasting terrible, sometimes too strong, sometimes too wear. And where is the tea strainer - I've check 6 drawers and I still can't find it. I can only hunt down three teacups. Once I used salt instead of sugar because they're sitting on the shelf next to each other in identical containers.

The bathroom isn't much better, either.  I can't figure out how to turn on the water or how to get the right balance of hot & cold. Sometimes I'll be in there trying forever before it finally occurs to me that we're out of hot water - the water heater must be off. And they sometimes turn off the water heater at night because my inlaws think it unheard of to shower at night. I like to shower at night! I have on more than one occasion been forced to take a cold shower because of this. And then after the shower, when the entire room is wet, how do you get dressed without ending up with soaking wet pant legs? In the beginning, I tried balancing on one leg, scrunching up the pant legs and trying to quickly hop into them before they touched the wet ground, but I was rarely successful. Then I turned to squeegee-ing the whole place down in the buff before trying to re-dress. Finally I asked M - turn out he stands on the little stool to get dressed without getting wet pants as a result.

Poor M, he has to deal with me and all my frustrations. He knows about the stool already. He knows which appliances can be plugged in, he knows where all the light switches are and which key unlocks which lock, he knows about the door knob handle iron plug trick. And he tries to help, to impart this knowledge to me. But there's just too much of it and sometimes - truth be told - I'm not at my peak form to learn it all. Sometimes he's busy with his own stuff, but he's always got to stop what he's doing to help me warm up a bottle, or he has to wake up to take me to the bathroom as if I'm a child. PLUS, he has to deal with my OUTRAGE at all these little things. I can get very frustrated and difficult to deal with if too many of these things pile up at once, or if M has taken too long to respond, or if I've had to take yet another cold shower.

It feels awful to go from a self-assured, competent adult to a completely useless idiot just because I've traveled a few time zones over. These sorts of things are the product of being a traveler anywhere, really. Even when visiting at my parents house, I can't always locate the right key, or I don't know which milk is usable. But when you're traveling to such a far away place, when so many things are different, it can sometimes feel like too much to handle.

Sleeping Under Cascades of Flowers Sounds Nice To Me!

(This is part eleventy-thousand of my chronicles of our recent trip to Pakistan. It was my third trip to Karachi, and it was in part to attend the wedding of my youngest brother-in-law.)

After our Mehndi party, we rested. It seems common that families plan the actual wedding event (called the Nikah) to occur after one day of rest between it and the Mehndi. Since these parties last easily until 3 or 4 in the morning, you can understand why no one's ready for Day 2 until they've had a day in between to get some rest.

But everything in Pakistan seems to be done at the last minute. Like when we were preparing for the groom's side Mehndi party - a pre-wedding celebration - and my husband and his brother went to arrange for the food a week before the event and we told to come back later since the event was too far in advance to plan for. So naturally, the day of rest was the perfect time to finish up all those last minute preparations for the Nikah. And by last minute I of course mean "absolutely essential." 

One of those arrangements we made in the day before the wedding was for the flower bed tent. This is one of my absolute favorite things about desi weddings, but strangely I haven't even met many desis that like it all that much! From what I gather, it seems that this tradition is considered maybe low-class or cheesy? Both of my brothers-in-law were not very excited about the idea. In 2007, when we traveled to Pakistan to attend my other brother-in-law's wedding, I had to convince him that he should have the flowers done in the room even though he thought it was outdated. My winning argument seemed to be that even if he didn't want it, it was tradition and maybe his new wife did and she would only have one wedding night after all.

