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| This week I got some audio recordings of a speech from the kuli kacherri transcribed.
The search for someone to do the job was not as easy as I would have liked. I was
able to verify some rumours about family disputes in the village. I attended waleema
(one of the wedding celebrations. I managed to get some very satisfying video of
a technology that is not that common in this area. Finally I made a brief visit to
the Taxila Christian Hospital on behalf of a man in Bhalot who has been very good
to me since my very first visit. I had decided for various reasons that I wanted to hire someone from the village to help me transcribe Malik Wajjid's speech from the kuli kacherri of 30 January 1999. I had several requirements: 1. literate, 2. not a student, 3. unemployed, 4. not a Malik. I intended this work to be something that would help someone who was looking for work and be of great use to myself. I didn't want a student because it's boring and tedious job that takes time. I didn't want to distract a student form his studies or deny him his leisure time. I decided I didn't want a Malik because although some of the younger men in the Malik family might appreciate a little extra money they don't need it and their sense of hospitality would bar them from accepting money from me. I believe firmly that I cannot ask someone to transcribe audio recordings out of friendship. It is one of the most unpleasant things I've ever done and I wish I could get paid when I have to do it. I first asked a young man from the village who met all the requirements. We fixed a time for him to come to my room and start work. I waited and he never showed up. I concluded form this that he really didn't want to do the work but didn't feel he could refuse. So I asked a second man with the same result. When I started hunting around for someone else I discovered that I had very quickly exhausted the list of unemployed non-student literate men. Unemployment is a problem in the village but literacy is so low that there were very few people who could actually do the job I wanted. To be honest I was quite surprised at some of the people who told me they couldn't read or write or could only do so with great difficulty. Some of them have helped me in the past with my simple writing in Urdu and so I assumed they could read and write. I found out that while many people have a notion of the alphabet (enough to help me anyway) an appallingly low number can do anything with it. I finally did get the tape transcribed by a friend from the neighbouring village of Thatha Khalil, Malik Tahir Mehmoud. He is not a Malik from Bhalot and in Thatha Malik doesn't mean quite the same thing as it does here. Like the more local Maliks he resisted strongly accepting pay for the job but I insisted. I repeat that tape transcription should never be done without proper compensation-- this should be written into the code of conduct for the ASA guidelines. The family rumours revolved around some disputes between agnates over the past 20 years. I have been hearing about them since my first visit here in January 1998. This past week I casually mentioned some of what I'd heard to various parties and discovered that there is more discrepancy in the events than I would have predicted. Some stories I had heard, I suspect, are outright fabrications, others are the result of subjective memories. This is the sort of information that requires some delicacy. Although there are few secrets in the village about these events they are intimate family details that are not discussed with everyone. For this reason I only mention that I am making progress in discovering some of these disputes and in getting some elaboration on detail-- but I will decline to give any of that detail here. The waleema I attended was in the neighbouring village, Thatha Khalil (Malik Tahir Mehmoud's home). It was a huge gathering of several hundred people. I was told there were around 800 people but as all of this seemed to take place in houses scattered throughout one section of the village it was impossible to get an accurate count. I met some very friendly Afghans who have been settled in the area for about 12 years and seem to be adapting quite well. I also met some more zamindars from a little further away-- some with armed bodyguards. This area is generally so peaceful I forget that some zamindars must take many more precautions when they leave their village than my friends. The video I took was a bullock walking in a circle operating a cutting machine for fodder. An amazingly elaborate setup for a simple job but then I have never had to operate the fodder cutters for more than 30 seconds so perhaps it's worth it for genuine cutting. I hope to get this on the Sustainable Semi-Arid Development website this spring-- there is already some video of the manual cutter so I will add this and the rich man's technology-- an electric cutter. I ended my week in Taxila Christian Hospital with a short chat to Dr. Lal (no one seems to know his real name and he was too busy for me to waste his time asking). He wears a bright red shirt (lal=red in Urdu) and everyone says he is American or European-- very odd because he is definitely South Asian. I thought perhaps of South Asian origin but raised in the west but when he spoke he had a very good South Asian English accent. An older man in the village needs a hernia operation but he is frightened of the hospital and the doctor (who isn't?). He asked me to please go to the hospital and tell Dr. Lal that this man is my friend and to please take good care of him. He didn't want me to pay for anything or do anything except tell Dr. Lal that we are friends (which is true). So I went and I made a slight nuisance of myself finding Dr. Lal and interrupted his work to mention to him that my friend was going to see him that day and to please be gentle with him since he is afraid. Dr. Lal was extremely nice about the situation and I suspect he must get this sort of request fairly often (it is kind of the Pakistani way of doing thing-- get a patron to speak up for you). I then found my friend and wrote a quick apology and thank you to Dr. Lal-- gave it to my friend to give the doctor and left. One hour in any charity hospital is enough for me if I'm not ill. I'm afraid I find few places more depressing than charity hospitals-- they pain and anguish in the waiting crowds is almost tangible. I can stay there as long as I must but I don't go there for pleasure. I end this week pleased that my friend received the medical attention he needed (which he would have received without my intervention) and that he is happy. The morning after the hospital visit he brought me a shawl full of popcorn to say thank you. I continue to work on the tape transcripts and translations and trying different settings for audio compression in the hopes that I will eventually get a decent recording of the kuli kacherri speech for the web (it's looking unlikely). I quietly hope that I will be able to avoid wedding invitations for a while (I managed to get out of three this week because foreigners aren't really supposed to go to that part of Pakistan)-- and while I know as an anthropologist I should be begging to go to weddings I find them some of the hardest work of anything I do here. Lastly I continue my discrete poking around in another family's internal and external conflicts. |
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