Happy New Year 2011 !!
I hope you had a good start into the new year and that you are looking forward and optimistically into the coming 12 months. As long as you didn’t have to celebrate New Years Eve all by yourself and far away from your friends and family, then I think you had a good kick-off 2011.
I almost had to deal with this fate. Since before Christmas colleagues whom I am sharing this teamhouse with have been taken leave days or have concluded their contracts. It got quiet here, so quiet that I am actually the last man standing, if you want. Me and the TV.
I remember as a child I loved to gather with my family in the living-room watching the last hours of the year pass by. We were watching the yearly review and I always loved the images and the idea of other cities on the globe having already leaped over into the New Year. I saw myself confronted with a similar evening although reluctantly, not at all happy like a child. In a moment of upcoming desperation I had even sent emails and sms’ to people I had never even met before. They were addresses a colleague back in Cologne gave to me before I was leaving the headquarter of my organisation. I couldn’t get hold of anybody so I assumed they also had taken leave days and would not be in Islamabad for New Years. I was already half way submerged in the TV program when I once again checked my emails at around 9:30 p.m. I was quite surprised to find a reply email to my inquiries. That email had the potential to turn this evening into something more social.
Some 90 minutes later I entered the bizarre parallel world that exists in Islamabad: the diplomatic enclave. Built up of high concrete walls, toll bars and armed guards. Beyond there are embassies and a few clubs for and from the foreigners that work here. The place we went to is called Club 21 and it is taboo for Pakistani if not they posses a membership card. In other words: if they have money and belong to the (thin) upper class of this country. That New Years Eve it was a location were a mixed variety of people of different cultural backgrounds gathered for the only purpose of partying. The sensation I felt as I entered the place was quite ambiguous. On the one hand it was a very well known sensation, due to the party character of the place. On the other hand I felt weird, almost surreal to be here. This gathering contradicted in so many ways the Islamabad I had experienced for the last 4 weeks. I had to smile because this location seemed to have sneaked up on me. It was just there all of a sudden.
Alcohol is part of the party. Especially on the 31st December it goes without saying for most of us. Here in Pakistan it is rather a privilege. I was not at all desperate for having a beer since I arrived to Pakistan. But that New Years Eve I happily enjoyed it (Turkish beer from the can). And I smilingly enjoyed watching how this substance made people lose their inhibitions. Even the last seemingly conservative turned into a free dancer as we approached midnight. People just danced no matter if the DJ was playing Bob Marley, house music or reaggeton – and he did that with jumping between three genres is only three songs.
I would have rated the party as rather normal under other circumstances, but being in Islamabad and being it New Years Eve, it was the best I could have wished for. Because the best moment on New Year’s to me is when at midnight you can hug somebody and wish him or her a Happy New Year!!
Having said that let me repeat myself: HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011 !!
