Gone Fishin'

A few weekends ago, I was invited on a fishing trip. When I was asked, the guy beside me replied saying, “Of course he wants to, he’s Canadian.” I told them that this should also be their response to: “Do you want a beer.” I’ve given up explaining that Canadians are not all woodsmen. Lately, I just go with the explanation that Canadians are just like Americans, except more polite, and we don’t think that Jesus is in the White House. I wasn’t sure exactly what a fishing trip in Pakistan was going to entail, but that’s generally the case with everything I do here. Want to do this? Sure, what is it? Want to eat this? Sure, what is it?

So, we struck out at 4:30 AM, or at least, that was the plan. I think we finally were on the road by 5:45. So far, exactly like a Canadian fishing trip. We drove out of the city along the coast for about an hour past French Beach, where we usually go when we are headed “to the beach.” I have no idea why it is called French Beach, and I have even asked, but I certainly haven’t seen any Parisians strolling around. We crossed a small mountain range into the neighbouring province of Bulachistan, Karachi’s province being Sindh. You have to use your imagination on the “mountain” part. We’re not talking the Rockies here or even the Appalachians really. But they’re still impressive pale outcrops of rock that tower above the sand. You really get the sense that a couple of minor tectonic plates had a disagreement over something a few eons ago.

Bulachistan is one of Pakistan’s larger provinces, but it is also the most sparsely populated. We pulled into a village, whose name I don’t remember, and I don’t suppose it would be essential information for any of you anyway. The village is undeniably a fishing village, and you get the feeling that nothing has changed much there in a quite some time. My friend had recently had a boat built and it was tied up in front of the village, along with at least sixty others. The boats are difficult to describe, but that’s not going to stop me from trying. They are open, with no cabin. The front and back are identical and amidships flares out quite widely. You know those Greek warships featured in terrible movies about the fall of Troy? Well, these aren’t really like that at all. Maybe more like a Viking ship, except not really either. You know, maybe try picturing a Venetian Gondola that’s 30 feet long, has a raised section at either end, and in lieu of a swarthy Italian with a pole, has two, big diesel engines on the stern deck. These engines power propellers that are on long shafts that can be raised and lowered with ropes. That way, they can bring the boats right up on the beach. We only used one of these engines and propellers, so I don’t know if the other is back up, or whether they do use both sometimes. The rudder comes up well above the deck and ends in a yoke with a rope tied to both sides. This allows the boatman to sling the rope across his middle and steer by pulling one way or the other. Conveniently, this also allows him a large range of movement on the stern deck while still in control. The design of the boat is very old; when the villagers build one, there are no plans followed or measurements taken, the workmanship has been passed down for generations. Even the slips where the boats are moored are passed down from family to family.

As we were loading the boat, there was a buzz amongst the villagers that a marlin had been caught the day before. I asked about this, and was told it was only a small one, but it was one of the first of the season. How small, I asked.…. Oh, only about 100 Kilos. Right, I thought, now I understand what kind of fishing this is going to be. I looked sceptically at the boat, and tried to imagine hauling a 200 pound fish over the side. The kids of the village were about the cutest I’ve seen. They have dark skin, much darker than those from Sindh province, and their hair is bleached out, I’m presuming by the sun and salt water. This kind of makes them look like little Beyonce’s. They would shuffle up shyly. I’m not sure if they had ever seen the likes of me before. We gave them some candy and they shared it amongst themselves, helping the smaller ones get the wrappers off. Awww.

And then we were off. The boatmen can control these craft with amazing skill. We had two villagers along with us as our crew. The older man was primarily in charge of steering, and he was straight out of Hemmingway, except maybe for the turban. He was old and gristled, with just the right amount of teeth for a big toothless grin. He also wore glasses, which made me think he knew what he was doing. The other guy was younger and in charge of the engine and the fishing gear. He reminded me of a darker version of Joe Walsh, post Eagles, pre- reunion tours. He was also great, with a big smile most of the time. Now, this might be because the two of them consumed more Hashish in 8 hours than I have ever seen in my short life. They were constantly rolling up another joint, and they even seemed to have some form of marijuana that they chawed on like chewin’ tobacker.

We cruised out, and set 8 deep-sea, spinning tackle rods trolling behind us. Any time one would go off, the guys would run to cut the engine, and then we would play the fish in. We caught a few small yellow fin tuna, about three feet long. The fishermen all use an interesting system of hand signals as they pass each other in the noisy boats. First, you raise your hand over your head as if you were holding an imaginary ball. This means, “What’s the story?” Then they use a series of signals to tell you what fish they have caught and how many. We started getting signals from these guys telling us that there were Barracuda (signal: snipping fingers like scissors) schooling back by one of the islands. So we turned around and headed that way.

