General thoughts and feelings

Due to [more] technical difficulties, we're having some issues uploading photos. Nick has a blog post ready to go recapping our day yesterday, but in the meantime I thought I'd fill space and time with these general observations:

*I had a conversation last night with my dad's cousin's wife, Farhan, about how in Pakistani culture food = love. I could not agree with this more. I'm seriously going to weigh about 300 lbs. by the time we get on the plane home. But, oddly, my cousins claim that they lose weight when they come here...? This may be due to the fact that although we're consuming tea and snacks at alarming rates, we've also completely cut things like processed food, cheese (they have it here but, unlike at home, it's not considered a staple), soda (diet or otherwise) and booze out of our daily intake.

*The food/love equation is directly related to the importance of good hospitality. This is a theme we'll probably be writing about a lot in the coming week or two; everywhere we've gone, people have welcomed us into their homes in a way that a lot of Americans might find over the top. I, personally, find it incredibly charming. I think Nick does too -- how could we not?! Every time we walk into someone's house, they roll out the red carpet. [Note to self: this makes people feel awesome. Emulate and repeat.]

*We met a fabulous couple yesterday (their kids go to school with my half-siblings), Fatima and Ali Kazi. Nick will be writing more about their incredibly beautiful home, which they custom-designed in a Spanish style with an up-and-coming local architect. Fatima commented to me that the class divide in Pakistan comes with knowledge of English: fluency means you are upper-class. She's personally taken on education as Her Cause by creating a trust to adopt and oversee a local government school. Even better, rather than simply throwing money at new facilities, the trust is helping to improve programming for students. Yes! So simple.

*Most private schools in Pakistan are for-profit, a concept that had my mouth hanging open when it was first told to me. Really? For profit? Like DeVry University? Egads.

*Labor here is ridiculously cheap; so much so that I would estimate that all upper-class individuals have servants. This is unnerving in many ways -- here are these people whose job it is to cook our food, wash our laundry, make our beds, clean our rooms, guard our homes, etc. -- it seems very un-American to me. And yet, Nick and I have a cleaning lady (two, actually! A mother-and-daughter team) come to our home every other week back in Racine -- so how is that different?

*Language barrier: if we can ever get beyond our IT problems, I'll try to post a video we shot today where I gave Nesreen, my dad's housekeeper, a pantomime tour of our wedding photos. In a way that only the video can explain, it was equal parts awesome and frustrating.