I can't remember, but I think that Chachoo was similarly not that into the flower bed thing. Even most of the cousins in Pakistan seem to not like them that much. The few cousins who supported my idea mostly said things like "Oh, no, I've seen some nice ones these days, understated and with not too many flowers."But I just love it! They create a whole frame of bamboo over the bed like a tent and then literally cover it with flowers. And I like 'em how I like most things in life - more is better! I only lament that I didn't know about this when I was getting married and thus, I will never get a wedding night flower bed tent made for me :( 

In fact, I don't even remember how I learned about the flower bed thing. But I do remember when we went shopping for it. Back during the 2007 wedding, after I finally convinced my brother-in-law, we went down to the same flower shops that sell the other wedding flower arrangements. When M told them what we were there to discuss, we were showed to some benches just past the storefronts and given some photo albums. Apparently after the successful installation of a flower tent over a bed, these flower guys would sometimes take a picture for their album so they could use for sales talks. They had all sorts of different styles in there, from the heavier styles to the more modern, contemporary look.

But just a few pages into the photo album, I came upon the strangest thing. I guess that after the bed has been all made up in advance of the wedding night and the flower installer guy is there to take a picture of the finished product, for some reason they sometimes include the groom. In some of the photos, there's the groom posing - sometimes leisurely propping himself up on his elbow, but most often puffing out his chest and trying spreading his shoulders and knees as wife as possible to look like a big shot. When the flower seller went to get something, I took my chances and snapped a picture of his photo albums - it's not every day you get to see something like that!

Of course, when the flower guys came to prepare our flower tent, I couldn't help myself. I forced M to pose for his own picture. Luckily, he's a good sport and plays along - puffing his chest out, jutting his chin up as high as possible, and setting his face with a grimace. Or maybe he just knows the drill - I won't shut up until I take a goofy picture!

Expensive Imported Chocolates and Vomit

There's an American movie called Forrest Gump all about the life of a dim-witted man named Forrest. You should watch it is you haven't already, it's really good. One well know line from the movie is "life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get." Well, that may be true, but I do know what you'll get if you eat an entire box of chocolates at once - SICK, that's what! And the reason I know that is because that's exactly what happened at Chachoo's mehndi celebration!

During the ceremony of the mehndi, the main part of the whole shebang is when the groom sits on a stage and all the attendants surround him, waiting for a turn to feed him sweets and preform other rituals of good tidings. Generally people are feeding him traditional Pakistani sweets either in small bites (if they're trying to be nice to him) or huge whole ones (if they're trying to tease him, which is more common and part of the fun!) But Chachoo's in-laws also brought with them a large box of fine imported chocolates obtained from a relative in Dubai (if I'm remembering correctly.) And while our side of the family generally fed him one of the Pakistani sweets we'd provided, almost all of his in-laws opted to feed him one of those rich chocolate.

Can you imagine eating through an entire large box of chocolates in one 30-45 minute setting? You could see him struggling too. He had to drink a lot of water and his cousins started calling up to him to spit them out instead. They were worried it was too much for him, but he persisted. There was even a bit of bickering between Chachoo's young cousins ("Spit it out! Don't eat anymore chocolate!") and the cousins from the other side ("Leave him alone, he can do whatever he wants!") He said he was having fun, that this was part of the mendhi and he didn't want to spit them out. He seemed to take pride in it, and when the girls on his soon-to-be-inlaws side started teasing him about it - asking him whether he could take another chocolate or did he want the easier sweets, he never backed down and always accepted another chocolate happily.

He didn't eat any dinner later, though. And while he didn't get sick that night, there was a later incident that people blamed on all that chocolate consumption.

Ooh...foreshadowing! Don't worry, we'll get there soon :)

You can see the box of chocolates here - the box with the camels on it - and you can see Chachoo's tightened jaw and pursed mouth indicating that he was likely struggling through one when this picture was taken. And still just a hint of that pride-filled smile, too.

The Dilemma of the Room(s)

We own a four bedroom house; we just bought it a little over a year ago. It's almost perfect for our current living arrangement because of the distribution of bedrooms. You see, it's a two story house, but instead of walking into the main lower level, the main part of the house with the entrance, kitchen, and most other rooms is the upper level. Then you walk downstairs into a semi-basement where there's a family room and a large bedroom & bathroom. (I saw semi basement because we're situated on a bit of a hill, so it's underground at the front but not at the back.)

