Friends at the Hostel

Over the past couple days, while I have been adjusting to life in the Stocks home, I have struggled a little with loneliness and a feeling of helplessness. I know that the official reason I am here is to be a blessing to the Stocks and to the local Pakistani people. And yet, because I do not yet have even a rudimentary handle of Urdu, I can only look mutely at the curious villagers, not even sure what gestures to make in order to be polite. I find myself following the Stocks around and relying on them to direct me in almost everything that needs to be done around the house and in public. I feel simultaneously lonely, longing for relaxed fellowship, and emotionally drained, wanting only to get away by myself to sleep or to disappear into a novel.

This afternoon I fell asleep after helping the Stock children with their school and reading aloud to them two chapters of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. When I woke, all was dark (electricity is not used unless specifically turned on) and no one was in the rest of the house. I was glad of the solitude as I felt a little queasy and disoriented from my nap. I took the time to shower, have a snack, and settle down with my Bible for some much needed devotional time. As I stared at my Bible, I prayed to God about my aching heart and weary body. “Lord, if I can ask one thing, please give me tarab.” Tarab is an Arabic word I learned in ethnomusicology class which encompasses all the ecstasy and peace that is found in the experience of worshiping God through music. For me, it referred to the joy and peace that is known when one is secure in being in the center of God’s will; content in the meaningfulness and rightness of their course and their orientation toward God. After that prayer I added, more directly, “Lord, help me recognize your Spirit in these people in spite of their outward foreignness.” With a sigh of knowing I had prayed my heart, I settled down to read and restore my spirit.

Not five minutes later, I heard young voices calling my name through the open window. “Michelle? Michelle!” Called a girl, cupping her hands around her dark face, which was pressed against the screen. “I come with you to speak!” She called out cheerily when I answered her. Though I was uneasy about losing my alone time, I couldn’t help but recognize that this might be the opportunity I had prayed for. So I jumped in with both feet.

I spent the next three or four hours with Jodie, the Stock’s 10 year old daughter, and five of her village friends. Four of the girls come from one family who lives next door to the Stocks. The other girl is also a neighbor. (The Stocks live in a hostel compound which is protected by a guard. A school and several homes are also within the compound.) They took me to their homes one by one. I was nervous because I had never been around Pakistani adults without Pat and I was afraid of doing something culturally insensitive. But the girls drew me along by both hands, all smiles and laughter.

The first home belonged to Marta, a very beautiful 14ish year old with a round face, big dark eyes, and deep dimples. She presented me to her grandmother, a tiny, weathered woman who sat in the courtyard wearing the draping tribal clothes and headdress. “Jay suni” (Praise Jesus) I said timidly, bowing to let the older woman greet me by touching my head. She responded by clasping me in a hug and kissing both my cheeks. Marta proudly pulled me into her home, a concrete structure comprised of two small rooms, a narrow kitchen nook, and a screened in-porch which looked out on the walled-in courtyard in which sat four of the rope cots which serve as eating, sleeping, and visiting furniture. As I sat nervously alone with the grandmother, who spoke absolutely no English but looked at me adoringly, Marta made for me a cup of steaming chai, an absolutely necessary sign of hospitality. After consuming the cup full, Marta and I heard the other girls urging us to come outside. After bowing again to the grandmother, and to the other members of the family who were now arranging themselves on the cots, I hurried out to the main compound courtyard to join the other girls. Marta called the Pakistani parting to her family, “Teek-hey!” (All is well!)

Marta and the other girls (Ahmret, Rani, Shanti, and Shani) ushered me into their identical dwelling place. This time both parents were there, hurriedly spreading quilts over the rope mattresses on the out-door cots. I was indicated to sit while Rani prepared another pot of chai. Again the halting conversation over scalding tea (did I mention that it was 120 degrees today?). This time the conversation was a bit more successful. Rani is a good friend of Ashley Stock’s and is fairly capable in English; Jodie also was there this time and was able to translate when I could get her attention. Additionally, the presence of so many children made me feel more at ease. The girls crowded around me on the cot, holding my hands and arms and laughing as I tried to mimic their words. They taught me several games while we sat there and weaved pink flowers into my hair. I couldn’t follow their speedy speech but they didn’t mind. I did manage to pick up several words, at least for a few moments before they I forgot them again. Rani’s family urged me and Jodi to stay for dinner so we did. The food was characteristically fiery but I managed to eat most of it and avoid the hottest bits with good grace; I greatly enjoyed the freshly picked mangos they served me for desert.

After dinner, the girls and I went up to the roof of the Stocks home and admired the full chand (moon) from the breezy hammock. Then I heard Pat calling me. She and Paul were going to the very homes I had visited earlier. Both of the families had sick sons and we were going to pray for them. My heart was greatly moved to see the two young men hunched over, and to hear their stories of discomfort and fever. We prayed. Afterward, one of the young men told us of another heart ache. He had recently married and was unhappy. He said that he only married to please his grandfather and that the girl and her family were unhappy with the match as well because they were Hindu and he was Christian. He said she also was of low intelligence, uncooperative, destructive, and unresponsive. He had wanted to delay marriage until after school but now it is too late. He is only 20 years old.

After praying for the two families, the Stocks and I went back to our home to have devotions and go to bed. Now the Stocks are settling down and I am writing to you. It is almost 2:00am. Tomorrow we will take a train from the southern boarder where we are to the northern boarder where Ashley’s school is. The Stocks assure me that the train will be my real induction into the Pakistani experience. I tend to think that the Bazaar, the roads, the village funeral last night, and the general tasks of daily life are induction enough! Still, I look forward to the next chapter. :) Please pray for me to continue to grow in love and connection to these people. Pray that my energy and motivation stays high and that I am blessed with a smooth acquisition of basic communication skills. Thank you so much!

