Diaper Measles and the Master of the Babies

Yeah, Chonou is supposed to be getting potty trained. No, that isn't happening right now. And, yes, thanks for asking, he does have Super Desi Diaper Rash(aka, diaper measles)

The rash is probably because of the weirdness in the diapers, in addition to the fact that they are way too small, and either stores don't carry his size, or certain people *cough cough* insist on buying small diapers because "they 'fit' last time."

The following are some fun diaper packages that we have bought(there was also a brand called "camera" but I think we threw the package away already. It kinda creeped me out, when I would see the packaging, I would imagine that there was probably a camera inside the diaper. Yeah......

This, "no more rashes" brand is the same one that writes about diaper measles on the packaging.

Master of the babies! GRRRRRRRRR!

And of course, dispose off properly. If you can even find a trash can. Not like it matters though, everything ends up on the ground anyways, and REAL garbage, the stuff that truly can not be reused, will get burnt anyways.
Oh, and text us is you have any questions.

Pakistan vs India

So what? Pakistan LOST. It's awesome how excited people get about cricket here. Everyone had the second half of the day off to watch the match. There were texts floating around about how this game was not really a game, but it was a war. They showed the game at my brother and sister-in-law's university. People painted their faces(some with indian flags). The boys who had painted the indian flags on their faces were banned from watching the game for a while until they decided that since they were really pakistani, and actually were students of the school, and that they probably wouldn't actually kill the other students. I saw some videos, and the guys were going crazy. You know those protests you see, where they burn some country's flag? It looked just like that. Only, they were pakistanis, holding the pakistan flag in pride. There is way too much patriotism here, it's cool :) The power company also didn't take out our light in the afternoon like usual. I was told it was because if they DID take the light, there would be people out to kill them :P I spent most of the day enjoying the fact that there was power all day long, forgetting that there is, indeed power all day long back in the states.

Chonou went to watch the game at the university, but the loud cheering that the girls made scared Chonou, and he started crying and had to come home.

I also think that during the match, someone fired a bomb(not just a firecracker.) Me and chonou were outside when it happened, and it scared me, and chonou. He looked like he was about to cry. Later, baji told me she heard it too(the university is a few blocks away) but I don't know how loud it was for her. I think it was probably someone who got a little too excited, and bought a bomb in there with his firecrackers :P

The commercials during the game were pretty awesome too. The majority were incredibly patriotic, and most commercials were for mobile companies. The mobile companies were running some sort of deal that was only valid during the game.

The end of the game felt close, even though it really wasn't. Pakistan played terribly, I hear. I was watching the game at the end though. Even when I wasn't watching the game, I would still stop by the TV to see what the score was when I heard some cheering or just when it had been a long time since I'd checked.

You could actually hear the cheering all the way from India(or maybe it was coming from the Indian supporters in Pakistan. I also think that  maybe people just wanted to light their firecrackers anyways, since they went to all the trouble to actually buy them. I'm kinda glad they lost. If they had won, I wouldn't have been able to sleep at midnight. There would have been too much noise!

Sick.

I have pate ka dard. Dolor de estómago. Pain in stomach. Whatever language you want it in. I've no idea why either. Same pani, same food, no street food preceding the stomach pain. AND, its been over a month since I've been here, so I don't get it. Oh well. It's not as severe pain as it was yesterday. Today, the pain has just been occasionally showing up. Anyhow, just thought I would share, the coolness of NOT getting sick when we got here, but managing to get sick later for some mystery reason. Oh, and the coolness of having intense, stabbing, pate ka dard while also having to go hiking through the mountains. FUN STUFF!

4, 3, 0, 3, 2, 1 :(

My choosay, that is. :( First there were 4. Then there were 3. Then they got taken to a farm to live. Then I insisted that they come home. (They came home with poop stuck to their butts, for what it's worth.) Then there were 2. Then there was 1. One lonely choosa. It's the yellow one thats left. He's the strong/fast one anyways. Poor choosay, probably got eaten by some bird or something.

Poor lonely choosa. I put him in the cage so he doesn't get eaten too. He's been flying around the cage all upset and trying to break out(and he did break out successfully once.)

I think when my husband comes we are going to have to buy more chickens(because the main point of buying the choosay were to 1) replace the husband(since their dying off so quickly, does that mean the husband is coming sooner? I kinda hope so!) and 2) so I can slaughter and cook them when he DOES come. A welcome home gift. 

