Julie's trip to see The Afghan Educational Trust schools in Quetta, Pakistan, will appear in 4 or 5 blogs. She has written an extensive report but in order to make it easier to read, we have divided it up into sections. Julie has written the following:
Many of you will know that I have been involved with helping refugees over the last few years and have a particular heart for the plight of the people and especially the women of Afghanistan. I have been involved in fundraising for the Afghan Educational Trust over the last three years. This charity helps support the operation of two girls schools in Pakistan on the border of Afghanistan in the town of Quetta.
I tried to visit the schools last Easter but the home office in England said it was too dangerous. Knowing that we were going to be visiting Richard’s family in India and being so close to Pakistan, I hoped there would be another opportunity to visit this year.
As we came to New Delhi I started to formalise my plans for the visit, which as you will see, was not without a few problems.
Firstly, the getting of the visa to enter Pakistan. I thought, as I had already taken the advance step of having additional passport photos taken in Canada, when we had to apply for our Indian visa, that it would simply be a matter of filling in the form paying the money and off we go.
With this in mind, I set off with Suzanne’s driver, to an unpaved footpath in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi diplomatic enclave, where my journey to Pakistan was to begin. Situated in Shanti Path, The avenue of Peace, Pakistan’s High Commission has a huge dome the colour of lapis lazuli and is surrounded by futuristic looking minarets. The compound where the Pakistani diplomats live is surrounded by a high cement wall, the top of which is encrusted with shards of broken glass. There is much evidence of armed soldiers patrolling the gates perhaps to protect the diplomats inside and to keep us out.
The place to get your visa is along a side street next to the high commission which has two obvious meeting points. The first and the most busy is a line or messy crowd of mostly Indian Moslems who have relatives in Pakistan. They stand in lines under the pipal trees, waiting in the shade for their applications to be processed. The only way to communicate with the Pakistani authorities in through a single square hole in the wall about shoulder high through which you peer into a dark recess to speak, if possible, to the man doing the processing. They queue up in front of this opening and pass their documents through the wall, like posting letters in a letter box.
Underneath the trees sit freelance clerks with type writers who assist people for a fee to fill in their applications. Many of the people who come to seek visas are from rural towns and villages across northern India and many of them are illiterate and need help with the documentation. The visa fees for these people are minimal but the paperwork is laborious and complicated . The slightest mistake or omission and the papers are rejected. I saw several people looking very dejected as their forms were returned to them as unacceptable.
As a foreign national in India, I had a much smaller queue to stand in but the same small slit in the wall through which all the business had to be conducted. I soon found out that getting the visa would not be as simple as I had first expected.
After twenty minutes I was at the front of the queue asked for the form to complete and how much the visa would be . I was given the form and told the price but that I also needed a letter of introduction from the British High Commission before they would start the processing of the forms. Visit one complete.
I did not know yet how many more visits I would make to this side street with it’s street hawkers selling fruit , ice-cream, Indian fast food and performing beggar children. The coming days would see me there on a regular basis.
So, next stop British High Commission . I telephoned first to check their opening times and found out there would be a fee of £30 for the letter of introduction. Next day we are off to the British High Commission where we are met at the gate by two Gurkas army officers, who rifled through our bags and told Suzanne in no uncertain terms she is not to use her mobile phone whilst she is in the High Commission grounds!
Thankfully we arrived to find that were the only ones to be seen. I asked if the letter of introduction could be prepared . The lady said before this could be done I needed to read the latest travel advisory issued for Pakistan. I said that I hadn’t seen a copy so the lady gave me the seven page document which I was informed, I should read. I was also to sign that I had read it before they could produce the letter. I guess it was some kind of insurance they were putting in place so we could not blame them if anything happened to me.
In bold writing the document said in several ways “there is a high threat of terrorism throughout Pakistan. British Nationals of western origin are more likely to be the target of kidnap but everyone is at risk of indiscriminate attacks”. It was a sobering moment but I knew I was going whatever, so I signed the form and after about half an hour I had the letter. Second stage complete.
For my second visit to the Pakistani Embassy, I left in bright sunshine to be met after a few minutes in the queue with an unexpected downpour of rain and a swirling wind. It was at this time that I came across a group of travellers with whom I was to rendezvous a few more times during the process of sorting out the vital stamp in our visa.
I met a Canadian who had been travelling for the last two months in India and was hoping to go trekking in the north of Pakistan, a Dutch man who had had his passport money and papers stolen on a train and needed to stay for two months in Pakistan, whilst he waited for all his new documents and his German friend. The Dutch man now wanted to go back into Pakistan but had upset the man behind the slit in the wall and he was refusing to give him a form to fill in. Luckily Suzanne was with me and she could speak to him in Dutch and we got another form for him when Suzanne asked for some forms for her own family.
Having given in the forms we were all told to come back next morning to pay the money for the visa at 11.00am. By implication if they took the money from us they would then give us the visa. As requested, I duly turned up next day for my third visit and paid my money with the same other chaps and was told to come back that afternoon at 5pm.
I arrived early to find the Canadian already waiting at the slit in the wall. He was booked on a train to Pakistan that night at 7.30 pm and didn’t want to wait a minute longer than was necessary. He was still outraged that his embassy had charged him $50 dollars for his letter of introduction. He was obviously on a tight budget, as he told us he had spent the last two weeks reading the lonely planet guide for Pakistan in various different book shops but had finally decided he had to have it and had paid the $30 to buy it . It sounded like $30 for a lot of money for him. All the other Europeans asked to look at it and read the bit that was relevant to their own trips.
I was talking to him when a man came and stood (barged in) in front of me and in effect took my place in the queue. My new Canadian friend told the man without any manners that in fact I was next in the queue behind him and the queue started behind me. The reply came back that I should be in the women’s queue (they often have these in India, where segregation is required). I added that as we were in the foreign national queue there wasn’t a women’s queue and I was the next person in the queue. He was most put out and stood very close behind me, totally invading my space, for the rest of the time I waited.
At 5.25 pm (25 minutes late) the slit opened and we all received our visas even the Dutch man who had previously upset the visa man. I checked to see that I had the right sort of visa and that the dates were correct. It is actually quite a pretty document. The first stage of the journey was completed and my fifth visas visit was over.
The next stage of the preparation was to make the travel arrangements. Having looked on the internet, it seemed quite easy to fly from New Delhi to either Lahore or Karachi and then get a connecting flight to Quetta. Unfortunately the week that we had decided would be the one I should go and when the man who would be looking after me in Quetta would be available, was also the week that the series of one day cricket internationals between India and Pakistan was being played. So everyone wanted to fly that week. Also planes didn’t fly every day of the week and you weren’t allowed to catch a connection if you hadn’t been in the country for longer than two hours, so all our original plans went out the window.
After much help from a man who worked at Rob’s office, the journey planning was in place. I needed cars to meet me from airports and take me back to them. I needed accommodation at three locations and I had booked 4 flights and one train journey.
(to be continued ....)
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