The 28th

On the 28th, we were invited out to eat with Usman's family to help celebrate his brother's one year wedding anniversary with his wife. The restaurant was a cultural experience, with each corner of the serving area filled with a different Pakistani region or culture's specialty; the hot, fire bright room filled with steam and smelled of a mixture of Pakistan's finest cuisine. The Northwest Frontier Province had a corner all to its own where a spicy chicken was served, along with naan – flat bread that has become my favorite south Asian food. Usman's eldest brother and father insisted that we try everything we could, which by the night's end meant fried quail, goat hooves, and home-made Pakistani ice-cream and rice-pudding. The dining room contrasted with the bright, steamy serving area with a cool, tinted space with two levels and a live two-man band. The atmosphere was lively, open, and formal all at once, and it was packed to full capacity.

What we found most amazing about this atmosphere was that just a few hours earlier sectarian violence had struck two Ahmadi mosques with supposed Sunni extremists opening ‘indiscriminate firing’ during the religious minority’s Friday prayer, killing over 80 people. When we first heard the news while watching a cricket game in a park that afternoon, I thought that our trip would be drastically altered. In the US, a failed attempt with no injuries or deaths in Times Square had caused a media frenzy, so I could only imagine what this would do in Pakistan. Yet, the city didn’t skip a beat. On one hand it speaks to the resiliency of Pakistan, but as Usman responded, it also is disheartening that Pakistanis have become somewhat desensitized to this type of violence.

Though the attack seems not to be motivated by the western intervention, the method in which it was done and the high number of casualties links it with the Pakistani Taliban. This underscores a primary message that we have received through our time here: Pakistan has just as much of a stake, if not more, in ridding its country of terrorists.