A few weeks ago Jules moved to a new apartment.  It's quite large - seems there are no small apartments here, at least none that are anywhere close to Western standards, so immense living space is the norm if you're an expat.  It was an unfurnished place, and since neither of us have much in the way of worldly possessions and most of what we do have is buried in basements in the States, we've spent time over the last weeks filling the place up.  "Unfurnished" here means that even major appliances often aren't provided, thus purchases have included a refrigerator and a washing machine. I thought I'd introduce you to the joys of the semi-automatic washer.  Fully automatic washing machines, similar to what just about everyone has in the States, are imported for the rich and quite pricey.  Commoners settle for the semi-automatic.  These are waist-high plastic cabinets that have separate tubs for the two most important functions - washing and spinning.

What do you really need to wash clothes?  Only water, preferably some soap, and a way to agitate the items so the dirt comes out.  Around the world, folks do this in all sorts of different ways.  Some wet the clothes in the river then lay them on rocks to be beaten with paddles.  Some fill a bucket with water and swirl the clothes around with their hands.  The lucky dump clothes and soap in a metal container, turn a knob and forget about them (feel guilty, you lucky ones out there!).  The middle-class option in Islamabad is just a notch below lucky.

Here's how to wash your clothes with a semi-automatic washer.

Open the lid to the wash tub, run the cheap plastic hose into it and turn on the tap you connected it to.  As water cascades in, drop in some soap powder, then drop in the wash.  When the water level is right, turn off the tap.  Make sure the electrical outlet is turned on, then set the timer at, say, ten minutes.  Now you can wander while the motor under the tub swooshes your clothes back and forth and the water slowly turns brown.

After ten minutes the buzzer goes and the wash cycle is finished.  Flip the switch to "drain" and the water slowly runs out through a drain hose that hopefully isn't spewing water all over your bathroom floor.  When all the water is gone, turn the drain switch off, then manually refill the tub with the cheap plastic hose connected to whatever tap you have handy, then set the timer again.  This is the rinse cycle.  When done, drain again, and you have clean clothes.

At this point, though the wash may be clean, it is of course sopping wet; the wash tub does not spin it dry.  Proper dryers don't seem to exist here, so the best you can do is have your clothes flung dry in the spinner.  For this, hand-lift the heavy, wet laundry from the wash tub into the spin tub next door.  Push them down with a little plastic circle the wash handbook inexplicably calls "the gland," then set the spin timer.  The little spin motor rotates the spin basket at high speed.  If you've loaded it right, your washer might not shake itself into the next room.  To its credit, the spin-tub does a pretty good job getting water out, so by the time you hang the laundry on the line it's drier than it would be going on the line in the US.

All told it's a bit of a cumbersome process.  But the price is right, so semi-automatic washer it is.

In addition to naming the plastic spin-toppy thingy "the gland," the instruction manual that comes with such washers is full of funny English.  For starters, it insists on calling your wash "the laundries."  I find this utterly amusing, enough so that, at times, you may find me wandering the streets muttering, "The laundries are slanting!" then cracking up.  I'm sure it won't be as funny to you, but the skewed English is emblematic of things here, so I'll include some of the, to me, more priceless gems.

-Honorable users.  Thanks for choosing Haier products.  Haier products integrate high-tech. precision frontier science and possess the best qualilty among similar products.
-Do not decompose, repair or alter the machine by your self.
-Handicapped or children without care shall not use the machine.
-The big laundries like the jeans shall be put in loosely.
-When the pulsator is running, the buttons of the laundries may cause noise.  For the sake of discretion, please put the laundries with buttons into other laundries.
-During spinning, if there's abnormal sound, it is generally owing to slanting placement of the laundries.  Please stop the machine and re-order the laundries.

Other than washing excitement and the last few weeks' furniture shopping, life's fairly even-keeled.  Nothing so exciting as a sudden hospital stay in India like in the last update.

There has been the odd bomb blast, though.  For various reasons, including a recent government attack on an Islamic school in Waziristan (one of the more outlaw border areas of the country), incidents of domestic terrorism seem to be on the rise in Pakistan.  We've had two attacks by apparent suicide bombers in Islamabad the last month or so.  The first was aimed at the Marriott Hotel; the second occurred at the airport.  Both were partially thwarted by security personnel.

