Again Good Bye

July 06

After the Shandur festival I remain in Chitral for another 2 days. The hours are filled with meetings, indeed, not completely as stressful as one would expect them in Europe. After a long time in which had arisen little, now the events rush things. I am happy to have learnt to be able to wait, be patient. A pharmaceutical company comes up with an offer. They want to send some medicine to us in the valley and equip the Dispensary. In addition, a representative of this company suggests organising a free medical camp. Doctors would come directly to the valley, examine all patients, distribute free medicine - and all that at a price of lunch for the doctors. What an offer. I see it a little unfair concerning the Kalash that these representatives – they do not work the first day here - ask only me. I understand their motives well, one must impress an Angrez with even more auxiliary readiness - maybe they even see me as a role model, but they could have offered these things for a long time - to a Kalash.
Well, could and would are not so much present in my vocabulary, so let's talk about facts. With the help of a very much engaged female politician we can also persuade the DHO (District Health Officer) and the head of department in the hospital of Chitral to co-operate on one of our projects. We want to send some girls to the midwife's education. Because there is no adequate training facility (either 3 days of short training or 1 year down in Karachi) we ask whether we can work directly with the gyneacologists and may just send these young women straight to the hospital.
In the Baishali (menstruation/birth house) there are no qualified midwives or doctors. A few TBAs are there (3 days of training) and some older women with a lot of experience. Nevertheless, they do not know the new state of the medicine, new devices, knowledge about hygiene, food or family planning. I would love to see a symbiosis from old women and the girls; first ones bring practise, the latter new knowledge. Conversations with the old people have proved that they are very much for it, they would want to get the training themselves, but just cannot read Urdu what will be a condition in this training. Now also from the CBS School I hear reactions. Some time ago I have adumbrated that there was a little money to finally construct the water supply for the toilets that were built 5 years ago but still have no water and are therefore useless. The pipes are there, for the work nothing will be paid, it is a Community school, and there are enough fathers who can dig one day for their children. We will pay the cement for the tank and a mason; the rest should be finished by the community. Long time I had heard nothing, already believed that they will rather wait for more potential financiers, to get the work paid. But now the chairperson comes up to me and inquires. The fathers would work. I ask for a statement of cost. Time will tell what comes.
Several times we make our way for Chitral; I must also shift my flight so I have a few more days more in my beloved valleys. Some patients join us, an old woman with pain in the legs, a child with diarrhoea, and another lady. Stomach problems seem to be rife and in spite of my water cleaned with Micropur I do not escape the virus. In the beginning I think of a small indigestion which appears once in a while. Quickly I am disabused. My stomach holds nothing at all anymore. I try it with rusk, bananas and coke, then reach out for charcoal tablets, Bioflorin and later Immodium. Occasionally I drink Isostar - thanks to the noble donator who had left it for me in Bhutan! not to dehydrate completely and to have some minerals in the body
As I must admit that it is probably not only a small disgruntlement, I reluctantly take antibiotics which are available here everywhere very simply in chemists shops. However, mine are still from Austria. But - here they do not work. I had already not eaten for 4 days, am weak and feeling dizzy. At the second night high fever joins me in my lonely sleep.
I am steaming alternately with cold showers, however, in the morning it has disappeared again. All villagers go past, enquire about my condition, chat a little, play music to me, bring food – which makes me run to the toilet just on sight: Meat in a lot of oil, vegetables in a lot of oil, nuts, beans. I am surprised at the absolutely missing knowledge about food and homespun remedies.
„You are ill because you have gone so far away (Shandur), you should stay here!" explain some of them. A woman brings curd with some herbs which should help supposedly. Far she has marched to get this for me. „Because you have also helped me!“ She came one week ago with her hand completely burnt by boiling oil - 5 days after the accident because I was at the Shandur festival.
She had smeared a paste from fresh walnuts and honey on the open wound and did not want to see the doctor though persistent pains. She feared that he would wash off her paste under heavy pains. I also had to do this, indeed, but with camomile tea and a wad of cotton. Some “Bach rescue cream” (flower mixture, excellent for everything), and after 2 days she was fine again.
Unfortunately, her yoghurt also does not help, not even tablets remain long enough in my stomach to resolve.
In the afternoon come Muhib, an efficient friend if it is about organising and Wahab, meanwhile also a friend and representative of this pharmaceutical company. They want to discuss the program of the camp and the drug delivery. I will not be in Pakistan at this time, Shah Hussain will take over the organisation in the valley. The first conversation with the well-chosen girls for the midwives training should also take place.
