Tuesday, February 19, 2008

At least the maid voted

I've talked to the first person I know who actually voted: my maid. She took advantage of the government holiday and didn't come to clean yesterday. I suspected she was having a picnic or just enjoying herself, but she actually went to the polls! She and her husband voted for the PPP (Ms. Bhutto's party as the maid said) and Nawaz Sharif's party. She tried to make an excuse about how she wanted to vote in the morning before it got busy so that she could still come clean, but for some reason or another she didn't get around to coming to work. She tried to explain to me why she voted for the PPP, but my Punjabi is no where near good enough for a discussion of politics.

Things I was able to find out
  • the polls were busy
  • there were a lot of women
  • there were a lot of old women
  • everything was safe
Voter turnout was less than 40% so I'm interested to see if anyone else I know participated in the election. Things seem calm and secure here in Lahore. The birds sang through two beautiful spring days in Defence, and we didn't have to go to school!