Saturday, September 08, 2007

Pakistan: A High Stress Country?

I was reading the BBC and found a quite accurate description of life in Pakistan.

Humour - Pakistan-style
The BBC Urdu service's Masud Alam in Islamabad tries to see the funny side of life in Pakistan, where humour allows a country in crisis to let off steam.

"Pakistan is a high-stress country.

Tensions rose in Islamabad after July's mosque siege.

Its population has to contend with long power cuts at home, various types of discrimination and injustice in the work place and routine humiliation at the hands of security officials on their own streets - and at airports all over the Western world.

There's always the possibility of a lunatic blowing himself up in a busy market, a park or a mosque. Or one can get caught in cross-fire between uniformed and civilian gunmen, and not know who to run away from.

Hot weather, pollution, rich and spicy food, an abundance of sexual desire - and no way of satisfying it - only add to the strain on already volatile tempers.

If this society is still functional then it's all down to "comic relief" which, thankfully, is in no short supply in the Islamic republic."
Just yesterday two women were found beheaded by tribesmen in NWFP. Notes were left with their bodies accusing them of prositution. Next week nobody is quite sure who will be in charge of the government. High stress is a good way to describe the situation! I have to read the news every day at least twice to see if anything dramatic has happened. At the same time, if I didn't read the news life would be going on just as it always does here. Wake up early, go to school, come home, visit with friends. Without the news we likely wouldn't even know about the chaos, political and otherwise, happening right here. It definitely makes our lives a little more exciting. School things happen in the same way as the government. We go there every day not knowing exactly what our schedule will be, what classes we will teach, or even if the students will be there or not. Last minute field trips and schedule changes don't seem to be out of the ordinary, and when we finally think we're almost getting some sort of a groove with the timetable, Ramadan is going to start. That means everything has to change again! There also might be elections coming up and formerly ousted political leaders might try to come back to our city. I'm wondering if this will affect school or transportation at all. As everyone seems to like saying here: "Let's see what happens."