Upon further review…

I am still perplexed about Obama. I did not know that the national anthem video was so old. And I honestly did not get it from a hate email. I don’t get hate emails about Obama. I guess anyone who knows me might guess I’m safe from crossing over to the dark side and voting democrat. Even when the R candidate is utterly disappointing. I’m guessing that all the stink people made about Obama not putting his hand over his heart in Iowa last year was a good lesson for Obama. People do care about symbols and gestures, especially if you are “living your patriotism.” The reasons I have found for Obama’s little gaff (in his words)

1. “My grandfather taught me when I was 2. During the Pledge of Allegiance, you put your hand over your heart. During the national anthem, you sing.” (Snopes.com)

2.”There are two places where this rumor started,” Obama said. “All right? Number one, we were at an event in Iowa and the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ was being sung by a woman and the camera caught me, not, I didn’t have my hand over my heart while I was listening and singing along with her, not out of disrespect, just because I was listening to her song and thought, ‘Boy, I was getting into the song.’ Now, I acknowledge the mistake of not having put my hand over my heart during the singing of the ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ although anybody who’s watching — I’m gonna look at all of you at a ball game one time and see if you always get it right, ’cause sometimes, we all, I just want to point that out, so that’s point number one.” (abc news political punch)

I can admit when I’m wrong. If this was just a one-time blunder I take back my sinster comment. I mean, if his grandfather taught him to sing the national anthem instead of placing his hand over his heart that is fine. It was his grandfather afterall, and lessons we learn at 2 are deeply ingrained. (sarcasm) I also regret the wailing cat comment since the rendition was so moving for Obama. (earnest) You can see that he was mouthing the words there at the end. But why then, in response to whether the hand-over-heart missing gesture was a mistake or if he habitually declines to do so did his campaign say, “Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. In no way was he making any kind of statement, any suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous.” (same snopes article from above)? It is possible to sing while putting your hand over your heart. And if it was a one-time mistake they/he should just say so. Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t is a stupid way for his campaign to answer the question. It makes him seem arrogant. And Obama’s catching himself almost accusing people at ballgames seems odd to me. I’m not voting for joe-baseball fan. To be the president you are held to a higher standard, and gestures do matter.

And now, just for fun, here is a video I found on youtube when I was looking for other videos of Obama putting his hand on his heart. This is a Bollywood film song. And its not an underhanded accusation of Obama’s “secret muslim” status. I studied India in college and so I have an affinity for Indian cinema. Enjoy!

Obama sings film song in Hindi

 

Why I won’t vote for Obama

Just standing there

Granted, the wailing cat “singing” the national anthem doesn’t really show much respect either. Maybe he didn’t know it was the national anthem. But then he’s just an aloof space cadet. Not wearing a flag pin is one thing, but not showing respect for the flag is disturbing. He’s running for president!

Utopia

I’m uneasy about Obama’s plan to cut defense spending and get rid of nuclear weapons. Hey, I’d love it if we lived in a different world… but once he pulls the troops out of Iraq and cuts defense spending the compound is going to start looking really good.

Now that Obama is the presumptive nominee for the Dems I know that the right wing bloodhounds are going to go for the jugular. I’ve tried to keep an open mind about him because I really don’t like McCain. But I don’t think I can forgive Obama for slighting the flag. It means something to me. It always has. The first two verses of our national anthem always bring me to tears:

O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen thro’ the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

A deep and abiding respect for the men and women who fought and died for the ideals of our country was instilled in me very young. When I was in high school I protested the school boards decision to hold classes on memorial day by writing a letter and spending the day decorating war veteran’s graves with flags. (I now decorate graves with my children on memorial day.) I also won our schools voice of democracy speech contest that year hosted by the VFW. With the help of those wonderful men I was able to get flags in every classroom in my highschool. The flag means something to me. It always has. I just don’t understand a presidential candidate who won’t show respect for the flag. It feels deliberately sinister to me. Obama will not get my vote. The only good thing that can come of this election for me now is for John McCain to pick a solid, healthy running mate who actually represents the Republican party. win the election, and promptly die.

