Photobook 3

Here's another one. There's just so much to capture and it really frustrates me that I'm not that great of a photographer to convey the entire story or emotion that I feel when seeing these things.

In the middle is my grandfather's brother. He was a history professor.
He retired in 1990 and since then,
 has been running a small spice shop on a small street
in the village of Ransiwal. 

Eleven years since my Grandfather's death,
and this is the first time I got the chance to make du'aa over his grave. 

look! pretty colors. Too it was a 102 degrees out and no air conditioning and me with heavy clothes.
Ok stop complaining sophia

You find this a lot in Pakistan. There are no trash cans for people to throw their trash in, and there are no laws against littering, so the trash is thrown anywhere. Every morning, you have some workers that quickly brush some the trash to the side of the roads. Eventually, it just piles up in some areas.

A Punjabi wedding is three days long. First is the Mehndi, which is all about colors and dancing and fun. In this Mehndi that I went to (which was in a far off village), the rituals go like this:
1. the bride sits in front the audience.
2. The bride takes some money in her hand, and guests come up and smear henna onto the money. Then they put a dab of oil in her hair, and put a small piece of matai (sweets) in her mouth
3. people dance

So the little round brown things behind all the trash are Goburs. That's the Urdu word for cow poop. Yep. It is cow poop that is scooped up and patted down in the round shape that you see. And who do you think does this icky job? There are stacks and stacks of goburs that women of every village make. Goburs are used for cooking--as a sort of fuel for the fire. 

this is Ransiwal. it's purty

More of Ransiwal.

Goats here just walk around, sometimes with their rooster friends or cow friends or dog friends. 

this tree has these really yummy berry type fruits. 

These are the berries. The white ones are sweeter. fyi

IN A WORLD CALLED PAKISTAN (5)

Hey,

I've been packing and unpacking and then packing again. I can't believe it's time for me to leave. Six weeks have passed by so quickly and Pakistan really feels like home. I've connected with so many people in so little time and I know I'll love them all forever.

But let's get straight into my project.
It's been exceptionally gruesome. I had, for the longest time, thought this project to be a tra-la-la, easy breezy, walk in the park project. I had everything planned--a plan A, B, and C. And I had a backup for all the potential factors that could ruin ever--a plan D, E and F. And still, it never went completely according to plan.

Unfortunately my video idea didn't go as planned, so I was unable to show you the beauty that I saw. I gathered so many videos, too. But the footage was never good enough. It's hard to video in places where people always stare at you and that contraption in your hand.

But the stories I collected are beyond amazing. The input I've gathered is not only of folktale stories, but of the people I've interviewed and talked to. I've seen and experienced their struggle, their personalities, and their culture. From every person I have talked to, I've learned of weird myths and interesting legends and fascinating ideas.

ok ok ok
I really want to share some myths with you:
1. an itch on the palm of your hand means money is coming
2. cut off a fox's tail and leave it in your home so you can be successful.
3. accidentally dropping wheat on the floor means guests are coming to your home
4. In Lahore, there is a canal that runs along a highway. Along the sides of the highway, there are little boys and old men selling pieces of raw meat. The reason they sell raw pieces of meat on the side of road is because people who want their wish to com true, they would buy a bag of raw meat and then go to the canal. Then they would through those meat pieces into the canal while having that wish in their mind. It's really similar (exactly same) to the "throw a coin in a fountain and have your wish come true" myth.

Hopefully when I get home, I can get them all in coherent sentences before my presentation.

Hopefully

OK my battery is at 6%
see ya in the airport where I can charge this freaking thing properly

IN A WORLD CALLED PAKISTAN (4)

HOLA SENORS AND SENORITAS

I have been in my room since two days ago, trying to get this stupid laptop to work. Now that the days have gotten more hot and more humid, the electricity goes out more and more. Yesterday, it was out all day, and then came back at eleven at night.

So now you may be wondering, well Sophia, you don't need electricity to internet. But my dears, if my laptop doesn't charge, I cannot internet. And that has been the issue these past few days, and it really sucks because...well...it just does.