The island was yet another peak of the mountain range that I spoke of earlier, but it thrust directly out of the water a few hundred feet. It’s pretty impressive. Around the island swarmed just about every boat in the vicinity. They were all making passes through the same area. So picture 50 boats passing pell-mell, higgledy-piggledy, trailing fifty feet of line behind them, and using only hand signals to communicate. It made me think of traffic back in the city. On each pass we were hooking four or five barracuda at a time. Here is a fish that is done in by its love of shiny things. We took in about 20 fish, and I caught the biggest one (ha!), about 4 feet long. It reminded me of fishing Mackerel at home, how you can just drop your line and catch a bucket load. But speaking of Mackerel, when we got back to the beach, someone had caught a large one. It looked exactly like mackerel at home, except, you know, it was over 6 feet long. Of course, you know me, I couldn’t resist saying, “Holy Mackerel.” Don’t worry, no one laughed then either.

On the way home we entered the city limits, and one of the guys said, “Ahhh, back to civilization.” ….I refrained from any comment.

List Number 2

List Number 2

More things I have learned…

1. I must drink more water. “If I don’t pee white, then I’m a frightful sight.”
2. Light switches go up for off and down for on. A big thanks to the Brits for my continually turning the wrong things on.
3. In regards to item #1, I’ve realized that my necessity for water, and my contant ingestion of spicey foods is something akin to mixing a quart of 10 W 30 with a Litre of Evian. See how that mixes.
4. If it is dark, I can be mistaken for a native. This is due in part to my trendy beard. Now I need only work on my tan… AKA my disguise.
5. Pursuant to items numbers 1 and 3, I am going through toilet paper at an alarming rate.
6. In Canada, I could have counted how often I took a cold shower in my life. Here, it is a daily occurrence.
7. Rain is an event.
8. This town is woefully unprepared for rain. A light drizzle has led to two foot deep puddles and roads washed out.
9. It doesn’t take you long to adapt, to forget you’re on the other side of the world. Then you see a camel.
10. The idea that a Canadian is here voluntarily is proportionately just as hilarious to people over here.

At The Walking Park

Hello once again,

Well, I’ve made it through three whole weeks. Not too shabby. Not many bombings to speak of, and only the average amount of violent crime. Luckily I’ve seen none first hand. Although, I have met one guy who is adamant that we should stage my beheading on the internet. I have, so far, been able to hold him off.

Every week day, I go for a walk with Sophie’s father, Javed. He has recently retired, and Sophie feels that I am probably the greatest retirement present he has yet received. In any case, Javed invited me along for his walk on one of my first days here. I didn’t know at that time that I was signing up for the duration.

We drive to a nearby walking park, which is in the middle of my area of Karachi, known as Defence Society (A forbidding name, but a nice area, its name pertains to its former status as military holdings, before it was parcelled off and sold). To enter the gates and park a car at the park costs a marginal 15 Rupees (5 Rupees per person and 5 for the car), in total, this is the equivalent of about 30 cents. The park has two 1 km walking/running tracks. The outer one is for clock-wise walking and the inner for counter-clockwise. This is fortunate, since you can switch tracks halfway through and unwind yourself. (This relates to my theory as to why Nascar fans are too wound up)(Wow, I’m going wild with parenthetical statements today). In the centre of the tracks is a large open green space with play grounds, a place for roller-blading, and a small canteen/café.