**For some reason the videos wouldn’t imbed…it must be a conspiracy!

 

Clear as mud

One of the members (Peter Crane) of a thyroid cancer support group listserve I belong to posted an article in USA Today Thyroid radiation protections revisited. This is something I’ve been trying to figure out ever since I got my diagnosis and learned that RAI meant that I shouldn’t be near my children for at least a week. Every Dr. I talk to has a different set of instructions on how to protect my children from harmful exposure. The Thyca listserve is full of people who have been through the process and most everyone there agrees that you should send your children away for at least a week if not two. The precautions suggested are to basically pretend you are infected with bubonic plague and isolate yourself from everything and everyone for as long as possible. The Drs I’ve talked are far less uptight. My Nuclear Medicine Dr. said that there is no problem with going home to my family. I can hold my baby the day of my dose, according to him–as long as I don’t hold her for more than 5 minutes. I haven’t met with the nuclear safety officer yet but the Nuc. Dr. warned me that they will be a lot more paranoid. Back in 1997 the Nuclear Regulatory Co mission ended mandatory hospitalization for patients receiving I-131 doses. Before then, patients would stay in isolation in the hospital until a nuclear safety officer determined that they were “safe” to enter the public again. Now we take the dose and go home. Or go into a hotel. Think about that next time you stay in a hotel. There could be someone radiating in the room next to you. I really don’t know how paranoid we should be about this. According to Dr. Ain, Director of Thyroid Oncology UKMC

COMMON SENSE REGARDING RADIATION SAFETY AFTER
RADIOACTIVE IODINE TREATMENTS

Radiation safety precautions are based upon a very
reasonable consensus public policy that individuals,
who do not require exposure to radiation for their own
health, should have the least exposure to radiation as
is reasonably achievable. The acronym that is
commonly applied is “ALARA” (As Low As Reasonably
Achievable).

Such precautions have been designed because of this
PUBLIC POLICY and NOT because health professionals
expect radioactive iodine patients to be dangerous or
harmful to anyone else. In fact, I can conceive of
only three examples of situations in which a
radioactive iodine therapy patient could “endanger” or
cause “harm” to someone else: 1) If a cannibal should
chance to devour the patient immediately upon
discharge, this cannibal might experience dysfunction
of their thyroid gland; 2) If someone would try to
drink all of the urine produced by a patient for the
two days following discharge, they might also expect
dysfunction of their thyroid gland; and 3) If a
patient would breast-feed a child within two weeks of
such a therapy the radioactive iodine might be likely
to damage the infant’s thyroid gland. Lactation
during therapy would also provide excessive radiation
to the patient’s breasts and is an additional reason
why lactation must be discontinued for a couple of
months prior to receiving radioactive iodine
treatment.

Besides the three situations listed above, it is NOT
CONCEIVABLE that any MEASURABLE HARM could result from
a radioiodine therapy patient.

I find Dr. Ain’s “common sense” funny and comforting. But I think when you are going through this yourself there is a level of fear and paranoia about exposing your children. After all, nobody wants thyroid cancer to be revisited upon their children. The fear is that the guidelines changed in 1997 because insurance companies didn’t want to pay for hospitalization. From the USA Today article

But Crane and other thyroid cancer survivors say it will take more than voluntary guidelines to persuade insurance companies to cover hospital care.

“The NRC’s guidance is a useful interim step, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough,” Crane says. “This country is out of step with international standards for protecting children from radiation, and the NRC now recognizes it. The NRC is asking doctors and insurance companies to be more generous in hospitalizing patients, but the guidance has no legal force whatever.”

I am sending my children away for a week. But there is part of me that wonders if that is long enough. I am going to be so afraid to kiss them and hug them when they get back. My baby girl is so kissable I find myself unconsciously kissing her face and the top of her head all the time. It would be nice to feel confident that the guidelines we are given to protect our children aren’t influenced by insurance companies need to make money…

 

Memorial Day

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.

