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| A busy week but not particularly a productive week as far as data collection goes.
I began the week by going to the airport to meet some visiting UK anthropologists.
The following few days were spent mostly in the company of anthropologists in Rawalpindi,
Islamabad and Bhalot. The one bit of genuine ethnographic data I managed to get
was pretty sketchy-- I went to a tent pegging show in Taxila. I finished the week
by trying the new Daewoo Express bus servie to Lahore on the new motorway. I suspect I've had more contact with other anthropologists than most doctoral students in the field. Apart from regular email contact with several anthropologists I have been in steady contact with some other anthropologists here in northern Punjab. They have come to Bhalot and I have visited their field sites. In addition to that I have had visitors from England who have come to see Bhalot and meet the people I'm working with. When I left UKC to do my field work I wasn't looking for utter seclusion or some pristine condition with no contact from the 'outside' world (which is a good thing since this part of Punjab is well connected to the outside world in some ways), so these visits have not posed a problem in terms of interfering with my research. These last visits have however posed another sort of problem-- up till I spent this week with these friends from England I honestly felt almost no homesickness. Being with them however has made me remember all the good times I had with them back in Europe so now I sort of regret that their going away again. Unfortunately I'm also glad their going away again since talking about anthropology and data collection is not the same as doing it. I desperately need to get back to the doing of anthropology and not the talking about it. The tent pegging was interesting. I could see the pomp and ceremony of centuries in the show. If I let my mind drift then I could have been sitting there at any time in the past few hundred years-- this could have been under the Mughal Empire, the Sikh Kingdom or the British Raj and I don't suppose it would have been significantly different (assuming I ignored the trucks and jeeps parked around the grounds). There were two women present at this function. One was with me-- a visiting anthropologist, the other was a woman everyone told me was Miss Annie from the Norwegian consulate. I found it very interesting that everyone seemed to know exactly who she was. I also commend her courage for going out into the 'male' domain seemingly so comfortably. I don't suppose she runs any real risk since she had guards with her but the stares are something most people find discomforting. The woman anthropologist with me pointed out to me that although Miss Annie was in western clothes and she was in shalwar kameez there was not a significant difference in the way people stared at them. While I would encourage anyone going to the rural areas of Pakistan to wear shalwar kameez I must admit she has a point-- shalwar kameez doesn't really offer much protection from staring. When you are different (like being a woman in areas normally reserved for men) you will be stared at (normally nothing more than staring but the staring can be intense). I get stared at but increasingly people either know who I am (in Taxila and Bhalot especially-- but also in parts of Pindi) or they're not sure whether I'm Pakistani or not. I don't look Pakistani if I'm in western clothes but in shalwar kameez I could be someone with Central Asian ancestry. These days people often assume my bad Urdu/Punjabi is because I'm really a Pushto speaker. When they discover that I don't speak Pushto well either then they realize I'm something else. It was useful to have a woman accompany my group to the tent pegging because it reminded me about the staring. I went to Lahore with another anthropologist. The idea was to see another anthropologist in action. We took the new Daewoo Express bus service from Pindi to Lahore. Everyone had told me it takes 4 hours. I didn't really believe them since I've noticed that people seem universally to shave time off of voyages for some reason. We were close to 4 hours however. It took 4 hours to get to the city limits of Lahore and then another half an hour to get to the bus terminal. Much better than the 6 hours it takes to take the GT road. Yet again I was struck by the unpleasantness of Lahore upon arrival. I know everyone seems to fall in love with this city because it's historical and has beautiful buildings but when I go there what I see is a city that has more beggars, slicker conmen, ruder taxi drivers and more aggressive drivers than Islamabad and Pindi (not that those cities are picture perfect by any means). I think Lahore falls into the same trap as London and New York. Basicly it's a hard place to live and so people have hardened themselves somewhat in order to survive. I enjoy my time there but I'm always glad to leave. This week's update is not one of my prouder moments. I let time slip away from me and didn't get much done. So I resolve to work that much harder once I'm back in the village. |
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