I enjoy this daily foray for a number of reasons. It’s nice to get out during the day for one, and to get a little exercise. Since I don’t drive, or at least not yet, I’m usually inside for most of the daylight hours. Karachi isn’t the type of place where you would just up and walk around town. It’s safe enough, but one shouldn’t push it. So, most of my adventures are at night, when Sophie gets home from work. This isn’t such a bad thing, since the heat and I are not yet best friends. I also enjoy the walking park because there is a wide cross-section of people that I see there. Families bring their kids to play in the on the playground and on the lawns. And you never know who will be walking or jogging. Javed has pointed out many judges and politicians out for exercise amongst the regular folks. It reminds me of the Circus Maximus in Rome. It’s also interesting to see the variety of dress. It still gives me a chuckle to see people in traditional dress, long sweeping shirts over baggy comfortable pants, in any variety of colour and pattern, topping off their costume with Reeboks or Nike running shoes. But at least half the people there are dressed exactly as we would for a bit of exercise. One thing that has surprised me in general, is that the number of women wearing complete cover is very minimal. I would say perhaps 2% of women I have seen. This is partially because I have only really been around the middle and upper classes, but still, my stereotyped mind expected more women under cover than not.
At some point during our walk, the sun begins to set, which is my favourite part. The park is situated right beside one mosque, and there are two others within a few block’s radius. As soon as the sun sets, the call for prayers begins, and the loud-speakers mounted on the spires of the mosques begin to blare. All three mosques start at different times, as the time of sunset is subjective, and they each have distinctive sounds. I like to call them “The Three Tenors”, but one is more of a baritone at best. The first one has a high tenor voice, with what I like to think of as a little flair. The next to start is lower, and without as much warbling vibrato. The final one is ten feet off the track, so it is the loudest, and also the lowest, rumbling chant of them all. Together, the three voices mingle in my mind like some kind of Gregorian Chant. Which is a strange pell-mell mix of religious cultural images, I know. It gives me a very surreal feeling. The closest feeling I can remember would be when I was in Florence, Italy, at 6 PM on Sunday and suddenly all the bells began to peal throughout the city. I was blown away. Some might have asked for whom the bell tolled, and I tell you, that day, they tolled for Dave. So, it’s a similar sensation. As the call begins, a few people wander off the track to the side and perform their prayers, but not as many as you might think, in fact, they are in the minority. After the call ends, the sun just sets. I’m not yet used to this either. Being situated right on the Tropic of Cancer means that when the sun sets its not fooling around. No long extended twilight, no hour of dwindling Canadian light before dark. No hasty paddling in my canoe to get down the river before it gets dark. It just starts to get dark and five to ten minutes later it is dark.

Perhaps the strangest thing of all, is that after a week and a half of walking, I decided I would start running a lap. So now I usually run 1 KM and walk 4. And no, an attractive physically fit guy has not just bonked me on the head and taken over the keyboard, it is still Dave. And to all of you who might be thinking, Ha, 5 km, that’s nothing. I urge you to remember that by 6:00, the temperature has sometimes slid from 35 degrees down to 30. The humidity is usually hovering around 20%, and the wind, if there is one, which is nice, stirs up the ever present dust, and it hangs in the air like a smudge. Add to this the sometimes present smell of burning garbage, car exhaust and the rotting pollution of the sea on the breeze, and you might see how one lap running can usually do me in. Oh yes, and I am still horribly out of shape. Although, my Pakistani Weight Loss Program (Pak-Whelp) is progressing nicely. I tell you, I’ve tried a lot of diets, but this one is the best. All it entails is travelling half way around the world, sweating, losing your appetite, and spending an inordinate amount of time on the toilet.

Anyway, I have gone on too long, but have covered a lot of areas in my description of my little jaunts. I figure those that are interested will read it, those who aren’t… oh well.

Hope all is well with everyone,

David

The First List

Hello Everyone,

Thanks to everyone who has emailed me. Its great to hear from you. I am still endeavouring to get back to everyone, but I am slightly hindered by technology, or as I like to call it the "Third World Web. I don't know how many times I've been in the middle of an email and the power goes out or something. Then I never want to bother starting over because I'm too frustrated. So have patience, I will talk to all of you soon.

My next narrative will soon be on its way. However, in the meantime, I thought I would send along my first list. Those who know me well, will know that I am quite partial to lists. This is the first one I compiled, around the time of my first mass email to all of you. Here it is:

List #1 - Things I have Learned... So Far

1. Air-Conditioning is perhaps the greatest invention known to mankind. This was heretofor unclear to me.
2. Fifty years ago, Karachi was a city of 200 000. It now stands (kind of) at 15 million. This explains a lot.
3. Lahore, (a city to the north I hope to visit soon) is said to be one of the oldest living cities in the world, but not in the same way as West Palm Beach.
4. The aforementioned air conditioner makes certain noises at night which makes me think that someone is in my room. This being something I have learned, you would think this wouldn't frighten me. But it scares the crap out of me every time.
5. The large, architectually incredible, sail shaped hotel in Dubai is the only 7 Star Hotel in the world. If only I had $7000, I would spend a night.
6. Instead of a bidet, there is a little hose-showerhead on the wall beside the toilet. This, I am told, is often called a "Muslim shower." This device also scares the crap out of me.
7. Not knowing a single element of a language makes everyday life very intimidating.
8. Not knowing a single element of a language makes you think everyone is talking about you.
9. Jet Lag is for real.
10. Cricket is not quite as hard to understand as I thought. However, one should never forget that in its purest form, it takes 5 days to play. You wouldn't want to get there, and then think, oh crap, I have somewhere to be next Sunday.