BASHIR THE GUARD WITH PEON GAFOOR

Here are two wonderful men and take care of me... one guards the gate and the other runs around cleaning and organizing things. Neither speaks any english but this is never a problem. We just chatter way and smile a lot and in time the message always gets across.

MY TANDOOR AND COOK WAQAS

Now that we have a local cook hired for the house, we can get serious about the local cuisine. To do that, we had to get ourselves a Tandoor. My driver picked a used one up outside of town for $40 with all tools and a peon for an hour to set it up and teach us how to use it. It took two tries to get a good one. The first one was a sheet metal fake. This second attempt has a real ceramic liner and is cast into a metal drum with handles for easy transport. It is set up just outside the kitchen door attached to the natural gas line. It is really just a small kiln... and to prove the point, we incinerated our first meal. The key is to not get it too hot.... duh!

ISLAMABAD FISHING

Now that the winter has cooled things down a bit, the fish sellers are out. This one has set up along a stream in a residential part of town and has a good selection of fresh and salt water fish... all fresh and on ice. He told my driver that he is there every morning with a fresh load, selling to the public during the day and taking all the unsold fish to the restaurants in the evenings. For cut and and cleaned "chunks" of some unknown marine fish, he charges 440 rupees per kilo... that is about $2.37/lb.