The way this works nicely for us is that we have the main part of the house and Chachoo is downstairs most of the time. He comes upstairs for meals, kitchen needs, and some socializing, but most of the time it's like he has his own wing of the house and we have ours. This spatial separation, combined with his busy schedule of classes and work, mean that we don't see a whole heck of a lot of him and so far, we haven't felt any burden by his presence. This may change when his wife moves in because, first of all, at least in the beginning she won't have the same busy schedule. She also may be more social than he is, or perhaps will spend more time in the common areas of the house out of sheer boredom of being stuck at home all day. But before Chachoo came, I had two areas of concern about the house; the family room downstairs and his room.

First, I was concerned that because we do most of our daily living on the main upper level, Chachoo and his wife might conclude that since we don't use the family room much, it would become their personal living room. It is a logical conclusion, since it's connected to their bedroom and was largely unused before. But I didn't want that to happen because it would make "our" part of the house much smaller. I was worried that I wouldn't feel comfortable walking downstairs unless I asked them permission. And our laundry room is down there too, so if it were "their" living room, I'd be walking through it to get to the laundry almost every day.

The only solution I could think of was to try and move all our family social things down there. It's bigger and more comfortable for us to be there anyway, and since Chachoo has been here we've been watching a lot of movies (our only TV is down there.) That makes the space neutral, and we all still have our own spaces and can all still come and go as we please into all areas of the house. It does, however, make only one room "theirs", but I am trying to find some upholstered chairs for inside Chachoo's room so that they can have their own "lounge" kind of space without sacrificing the neutrality of the family room. That way their room could function not only as bedroom but also office or lounge space - because sometimes you want to lounge with your spouse alone, I think. But of course, this might be just a reflection of the way I was raised, and several of the Pakistanis I've talked to about this have told me I'm just overthinking everything.

The second concern I had was about Chachoo's bedroom. Before he came, that was our main guest bedroom. It was great for all the same reasons it's great for Chachoo - it gave guests enough separateness and privacy to feel comfortable while here. Especially for my parents and grandparents, who visit often and sometimes for extended periods. But since learning our plan of Chachoo living here, they've expressed a reluctance to throw Chachoo out of his room for a week to use his room as their personal guest room. I've assured them it's okay - even Chachoo has said there is no problem with this. He's never had his own room before, and in Pakistan before his brothers left, he slept in the living room at night and packed up all his bedding every morning. Also, their family is always rearranging sleeping arrangements based on who's in the house at the time. Guests are often given the best rooms, to Chachoo it's no big deal. He even did it last week when one of M's old college buddies was in town, and that guy is Pakistani! It just seemed more comfortable for everyone that Chachoo sleep upstairs next door to us while our guest gets the larger, nicer, and more private guest room.

So far it's been fine, although my family is still concerned about throwing Chachoo out if they visit. Especially because soon it won't just be throwing Chachoo out - it will be throwing him and his wife out of their marital bedroom. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess, but in the meantime, I want to make sure the room can function as both Chachoo and his wife's private enclave as well as a guest bedroom should we need it. That means painting within the next 2 weeks, and also adding furniture to the room so that it can serve as many things - adding chairs and a TV for a more private lounge space for them, as well as desk and clothes storage areas. Then I need to arrange the furniture and decorate in the way I would want it if the room were a guest room. (Hopefully my SIL will like the decor and not want to change it!) I figure that I only have a few weeks to work - after Chachoo's wife comes, it becomes their room and I can't very well go in there to rearrange the furniture on my whim. If I get it set the way I want it, they can live there and whenever we have guests, I'll just need a few minutes before they arrive to change sheets and stock up the room with guest essentials like towels or bottles of water.

Now, though, starts the redecoration odyssey. First up, paint colors and searching for some chairs. I think I'll take some pictures of the room so you all can see what we're dealing with!

Now With 33% More Pakistani!

Tomorrow will mark the 2 month anniversary of my brother-in-law's arrival in America. He's lived with us for two months now, so I think it's time for a progress report, yes?

