Pakistan Zindabad Day...

Yesterday was Pakistan's Independence Day -kinda crazy day in this country. The fireworks happen both the night before and the night of, the flag vendors make their money, all the kids go to school for the 'raising of the flag' and then go home and eat halva-puri, and even AKU had a flag raising ceremony followed by free brunch for anyone who wants to come and get it (you can imagine the massive numbers of families that come to AKU on this day!)... of course, there are also random gun firings (I don't think they realize that what goes up must come down... so just firing randomly in the air can actually kill someone... apparently this happens even when they do this at weddings -guests have been known to get hit by the bullet on its way down and sometimes get killed... OIP! OIP is my newly invented abbrev: Only In Pakistan -I enjoy the fact that it can be exclaimed "oyp!" and so is more subtle in its 'hidden' meaning, you see)

I, on the other hand, woke up yesterday morning with massive cramping and had to start a second round of Cipro+Entamizole... back on the dry toast and tea diet and missing out on delicious tastes in my mouth... my hunch is that it's Giardia, and probably the same Giardia from before that just never got fully cleared or I got reinfected after the last round of antibiotics which annihilated all the 'good' intestinal flora, making me more susceptible to reinfection...

I just want to say this: I am soooooooo ready to go home. I want to go home now. My family in Montreal is going up to Tremblant later today and will watch some of the August meteor shower from there at night, and I want nothing more than to be there with them... but I guess, I am here, so I am here. But I am ready to go back to wearing whatever I want, whenever I want and wherever I want -the same goes for eating. The only silver lining to my multiple Karachi-belly infections has been some weight loss (everyone keeps saying "oh! you lost sooooo much weight! so much weight!" -you'd think I weighed a ton before, even though my BMI was still in the healthy range, but hey, I'll take the compliments), which actually is good since I haven't really been able to exercise here as much as I had originally thought, and so otherwise, would not have had my usual pleasant spell of summertime body-goes-back-to-healthier-weight/shape pattern...

When I go home, I want to eat salad and mummy's home cooking. I want to eat lots of cheese. I want to go for Chinese food, and steak, and sushi and try that place, M-burger... of course, I will keep my quantities reasonable so I don't put back on all the weight I suffered so much to lose, but I look forward to having those tastes back in my mouth =)

Sigh. I feel so extremely happy just thinking about all this... really I almost wonder how much it would cost to change my ticket so I can fly home early. Although then I wouldn't get to see Dubai. And I really, really did want to see the Ismaili Center in Dubai, which looks absolutely breathtakingly beautiful in all those photos and film clips, and of course, the family I have there. So... well. Inshallah, this week will go by quickly -there are quite a few fun things planned for the rest of the week (most involve eating delicious food though, so hopefully my stomach will be up for it... like really, if you don't understand what a tragedy it is for me to not be able to eat all this delicious, but obviously contaminated, food, then clearly you don't know me well at all -I live first to eat, and then to love -in fact, I don't think I could love anyone who didn't love to eat because we would not have enough in common)

Also, I must remember that I have some excellent new ideas for my novel, which were inspired by some conversation with interesting people yesterday: ancient books hidden in the pillars of old buildings in exotic places, legend-like faith of one man on a journey by foot from far away lands to visit his beloved, spontaneous large-scale sacred meetings amidst rocks and rivers... it's all like a fairy-tale, which is perfect for my fairy-tale...

I send you my love and hugs and oh, i have so had enough of these stomach bugs... (now visualizing being able to happily eat that delicious chocolate tart and drink that mint lemonade planned for Wednesday -Inshallah, these drugs will have worked their magic by then!)