Woke up this morning feeling rather nauseous.  I didnt think I had had that much to drink – only five G&Ts so I was a little worried that maybe it was something I ate.  🙁  I was actually sick pretty early so I had to pike on going out for skeet shooting this morning.  Was looking forward to giving that a go as I’ve never been skeet shooting before.  I doubt very much I’d be any good at it, as last time I fired a shotgun it felt like I was dislocating my shoulder and I had zero accuracy!  But would have been fun.  MD was uber hung over and, even with shaky hands and a headache, still managed to come in second – behind the Turkmenistani who place first.

Spent the rest of the day couching with MD watching movies with the projector, before getting dressed up to go out to dinner at the Quetta Club, which is pretty much based on a British gentleman’s club – it is quite the institution apparently – the photo is from 1889..  Women are allowed at the club, as are children, but I think they only reason for that is the way the women will self segregate themselves anyway.  Getting us all down there was an excercise in itself – the Pakistanis can’t seem to organise themselves for shit!  There was the security detail of five men armed with machine guns and then two mini buses for everyone else.  We drove down in MD’s car so we could leave when we were tired of it.   The Saudis had issued the dinner invitation to all the foreign allies (22 of them) and their wives and kids for dinner for no particular occasion I understand, but just because they can.  The two Saudi students are apparently  ‘filthy rich’ and so picking up the dinner tab for about 60 people isnt a big deal. And while I was again fortunate enough to avoid being sized up for possible purchase, one of the Saudis, Abdullah Aziz has the lecherous arrogant arab bit down pat.  I am sure it doesn’t help that their wives are back in Saudi Arabia. 

When we first arrived, I was reacquainted with a pile of people I had met at the Queen’s Birthday dinner (I’ve never had so many wet handshakes in my life as I have here… they’re not accustomed to shaking hands with women and so offer up the floppiest handshakes ever :S) and then watched on as the women all filed off to one sitting area and the men all to another seating area.  I stayed with MD and The Boys and as such was the only woman sitting with about 25 men from various countries… I could have gone over to sit with the women, but most of them have hardly any English and I didnt relish the idea of having to tell them how much my husband earned and how many children I had so they could fit me into the social pecking order.  It is apparenly extremely important for the women to know how much money you earn (and it isn’t rude to ask apparently) and how many sons you have so they can know if they are more important socially than you are!!!  Absolute bullshit …. makes me shake my head …  they even select their food from a seperate buffet than the men … naturally I ignored this convention too and lined up with the men 🙂 

So the women are all squared away in their area, the men are likewise doing their Man Love Thursday impressions, and the children are fucking running amok!  No one is watching them, no one is taking any notice of them at all.  Dont know why I am surprised… they dont even supervise their children in the streets…. but somehow it seems wrong to see the toddlers trying to hold their own around playground equipment and much older kids. 

Dinner was interesting our table consisted of UK Mjr Mark, US Mjr Dave, Canada Mjr Randy, Germany Mjr Martin, Mjr Dazzles and myself, and the Iranian Colonel Tabriz.  Good company and interesting conversation.  I heard some great stories about….

.    the quality of hookers in the Sierra Leone…
.    how casualties are considered ‘consumed’ in Pakistani miliary parlance…as in :  “we will send in the 3rd Division and 70% of the Division will be consumed in the offensive”  BTW – a plan that results in 70% casualties is considered a success here 😐
.   how you can freeze paintball pellets to turn a paintball gun into a deadly weapon which has no rifling marks and is therefore useless to obtain ballistic forensic evidence from, making it a perfect assassination weapon 🙂
.   bathroom dilemmas when you’re on ambush raids… it’s bad manners to ‘dump a load’ where your colleagues may be required to bunker down later!  😐  Ewww!!!
.   how during an earthquake in northern Iran Christmas 2003, all the foreign aid agencies turned out on Christmas day to help find survivors etc, but how all the local muslims didnt assist in relief efforts and were all busy looting the dead.

I also learned all about the FLOPPYS which are basically ex-pats wherever you are or Fucking Lazy Overseas Persons…. and lots of other unique and slightly off kilter conversational tidbits!  MD always did make the best Dinner Monkey!!!  And I did get to tell US Dave what a Sepo was which was kinda fun 🙂 … MD and UK Mark have been calling him Sepo all year, and he’s pretty much answering to it at this point… but he had no idea that in Australian and UK rhyming slang, a Sepo is a septic tank rhyming with yank.  Poor bugger 🙂

So after dinner and the bizarre paramilitary conversations we all absconded and MD drove us home – without security!  :S  I dont know.  It’s a toss up as to whether or not the security detail makes you safer… or actually makes you more of a target!  Shrug… 

You just dont see the women here much… they’re not out and about you know.  They must be hiding in their houses doing ‘women’s work’ and attempting to avoid notice.  And when you do see one… they’re covered from head to toe even though its in the high 30s at the moment.  Being stuck in the Cantonment has given me a bit of time to think about the lives of the women here…….