Well, everything has been going spectacularly. Seriously, it's amazing how well he has meshed with our lives. I honestly think life is better with him here than before that. He's a busy student, and he's at school a lot and in his room studying even more, so I've never felt like I didn't have enough time to myself or time alone with my Mian. And all the times he is around, it's so nice to have him. He's such a help around the house and especially with the baby. He's always asking to make me a cup of tea or if I need him to bring anything home. Two weeks ago Mian and I both had to go out of town for career-related things. Normally I would have my mother come to take care of the baby. (Which would take 2 days for her to travel - just for 2 days of care.) Because Chachoo was there, we just spent a week showing him the baby's daily routine and left him in charge for 48 hours. It went very smoothly, and the baby was VERY happy (perhaps in part because Chachoo is much more frequent with the candy and cookies.) But even with lots more candy, it's so nice to have a stand in parent living just downstairs. It's so freeing to be able to run to the store in five minutes for a forgotten ingredient rather than having to pack up the baby to do it - or worse, being stuck at home because of nap time.

The first few weeks were hectic as he began school, in part because the school has so many requirements and there was a lot of running around and appointments to be made. Mostly those consisted of Chachoo and me, since he couldn't drive in the US in the first week. I can't remember when he passed his driving test, but it was within the first week or a few days after. But even that was nice because we got along well, got to know each other better, and get along really well. We seem to have similar personalities. After he began school it was less hectic but still a little stressful because he (and us, behind the scenes) were trying to find a professor - preferably one who would give him funding. The original professor he'd been assigned to had turned out to be not a great match, and their first meeting ended on a note of "I have no money for you, and you're not even working in my field, so why don't you go find a new professor for yourself."

Luckily - and very, very happily - Chachoo was able to find a professor that he liked, that he wanted to work with, and that worked hard on his own side to track down some money for Chachoo. That means he didn't have to pay ANY tuition and is even getting paid a smallish stipend every semester to work as a research assistant for the professor. This research assistantship, or RA, was critical for Chachoo's next planned step - bringing his new wife to America to live with him. To live with US.

First, though, there was a lot of stuff to get in order to do that. He had to have some documents fixed in Pakistan because the marriage certificate had his name misspelled. It took weeks to track down the men who ran the local mosque to have to typo fixed, and even longer to have it shipped over to us along with his wife's passport. She'd had to spend a week or more working on getting a passport as well! When he got the marriage certificate and copy of her passport, he had to turn them into his school's Office of International Programs to get immigration documents issued for his wife. While we waited for that, both Chachoo and we contacted our bank to have official bank letters issued so we could prove we had enough money to support his wife. We also had to write letters pledging to support her. (Back when Chachoo was coming, we had to contact two different cousins to do this for us in order to scrape together enough money to meet the requirement of having enough money for the entire cost of his tuition. Luckily you can have several different sources pool money to meet the total requirements.)

We had all our documents in order and mailed them last Friday. Chachoo's wife had an appointment at the US Embassy in Islamabad yesterday. Thanks God, she was approved for an F-2 visa - the kind of visa for the spouse of an F-1 student. That means she can come and live here but she can't work at all and she can't go to school.

She has a reservation for a flight leaving Pakistan on the 23rd. I'm kicking Chachoo out of his room so I can get in there one last time to paint the walls and decorate. As always, I'll keep you posted :)

Pakistani Catering

During our recent vacation to Pakistan to attend my youngest brother-in-law's wedding, I was able to see what typical middle class Pakistani wedding catering looks like. Hint: it's pretty different.

When my husband and his brother went to inquire about getting a test set up in the alleyway outside of their home, they were also asking about catering food for the event. That's because the tent guys and the catering guys were the same guys. The price that Chachoo, my brother-in-law, paid for the tent (18,000 Pakistani rupees. That's about $212) actually included food for 200 people. 

The tent guys came early in the morning - before I'd even woken up - and began setting up the tent. I already told you guys about that here. After they were done setting up the tent, as it was getting closer to the beginning of the event's start time, they began cooking the food. Some of it had already been cooked, but I know that the kabobs and the Naan and Paratha (different kinds of Indian/Pakistani flatbread) were cooked on site.

