Hotel Pakistan (Part 1)

For those of you following me on Twitter, you know that I posted that I was going to an "interesting border area" on Sunday. Well I purposely left out which border area to reduce potential worries that I could not quell due to my lack of communication abilities. If you could not guess I went to the Indian/Pakistani border. Needless to say it was the trip of a lifetime and if I was to make one blog posting about it you all would be very angry at its length. So the first installment will be all about the trip and the sites unrelated to work that I saw. The second installment will be all about the amazing work that took place on this four day journey. Enjoy!

The trip began on Sunday night at 10:00. Qeetaben, Juslaben (the translator, more on that to come), and myself boarded a non-AC sleeper bus. For those of you that have not traveled this way I highly recommend it. You sleep with the windows open underneath the night sky and the gentle rumble of the engine will lull you to sleep. Unless you take into account the horn of the bus that pierces the night air to let other drivers know, "I am a bus, I am big, I win, get out of my way". Or, since the windows are open, watch out for sandstorms (not the the rave song). At about 1:30 in the morning I was awoken to the sensation of sand hitting my face through the open window (See picture below). The storm got so bad that the buses stopped so I walked outside to snap another pic and just to say that I had been in a sandstorm.

After 8 hours we finally arrived in the city of Bhuj in the Kutch district to board another bus for the two hour drive to the SEWA district office. After grabbing some sleep on my bed for the next four days (a thin mattress on the floor) we headed out to the villages for some amazing work. At the conclusion of the second day my translator asked if I would like to go see a Hindu temple. I did not know what a treat this would be. The temple she was referring to was 2,500 years old and was one of the holiest sites in the Hindu religion (Pictures are not allowed to be taken inside). In addition to that it was literally on the Pakistani border separated only by a small "sea'' as my translator called it. It was surreal being next to such a peaceful place knowing that only a few hundred feet away was a country at war with the Taliban. A country filled with strife, pain, and suffering caused by hatred and extremism.

Anyway, as I walked to take a picture of the temple from the dock I was stopped by two Border Security Enforcement Officers, who were mainly curious as to where I was from but showed little emotion, and they proceeded to tell me the whole history of the temple and its significance. The next and final day I went out to more villages but this time actually stepped foot on Pakistani soil as told to me by my translator. The village that we visited was literally on the border and was so remote that it did not even warrant border police (Although I did see the Border Enforcement office on the way back). It was truly an awesome experience.

The land border between India and Pakistan

This concludes 'Hotel Pakistan Pt. 1'. Please stay tuned for the Part 2 detailing all the important work that took place over the last four days in amazing area of the world. And go Penguins!!!