Anywho, now that I've got you for a few brief seconds, here's the 411: stories are going great. I wish I could share more, but that would really ruin my whole book. Basically, I've gotten almost all the information I need to create my Collective Inspirations, but now it's all about writing it over and over again until it's almost perfect. And that especially sucks over here where the electricity goes out every five seconds and nothing gets charged.

I forgot to show you a picture of my adviser. It's this super nice man who happens to be the chairman of the History of Pakistani Studies Department. This is a picture of him and me smiling at the camera that my uncle is holding in front of our faces (way to be descriptive):

 I'm going to another wedding this week. This time I will actually video it happening and take pictures and stuff (I was too sick to do it for the last wedding).

THIS IS MY LAST WEEK
and I am depressed
I do not want to leave
I do not
I do not
I do not
I'm leaving on the 29th, spending a day in Dubai, and then coming home to 12 hours in the past.

Another Photobook will be put up shortly.
Have a nice night, and sorry for the late update.
Byeya

Photobook 2

Hey guys!
I've got pictures.
My official update post is just below if you wanna read and check up on me.

There's this mask that the girls make. It's called the "Basin" mask.
It's a mix of this spice called Basin (not exactly sure of the English term), water, and lemon juice.
Afterwords, the ladies put on yogurt. I kindly objected to the yogurt part of this ritual. 

My little cousins kept a chick as a pet. They hid it in a dresser cupboard.
It died two days later.
RIP Chusa

It's a large basket filled with date pits, peach pits, plum pits, beads, and other things.
We took a handful of those seeds from the big white basket, made a prayer,
and then threw a seed into another basket.
Each seed is one prayer. 

I thought it would be funny to put mustaches on some of aunts

this is only half of my family. The camera couldn't get the entire room. 

We went to a wedding. This is the bride. 

and done.

IN A WORLD CALLED PAKISTAN (3)

Hey guys!

And sorry for the late update. I kind of got sick again. So I was in bed for the last two days. Also, my computer stopped working for a day. But all is well now. 

1. Work is going okay. I've finished up seven folktales, and I'm planning to get three done today (for lost sick time). Sometimes it gets really frustrating trying to get the stories because the person I'm asking doesn't completely understand what I mean. When the interviewees aren't really into the questions, they give me vague answers or generalize everything in five words. It takes a lot of effort to weed out the good stories from the rotten ones. 

2. Travel is still a pain--the train rides are making me more and more claustrophobic

3. I went to a wedding the other day. Funny story, I went to a beauty parlor on the day of the wedding, and ran into the bride. She was literally caked with makeup-I'll have the picture of her posted in the photobook.

ALSO - so whenever someone says "let's go to the beauty parlor" or "let's go to a fancy restaurant", I always imagine those places in an American way. And then I go there and see that it's nothing like what I expected. So yeah. 

 The days are getting hotter, and it's getting harder and harder to believe that I'm leaving in two weeks. I really don't want to go. But time never falters. I've made so many friends here, and I've boned with family. It's an experience I don't want to stop experiencing. 

So this is a pretty short update.
k see you on my next post. 

SHAY MURID HANI

Salaam Y'all,

Over the pass two weeks, I've been working, busy like a bee trying to get some folktales. There are five main provinces of Pakistan that I have to collect folktales from: Punjab, Sindh, KP, Baluchistan, & Gilgit.

Recently I've been focusing on one particular region of Pakistan called Baluchistan that is extremely rich with a culture known little to even other parts of the country. Interviewing Balochi people is especially interesting, because I get to see and hear of their experience first hand and I get it all with a certain Balochi pride and enthusiasm. A lot of my interviewees have thanked me for looking into their culture, and some have even given me gifts. I feel blessed to have met and talked to them all, and I truly hope this project does their culture justice. 

I decided to put up a folktale from the Baluchistan region not only to show the beauty I feel from getting these stories, but also to give you an idea of how I'm collecting these stories and what my book may look like in the future. 

