20 years ago today - Day 296

Tuesday, December 24th - Rawalpindi to Islamabad, 15,417 km

This morning we eat a light snack of fruit and power bars from our groceries on-hand before setting off to Islamabad again. Kate does not want to spend the time having a full breakfast until we are settled in the Boys and Girls Club, which has a full kitchen for the residents to use. It's a dusty, windy day as we make our way north along Murree St again. It is not a grueling trip but it is not interesting enough to merit redoing too often.

I don’t think there is anyone else staying at the Boys & Girls Club in Islamabad, or at least I haven’t seen any sign of anyone else, so they let us have access to the rooms before noon. That usually means there was no one staying in them the day before. This club is the nicest we have stayed in so far, and perhaps the newest. There are four people in two bunks per room. The Dutch boys and I have one room and Kate and Stephen are in another. Besides a spacious kitchen with pots, pans, utensils and plenty of counter space, there is an enclosed back yard that is half an acre or so, filled the small trees and some bushes. There is a shed for our bicycles, too.

Once we are settled, I go for a ride by myself. That’s a treat as I haven’t been riding alone and feeling safe at doing so since Bulgaria. But today I have a second purpose. I visit one the local malls I found yesterday and pick up Christmas gifts for others in our group: new woolen gloves for Vincent, to fit over his cycling gloves; a new handkerchief for Coen, who lost his in Zahedan; a roll of duct tape for Stephen (there can never be too much of that); and a bar of scented soap for Kate. I even find scotch tape and wrapping paper. The passing world gawks at me as I sit on the steps outside the mall to wrap them. I did not want to try to do this at the residence as it would be hard to find a space away from the others.

What I would really like to find a nice bottle of wine, perhaps with a crazy name like “Derriere Les Faggots” that we found in Le Puy, France, and share it with the others. I am in a Christmas mood and want to pass it around, even if the others aren’t into it. The other option would be to glum, disinterested and borderline depressed like some of them.
I am not mentioning the gifts until tomorrow. I doubt they have bought anything for me or each other but if I tell them tonight they might resent the pressure to go out and buy me anything. I just want to have fun tonight, and the secret that I have gifts for each of them hidden in my bags puts me in even a better mood.

The evening turned into something unusual. I think it was Stephen who started it by breaking off a branch of a scrub tree that was hanging down in our faces in the back yard. Then Coen starts stripping the bark off in long strips, trying to see if the wood would be any good to carve. It isn’t. It’s like a soft alder and it snaps off cleanly when broken in two. Vincent decides to use the strips of bark to tie segments of the branch to another tree, making steps so we can climb up into the tree. I get into the act and break off another branch and the four of us do our “boy” thing by building a platform in the tree to sit on. The takes us an hour and a half. It has been fun and a great bonding exercise, just before we are set to part for good.

Kate, who hasn’t participated in the building, doesn’t want to climb up to the platform and doesn’t approve of our bonding exercise either, because we didn’t stop building it when she announced she wasn’t interested in it. She manages to coax Stephen and Vincent down. Coen and I follow soon after. Stephen rolls a ganja cigarette, lights it and passes it around. That mellows everyone out, even Kate to still has a cucumber up her ass.

I survey our little group as we ‘nest’ in the back yard of the Boys & Girls Club. I forgive each one their foibles – Kate, her arrogance and selfishness; Stephen, his frequent bouts of utter stupidity; Vincent, his blowing his nose upwind ahead of me while riding. (There’s nothing I need to forgive about Coen.) I am even ready to forgive myself my many short-comings. In less than a week, we will be scattered like seeds in the wind.