Letters From Pakistan 1973
Letters From Pakistan, 1973
Richard A. Stanford
During the summer of 1973 I was a participant in a seven-week Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad that was sponsored by the South Atlantic States Association for South Asian Studies (SASASAS). The project, focused on rural development in Pakistan, entailed travel and intense study in Pakistan by a dozen faculty members from several universities. The seven-week journey, directed by Professor Charles Ratliff of Davidson College, was the most demanding period of my life. During the journey I wrote 30 letters to my wife Louise and our two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. Louise was expecting a third child at the time.
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Itinerary:
LETTERS:
10:30 PM, Tuesday, June 26, 1973
Macka Oteli, Room 205
Istanbul, Turkey
We finally set down at Istanbul about 3 PM (8 AM your time) this afternoon. Customs gave us no trouble at all, didn't even look in our bags. But Jim Pressley, the fellow from the Harnette County, North Carolina school system, who was so afraid of coming, could not find his suitcase. Apparently, it is lost somewhere enroute. We hope it will turn up soon. He is now my roommate here in Istanbul.
Our "Istanbul Adventure" began about 6 this evening when we finally got to the hotel, and someone at the desk suggested that we take a boat trip up the Bosporus and eat supper at a typical Turkish hotel. So, we set out from the hotel walking (the first mistake), took a wrong turn (the second mistake), and kept going (the third mistake).
We ended up walking about four miles across Istanbul before we finally got to the ferry slip and took the boat ride. Then, my fourth mistake was that these shoes I have (newly half-soled) hurt my feet. Also, I did not wear a coat and got chilly in the wind.
The next mistake was the Turkish restaurant where we all ate typical Turkish food. We may all be dead tomorrow. But it was pretty good, with plenty of local atmosphere.
We finally got back to the hotel by 10 PM (our time, 4 PM your time), and I am now just worn out. I will try to get some sleep tonight, and we will go shopping tomorrow for meerschaum pipes. We must be at the airport by 2:30 PM to check in for the continuation of the flight.
We are scheduled to arrive in Karachi on Thursday at about 2:30 AM Karachi time. We hope to be at the hotel there by 4 AM or so. Then maybe if we are not all dead of disease or exhaustion, we can get some rest.
Thursday, June 28, 1973
Metropole Hotel, Room 350
Karachi, Pakistan
I bought some aerogrammes today, so I shall be writing on these from now on. They are certainly changes from letters. With a 10 rupees to the dollar exchange rate, the aerogramme costs about 15 cents, while a letter costs nearly 30 cents.
We are staying for one night at the Metropole Hotel in Karachi.
Today has been fairly full. I woke up about 11 AM to the sound of hammering in the room down the hall. We then went and had lunch with the rest of the group in the hotel coffee shop where Charlie handed out the first per diem rupees. I had scrambled eggs on toast—don’t want to break into the Pakistani food too quickly.
I then took a walk of about three blocks to the U.S. consulate to register my passport against possible loss. After that I returned to the hotel to get my camera. Jim Pressley and I walked around several blocks and got what I hope are some really good shots of people on the street. I have become quite adept at setting the camera in advance and the “shooting from the hip” so that people do not know that they are being photographed. I then returned to the room to catch up on my. I am keeping up with the journal pretty well. It is now twelve pages long, and I have been gone only three days. I will have to get a new pad soon.
Tonight we are to have dinner with the chief secretary of the Government of Sind.
Midnight: back from dinner. This dinner amounted to a state dinner with all important officials of the State of Sind government present. We received engraved invitations this morning. They sent chauffeured cars by for us this evening at 8. Then from 8:10 to 9:30 we had cocktail hour—the longest I have ever suffered through.
Finally we went through the buffet line to find 5 or 6 different kinds of meats—something that is very rarely done in Pakistan. All food was hot Pakistani types, so some of us may be ill tomorrow. Dessert and coffee followed.
They are going to provide chauffeured cars tomorrow for us to ride around in. This has really been an evening. It was topped off when the chief secretary of the Government of Sind said that he wanted us to have an audience with President Bhutto of Pakistan. What else can happen?
9:45 PM, Friday, June 29, 1973
Room 5, Faletti’s Hotel
Lahore Pakistan
The flight on a Pakistan International Airways Boeing 707 was very pleasant—only an hour and twenty minutes. We are now in Lahore at Faletti’s Hotel and will be here only two nights before moving on to Islamabad.
This morning before we left Karachi we took a tour around town by a chauffeured car supplied by the chief minister of the Pakistan Development Authority.
Karachi is only 200 years or so old—very young as Indian cities go. Originally it was a small fishing village. It now has over 4 million people. It is the only seaport of any consequence in Pakistan. But even so, it is very desert-like, with sand dunes and cactus. The monsoon rains have not reached Karachi now for over 4 years—no rain for four years! Everything was of course parched and dry—very little vegetation—very much dust, quite windy and hot. We visited the beach area with a group of rides not unlike Myrtle Beach. We then went on to the port and industrial area, and to the central part of the city. I think that I got some good shots.
There is a Kodak film processor here in Lahore, so I think that I will test them out with the pictures that I took in Istanbul. There are also a couple of dry cleaners here in Lahore, and my coat really does need it after the long hot trip. I can buy a 20-exposure roll of Ektachrome (Ex 135-20) here for about $3.30. Lahore reminds me very much of Delhi—in climate, geographical features, buildings. It is really not much different from the India which I have already seen, but then I have not yet toured Lahore very much. I do notice fewer beggars and fewer Muslim mosques and tombs, although Pakistan is the Muslim country and India is nominally Hindu.
Tomorrow we have a seminar lecture and tour the old city. All that I have had time to do so far is walk down the main drag and buy a couple of books about the Pakistani economy. Tonight at dinner, a cabaret group played for us on a guitar, an electronic organ, and drums. I’m sure they staged a show especially for us because it included Carolina country and blue-grass—“The Green-Green Grass of Home.” Trying to make us home-sick, I suppose.
Saturday, June 30, 1973, 10 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Room 5
Lahore, Pakistan
We are almost a week into the mission, but it seems to get longer and longer.
It is about 98 degrees here now, even at night, and most oppressive. We are all thankful to have air-conditioned rooms, but they are cooled only to about 80 degrees. I think that I perspired enough today alone to lose about five pounds, but then I drank enough to replace it.
We were supposed to go to a lecture at 9 this morning, but when no one had seen Jim Pressley or me by 8:30, Charlie came by and knocked on our door to awaken us. Both of our clocks had gone off about 7, but we slept on after that. I have slept very well so far in spite of the changed schedule—but Jim wakes up about 2 every morning and does not go to sleep again until about 5. We hurriedly dressed and made it to the lecture without breakfast. The lecture was 2-1/2 hours long about the economic history of Pakistan. I taped it so that I can go back some time and see what he said.
After a curry pilaf lunch, we took a mid-day-heat tour of the old city of Lahore and the Anarkali bazaar area. It is difficult to describe the bazaar area of an old city—walkways only a dozen or so feet wide, open water (and sewer) drains, shops overflowing on either side, people moving endlessly in both directions, bicycles, motorcycles, cattle, cow dung, very smelly, etc. It would be enough to make most Americans sick. I was drenched with perspiration when we returned to the hotel.
Some of us have been sick with diarrhea and I have been loose some but am in pretty good condition so far. We leave tomorrow afternoon for Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
Sunday, July 1, 1973
Intercontinental Lahore, Room 438
Lahore, Pakistan
Today has been a strange day. We got up at 7 AM to be ready to leave by 7:30 to go to the Pakistan Administrative Staff College (for government officials) to be welcomed to the country by the chief secretary of the Government of Punjab (state), but when we arrived, we found that the chief secretary was indisposed and could not come. To keep the morning from being a total loss, the principal (i.e., dean) of the administrative staff college gave us a long-winded address about the function of the staff college. He was so long-winded that we failed to make it to the 9:30 English speaking services of the local Presbyterian Church.
We went back to Faletti’s Hotel where I chatted with Samuel Doss, a Pakistani Christian who was a student of Charlie Ratliff’s several years ago. He has an M.A. in economics and now teaches economics in Rawalpindi at Gordon Christian College. As it turns out, Samuel, who is no 32 years old, has applied to seven universities in the U.S. for graduate study in economics. He said that he was pleased to learn that I did my graduate work at Georgia. I told him I would write a letter of recommendation to Norman Wood. Samuel is the associate director of our seminar, so Samuel will be traveling with us.
This afternoon we packed up and went to the airport to fly to Islamabad. But after a two-hour wait the PIA people told us that we had been bumped by some important politicians who had to get back to Rawalpindi tonight. So, PIA is now putting us up at the Intercontinental Lahore Hotel, the most exquisite and expensive European style hotel in Pakistan. It is costing them a bundle, but we are really enjoying it. This hotel has all the modern conveniences and then some. People who come to Pakistan and India and stay in Intercontinental hotels (a chain owned by Pan Am) really do not get an “India experience.”
So, we have one more day in Lahore, and our seminar schedule is terribly disrupted. Charlie Ratliff was “fit to be tied,” but he said this was predictable.
Monday, July 2, 1973, 10:30 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room 19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
I woke up around 9 this morning after about 9 hours of good solid sleep in an American type bed at the Intercontinental Hotel in Lahore. PIA had bumped us off the flight Sunday afternoon and put us up at the swanky Intercontinental Lahore Hotel last night. It was really great and gave us a chance to adjust and recover from some illnesses.
I am now just about finished with my bout with diarrhea, but I’m sure it will recur as a normal state of things. The only thing I did today was to walk to the shopping district in Lahore to leave a roll of film to be processed. It’s pretty expensive, about $4.20 for a 36-exposure roll to process and mount.
