Kebabs on a bed of friendship

Travelling is like food in many ways. In my experience, both can be either improvised or carefully planned. They can be kept simple or extremely elaborate. Food, like travel, can leave you deeply satisfied or with the bitterest of after-tastes, swearing NEVER EVER to try that again owing. Food and travel, through the the multi-faceted experience they offer, have the magical ability to transport one through space and time, kicking imagination into overdrive and springing memories out of the dustier recesses of the mind. And when the whole experience is shared with someone, it is magnified, it's not food anymore, it's a meal; it's not a trip anymore, it's a voyage of discovery.

Some smells and tastes catapult me back into childhood whenever I encounter them, encasing me into a loving, safe homely cocoon. Succulent sweet fried plantain(Muzuzu, a cousin of mine can potentially inflict GBH over the smallest piece), Chicken Moambe stewed in palm fruit juice a la Congolaise, homemade mayonnaise with crispy frites, vanilla pudding, Dad’s succulent cotelettes de porc.....I could go on for hours.

It isn’t just the food it’s the experience of sharing the meal  I can still hear their kind admonishments whenever I made a mess -
Dad: “Non, mais...est ce que tu dois toujours manger comme un cochon?” which loosely translates as “Sharing a table with you is like watching a pig eat!”- or for non-observance of Mum’s rather strict table etiquette;
Mum: “Space for a cat between you and the back of the chair, sit up straight, no slouching, no elbows on the table and the metallic things either side of the plate are cutlery, not toys, not weapons, not useless decorations but CUTELRY And finish your food, tu as toujours les yeux plus gros que le ventre....do you know how many little kids are starving out there?”

My sister rather intelligently asked why we couldn’t take it to them. I remember my siblings’ sneaky attempts to get the last piece of plantain from one another’s plate.
Lazy sunday afternoon babercues, potlucks at uni, I remember the food because I remember the meal and the people.

My travel experiences are forever imprinted because I have had the blessing of sharing them with extremely interesting and kind individuals, and I say interesting and kind because I have come across individuals with the personality of a depressed amoeba and dangling icicles for a heart. Of the good ones, some I have known for years, others I met on the road and a good number have hosted me; opening the doors to their homes and making me part of their families, sharing their countries and cultures. Most of them, I will know for as long as we both live. The most amazing sights I have beheld carry heavier meaning because a travelling companion made an insightful- or phenomenally funny-remark that has cemented that moment into my head.

Which brings me to an amazing journey and the amazing people who I shared it with. In the winter of 2008, I was in Pakistan . Not bustling Karachi, not sleek Islamabad, but Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, a mere ten kilometres from the Khyber Pass and Afghanistan. We are talking about a place that is competing with Mogadishu, some back alley in a drug-cartel-owned neighbourhood of Mexico and a small mosque in Sarah-Palin-vote-country, for the title of “Most dangerous place on Earth ever EVER EVER”. . Two friends of mine, Qash and Yaqub, took me around Peshawar, Islamabad and the Indus Valley in Pakistan. Qash is a big gangly guy who looks much younger than his twenty three years while Yaqub is a shorter sort with a thin wiry body and the face mischief would have if it had one.

My work allowed free afternoons every second day and I spent them walking with them in the old city, a network of narrow alleys where they pointed out medieval parapets, lattice work, ancient doors and other architectural features in the same tone as they would shrapnel scarred walls, signs of the all too frequent suicide bombings.

Peshawar is a beautiful city in a sense that there is a profusion of old and new. Shopping with them in ultra modern shopping malls with Calvin Klein and Louis Vuitton imitations was really cool. We took rides in the extremely garrishly addorned buses(entire volumes have been written about them), we took walks in the grounds of the University of Peshawar, a venerable instution that looks like an imperial palace complete with courtyards and towers.

They offered to go into the hills and shoot an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade-I’m sure you knew that) for about ten dollars and should I add five dollars, they’d throw in a goat to aim at. There is not a joke within a mile of this. I declined the offer and remembered not to comment on the poor goat( imagine it being led into a meadow, where it would proced to graze unsuspecting of its fate) I did not say anything because that would have just been GAY.

Pakistan, and the entire Indian sub-continent I was told, is crazy about food and I soon caught the bug. I pigged out continuously, never refusing a parcel I was offered and occasionally stealing it when it wasn’t offered. It was that good. Food is what naturally happens in Pakistan after a handshake. I visited their families, ate the best lamb kebabs in this solar system, big flat spicy patties of lamb mince that you have with Naan bread and an assortment of vegetables. I am drooling copiously on the keyboard as I write this.

Walking through the colourful markets with them was an enlightening experience as I managed to be pulled in the back of every second shop, to sit on a carpet with seven or so other bearded men( bearing an uncanny resemblance to the stereotypical Taliban) who would poor me tea , nudge me to drink it and have a few samosas with. It’s a sign of respect to the guest, owing to the sacred custom of hospitality and sanctuary. And I tell you I was a hit. At the end of one particularly full day at the market, my pee had the distinct and unmistakable whiff and tinge of Jasmine green tea.

