Friday, December 27th – Rawalpindi/ Islamabad, 15,442 km
Yesterday morning, I felt I had time to wait for my banking and Visa cards to arrive even if I had to wait behind a few more days after the others left. Now, having met Frank, I am anxious that they arrive before he returns from Murree, so that I will be ready to go with him. I don’t want to keep him waiting. I told him I hope to be ready to leave town the day after he gets back.
So I make another trip into Rawalpindi, make doubly longer by the required return. At least it is a lighter, unloaded trip. It is sunny and cold, and there is a wind too, whipping up little dust devils wherever there is enough dirt, which is most everywhere. When I get to the post office I find that both my Visa card and banking card are there. What a relief! I am still addicted to the corporate trappings of my old life.
I am a re-energized man on my trip back the Islamabad. I am a teenager once again. Little things can make such a difference. I want to share my joy with others but there is no one in at the Boys & Girls Club. I don’t feel like reading so I wander the malls and streets nearby. I find a Lonely Planet Guide to India, which has a footnote that it has won awards as the best guide to India. What a find! But it is thick and heavy. At least it beats reading my Harlequin romance, which I will leave here when I go.
When we all assemble at the B&G Club later in the afternoon and traipse over to the Indian Embassy. We are told the visas will be in tomorrow and that we must leave our passports with them overnight so that the visas can be attached. This is last concern I had about being ready to leave with Frank, and the second to be resolved today. I gladly produce my passport and leave it with them.
We prepare dinner and retire to the backyard and the B&G Club Clubhouse we have built in the tree over the past two nights. I have purchased a dozen candles which we have placed and lit in the tree and in the seating area below it. The manager pays us a visit. He has seen the tree fort and seems a little apprehensive, but hesitates to comment about it. We are all mildly stoned by this time anyway. We state how proud we are of it, seeing his apprehension, but if he wants us to take it down he doesn’t say so.
I am so out of character, building this sort thing without getting permission first and not worrying about the manager’s reaction. I am pleased with this, that I am learning to get out of my usual character and approach life from a different angle. I am not trying to win anyone’s approval. Nothing seems to be able to depress me now and I am not as anxious or restless as I was last night.
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