High point so far.

Today, we went to the home of Makhdoum ( hope I'm spelling that right) who works at the Bugna field hospital. His daughter just had a child, and this dinner was in celebration. His home is near/in the village of Satnara. We took a car down an awfully bumpy road that is still under construction. I hope that next time we visit Satnara, we
just walk.

The meal was, as usual, excellent, and I have now fallen in love with riata (again, not sure on the spelling). Riata is a yogurt-based sauce with shallots and a bunch of spices. Absolutely wonderful over rice.

Anyway, the high point of my trip here so far came afterwards. Mr. Mujtaba, Ishfaq, David and I visited one of the houses that we had worked at last year. It's the house that only had the door standing. Everything else was piles of dirt and stone. Now, it's a concrete foundation waiting for government inspection.

When we arrived, two of the grandchildren ran up to us. Their names are Umar and Salma. Both of them remembered me, and also remembered that I was open to them using my camera to look at photos and try shooting some of their own. I have a few photos of them, and I'll post them when I can access the Internet from my own computer. I also took some photos of the current condition of their house.

Upon seeing the family and the progress on the house, I pretty much lost it. Honestly, I haven't cried so much in years. (I'm a bit teary-eyed thinking about it now)

The homeowner sat us down to tea, and we chatted for a while while the rest of the family looked at some of the photos in my camera. They made it a point to ask about Daryl, who was our trip leader last year. We explained that he is leading a YES (Youth Evangelism Services) team to Guinea-Bissau next week, and won't be available for several months.

After exchanging contact information and promising to try our best to return before I leave for home, we took our leave. I do hope that we meet again.

Sick

Unfortunately, both Dave and I got the classic case of travellers' diahrreah. After taking some Cipro, we're both feeling better and are hungry once again.

At one point in the beginning, I suffered from nausea. During one of my episodes, two of the staff heard me outside, and came out to make sure that I was OK, and gave me some water and hauled me back to bed. It was really late at night, and they were very nice to come out into the cold to help me. Good people here!

Arrival

After a long flight, the four of us landed in Islamabad. Mr. Mujtaba and company was waiting for us outside, but we had to first get our baggage. This is when we noticed that two of our bags were missing! My toolbox was nowhere to be seen, and David's only extra set of clothes was missing. The toolbox was a bit inconvenient, but Dave is totally without a change of clothes. We filed a report with the airport, which was a good long process, and proceeded to our hotel.

We got to the hotel around 10:00 AM Pakistan time, and all of us took a good nap. Our driver, Haroon, took us to a restaruant in town, and we had a fine lunch. Prelude to lots of Pakistani cooking goodness.

The next day, we had a meeting with the CEO of the Human Development Foundation, Mr. Saleem. He thanked us for coming and welcomed us to Pakistan.

From there, we took of f for Bugna. We eventually arrived somewhere around 1:00 AM.