After the Marriott attack the newspaper headlines here simply referred to it as a "five-star hotel."  Think the Marriott PR folks have a good stranglehold on the Pakistani press?  Or maybe there's larger forces at work.  The Daily Times ran pictures of police baton-charging the journalists trying to cover the explosion, their wooden bats whomping away.  This year has been declared "Visit Pakistan 2007."  Wouldn't want to scare everyone into staying home with direct news of an attack at the hotel where all the Westerners like to stay.

I keep hearing that new attacks are imminent.  Last week I received a text forwarded by a friend more plugged into the security network than I.  It contained a warning about a rumor that police were presently chasing a potential suicide bomber around town.  I started thinking about the reality of this, and the absurdity.  What if they chased him till he holed up, shaking with fright, inside the compound where I live?  Then I got what will have to be the title of my book about Pakistan, if I ever write such a book: "Help! There's a Suicide Bomber In my Front Yard!"

I'm still plugging away on writing these days, as slow a process as ever.  And I am indeed doing a little writing about Islamabad, even a few scraps of poetry, though there's no Pak-book in sight yet.  I guess I've been here long enough to feel settled enough to write the place where I am.  I'm trying to put a piece or two in local papers, "slice of life" reportage from an American perspective; we'll see how that goes.

And by the way, I have no publicist and don't do the marketing thing well, so if anybody thinks of a US-based publication that might want "slice of life" reportage from Islamabad, do let me know.

Also, if you have a floppy, overstuffed, comfy, put-up-your-feet-and-watch-the-TV kind of couch, please send.  Couches here are all of the sit-up-straight-and-sip-your-tea-with-potential-in-laws variety. 



I recently got brave enough to take my video camera out of the house.  One day I captured some monkeys Jules and I saw on a hike.  Another day I went to a bazaar and got some pictures of chickens and vegetables and spices.  I also went to a Kashmir Solidarity Day celebration and taped the puppets, singers, actors, and dancers.

I've uploaded a montage of these images onto YouTube.  Click here to see the video, or, if that doesn't work, paste  http://youtube.com/watch?v=YnsTEF0UFcI  into your browser window.

I also posted some more pictures on the website of the recent trip to India, some pictures from Pakistan, and a gallery of favorite artsy-type pics from my travels.  You'll find them under the site's "Gallery" menu heading as "Pics from Pakistan," "India trip," and "Fave pics 2."

To close, thought I'd throw in a couple snippets from the papers here.  They'll demonstrate a reality different from what we're used to hearing about in the States.

Valentine's Day was a fairly big deal here, with stores selling cards and chocolates and the roads lined with floating clumps of helium-filled balloon hearts for sale.  There was a fair amount of debate about the holiday, though.  In the States some decry the day as just another commercial ploy.  Here they debate whether it's un-Islamic or not.  The notion of freely picking romantic partners, remember, is frowned on, and running away with an un-approved lover can still get you or someone in your family killed.

The day after Valentines, the Daily Times ran a story about some folks in Indian-held Kashmir who took it upon themselves to squash this evil Western holiday.

Couples Beaten in Held Kashmir

Srinagar: A muslim women's group in Indian-held Kashmir burned greeting cards and beat young couples to stop people celebrating Valentine's Day, witnesses said on Wednesday.  The separatist Dukhtaran-e-Millat raided restaurants and showered blows on some couples and then burned cards during a rally in Srinagar's centre.  The group, along with the Forum Against Social Evils, regularly wage morality campaigns against movies and other emblems of Western culture.

A photo accompanied the article.  In it a bearded Muslim kicked a young man while a scarf-covered woman tried to stop him.  The caption: "Forum Against Social Evils activists manhandle a youth inside a restaurant during an anti-Valentine's Day campaign here on Wednesday."

No better way to celebrate a day devoted to love, eh?

Then, in the February 9-15, 2007 edition of the Islamabad Weekly Pulse, I saw this gem.

Why are there more women in hell than men?

