HUMILITY in capital letters

This summer I decided to take a different kind of vacation. I went to Pakistan, to go trekking on the largest glacier in Asia, Baltoro.

On August 1st the adventure began for a group of five friends who were going to spend 20 days in a militarized country (60% of its budget is for defense), with a firm dictatorship and about which I had heard very few things (and all of them “curious”).

This post is not to talk about Pakistan, or about the trekking I did, but to talk about its people, their attitude, their way of life.

The people of Pakistan do not live day to day: They survive. It is not like in other Muslim countries I have been to, where they chase you in the medina to sell you their merchandise. In Pakistan, there are thousands of shops on a street, with four or five sellers inside and no customers. They do not need to sell anything. If they sell, perfect. If not, well, another day will be (inshalah, as they say).

One of those days, while in Islamabad, we went to the Faisal Mosque, an imposing white marble mosque considered the largest in the world. While we were there, people (young and old with their families) came up to us to say hello, ask us where we were from, introduce us to their families and ask us to take photos with them. They took more than 80 photos of me. We are exotic to them, as well as being the only “different” ones in a place where there were about 5,000 people. I have light eyes and I am light-skinned, so I attracted attention. One of the group is blonde and has light eyes, and the women were the ones who looked at her. Now I understand what Tom Cruise feels when he walks around Seville. Taking photos with us made them happy and they were very grateful. In terms of trekking, I must highlight the professionalism of the company Machulo Treks and Tours (machulo.com.pk), whose director ShamSair Ali is the proof that it is possible to unite professionalism and customer service. The guide Amin, the assistants Bashir and Ali and the cook Pida made those 20 days unforgettable, taking care of the client in every detail: food, rest, help on the route….

Without Amin we would not have had that feeling of tranquility, of having everything under control, of not having to worry when a bridge was swept away by the current of the mighty river. Or a rockfall made us have to run to get past that danger. Or being at 5,500 meters high, exhausted and him pushing me by the backpack to continue up a wall of ice.

They are people made of different stuff, who do not wear expensive boots, or Goretex raincoats, or anything like that. They go with flip-flops on the ice. The aim of this post is to value these humble, helpful, grateful people who give everything for you.

I hope to be able to reciprocate Amin's gratitude by bringing him to my house and showing him what a very different country is like from his own and to be able to thank him for everything he has done for us in those moments of hardship and suffering.

A great lesson in humility is what one brings back from this country and that will considerably mark my future.