Saturday, October 16, 2010

Small Towns and Big Hearts in The Mid-West!

Happiness is a huge pumpkin!

It has been less than a week since I came back from the US. It was three weeks long; coast to coast; Mid-West to South trip that seems short in retrospect The trip was an initiative of the US State Department fort a group of young leaders from South Asia including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan as part of the International Visitors Leadership Program for Civic and Political Engagement.
On the itniairy were major cities like Washington D.C, San Francisco, Chicago and New Orleans. The schedule also said that we would visit a small city outside of Chicago - Freeport - where we would learn more the election process in the US. Being a complete city slicker, I thought thank God it’s just two days in a sleepy, small town – one of which would be spent at home with a local family. But it turned out this small town offered me more than I had ever hoped for – friendship, joy and just some good old-fashioned fun.
As we reached Freeport from Chicago, our ‘families’ were waiting to pick us up. I have to admit, I had the prettiest host (as the men in the group told me later) – the lovely Miss Kelly Epperson, a writer. We seemed to click instantly as I told her that one of favourite American holidays was Halloween. And she knew just where to take me – but not before some shoe-shopping! Oh yea! I knew Kelly was the one for me as we browsed through shelves, picked up bargains and then headed for The Pumpkin Patch. As we drove around in Kelly’s super-cute, smart car we talked about our work, loves and lives. And realized that there was not much of a difference between a big-city Pakistan and small-city America dweller. We were two girls on a mission – to have fun! Please bear with me as I gloat over how much I LOVED The Pumpkin Patch! It had big pumpkins, small pumpkins, corn on the cob, candy, a petting zoo, llamas, a porcupine, a coatamundi (?), kids, adults…and….wait for it…..a corn shooter and pumpkin launcher! Kelly and I had a blast – literally, as we shot cob after cob, further and higher from what seemed to be a simple push and blast machine and launched small pumpkins from a sling-shot. I should add that we missed the target every single time but what the hell, right? It was so much fun!Exhausted by our corn and pumpkin blasting ways, we headed for dinner at The Irish Rose – a quaint little bar and restaurant in Rockford. The music, the food and the ambience was just perfect. Seriously. Just perfect. Just the right number of people too. And a really cute Indian doctor, who just happened to be dining alone J
Kelly blew me away with her hospitality, kindness and general awesome-ness. She is beautiful and quite simply a joy to be around. We talked about boys, shoes, food, Halloween, Paris, Facebook and much more. It seems that the only difference between people is quite simply that of ‘good’ and ‘not-so-good’ perhaps. The good ones seem to cherish the same values no matter what part of the world and what time of life they are in – love and happiness.
Here’s hoping for more love, happiness, common ground and most importantly joy between countries and people.
For added joy, click here!

1 comment:

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