Banned from Bazaar

My baby is banned from the bazaar. His aunt said so. You wanna know why he is banned from bazaar? No, he didn't knock over a table of kupre, or a stand of sweets. He didn't pee on anyone, or actually jump off of the rickshaw(though he definitely tried, and not because he was upset or anything, I think he just thought it was a good idea or something.) Nope, he is banned because he is obsessed with motorbikes. Yep. We can't take him to bazaar, or even on a walk down the street, without him obsessing over going on one of the thousands of motorbikes parked in every possible spot. So he got banned. Maybe I'll carry him in the mei tai next time, if the in-laws let me. Its ajeeb how ajeeb desis find babywearing. It's even ajeeber to me that they decide to instead carry the baby in their arms. It's even way more ajeeber to me that they carry the baby in an incredibly warm sleep sack thing when I find it warm. 

There will be no janazah for him...

...because he was a choosa. Poor choosa. He is missing, and he probably got eaten by a much bigger bird. Alhamdulillah, he was rizq for that bird, and maybe the birds kiddos. Now there are only 3 choosay left, and they are growing up quite, uh, nicely? They're very dirty, and the three of them are all different sizes. We think one(or all) of them is(are) dying. I believe it means that at least one will be a rooster inshallah. We'll find out inshallah. And if we don't(assuming they all get eaten by something) we will just get some hens and a rooster from bazaar inshallah!

Quadruplets

I am the proud mother of 5 under 2. YAY! The quads share a birthday with my Jaanou Maanou, February 28. I adopted them just yesterday, March 3rd. They are a lot of work, but a blast. They are also really pretty. Did I mention that the quads are choosay? That means baby chickens for those of you non-pakistanis :P They're really pretty because they were colored with something, probably powder, so there are two orange ones, and two yellow green and pink ones. One of them kept trying to eat the other ones last night, so I put him in a separate box(they came in a shoebox.) Turns out, the cannibal one is also the jumpy one, and he just escaped out of the box, and back into the other box. We have them in a cage now though.

Chonou loves them. They were running around the terrace today. Chonou loves to pet them and poke them and try to feed them things, like roti and macaroni noodles.

They make a ton of noise and are always falling asleep. I love to hold them, and one(maybe both?) of the orange ones likes to be held. One of the orange ones has a spot on its beak. I don't know how I'm gonna tell them apart when they get older though. Not like it really matters though, right?

As of now, I'm gonna pretend I don't know the genders of them. Shhhhh! it's a secret ;) Well, its not like I really know anyways. I tried to check, but I'm no chicken sexer. As far as I know, I think they're all hens. I should know better in about 6 weeks, when they hit puberty or whatever. If I don't have any roosters, we might have to buy a live rooster, just because it would be awesome to have my own rooster that says RikaRikaROOOOO!

Ah, kids grow up so fast. Or perhaps I should save that line for when we get the goats? Mwahaha

Chonou's Day Out

So by now, Chonou is a pro at driving motorbike, such a pro that we considered getting him glasses to wear so he doesn't get "stuff" in his eyes while he's riding in front, holding onto the handlebars. He now goes everywhere with his Chacha(uncle) on the bike, except maybe when Chacha has to go to class. 

Chonou also rode a rikshaw for the first time. He sat in the back with me and Baji (prime falling off zone). We also found out that it's prime "throwing stuff off the back of the rikshaw" zone when he threw a juicebox off the back on our way home. I think he's turning into quite the pakistani, contributing to Pakistan's pollution level. Man, Attock has enough garbage everywhere as is it, they don't need more.

So why was Chonou riding the rikshaw you might ask? Well, we went to bazaar with him. What fun! We went right after praying dhur(a few hours after it came in). Chonou just wanted to ride the bikes that were parked everywhere. He liked one shop where he realized that the cloth was right. there. and he could take advantage of that to wear hijab and pray. But this shop keeper was kinda crazy, lol, he knew we were shopping for me, and Baji didn't like the fabrics, but he kept trying to make her buy a suit too. He was trying so hard to sell these ugly suits to her that he had to take the cloth away from Chonou to show it again, and Chonou didn't mind, he just got another cloth from the now huge pile of ugly fabrics that the guy had taken out.

But Chonou saw food in the middle of the bazaar and he wanted some. But he was pointing to this rock hard candy covered peanuts thing and well, he doesn't even like those, let alone be able to chew them. Baji thought we should look for chips, meaning potato chips, or crisps, but also meaning french fries, I guess, because we ended up at a french fry stand, and man, those things looked gross, but maybe that's because french fries just always look gross to me unless I make them. Or maybe it was because they were soggy and really did look gross. Allahu Alim. We ended up getting him cookies and a juice box(the soon to be thrown off the rikshaw juice box.) Then we had to do some other stuff, and we looked at more kupre, and there was only a half hour until maghrib, we hadn't prayed asr, then chonou started getting grumpy about the salah being so late, he tried to run away a few times, we were down to 20 minutes, I was threatening to pray in the bazaar, but there was still a few things that ummi had to do(i.e the entire reason for going to bazaar in the first place.) Alhamdulillah, we made it home in time to pray, with like, 3 minutes to spare. 

