finally!

After several months of waiting for the Pakistan visa, last-minute preparations, best wishes and tearful goodbyes, I and two other Filipino volunteers (Alice and Raquel)  finally set foot in Islamabad International Airport at around 10PM last night (1:00AM in the Philippines) via a jam-packed Thai Airways. 

Islamabad’s hot air blew on my still sleepy head.   But it was the lines at the immigration counters which gave me a sudden reality check.  We are foreigners in this country so we found ourselves lining up to the counter for foreigners.  Looking at the lines of the Pakistani citizens, who are categorized as “Pakistani nationals” and “unaccompanied women and children”, also gave me a glimpse of perhaps a larger reality that I should always remind me of. 

The smiling face of Mr. Ghulzar, a VSO staff, among the crowd at the departure area obliterated whatever anxiety I felt from the time we disembarked from the plane.  He was friendly, even telling us some tagalog words that he learned from other Filipino volunteers before. While the training is yet to start tomorrow, some VSO staff gave us an early welcome and brief tour in some nearby shopping centers – imagine those old bazaars in the Philippines. 

So, this afternoon, Raquel, Alice and I, shouldering our shawls, went out for a half-kilometer walk to the post mall where we could buy and mail some post cards.    But it is closed because Sunday’s a rest day and most business establishments including malls take this declaration seriously.  So we just headed to an open grocery store and bought detergents and fruit juices – make sense to us.   

And so, from this small spot in Islamabad, my first day in Pakistan is a picture of quiet gated neighborhood, manicured gardens, deserted streets, men in hordes or alone, single-file trees, grey skies, a few familiar banks, some bookshops, and malls. Summer will end by August or September so the fevered air outside will not yet subside.  Going to cool Abbottabad City where I will be placed would be a much welcome change. 

I am now missing my life back home.  I am missing the people I love. This morning, I had a searing realization of this new life.  I felt like I am on an unfamiliar spot that is far from where I’ve always been and there’s a long road ahead. But for the next  24 months, I have to consider this country my home.