Champions trophy – rain, hotspots and inexhaustible kindness of strangers in Pakistan – Andrew Fidel Fernando

“Sirri Lanka? Oh Sangakkara!”

I’m not confused with Kumar. This is exactly how the Pakistani tend to save Sri Lankans they just met. It is, I learned in my first trip to Pakistan in 2019, a longing to make a connection. It is both mini-flax and a major compliment: “I know something about your country. And it’s very good. “

I am, in fact, in a desperate state, although I try not to show it. My first flight was late, which meant too many hours at the surprisingly messy terminal in Dubai. I had to land in Islamabad shortly after 9:00 pm, but it passed at midnight until the immigration and customs of the airport spit me. Tired bones, I need the basic elements: food, shelter, sleep.

But before any of these, I also need money. The driver, whose name is Waqar and who is practically a bald and Mustachioed angel in the Kurta-Pajamas cream at this time, says he only knows the place. “I will take you to a good bank. Another bank will not take a foreign card.” I have already tried two cars at the airport, so I realize he knows what he is talking about. He insists on taking my bag in Suzuki’s cult, although I tell him I am happy to wear it alone. “No, please. You’re gast.” This is a phrase that I will hear a lot in the next three days.

At the “good bank”, after about 40 minutes of driving, a mini-resilor. I am in the ATM cabin, repeatedly trying to withdraw amounts of money down. At one of these attempts, the car exempts a small cash, but this is not enough to cover the taxi tariff. From a date, I get an alert on my phone. I was charged about ten times larger than the amount I actually withdrew. Panic is installed.

I am in a hurry out and try to enroll Waqar’s assistance. Between his limited English and my non -existent Urdu, we need Assistance to translate by Bystander. “It’s okay,” Waqar tells me in the end. “We will solve the problem.” His relaxed being about the whole matter makes my concern easier.

The way in which the problem is finally solved is a miracle of creativity, cooperation and, above all, kindness. About 30 minutes after the ATM debac, two other complete foreigners become dressed in my saving. The first of them is the late night receptionist in the hall of the building, my Airbnb room is. “Sirri Lanka? Oh, Lasith Malinga”, was his greeting. This being Pakistan, the flowers are obviously necessary to be placed at the feet with fast springs.

The second is a personnel who works for the owner of my Airbnb apartment. Being a more shy inclination, he does not have a cricket greeting for me. But, when he is easily pressed on what he knows about the island, he speaks two words that, as well, would have been the password for my soul: “Rasana Herath”. )

This young man is obviously with his eyes fiery, as he would have expected to let me enter the apartment from 23:00. But now he is deep in a discussion with two older men (the receptionist is probably in the mid-1930s, and Waqar is 50 years old) about what can be done here. Through no guilt of theirs, Sri Lankan in the room has insufficient money to pay the taxi tariff. We have traveled quite often and in enough places, to know that the global standard operating protocol as it is to extract a clock or jewelry or an electronic device such as redemption, until the customer who pays touches the ability to pay.

These three men talk to each other in the lobby of the building in Urdu, a language in which I have a lot of zero competence (although I return to sing a few fatho ali khan Qawalis), and it is very clear from the beginning that their main priority is to bring me to my room as soon as possible. They can see that I am a shell of a human being at this time. This is a large hall, but as I seek to manage each other, looking for a solution, it seems to me that the whole place is thick with empathy.

The first idea is to make myself pay the rest in the rupees of Sri Lankan (of which I have a lot). We do a google search and discover that Pakistani and Sri Lankan rupees are on each other in terms of value, our countries have endured twin crises. When they produce a few notes Lankan, they cool down immediately to the idea. They never saw anything like our currency. The money exchangers in Islamabad and Rawalpindi (also the twins standing in the other’s laps) were probably not. Probably it would assume that the notes were forged, it is the conclusion.

But then something glorious happens. These three men, of different ages, who are strangers to me, and foreigners from each other, reach a tripartite agreement. The receptionist has money, with which he can pay Waqar. The receptionist and the Airbnb staff have a money exchange app, through which the AirBNB personnel can compensate for the receptionist. And the Airbnb app has a built -in mechanism for the hosts to request more money from the guests.