I have put together some background information of Baluchistan that you may find entertaining or interesting or unique (or boring). It'll help you understand and appreciate the folktale (which I'll have linked below) a little better when reading.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

1. The language, Balochi, is more similar to Persian than it is to Urdu. 

2. In marriage, where it's typical for the fiancees family to pay the man's family, in Baluchistan it is the other way around. This is because of the extremely high regard and respect for women in Baluchistan.

3. Also a little marriage fact: unlike other arts of Pakistan, where the woman is required to leave with the man right after the wedding, in Baluchistan, the women can wait up to however long (typically 3 days) before she decides to leave. 

4. Here are some cool myths from the region:

a. Adding rocks to cooking makes it taste better

b. When a kid plays with fire, he'll pee his pants at night

c. When sweeping the floor, don't come in front of the broom or otherwise you'll grow up a thief. 

5. A type of dance: the Balochi Chop

6. If you stay in a Balochi house, the owner would protect the guest even if his life depended on it.

7. There is the "Balochi word'; a sort of honor code. With this code, whatever a Balochi promises will be followed through.

So now,

without further ado:

SHAY MURID HANI

(Shay-moorrid Haani)

Photobook

UPDATE: YOUTUBE AND PANDORA DO NOT WORK IN PAKISTAN.

phew that's done

This post is about pictures. I already posted my official weekly report post, so if you'd like to read and comment on that, just scroll down a bit to my last post. 

I feel like I should upload some pictures on here, just to fully display Pakistan. So here's this short little photo book. For the full experience, I recommend going to YouTube (Oh how I miss you) and typing in 'La Noyee' by Yann Tiersen before you go through the photos. 

k

got the music

cool

Overhead of Dubai at night

Overhead of Pakistan at night 

This family lives in a one room mud house with no windows.
They own a chicken with chicks and a goat. 

These children come into my grandmother's farmhouse just to stand by the door.
They look at us from afar and all I can do is smile back at them
 and hope they're all doing fine. 

All the children from the village gather around my grandmother to get a share of the rice my aunt made for lunch.

Taken 4

There's just something about the alley ways here.
 Gutter-like things run on each side and motorcycles parked every which way
and doors that are always open for neighbors
 and literally anybody.

Look at how cool view is from the roof

And me.

More pictures next time!

IN A WORLD CALLED PAKISTAN (2)

Week 2 and
I've seen a lot of things
I've heard a lot of things
I've tasted a lot of things

So first I'll start with the nitty gritty workload. I have a lot of it. Everyday at 11, I go on a thirty minute drive that goes something like this:

That's right. I'm sitting on a motorcycle. Did you know that in Pakistan (and other countries like Pakistan, I'm sure), most of the women that sit behind the motorcycle driver actually sit side saddle format, like this:

It's super fun riding like this at 80mph. 

So getting to work is a charm. I'm not being sarcastic. It's literally so much fun. The roads are all jagged and bumpy that it feels like a Six-Flags roller-coaster.

But doing the work is a bit hectic. My adviser gathers two of his students every day, three or four times a week, both of whom come from different regions of Pakistan, and I am given the faculty room for a one-on-one. It takes about an hour for each interview, and usually I end up with usable and satisfactory information. I'll tell you the truth, it is extremely difficult to get exactly what you want from the interviewee. It gets tough to convey what you want answered, and how. The first day, all my interviews beat around the bush and never directly answered my question. I suppose it was on me to have asked better questions; but all is well now.

Then I got sick. Like horribly, badly, maliciously sick. And I still am now. It's an adjustment thing, ya know? America is a lot cleaner than Pakistan is, so my body was bound to succumb. But this adjustment sickness is really eating at me. Sometimes I can't move or even speak because every part of my body hurts so bad. I get a fluctuating fever and stomach aches and headaches and I really just want it to stop.

Oh I should let you know that I travel a lot (effective transition). The university I'm gathering my research in is in Lahore, and every weekend I travel either by train or one very dreadful, claustrophobic van to Narowal (where all my aunts and uncles and cousins live). So it's a constant trip every week.