It was narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) that women will form the majority of the people of Hell.  It was narrated from 'Imraan ibn Husayn that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "I looked in Paradise and I saw that the majority of its people were the poor.  And I looked into Hell and I saw that the majority of its people are women."  (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 3241; Muslim, 2737)

With regard to the reason for that, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) was asked about it and he explained the reason.

It was narrated the 'Abd-Allaah ibn 'Abbaas said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "I was shown Hell and I have never seen anything more terrifying than it.  And I saw that the majority of its people are women."  They said, "Why, O messenger of Allaah?"  He said, "Because of their ingratitude (kufr)."  It was said, "Are they ungrateful to Allaah?"  He said, "They are ungrateful to their companions (husbands) and ungrateful for good treatment.  If you are kind to one of them for a lifetimea then she sees one (undesirable) thing in you, she will say, 'I have never had anything good from you.'"  (Narrated by al-Bukhari, 1052)

It was narrated that Abu Sa'eed al-Khudri said: "The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) went out to the Musalla on the day of Eid al-Adha or Eid al-Fitr.  He passed by the women and said, 'O women!  Give charity, for I have seen that you form the majority of the people of Hell.'  They asked, 'Why is that, O Messenger of Allaah?'  He replied, 'You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands.  I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religious commitment than you.  A cautious sensible man could be led astray by some of you.'  The women asked, 'O Messenger of Allaah, what is deficient in our intelligence and religious commitment?'

He said, 'Is not the testimony of two women equal to the testimony of one man?'  They said, 'Yes.'  He said, 'This is the deficiency in her intelligence.  Is it not true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?'  The women said, 'Yes.'  He said, 'This is the deficiency in her religious commitment.'"  (Narrated by al-Bukhari, 304)

It was narrated that Jaabir ibn 'Abd-Allaah said: "I attended Eid prayers with the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).  He started with the prayer before the khutbah, with no adhaan or iqaamah.  Then he stood up, leaning on Billal, speaking of fear of Allaah (taqwa) and urging us to obey Him.  He preached to the people and reminded them.  Then he went over to the women and preached to them and reminded them.  Then he said, 'Give in charity, for you are the majority of the fuel of hell.  A woman with dark cheeks stood up in the midst of the women and said, 'Why is that, O Messenger of Allaah?'  He said, 'Because you complain too much and are ungrateful to your husbands.'  Then they started to give their jewelry in charity, throwing their earrings and rings into Bilaal's cloak."  (Narrated by Muslim, 885)

Our believing sisters who learn of this hadeeth should behave like those Sahaabiyaat who, when they learned of this, did good deeds which would be the means, by Allaah's leave, of keeping them far away from being included in that majority of the inhabitants of Hell.

So our advice to the sisters is to strive to adhere to the rituals and obligatory duties of Islam, especially prayer, and to keep away from that which Allaah has forbidden, especially shirk in its many forms which are widespread among women, such as seeking one's needs from someone other than Allaah, going to practitioners of witchcraft and fortune-tellers, etc.

We ask Allaah to keep us and all our brothers and sisters far away from the Fire and the words and deeds that bring one close to it.

For those of you conversant with certain parts of Christian culture and history, some of the negative stereotyping of women evident here could sound familiar.

From this bit alone one might deduce that the Weekly Pulse is an ultra-conservative publication with no sympathies for more modern ways of looking at women's roles and intelligence.  However, the next week they ran a piece condemning honor killings and other such violence, which is directed mainly against women, and calling it a relic of medievalism that threatens to hold back Pakistan's progress.

There is a core of moderate Islamic thought here that struggles to make itself heard.  It's sometimes hard for moderates to show their face, though.  Dissent is difficult when the radicalism you wish to speak against threatens suicide bombing to keep you silent.  And Western governments aren't helping.  Their successful stereotyping of Islam as a violent religion, and their badly-planned violence against Muslim nations, has given strength to radical elements while silencing the moderate voices that wish to add balance to the international portrayal of their religion.

Perhaps if we give these voices a chance to flourish they can create a climate where a publication like the Weekly Pulse can not only decry honor killings but can also end an article headed "Why are there more women in hell than men?" with at least a gentle questioning of the basic anti-feminist premises it describes rather than avoiding the issue with an exhortation for women to do good works so that hell won't even be an option for them.