Yesterday evening I wrote that the attack on the Red Mosque would happen any moment. Around 04.00 AM, Monday morning (see posting below)...Well, I bow my head in shame. I've been all night close to the Red Mosque, but absolutely nothing happened! I was totally wrong!
Some shooting until 02.00 AM. But after that...total silence. The most peaceful place on earth. No offensive, not even a small one - absolutely nothing. Thank you very little.
Of course great for the people in the mosque, the soldiers and the residents of the area. But who thinks off me? I've been sleeping, first, on a chair, under a tree. Later I moved to the floor of some kind of Pakistani wedding tent, set up by the authorities for the press.
Anyhow. Around 10.00 am, this morning, shooting started again. Not much, but a little. Amazingly, the Pakistani authorities served a delicious breakfast in the wedding tent, around 300 meters away from the Red Mosque, or Lal Mashid. Absolutely fantastic. Even coffee was provided for (Remember Pakistan is very much a tea country, coffee is kind of hard to find).
As actor Robert Duvall would have said: "I love the smell of Nescafe in the morning". But this was more Apocalypse Not, than Now.
Here are some conclusions of an sweaty and mosquito-all-around night:
1. Never predict anything - wait till it happens (or not)
2. Predict only in case the guy in charge tells you.
3. The Pakistani army is, without any doubt, a great army. These guys are just nice. The soldiers are friendly, polite and an always in for some jokes. The officers extremely well educated, and very knowledgeable. Even without anything happening, these guys make it worth to hang around.
4. If you really want to know when the standoff around the Red Mosque will come to an end - surf for an other website.
5. No showdown, no offensive, and boredom in general, result in dreadful, but very artistic, pictures of birds, birds and birds...(all taken from my spot, close to the mosque). See the amazingly exiting results below!
Harald Doornbos
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2 comments:
Harald
Nice birds.
As for wrong prediction, you are not the first nor the last one.
Yours is a far cry from prediction in Popular Mechanics (1949) "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons" ;-)
Hi Ella, good to hear!
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