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With some 3000+ members of this list, surely there is one, or perhaps many, of you who have spent significant amounts of time, or have lived in Islamabad, Pakistan, Ahmedabad, India, or Dubai?? The reason I ask is that my husband and I have been offered a position in Islamabad superivising the construction of a massive resort and golf course, but the main office of the company is in Dubai. It’s an offer nobody in their right mind would refuse, but what am I getting into? Anyone willing to share experiences?
FYI – There are over 12,000 VIP Members actually …
My thoughts Maravilla:
Perhaps I am mistaken but I had thought you were looking forward to a relaxing retirement in Costa Rica… Moving to Pakistan would certainly be ‘interesting’ for you but can’t imagine it would be relaxing
Pakistan is a fairly unstable Muslim country and they are going through a tough patch as you have probably seen on the news…
The Pakistanis are not thrilled about that U.S. airstrike in June as you may recall [ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/17/asia/pakistan.php?page=1 ] and with Musharraf resigning and facing impeachment (one President down and hopefully another soon) …
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“The governing coalition’s attempt to oust the president has raised the prospect of a long, debilitating power struggle, which could plunge the country and its neighbours into chaos.
Pakistan is already weakened by pro-Taliban militancy and is a hiding place for al-Qaeda leaders, while the economy is hit by rapidly escalating fuel and food costs.
Both the West and Pakistan’s neighbours fear any prospect of the nuclear armed country slipping further into political turmoil.”
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Hmm! Sounds like just the place for a nice Jewish gal…
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comThe way I look at it, I will have plenty of time to do nothing when I’m dead! Thanks for the articles. I’m studying up on that part of the world. It was kind of distressing to see that my compensation package includes housing, servants, cook, driver AND a bodyguard! On the up side, Islamabad is a new city, and if you’ve seen 60 Minutes recently, Dubai is exploding with construction and massive amounts of wealth. We have mosaic projects there as well as the project in Pakistan. It’s going to be an interesting two years to be sure. Now I just have to get my Brit passport so I can be under their umbrella in Pakistan as well as the US Embassy.
Maravilla. Check out forbes.com list of the 10 most dangerous places to travel. Unfortunately, Pakistan is on the list. I grew up in Libya and Egypt as a child. We lived in secured “compounds” and my father was always driven in armored cars to the embassy or other government installations. This was during Khadafi and Nasser in the 60’s & 70’s. As an intersting side note, Anwar Sadat was one of Nasser’s chauffer’s at the time. Good luck!
Thanks, I will check that out, but just from watching the news, I know how dangerous it is. YIKES! My husband used to live in Pakistan, so he knows it pretty well, of course that was pre-terrorist days, but he still have a lot of tribal connections in the northwest province. It’s going to be an adventure, and if it doesn’t work out, well, there’s always the hammock in Costa Rica.
Pre-terrorist days? I’m guessing you mean pre 9/11? I’m also guessing you’ll agree that terrorism has existed in the middle east and Pakistan well before that 🙂
In 1998 I arrived in Karachi with a number of fellow shipmates waiting to board our vessel. We were taken by bus from the airport to a hotel. We had two small pick-ups, one in front of us and one behind, each with four guys armed with machine guns standing up in the back. This was in the wake of the four Texas oil workers who were gunned down in a car along with their driver in 1997. Somehow I think we would have been safer being less conspicuous. Our hotel was adjacent to the US Embassy. When I looked out the window of my room, it was only 10 feet away.