Moina Michael

 

levels of humanity

I watched Nova last night with BJay. It was titled “A Walk to Beautiful”. The story was about Ethiopian women who sought treatment for obstetrical fistula which happens in childbirth. Because women in rural villages are malnourished and are doing hard physical labor from the age of 2, they don’t grow to be very tall, and their pelvic bones aren’t very wide. Plus they are married young and get pregnant very young. A combination of all these and the lack of obstetrical care leads to problems with delivery. The babies just can’t fit through the birth canal and are often stuck there way too long. The pressure of the baby’s head cuts off blood supply to parts of the woman’s bladder and/or rectum and so the tissue dies and falls off. So the women are left with the horrifying problem of leaking urine or feces or both. Most often the baby dies in childbirth and then the husband leaves. The women are sent home and shunned by their communities. I was absolutely heartbroken watching this. I usually turn away from stories like this that make me sad. But I was just so hooked from the start by the women’s plight. Ayehu, one of the women in the documentary had lived with her fistula for 6 years. When she came home to her parent’s house after her husband left her, her mother made her sleep outside. She had to build a makeshift hut on the back of the house where she expected to die. She said that even her brothers and sisters despised her for living. Then one day a woman named Fikre who had also lost a baby and lived with a Fistula for 10 years came and told Ayehu about the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital where Fikre had been cured. They followed Ayehu on a 6 hour walk to the city and 17 hour bus ride to the hospital. Ayehu had surgery and was cured. Another woman Wubete had sustained so much damage to her bladder that it could not be repaired. She had to have a device that acted as a plug that she would remove when her bladder was full. She refused to go back to her village and was set up with employment at an orphanage where she cares for 4 children there.

This left me thinking about a lot of things. First of all, how grateful I am that I live in the United States. For so many reasons. But I think that being a woman here is a thousand times easier than being a woman almost anywhere else. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have to take a 17 hour bus ride with serious incontinence. But then I can’t imagine how the 17 hour bus ride is the end of a 6 year struggle with humiliation, alienation, and despair. I am in awe of people like Dr.Catherine Hamlin who dedicate their lives to serving the poor. It was in my master plan to join the peace corp out of college. I don’t know what our lives would have been like had we done that. But I like to think we would have learned to love the people we served. I can only hope that I would have been as understanding and compassionate as the Hamlins. When I watched the documentary I was so angry for the women. How could their husbands and families be so cruel? How can you treat someone who has suffered so much with contempt? Catherine and her husband went to Ethiopia in 1974 and never left. Her husband died and Catherine stayed on. She understands the culture, the actual journey of these women. From her interview with directors Mary Olive Smith and Amy Butcher:

“So she’s married to a farmer boy and looking forward to having a baby…

She starts labor and she expects to perhaps deliver by the evening or early morning. But the day goes by and she doesn’t have the baby. The village women encourage her. The second day goes by and even a third and fourth—up to 10 days I had a woman in labor. By that time the girl is exhausted and dehydrated, and she finally pushes out a dead baby. There’s her dead baby lying on the sheepskin rug on the mud bench beside her.

Q: And this is only the beginning of her pain.

Hamlin: Yes. She slips into a sleep of exhaustion because of her long labor. She’s worn out, she’s exhausted—and she wakes up to a worse horror…Her life is shattered, ruined. She can’t control any of her body waste.

Her husband comes back from the fields in the evening and says, “Why is the house smelling? Why can’t you get up and cook my meal for me?” He probably loves her; most of them do love their wives. He just can’t understand what has happened, and he can’t really accept this girl. Afterward, he may stay with her two or three days or two or three weeks even, but finally he thinks, “Well, she’s no use to me now as a wife.” And he will say to her—or, often, she will say to him, “Look, I’m no use to you. I’ll go back to my mother and father.”