It is getting serious. We had organised meetings and had asked the young ladies to think about it, to find out whether they had time and necessary education and the permission of the parents - one needs that here until one is married - or of the husband. Now stand, a little bit shy and, nevertheless, curiously, 4 expectantly giggling ladies on the porch listening to the project program once again.
Muhib would be responsible for their accommodation during the training. Wahab wants to get me a drip from the city for my bad stomach and leaves with his motorcycle, only to come back after half an hour - motorcycle broken … They must rent a jeep, put the motorcycle on the back seat and take me to hospital.
After the strenuous conversations I am quite weak, feeling dizzy, I am tired. The jeep brings us to Ayun where the bike should be repaired. Muhib and I search a transport facility to the city. One takes us to the bridge, there we crouch. I do not see a lot around me, am exhausted by 3 steps and only want to sleep. Finally, after half an hour comes a suitable car, we get in and are driven directly to the hospital.
Now for the first time I am as a patient here. The night doctor on duty knows me only briefly from my visits with other patients, he is not the one with good references to which I bring my patients, but he is there. He prescribes abounding drugs, which Wahab buys for me. In the meantime, I am led in a room - at least 24 beds and almost 70 people are already there - and thus it also smells.
Where in western hospitals this stale sterile smell drowns all other, here it is missing. The walls, probably once white, are covered with splashes of any colour whose origin I don’t want to know at all. The sheets likewise fit to this design. I try to get comfortable and spread my scarf on the terrible pillow. In spite of 3 years in Asia I cannot yet lie down with the head directly in the dirt - and would not want to be able to.
The drip is hung up, I give a clean needle to the sister - needles must be also bought yourself, as all the other drugs. She waves about with it in the room and briefly disappears what makes me force her to use a new one. Then she pushes the small butterfly to its place, the Venflon is done, other drips - antibiotics, what a question - are added. 3 hours I have to stay.
Wahab wants to accommodate me afterwards with his family - not in the hospital, for what I am really grateful. Muhib brings coke and bananas, a bowl of rice with a lot of oil and fresh Naan. I spear the rice, the rest I dispatch in shortest time. After I am ready they arrange a taxi, we drive to Wahab’s house.
After a light dinner - I am really hungry - I lie down to bed, fall asleep fast. After one hour - thus approx. at midnight - I am woken up, a little confused. Wahab tells that his uncle has just died and he is apologizing for inconvenience, but we have to go to another house because here soon the funereal company would arrive. The tradition wants that dead people are immediately buried the same day.
I get up, telling him he should not feel sorry for me but his relatives. We are transported in a car which stands suddenly in front of the house, the driver races through dark Chitral as Beelzebub himself would chase him. After 5 minutes we are at the brother’s house which is deserted, because the brother studies in the south.
I lie down again, and this time sleep delightfully up to the morning, awake starving. I am happy to be in good health again, understand once again that I had taken my health as granted and enjoy every bite which stays longer in my stomach than 2 minutes.
As I am already in Chitral I try to push the organisation of the projects a little forward – means I speak again with the responsible persons, simply hear whether everything is still OK – which is not always the case. Changes with lodging of the girls and time of the training are necessary.
At home mummy every day boils rice without oil now - a frightfully tasteless affair, but my stomach thanks with almost flawless function. I do not want to overstrain it immediately. Green tea without sugar is always there, and now the yoghurt is also helpful to built up the intestinal flora a little.
The last days are relaxed, friends come over to say good bye, Imtiaz also comes once more to the valley, brings fruits from his garden. I will meet him on the last day in Chitral, before the planned departure to Peshawar where I will get on the plane.
During the last months I was sometimes preparing tea and entertaining guests, slowly indeed I change from the guest to a real family member with duties. If it had never been possible earlier to cook tea or to help in the household more than only playfully and exceptionally, now this works quite admirably. My Kalash mummy has no more shyness to ask me for help, she sends me to fetch water, milk the nanny goats, cook tea and finally I am introduced to the high art of making bread. I started with turning the round flat dough-cakes, then make them myself. So agile and easy it looks if mum does this. Make dough of flour and water, mix it till smoothly liquid, take a handful out and smear it in circular movements onto the hot plate, until the dough is thin and round of form.
