More pictures than words this time.

I’m in the transit lounge at the Abu Dhabi airport, watching people try to get comfortable on hard plastic chairs. Very sad leaving Islamabad today. Sikandar took me on a quick tour of places I had missed this time around and I’m grateful for his calm demeanor and encyclopedic knowledge. Here’s a condensed version of our condensed tour:

A goat (“buckree”) and I circled each other suspiciously at Said Pur Village:

I went to the Centaurus Mall and felt queasy at the glut of stuff.  I’m not a fan of malls in the States (although it can be tranquilizing to walk around Rosedale on a Tuesday morning when everyone seems kind of dazed) (I’m not endorsing this), but it was interesting to see a parallel universe to ours. There was cryptic wisdom on display as well:

And:

So strange to see traces of the west in Pakistan. I ate at an outdoor Chinese restaurant in Lahore that was next to a Crocs outlet. Sikandar bought me a samosa from a storefront that shared its parking lot with a Hardee’s drive-through. McDonald’s is sponsoring a “Keep Pakistan Clean and Green” campaign. I bought water at a Cinnabon here in Abu Dhabi.  Two days ago I wandered around the National Art Gallery in Islamabad and looked at the modern miniatures. They were beautiful and, in the case below, funny. Bugs Bunny holding up a nawab who is looking at an upside down world. Everything melds together:

I love this quote from Bashir Ahmad (the miniaturist, not the mixed-martial artist; they share the same name. I just found this out). Maybe “love” is the wrong word, because what he says is apocalyptic and fitting for the madness gripping our leaders and their followers right now.  The quote is below; the first line caught me: “Our lives are moving at a pace that our bodies disagree with.”  Everyone is exhausted, overwhelmed by stimuli that don’t add up to much. I see this in improv scenes: we’ll frantically try to keep a plot going, adding information without reacting to it, and soon there is no relationship, no gravity to the scene, nothing matters because everything has the same weight. It starts to feel meaningless and frustrating. Invariably the characters argue.  “How do they make it up so fast?” people will ask after a show, but in truth improv only works when people slow down and connect and trust what their bodies are saying.

Disconcerting. I’m at the gate in Paris waiting for my plane to Chicago. My body is disagreeing with the pace of this travel (I won’t go into it), but I do love moving about like this. None of it makes sense.  Much like this blog.

My last two days in Islamabad were wonderful.  I did two workshops, one with the advising staff at USEFP and the other with high school students. They were all enthusiastic and committed and I didn’t want to leave when the time came. Maybe this picture will capture how I felt:

This may be surprising, but I loved the quiet in Pakistan. The parks in Lahore were serene. The grounds of the USEFP office reminded me of home and my grandparents’ house.  I know there’s turmoil and violence underneath–we have that, too, in the States–but it was wonderful to focus on teaching and pare everything down for a few weeks.  Thank you, Fulbright. I loved being here.

A few more images:

The big silence, after:

What I loved:

People I met who are doing courageous, compelling, INCLUSIVE theater work:

And, for now, this:

Flying to Chicago and then home–