I woke up, washed my bucket of dirty clothes, then went out to pick up some groceries. The hostel room is great, as it has a fridge on the generator, and all kinds of kitchen stuff. I picked up a few things so I can make breakfast, have some fruit etc. I looked to see if a sherbet shop I used to go to was still there, but I think it my have been replaced by a little dairy shop. That place was the best. Things have changed quite a bit. There is still lots of traffic, but the open sewer has been covered, and the air is so much better than Hyderabad. I really like Hyderabad, but it really needs a lot of sanitation and traffic related work.
Suffi sahib took me to NCA. I enjoyed seeing small posters for different student thesis projects in the multimedia department. I visited Ustad Zafar Iqbal in the music department. He shared some clips of performances with his group in Moracco at the Fez Sufi festival, then invited me to sit in during his class. It was actually really nice to see these students get a chance to work on their music skills.After lunch, I was part of a class where students have just started developing ideas for video game projects. It is fun to see them share their thoughts and to try and be a positive force in helping them to realize their visions.
Later, Suffi and I head out to check out the Horse and Cattle show at Fortress Stadium. It is rather bizarre. It was a huge event, and there were cars all over. Suffi sahib managed to park the car and we walked in the darkness with others to the entrance of the stadium. As part of the once annual (now first time in 11 years) Horse and Cattle show, there was a night performance. We stayed for a while. There was a reenactment of the brutal murder of school children in Peshawar last December in a sort of song to raise a spirit of defiance. It apparently included some siblings of children lost in the attack. These children are incredibly brave, but the jingoistic tone gave me uneasy flashbacks of Zia’s time.Afterwards the Pakistan Rangers put on a display of torch wielding acrobatics which was impressive. The stadium was virtually dark except for the flames of the torches bobbing in the night, which made for an impressive site. It is great to see so many people out, enjoying things as best as they can, despite all that is going on. Then we head out, grabbed some dinner and called it a night.
Horse and Cattle Show Rangers Torch display from Adnan Hussain on Vimeo.