They brought all their own pots and pans and utensils and even servingware and tableware. They all donned uniforms and became waiters in the blink of an eye. 

For the beginning of the evening, I was preoccupied with my sisterly-in-law duties like welcoming the guests, making sure they all had flower bracelets, making sure all the younger female relatives were included in the circle of ladies singing and stuff like that. After the singing, about halfway through the evening, I tracked down M and asked for my camera back. He gave it to me and I started walking toward the tent's exit and he called me back and asked me where I was going. I told him I wanted to go out back and take pictures of the tent guys and their makeshift catering kitchen and he told me he'd already taken lots of picture of them because he knew I'd want to post them here! Yay Mian!

Pre-arranged trays of veggies set atop bowls of chutney to be served along with the food.

The caterers just set up a basic kitchen in the middle of the alleyway.

You can see that the bread cooking station is right outside the entrance to the tent. Look how dirty the clothes of the cooks are - no chef's whites here! On the table you can see the large balls of dough that will be rolled into very large rounds and fried up into delicious parathas. In the background you can see one guy lifting out one of the large parathas from a huge frying pan.

The waiters openning up all the bottles of Sprite and Pepsi and putting a straw in each one.  (While another paratha finishes in the background.)

Here a waiter is filling up a bowl while the chef (with the beard) uses a plate as a large scoop. On the table beside them you can see the huge flatbread about to be cut into small squares, and in front of the you can see the plume of smoke from the kabobs cooking.

Sick Kids

In M's family home in Karachi there were three kids staying at the house during our visit; my son and his two cousins. One was M's sister's daughter A and one is M's brother's daughter S. M's sister and her family live in America a couple of states over from us, and she and I were pregnant at the same time and A is only 3 months older than my son. M's brother and family live in Saudi Arabia and their daughter is was about 8 months old at the time. Both A and S got pretty sick while they were visiting Pakistan for their youngest Chachoo/Mamu's wedding.

Before the wedding festivities began, A had been sporadically vomiting around the house for a few days. She had also begun to lose her appetitte and have a "bad stomach" as we like to say. They'd taken her to see a doctor who'd given her an IV of fluids for dehydration. One day later, as we were leaving the bride's Mendhi Celebration, A got violently ill as her mother carried her down the stairs. We're talking sick from all areas at the same time, in the middle of the staircase with half the wedding procession trapped behind her. And the M's sister had to clean her up and ride home with her that way.

The next day, she was still very sick, so they took her to the hospital and M's sister had to miss out on the groom's Mendhi party. A stayed in the hospital for four days with "acute gastroenteritis." She missed the Nikah too - the actual wedding ceremony. Luckily she was doing much better by that time, so M's sister was able to have her in-laws stay with A at the hospital so she could attend the wedding.

Baby S had also been sick on and off during the trip, even though she'd been in Pakistan for more than a month with her mother on an extended pre-wedding visit. She was hospitalized 2 days after A and stayed for 3 days, with the same diagnosis. Luckily they'd gone to the same hospital and ended up sharing a room, so at least the families could comfort each other during such a scary and stressful time.

Thank God, Thank God, Thank God - my son never got sick. He had a bit of a fever and some congestion when we first got to Karachi, but I always figure that with a 24 hour travel in three different planes, he's bound to get some kind of cold. That's all it was, really, a cold that went away after a few days. After that, nothing. I tried to do everything I could to help out with the other kids, but after a while all those bodily fluids start to wear on you. After that, all I could do was take as many pictures as possible for the poor siblings who had to miss parts of their brother's wedding. Can you imagine having spent all that money and effort to go to Pakistan for a wedding and then missing it. I know that by that point they were so worried about their kids they didn't give a second thought to the wedding festivities, but I felt so bad for them - and for the groom who might have also been disappointed.