I would love to live in Dubai though. Haven’t spent much time there since 1999/2000, but from what I see on TV it’s really booming. Our company is building there and the rumour has it that the quote for steel is only good for 2 days. This article is just a few days old about the increase in construction costs:
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=1093208204
Jon
My husband said it was a lot safer in the early 70’s when he lived there than it is now, although there were always tribal wars going on in certain provinces, but not the rampant terrorism that exists today. His boarding school buddies had fathers who were either tribal chiefs or head of intelligence, so he was protected. Dubai is going crazy right now. Our nephew has massive construction projects, including a 50 story office complex, plus 150 villas on one of those man-made islands. It’s the disneyland of the MEast. If you were last there in 99/2000, you wouldn’t recognize it now because almost all of the development has taken place in just 8 years. When our nephew moved there in 98, it was vastly different than now. I don’t think I would venture to any of those places on a vacation, but work is a whole different concept, and I’m looking forward to the adventure, and learning about a new culture, even IF I’ll be a second-class citizen! I’m not giving up my home in Costa Rica; if it’s all too much, I’ll just go home. jejeje
Sounds like your mind is made up! LOL For me taking on an “adventure” does not include being driven around in bullet RESISTANT cars in the company of men with machine guns…. but I guess if the price is right…. go for it…. but remember… they are not GIVING money away…. there is a risk associated with taking on this adventure… one that I for one could NEVER put a price on! Good luck!
The consensus among my dear friends and family is that I’ve totally lost my mind for even considering such a project, but then none of these people are risk-takers. Besides the project itself, it’s the experience of living in a country I wouldn’t normally visit that inspires me. I’ve already narrowly escaped two terrorist bombings in London, been held up at gunpoint in NYC, so I know that it’s a risk living anywhere. And yes, Pakistan is a lot more dangerous, but think of all that shopping I can do! Thanks for your concern; I hope I don’t have to say later on that I should’ve listened to the warnings! jejeje
Remember also that you’re heading off to a country and culture where they value sheep more then women… and being an American women in the current climate there is nothing I’d want to show off. The political winds are rather mixed right now… so keep and eye out for trouble and be ready to cut and run if need be! Best of luck!
Thankfully, by the time we go there, I will have my British passport, so no one but those closest to us even needs to know that I’m American. We — Americans — are not exactly well liked in that part of the world. But yes, I hear what you’re saying. I think I’m too old to be kidnapped for a sex slave, so hopefully I won’t be posting about my escapades from some bombed out camp in the Northwest Province! LOL I could actually get used to wearing the full veil — no more worries about my hair and make-up, or maintaining my weight! Dubai, thankfully, is very Westernized now with the influx of foreigners. While Muslim law still abides for most things, it is a little more lax than in other countries in the MEast.
We are on http://www.welovecostarica.com
Your inquiry is like searching on http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/GovContacts.jsp' defer onload=', for information about Costa Rica.
Perhaps you should consider providing useful advice for other adventure seekers at http://www.WeLovePakistan.com.
This site is available and working on this project at home, may be safer than shopping in Islamabad.Of course, you are right, but considering the diverse group we have here, most of whom has lived in many other countries, I figured I could get some firsthand information, and I did. But thanks for your concern.
From [ http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/5966473.html ]
U.S. diplomat escapes attack by gunmen in Pakistan
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Gunmen opened fire on the top U.S. diplomat in northwestern Pakistan early today as she left for work in her armored vehicle, forcing her driver to slam into reverse and retreat to the shelter of her residential compound. No one was killed in the attack.
Lynne Tracy, principal officer for the consulate in the bustling city of Peshawar, was 100 yards from her house when two men with AK-47s jumped out of their dark blue Land Cruiser and sprayed her car with dozens of rounds of ammunition.
Her driver reversed the vehicle and peeled back to her home, said Arshad Khan, the local police chief and senior investigator in the case. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The brazen attack came hours after the breakup of Pakistan’s ruling coalition government, a fracture that could concentrate more power into the hands of a party that says it is committed to supporting the U.S. war on terror.
The United States has remained publicly neutral in the political contest to succeed Pervez Musharraf.
But a senior U.S. official confirmed today that Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to the United Nations, had unusual contacts with Asif Ali Zardari, widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and a contender to succeed Musharraf, including multiple recent telephone calls and a meeting planned for next week.