We left for the airport at about 3:30, took off around 4:45, and landed in Rawalpindi about 6. By 6:30 we were installed in Flashman’s hotel, a 1920’s vintage British colonial hotel that is the worst of the lot thus far. And we have got to stay here for 7 more nights. I suppose that one can stand anything for 7 nights, or even 7 more weeks.
Before supper we walked around some here in Pindi, a dirty, messy, crowded place which is at the base of the foothills of the western Himalayas. The monsoon has been here, and it is muddy and green—quite in contrast to Karachi. It is also much cooler. The temperature yesterday in Lahore was over 103 degrees, but temperature here today is very pleasant at about 85 degrees. This will be a relief for the time we are here. At shops in Pindi I have found many things I would like to buy, including Kashmiri carpets and some fur stoles.
Wednesday, July 4, 1973, 3:15 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room 19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Yesterday we heard lectures by the economic advisor to the Government of Pakistan and the deputy secretary of the Pakistan Ministry of Education. Both lectures were conducted at the government office buildings in the new city of Islamabad, about fifteen miles from Rawalpindi where we are staying. The new city is spacious, gleaming with white concrete and bricks, well laid out, at the foot of the western Himalaya mountains.
After lunch we rode out about 20 miles in another direction from Rawalpindi to visit Taxila, an archaeological digging site for a complex of ancient cities and temples dating from the second century B.C. to about the third century A.D. I got some nice pictures, but this trip was particularly tiring.
Last night several of us walked up to the swanky Intercontinental Rawalpindi Hotel to have dinner, but every Tuesday and Wednesday in Pakistan are meatless, so we had to settle for fish or omelets. I had a spiced-up Pakistani omelet. The proscription against meat is intended by the government as a curb on demand for meat.
This morning we heard the vice chancellor of the University of Islamabad, the only woman in government or education administration in Pakistan. Tonight we will go to the U.S. Embassy to take part in their 4th of July picnic (whoopee!). They have promised us hotdogs, beer, potato chips, and baked beans, all imported from home. A fireworks display will follow.
Wednesday, July 4, 1973, 10 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room 19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
We have just returned from the big American Embassy picnic where “The Stars and Stripes Forever, “ “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “America,” and “Dixie” were played on the loud speaker.
At the embassy picnic, which started about 6:30 (we didn’t arrive until 7:30) we had real American Oscar Meyer wieners, roasted over charcoal (or dried cow dung, for all I know), served in rock hard Pakistani buns (this sort of kills the whole effect), with Pakistani potato chips (only a gross approximation to Lays), American baked beans, Schlitz and Budweiser beers, various canned American soft drinks, and real American cup ice cream. After supper we went outside to watch a fireworks display—quite impressive.
The whole shindig was put on at the American School (for American and other English-speaking children) in Islamabad. There is really a large community of Americans in Islamabad, although this is officially designated as a Foreign Service hardship post, which means bonus salaries. There must be a thousand or more diplomatic service and army and marine brats attending the school, which looks like it might have been lifted directly out of any American city.
But even with the picnic, music, and fireworks, I can’t say that I feel any more patriotic. We have now had several dealings with Embassy people, who really tend to be arrogant and look down upon “unofficial” Americans in Pakistan. We were dressed down because we didn’t report to them as soon as we stepped off the plane. They have given us almost no help in clearing up a visa problem, and they would have little or nothing to do with us at the picnic. So much for the Foreign Service.
Thursday, July 5, 1973, 10:30 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room 19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
We have returned from a journey into the Kashmiri foothills of the western Himalayas, some of the most beautiful, delightful, and pleasant countryside I have even seen. The journey into the Himalayan foothills was by VW minibus to Murree, a mountain resort for the government officials of Islamabad. A large number of English military and government people have retired to Murree, where the summertime temperature rarely exceeds 80 degrees, and it snows in the winter. There are tall pine trees high on the mountain tops. The promenade through the center of Murree is much like Cherokee, N.C., or Blowing Rock, with little Kashmiri shops along either side.
Murree is only 17 crow miles from Islamabad, but it took us an hour and a half to go the 40 road miles to get there from Islamabad. The trip down the mountain was a wild, rollercoaster ride as we went on two wheels around hairpin curves and zipped in and out between trucks and large buses. You may have liked our VW rollercoaster, but it scared all of us to death. We made it safely down, however.
After return to Flashman’s, I walked into the Pindi shopping district to buy some real, genuine, hand embroidered Kashmiri wool shawls and outfits. I also bought myself a Pakistani outfit that I tried on back at the hotel. I am quite pleased with it and intend to wear it this fall if we entertain with the Pakistani slides.
Friday, July 6, 1973, 7 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room 19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Today has been rather routine and uneventful. This morning we made the drive to Islamabad in a heavy monsoon downpour to hear an uninspired and downright boring presentation by a rural-urban planner. After lunch at the U.S. Embassy (also uninspired) we met the chief of affairs, Mr. Sober (there is no U.S. ambassador in Pakistan now), who is also an uninspiring man. I bought Kashmiri lambswool “Jinnah” caps for Pappy, Papa, and myself. Jinnah is the George Washington or Nehru of Pakistan, though he is now dead.
On Fridays the Asian editions of Time and Newsweek come out. For the last hour or two I have been reading with appropriate horror of Dean’s damning testimony. What is our government coming to? Pakistani government officials also read Time and Newsweek, and they are acutely aware of the situation. They also asked us what we think. This is of course an uncomfortable position to be in.
Saturday, July 7, 1973, 6:20 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room #19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
We will be staying at Faletti’s Hotel in Lahore all the times that we will be there. The manager of the Intercontinental in Lahore has called us long-distance to Pindi to try to get us to stay with him, but we have reservations with Faletti’s.
Our trip today was to Mangla Dam, about 60 miles from Rawalpindi. Mangla was built on the Jellum River between 1962 and 1968 by an American firm at a cost of $300 million. It is the largest earth-fill (rather than concrete) dam in the world, and now supplies 60 percent of the electricity consumed in Pakistan, although this would be only a miniscule proportion of U.S. needs.
Next week we will briefly visit the Tarbella dam now under construction. Tarbella will eventually generate twice as much electricity as Mangla.
The overland trip to Mangla was over horribly rough roads in the VW bus, and through some of the most badly eroded countryside on earth—gullies and canyons hundreds of feet deep cut by rushing monsoon rain runoff waters over centuries. I’m not sure that this land can ever be reclaimed.
Pakistani roadways often are under construction and congested with animals.
Tomorrow, Sunday, is a rest day, with nothing scheduled. It is a good thing, too, because the trip today in 95+ degrees temperatures wore me out. On Monday we have a seminar lecture, then on Tuesday we go to Kagan in the mountains at 14,000 feet.
Monday, July 9, 1973, 9:30 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room #19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Yesterday was Sunday and we had nothing scheduled on the itinerary sheet so we could rest. But one of the wise guys in the seminar suggested that we should get together at 10 Sunday morning for a seminar evaluation session and to air some gripes—which we did until about noon. I personally thought that things are going very well, but one of the anthropologists is dissatisfied.
Sunday afternoon I read the Asian edition of Time to get another view of Dean’s testimony. It’s really appalling, isn’t it. My bubble about Nixon has pretty well been busted.
Today we had two seminars, one this morning by a US-AID official which was really lousy—almost a total waste of time. This afternoon we heard a session by a Hawaiian member of the Ford Foundation aid mission who I thought was very good. But the same anthropologist who griped yesterday said in the car on the way back to the hotel that he thought the Hawaiian was “full of bull,” in which case another member of the seminar group told the anthropologist to stop dominating conversation and airing his gripes, and to shut up. So, the group then really blew up, but I kept out of it. Such dissention in the ranks so early in the seminar trip!
Tomorrow we will leave for Kaghan at 8 A.M., 3 hours by VW bus, then 6 hours by Land Rover jeeps into the mountains to an altitude of about 14,000 feet—a real adventure.
Wednesday, July 11, 1973
PTDC Guest House
Naram, Pakistan
We packed up and set out yesterday morning from Flashman’s about 8:15 AM, heading for Abattabad, and ultimately Naram, high in the western Himalayan mountains. The farther we went the more lush the countryside became with maize (corn), potatoes, cotton, and tobacco crops under cultivation.
We reached Abattabad by about 10:30 and then spent the next hour transferring our gear from the VW microbuses to Land Rover jeeps. By noon we set out again, becoming very uncomfortable in the bump, straight-back seats.
My bottom was numb to sensation when we reached Balikot about 1:30 PM. We expected to eat lunch at Balikot. A not-too-well-dressed young man at the PTDC rest house took our orders for chicken curry, etc. In a few minutes we noticed him chasing a chicken around the yard between the cars. We asked him if the chicken curry was already prepared. He said not yet, but it would ready in about 45 minute after he caught and killed the chicken. This turned our stomachs, and since we were in a hurry anyway, we cancelled the chicken curry order, thus saving the chicken’s life until the next order of chicken curry. We settled for omelets.
By 3 PM we were off again in the Land Rovers, now climbing steadily into the mountains along partially paved roads chipped into the mountainsides., clinging to the wall or perched precariously on the edge when we met a truck or bus. I became quite bruised along my shins, arms, and back from the continuous jolting, and eventually numb to sensation. This went on for 4 hours until we finally reached Naran at 7 PM.
As it turned out, the PTDC rest house at Naran did not have electricity. We went to the cottages and washed up by oil lamp and candlelight, then returned to the guest house for dinner of Pakistani mountain food. By 9 PM it was very dark and impossible to write letters or journal entries by the poor light of the oil lamps, so we went through the motions of spit-baths in the ice-cold mountain water and hit the sack.
