Get Ready to Rumble; it’s Ramadan

At one month left of my stay in Pakistan I start sweating about all things and attractions that I should see and do while I am still here. I have been on short trips to both Lahore and Karachi, yet I don’t feel I have got to see what the country really looks like, and especially not the countryside. If you have only seen Islamabad, you haven’t really seen Pakistan. Therefore I will have to squeeze out the juice of Pakistan during my last four weeks here; Ramadan could hardly come on a better time.

Ramadan Rythm 

During Ramadan, Muslims don’t eat from sunrise to sunset and this year Ramadan starts on September 3^rd and lasts for 30 days - effectively covering the rest of my stay. In Ramadan everybody comes to work at eight in the morning – and that’s quite early in Pakistan, and leaves work at two o’ clock in the afternoon – a time to leave that would be early even in Norway. I have promised some of my colleagues I will try their Ramadan scheme for a couple of days, as long as they don’t expect me to last for the entire month.

Spicy time

Telenor has several offices in Islamabad and I now usually work on a different office than the one in which I started working. Now I usually walk down to the head quarter and find a Telenor-driver who can take me to the other office where I work. Upon arriving at work I usually go to the canteen to have breakfast before I start working. Breakfast at work really is a great service which I know I will miss when I get back home. Although the breakfast at the office looks much like any breakfast, I can tell you that the lunch doesn’t. The usual lunch is always chicken, rice and paratha or nan, although the chicken may be prepared in different ways. Common for the different ways of preparing chicken, apart from always being based on chicken, is that the food often is unbelievable spicy, or tasty as the Pakistanis call it. Although I am always willing to try new dishes, I must admit, that I’m not always able to keep up with the spices. Once I went to a Chinese restaurant and ordered something Italian (don’t ask me why), I got something so spicy that it must have been Pakistani.

 No more lovely shakes

This is not to say I am all dissatisfied with the Pakistani Kitchen. Not everything is equally spicy, and often I can ask for a bit less spice. After starting the breakfast service some months ago, the most recent product expansion in the canteen is the shake bar, where I can buy freshly made shakes from mango, banana, or pine apple, not to mention the power-shake based on dates and almond. That makes a perfect dessert for me. I should enjoy as many shakes as I can because in one week Ramadan starts and everything will be closed down.

The milkshake-man

From left: Banana shake, peach shake, date and almond shake, myself, mango shake