Q: How should we feel about the husbands who abandon these girls?

Hamlin: We shouldn’t condemn them. These men are farmer boys; they might be only 18 or 20. They’ve never seen a medical condition like this, and they have no idea what’s the cause of it. They think that perhaps they have been cursed by God or the devil. They’ve got superstitious ideas that this has happened to them for some punishment. They don’t associate it with the days of labor.

They’re not cruel. Many of them love their wives. I’ve had one or two come back and say, “Please cure my wife, I want her. I want her to get better.” So we can’t condemn these young boys. I condemn the older men who have had two or three wives, an older man who is married to a young teenage girl. He should know better.

Q: So then she goes home to her parents.

Hamlin: She will go home to her own village—maybe it’s next door, maybe some distance away. They run out to welcome her, thinking she’s coming home with a baby, and they find her in this state. They love her, they put their arms around her, they hug her, they bring her into the house. But not for long, because of the other children in the house, the neighbors coming and going. They can’t manage with somebody who is leaking urine and possibly bowel contents.

So the mother will say to the father, “What can we do?” And he’ll say, “Well, we’ll build a little shed outside and put her [there].” They will build her a little hut somewhere in the village, somewhere on a farm plot they’ve got, and there she will stay till death. This is the fistula’s sufferer’s tragedy, her tragic life. Psychologically she’s terribly disturbed. She’s lost all her femininity, all her dignity, all her hope of having another child, all her hope of mixing with her society.”

And that is how it happens. When you think of it, this happens in the developed world all the time on many levels. Initially we have compassion and time to serve those who are suffering, but when the suffering becomes prolonged and there is no end in sight, we don’t have the capacity to go the distance. There are many levels of humanity.

 

FYI

If you Google “NC election May 6″ the first thing that pops up is Vote For Barak Obama. What a rock star. If you haven’t voted yet and want to do a quick search of candidates, here is the NCSBE web site’s voter guide.

BJay Smith for president!!

*NC Govenor race questionaire

 

scattered

I’ve had a few things I’ve been thinking about blogging. I just can’t get it together though. I was talking to Paige this morning and I asked her if she thinks people act different around her. (Dumb question, I know) And it got me thinking about why we do act weird around people who have experienced something profoundly tragic like Paige has. I think its because they are literally a different person. I know I think of myself as several different people. (Not quite multiple personalities) I think I’m a different person now that I have children than I was before I had children. I was a different person before I was married too. People can relate to those things, or they can’t. One of my best friends basically stopped talking to me when I got married because my life was different, I was different in a way she didn’t understand. It seemed appropriate though, somehow. And our friendship resumed when she got married. This is totally different of course, Paige needs people and friendships and communication. Its one of those things… I wish I knew how to be more helpful…but then again I don’t ever want to know how she feels. Today my solution was cookies.

Which brings me to another troubling thing–food crisis . I have just stockpiled flour, sugar, and rice. One thing that has always freaked me out is the thought of not having food to feed my children. Its really scary to me. When I started noticing food prices going up I was concerned. But at least we can still afford to feed our family. I read some horrid book for an anthropology class about this couple who lived in Bangladesh “studying” this poor community. Being observers only, they decided they wouldn’t interfere and literally watched a family starve to death. That has always made me angry. It seems criminal to see a mother not able to feed her baby anything but grass. Its not even human. But in a way–with all of the annoying emphasis on global warming, that is kind of what we are doing as members of the West (Lets just keep handing Al Gore awards for his brilliant work, k?).

“Some ministers from poor countries, for example, are growing impatient with the way the West is addressing global warming by subsidizing and encouraging conversion of corn, sugar cane and other food products into substitutes for oil. The shift is helping to drive up prices, they say.”

It kind of reminds me of China’s Great Leap Forward. Except that instead of attempting to modernize our economy we’re trying to control global climate. And when “political decisions/beliefs take precedence over commonsense” the apparent result is starvation and economic disaster… I hope I’m being overly dramatic here.