Wednesday, July 11, 1973
PTDC Guest House, Room 2
Naran, Pakistan
Today has perhaps been the most strenuous day of my life. I awoke about 7 AM. A room attendant delivered a bucket of hot water by 7:30, and I had a delightful bucket shower and felt much better.
After breakfast of omelet, chapati, and tea, we piled into the Land Rovers (oh, joy and ecstasy), and headed for what should have been a short six-mile ride across the valley and over a mountain to a natural lake, which promised to give a beautiful vista of the snow-covered peaks beyond.
After we had gone about 2-1/2 miles we came to a huge glacial snow field about two hundred yards wide and reaching maybe a thousand yards up onto the mountain—yes, in mid-July! It was of course melting and was slushy. A jeep that had attempted to cross just ahead of ours fell through the surface and became hopelessly bogged down so that our Land Rovers could not cross either.
The drivers suggested that we go ahead and walk across the snow field, climb the roadway on the other side, and go on to the lake, about a mile or so farther on. About half of us thus set out while the rest returned. A local boy accompanying us suggested that we take a shortcut, which after we were committed to it we found to be nothing less than a goat trail straight up the face of the mountain.
We climbed pretty fast at first, and my chest became asthmatic. I was having trouble getting enough air at 10,000 feet, so I slowed down and pretty soon everyone else did too. We continued on, eventually climbing about 3000 feet more to an altitude of about 10,000 feet on a subsidiary peak.
When we sighted the lake, I saw what I think is one of the most beautiful vistas I have ever seen, although I nearly killed myself to do it. What started out to be a 4 mile, 3000-foot mountain climb with street shoes. On the other side was the most spectacular view of snow-covered peaks risking to nearly 26,0000 feet above the lake.
After an hour rest, we climbed down the mountain, almost killing myself again, to the ice field, where the Land Rover took us back to the guest house for a late lunch.
I am now very nearly exhausted, with a tight chest, blisters on my feet, headachy sunburn, and terribly sore legs. But I would give anything for the experience.
Thursday, July 12, 1973
Dean’s hotel, Room 12
Peshawar, Pakistan
We have now settled into Dean’s at Peshawar after 14 long, hard, miserable hours in Land Rovers and VW microbuses from Naran. [Dean’s was demolished in 2013.]
I am very tired and very sore and quite sunburned on my face, but the experience in the mountain country was well worth it. When we got in last night we had coats of dust on us which must have been a quarter of an inch thick. My hair was caked with dust. The nice warm shower really felt good.
Today we get into the buses again to go to the famed Kyber pass, the break in the mountains now separating Pakistan from Afghanistan through which hordes of invaders have poured into the Indian subcontinent for three thousand years. The sights included British army forts and cemeteries. We could look into Afghanistan, but we could not cross the border.
Sunday, July 15, 1973
Dean’s Hotel
Peshawar, Pakistan
Today is not such a great day. We had reservations to fly out of here at 7 AM this morning for Lahore. So we woke up at 5:30 to catch the PIA bus at 6 AM. After we got to the airport and checked in, we were told that the flight had been cancelled due to bad weather over Pindi. We later learned that the trains are not even running because there was as much as 18 inches of water on the tracks in some places.
PIA rescheduled us to the 7 PM flight and sent us back to the hotel. We had breakfast by 8 AM, then I went to sleep until about 11. I have now been in 3 different rooms at Dean’s, as they keep shifting us around to wait until 6 PM.
Yesterday was rigorous but not quite as fatiguing as the ride down from the mountains or the trip to the Khyber Pass. We went by 8 AM to the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development to hear a lecture. We then spent the rest of the morning until 11 AM in a village development project.
At 11 we went by VW bus to call on the governor of the Northwest Frontier Province (one of the four states of Pakistan) in the governor’s mansion, an imposing British colonial mansion of the 19th century. He spent over a half-hour telling us stories and playing politician.
Last night the chief minister of the Northwest Frontier Province hosted a dinner for us here at the hotel. I had an interesting conversation with the director of the Rural Development Academy and other government officials. We still have to be entertained by government officials of Punjab and Sind states in Lahore and Karachi, respectively.
Tuesday, July 17, 1973, 2:15 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Room #3
Lahore, Pakistan
I had a brainstorm yesterday on how I might be able to get a publication out of this seminar. I am the only one with a tape recorder. The seminar sessions for this tip are much more cohesive, and generally better done than the India seminars. What I have in mind is to hire Cindy or some other typist to type the hand-written transcripts of the taped lectures. I would then return copies of the written transcripts to the original lecturers in Pakistan to edit and correct. When they are returned to me, I will try to publish them as an edited volume of “Essays on rural Development in Pakistan, 1973.” I will write the preface and introductory chapter. Other members of the seminar will critique the Pakistani papers or supply additional papers. I really think that there is a good chance that it could be published.
We haven’t been doing too much exciting lately, only seminar lectures—also same the rest of the week. We will travel a lot next week though.
Thursday, July 19, 1973, 2 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Room #3
Lahore, Pakistan
I have just returned from a seminar session on family planning. Pat and I are not going to try to go to China. We were unable to make contact with the Chinese embassy at Islamabad.
As I mentioned in my last letter, I am going to try to edit and publish a collection of seminar presentations out of this trip. I have worked during all of my spare time for the last couple of days to write the transcript of the first taped seminar session, and I am almost through with it. If I work very hard during the next four weeks, I will be able to write the transcripts of most of the sessions and be ready to have them typed when I return. Keeping busy like this is about all that will save me from boredom and homesickness, and who knows, maybe the product can be published.
My journal is now up to about 85 pages. I don’t know what I’ll ever do with it—it certainly is not publishable.
Saturday, July 21, 1973
Faletti’s Hotel, Room 3
Lahore, Pakistan
Today is a milestone for it represents the half-way point of the seminar. We have been gone 26 days and we have 26 days to go. My first reaction this morning when someone announced the big event was “only halfway?” The next 26 days can’t pass any too quickly. Maybe it will be all downhill from here. At least it will be after we get back from Lyallpur, Multan, and Khanewal, where temperatures are regularly 115 degrees, there is little air conditioning, and we will be living in the villages.
I have now finished writing out the transcript of the first seminar lecture—all 39 pages of it—but it is the longest one so far. I am excited about the prospects of getting the collection published.
This afternoon we visited a Hercules fertilizer plant. The fertilizer plant was impressive, but the best part was a huge banquet-size lunch of Pakistani food. They really “put on the dog” for us.
Tomorrow, Sunday, is a day off, and I may go to the zoo, but I expect to get a great deal done on transcribing the tapes. We have now moved into the third page of the itinerary and have three more days in Lahore before hitting the road.
Monday, July 23, 1973, 8 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Room 3
Lahore, Pakistan
I have really had it for the last couple of days—a virus I guess. It started yesterday, so I worked on writing out one of the tape transcripts, the small of my back became very sore. Then, when we walked to the Intercontinental for supper and back, I became so fatigued I almost didn’t make it. After my shower I had some light chills and fever, and when I went to bed I tossed and turned all night with my back hurting (maybe a light kidney infection?), and never did go to sleep—until about 7 AM just before the alarm went off.
I really felt washed out this morning, but I was sick of the room, so I got up, had breakfast, and went on to the scheduled lecture. As the day wore on I felt better and better, and now I am about well, but very tired. A good night’s sleep will get me in shape again. I am now keeping a low-grade diarrhea as I did in India, but I am regarding this as the normal state of affairs.
On the way in from the seminar this afternoon I stopped at the film studio to pick up the film I had left to be developed. I was apprehensive about the quality, but they turned out beautifully. I now have 17 rolls already developed, but 16 of them must be mounted after I return home.
I went yesterday with Samuel Doss to an Urdu (language) service at a local Christian (Anglican) church. It was most interesting. Although I couldn’t understand a word, I knew exactly what was going on. The pump organ was accompanied by a Pakistani drum. One hymn tune was a variation on Clementine (“Oh My Darling”), but I didn’t recognize the other two. It was a very memorable experience.
Wednesday, July 25, 1973, 5 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Rom 3
Lahore, Pakistan
I am feeling much better now than I have for the last couple of days. I have had some sort of virus which gave me a bad back and headache and wouldn’t let me sleep a couple of nights ago. It might have been a minor kidney infection. But I slept well for the last two nights and am back in good shape now.
I have been packing this afternoon because we leave in the morning to go by VW bus to Lyallpur (the train couldn’t accommodate us), where we spend two nights, then push on the Multan and Khanewal where temperatures promise to stay in the 100+ degree range.
Max Loudermilk has set up a schedule for us which starts about 6 AM every day and ends about 10 PM every night—straight through except for about a two-hour rest period every afternoon. Max is a farmer who wakes at 4:30 every morning. This schedule will either make us or break us. When we get back to Lahore, we will either be tough or dead.
Thursday, July 26, 1973, 8 PM
US-AID Rest House
Lyallpur, Pakistan
Lyallpur, renamed Faisalabad in 1977, is the second-largest city and primary industrial center of the Pakistani province of Punjab. It is the third-most populous city in Pakistan. Faisalabad has become a major industrial and distribution hub due to its centrally located infrastructure (connecting roads, rails, and air transportation). Established in 1890, Lyallpur was named in honor of Sir James Broadwood Lyall, who served as the British lieutenant governor of the Punjab. In September 1977, the Pakistan government renamed Lyallpur to "Faisalabad" in commemoration of King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to reflect the enduring relationship between the kingdom and the people of Pakistan. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisalabad#:~:text=Faisalabad%20was%20formerly)
We have now started our adventure in the village country, and already I am writing under adverse conditions. We were supposed to move into the Agricultural University guest house, but it was full, so here we are in the US-AID Resthouse.
AID stand for “Agricultural and Industrial Development.” Eleven of us are crammed into three small bedrooms—4 each in two of the rooms, 3 in the other. Only two beds in each room have springs; the others have only mattresses on the floor. I have one of the mattresses.
