From Karachi to Lahore and back

Some time has already past since I wrote my last entry. It has a logic reason behind that: since my first day of arrival, I was traveling quite a lot and I was busy with some AIESEC related stuff, plus I was going into Pakistan culture.
So in this entry I’m going to tell you little bit about my first week in Pakistan where National AIESEC Pakistan conference included is.
I guess it would be interesting to know that when I landed in Pakistan airport at 3:45 am on 30th of October and when I past customs, nobody from AIESEC members came to pick me up… At the beginning I thought that it is just a joke which they do to all interns in order to scare them little bit… but after 10-15 minutes I started to become anxious because all people around the airport were staring at me. And it was something totally new for me. I received about 6 offers to help to care the luggage, bring me to the “cheap” hotel, a cab for a ride and etc… Honestly I felt really uncomfortable. Luckily after 30 minutes came two AIESEC’ers. I recognized them from a far away! If I wouldn’t meet them 5 more minutes I most probably would start to look for a cab which would take me to my living place. But then I would have a problem as no one from interns or MC was inda house.
However, I was taken to the house of one of the new recruited members - Hassan. From the very beginning I was impressed of the hospitality here in Pakistan. They were ready to give me everything in order I would feel satisfied. Actually such attention was too big for me and they made me feel quite uncomfortable… One interesting fact about Pakistan is that all people in higher class are speaking English. I thought that my English is pretty much good back in Lithuania, but compare to students and their parents – I’m quite poor… But it is ok. It means I have lots of space to improve my language skills. I just hope my new Pakistani friends don’t expect me to learn urdu (national language), I even not able to remember all peoples’ names. All of them are Ahmed, Fatima, Ayaz, Shazib, Bashir, Asad and etc.
So, after few hours of sleep I had to wake up in order to be picked up to the Karachi train station where I met more LC Karachi members. We sat into the train which supposed to take as to Lahore. The trip was interesting only because it took ~16 hours to get from Karachi to Lahore. In the train I had nice experience with Pakistan. It was first time I was drinking Pakistani beer and because of that people found me super cool : ) It happened when I showed how to open bottle beer with another bottle of beer. For them it was something Wow! Of course my stories also made some impression as I have quite rich experience in all “these” things.
As soon as I arrived to Lahore I joined facilitators’ team. Somehow I was perceived very naturally and I didn’t get any explanation about the conference, objectives and the introduction to the faci team was kind of formal one… It was good that I had a chance to read all objectives and explanations of the sessions before coming.
The chair of the conference was Rishab (ex AI VPER from India). I found him as really cool guy (in beginning I had little bit different opinion). Indians knows how to make peoples mood!
Venue. Believe me – it was awesome! I have never seen something like that! Whole conference was in Lahore Country Club which is for rich people who are coming to play cricket (varied game). And the members were so proactive! I really enjoyed being around. One of the biggest impressions they made to me is about their English communication. Even you are not close to them while they are working in smaller groups, they keep communicating in English and you always can fallow the idea what they talking about.
It was really nice when I received compliments that they liked my sessions. Now I feel more self-confident about my presentation and facilitation skills. If totally new culture could accept my jokes, my methods of deliver – it means I can do even more!
One thing which started to annoy (little bit) – it is curiosity. For them I was something unseen and exotic… Believe me or not, but I answered personally to ~80 people to the following questions: a) where are you from (after that naturally comes question “where it is”), b) how do you like Pakistan?, c) when did you arrive?, d) how long you going to stay (where you going to stay?), e) why did you come to Pakistan?! These were the main questions… Other were about the language we speak, our food and etc.
I had already prepared answers to all these questions so everything went quite automatically…
There was only one thing I was complaning and making jokes about - food! All 5 days (almost everyday) I had chiken and rise at every lunch and dinner. I thought I will get sick of that. And what is most important, they don't eat vegetables! Me and the rest lithuanians are used to eat meat with rise/patatos and some vegetables or salad, right..?
Finally after conference we took 2 days for sightseeing in Lahore. This city is really nice and has impressive historical places which definitely are worth to see. But after these two days I had to go back to Karachi because on Monday I had to start my job (first day). So we took a bus and the trip in total last for 21 hours…
Now I’m in my new flat where I’m going to live one year. The room is small, no shelves, lots of dust and random stuff left by people who were living before… It will take some time to get used to the traveling to the job and back, shopping and etc… But that’s the beauty of the internship.
Next time I’m going to tell more about Karachi, its people and my job. Keep in touch and thanks for taking care of me : )