April 10, 2014. Day 5. One of the rules for visiting Chakwal province
is to get a military permit a month prior to the visit, which was what our
security officer, a former military officer, did. The reason for that is so
that they could coordinate the police escort wherever we go in Chakwal. For
the same reason, we also needed to give them our itinerary.
Garbed in our Pakistani costume (we were advised to wear
one), we started early for Chakwal, where another of our Program Office is
situated.
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| Me in Pakistani clothes |
After 1.5 hours of travel, we reached the toll gate at Chakwal, and
our police escort showed up. We were in
a convoy with the police car, with its blinkers and siren and four policemen
with long high powered guns. Yay!
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| Our police escorts |
We reached the office, had meeting, workshop, document and
system review and some snacks. By now, I
have realized that Pakistani cuisine is mostly of chicken. Even the snacks.
Everything seems to come with chicken- unless you specify something else.
After lunch, we headed to one of the villages, which was
another good 1.5 hours of travel. And
travel up and deeper in the mountains we did.
And those were beautiful stone mountains.
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Chakwal mountains
|
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| And wheat fields |
We were again welcomed with rose petals when we reached the
community. We had our meetings, and
visits of families with our police escorts tailing us.
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| Me and Neeta with the 2 kids |
The houses in Chakwal are different than those in
Islamabad. They looked like from the olden
times described in the bible. Their houses are compounds, with several separate
rooms. In one part of the compound are
their goats and cattle.
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| One of the houses/compounds |
While making my way back to the car, I also saw a girl
carrying water jar.
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| Just like the olden times |
Time travel. That’s what it felt like- the remoteness of the
place, the dresses, the houses, and that water jar.
By 4 pm, we were so hungry, we rushed back to the "real world".
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| Happy after the late, late lunch. |
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