It has taken me roughly half an hour to write this letter so far because the electricity has gone off three times, the last time for about 15 minutes. I expect it to go out again at any moment. It has been relatively cool here today with the temperature just breaking 100 degrees. It is predicted to be higher tomorrow.
Thank goodness we won’t have to be here tomorrow night. All eleven of us here have to share the same bathroom facility. Only one thing could be worse, and that is to have to live in the village, sleep out on a charpoi, and relieve ourselves by the side of the road—but we are supposed to do this next week, too.
We met Max Loudermilk this morning. He is fortyish and looks the part of a farm boy—which he is. He is actually a Methodist agricultural missionary. After talking with him, I am about to decide that this is perhaps only kind of missionary that is worthwhile. He doesn’t preach—only attempts to demonstrate better agricultural techniques. He has planned a schedule for us next week which begins every morning at 6:30 on the run and ends every night by about 10. He is going to make us or break us.
Tomorrow night we go to Multan to check into Shezan’s Hotel. Heaven only knows where we will be Sunday night. I can’t remember. By now I don’t look at the itinerary anymore—I just go where I’m told and do what I’m told.
Friday, July 27, 1973, 2:15 PM
US-AID Rest House
Lyallpur, Pakistan
Here we sit in the AID house during the so-called rest period between seminar sessions. I slept on a mattress on the floor with no pillow last night, and you can imagine how that was. But I just can’t seem to go to sleep now, although I am very tired. US-AID wants to charge each one of us Rs70 for this. We have been staying in hotels for about Rs50 per night, but Max Loudermilk told them that if they charged us Rs70, he would charge them Rs100 the next time they come to stay with him (he has been charging them nothing).
We spent the morning at the Agricultural University of Lyallpur, sweating the whole time. It seems like we now are going around in circles and seeing or hearing nothing new. We leave in about 5 minutes to visit Chiniot, a town which manufactures carved wood handcraft items. At 6:30 we come back to the Lyallpur railroad station to get on the train to go to Multan.
Saturday, July 28, 1973, 3:30 PM
Shezan’s Hotel, Room 27
Multan, Pakistan
We have made it now to Multan where it is super hot. Shezan’s Hotel is very nice though—probably the best hotel we have been in on the seminar so far. Shezan’s also operates a very high-class restaurant and hotel in London. The air conditioning here is very good and is the only thing that is saving us.
The train ride last night was quite pleasant. They don’t usually run a first-class air-conditioned car on the Lyallpur to Multan segment, but they pulled an air-conditioned bogey (as they call a pullman car) up from Karachi just for us. The 5 hours rail trip cost us each about $5.85, and it was well worth it. The VW buses came by road and brought our luggage but took two hours longer. We are ready to junk the buses and do all the rest of our travelling by train unless we fly.
We toured the mosques, forts, bazaars, etc., of Multan this morning between 7:30 and 10:30. The temperature and heat became so intense that we were wringing wet when we returned and had to take showers and break out clean clothes before going to lunch which was provided by the municipal government of Multan.
Late this afternoon we will visit a textile manufacturing concern, Gultex, then go to dinner hosted by Gultex.
Monday, July 30, 1973
Laudermilk’s Ag Extension Station
Khanewal, Pakistan
I am now receiving letters regularly, but it is taking them 10 days or more to get here.
I was ill again Saturday night and Sunday with diarrhea, this time so badly that it made me raw. I became dehydrated, but early Sunday morning Max gave me doses of two kinds of liquid medicine and two kinds of pills, which I repeated again later in the day. This effectively knocked me out until about 2 PM Sunday so I didn’t care what happened, and the pills finally dried me up by about 4 PM. Then, we drove over here as I suffered some nausea. When we arrived here, Mrs. Loudermilk had chili con carne for us—which I couldn’t eat. I had very little for lunch or breakfast today. Nothing seems appetizing to me anymore. Maybe it will get better later on.
We are all staying in a large second-story room, barracks style. It is 110 degrees outside, and the two air conditioners keep blowing fuses, so it is about 105 degrees inside. I am sitting here in the bed, sweat pouring off of me and dripping on the letter. Flies are everywhere. It is unbelievably dusty and grimy. This is pure misery, and just think, we have only five more days of it. I should lose 10 pounds this week alone at this rate.
Tonight at around 6 we will take a half mile ride on camels which will be fixed up for a wedding march. The experience with the camel was most unfortunate. There were only 8 camels for 15 people, so we were supposed to double-up. The camel knelt down, and Don Paxton and I climbed aboard. A camel stands up first by getting up on its rear legs, then its font legs. Of course, the saddles are not strapped on—they just hang there. So when our camel got up on her rear legs (still kneeling on the front legs), Paxton and I slid off over her head, saddle and all. I have a bruised shoulder; he has a bruised leg. It’s a wonder there weren’t any broken bones.
Tuesday, July 31, 1973, AM
Laudermilk’s Ag Extension Station
Khanewal, Pakistan
Early this morning we visited local farms to learn about the need for the land to be leveled. Water is channeled from the Indus River and its tributaries to the croplands, but if it is not spread evenly, crop growth will be “spotty.” Max taught local farmers to use large curved plastic pipe sections, 4” diameter x 6’ length, to siphon water from the cannels onto the fields.
We visited a small cotton farm to see the effects of uneven water spread. Max has provided a solution in the form of leveling the land as seen in the rich cotton crop of a large-scale farm with leveled land. His ag extension station also serves as a tractor repair garage.
Land leveling has become a standard procedure in the Punjab where land-leveling equipment now is fabricated by the Ghazi Company which we visited in the afternoon.
Wednesday, August 1, 1973, noon
Loudermilk Ag Station
Stuntzabad, Pakistan
The beat goes on here—on and on and on. Will it never end? Since I wrote on Monday, I have had another bout with diarrhea, fallen off of a camel, rubbed my tail bone raw on the camel saddle, trekked across the desert, learned about the need for land leveling, siphoned water through a tube from an irrigation ditch onto a field, seen 1000 fine-bred cows at a dairy farm, and talked with several large and small farmers.
We visited local dispensaries and infirmaries and were given explicit demonstrations of an IUD insertion and a vasectomy operation.
I may not have been very coherent in my last letter because of the heat and the diarrhea sickness. The local medical dispensary has now given me some antibiotics, and I think the situation is under control—at least until it recurs. Everyone (except Charlie Ratliff, of course) has suffered with this.
The temperatures remain very high here, inside well over 90 degrees, as well as outside 105 degrees, in spite of air conditioners. The air conditioners have a very hard time because they were designed for 220 volts, but actual voltage is rarely above 180 volts, and sometimes only 150 volts. This is really not a vacation here in Pakistan—it’s just pure misery.
Ah, but spirits rose today, for this is August 1, and now there are just 16 more days of misery. Just three more “glorious days on the farm,” and we can return to the complete boredom of the 5-day curriculum planning week in Lahore.
Thursday, August 2, 1973, 1:30 PM
Tom Robert’s House
Khanewal, Pakistan
You mentioned that Mimi and Papa have not yet gotten a postcard from me. My record shows that I sent cards to them on the sixth of July. It is not inconceivable that postal employees removed stamps from some or all of the postcards. It takes Rs1.40 (about 14 cents) to mail a post card to the U.S., but a rupee means so much money to these people that they sometimes steal them off of cards. Aerogrammes like this are safer because the larger stamps are printed on the aerogrammes. The safest thing to do is to have the stamps cancelled immediately.
We are here at the Roberts House in Khanewal only for today and will return to the barracks at Stuntzabad tonight. Tomorrow is the last day there (hooray!), then we go to Bhawalpur on Saturday and back to Lahore Saturday night. It is very pleasant here at the Roberts House—built in 1920 by Sir William Roberts, an English colonialist.
Sunday, August 5, 1973, 7:15 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Room 56
Lahore, Pakistan
I’m back in Lahore now after the “week that was” on the farm. I survived it alright but am tired, and I now have the inevitable cold. I am taking Contact, aspirin, etc., for it and am reasonably comfortable and will be over with it by the time I get home, now just 12 days from today.
This is the beginning of the instructional study week here in Lahore where we are supposed to buy materials and do curriculum development work. I will work on my tape transcripts but expect to do a lot of resting this week so that I will be in good shape to come home.
I slept late this morning and have done very little today as I have attempted to recuperate from the week on the farm. I did work for a couple of hours this afternoon on a tape transcript, then took a nap. I will probably do a good bit of shopping this week, but the materials money provided by the U.S. Office of Education is nearly gone.
Tuesday, August 7, 1973
Faletti’s Hotel, Room 56
Lahore, Pakistan
There are only 10 more days until I am home, and only 8 more days before I leave here.
Things are going very slowly here. I have been to the Pakistan Administrative Staff College for the last two morning to use their typewriter to write letters requesting several of the seminar lecturers to write formal papers for my edited volume. I sent nine such requests in the last two days. I have now finished writing transcripts of three seminar lectures and editing typed manuscripts of two others supplied by the lecturers.
As nearly as I can tell, I will have more than 20 papers written by Pakistani lecturers, plus several more written by members of the seminar. I have been sticking pretty close to Faletti’s for the past couple of days, writing out the taped sessions and generally resting. I am now in pretty good health except for a lingering croupy cough and some asthmatic chest congestion, but this will be over within a couple of days.
We have a slight change of plans. We will go to Karachi on Friday rather than Saturday so that we can take a short flight on Saturday to the Mohenjo-Daro ruins of an ancient civilization 3000 years before Christ. Other than that, the schedule is the same.