This is a high -level commercial transaction and only with these two intermediaries can I pay the taxi driver. My father drove a taxi for most of my life, this is an agitation that I respect very much. Finally, Waqar goes on the road with the payment he deserves. (The service was exemplary.)

The themes of this arrival story in Islamabad/Rawalpindi transports, empathetic, within the next 72 hours of my time here. It may be that systemic dysfunction is so seated that locals have acquired skills to reliably triumph over adversity. More likely, it is the fact that the locals are so deeply proud of their hospitality that they cannot imagine a version of themselves that would not ensure the comfort of a foreigner with almost any cost.

This is not even close to an exhaustive list, but over time in Islamabad and I will experience the following:

– Three men of the Army in Pakistan insists that I stay with them for a chai while asking me all kinds of questions, hanging by every word of my answers. The questions include: “What is Malinga doing now? Why does Sri Lanka do not play the champions trophy? Who supports Sri Lanka in Pakistan VS India matches? Will you pretend to interview us since you are a journalist?” (The latter sounds too fun not to do, obviously, and many chuckles are.)

-a care driver (travel app), called Amir, decides that it is unacceptable to have to travel around the wide security cord that Rawalpindi set up around the place and thus to call the “Savior” (the worker of emergency services), named Manzar, who works on the ground, to work on the ground. Amir buys some strawberries on the side of the road, wash them at a nearby tap and serve them from a plastic bag, which he describes as Jugaad – A hack when conventional approaches are beyond you. (As for the Pakistani cricket, Javed Miandad was maximum Jugaad.)

-Another Savior, Shabbir, pulls me in an empty, concrete security room and shares his Wi-Fi hotspot when I have to work while the teams leave the Pindi stadium. (The roads and a half of the city, they closed while this happens.) When the care I reserved cannot go to the takeover location, Shabbir wraps a rain pilgrim around me, puts me on the back of his huge saving motorcycle and returns to the sirens, so that we can get the driver.

– That driver, called Sajid, is struggling through hours of rain – and cricket generated pindi trafficking – to bring me back to Airbnb, because it is “his debt as Pakistani” to ensure my safety. Even through this trip, his wife calls him to give him updates at his goat – what he tells me – because the goat is now born. He wants to be there, but he insists that he would rather be here. The first child went safely while I was in the cabin. But there was another one in the belly and I didn’t hear what happened there until the trip ended. In the meantime, we show each other pictures of our children and share stories about our countries. Sajid notes words in English that he does not know and teaches me a Punjabi phrase: Jinne Lahore Nahi Vekheya, Oh Jammeya Hi Nahi. I told him that my next destination was Lahore, and the phrase means “who did not see Lahore did not live.”

In just 72 hours, they become so ordinary, so deeply dependent, on this hospitality, because it is in such a refined abundance. My friend and colleague Danyal Rasool call me to wonder if I managed to get an internet access (in Pakistan, as in India, SIM cards are not easily sold to strangers, so you have to go out with your passport to get one). “Why would I lose 40 minutes doing this?” I ask him. “I can get a hotspot from whom it is around.” In these 72 hours I asked about 18 hotspots conservatively. Waqar’s unpromoted offer gave me the idea, and the strike rate is 100%. Never hesitated the other person.

Thursday morning, as I go to the place, my phone suddenly begins to stutter with messages. Someone who shared his hotspot with me in a previous day was nearby and my phone raised the signal. I look around, but I don’t know who could be.

I can’t make wide comments about Pakistan. I will not enter the realm of sociology or anthropology or even regional geopolitics here, except that there is certainly a goodwill between Pakistani and Sri Lankani, which has revealed over many imperfect conversations that tend to present English and non -existent. I didn’t think about anything long enough and I will process this visit to Islamab/Rawalpindi for the coming months.

But I can say with a certain certainty: I am not a naive or inexperienced traveler. I was on cricket trips to eight of the 12 nations playing tests (Ireland, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and the Western India are the big losses). In my other life as a travel writer and Avid diver, I went to dozens of other destinations, from West Papua, in Nepal, in Egypt, to Mozambic … Get the picture. I promise this is just to establish experience, not to flex. I never met a time in my life so dense with stories. I never had a lot of fun on my travels, in such a short space. The love I felt from complete strangers (all men, and yes, I ask for the privilege here) in these twin cities is extraordinary.

They will forever be tattooed on my consciousness. Three days, impossible to thick goodness.