by Lawrence Faulkner

July 9, 2008. To get from Islamabad to Lahore I booked a taxi, it’s quicker and less expensive (6,500 rupees, approximately 65 euros). I am curious to make this trip and enjoy some site-seeing, a little less than 400 km of well-kept comfortable highway. Halfway to Lahore the driver needs to stop for fuel, his Toyota has a LPG tank with an autonomy of 200 km. Its raining and we agree to meet in front of the bar. When I come out of the washroom I can’t see him anymore, I ask the gas pump personnel and I am told that driver and car are gone. I check the parking space twice, there are a few white Toyotas but none of them with my driver. I took my wallet with me but everything else was in the car. I am desperate and ask the bar personnel to let me make an emergency call because my driver has left with all my stuff. I am directed to the police post where everybody is kind and efficient. They assure me that he will be caught. Another 10 minutes go by calling Islamabad Club to have Khalid’s mobile and the radiotaxi company number, I am thinking about the visa, passport, etc… The driver shows up, he was looking for me. He also had gone to the bathroom and then to smoke a cigarette, we missed each other. Maybe I got a little nervous and prejudiced, I feel relieved but also like a big idiot. I apologize to the driver (Javid), and thank the police officers. We reach Lahore in time and I leave Javid a 500 rupees tip.

This is the third time I am at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, I am greeted with the usual efficiency and organization by the housing office personnel. Mrs Isbah provides me with a car and a driver (the same nice chap Antonio and I had in June 2007) who takes me to the Royal Palm Club. Mrs Farah Kushi invited me for lunch with a group of friends of hers who may help our initiative in Pakistan: Saniya, Nickie (fashion designer), Zahra, Nuscie (involved in NGO work), Amir, Farah’s brother and Imran (Lahori business men). Everybody seems interested and we have a long discussion on the aims and feasibility of the Cure2Children project in Pakistan. Farah lives in Glasgow and was present with her husband at the fundraising event organized by the UK Association of Medical Aid to Pakistan for Cure2Children in London on April 27. The following day Nuscie invites me to have lunch at her beautiful house in Lahore where I meet with a group of ladies potentially interested and willing to help us.

After the workshop at SKMCH (link), on Sunday 13, I leave for Florence, these three weeks went very quickly.