An Unforgettable Experience (that I'd rather forget...)

This past weekend, our firm decided to sponsor a visit to the plant for all management employees and their families. So at 7:30 am on Friday morning, Mr. F and I arrived at the office which was the designated meeting point. There was a "Bachelor Bus" for all the single boys and a "Family Bus" for ladies, husbands and children.

I think Mr. F secretly wanted to be with the bachelors but he curbed the impulse and sat with me instead (awww....). There was a pregnant lady in our bus and 11 kids under age ten and of course, kids need to go to the loo, eat, drink, cry, sing nursery rhymes and entertain themselves while adults try to sleep/doze/read/listen to their ipod :-p

We drove past banana, sugarcane and date plantations. There were 5 stops for namaz and loo and we finally (finally!) reached Ghotki at 8:30 pm. Our hosts had planned a "hi-tea" for us (they were expecting us at 4:30 pm) but we made it in time for dinner.

We were staying in a quaint little colony with beautifully manicured lawns, tennis courts, a tiny grocery store, health clinic and a primary school. The colony ladies had baked cakes and made sandwiches and really made us feel welcome. Mr. F and I stayed in the bachelor accommodations while other families were hosted by colony families. It was rather chilly and rained constantly. I was ill-prepared in lawn shalwar kameez and flip-flops but Mr. F offered me his Hah-vad sweatshirt and I grudgingly accepted :-p

We toured the plant on Saturday morning and played sports in the afternoon: Plant-people vs. management. We lost pretty badly... I think the last time I "played" a sport was on Kinect :-P.

After brunch on Sunday, we hopped back on to the bus for the twelve-hour journey back to Karachi.

Overall, it was a wonderful bonding experience... you really do get to know a person when you suffer/safar together during a 24-hour round-trip bus ride with inadequate bathroom facilities and no control over noise levels. You also come up with innovative ways to entertain yourself and your friends when your laptop/ipod/crackberry runs out of charge.

We resorted to playing Dumb Charades :-)