😎 Likedeeler messes up 😎

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Another Pakistani I met in the German class at Goethe Institute was a member of a wealthy Karachi goldsmith and jeweller family.

His uncle was an avid angler, so they invited me to go fishing with them at some Karachi beach where we caught lots of barracudas using metal lures. Later on the uncle turned our catch into the best fish curry I ever had, that fish sure was fresh.

So I was on quite good terms with the goldsmith and his family, they all seemed to genuinely like me.
But my teacher friend did not like them too much, because they were orthodox Muslims. I guess in those days the terms Islamist or Fundamentalist, with all their negative connotations, were not used yet. Orthodox in those days just meant somebody who was living strictly according to the scriptures and Sharia law.
“Those orthodox people don´t treat their women well.“ my teacher friend told me.
For him, after years in Germany, the oppression of women in Pakistan´s patriarchal society, was a big issue.

I was invited to the goldsmith family house quite a few times during my stay in Karachi, but I was never introduced to their women. When we arrived at the house he knocked at the door in a certain way, I guess this was code for “There´s a foreigner coming, women fuck off!“ Once inside the house, I was served tea and food only by men, was entertained by men, they all were very nice and hospitable, well educated, I guess British university educated, judging by their posh English accents. They all looked like they had just come back from Mecca, in their traditional clothes, of stainless, impeccable white cotton and they all had big beards which in those days in Karachi was already an indication of religious fervour, because the usual cosmopolitan Karachi wallah, prefered to be clean-shaven with only a moustache to prove his manliness.

In the Pakistani mountain regions it was of course a different story. A man without a beard and a Kalashnikov was no man there, and if you were clean-shaven you had to be gay. While I never acquired my own Kalashnikov there, I at least had a beard, was wearing a bespoke shalwar kameez, the traditional dress I got made in Karachi, heavy chappals with soles made of tyres (how eco is that?) and a Pakol, the traditional Pashtun cap, so I looked quite the Mujahid.

One day, after lots of tea, I was sitting alone in the living room, everybody was busy somewhere else at that moment, I suddenly found myself in need of a toilet. So in search of relief I ventured deeper into the big house when suddenly I stood on a balcony looking down into the inner courtyard. There they were! The women of the house. When they saw me they shrieked in horror, covered their hair and faces with their shawls and ran off into the safety of the rooms surrounding the courtyard.

I was still smiling in amusement, not having the slightest notion of the gravity of my transgression, when suddenly somebody behind me yelled “Where are you going?“ The goldsmith was not amused.
“I was looking for a toilet“ I stammered. “Ok, ok, this way“ he said, the red colour slowly retreating from his face.
I think, he understood that I did not mean any offense to him or the women and pretty soon he was back to his usual cordial self. But I had learned my lesson. It would serve me well later on in the really orthodox mountain areas of Pakistan where women were killed because of some twisted honour code of men.

Since this is supposed to become a series of serious travelling, check out the other parts too.

Part One: https://steemit.com/travel/@likedeeler/likedeeler-begins

Part Two: https://steemit.com/travel/@likedeeler/likedeeler-goes-karachi

Part Three: https://steemit.com/travel/@likedeeler/likedeeler-arrives

Part Four: https://steemit.com/travel/@likedeeler/likedeeler-rising

Part Five: https://steemit.com/travel/@likedeeler/likedeeler-goes-indiana-jones

For more inspiring stories and a group of inspiring and supportive people check out @ecotrain.