 

Why do I feel sorry for Hillary?

First of all, I have to say that as a Conservative I swallow the whole “Hillary is the anti-Christ” hook, line and sinker. For reasons I can not explain, I just don’t like her. She’s such a politician. And if the emailed video clips I’ve gotten are to be believed, she’s a lying snake who has no problem throwing her friends with money into South American prisons… So I am surprised at myself for feeling sorry for her. I didn’t think much of her tears, and I was uncomfortable with her desperate attempt at humor on the late night comedy shows. Somewhere deep inside I am rooting for her. That is a horrible thing for me to admit. Now maybe its because if she gets the nomination (which seems impossible) she’ll be less likely to win the presidency than Obama. Maybe. But I found myself defending her for “misspeaking” about her war-zone experience. Why? Am I losing my mind? I really think there is something to emotional memories though. And I think its entirely possible if you are going into a war zone with your daughter (although I can’t imagine why you would do that) you might remember things differently. All the soldiers around her were in helmets and flak jackets. Pffft. Oh well. Maybe its just in my nature to root for the underdog. That would explain a lot. Maybe I’m easily influenced… Doesn’t really matter I guess.

 

The Jack Bauer America

Some of the best discussions I have with BJay happen just as I’m about to drop off to sleep. I suspect he thinks that I’ll more readily agree with him when I’m sleepy. About a week ago B decided to start an interesting political discussion that involved Jack Bauer, John McCain, The US policy on torture, and the perception of America in the world. When I’m awake I’m all over this stuff. BJay is a bit more to the left than I am, so I generally love to annoy him by disagreeing with whatever idea he has formed by listening to NPR. I don’t remember where BJay said he heard John McCain talking about how the world felt about the United States after WWII. Trying to find a twice paraphrased quote on John McCain would take a century, but B was impressed with the idea that John McCain wanted to get the world’s opinion of America back to what it was after WWII–When the Nazis wanted to surrender to the Americans rather than the Russians because the Americans were much more humane. Did I fight the urge to shoot this idea down? I don’t know if I did. I was sleepy. No I did, I muttered something about how the US wasn’t a world power then, and we didn’t have as much personally at stake as the Europeans did with the Nazis. And then the conversation turned to the ethicacy of torture. And B had heard some quote from…sheesh… I think it was a senator?? Having a discussion about how far do we go in the interest of national security. And then he went on to describe a plot line from 24 where some terrorists are going to detonate a nuclear weapon unless we stop them, and how far do we go to get information to stop that from happening. And isn’t it insane that a television show is influencing the discussions of law makers on such a real issue? Yeah, I said. But I of course couldn’t resist even in a sleepy haze to say the television show 24, specifically the character Jack Bauer has only brought torture to light in a way that feels personal. He’s going after these evil guys like the ones who crashed planes into the world trade center and the pentagon. Maybe Jack Bauer was born out of the ash of 9-11, from our collective anger, fear and love of America. He isn’t real, but he came from somewhere or he wouldn’t resonate with so many people. I was checking to see how many people have thought about Jack Bauer’s influence on popular culture and I was intrigued by this article, although its over a year old.

“For weeks, Democrats and their media allies have been on Bush’s case for using the National Security Agency to intercept, without warrant, phone calls and e-mails to terror suspects abroad. Before that, Bush was charged with using secret detention centers in Eastern Europe to interrogate suspects. Before that, the military was accused of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Afghanistan. Before that, the Justice Department was charged with violating the civil rights of Jose Padilla and the Shoe-bomber.

Bush thus stands accused of violating the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners of war, ignoring constitutional protections of U.S. citizens, and violating international agreements prohibiting torture and the “rendition” of prisoners to countries where torture is practiced.

Where do the American people stand?

The left may be right on the law, but the people seem to be standing by Bush. Believing the character of this war, where the enemy’s preferred tactic is to slaughter civilians with terror bombings, people seem to agree that we have to follow Jack Bauer’s rules, not American Civil Liberties Union rules.