I just want to stress the pain I felt yesterday. This is what four hours in a claustrophobic van looks like:

So anywho, I'm going back to bed because my stomach is beginning to hurt again. OH I forgot, I wrote my first short folktale story a few days ago!! I'm so excited because everything is starting to take shape (or at least, kind of).

Till next time

(PS, if the videos don't show, please let me know)

IN A WORLD CALLED PAKISTAN

From Pakistan (1)

This week, I’ve been travelling. For a good three days, I have been in and out of airplanes, trains, and cars, trying to get to my final destination: a small Punjabi town near the border of India called Narowal. Just so you know, I’ve gotten only five hours’ worth of sleep in these past three days, so you are allowed to imagine me as a red, droopy-eyed, sleep deprived maniac sitting in front of a laptop, internally banging her head over the crap internet connection.

Anyways, I’m here now. In Narowal, I mean. So let me explain a little bit of everything that’s going on:

       

     1. Mosquitos. I don’t think anyone has experienced the wrath of mosquitos more than I have today. Mind you, I sprayed my Mosquito repellent a good three times all over my body, I have repellent stuck on every electrical socket in my room, I am covered head to freaking toe in clothing…

                              …and I’m still getting bit.

      2. Roads. Imagine an ongoing road, and oncoming road, and a sidewalk all mixed together to form one road that isn’t even a road because it’s just dirt with rocks. Also, the driving here is a little more than atrocious. Seriously though, I have undergone what I call are “faux car showdowns”--when there’s a car coming towards us, and it almost feels as if we’re challenging each other to crash head on, but then an inch before the cars touch, both turn quickly and avoid a potential disaster.

      3. Dogs. So the CDC recommended rabies shots before travelling to Pakistan. Of course, before I came here I thought “Meh, rabies. I mean, how many rabid dogs can there really be over there?” (that was my reasoning to avoid paying $900)

32

I saw 32 rapid dogs on my way from Lahore (the city I landed in) to Narowal.

3freaking2

They were limping all over the place. I saw a few dead ones in towns I passed by and internally screamed. The funny thing was, nobody even noticed them. One particular dog that I saw had a mangled front leg. It was panting and limping and its distorted leg had these red warts on it. It was walking across the street we were driving on, and I don’t think one person, out of all the people walking around, noticed its presence.

This freaked me out to say the least. Every time I counted another dog, my heart fluttered in anguish a little more. I honestly did not expect to see wild dogs just walking around populated villages. 

I should have gotten those shots.

Ohmygod I can’t believe I saw 32

      4.  Dirt. It’s everywhere. Even the air has dirt in it. On top of that, it’s humid, so it feels like wet dirt is sticking to my skin constantly.

So here are some of the not’s so good things I faced (excluding the flimsy electricity that goes out every two hours; and the internet—that sucks too). But now that I have those off my chest, I want to mention all the good things I encountered.

      1.  The food. I always knew food was going to be a problem for me. It’s just too dang good. My aunts make killer kabobs and biryani and saalan. They have juicers to make delicious juices from the fresh fruit they get from the marketplaces. I’ll take pictures next time.

      2. The people. Every person I have met thus far has been so inhumanly kind and endearing that it kind of left me in awe. I had always been told that people in Pakistan were nice, but experiencing their generosity and affection first hand is quite another thing. Everyone is so connected to each other. All my cousins and aunts and uncles and neighbors, they have such a close relationship to each other.

Everyone is always laughing and smiling and joking around. The house is never quiet. The small kids play on the roofs of our little mud-brick houses, the ladies gather in the kitchen to make some chai and laugh and discipline the children, the men either help the women, or go out to their shops to gather some dough. It’s always busy, and I love it.

All my cousins gave me these flower bracelets as a welcoming gift.
They also threw rose petals at me when I first walked in through the door.

It’s worth everything to meet people like the ones I have been meeting.

Updates:

Collecting stories. I’ll be starting that this week.