Itwaar Bazaar

Yesterday was Itwaar(Sunday). So we went to Itwaar Bazaar in Islamabad. It was huge! But the strangest thing I saw there was some white lady, wearing American clothes. At first glance, Baji thought she was a statue, because it was so weird. Then I contemplated on how not only am I white, but how weird it was to be white here. It would be like having purple skin back home. I saw some other light skinned women, who were wearing desi clothes and speaking Urdu, and they didn't stick out too much. I wonder what I look like. LOL! The second strangest thing that I saw was a tie between people interrupting each other, beggars asking you for more money after you already give them some(I didn't, Ummi did) and this one shop that decided to turn up the music really really loud while we were looking for something, and I'm talking so loud that it made us want to walk away(and I did, although I think ummi was in the middle of buying something, a new electricity converter, since chonou broke one.

We ended up spending only about an hour or two there, I'm not sure why, maybe we were getting tired, and then we went home. Once I got home, I realized that we didn't even get the one thing that we really had to buy(a warm chador for my husband before they put the warm clothing away (cold weather is almost over).

Chonou got a new cricket bat and some bubbles that he absolutely loves, and I got fabric for a jilbab. We also got some yummy sugar cane and sugar cane juice. YAY!

Toilet Trouble

This post should be a few days old too. So, the bathroom in the girls room has a tub, sink, american toilet, and a "hole in the ground" desi toilet. Shortly after getting here, the american one broke. Fun stuff. And no, I didn't break it, the plunger thingy broke, the thing that flushes the toilet. So I had to use the desi toilet. No biggie. Just take the pants off. All the way. Until I, yes, ME, I broke the desi toilet. One might ask, "well, how do you break a hole in the ground?" and the answer would have to be "Trust me, it's very possible, just throw wipes and napkins down it." I ended up fishing most of the wipes out of it (ewww) when they came back up, but there's probably still one down there, because it doesn't flush too well.

So we need a plumber. Only, my brother in law is too lazy to get one. Or something. If we had a plunger that would probably work, but for some reason, we don't have one, despite there being 5 toilets in this 3 bedroom house.

UPDATE:
Abou just fixed the american toilet today, he bought a new part for it. Desi toilet is still broken, but alhamdulillah, the american one is working now :)

Bomb Blast

BOOM! Ok, not really a bomb, but it sure sounded like it. Turns out a truck loaded with dirt popped a tire in the street right in front of our house. The whole street was interested, and the kids just had to come check out the tire. After a few minutes the excitement subsided. We left for the bazaar to get Ummi and Abou some new glasses, added with a trip to the cloth store, and returned to find a pile of dirt outside the front door. Now we have a pile of dirt on our side of the street, plus the other pile of dirt and the pile of bricks across the street because the house next door was being built.

In other news, Chonou got to play with the goats across the street today with his Chacha, and he got to be our "driver" when we went to bazaar(it seems like as soon as Abou got out of the car, chonou, with his car key, rushed to sit in the driver's seat(and put the key in the ignition.) He will probably be driving motorbike on his own by his 3rd birthday. 

Bizarre Aur Bazaar

So we went shopping. It was, how should I put it, an experience! I almost got ran over by something, a car or motorbike or rikshaw, I can’t remember, but it was fun. I think I got pretty good at crossing the busy street. The shops were nice too. I like how the shop owners sit with you and try to sell their product. I like how they make a big huge mess taking all of the fabrics out, and I think its cool that they just leave all of the fabrics out until you leave. I think its awesome that I can just about completely understand Urdu when there are a lot of context clues. 

We bought some fabric for me, a warm chador, and some shoes and toys for Chonou. Chonou's shoes didn’t fit though, and his new bike was broken, so abou and baji(my eldest sister in law) took the bike back tot he shop to exchange it a few times, and then they went back to find the shop owner had went home, so they got his address and tracked him down. He wasn’t home, but they saw him on the street on the way home. This happened while I took my afternoon nap, with Chonou, who had been napping since before we got home from shopping (he stayed home while we were out.) 

We had some visitors, and it is so different being the foregner for a change. My Urdu isn’t that good, so when I talk to the aunties that don’t speak English, I don’t really want to talk because I know its going to sound bad. 

Rikshaws and Gunshots

I'm writing this days later, just because I'm lame. And because I'm lazy. And partially because the power goes out all the time, making it inconvenient to post. The other day I went on a rikshaw for the first time. I've never even been in a taxi, let alone a rikshaw. Fun stuff. Me and my sister in law were venturing out to the bazaar for the first time on our own. On the way there, there was lots of traffic and some celebratory gunshots because peoples party was in town giving a speech or having a rally or whatnot. We considered turning back, but decided to continue on when the driver told us the speech was going to be somewhere else(not in the bazaar.)