Thursday, August 9, 1973, 10:45 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Room 56
Lahore, Pakistan
Today is a great day because it is the last day in Lahore. Tomorrow, we leave at 9:20 AM for Karachi, and then begin to wind up the mission. I have just finished packing the suitcases, and of course they are overweight, but I’ll just have to fake it in some way to get through the check-in line. We are taking the puddle-hopper flight to Lahore, so it may take us all day to get there, but we will then have Friday afternoon free.
Saturday AM we will fly to Mohenjo-Daro to observe the ruins of the ancient Indus Valley civilization, then back to Karachi the same day. Sunday is a free day again. We
have seminar sessions lined up for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, then Thursday is the day we have all been looking forward to. This next week is really going to drag by.
This is my last letter because I will be back in Greenville before another letter can arrive.
Macka Oteli, Room 205
Istanbul, Turkey
We finally set down at Istanbul about 3 PM (8 AM your time) this afternoon. Customs gave us no trouble at all, didn't even look in our bags. But Jim Pressley, the fellow from the Harnette County, North Carolina school system, who was so afraid of coming, could not find his suitcase. Apparently, it is lost somewhere enroute. We hope it will turn up soon. He is now my roommate here in Istanbul.
Our "Istanbul Adventure" began about 6 this evening when we finally got to the hotel, and someone at the desk suggested that we take a boat trip up the Bosporus and eat supper at a typical Turkish hotel. So, we set out from the hotel walking (the first mistake), took a wrong turn (the second mistake), and kept going (the third mistake).
We ended up walking about four miles across Istanbul before we finally got to the ferry slip and took the boat ride. Then, my fourth mistake was that these shoes I have (newly half-soled) hurt my feet. Also, I did not wear a coat and got chilly in the wind.
The next mistake was the Turkish restaurant where we all ate typical Turkish food. We may all be dead tomorrow. But it was pretty good, with plenty of local atmosphere.
We finally got back to the hotel by 10 PM (our time, 4 PM your time), and I am now just worn out. I will try to get some sleep tonight, and we will go shopping tomorrow for meerschaum pipes. We must be at the airport by 2:30 PM to check in for the continuation of the flight.
We are scheduled to arrive in Karachi on Thursday at about 2:30 AM Karachi time. We hope to be at the hotel there by 4 AM or so. Then maybe if we are not all dead of disease or exhaustion, we can get some rest.
Thursday, June 28, 1973
Metropole Hotel, Room 350
Karachi, Pakistan
I bought some aerogrammes today, so I shall be writing on these from now on. They are certainly changes from letters. With a 10 rupees to the dollar exchange rate, the aerogramme costs about 15 cents, while a letter costs nearly 30 cents.
We are staying for one night at the Metropole Hotel in Karachi.
Today has been fairly full. I woke up about 11 AM to the sound of hammering in the room down the hall. We then went and had lunch with the rest of the group in the hotel coffee shop where Charlie handed out the first per diem rupees. I had scrambled eggs on toast—don’t want to break into the Pakistani food too quickly.
I then took a walk of about three blocks to the U.S. consulate to register my passport against possible loss. After that I returned to the hotel to get my camera. Jim Pressley and I walked around several blocks and got what I hope are some really good shots of people on the street. I have become quite adept at setting the camera in advance and the “shooting from the hip” so that people do not know that they are being photographed. I then returned to the room to catch up on my. I am keeping up with the journal pretty well. It is now twelve pages long, and I have been gone only three days. I will have to get a new pad soon.
Tonight we are to have dinner with the chief secretary of the Government of Sind.
Midnight: back from dinner. This dinner amounted to a state dinner with all important officials of the State of Sind government present. We received engraved invitations this morning. They sent chauffeured cars by for us this evening at 8. Then from 8:10 to 9:30 we had cocktail hour—the longest I have ever suffered through.
Finally we went through the buffet line to find 5 or 6 different kinds of meats—something that is very rarely done in Pakistan. All food was hot Pakistani types, so some of us may be ill tomorrow. Dessert and coffee followed.
They are going to provide chauffeured cars tomorrow for us to ride around in. This has really been an evening. It was topped off when the chief secretary of the Government of Sind said that he wanted us to have an audience with President Bhutto of Pakistan. What else can happen?
Room 5, Faletti’s Hotel
Lahore Pakistan
The flight on a Pakistan International Airways Boeing 707 was very pleasant—only an hour and twenty minutes. We are now in Lahore at Faletti’s Hotel and will be here only two nights before moving on to Islamabad.
This morning before we left Karachi we took a tour around town by a chauffeured car supplied by the chief minister of the Pakistan Development Authority.
Karachi is only 200 years or so old—very young as Indian cities go. Originally it was a small fishing village. It now has over 4 million people. It is the only seaport of any consequence in Pakistan. But even so, it is very desert-like, with sand dunes and cactus. The monsoon rains have not reached Karachi now for over 4 years—no rain for four years! Everything was of course parched and dry—very little vegetation—very much dust, quite windy and hot. We visited the beach area with a group of rides not unlike Myrtle Beach. We then went on to the port and industrial area, and to the central part of the city. I think that I got some good shots.
There is a Kodak film processor here in Lahore, so I think that I will test them out with the pictures that I took in Istanbul. There are also a couple of dry cleaners here in Lahore, and my coat really does need it after the long hot trip. I can buy a 20-exposure roll of Ektachrome (Ex 135-20) here for about $3.30. Lahore reminds me very much of Delhi—in climate, geographical features, buildings. It is really not much different from the India which I have already seen, but then I have not yet toured Lahore very much. I do notice fewer beggars and fewer Muslim mosques and tombs, although Pakistan is the Muslim country and India is nominally Hindu.
Tomorrow we have a seminar lecture and tour the old city. All that I have had time to do so far is walk down the main drag and buy a couple of books about the Pakistani economy. Tonight at dinner, a cabaret group played for us on a guitar, an electronic organ, and drums. I’m sure they staged a show especially for us because it included Carolina country and blue-grass—“The Green-Green Grass of Home.” Trying to make us home-sick, I suppose.
Saturday, June 30, 1973, 10 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Room 5
Lahore, Pakistan
We are almost a week into the mission, but it seems to get longer and longer.
It is about 98 degrees here now, even at night, and most oppressive. We are all thankful to have air-conditioned rooms, but they are cooled only to about 80 degrees. I think that I perspired enough today alone to lose about five pounds, but then I drank enough to replace it.
We were supposed to go to a lecture at 9 this morning, but when no one had seen Jim Pressley or me by 8:30, Charlie came by and knocked on our door to awaken us. Both of our clocks had gone off about 7, but we slept on after that. I have slept very well so far in spite of the changed schedule—but Jim wakes up about 2 every morning and does not go to sleep again until about 5. We hurriedly dressed and made it to the lecture without breakfast. The lecture was 2-1/2 hours long about the economic history of Pakistan. I taped it so that I can go back some time and see what he said.
After a curry pilaf lunch, we took a mid-day-heat tour of the old city of Lahore and the Anarkali bazaar area. It is difficult to describe the bazaar area of an old city—walkways only a dozen or so feet wide, open water (and sewer) drains, shops overflowing on either side, people moving endlessly in both directions, bicycles, motorcycles, cattle, cow dung, very smelly, etc. It would be enough to make most Americans sick. I was drenched with perspiration when we returned to the hotel.
Some of us have been sick with diarrhea and I have been loose some but am in pretty good condition so far. We leave tomorrow afternoon for Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
Sunday, July 1, 1973
Intercontinental Lahore, Room 438
Lahore, Pakistan
Today has been a strange day. We got up at 7 AM to be ready to leave by 7:30 to go to the Pakistan Administrative Staff College (for government officials) to be welcomed to the country by the chief secretary of the Government of Punjab (state), but when we arrived, we found that the chief secretary was indisposed and could not come. To keep the morning from being a total loss, the principal (i.e., dean) of the administrative staff college gave us a long-winded address about the function of the staff college. He was so long-winded that we failed to make it to the 9:30 English speaking services of the local Presbyterian Church.
We went back to Faletti’s Hotel where I chatted with Samuel Doss, a Pakistani Christian who was a student of Charlie Ratliff’s several years ago. He has an M.A. in economics and now teaches economics in Rawalpindi at Gordon Christian College. As it turns out, Samuel, who is no 32 years old, has applied to seven universities in the U.S. for graduate study in economics. He said that he was pleased to learn that I did my graduate work at Georgia. I told him I would write a letter of recommendation to Norman Wood. Samuel is the associate director of our seminar, so Samuel will be traveling with us.
This afternoon we packed up and went to the airport to fly to Islamabad. But after a two-hour wait the PIA people told us that we had been bumped by some important politicians who had to get back to Rawalpindi tonight. So, PIA is now putting us up at the Intercontinental Lahore Hotel, the most exquisite and expensive European style hotel in Pakistan. It is costing them a bundle, but we are really enjoying it. This hotel has all the modern conveniences and then some. People who come to Pakistan and India and stay in Intercontinental hotels (a chain owned by Pan Am) really do not get an “India experience.”
So, we have one more day in Lahore, and our seminar schedule is terribly disrupted. Charlie Ratliff was “fit to be tied,” but he said this was predictable.
Monday, July 2, 1973, 10:30 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room 19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
I woke up around 9 this morning after about 9 hours of good solid sleep in an American type bed at the Intercontinental Hotel in Lahore. PIA had bumped us off the flight Sunday afternoon and put us up at the swanky Intercontinental Lahore Hotel last night. It was really great and gave us a chance to adjust and recover from some illnesses.
I am now just about finished with my bout with diarrhea, but I’m sure it will recur as a normal state of things. The only thing I did today was to walk to the shopping district in Lahore to leave a roll of film to be processed. It’s pretty expensive, about $4.20 for a 36-exposure roll to process and mount.