Luckily, both girls were back to normal by the time they came home from the hospital, and we were all able to spend another week together bonding with each other and our new addition of Chachoo's wife. I know plenty of kids who go to Pakistan for short or long visits alike that don't have any problems - my own son has been twice now with nothing more than airline travel colds. (Thank God!) I'm not sure why the girls ended up so sick. But I was hyper-vigilant about drying every dish and utensil before use, and washing all vegetables or fruit with soap and water - and then drying them completely - before cutting or peeling. This ended up in looking quite rude sometimes when I would be at a social event at someone's house and be offered food on newly washed (and therefore wet) dishes. I would wipe them dry with my scarf even though it looked like I was saying "I think your plates might not be clean enough for me, so I am going to wipe them off myself." I tried to explain, but people can understandably still take offense. And perhaps some of my precautions are over the top or unnecessary, but I saw the hell M's siblings and their poor daughters went though. I don't mind being thought of as rude or crazy or over the top if there's even a slight chance of preventing that.

Mendhi: Version 1

When we last talked about my brother-in-law's wedding, we were just finishing up preparations for the two different Mendhi parties. A Mendhi celebration is a pre-wedding function. It seems to me that every family has their own opinion on what traditions, or rasm, are performed in the Mendhi celebration. In M's family, they generally do a combined Mendhi party where the families split the cost of a venue and both parties invite a selected portion of their wedding guests - generally more women, or closer relatives. Then there's a bit of a singing competition, a dinner, and some forcefeeding sweets to the soon-to-be-newlyweds. It's just not a Pakistani party unless someone is being force fed an entire box of sweets.

This time, though, things were a little different. The bride's family had said that they didn't usually do a Mendhi celebration. Their family's tradition (I think) was to do something lower-key at home. Our family does do a party, though, and still planned to through one even though it would be one-sided, and told the bride's family they could invite a small number of guests to attend that. In response, the bride's family changed their mind and set up a similar plan. So two separate Mendhis.

So we prepared. We went shopping . We packed up things to take to the bride's house. We bought a drum.  My clothes were ready. I kept trying to get everyone to pick out songs, make a playlist, do some practicing. It was going to be a competition, after all! But no one ever did practice. We even rented a bus because all the family members were going to meet at our house and then all travel to the bride's mendhi party together.

For the first event, the groom's family went to the bride's party, which was held at their home.  They live in a just-built "flat" (apartment building) that had a rooftop that could be used for such occasions, and they'd had it outfitted in yellows and greens - the traditional colors of the Mendhi celebrations. We filed it, the ladies in a long line, each bearing a tray of henna paste. The bride's cousins and sisters and aunts lined up along both sides of the entrance to greet us, giving us bracelets made of flowers and showering us with rose petals. (Except for some of the younger greeters, who were not so much "showering" as they were aiming to inflict pain with their fistfuls of flower petals aimed at our faces.)

The place had been divided into two sides, bride's and groom's, with a little stage at the front that had a dais the bride would later sit on. After we filed in, the younger women & girls sat in a big circle on the groom's side. The bride's family did the same. Most of the men hung around towards the back because both families seem to regard the Mendhi function as a girl's event (but some of the younger cousins/brothers on our side did participate in the singing later in the evening.)

That's when the singing competition began. Each side would sing in unison, trying to pick the best songs to reflect the event. Although there were no judges or points, each side was trying to "win" by picking the best songs, singing the best, and drumming the best. Eventually the guys on our side couldn't contain themselves any longer and started signing too, even though it was all-girls before that and none of the guys on the bride's side even joined in. They just couldn't help themselves, I think, they're a very musical family. There might have even been some unchoreographed bhangra dancing. Later, I asked Mian and his brothers who they thought won and they all said us. I, personally, was VERY impressed with the bride's side. They had clearly rehearsed this a lot, whereas our family hadn't rehearsed at all. I later asked the bride the same question, but since it was post-wedding, she'd diplomatically refused to answer.