Adviser- I’ll be meeting my adviser in Lahore (hopefully) this Monday. This Monday is actually a sort of Pakistan Independence Day, so all the kids will be out of school and there will be parties on the streets.

Video- I’ll be posting a video of this weeks adventures, hopefully by tomorrow. It really all depends whether or not the Wifi will be kind to me or not. It’s kind of difficult documenting everything, simply because people stare at me while I’m doing it, and also because things get so hectic that I can’t do it simultaneously. I am trying my best though. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for reading. Have a nice day! or night. it's night for me

so

SURVEY TIME

Hey guys!

I created a little survey for my project. I was wondering if you could help a gal out and answer some questions? There are only five and it'll take five minutes tops! Just comment below your answers (they don't have to be full sentences or long paragraphs or complex graphs or mathematical equations)

1.      1. QUICK What’s the first thing that comes into your head when you hear or read the word “Pakistan”?

2.      2. What do you know about the country Pakistan (facts, rumors, things you heard on the news, ect.)

3.      3. What do you know about the Pakistani culture?

4.      4. What is your opinion of Pakistan and its culture?

5.      5. Would you want to visit Pakistan? Why or why not?

1.      6. Do you know any stereotypes of the Pakistani culture? If so, please share.

Thanks for your time! I'll be posting a vlog later this week--omgso exciting!

Grandmama and Updates

 I thought I'd update you on mi grandmadre.

My grandmother from good ol' Pakistan was staying with us for ten days this February. Fortunately, that gave me the greatest opportunity to learn about and prepare for my trip some more.

Look at that adorable smile.

She's so cute!

My grandma is seriously the cutest person ever. She came into my room one night just to say that the WHOLE ENTIRE TOWN is backing me up on this project. That just comes to show how small this town really is, and how super kind the people are there. I mean, I haven't even gotten there yet and I'm already getting so much support. 

Oh did I tell you? My grandmother is a mother of ten children. 

Ten.

Which means I have nine (excluding my own mother) aunts and uncles. 

Which means I have a bazillion cousins just hangin' around. 

Shyeah I know. Anywho...

My grandmadre told me about this beauty parlor one her sons' wife has. I don't think I can explain to you the excitement I felt when I heard that. Also, she promised parties every single day when I'm there. 

Guys Guys Guys. I hope you're ready for desi parties. 

Because pictures will be bombarded. 

Now as much fun as she said Pakistan would be, she also stressed some key issues that no one can really overlook. I am mentioning them now because they are major factors that need to weighed into my project, and into this trip in general:

1. Things can get really dangerous there, especially for a female. Both my parents and my grandmother stressed how important it was for me to be with someone at all times. Because I find myself more American than Pakistani, I know it won't be hard for people to realize that I am out of the country. I mix my Urdu with English, I sometimes get an accent, and my apparent air emanates American-ness. I know that last bit sounds weird, but my grandma told me that people, from just looking at the way I move or stand, will know that I am not native to their region.

2. "We don't have all this pasta-shasta, enchilada stuff there." also "You don't have to be gluten free over there, right?"

3. So hey Charlotte. Electricity! ...It tends to go out in Pakistan 

(Help?)

4. No electricity means no air conditioning. Which sucks because Pakistan is just another form of Arizona. 

4. So apparently riots are a thing. 

5. Also, according to my grandmami, I'm extremely gullible and naive to a point of where I am unable to realize when someone (more specifically, a guy) is going to seduce me for my money. That talk happened...again. 

ANYWHO I am super excited because now there's only a week and half left. I'll be posting up the structure of my little anthology later this week, as well as updating you guys on all the cool travel gear I get. I'm also headed to LA this Monday to get my VISA. Fun stuff. We'll be driving all night just to get there on time in the morning. So next week will not be a spring break for me, unfortunately. Hope you can still tune in though!

A Cultural Separation

Over the course of this week, I have been racking my brain over my project. Up until now, I had always thought that going to Pakistan and collecting folktale stories was enough. I wanted to promote a culture that wasn't well recognized. But recently, I discovered a TED video that forces me to question and hone in my motives for this trip.