We left for the airport at about 3:30, took off around 4:45, and landed in Rawalpindi about 6. By 6:30 we were installed in Flashman’s hotel, a 1920’s vintage British colonial hotel that is the worst of the lot thus far. And we have got to stay here for 7 more nights. I suppose that one can stand anything for 7 nights, or even 7 more weeks.
Before supper we walked around some here in Pindi, a dirty, messy, crowded place which is at the base of the foothills of the western Himalayas. The monsoon has been here, and it is muddy and green—quite in contrast to Karachi. It is also much cooler. The temperature yesterday in Lahore was over 103 degrees, but temperature here today is very pleasant at about 85 degrees. This will be a relief for the time we are here. At shops in Pindi I have found many things I would like to buy, including Kashmiri carpets and some fur stoles.
Wednesday, July 4, 1973, 3:15 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room 19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Yesterday we heard lectures by the economic advisor to the Government of Pakistan and the deputy secretary of the Pakistan Ministry of Education. Both lectures were conducted at the government office buildings in the new city of Islamabad, about fifteen miles from Rawalpindi where we are staying. The new city is spacious, gleaming with white concrete and bricks, well laid out, at the foot of the western Himalaya mountains.
After lunch we rode out about 20 miles in another direction from Rawalpindi to visit Taxila, an archaeological digging site for a complex of ancient cities and temples dating from the second century B.C. to about the third century A.D. I got some nice pictures, but this trip was particularly tiring.
Last night several of us walked up to the swanky Intercontinental Rawalpindi Hotel to have dinner, but every Tuesday and Wednesday in Pakistan are meatless, so we had to settle for fish or omelets. I had a spiced-up Pakistani omelet. The proscription against meat is intended by the government as a curb on demand for meat.
This morning we heard the vice chancellor of the University of Islamabad, the only woman in government or education administration in Pakistan. Tonight we will go to the U.S. Embassy to take part in their 4th of July picnic (whoopee!). They have promised us hotdogs, beer, potato chips, and baked beans, all imported from home. A fireworks display will follow.
Wednesday, July 4, 1973, 10 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room 19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
We have just returned from the big American Embassy picnic where “The Stars and Stripes Forever, “ “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “America,” and “Dixie” were played on the loud speaker.
At the embassy picnic, which started about 6:30 (we didn’t arrive until 7:30) we had real American Oscar Meyer wieners, roasted over charcoal (or dried cow dung, for all I know), served in rock hard Pakistani buns (this sort of kills the whole effect), with Pakistani potato chips (only a gross approximation to Lays), American baked beans, Schlitz and Budweiser beers, various canned American soft drinks, and real American cup ice cream. After supper we went outside to watch a fireworks display—quite impressive.
The whole shindig was put on at the American School (for American and other English-speaking children) in Islamabad. There is really a large community of Americans in Islamabad, although this is officially designated as a Foreign Service hardship post, which means bonus salaries. There must be a thousand or more diplomatic service and army and marine brats attending the school, which looks like it might have been lifted directly out of any American city.
But even with the picnic, music, and fireworks, I can’t say that I feel any more patriotic. We have now had several dealings with Embassy people, who really tend to be arrogant and look down upon “unofficial” Americans in Pakistan. We were dressed down because we didn’t report to them as soon as we stepped off the plane. They have given us almost no help in clearing up a visa problem, and they would have little or nothing to do with us at the picnic. So much for the Foreign Service.
Thursday, July 5, 1973, 10:30 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room 19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
We have returned from a journey into the Kashmiri foothills of the western Himalayas, some of the most beautiful, delightful, and pleasant countryside I have even seen. The journey into the Himalayan foothills was by VW minibus to Murree, a mountain resort for the government officials of Islamabad. A large number of English military and government people have retired to Murree, where the summertime temperature rarely exceeds 80 degrees, and it snows in the winter. There are tall pine trees high on the mountain tops. The promenade through the center of Murree is much like Cherokee, N.C., or Blowing Rock, with little Kashmiri shops along either side.
Murree is only 17 crow miles from Islamabad, but it took us an hour and a half to go the 40 road miles to get there from Islamabad. The trip down the mountain was a wild, rollercoaster ride as we went on two wheels around hairpin curves and zipped in and out between trucks and large buses. You may have liked our VW rollercoaster, but it scared all of us to death. We made it safely down, however.
After return to Flashman’s, I walked into the Pindi shopping district to buy some real, genuine, hand embroidered Kashmiri wool shawls and outfits. I also bought myself a Pakistani outfit that I tried on back at the hotel. I am quite pleased with it and intend to wear it this fall if we entertain with the Pakistani slides.
Friday, July 6, 1973, 7 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room 19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Today has been rather routine and uneventful. This morning we made the drive to Islamabad in a heavy monsoon downpour to hear an uninspired and downright boring presentation by a rural-urban planner. After lunch at the U.S. Embassy (also uninspired) we met the chief of affairs, Mr. Sober (there is no U.S. ambassador in Pakistan now), who is also an uninspiring man. I bought Kashmiri lambswool “Jinnah” caps for Pappy, Papa, and myself. Jinnah is the George Washington or Nehru of Pakistan, though he is now dead.
On Fridays the Asian editions of Time and Newsweek come out. For the last hour or two I have been reading with appropriate horror of Dean’s damning testimony. What is our government coming to? Pakistani government officials also read Time and Newsweek, and they are acutely aware of the situation. They also asked us what we think. This is of course an uncomfortable position to be in.
Saturday, July 7, 1973, 6:20 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room #19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
We will be staying at Faletti’s Hotel in Lahore all the times that we will be there. The manager of the Intercontinental in Lahore has called us long-distance to Pindi to try to get us to stay with him, but we have reservations with Faletti’s.
Our trip today was to Mangla Dam, about 60 miles from Rawalpindi. Mangla was built on the Jellum River between 1962 and 1968 by an American firm at a cost of $300 million. It is the largest earth-fill (rather than concrete) dam in the world, and now supplies 60 percent of the electricity consumed in Pakistan, although this would be only a miniscule proportion of U.S. needs.
Next week we will briefly visit the Tarbella dam now under construction. Tarbella will eventually generate twice as much electricity as Mangla.
The overland trip to Mangla was over horribly rough roads in the VW bus, and through some of the most badly eroded countryside on earth—gullies and canyons hundreds of feet deep cut by rushing monsoon rain runoff waters over centuries. I’m not sure that this land can ever be reclaimed.
Pakistani roadways often are under construction and congested with animals.
Tomorrow, Sunday, is a rest day, with nothing scheduled. It is a good thing, too, because the trip today in 95+ degrees temperatures wore me out. On Monday we have a seminar lecture, then on Tuesday we go to Kagan in the mountains at 14,000 feet.
Monday, July 9, 1973, 9:30 PM
Flashman’s Hotel, Room #19
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Yesterday was Sunday and we had nothing scheduled on the itinerary sheet so we could rest. But one of the wise guys in the seminar suggested that we should get together at 10 Sunday morning for a seminar evaluation session and to air some gripes—which we did until about noon. I personally thought that things are going very well, but one of the anthropologists is dissatisfied.
Sunday afternoon I read the Asian edition of Time to get another view of Dean’s testimony. It’s really appalling, isn’t it. My bubble about Nixon has pretty well been busted.
Today we had two seminars, one this morning by a US-AID official which was really lousy—almost a total waste of time. This afternoon we heard a session by a Hawaiian member of the Ford Foundation aid mission who I thought was very good. But the same anthropologist who griped yesterday said in the car on the way back to the hotel that he thought the Hawaiian was “full of bull,” in which case another member of the seminar group told the anthropologist to stop dominating conversation and airing his gripes, and to shut up. So, the group then really blew up, but I kept out of it. Such dissention in the ranks so early in the seminar trip!
Tomorrow we will leave for Kaghan at 8 A.M., 3 hours by VW bus, then 6 hours by Land Rover jeeps into the mountains to an altitude of about 14,000 feet—a real adventure.
Wednesday, July 11, 1973
PTDC Guest House
Naram, Pakistan
We packed up and set out yesterday morning from Flashman’s about 8:15 AM, heading for Abattabad, and ultimately Naram, high in the western Himalayan mountains. The farther we went the more lush the countryside became with maize (corn), potatoes, cotton, and tobacco crops under cultivation.
We reached Abattabad by about 10:30 and then spent the next hour transferring our gear from the VW microbuses to Land Rover jeeps. By noon we set out again, becoming very uncomfortable in the bump, straight-back seats.
My bottom was numb to sensation when we reached Balikot about 1:30 PM. We expected to eat lunch at Balikot. A not-too-well-dressed young man at the PTDC rest house took our orders for chicken curry, etc. In a few minutes we noticed him chasing a chicken around the yard between the cars. We asked him if the chicken curry was already prepared. He said not yet, but it would ready in about 45 minute after he caught and killed the chicken. This turned our stomachs, and since we were in a hurry anyway, we cancelled the chicken curry order, thus saving the chicken’s life until the next order of chicken curry. We settled for omelets.
By 3 PM we were off again in the Land Rovers, now climbing steadily into the mountains along partially paved roads chipped into the mountainsides., clinging to the wall or perched precariously on the edge when we met a truck or bus. I became quite bruised along my shins, arms, and back from the continuous jolting, and eventually numb to sensation. This went on for 4 hours until we finally reached Naran at 7 PM.
As it turned out, the PTDC rest house at Naran did not have electricity. We went to the cottages and washed up by oil lamp and candlelight, then returned to the guest house for dinner of Pakistani mountain food. By 9 PM it was very dark and impossible to write letters or journal entries by the poor light of the oil lamps, so we went through the motions of spit-baths in the ice-cold mountain water and hit the sack.
