First week in Karachi

Story continues...

Remember Taly from Dubai? (see previous post). So next day I get a call from him in Karachi. Taly invites me for a dinner with his family! I thought 'great!' Pakistanis thought "that's dangerous!" Here it's really uncommon for a girl to meet with almost unknown person in the evening!

So they suggested that another guy from my team would go with me, Saaim.
Saaim and me, both quite suspicious, went to the dinner. It turned to be the warmest welcome event ever! Taly has a big family, all of them are extremely nice people. Besides we tried amazing Pakistani food! Oh unbelievable, my first day in Karachi, and I am experiencing that cultural involvement already! What is going to be next?

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During the following days:

- cricket match Pakistan - India within Asia Cap 2008 championship... India won, but still we enjoyed the game for 8 (!!!) hours , and i even understood the rules!

- meeting with Russian guy living in Pakistan... are you curious how i got his contacts? I went for a company meeting with NarejoHR (which is a learning partner of AIESEC), and when our contact person found out that I am from Russia, she remembered that her son has a Russian friend here in Karachi, and gave me his phone number straight away! At the evening on the same day I already knew Sergey! Seriously, that's how networking happens here, I love this country!

- bye-bye evening of Mike... Mike is from Kenya, he's been in Pakistan for a year on an internship, but he is leaving soon... We've become good friends with him, it's sad he will stay for longer..

- and exciting work! I've had meetings with 2 HR companies in Karach: NarejoHR (www.narejoHR.com) and Navitus (www.navitus.biz), both are extremely smart! I will tell you more about them later.

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A short insight on my life here...

I live in the house with people from 10 different cultures. I've never laughed as much as I do here, and I've never played so many jokes on people as now. Every evening is someone's birthday/cultural night/random walk to the beach. Lots of work that I enjoy!

How does it looks like here in Karachi?

... view from my balcony


... view from the window


... street view


... Go Pakistan (cricket match)

Have a look at other photos here: http://picasaweb.google.ru/ekaterina.khaletskaya/FirstWeekInKarachi

Again, to be continued :)

New life started on Monday

There is a common perception that if a person wants to start a new life, Monday is the best day to make it happen.

That’s what I did this week. It was 1am Monday morning when I arrived to Dubai in order to wait for a connecting flight to Karachi (Pakistan).

I didn’t even arrive to my final destination when things started to go crazy!

So what happened is that I missed an announcement in the airport. Yeah, these guys announced something, and I didn’t get what they’d said, and decided to ask a man sitting next to me. I asked, he answered, when asked where I come from, it happened he likes Russia very much, his name is Taly, and he is Pakistani by origin who lives in the US.

So we sat together in the plane, and talked about Pakistan till we landed in Karachi… Taly is a script writer and movie-maker, he is going back to Pakistan to present his new work which is a film about Qeta, a small Pakistani town near the border with Afganistan.

Taly told he’d be happy to meet me again in Karachi, and invited for a dinner with his family.

…

Pick up from Karachi airport was amazing!

6 or even more people came to meet me there!

Despite I didn’t sleep at all that night, we went to the office and worked the whole day long… :)

All in all, my flat is nice, 2 floors and a roof :) I am looking forward to having a separate room soon.

More news are coming…