.   In the Punjab, fathers, brothers and husbands subject up to 82% of women to domestic violence.  Wife battering is so common it is not even considered a form of violence.  If women make a complaint of domestic violence they are more often then not advised to reconcile with the perprators as filing a complaint will bring dishonour onto the woman – which can have fatal consequences.

.   The Human Rights Commission estimates that a rape occurs every three hours in Pakistan with sexual violence and sexual assault on women being one of the most common crimes here.  This is apparently a conservative estimate as most incidences go unreported and rape within marrigage is never reported.

.   At most social functions, husbands and wives will arrive together but the men will congregate in one room (or area) and the wives in another.  Neither mingles socially and will only pair back up again when it is time to leave.

.   There are hardly any women in down town Quetta’s shopping district – women being out to shop would involve giving women money 😐   Women dont risk going out unaccompanied as very innocent interactions with non-related males can cause strife.

.   Even in their homes, the men and male offspring will eat at a separate table from the wife and female children.  Visiting foreign women can expect to be seated at the women’s table if having dinner at a Pakistani home.

.   Under the Qasas law, women can be handed over along with money and lands as compensation to a family who have suffered an assination/murder at the hands of the woman’s male relatives.

.   At the Embassy party on the weekend, many of the Pakistani officers are refusing to bring their wives because UK Mark’s wife will not be present.  They had asked UK Mark to alter the invitations to exclude the Pakistani wives as it was improper to invite them when there is no hostess to look after them at the event.

.   In rural areas, 90% of women will work in the fields, with their entire bodies covered and working under the watchful eye of their male relatives to ensure no immodesty or impropriety occurs.

.   Pakistani men can not understand a relationship like my friendship with MD.  You are either wife, sister, or relative of some sort.  There is no concept of female friend at all.  Men do not and cannot have female friends.  Period.

.   Women are unable to make decisions for their own lives, as they are considered psychologically not as strong as men, and prone to being foolish simply because they are women.  😐

.    There are no women’s toilets at the Staff College… so even though the Western Allies could send a female officer here.. the Pakistani Army is not equipped to deal with a female officer in the college.  Never mind that they would dismiss anything she ever had to say!

.   Wealthier landowners (all things being relative) have been known to have their female relatives ‘Married to the Holdy Qu’ran’, a practice which means a woman is unable to marry a man in her lifetime.  It is a common practice in Sindh and basically means the landowner is able to keep any possessions, land or money that might have belonged to his female relative.

.    Young women on the Cantonment can do things like go to the gymnasium or go horse riding (they ride astride).  Most of these things will cease entirely once they are married and take up duties in the home.  Such activities are not for married women.

.   MD’s colleagues (other students – mostly Pakistanis) are unable to comprehend that MD’s Commanding Officers in his previous two postings were both women.  Firstly they have a problem with the concept of women in the military at all.  Secondarily they don’t believe a woman can be competent enough to make an officer’s rank and thirdly, they don’t believe men would take orders from a woman.

.   In a court of law, a woman’s testiment is considered a half witness.. that her word is worth half as much as a man’s testimony.  There is no point in a woman pursuing a charge against a man in court unless she has corroborating witnesses.  It takes four male witnesses to testify to a rape case… and the victim cannot testify.  Where no witnesses are present, it is assumed that the incident was consentual and thereby exposing the woman to adultery charges and dishonour.

.   There is a swimming pool on the Cantonment with specific women’s swimming times and men’s swimming times.  There is a half hour break between allocated times – when the pool is empty to ensure no overlap.  The women tend to swim fully clothed and there are men with machine guns posted to keep peeping toms away.

.    Jurg, the house servant who does the laundry modestly folds and hides my ‘smalls’ (bras and knickers) in between the other items of laundry so I dont have to recognize that he has seen my underthings and touched them. 🙂  He also hides my jeans and pants by hanging them under shirts in the closet.  Women dont have legs.

.   When I have managed to sleep in later than MD and he goes off to work leaving me to have my breakfast alone.   In MD’s absence, my breakfast will be still laid out by Shahid to the right hand side of the head of the table… women dont sit at the head of the table…. that is Sab’s chair and Mem’sab can’t sit in Sab’s place.

.   Last year approximtely 286 REPORTED Karo Kari honour killings saw Pakistani women murdered by their own male relatives for either actual or perceived improprieties.  Some of these incidents are motivated by other things (land or money), but a man can get a lighter sentence for a murder if he claims it was honour related.

I have a feeling that all this is probably the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the sort of subjugated position that women have in Pakistani society.  I have read some academic articles about the status of women in Islam, and nowhere does it indicate that women should be treated like this….  Even though Islam does not dictate this gender discrimination…. you certainly get the impression that due to traditional cultural conventions, every little part of a woman’s life is totally controlled by the men in their families… first their fathers, possibly their brothers, then their husbands and occasionally their sons.    The children here, particularly the girls have nothing to look foward to, but a life of fear and repression – perhaps being surrounded by this environment explains why the children never seem to smile….

And after compiling all that – I recognize I have never been happier to be a western whore…….