Wednesday, July 11, 1973
PTDC Guest House, Room 2
Naran, Pakistan
Today has perhaps been the most strenuous day of my life. I awoke about 7 AM. A room attendant delivered a bucket of hot water by 7:30, and I had a delightful bucket shower and felt much better.
After breakfast of omelet, chapati, and tea, we piled into the Land Rovers (oh, joy and ecstasy), and headed for what should have been a short six-mile ride across the valley and over a mountain to a natural lake, which promised to give a beautiful vista of the snow-covered peaks beyond.
After we had gone about 2-1/2 miles we came to a huge glacial snow field about two hundred yards wide and reaching maybe a thousand yards up onto the mountain—yes, in mid-July! It was of course melting and was slushy. A jeep that had attempted to cross just ahead of ours fell through the surface and became hopelessly bogged down so that our Land Rovers could not cross either.
The drivers suggested that we go ahead and walk across the snow field, climb the roadway on the other side, and go on to the lake, about a mile or so farther on. About half of us thus set out while the rest returned. A local boy accompanying us suggested that we take a shortcut, which after we were committed to it we found to be nothing less than a goat trail straight up the face of the mountain.
We climbed pretty fast at first, and my chest became asthmatic. I was having trouble getting enough air at 10,000 feet, so I slowed down and pretty soon everyone else did too. We continued on, eventually climbing about 3000 feet more to an altitude of about 10,000 feet on a subsidiary peak.
When we sighted the lake, I saw what I think is one of the most beautiful vistas I have ever seen, although I nearly killed myself to do it. What started out to be a 4 mile, 3000-foot mountain climb with street shoes. On the other side was the most spectacular view of snow-covered peaks risking to nearly 26,0000 feet above the lake.
After an hour rest, we climbed down the mountain, almost killing myself again, to the ice field, where the Land Rover took us back to the guest house for a late lunch.
I am now very nearly exhausted, with a tight chest, blisters on my feet, headachy sunburn, and terribly sore legs. But I would give anything for the experience.
Thursday, July 12, 1973
Dean’s hotel, Room 12
Peshawar, Pakistan
We have now settled into Dean’s at Peshawar after 14 long, hard, miserable hours in Land Rovers and VW microbuses from Naran. [Dean’s was demolished in 2013.]
I am very tired and very sore and quite sunburned on my face, but the experience in the mountain country was well worth it. When we got in last night we had coats of dust on us which must have been a quarter of an inch thick. My hair was caked with dust. The nice warm shower really felt good.
Today we get into the buses again to go to the famed Kyber pass, the break in the mountains now separating Pakistan from Afghanistan through which hordes of invaders have poured into the Indian subcontinent for three thousand years. The sights included British army forts and cemeteries. We could look into Afghanistan, but we could not cross the border.
Sunday, July 15, 1973
Dean’s Hotel
Peshawar, Pakistan
Today is not such a great day. We had reservations to fly out of here at 7 AM this morning for Lahore. So we woke up at 5:30 to catch the PIA bus at 6 AM. After we got to the airport and checked in, we were told that the flight had been cancelled due to bad weather over Pindi. We later learned that the trains are not even running because there was as much as 18 inches of water on the tracks in some places.
PIA rescheduled us to the 7 PM flight and sent us back to the hotel. We had breakfast by 8 AM, then I went to sleep until about 11. I have now been in 3 different rooms at Dean’s, as they keep shifting us around to wait until 6 PM.
Yesterday was rigorous but not quite as fatiguing as the ride down from the mountains or the trip to the Khyber Pass. We went by 8 AM to the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development to hear a lecture. We then spent the rest of the morning until 11 AM in a village development project.
At 11 we went by VW bus to call on the governor of the Northwest Frontier Province (one of the four states of Pakistan) in the governor’s mansion, an imposing British colonial mansion of the 19th century. He spent over a half-hour telling us stories and playing politician.
Last night the chief minister of the Northwest Frontier Province hosted a dinner for us here at the hotel. I had an interesting conversation with the director of the Rural Development Academy and other government officials. We still have to be entertained by government officials of Punjab and Sind states in Lahore and Karachi, respectively.
Tuesday, July 17, 1973, 2:15 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Room #3
Lahore, Pakistan
I had a brainstorm yesterday on how I might be able to get a publication out of this seminar. I am the only one with a tape recorder. The seminar sessions for this tip are much more cohesive, and generally better done than the India seminars. What I have in mind is to hire Cindy or some other typist to type the hand-written transcripts of the taped lectures. I would then return copies of the written transcripts to the original lecturers in Pakistan to edit and correct. When they are returned to me, I will try to publish them as an edited volume of “Essays on rural Development in Pakistan, 1973.” I will write the preface and introductory chapter. Other members of the seminar will critique the Pakistani papers or supply additional papers. I really think that there is a good chance that it could be published.
We haven’t been doing too much exciting lately, only seminar lectures—also same the rest of the week. We will travel a lot next week though.
Thursday, July 19, 1973, 2 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Room #3
Lahore, Pakistan
I have just returned from a seminar session on family planning. Pat and I are not going to try to go to China. We were unable to make contact with the Chinese embassy at Islamabad.
As I mentioned in my last letter, I am going to try to edit and publish a collection of seminar presentations out of this trip. I have worked during all of my spare time for the last couple of days to write the transcript of the first taped seminar session, and I am almost through with it. If I work very hard during the next four weeks, I will be able to write the transcripts of most of the sessions and be ready to have them typed when I return. Keeping busy like this is about all that will save me from boredom and homesickness, and who knows, maybe the product can be published.
My journal is now up to about 85 pages. I don’t know what I’ll ever do with it—it certainly is not publishable.
Saturday, July 21, 1973
Faletti’s Hotel, Room 3
Lahore, Pakistan
Today is a milestone for it represents the half-way point of the seminar. We have been gone 26 days and we have 26 days to go. My first reaction this morning when someone announced the big event was “only halfway?” The next 26 days can’t pass any too quickly. Maybe it will be all downhill from here. At least it will be after we get back from Lyallpur, Multan, and Khanewal, where temperatures are regularly 115 degrees, there is little air conditioning, and we will be living in the villages.
I have now finished writing out the transcript of the first seminar lecture—all 39 pages of it—but it is the longest one so far. I am excited about the prospects of getting the collection published.
This afternoon we visited a Hercules fertilizer plant. The fertilizer plant was impressive, but the best part was a huge banquet-size lunch of Pakistani food. They really “put on the dog” for us.
Tomorrow, Sunday, is a day off, and I may go to the zoo, but I expect to get a great deal done on transcribing the tapes. We have now moved into the third page of the itinerary and have three more days in Lahore before hitting the road.
Monday, July 23, 1973, 8 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Room 3
Lahore, Pakistan
I have really had it for the last couple of days—a virus I guess. It started yesterday, so I worked on writing out one of the tape transcripts, the small of my back became very sore. Then, when we walked to the Intercontinental for supper and back, I became so fatigued I almost didn’t make it. After my shower I had some light chills and fever, and when I went to bed I tossed and turned all night with my back hurting (maybe a light kidney infection?), and never did go to sleep—until about 7 AM just before the alarm went off.
I really felt washed out this morning, but I was sick of the room, so I got up, had breakfast, and went on to the scheduled lecture. As the day wore on I felt better and better, and now I am about well, but very tired. A good night’s sleep will get me in shape again. I am now keeping a low-grade diarrhea as I did in India, but I am regarding this as the normal state of affairs.
On the way in from the seminar this afternoon I stopped at the film studio to pick up the film I had left to be developed. I was apprehensive about the quality, but they turned out beautifully. I now have 17 rolls already developed, but 16 of them must be mounted after I return home.
I went yesterday with Samuel Doss to an Urdu (language) service at a local Christian (Anglican) church. It was most interesting. Although I couldn’t understand a word, I knew exactly what was going on. The pump organ was accompanied by a Pakistani drum. One hymn tune was a variation on Clementine (“Oh My Darling”), but I didn’t recognize the other two. It was a very memorable experience.
Wednesday, July 25, 1973, 5 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Rom 3
Lahore, Pakistan
I am feeling much better now than I have for the last couple of days. I have had some sort of virus which gave me a bad back and headache and wouldn’t let me sleep a couple of nights ago. It might have been a minor kidney infection. But I slept well for the last two nights and am back in good shape now.
I have been packing this afternoon because we leave in the morning to go by VW bus to Lyallpur (the train couldn’t accommodate us), where we spend two nights, then push on the Multan and Khanewal where temperatures promise to stay in the 100+ degree range.
Max Loudermilk has set up a schedule for us which starts about 6 AM every day and ends about 10 PM every night—straight through except for about a two-hour rest period every afternoon. Max is a farmer who wakes at 4:30 every morning. This schedule will either make us or break us. When we get back to Lahore, we will either be tough or dead.
Thursday, July 26, 1973, 8 PM
US-AID Rest House
Lyallpur, Pakistan
We have now started our adventure in the village country, and already I am writing under adverse conditions. We were supposed to move into the Agricultural University guest house, but it was full, so here we are in the US-AID Resthouse.
AID stand for “Agricultural and Industrial Development.” Eleven of us are crammed into three small bedrooms—4 each in two of the rooms, 3 in the other. Only two beds in each room have springs; the others have only mattresses on the floor. I have one of the mattresses.
It has taken me roughly half an hour to write this letter so far because the electricity has gone off three times, the last time for about 15 minutes. I expect it to go out again at any moment. It has been relatively cool here today with the temperature just breaking 100 degrees. It is predicted to be higher tomorrow.
Thank goodness we won’t have to be here tomorrow night. All eleven of us here have to share the same bathroom facility. Only one thing could be worse, and that is to have to live in the village, sleep out on a charpoi, and relieve ourselves by the side of the road—but we are supposed to do this next week, too.
