20 years ago today - Day 297

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Wednesday, December 25th - Islamabad

Christmas Day! Islamabad does not have much of a Christmas atmosphere. For perhaps the first time in my life, I have more Christmas spirit in me than anyone around me, instead of the usual opposite. Everyone is up and helping prepare breakfast - toast, jam, eggs and dhal. They don’t want to make anything special out of today, yet on the other hand they do. They each seem more restless than usual, as though they are lost and they need something to fill the time until the restless feeling passes.

After eating and cleaning up the dishes, we scatter. I think Vincent and Coen have gone to the international phone office to call their families for Christmas. It is still way too early in Canada to call there. It is early afternoon here and the middle of the night in Canada. I am better to wait until tomorrow morning, when it will be Christmas evening there.

It is sunny today. The stores are open because there is no holiday here. Kate and Stephen have gone shopping, or at least window shopping. I ride my bike along some of the major streets in the city and through a couple parks before returning to the B & G Club. I am the first one back. I read my crappy novel until the others return.

We make a dinner of dhal, potatoes and chicken breasts, a Christmas dinner of a kind, and afterwards find ourselves in the backyard again. The guys start working on the fort again. Stephen soon quits to sit watching us with Kate. Coen gives up a few minutes later. Vincent and I labour on, enlarging the platform and making a wall on one side to lean on. Vincent tires and retires to join the others but I keep going, making steps that climb higher and a smaller, higher second platform.

I climb down and hand out the gifts I have wrapped for the others. They are a bit bashful because they didn’t buy anything for me, all except Kate who sneers at as though I have insulted her by buying her a bar of scented soap. Oh, I know I won’t miss her at all once she’s gone. I had hoped the gifts would have brightened their spirits but we are quieter and more pensive. Perhaps they are missing a real Christmas with their friends and families or remembering that we’ll soon be parting. The rest of the evening is just soft conversation.