The contacts angered senior diplomats at the State Department who have tried to give the coalition government room to maneuver. The meeting between Khalilzad and Zardari is now canceled, the official said.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe Khalilzad’s confidential conversations and the internal Bush administration reaction. The Khalilzad-Zardari contacts were first reported by the New York Times.
The government Monday announced a ban on the Pakistani Taliban — blamed for a wave of suicide bombings in recent days — and hours earlier rejected a cease-fire offer in the Bajur tribal region by the militants.
Tracy, an Ohio native, has headed the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar since late 2006. Khan said Tracy’s heavily-armored Land Cruiser was slightly damaged.
Militant activity is rampant in parts of northwest Pakistan — a rumored hiding place of Osama bin Laden and home to him in the 1980s — though mainly in tribal regions where U.S. officials say insurgents have found safe havens in which to plan attacks on U.S. and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan.
Peshawar, a crowded, dusty city, has not been immune, and concerns about militant activity in and around it prompted the government to stage a paramilitary offensive in neighboring Khyber tribal region earlier this year.
Talat Masood, a political and military analyst, said American and other Western diplomats could increasingly be the targets of militant attacks, especially in the next few weeks.
“They should take a low profile, their movements should be restricted during this period,” he said, noting the army was intensifying its campaign in tribal regions along the Afghan border.
Masood did not think Western allies should scale back their presence, however, saying that would only embolden the militants and demoralize Pakistanis.
The Taliban claimed to be behind a twin suicide bombing at a weapons manufacturing complex near the federal capital, Islamabad, that killed 67 people — one of the largest terrorist attacks ever in the country.
There have been at least three bloody attacks since then. The Taliban spokesman could not immediately be reached to comment on today’s attack.
Pakistan, where anti-American sentiment runs deep, is considered a hardship posting for U.S. diplomats, with many coming for one-year stints without family.
However, while there are occasional attacks on Western targets, ones directly targeting U.S. officials are still relatively unusual. Top diplomats in particular tend to have high security and are often restricted in where they are allowed to visit.
Along with its embassy, the U.S. has three consulates in Pakistan — in Peshawar, the eastern city of Lahore and the southern city of Karachi. In 2006, a suicide attacker blew himself up outside the Karachi consulate, killing a U.S. diplomat.
In 2002, a militant hurled grenades into a Protestant church in Islamabad attended by members of the diplomatic community, killing five people, including two Americans.
The U.S. Embassy provided few details about today’s attack, saying only that there was a “security incident” involving three consulate employees.
U.S. and Pakistani authorities were investigating the attack, embassy spokesman Lou Fintor added.
In Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province, meanwhile, a bomb rigged to a motorcycle parked near the stage of a political rally in the town of Jaaferabad wounded at least 20 people, some critically, police official Nazir Ahmad said.
The attacks come as the country’s ruling coalition has crumbled, causing stocks to tumble to a two-year low today. Just last week, the two main parties united to drive Musharraf from the presidency, but their partnership collapsed Monday over disputes about his successor and how to restore judges he had ousted.
The main ruling Pakistan People’s Party is expected to cobble together a new coalition now that its key junior partner has quit, avoiding the need for another general election.
The People’s Party, long led by Bhutto before her assassination, moved almost immediately to calm U.S. fears that the government is paying too little attention to extremism, banning the Taliban group and demanding they surrender their arms.
Zardari, Bhutto’s widower and political successor, has said he will run for president, and is expected to win easily. The party submitted his nomination papers today.
I think you should go! You will really understand what you have in the U.S. after you have been in the Middle East! Just don’t think the U.S. Embassy is going to bail you out if the —– hits the fan! You talk about being under the umbrella of the U.S. Embassy, think twice if you get into any kind of trouble. You are going to go there to make money you have to take the gamble, dont expect the U.S. tax payers to pay for a C130 to come in and save your life if the boarders get sealed off and you are on the wrong side of the boader.
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