My Commonwealth Games - Gymnastics

I arrived in Delhi on 6th October and went to my first Commonwealth Games event the next day. It was Artistic Gymnastics - i.e. the kind with rings and vaults as opposed to streamers and balloons. It was absolutely awesome!

I sat near a Welsh couple, who were the parents of Clinton Purnell who was representing Wales. It was brilliant. They were so friendly and they explained all the intricacies of the competition to me. I would have been clueless otherwise. I met Clinton, although he was not in the finals for that day's events he had come up to say 'hello' to his folks. He was in the finals for the Vault the next day, which sadly I could not get tickets for.

Across the aisle from me were the parents of Reiss Beckford who represented England. Again, they were great to talk to and they were SOOOO proud of their son. Reiss won a silver medal in the Floor competion. He was also in the finals for the Rings - I think he finished 4th. His mum hardly watched him during his whole performance - she was so nervous she had her face in her hands most of the time. :-)


It was a great day for Aussie gymnasts. Tom Pichler won the gold medal for Floor - he was awesome. Later on, he came up to the stands to sit with other Aussies - I assume that they were his girlfriend's parents, or maybe his own family. He was absolutely mobbed by the Indian spectators, and the CWG volunteers had to keep telling people to sit down and be quiet. He must have signed a thousand tickets and was really gracious about it all. I had him sign my ticket - he was really friendly and just enjoying the moment. The photo at the top shows Tom receiving his gold medal and Reiss receiving his silver, and the one to the left shows Tom in the stands, signing tickets while an official tries to keep people away from him.


Australia also won both gold and silver in the women's Uneven Bars. I have a photo of our flag hanging from the ceiling - twice! Australia also won the men's Pommel Horse through Prashanth Sellathurai and Sam Offord was the gold medallist in the Rings. I was able to sing my nation anthem (loudly, out of tune, and almost alone) a total of four times! I loved it. :-)

I was sitting next to a really friendly Indian family who seemed to think that I was personally responsbile for the success of the Australian gymnastics team, congratulating me each time someone did something great. I wish I was responsible - they put on a brilliant peformance. Thanks Aussie gymnastics team!

Conversations with Pakistanis

One of the joys of travel is talking to people and listening to their view of the world. Pakistan was no exception. Every new person I met began with the question 'where are you from?'. When I said 'Australia' the inevitable response was 'Australia very nice'. The next question was nearly always 'are you married?'. When I answered 'no' there was universal surprise, especially when I had my daughter with me. Sometimes I responded that I had been married before, but not any more. On hearing this explanation, a bookseller in Taxila told me that the problem with the West was that marriage was not permanent - it was just like visiting. So bear that in mind all you marriage visitors in the West!


Many people were at pains to talk about religion, and explain that really Islam and Christianity were 'the same thing'. Both believed in one God, and had the same ancient prophets like Abraham, Isaac and Jesus (whom Muslims call Isa). This was often followed up with a diatribe against Hinduism, with its multiple gods. In Rawalpindi, the people with whom I spoke seemed to be more antagonistic towards India than to the West.


Women in Pakistan were practically invisible in public places. In just over a week there, I probably only saw a couple of dozen women in the street, and none at all in shops or restaurants. All of the conversations I had with women were at tourist sites, like the Damon-e-kah lookout, when they were in large family groups. Having now arrived in India, the contrast is even more stark, where the streets teem with both men and women in more-or-less equal numbers.

There are also other tourists in Delhi, whereas I did not see another Westerner in Pakistan, even at the tourist sites. What with women and tourists all around me, I am no longer stared at wherever I walk. My days of feeling like a nameless film star are over! :-)

Internet and Power in Pakistan

The observant reader may have seen that the postings from Pakistan came in batches. This is due to the nature of our access to the Internet there. Ellie and I noticed that Rawalpindi Pizza Hut, which was next to our hotel, offered wifi access. Our room faced the restaurant, so we worked out that if we sat on the arm of the armchair and balanced the laptop between the back of the chair and the windowsill, we could pick up the Pizza Hut wifi. We lost the connection if we did so much as put the laptop on the seat of the chair, and working from further away was impossible. So we would balance on the arm and back of the chair, to read and answer emails.

However, many sites we tried to access were blocked for 'inappropriate content'. This included anything with a 'blogspot.com' domain name, YouTube and even my Optus webmail. So if we wanted to check other email, or update our blogs, we had to waddle down to a tiny alleyway, go underground and use the computers in a tiny shop. Not exactly conducive to creative writing, and of course we could only do this when the city had electricty.