Yet one senses that Americans are conflicted. We want to think of ourselves as decent people who fight wars honorably. But we believe the enemies of 9-11 are so evil, so depraved, they forfeit the right to be treated honorably. And while we believe in constitutional rights, human rights, civil rights, Miranda warnings and all that, we also believe in winning our wars. For without victory in the war on terror, freedom may not survive.

“Success alone justifies war,” said Von Moltke, as Germany prepared to violate Belgium’s neutrality to outflank France in 1914. Americans appear to believe that, too.

President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and blockaded Southern ports, without congressional authorization. President Wilson locked up Eugene V. Debs in World War I and never let him out. FDR interned 110,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans in relocation camps, in a wartime act of racial profiling approved by the Supreme Court. Truman dropped atom bombs on defenseless cities, killing 100,000 women and children. Yet all are judged by liberal historians to be great or near-great presidents.”

So this is interesting to me. If Jack Bauer represents some American wild-west type of vigilante hero, why is he also popular in Afghanistan? (I heard that on NPR.) And why is George Bush so unpopular? I guess you can’t be a rogue agent AND the president of the United States. I get a kick out of Colbert making light of the fact that most conservatives hate John McCain, although we don’t understand why. Its so weird that McCain has the nomination locked up when most republicans I know say they will never vote for him. How did that happen? Isn’t it interesting though, that the Jack Bauer universe introduced the first Black President of the United States…and its looking more and more like that is going to be our future reality?

 

little strings

Before I went to India I read Vikram Seth’s tome “A Suitable Boy”. The professor who assigned me work for my independent study (the argument that sealed the deal in convincing my parents I should go half way around the world with a [crazy] woman I barely knew) assigned me the book. I have bought three copies. Two I lent out and never got back. I saw it at Goodwill two years ago for .50 cents. A bargain. There are nearly 1500 pages. Anyway, the story is woven into an explanation of Indian Politics in the years just after partition. I doubt that a clear explanation of Indian politics could take up any less than 1500 pages. So I vaguely follow what is going on politically in India and Pakistan… at least when the headlines show up on my Google homepage. I feel like I’m tied to those places.

