Today was the day to track down a place where I could get my music recordings from Sindh digitized form miniDV (obsolete format) so that I could begin working on it in the computer. Hall road is packed with cel phone shops and some other electronics. After much asking around, several people suggested trying there. We made our way to the building that had been suggested.I asked a shopkeeper and he sent a guy to go ask a source that he knew. The shops are a mess. I had also been warned that these places could easily lose or ruin my tapes. I really could not afford to lose them. That would signal the end of this project. Perhaps it would save me further trouble in that regards, but I really did not have any other choices. So I brought one of the tapes I had already digitized in Sindh, so that if something bad happened, it would be all right as a test.It is hard to walk around there, and I felt bad for Kristeen, but she is a trooper and as long as I made sure to get her something yummy to eat, all would be forgiven. Each shopkeeper sent us to another and so we walked all over, back and forth down hall road. Finally people suggested that camera shops are on Nisbat rd and we should try there. We were already quite tired from the heat, the misinformation and the unnecessary difficulty in getting correct information.So we hopped on a rickshaw at the end of Hall rd and went to Nisbat rd. The place was full of camera shops and it seemed that this might be a better bet. There were lots of nice shops with all kinds of professional gear. Those in particular were the ones that were jerks. So it was that we went back and forth, crossing through murderous traffic, following every wrong lead that people had to offer. There was one shop where a kindly older man had a little handicam and he agreed to digitize the tape for me. Unfortunately, he could only output a highly compressed (as in crappy quality) file. The only other options on both roads were random folks saying that they could do it, as in someone they knew in a back alley might be able to do it, even though they had no idea what I was talking about when they looked at the tape. This man had a very dusty shop with camera lenses and some computers in the back with their guts exposed. However, he did have a camera, so I gave him the tape and he said come back in an hour.We grabbed a pizza, then walked around a bit more. That bought me some more time to put Kristeen through the discomfort of existing in that place. We got the recording as a file on a usb hard drive I took with me and then began walking back, searching for a compressed air can to clean out our computers. Again, we were lead all over, back to Hall rd, all the way through to every place that did not have it or know what it was. Some people mentioned a machine that was used for this and also said to go to Hafeez Center, a technology building across town. I was asking one shopkeeper and he suggested stores behind his building. I mentioned how we had been back there and was trying to make sure he was not referring to the same place. His friend got annoyed and lectured me on how I was not letting him answer. There was no point in arguing. I was already defeated before we started on this fool’s errand.So, we went to Chaman ice cream, had another amazing khoya khajoor ice cream and then went home with our tails between our legs.