Power was out for 6 hours every night in the cities of Pakistan, including Rawalpindi, since the government had run out of fuel to run the power generators for the national grid. This is called 'load shedding'. In rural areas the power loss was 8 hours a day, and according to the TV news (which we watched when we had power!) some remote areas were without power for 16 hours a day.

I'm writing this from Delhi, where there are reliable power and Internet connections. I'm grateful for small mercies.

Ancestor Hunting in Rawalpindi

Since I seemed to have carelessly misplaced all the people I knew in Pakistan, I thought I'd better try to find some relatives. All the living ones had left the country, so I went looking for the dead ones. :-)


First, I went to Christ Church, Rawalpindi, where my great-grandparents Job & Sarah Harman worshipped, and where at least one of their children was baptised. I showed up at the gate and was was told by the gatekeeper that the church was closed, I would have to come back on Sunday. I explained that I wouldn't be in Pakistan on Sunday, could I please come and have a look around. I offered to donate money to the church. He said that he couldn't let me in unless I had an ID card. "How about a passport?" I asked. He agreed and said that if I went back to the hotel and brought my passport, he'd let me in. So I made the round trip with my very helpful driver Jamil, and came back 15 minutes later. I showed him my passport and he then announced that it was against the law to let me in. I then asked if I could speak to the pastor. I have never had so much trouble getting into a church in my life!

Eventually Suleman, the assistant pastor, came over. He ignored the passport and asked me to come back tomorrow. I explained that I was leaving the country the next day, and could I please just have a look around. He made several phone calls and Jamil made an impassioned speech on my behalf, explaining that my ancestors had been part of the the congregation here. It seemed to work. After about 30 minutes Suleman asked me to come back at 5pm.

When I eventually came back, Suleman explained that the church was opposite the Pakistani Army GHQ, and that they had been forbidden from allowing anyone to visit the church. However, I was 'special' so he opened the church for me. There was certainly no shortage of heavily-armed soldiers just outside the gate, and I really appreciated the risk he had taken in letting me in.

It was definitely worth the struggle, and the three trips. The church was absolutely beautiful. Built mainly like a 19th century English church (it was constructed in 1852) but with enormous glass casement windows down every side, to allow the breeze in, and overhead fans. It was a delight to be able to set foot in the place in which my great-grandparents baptised their infant, and then sadly farewelled him a few months later. Thank you to Suleman and Christ Church for the experience.


Between my 2nd and 3rd visits to the church, I visited Gora Qabristain (Foreigners' Cemetery) in Harley Street, to see where my grandmother's brother was buried. I already knew that there was no gravestone, as the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA) had transcribed all the existing stones decades ago. Still, it was a moving experience to wander about the rows and rows of infant graves, and think about all the hopes of mothers that had been dashed. I don't know exactly where my great-uncle lies buried, but he has a lot of company.

Ellie goes home

We’ve been on the road now for over three months, and Ellie just became overwhelmed with homesickness. She missed her school friends badly and apart from her friends at Greenbelt, she has hardly spoken to a teenager since July. Whilst I can act like a teenager at times, it’s not the same thing!

So she made the decision to return home to Canberra in time for the start of Term 4, and will try to pick up on her missing school work. She’ll be living with her Dad and playing baseball with her sister Miki, which she is really excited about.

So on Monday 4th October I put her on a plane at Islamabad, bound for Bangkok, with a connecting flight to Sydney, where her father and sisters will collect her at the airport.

Hopefully, I’ll get to see her again sometime soon, but it won’t be for at least 4 months, if not longer.

The main purpose of visiting Pakistan was to see my sister Noni, who lived in Rawalpindi, but sadly she had problems with her visa and had to leave. Although she tried a few angles, she was unable to return and her absence was only confirmed a few days before we arrived in Rawalpindi. I also wanted to catch up with Arif, a work colleague whom I had met in Canberra at the ANU, but have been unable to contact since we arrived.

With Ellie and Noni gone, and Arif unable to be contacted, I don’t really know anyone in Pakistan, so I’ll go looking for my ancestors. I think they’re still in the ground somewhere around here.

Taxila

Taxila is an ancient city, or a series of cities actually, which flourished from the 5th century BC until the 5th century AD. There have been a series of archaeological excavations going on since the 1930’s and it is slowly being uncovered. It’s believed that as much as 90% is still buried. It was a major Buddhist centre with the first university in Asia, dating back 2,500 years. Later, it was conquered by Alexander the Great in 326 BC and then by the Persians. Each invasion meant that a new city was built near the site of the old one.