Sadly for me, The North West frontier Province is one of the few places on earth where alcohol is expressly forbidden.

To acquire some legally, one must first register with the local authorities for a permit by providing proof that one is not a Muslim. The permit takes upwards of three months to get (“Shrill scream” to use another friend’s expression). They must have noticed the trembling of my lip and the tears welling in my eyes because they quickly told me that there were “ways” wink-wink. That same evening I was generously plied with smuggled vodka (that tasted like paint stripper but hey...who am I to refuse a gift) and cold, battered and bent Heineken cans that had been brought in on camel back from Russia. You just have to know people who know people.

Strongly regimented societies need outlets, valves to let the pressure out, and I was lucky to witness one such instance by going to a party. Think of an apartment at the top of a building in the business quarter of the city, packed to the brim with mostly young men and the odd group of shy-looking but extremely outspoken young women and a sprinkling of visiting arty types from Karachi and Islamabad. The discussion went from fashion to gossip (I knew no one concerned, but I tell you it was sizzling), to politics. The whole thing happened in a very relaxed way, with a respectful observance of etiquette between the men and the women, but I could see some romances blossoming on the couches(still a good metre distance between the two , bashful eyes, very awkward and really sweet- it was courtship the Romeo and Juliet way).The blaring music (from Britney Spears to Pakistan’s top ten of the week) and a sea of cheap booze moved things along and soon after I got there everyone was dancing. I almost envied them, this double life they lived, this juncture of world they lived in and their deep awareness of the moment. I remember at some point being in the middle of a circle of dancers throwing back my nth shot of liquid fire and thinking that I was partaking in a privileged, exclusive and rare experience, much like a once in three hundred years alignment of stars. Drinking in the moment, literally.

Three weeks into my visit, we went to the Indus Valley, at a spot where the Indus and the Kabul River meet into a gigantic Y shaped formation. It was in the full of winter so the water levels were low and we stood in this expanse of huge shiny pebbles, waves upon wave of smooth rocks in colours ranging from jet-black to a translucent white with all the hues and nuances in-between. We let our minds wander for a while taking it all in. I imagined how many people had sat here throughout the ages, in this legendary valley. And we talked about world perspectives, life expectations, country, family, and love.

The both of them were expecting their families to choose brides for them and they explained the rationale behind what is widely viewed in the west as backwards and devoid of love. First of all, their parents and their parents’ parents had had their marriages arranged and fared quite well in them, viewing the marriage less as a thing of love and more like a stable partnership whose primary aims were the prosperity of the family, the flourishing of good relationships between two clans as well as the upholding of millennia old traditions that make up their culture. They also believes tht love grows, it doesn’t just happen. An approach that carries more sense and sensibility than “the bachelorette”, what with its hire/fire, marriage for morons(albeit with perfect teeth and heaving bosom) . When they said marriage they meant “business” and if love happened in the mix they would be really happy.

We talked world and we talked country. They were enamoured with their torn land, in love with what it could be and they expressed their views on the fundamentalists- they were sad at the fact that most of them were born and bred in such poverty that undiscerning fundamentalism was the only thing that gave them purpose. They could understand that but all the same they spoke of them with palpable disgust, as the people who robbed them continuously of their lives, family members, their religion and their future.

We took a trip to Islamabad, a beautiful artificial city that is laid in an uncompromising grid of confusingly similar streets. It’s wooded and very cosmopolitan, a mere few hours from Peshawar, there were women with no veils on in the streets, fewer burqas and all manner of things western. After a mosey around the main sights, Feisal mosque (Incredible place), we went up the Margalla hills to a place called Daman-e-Koh, a popular-if not generic looking- picnic spot for the well heeled locals with an array of restaurants. The view was unbelievable, the city literally laid to your feet.

My experience of Pakistan will always be through the lens of the friends I made, a friendship that transcended a lot of race, religious and location obstacles. I’m still in touch with them and I still miss a land that is troubled, misunderstood and beautiful. From the organic chaos of Peshawar to glitzy-and somewhat clinical - Islamabad, I met the people whose voice I hear whispering “try a bit harder “whenever I have a guest. With them I learnt to appreciate the extent of the problems their country is facing and the courage it takes to live there and still believe tomorrow will be better.


Incidentally, two of the places I had meals in, The Marriot in Islamabad and the Pearl Oriental in Peshawar were the targets of terrorist attacks which claimed the lives of dozens of people.

The day before I left, Qash and Yakub came over and brought the last round of booze along with some gifts, one of them a huge cake made with dates and cinnamon. We spent two hours talking and eating and making plans about the time they would come and visit Africa. We parted tipsy- a tad bit teary too- but armed with the certitude that we shall meet again.

The next day at the airport, I was coldly informed at the PIA check-in(the things I wish them are in the BLEEP category) that I had excess luggage and had to lose some of the ballast. After a few moments of careful consideration I parted with about three kilos of books and –shriller scream- the date cake. It had to be done-although dates and cakes even when not together trigger a sweeping tide of guilt . I calm myself by chanting “it’s not the food, it’s the people that matter.”

To my two brothers from another mother, Qash and Yakub and to their beautiful country, Pakistan.