Arival Adventures

I’ve now been in Pakistan almost one full day and I’ve already had many experiences. Thank you so much for your prayers; I know you have been praying because even when the going was difficult, I was born along on a secure peacefulness that almost never wavered.

The flight over here was mostly uneventful and pleasant. One exception was when I almost missed my third flight, the transatlantic overnight flight from New York to Dubai. I had been in transit since 4am and it was then 11:00; my flight was to leave at 11:30. Since I was feeling faint, I decided to grab McDonalds before going through security. I finished eating just as I heard over the laud speaker that my flight was boarding. I rushed off to security but was unexpectedly turned away. I needed to have my ticket reissued through Emerites instead of the original United, they told me. I tried not to think about the potential consequences of missing this flight as I ran back out to the front of the airport, my 30 pound backpack bouncing behind. I arrived back just as the my name was being called over the speaker. “Last call for Michelle Noyes; Michelle Noyes, please make yourself known!”

The flight itself was very nice. I actually felt a little guilty to be flying in such luxury to a place that is so poor. Every seat in the plane was equipped with a personal entertainment station, complete with video games, movies, TV shows, music, and internet. Everyone using them reminded me of the personal entertainment pods in the movie “Wall-E”. I tried to listen to by book on tape, Three Cups of Tea, and cross stitch, but once it got too dark to sew, I had trouble keeping my eyes away from all the flickering screens. So I gave up and watched a few movies myself. I watched The Princess and the Frog, Surrogates, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (in German).

I had another adventure when I arrived in Karachi. I wasn’t able to fill out my customs form because I didn’t know the address I would be living at in Pakistan. The airport security would not, therefore, let me leave! I convinced one security man to walk with me out to where the Stocks were supposed to meet me. I was sure that the Stocks would be able to clarify the situation and pacify the now quite unsettled security people. But the Stocks weren’t there. To make matters more difficult, I hadn’t brought the Stock’s cell phone number so I couldn’t contact them. On a payphone, with the guard standing over me, I called my Interserve contact but there was no answer (this is not entirely surprising since it was only 3:00am in the states).

At that point, the security guys started to insist that I go to a hotel and wait for someone to contact me. I tried to stall, sure that the Stocks would come for me eventually. Now desperate for help and for the Stocks contact info, I called my mother. Thank God, she answered. For the next hour, my mom called other people and ravaged my documents to find the Stocks address or phone number; I waited anxiously on the line, scanning the crowd for the Stocks, uncomfortably aware of the waiting guards. After three phone cards worth of time, my mother was able to get the Stocks info from a friend. (Thanks so much Mrs.Lee!!) I called the Stocks and heard Pat’s cheery voice assure me (and the guard) that they were only two minutes away.

Once I was safely in their care, I found out that my itinerary had said I wouldn’t be arriving till 1:00. My flight had arrived at 12:20 and I hadn’t met the Stocks until 1:40. It was a scary hour and a half but I couldn’t help but realize that if the guards had let me thorough customs without insisting that I met my contact, I would have been waiting alone and unprotected. As it was, I was surrounded by professional, competent and very concerned airport people for as long as it took for the Stocks to arrive. Praise God!

Many more things have happened since then. We spent Tuesday evening traveling back to Karachi. I had, at that point been up more than a full day (I hadn’t slept on the planes) and so the trip that lasted until midnight Wednesday morning is all a little blurry. One thing I do remember is stopping an hour from Karachi to take chai (tea) at a “bus stop”. The roadside café turned out to be a brand new eating extravaganza recently christened “The Island”. The place consisted of outdoor tile paths snaking around elaborate fountains. On the tile were endless tables. Some were wide and low and had cushion seats on top of them. The place was beautifully landscaped and manicured. It was a little eery, since we were the only ones there.

I also remember the trucks on the road. They are very large and extremely colorfully decked out. You should google image them to get the idea; they are hard to imagine! They look like circus trucks crossed with dinosaurs crossed with something from a Hayao Miyazaki movie. They are completely covered in red and gold tile, neon lights and flashing mirrors. They also have large figurines suspended from the bottom behind woven steel skirts ring the perimeter of the truck and tinkle as the truck moves. You don’t hear the skirts, thought, because of the cacophonous clamor of honking horns. Everybody honks their horns. There is a great variety ranging from the straight sounds we understand as horns to sirens, and things that sound like a trumpet playing scales.

This evening I will be going with Pat and Paul to a mourning service. People usually stay all night but Pat says we will only stay until midnight. I will have to change out of my green “three piece suit” outfit and into a borrowed purple “tribal” outfit. I’m currently wearing an outfit borrowed from one of the Stocks friends. One of the reasons we went to the bazaar this afternoon was to get me some clothes of my own. We picked out three sets of clothe to have three outfits made for me then we took the cloth to a tailor. While the tailor measured me and talked about the order with Pat, a boy fetched us mountain dew sodas in glass bottles. I'll tell you more about the bazaar and put up some pictures later.

There are many interesting things to tell you about. The Stocks parents are here and they knew Bilquis and Synnonve Michell (people who feature prominently in the wonderful book, "I Dared to Call him Father". The house here with its 7 cats and the roof room filled with birds. The bazaar with winding isles of overflowing shops. The clothes, the animals, the sounds, the foods. But I am very tired and have a persistent headache. Goodbye for now!

First Post: Getting Started

The main purpose of this post is to figure out how to use this blog. I'm not the most technologically savvy person I know, but I want to be able to record and share all my adventures this summer. I want to share pictures and stories, what I expect and what actually ends up happening, letting people share my experiences and respond. My hope is that my blog will be interesting enough for people to want to follow it and that it will help people know how to pray for me while I am gone. With these hopes, I set out to learn how to fully utilize this blog!