Taxila is a great day-trip from Islamabad. I stopped first at the Taxila Museum, which houses all the objects removed from the sites. These include an amazing array of statues of Buddha in various positions and surrounded by helpers, donors, dancers and even devils trying to tempt him. There was a display of intricate gold filigree jewellery, surgical instruments, cooking utensils of the type still used today and even a water distiller to purify water. I couldn’t help but think that 2,500 years ago when these objects were being made, my ancestors in Wiltshire were probably still peasant farmers without a writing system, organised religion, formal education or much medical knowledge.

The first site that I visited was called Jaulian and was high up on a hill. It had been a Buddhist monastery and a university. The stupas (tall towers that usually hold relics of a deceased person such as bones and ashes) are gone but their amazing carved bases are still in excellent condition. Whenever I stood still for a few seconds in Taxila, a helpful guide would pop up from nowhere offering to show me around for a few rupees. Jaulian was no exception and the guide seemed quite knowledgeable. He explained that the different arches under which Buddha sat in the carvings on the stupa bases could be identified as Aryan, Greek and Persian and pointed out the strong elephants and lions which held up the stupa as well as the sinful humans who were being punished by having to do the same thing.

There was a healing Buddha with a hole for a belly button. Worshippers placed their finger in the hole and asked Buddha for something, usually health-related. Modern Buddhists still worship at the healing Buddha today and there were incense sticks and flowers from a group of Chinese who had visited the previous day.

I then went to the Sirkap site, which was the Greek incarnation of Taxila. It lasted until 64 AD. It had a wide, straight main street and neatly organised side streets laid out in a grid pattern, a bit like Islamabad today. There are only the foundations of buildings visible, but it had clear descriptions of the purposes of many of the buildings, including Buddhist and Jain shrines, a temple of the sun god with an enormous sun dial in the forecourt, and even a Christian church, according to my temporary guide, although I’m a little sceptical about that.


There are 6 or 7 other sites in the massive Taxila area, but by this time I was very hot, tired, sunburnt and had run out of water, so I bought cold, bottled water from a man with a donkey and headed back to Rawalpindi.

Islamabad

Touring Islamabad is a hot and dusty task, but it is well worth the effort, even in 35 degree heat. I started by visiting the Shah Faisal Mosque, which was once the largest mosque in the world, but has now slipped to 4th place. This is an enormous structure, built to represent a tent, rather than the traditional dome-shaped mosques. The courtyard alone can hold 40,000 people. I had to ensure that I was suitably dressed as many signs warned that ‘ladies must wear proper Islamic dress’. Men could wear what they liked. It was no trouble, since I had several sets of shalwar kameez, the tunic-and-trousers suit worn by women in this part of the world. They are loose and comfortable, and easy to wear. I also wore a veil, as much for sun protection as for observing strict Islamic dress code. As always, I was stared at a great deal – in a week in Pakistan, Ellie and I did not see a single other Westerner. Although it was a bit disconcerting at first, to have people put down what they’re doing in order to stare as we walked by, or just stop in the middle of the street to look at us, we just decided to pretend that we were film stars and these were our fans. It made all the stares a bit more bearable.


After the mosque, I went up to Damon-e-koh which is a lookout above Islamabad. The driver helpfully pointed out the massive gash in the mountain side from a recent plane crash. That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence about our upcoming flights!

The view was interesting, but as there is a near-universal pall of dust everywhere, the visibility was not great. Still, I got to understand the extreme neatness and orderly layout of the well-designed Islamabad, which was created in 1965. This was in complete contrast to the chaos and confusion of Rawalpindi , a centuries-old jumble of houses and shops thrown together without much forethought. This means that Rawalpindi seems more ‘alive’ than Islamabad. The latter has a more sterile and unnatural feel about it.

Next I visited Saidpur village. This was an original potters’ village which the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation tarted up and encouraged various craftsmen to ply their wares there. It was not as artificial as some ‘model villages’ I’ve seen, mainly because it was still very much a rural village and quite frankly, there weren’t any other tourists about, apart from me. It was quite picturesque, as the photos show, and I single-handedly kept the village economy afloat by buying a wide range of handicrafts. I bought Ellie an antique camel-bone earring box – what every 14-year-old in Canberra needs!


The next stop was Rawal Lake. Since it was a Saturday, there were loads of Pakistani families enjoying picnics and wandering about. At Rawal Lake and throughout my wander around Islamabad, I was frequently asked by local women if they could have their picture taken with me. I always obliged. I really did start to feel like a film star, albeit one whose name no-one knew! :-)