This cannot be so difficult. Sarnama, a neighbour has mixed the first dough for me, so that I can get a feeling for the right consistency. The first problems are my hands. I am left-handed, my right hand, with which I have to make the bread is clumsy. Hobnailed I scoop a serving of dough from the low bowl and try to take it as fast as possible in the direction of the onza (hot plate).
A gust of wind blows smoke and tears in my eyes, the dough drips on both sides from the hand, I leave traces on the hot plate, must laugh. The dough rest that remains is good enough for a minibread. I spread it, almost burn my fingers with the last prank movement about the thin dough - the fingers are not even one millimetre above the hot plate under that the fire blazes. Simply make bread?
The 2nd attempt lands to the large part on my dress and my arms, the onza looks like a battlefield. Mummy sits besides and grins. "You are doing well…", she mutters.
On we go.. Hands wiped off, get new dough, swing it above the plate record, squeeze from the hands, spread it - take care of the fingers! – Really nice is none of the results, but the taste is ok.
From day to day it is improving, getting routine. It is a proud day for mummy as guests eat my bread for the first time (before we had eaten it ourselves). For the Kalash this is an important process of integration for my person. Making bread, speaking the language, knowing and obeying the cultural rules – even if just out of respect - signifies a lot here.
The worse it gets to leave the valley, although I have already got the return flight ticket confirmed. At night we dance, I record some of my favourite songs with the Skype microphone in fairly bad quality – but enough for memories. In the morning I hear Jamil playing the first tones from ,Acchi gos a no' to wake me up. I have already packed, many things remain in the valley, I will take only the most necessary.
Mummy is not there, I will meet her in Chitral - she comes from a relaxing night at the hot springs. Shah and dad likewise. Leaving for Chitral is not so bad, nevertheless, a few crocodile tears roll down my cheeks when the jeep slowly ploughs out of the valley. I smile internally at myself. I know the theatre, in the end, already from the last farewell in October.
My flight is booked from Peshawar via Doha to Munich. This means I do not have to go to Lahore or even Karachi. Indeed, I am sorry not to see Javed's family, but up to the last day many things have to be done here.
I have to spend the last day in Chitral again, the last little things must still be regulated, the indigenous bone doctor gets bandages for his patients, cheques for the payment of the projects during my absence are issued, I inform my bank, so that there won’t be any troubles. Some cheques were already turned down because I had twisted my name parts or the last ,a' in Isabella looked with a lot of imagination like ,e'
The departure is first delayed and then, as usual suddenly stressful. Sikander, Tehsil Nasim Mastuj and team captain of the victorious Chitrali team at the Shandur Polo and his son Ali, likewise polo player and almost pilot, offer me a lift to Peshawar in the last second. It is good to go with nice people to chase away my homesickness a little bit, however, while driving past the entrance to the valley I am anything but enterprising or ready for departure. Lost in thought I stare in the valley until even the last tree disappears behind the bend. In the background I hear Jamil playing my favourite song, believe in a hallucination and notice that really my favourite song is playing from the tape record – coincident? I smile at myself again even for the hokey chances which didn’t do anything to me before, however, at least not so strong emotions, but there is nothing to do against the tears which run again. I try to talk or to sing to deflect myself a little. It helps better than the last time, but really well …?
Sikander even offers to host me, until my flight would leave in 3 days.
We talk long, he also belongs to the new, young and motivated political team of the area around Chitral. His explanations and motives seem to have authentically humanitarian background, are not the usual empty phrases from the campaign pledges. I wish him a lot of luck.
Another friend makes easier the Odyssey to the flight ticket for me, he had booked it when I was still in Chitral.
After the advent of mobile phones in Chitral it seemed easy to do so. It seemed. The mobile phones in Chitral … this is also an Odyssey. 3 boosters were put up in the past months, gushily proud they sold twice as many connections as intended - and brought thus the net to crash. Crash is maybe too coarse - one can think about a connection between midnight and 3am, otherwise rather by chance or not at all.
Now they consider expanding the network to the valleys.

On the 31st of July the airplane takes off early in the morning, the imp on my shoulder still wants to persuade me to exchange the ticket and, nevertheless, fly home to Chitral. During the 2-hours waiting period because of delay I am sometimes about to turn and run out.
But 2 months in Europe will be acceptable, seeing family and friends see again, fix my knee, hold speeches, arrange some things for further stay in Pakistan…