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.