In the TED Talk, the speaker, Khalida Brohi, talked about 'honor' killings. Honor killings occur when a family deems a behavior shameful, usually for relationships that occur outside of marriage. According to the UN, 1000 reported honor killings are performed each year in Pakistan. Click here for the video. 

Unfortunately, in many rural areas of Pakistan, honor killings and overall female oppression is a custom that stretches back for decades. Most of the time, women aren't even aware of their oppression and see themselves in a futile situation. Even more, political change, in many cases, does not reach rural areas enough to spark modification. Khalida Brohi has been trying to modify the culture of these rural towns through other means; by creating different centers (collective embroidery meetings, reading classes, collecting folktales, etc.) for women to participate in, she teaches them to empower themselves so they can be their own leaders.

In the back of my mind, I have always known that there are certain parts of Pakistani culture that scare me. It's ironic knowing that honor killings and acid attacks and abuse occurs in a country that preaches peace. These are hard circumstances to overcome, especially because most of it occur in areas where the people aren't well educated enough to grow out of their provincial beliefs.  

I looked at the comments under the video, and I couldn't help but feel sad at what I read. Because the topic was relating to Pakistan, an Islamic nation, a lot of the comments evolved around the negative view of Islam. Pushing aside the fact that most YouTube comments shouldn't be taken seriously, I feel that many of the comments are similar to what I hear in some real life discussions--"Islam promotes the oppression of women", "Islam is hindering gender equality", "It's safer to just kill all Muslims". Given the project that I am doing, I feel as though I should clear a few things up:

It is a well known fact that religion does, in many aspects, influence the culture of a group. Even in the US, there are many Christian ideals that hover over into mainstream society. So it really isn't hard to mistake a culture with a religion.

I'll start by saying that Islam means "peace" and is a religion that advocates for equality of man and woman (and every other type of gender a person could be) in every regard. The base for most of the abuse and oppression in Pakistan is because of the lack of education. Even if small town rural people do read the Quran, most of them do not understand what they are reading (the Quran is written in Arabic, and Pakistan's official language is Urdu or some other version of it).And if they do understand the words, they don not necessarily understand the meaning. Most of their education is based off of generations of oral preaching that have nothing to do with Islam. So though they might be Muslim, they do not know what it means to be Muslim, and because they are so uneducated, most of them confuse their provincial customs with their religion as one and the same--which is what many people do when they watch CNN or FOX or MSNBC as their only form of religious knowledge.

So now I look at my project. I am collecting folktales to, yes, record and help preserve a piece of history, but I also want to clear up that these folktales are a piece of culture (a piece of perspectives) and not a piece of religion solely. I remind myself that I am writing these stories to open up a new perspective of Pakistan so we can perceive another aspect of a culture we don't see in news media. I hope that in so doing this, I can help separate the religion from the culture for both the citizens of Pakistan, and the people outside looking in.

In other news, I made this teeny little video as a sort of trailer for the vlogs that I'll be putting up from Pakistan.

I hope you have a good remainder of your day!

Three Things My Father DREADS the Most About Me Heading Off to Pakistan

The struggle is most undoubtedly real as I continue to ready myself for this crazy, adventurous trip--the most coming from my good intent father.

I know he means well. I really do. It's just that when he comes into my room just to tell me how much my life is going to suck for the six weeks that I am there, I can't help but feel another ten billion stress-inducing rocks falling onto my shoulders.

I thought, hey, for this blog, maybe I should just list them all out, for my benefit and your enjoyment.

1. FOOD IS BAD

So my eating habits are a bit off onto the far end of the "Weird" spectrum. I am a lactose intolerant, gluten-free, wheat-free, sugar-free type of person, mostly because my body does this awful thing where it hurts whenever I eat foods containing those listed above. Needless to say, my father is more than a little worried I won't have any available alternatives in such a developing country as Pakistan.

