How many people can fit in a car?

Last weekend (19th and 20th Jan) was a little bit boring as we had to stay in most of the time because of Moharram (festival that sometimes has got a bit out of hand in the past). But the house was sparkly clean by the end of Sunday. On Monday the Director said that he was leaving in an hour to go to Chakwal and would I like to come. So I went, as things weren’t so busy in Mansehra – most of the teams are busy at the moment in running teacher training programmes. The Director said that he was going with his family, and there was a space for me in the car. That was definitely based on Pakistani definitions of a space rather than English. There were nine people in the car altogether, although three of them were fairly little – three people plus the driver in front and then five in the back. It was quite a fun journey actually, and not too painful. I thought that nine people in the car was pushing it to its limits, but when we arrived in Chakwal we met two more people for dinner, and then gave them a lift – 11 people in a normal sized car!! Pretty impressive.

Anyway, I have to be very complimentary about what I write about Chakwal as they are reading my blog there now :). Actually, I had a really good time – I spent one day in the office looking at the website and talking about reporting issues, and the other day I was in the field at a PTA meeting at a village school. The school was very impressive, and there was a very active PTA. Their achievements really illustrate how successful communities can be when they are mobilised to take an interest in their schools. The community themselves had organised the building of a water fountain, rebuilding the school roof, putting in toilets and building a boundary wall. They had provided unskilled labour. The meeting that I was attending was aimed to renew a school development plan – to put forward ideas as to what they want to achieve in the next year. Some children were involved, as were parents, teachers and community members.

When I got back to the office there was a meeting, and at the end the Director said something to me in Urdu. Key learning point: don’t just smile and nod when I don’t understand. I found out later that he said to me that we were leaving in 5 minutes. Ooops. I hadn’t even packed. Oh well - that was the quickest packing I have ever done. We had a five hour journey back again, and we got back about 9.30, and were then invited out to a meal for someone’s birthday, which was really lovely. As an aside – Pakistani cakes are REALLY good (mainly because of the amount of cream in them).

The rest of the week was quieter. We’ve had good examples of using our initiative recently due to lack of resources (good for the CV?). First, our tin opener broke – so here is a photo of Corry opening a tin with hammer and nails.

Second, and it is very gutting, but my violin bow broke. So, ever resourceful, and after a failed attempt to get hold of some super glue, I mended it with blue tak. Can’t say that it sounds quite perfect, but I can get a bit of sound out of it. And we didn’t have water for a day and hot water for a few days after that. It was very painful getting up in the morning and knowing there was no hot water – it is SO cold in the morning (and I am wearing four jumpers during the day). Even when I sit in front of the gas heater I can see my breath. But the cold is a good excuse to eat a lot. And I know a lot more about how my gas water heater thingy works now.

Since writing the above I went to the hospital on sunday again for a service and one of the doctors plays the violin and offered to lend me a bow! Woohoo No more bluetacked bows for me.

Slums and mountains….

Last Sunday Corry and I went to Islamabad as we had to renew our visas. So much for all the horror stories about bureaucracy and red tape – it only took about five minutes! (though I think that VSO put in all the hard work before we arrived). So we had the large part of two days in Islamabad – I have to say that this did involve some shopping. But on Monday I was able to visit the Islamabad office of MIED – they have two projects working with Christian communities in the slums. They run ECCD centres for children aged 3 – 6, and non-formal education programmes for children who for whatever reason haven’t been going to school. The purpose of the NFE centres is to enable the children to be mainstreamed back into the formal education system. Last year I think over 200 children returned to school after attending the NFE centres. The major reason children aren’t attending school is the illiteracy and lack of awareness of the parents rather than absolute poverty. People were telling me that it is not unusual for families to have TVs in their houses! I visited an NFE centre, and I was really impressed. The teacher comes from the community and was very young, but had proper well-organised lesson plans and the kids were all involved in their work.