My first trip to India was preceded by my first trip to Pakistan. My hostess was this incredibly extroverted, verbose woman who runs a great store in my hometown. The store is a cultural experience on its own. When you walk in the powerful aromas of moth balls, cigarette smoke, green tea, and incense hit you in a strangely pleasant way. You can find everything you never knew existed there. Amazing things. Beautiful things. Bizarre things. I went with a friend and mentioned that I would love to go to India. Without hesitation the shop owner suggested I go with her next time she goes on a buying trip. There is a reason you have insane adventures when you are young. My older, wiser self would smile and make my exit as soon as possible. The young, naive child of 18 jumped at the opportunity. All it took was convincing my parents that a very normal invitation had been extended. And then I had to round up the money. You might think that a woman in her 50s who has no problem traipsing the slums of Pakistan and India to purchase items would be… local. Nope. She is as Caucasian as I am. She was a fascinating character. Raised by wealthy parents, attended Sweet Brier–then joined the peace corps and–this is where the details are fuzzy. I think she got pregnant and had a daughter she raised on her own for a while. At some point, she married a perfectly boring yes man who endures her constant lambasting with quiet indifference. He was in foreign service so they lived in India. He had three girls of his own, so they formed an all-girl kind of Brady Bunch. Her daughter married a Pakistani she went to college with… maybe Columbia?? I don’t remember which college they attended. But they just as strangely opened their home to me–a perfect stranger, and I had no problem accepting their generosity. I arrived in Pakistan during monsoon. There was flooding in Lahore. It had affected some of the extended family. The social culture shock was more of an adjustment than I expected. In the limited circles I was used to dressing for, jeans and a t-shirt are/were perfectly acceptable. I was not prepared for dining with jewelry. I was not prepared for a home environment where servants outnumbered residents. I was not prepared for a family dynamic where the nanny to child ratio was 1-1. I definitely was not prepared for the kind of snide, scrupulous condescension the family treated me with. I don’t think I even understood what it was. I just knew I felt way more comfortable talking to the maids than anyone else. The maids were mostly from other Asian countries. One evening I stayed in while the adults were out and I got to talking to the maids about their lives. One was putting her sisters through nursing school. She showed me her family photos. Another was from Sri Lanka and hadn’t seen her own daughter for 3 years. They weren’t mistreated as far as I knew, but they definitely weren’t supposed to talk to me. There were cooks, men I never saw except when they might bring things from the kitchen to the table. And I guess what we might call a Butler, his is the only name I remember. It was Khalid. I think I just liked that name. And I liked how they said it. An arabic-sounding guttural ‘k’. Then there were sweepers and a… I’ll have to look up the word. Chokendar (?) an armed guard who was posted at the entrance. A couple drivers, and various others. I’m just a military brat so this kind of household was soooo foreign. I just didn’t know how to relate. But two things of interest happened in Pakistan when I was there–wait just kidding. A ton of interesting things happened. Two political things happened. One–someone in the family was sent to jail. There was talk over the dinner table about business practices and laws that made it impossible to avoid activities outside the law. The family were very distressed about it. And just after I left Bhutto was ousted from power. And to give you an idea of what a clueless naive little idiot I was, I sent the family a card when I got back. Mostly for the daughter. A perfectly spoiled little girl, super intelligent–but obviously overly fussed over. Anyway, I sent her a card and some candy and the “get out of jail free” card from my monopoly set. Gah. Also, I had purchased ink pens and Tootsie pops to hand out to children while I was there. I was going to give poor children the gift of tooth decay. I got to keep the pens, but the candy (two Sam’s club boxes full, a good 20 pounds!) was immediately gifted to the family. They don’t get much American candy so it was a treat. But, to my annoyance I was not even credited as the giver. And when I left they gave me some for the plane. I could seriously go on forever about this. I almost forgot why I started this post to begin with. Oh yeah…

So I saw the google headline Musharraf rules out resignation and I got to thinking about Pakistan. I’ve been there. It seems bizarre to me now, here I am a 30 year old full time mom of 4 (sorry Crysta I had to steal the phrase) so far away from that upheaval and distress. In my comfortable home, not a servant in sight, but things are orderly. When I think of the near scrapes and mishaps that could have literally ended my life (I’m much more paranoid these days) its amazing that I’m here. I may get into those some other time. When I left Pakistan I left by myself. You won’t believe this, but the airport in Lahore, thankfully, has extremely tight security. But nothing is explained in English. No flight numbers, no easy to read flight schedules. I vaguely recall that I had someone, a loafer, there to help me get through the various security lines and get my bags in the right direction. He wasn’t very aggressive, not like most of the men were. So I ended up getting bumped back in line several times. Since he didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Urdu he couldn’t do much more than point me in the right direction. I almost missed my flight. I don’t know how easily I could have gone missing. They make a copy of your passport and every one is to be accounted for before the plane takes off. I was responsible for delaying my flight, I think. I just didn’t understand which line was for my flight. Luckily for me I had made friends with a guy who sold music at a concession stand a week earlier when I was flying to Delhi. I wanted to pick up some Ghazals, though I didn’t understand a word. He recognized me and dragged me to the doors that led out to the huge airplanes sitting with stairs pulled up to them. There was an argument, a heated one that went on for a few minutes between the music guy and the guy who lets you get on the plane. Finally, I was shoved out the door in the direction of my airplane. I don’t think I’ll ever know how close I came to not leaving Pakistan. That, and all the menacing looks I got from some people on the street make me feel somewhat tied to Pakistan. With little tiny strings. Not nostalgic strings. Strings of fear and amazement.