DAY 6, 7 and 8 PAKISTAN -LOW INCOME HOUSING PROJECT (LAHORE)
Hello friends and family,
Sorry for taking a few days to write the next installment. Once again, we’ve been on the go and it’s their Eid here which is equivalent to their Christmas and Karachi has been a frenzy of activity as women have been running around shopping for new bangles to wear to their family’s Eid celebration.
The food has finally caught up to me. Stomach pain, followed by all the pretty side effects. The on-the-go filming, lack of sleep and carefree eating habits have come to collect their payment. Fortunately there’s a doctor on premise and he’s prescribed a bunch of medicine to take, and as today is Eid, there isn’t much to do anyway.
We’re headed over to Ali’s shortly where his family is having a goat slaughtered for the occasion as is customary…Zach, Ali and I went shopping for some shalwars to wear to the celebration and I’m happy to report that I have a shiny green shalwar with embroidery etc. to don for the occasion courtesy of Ali’s keen eye who picked out the shalwar after frequenting what must have been twenty different shalwar shops.
Anyway, to go back a few days, we flew to Lahore in the Punjab provice (north east of Pakistan) near the capital Islamabad two days ago early in the morning to visit a low-income housing project sponsored again by the Acumen Fund. There we met Jawad, 30, a Pakistani American who moved back to Pakistan three years earlier from the US to build the community. He had worked with a real estate developer in the US on expensive private homes that cost twice what the entire community would cost to build with 75 families living there. The objective was to give Pakistanis who would never normally have the opportunity to own their own home a chance to live out their dream. Most of the home owners we met made less than $125/month and it was amazing to witness their excitement and pride in home ownership and being part of a community. What was incredible was that it wasn’t just homes, in the community was also a school for the children, a medical center, a prayer room, shops for lease, and a playground! Acumen would make no profit on 70% of the homes being sold and then would open up the other 30% to anyone in any income bracket to make their investment back. The idea was to build communities like this all over Pakistan and in fostering communities like this, pollution would decrease dramatically (as people would take pride in their communities), tolerence would increase (as it was policy to accept people of all religious denominations and races so Muslims, Hindus and Christians could ostensibly live side by side), illiteracy would diminish as the school was on the premise, and a general sense of well being would exist. Meeting all the inhabitants of the community was incredible and once again I was completely inspired to see how much could be accomplished and how many could be affected by only one partnership between the US and Pakistan..Imagine how much more could be done if other organizations like this existed and how this approach was so much more constructive than our current foreign policy was…
As a fun side note, I ended up playing a fierce game of badminton in the courtyard with three of the men in the community (doubles game) as the other community members looked on and cheered. As we were leaving, Zach mentioned that a group of young girls were peeking around the corner watching us play and he said they may have been inspired to get out there and play with the boys too…that made me smile…
Another side note, as we were driving up to the low income housing project, we were talking about democracy and whether it was right for Pakistan and Jawad quoted a famous Pakistani philosopher and poet Allama Iqbal who said, “Man should be weighed, not counted.” In other words, someone who is literate and has had the schooling to have independent thought and make responsible decisions should hold more weight than someone who is illiterate and is just following the crowd…thoughts on that?
We then rushed to meet with Jugnu Mohsin, a very famous newspaper editor for four or five different papers in Pakistan. She invited us to her home which was a beautiful place where we sat in her living room to film the interview. We drank in the decor as we waited for her, which was as tasteful and intellectual as her demeanor, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with books from all over the world, fire place crackling with fresh logs she had had her maids put in just for us, gorgeous carpeting and a beautiful brass tray with an exquisite tea set with biscuits prepared for the occasion. She is in her mid sixties I’m guessing, was very soft spoken but had hard hitting things to say. Her husband had been to jail on a dozen different occasions as he was also a powerful newspaper editor and the government didn’t like what he had to say and they both had been threatened with their lives. So she was suspicious of our intentions and asked us to turn our cameras off to find out who we were..
Anyway, long story short, she was one of the few we met who was optimistic about “democracy” in Pakistan and that to her democracy was more than just the “mob rule”, it was an idea, a concept that people could speak freely, and that their way of life wasn’t being threatened day by day as it currently was…that others had the luxury of being pessimistic about whether Obama was going to bring about change like he said he was, and that she had no choice but to be optimistic because otherwise there was no hope….She left us with things to think about.
We returned to Karachi late that night with even more layers added to the complicated idea of “democracy” and whether it was the right approach.
The next morning, we met with Jaqueline Novogratz, the CEO and founder of the Acumen Fund over breakfast at her hotel. She was filled with hopeful ideas and optimism despite negative experiences which I think really resonated with Zach. I think he may have been misty eyed hearing her story and then telling his and how similar their experiences were in many ways. Democracy is about listening, she said.
We then ran over to meet with Zeba again, at the DIL headquarters in Karachi where we sat down to get an overview of the DIL schools since we didn’t get a chance to talk about it when we first went to Khairpur…They had just won the Target grant of 15000 to build another school which they had won three years running. Apparently Target (the retail store) is big on this sort of thing. Another positive American contribution that you don’t hear about.
We spent the afternoon and evening with Ali, and his family shopping for shalwars (as mentioned earlier in this email) as we hadn’t seen him in two days and were feeling like the worst guests…We had dinner at one of the best restaurants in Karachi, Okra, it had a warmness about it, and another one of our Cornell buddies, Asad, met up with us with his beautiful wife and a few of their friends as well, along with Wajahat, the Dawn News anchor we had met for dinner a few nights prior. (ten of us total) We then went over to their house and had drinks over their bar listening to music and smoking a hukkah…(well I did neither since my stomach had started hurting by then).. But the boys and girls quickly separated into two groups, and I blabbed with the girls all night about the differences in customs, and host of subjects..They were so down-to-earth, beautiful, smart, worldly and welcoming, I felt like I had lived in Karachi for years and we were spending a typical saturday night together. Again, a tribute to the incredible people of this country.
That brings me to this morning where we’re headed to Eid celebratory brunch shortly. I will likely be eating bread. 
Miss you guys and I must say, I am missing the Christmas holiday season a twinge…:)
Love Radha