Also, food is my one true weakness. My father has been, for the better part of my young life, the sole authority figure who actually cared about what went into my mouth, and knows that I am vulnerable to all lactose, gluten, wheat, and sugar containing things. Basically, he doesn't think I'll be able to keep myself away from all the mouthwatering, yummy, delectable, scrumptious cultural food that I will be immersing with.

I think he may have a point on that, though.

2. TOOTH FAIRY MAGIC

My front tooth is broken, and has been broken for the past two years of my life. I broke it in half one day (I don't care to dwell on such a frightful night), and my dentist kind of just super glued it together. He told me, "Sophia, this is temporary, and the tooth fragment is bound to come off at anytime." At first, I thought that meant, like, a week before it would fall out and I had to run back to the dentist's office for a crown. Then two years passed by, and that superglue material stuff is still holding strong.

So the point is that my dad is worried that during my six week journey, that tooth fragment is just going to fall off one day, and I would have to remain in the state of absolute shock for the remainder of my stay. I'll swear it now: I will NOT be opening my mouth if that does happen, and then you will know why all my pictures are of me crying.

I think he may have a point on this as well.

3. BOYS

"Just don't get married."
"No promises, pops."

(Let's just appreciate this moment where my father assumes I'm going to Pakistan just to help some poor bloke get a green card)

Nuh uh

Details, Details

Now there's a buffer zone in my Senior Research Project. Today is the 14th of February, my flight leaves the 18th of March, and in between these two dates, I have found myself still crunching for time. That could be considered one heck of a buffer time, but given my project, the more time to prepare, the better. There is *seriously* a lot of work to do before I fly over to Pakistan and collect a whole bunch of stories from people there.

It's a teensy bit stressful, if you really want to know.

So this week, I did some research, to prepare for the inevitable abundance of Pakistani culture I will have to face in the near future.

I researched known folktale stories from different regions of Pakistan and tried to dig deep for each. The sad part is that I only found a handful. The happy part is that each make the area of Pakistan come alive. Somehow, I imagine myself hearing a few of these very same stories, but from different perspectives and different perceptions. I even jotted down a few that mother used to tell me as a child. With all these--what I call "Base Stories"--, in situations where I find myself listening to the same story from somebody in a different region of Pakistan, I can compare the similarities and/or differences.

So I have here three of the few stories that I collected from the World Wide Web (curiosity never killed the cat):

1. The Gifts of Wali Dad
2. Heer Ranjha
3. Dulla Bhatti

Till next week!

Hello to a Journey

Hi. My name is Sophia and I’m an alco-

Just kidding

Hi. My name is Sophia and I am embarking on a journey. For my third and final trimester at BASIS Scottsdale, I will be working on my senior project. In three short weeks, I will be packing my suitcases with traditional shalwaar kameez-es (Pakistani clothes that look like this), hopping on a three-stop flight, and entering—as Aladdin had said—"a whole new world". I’ll leave behind my eighteen years of American-ness to fully immerse myself in my parent’s home country: Pakistan.

My project is this:

1) Go to Pakistan

2) Collect folktale stories from people I meet

3) Put those stories in a book

4) and done

5) God, I really wish it was that easy

But in all seriousness, that basically is my project. As a Pakistani American, I have found it extremely difficult to find any sort information regarding the citizens in Pakistan out of the realms of MSNBC or CBS. There just hasn't been any well known exposure on such a developing country. Furthermore, the news I am given is almost never good and almost always generalized. I want to expose the other side of Pakistan--I want to get to know it and I want my friends in America to know it too. So I write this anthology, to collect and share stories from an area we don't know much of anything about. 

I will be studying and interning at the University of Punjab, gathering information and working on the anthology with my supervisor. My mentor, the chairman of the History and Pakistan Studies department, will be overseeing my internship and aiding me with the development of this book. More information can be found in my formal proposal linked here.

I really am doing this. This is actually happening! It's a bit hard to believe that, come mid-February, I won't be in this room, on this bed, eating this bowl of cereal anymore. I'll be in my customary Pakistani clothes that my mother always insisted me to wear, hauling some heavy weighted suitcases into checking, saying goodbye to this desert and hello to another.

so...

"Hello"