The team works mainly with the Christian community because they are particularly marginalised. I was surprised by how large the Christian minority is. Also, when we were travelling to the centre one of the people I was with pointed out someone sweeping the streets and said that they were Christian. I found it quite shocking that they could tell someone’s religion on the basis of the poverty of their job.

So, that was the slums part. Now we come to the mountains again! I went on another field trip to an earthquake affected valley, with (a different) ECCD team. They were holding workshops for education committees. These are the community groups who are taking over responsibility for the running of their ECCD centres. For most of the morning I was with a mother’s meeting – there were about 7 mothers there, and they were discussing what their responsibilities should be. This is a pilot project as there are only five mothers committees, and MIED are assessing how successful it is to get the mothers involved. All the other education committees consist of men. But I was impressed on the basis of that meeting – the mothers were all participating, and were bringing up problems they were facing, such as caregivers not turning up to work. The women were all illiterate, and the meeting was conducted in Hindko rather than Urdu, which meant it was almost completely incomprehensible – though one of the girls did translate for me some of the time. The meeting took place in an ECCD centre which was full of the children’s work and decorations made out of milk cartons and things. But it was completely freezing and there was snow outside. There was a wood stove inside, which itself is a mark of successful community mobilisation – the members of the community themselves each give a portion of wood so the place can be warm for their children. But there was no funnel so the room was incredibly smoky. And the walls were made of mud which the rain was washing away in places.

I also went briefly to the male workshop that was being held separately. This was conducted in Urdu (which illustrates the extent to which men have more education than the women). I asked the men whether they are pleased with the work of MIED and there was an immediate response - they all said yes and nodded, which was impressive. They said that their children are more confident, have better hygiene practices, they know more about their religion and are getting used to attending the centre regularly. I also asked them what the main challenges were – there was quite a list like improved building structures, better ceilings, having gas fires. They are all really reasonable requests, but the problem, as always, is the budget. On the one hand it is great that the demands are coming from the community themselves rather than ideas being imposed by the NGO. But unfortunately apparently they thought I was from the donor (quite reasonably I suppose cos I’m a foreigner). I really don’t know what they thought when they listed all their requests and I just smiled and nodded and didn’t make any response (to be honest most of it was in Urdu so I didn’t really understand at the time anyway.)

It took about 2 and a half hours to reach the centres, and the roads were often little more than mud, and washed away in places. There were six people in the car so on the way there I had to sit with another girl squashed in the front! I am slowly getting used to Pakistani methods of driving, and am not clenching all my muscles and grinding my teeth at every near miss – I would end up with awful headaches and no teeth. And plus Pakistani drivers are very well experienced in near misses and have a very good understanding of the width of their car.

We were invited to lunch with a health worker who lives in the community. They lived in a traditional building made out of mud, with no windows, no boundary wall. We all sat round a wood fire, and had a lovely lunch of corn bread and spinach curry.

And in the evening I was invited round to dinner to the family of one of the girls in the ECCD team. It was great – the family was sooo hospitable and cooked lovely food. And not only did they cook a wonderful meal, they also said it was traditional for them to give presents to guests when they first come in their home! So the gave me a beautiful shawl and some lovely jewellery. The generosity of people here is completely amazing.

Well, here is an interesting juxtaposition of technologies – I am writing this blog entry on my lovely still-quite-new laptop by candlelight, as there has been another power cut. Pakistan is a land of interesting contrasts, although the rich / poor divide is not as in-your-face as in India (well not in Mansehra anyway). For example, I was thinking earlier that although I can get many of the same products that I can in the UK – Colgate, Pantene, Cadbury’s etc etc, it is practically unheard of for a woman to go and buy these things in the bazaar by herself. Another contrast: although on the news there has been so much about violence and riots, when we witnessed an accident the other day (a car tyre rolled off the back of a truck and hit a shop window completely breaking all the glass) everyone was completely calm. Thank goodness no one was hurt. But there was no scene, or shouting or anything – just a quiet agreement as to who would bear the cost. I really don’t think that that would have been an average response in the UK.