Day -1 and Day 1

 I didn't write anything on the plane. I was going to then I decided not to but now that I'm writing this I might as well write about the plane ride over.

After a nice day in Chicago, my husband dropped us off at the airport. Well, he left me and Chonou inside with all of our luggage while he parked the car and joined us. We got there a good 4 hours early and we couldn't even check in for maybe an hour. So we waited until we could check in and we were maybe the first people to check in. without realizing it, we had insured that my bags would be the last off of the plane. As a note on how lax PIA is, 2 of the bags met the weight requirement, 1 bag was something like 7 kg and the other bag was a few kg over the limit. Even when asked if necessary, they didn't want to weigh my carryons. By the way I had 2x he luggage because of Chonou having his own seat.

After locking my luggage with chickenwire we went to go check out security. The line for security at terminal 5 in ORD was just about empty. So we waited and waited and waited. I didn't want to wait in a long security line on my own, so after getting a few more breaths of fresh American air, we decided that it was finally time to go. Besides, they had a kids play area on the other side of the terminal.

I started to cry as I left my husband. Decided I had to keep the tears in to keep from looking like i was on a suicide mission. Although this is american security I'm talking about, it was incredible stress free. The most stressful thing was that his one tsp lady kept telling me to be careful my 20 month old didn't fall off the table. Yes ma'am I got it, he's just sitting there, hes not going to fall, if he did, he would be ok, and either way, it's better then him running around. I put my laptop, shoes, and chonou's shoes in bins and I asked the tsp lady if I had to take my phone out. She told me I did so I took my phone and iPod out of my backpack. I didnt even realize that i forgot to take the bags of liquids out of my bag, despite the seemingly constant pa reminders about the liquids policy. Then she said somethíng to the effect of how she thought the phone was in my pocket because I had to take everything out of my pockets. At that point I realized that she wanted me to go through the mmw and I said to her, "I'm not going in that thing." She said Ok but you're going to have a pat down and I said that it was fine. I pushed Chonou through the metal detector before going through myself. I struggled to hold his hand to prevent him from wandering away while the tsa agent in training patted my hijab and leg area down. No biggie, no full pat down. Got through so quickly that I had to wait for my bag to come through the X-ray. We put the shoes back on and I called my husband. Of course, Chonou was getting grumpy by this point so it was hard to hear/talk. We jaldied over to the play area, conveniently located within eyesight of our terminal. We played and played and met some new friends and played and met more new friends and played some more. All of the people in the play area were on my flight. Chonou fell down 3 or 4 times, crying every time. It was getting close to boarding time  so I went to change his diaper and use the restroom myself. Then we ran around the terminal a bit more, waiting for boarding. I realized that they were taking forever so I decided to go make wudu and pray before boarding. But where to pray where Chonou couldn't run away? The kids play area! My husband called while I was praying, which resulted in Chonou throwing my phone out of the play area, unbeknown to me. As soon as I finished praying I searched frantically for my phone, until I found it on the floor outside of the play area. Maybe Chonou threw it because he thought it was a bomb. I wouldn't blame him for thinking that either, that's what I was thinking tsa would think if they had seen it. Nothing happened though and I grabbed my bags, and Chonou just in time for early boarding.

Early boarding probably wasn't necessary since our flight was only half full, but it was nice to get out of the airport and have somewhere else for Chonou to explore. I took a bunch of pics and sent them to my husband before boarding, and we spoke for the last time until we got to Pakistan. After being yelled at a few times by the flight attendant to turn off the phones I did, only to turn it back on a few more times(to take pics) a little bit later. It was on and off for a good portion of the flight. Of course, Chonou had to poop in the air, he pooped while I was changing him too and it was all great fun, kinda, well, not really. He had some fun on the plane, he wouldn't keep the ear buds in, and the video selection kinda really sucked but jimmy neutron was on one channel and some Urdu kids game show was on another, but mostly, he just liked the snacks and liked playing with the screen.


Getting off of the plane was, how shall I say it, interesting. We got off the plane, down the stairs, where we boarded a crowded bus to get to the airport. Then we had to go through immigration, which was crazy because I was trying to fill out both forms while standing in line, and then auntie ji helped me get my luggage. I liked how I got to completely ignore the people trying to get your luggage for you because I had auntie ji with me and because I am just *that* desi now. :P

Its 2:56am paki time and I think I hear a train. That would explain the "screaming" sound I was hearing earlier, but I didn't know there was a train track around here. Not that it's something I would know anyways. I was up at around 1:45 due to jet lag, with the added benefit of getting to use the bathroom in complete darkness. The power was out for a good 2 hours. Baji woke up, and it turns out that it was a train, but the "screaming" was someone walking through the street blowing a whistle to keep the robbers away. He gets paid 50 rupees by most of the houses in the street.