After the singing, they brought the bride out. I know, right?! Why was she stuck inside when everyone else had been having all this fun? And I forgot to tell you before, but we'd left the groom at home! He wasn't supposed to come, it was just a convoy from his family to the bride's house. So they brought the bride and we all lined up to sit next to her one by one and do a few different traditions. Every family does something different, but my mother-in-law does these: she puts a necklace made from flowers around her neck, she waves some money around the bride's head and then deposits it into a big bowl of cash that will later be donated to the poor, she puts some mendhi on her own forehead and then the bride's forehead, alternating and repeating three times, and then she feed the bride some small bite of sweets. (Other traditions I've also seen done include throwing rice around her head, waving your hands around her and then cracking your knuckles on your forehead, smearing some tumeric powder somewhere on her hands or face, and having her drink some rose-flavored milk.)

My mother-in-law, sitting on the dais and feeding something sweet to my soon-to-be sister-in-law, all dressed up in a plain-ish yellow outfit. I loved my MIL's saree, too, it was black with all these yellow flowers and it just seemed so classic-looking and beautiful. I wonder if I could pull off that look...

I was tagged to go next because as eldest sister-in-law, I'm next in the pecking order. (I sent my sister-in-law instead because she's the actual sister of the groom and it just feels wrong to me to go before her. Then I went 3rd and then the next sister-in-law went.) I did all the same stuff my mother-in-law did, but I also told the bride how beautiful her clothes were and asked her if she could see out of the scarf covering her head. She said she'd picked a very sheer fabric just for that purpose. Then I delivered a secret message from the groom because I'm a cool sister-in-law like that. (The bride had been forbidden from texting for a while prior to the wedding, so they were desperate for contact.)

After all the women in our family had their turn to perform these traditions (that's a lot of force-fed sweets!) dinner was served. They whisked the bride away and she ate dinner inside and we never saw her again. Dinner was great, my favorite wedding food, halvah puri. But the best was yet to come. After dinner, I got to see something I'd never seen in person. I'd heard about it, I'd seen it in videos, but I'd never seen it happen at an actual wedding in my presence.

Wedding dancing! M's family isn't big on dancing, and even where there is some dancing, it's only the men and only unchoreographed bhangra. Women in M's family don't seem to dance, and they certainly don't do it in public. But the bride's family did! They had practiced those dances too, and there were so many women & girls, all synchronized and dancing in a big circle. Then they even took out a big bag of wooden sticks to perform a traditional wedding stick dance called Dandiya (you can see a video of what it looks like here.) They had even brought over a bag of dandiya sticks to our side for us to join in and compete. I guess they hadn't realized that in the groom's family "Our girls don't dance." Sad :(

Well, it was fun to see, even if I didn't get to participate. And in my opinion, it definitely put them over the top competition-wise. It was a late night though, and most of the groom's family was standing up during the dancing because they were ready to go home, and we left right after they were done.

This Blogging Business

All right people! :::Clap Clap::: We're getting back to business here! Life is settling down a bit, and I'm once again filled with things I want to talk about. Well, life is "settling" into the regular kind of craziness we're used to, down from the insanity of the past few weeks that preventing me from posting here regularly enough. I'm back though, friends!

My Mian just got back from an almost-month long business trip, Chachoo's been settling in here at home and at school, and I've serving as support personnel for both of them while dealing with my own big professional hurdles. It's been a rough couple of months, is all I'm saying. So let's recap so we're all on the same page.

First, we set off on our trip to Pakistan with the best intentions of document the whole trip here. Then, around the time of the wedding, things started to go south. We're about halfway through the documentation of the trip now, and I still have a lot of stuff I want to write about. But there's also new things that pop into my head every day, so I'm planning to do both at the same time, a little "Pakistan Trip & Wedding" stuff interspersed along with the other, daily stuff I want to tell you all about.

I'll look around for some way to manage it, or start cataloging or tagging posts or something, so those of you who want to skip one part or the other can do so. I've also installed a new commenting thing so that comment discussions are easier to have and respond to (because your comments are the BEST part of this whole thing, and I wanted a way to make it easier for me to keep up with all of them.)(And for anyone still waiting for an email response, I'll slowly chipping away at that too, so please bear with me.)

Now, let me go pick out some pictures!