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.