NWFP Swimsuit Edition

Yo yo y'all. Hope every one is well. I'm going to continue on the theme of humiliating myself (and thanks for the help, Amanda) and show you my super hot Peshawar swimming "costume."
You can call me crazy for thinking I wouldn't need a swimming suit in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but my tan is fading under this damn chadhri so I made the masochistic decision to spend the day outdoors. But that is not physiologically sustainable without a pool close at hand, and a pool necessitates a swimsuit of some sort (at least for me.)

You sharp readers might remember that I was enjoying the UN guesthouse pool in Jalalabad, but that was a borrowed suit. And, really, that lady should have just given me the suit, bc she will never fit in it again, ah, bygones. Anyway, we (Waqar, Vincent the Frenchman and I) went to the market area to find me a suit. Even the nice stores didn't sell suits. I considered buying this man on the plastic bucket cart instead, but Waqar talked me out of it.
So, we went in a few different stores, nothing. Finally one store did sell womens swimming "costumes." I really wish I had taken photos of the suits. They were all these shorts style (like mine above), but medium was the largest size they had. Most of them had SLEEVES, as well as the shorts, and necklines right up to the clavicles. Thankfully, I found this one, which was featured in the latest Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.

My expat companion in Peshawar is Vincent. He looks like a Guantanamo Bay interrogator in this photo, but he is so goofy and fun. He's French but lives on the island of La Reunion, which is also added to my travel list. I don't know if I'm going to be able to work again, with all these places to go.... Anyway, Vincent is great, we have a good time together. He's had some good laughs over my potential and current swimming attire.

We're going up to the earthquake-affected area tomorrow and I'll stay until Thursday. We have a bunch of water/sanitation and health projects there that I need to see. Thursday I'll head down to Islamabad and meet up with our Country Director to have some meetings with US and UN donors. Should be a blast. But, the good thing is a friend of a friend of a friend is there, and we're going to spend the weekend together. He knows Islamabad fairly well, so it should be fun. After a weekend off in ISB, I'll come back down to Peshawar for a few days to see some of the sites here that I couldn't because of security reasons.

I am supposed to fly out on this coming Wednesday, but am going to postpone about a week (Cori, I will make it up to you, I promise.) Time goes so fast here! Oh, here is a typical bus here in Peshawar. The buses are not half as elaborate as the trucks though, they are truly majestic.

What else to tell you? The guesthouse here is lovely. I was berating myself for not bringing my yoga mat, but realized an Islamic prayer mat works fairly well. I get borderline heat stroke daily, but that just provides a good reason to eat lots of chips and fries (for the salt.) The power has been erratic at night. I fight a minor panic attack as the AC clunks off and the temperature quickly climbs. The generator can power only the ceiling fan, so before I go crazy I usually go stand in the shower and then lie under the fan. That way at least I have intervals of cool until the water on me dries and is replaced again by sweat. But, you'll have that, I guess. The earthquake area is in the beautiful mountains, which will be nice and cool. Can't wait. Hope you're enjoying your weekends.