15.5 – Village Life in Sindh

Fri 2^nd Nov'12 – Village Life in Sindh

I take a bus tonight to Karachi, and fly out of Pakistan the following day. So what do you do when you only have less than a day left in Sindh? Answer: Squeeze as many activities and events as possible.

By now, everyone wants to meet me, so we go visiting to nearby Chajjar village. Today we have a car, and my friend's dad is coming along. I feel honoured. But before, we spend time looking at the various aspects of village life in Sindh, Pakistan.

First up were the padi fields. From there, we made our way to the rice mills, where the machines would thresh the paddy, and remove the rice from the kernels. It was almost harvesting season, and soon the rice mill would be churning mounds of rice. The other half of the year, they folks here would be growing wheat. Productive.

We know who owns the rice factory.

The mill is waiting for the harvest, in a week's time.

Rice, up close.

This is how they do it manually.

From the rice mills, we headed to the brick kilns. The brick making process is manual, and instead of using cement, they were using clay. The mould would be used to form the shape, before chucking the bricks into a red-hot furnace. The bricks were then sold or used to make more buildings if required.

A worker making rows of bricks from clay.

Behind the cart is the kiln.

We next dropped by the sugarcane farm, where I saw rows and rows of sugarcane shoots. I had no idea what these were, since the sugarcane we have back home are those "ripe" ones. Fascinating. We meet the long-time farmers who insisted I feed on a sugarcane shoot. There were various crops as well, onions, carrots and others.

Sugarcane plantation.

My hosts and the farmers.

I'm doing it wrong.

More fooling around, from a height this time.

Several house visits later, we stopped by the Chandka Medical College, the place where my hosts were studying. This week was their pre-exam break, and they were supposed to be studying. Instead, they were showing me around. The dormitories were very much like back home in our university dorms. Homely, bare and a complete mess. Heh.

A spread. I eat like this multiple times daily!

And this is Sindh hospitality.

Boyband. Nah, actually this wa! s an even! ing shot on the rooftop of the dorm.

I was driven to the bus station, and got a farewell send-off. When I reach Karachi, I would head straight for the airport, so I won't be seeing much of the city. Probably not a good idea to be wandering in Karachi at 4am in the morning anyway.

And that's the end of my Pakistan chapter. Pakistan Zindabad!

Next up. Beauty Has An Address ~ Oman!