But anyway, I’ve just decided that using my laptop by candlelight isn’t such a good idea as I’ve spilt candle wax on the screen (not quite sure how). We are having an average of four power cuts a day at the moment, and it is getting rather frustrating. Particularly at the office, when we are trying to write reports and most of the day the power is off – my laptop only lasts for about an hour which isn’t great. Not only that, there are three printers for the whole organisation, and the internal network has been completely decimated by viruses. I am (slowly) learning not to get stressed about deadlines when other people don’t, and there is nothing that I can do anyway when there is a power cut. But problems with the computers are very difficult – one guy had written a report and wanted me to read through it, but his USB drive was not working, and he did not have access to the internet nor a CD writer so there was no way of transferring it from his computer. Problem.

But things aren’t so bad, really! The weekend after the death of Benazir we had to spend three whole days inside the house. I have to say that I was starting to go slightly crazy by the end of that time. I have never been so happy to go to work as I was on Monday morning! But things were OK in Mansehra (although there was an unpleasant occurrence in Abbottabad, apparently). Things seem normal now, although things may change in the run up to elections. Tuesday was New Years Eve, and I went to the girl’s hostel for a meal. We actually started eating after midnight as we were doing the much more important thing of trying on new shalwar kameez and make-up. It was great fun. But then I had to work the next day. I can’t really remember much of what happened then – I was a tad tired.

I have had interesting adventures related to my stomach last week. I had lunch a few days with the girls in the office. The first day they said that they had something that many foreigners liked, so I thought that would be OK. But then just as we sat down they amended it to say that some foreigners liked it. ‘It’ turned out to be cows and yaks feet in curry. The next day I asked what the dish was, and they said beef. I thought that would be fairly safe. But it turned out to be liver. And the day after I asked what the meal was and they said mutton. But it was actually sheep’s stomach. I have to say that I drew the line at that and didn’t eat any. Well, two positive things can be said about these experiences: first that I couldn’t have caught bird flu, and second it is a variety on having fried bread and cheese for lunch. Actually, I really enjoy having lunch with the girls and it is lovely that they welcome me. And I’ve eaten a bit with them since these experiences, and one of the girls’ mothers is an excellent cook!

The past couple of days have been interesting as I’ve been writing a proposal for an extension of MIED’s child rights programme in Mansehra district. Before I came I didn’t think I would be writing a proposal and logical framework analysis within a day for each. Advance planning doesn’t seem to happen here really, which is something I definitely have to get used to, and learn not to worry about! But I know a lot more about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and rights-based approaches to child development now. The UN passed this convention in 1989, which outlines certain basic rights for all children no matter their situation: for example the right to education, the right to adequate food, the right to play, the right not to labour. Many of these rights are clearly and comprehensively infringed here, so MIED’s child rights programme is working in schools with the children introducing activities and games so that they know what their rights are. The particular proposal I was working on was to extend a project in two centres for disabled children: to ensure that they have adequate facilities so the children can reach their full potential, to challenge attitudes to disability in the communities (many disabled children do not attend schools, and are treated as a burden on their families resources), and to train the teachers in child rights to ensure that these children’s rights are not infringed. Before I came I was a little wary of rights based approaches but I am now a convert – it is different when you come across children who are picking through rubbish when they should be in school, and when teachers are not even bothering to turn up to teach but are still taking salaries. If children and their parents are aware of their right to education then they are better equipped to hold the teachers to account.

Random thought – my parents sent me Cranford on DVD (which was completely brilliant), and there was a boy in that who really wanted to go to school, but he had to work. He wanted to learn so much that he painted words on the walls of a shed while supposed to be working. MIED have got a fantastic picture with some children who are trying to write on stones with ground-up material and mud and things as ink, but they are still trying to learn. Sad to think 200 years on some things haven’t changed (even if Pantene and Colgate are now available all around the world).