We met Max Loudermilk this morning. He is fortyish and looks the part of a farm boy—which he is. He is actually a Methodist agricultural missionary. After talking with him, I am about to decide that this is perhaps only kind of missionary that is worthwhile. He doesn’t preach—only attempts to demonstrate better agricultural techniques. He has planned a schedule for us next week which begins every morning at 6:30 on the run and ends every night by about 10. He is going to make us or break us.
Tomorrow night we go to Multan to check into Shezan’s Hotel. Heaven only knows where we will be Sunday night. I can’t remember. By now I don’t look at the itinerary anymore—I just go where I’m told and do what I’m told.
Friday, July 27, 1973, 2:15 PM
US-AID Rest House
Lyallpur, Pakistan
Here we sit in the AID house during the so-called rest period between seminar sessions. I slept on a mattress on the floor with no pillow last night, and you can imagine how that was. But I just can’t seem to go to sleep now, although I am very tired. US-AID wants to charge each one of us Rs70 for this. We have been staying in hotels for about Rs50 per night, but Max Loudermilk told them that if they charged us Rs70, he would charge them Rs100 the next time they come to stay with him (he has been charging them nothing).
We spent the morning at the Agricultural University of Lyallpur, sweating the whole time. It seems like we now are going around in circles and seeing or hearing nothing new. We leave in about 5 minutes to visit Chiniot, a town which manufactures carved wood handcraft items. At 6:30 we come back to the Lyallpur railroad station to get on the train to go to Multan.
Saturday, July 28, 1973, 3:30 PM
Shezan’s Hotel, Room 27
Multan, Pakistan
We have made it now to Multan where it is super hot. Shezan’s Hotel is very nice though—probably the best hotel we have been in on the seminar so far. Shezan’s also operates a very high-class restaurant and hotel in London. The air conditioning here is very good and is the only thing that is saving us.
The train ride last night was quite pleasant. They don’t usually run a first-class air-conditioned car on the Lyallpur to Multan segment, but they pulled an air-conditioned bogey (as they call a pullman car) up from Karachi just for us. The 5 hours rail trip cost us each about $5.85, and it was well worth it. The VW buses came by road and brought our luggage but took two hours longer. We are ready to junk the buses and do all the rest of our travelling by train unless we fly.
We toured the mosques, forts, bazaars, etc., of Multan this morning between 7:30 and 10:30. The temperature and heat became so intense that we were wringing wet when we returned and had to take showers and break out clean clothes before going to lunch which was provided by the municipal government of Multan.
Late this afternoon we will visit a textile manufacturing concern, Gultex, then go to dinner hosted by Gultex.
Khanewal, Pakistan
I am now receiving letters regularly, but it is taking them 10 days or more to get here.
I was ill again Saturday night and Sunday with diarrhea, this time so badly that it made me raw. I became dehydrated, but early Sunday morning Max gave me doses of two kinds of liquid medicine and two kinds of pills, which I repeated again later in the day. This effectively knocked me out until about 2 PM Sunday so I didn’t care what happened, and the pills finally dried me up by about 4 PM. Then, we drove over here as I suffered some nausea. When we arrived here, Mrs. Loudermilk had chili con carne for us—which I couldn’t eat. I had very little for lunch or breakfast today. Nothing seems appetizing to me anymore. Maybe it will get better later on.
We are all staying in a large second-story room, barracks style. It is 110 degrees outside, and the two air conditioners keep blowing fuses, so it is about 105 degrees inside. I am sitting here in the bed, sweat pouring off of me and dripping on the letter. Flies are everywhere. It is unbelievably dusty and grimy. This is pure misery, and just think, we have only five more days of it. I should lose 10 pounds this week alone at this rate.
Tonight at around 6 we will take a half mile ride on camels which will be fixed up for a wedding march. The experience with the camel was most unfortunate. There were only 8 camels for 15 people, so we were supposed to double-up. The camel knelt down, and Don Paxton and I climbed aboard. A camel stands up first by getting up on its rear legs, then its font legs. Of course, the saddles are not strapped on—they just hang there. So when our camel got up on her rear legs (still kneeling on the front legs), Paxton and I slid off over her head, saddle and all. I have a bruised shoulder; he has a bruised leg. It’s a wonder there weren’t any broken bones.
Tuesday, July 31, 1973, AM
Laudermilk’s Ag Extension Station
Khanewal, Pakistan
Early this morning we visited local farms to learn about the need for the land to be leveled. Water is channeled from the Indus River and its tributaries to the croplands, but if it is not spread evenly, crop growth will be “spotty.” Max taught local farmers to use large curved plastic pipe sections, 4” diameter x 6’ length, to siphon water from the cannels onto the fields.
We visited a small cotton farm to see the effects of uneven water spread. Max has provided a solution in the form of leveling the land as seen in the rich cotton crop of a large-scale farm with leveled land. His ag extension station also serves as a tractor repair garage.
Land leveling has become a standard procedure in the Punjab where land-leveling equipment now is fabricated by the Ghazi Company which we visited in the afternoon.
Wednesday, August 1, 1973, noon
Loudermilk Ag Station
Stuntzabad, Pakistan
The beat goes on here—on and on and on. Will it never end? Since I wrote on Monday, I have had another bout with diarrhea, fallen off of a camel, rubbed my tail bone raw on the camel saddle, trekked across the desert, learned about the need for land leveling, siphoned water through a tube from an irrigation ditch onto a field, seen 1000 fine-bred cows at a dairy farm, and talked with several large and small farmers.
We visited local dispensaries and infirmaries and were given explicit demonstrations of an IUD insertion and a vasectomy operation.
I may not have been very coherent in my last letter because of the heat and the diarrhea sickness. The local medical dispensary has now given me some antibiotics, and I think the situation is under control—at least until it recurs. Everyone (except Charlie Ratliff, of course) has suffered with this.
The temperatures remain very high here, inside well over 90 degrees, as well as outside 105 degrees, in spite of air conditioners. The air conditioners have a very hard time because they were designed for 220 volts, but actual voltage is rarely above 180 volts, and sometimes only 150 volts. This is really not a vacation here in Pakistan—it’s just pure misery.
Ah, but spirits rose today, for this is August 1, and now there are just 16 more days of misery. Just three more “glorious days on the farm,” and we can return to the complete boredom of the 5-day curriculum planning week in Lahore.
Thursday, August 2, 1973, 1:30 PM
Tom Robert’s House
Khanewal, Pakistan
You mentioned that Mimi and Papa have not yet gotten a postcard from me. My record shows that I sent cards to them on the sixth of July. It is not inconceivable that postal employees removed stamps from some or all of the postcards. It takes Rs1.40 (about 14 cents) to mail a post card to the U.S., but a rupee means so much money to these people that they sometimes steal them off of cards. Aerogrammes like this are safer because the larger stamps are printed on the aerogrammes. The safest thing to do is to have the stamps cancelled immediately.
We are here at the Roberts House in Khanewal only for today and will return to the barracks at Stuntzabad tonight. Tomorrow is the last day there (hooray!), then we go to Bhawalpur on Saturday and back to Lahore Saturday night. It is very pleasant here at the Roberts House—built in 1920 by Sir William Roberts, an English colonialist.
Sunday, August 5, 1973, 7:15 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Room 56
Lahore, Pakistan
I’m back in Lahore now after the “week that was” on the farm. I survived it alright but am tired, and I now have the inevitable cold. I am taking Contact, aspirin, etc., for it and am reasonably comfortable and will be over with it by the time I get home, now just 12 days from today.
This is the beginning of the instructional study week here in Lahore where we are supposed to buy materials and do curriculum development work. I will work on my tape transcripts but expect to do a lot of resting this week so that I will be in good shape to come home.
I slept late this morning and have done very little today as I have attempted to recuperate from the week on the farm. I did work for a couple of hours this afternoon on a tape transcript, then took a nap. I will probably do a good bit of shopping this week, but the materials money provided by the U.S. Office of Education is nearly gone.
Tuesday, August 7, 1973
Faletti’s Hotel, Room 56
Lahore, Pakistan
There are only 10 more days until I am home, and only 8 more days before I leave here.
Things are going very slowly here. I have been to the Pakistan Administrative Staff College for the last two morning to use their typewriter to write letters requesting several of the seminar lecturers to write formal papers for my edited volume. I sent nine such requests in the last two days. I have now finished writing transcripts of three seminar lectures and editing typed manuscripts of two others supplied by the lecturers.
As nearly as I can tell, I will have more than 20 papers written by Pakistani lecturers, plus several more written by members of the seminar. I have been sticking pretty close to Faletti’s for the past couple of days, writing out the taped sessions and generally resting. I am now in pretty good health except for a lingering croupy cough and some asthmatic chest congestion, but this will be over within a couple of days.
We have a slight change of plans. We will go to Karachi on Friday rather than Saturday so that we can take a short flight on Saturday to the Mohenjo-Daro ruins of an ancient civilization 3000 years before Christ. Other than that, the schedule is the same.
Thursday, August 9, 1973, 10:45 PM
Faletti’s Hotel, Room 56
Lahore, Pakistan
Today is a great day because it is the last day in Lahore. Tomorrow, we leave at 9:20 AM for Karachi, and then begin to wind up the mission. I have just finished packing the suitcases, and of course they are overweight, but I’ll just have to fake it in some way to get through the check-in line. We are taking the puddle-hopper flight to Lahore, so it may take us all day to get there, but we will then have Friday afternoon free.
Saturday AM we will fly to Mohenjo-Daro to observe the ruins of the ancient Indus Valley civilization, then back to Karachi the same day. Sunday is a free day again. We
have seminar sessions lined up for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, then Thursday is the day we have all been looking forward to. This next week is really going to drag by.
This is my last letter because I will be back in Greenville before another letter can arrive.
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