Barbecue at Trail Five.

At least once or twice a month, I need to be very close to Nature. My daily walks, combined with these trips, keep me fresh and energetic. It is the oxygen, the breathing in of the fragrances of different plants and lovely views, that make me feel fresh and happy.

Whatever.

It makes me feel great. After a lifetime, spent like this, I can say for sure, every trip has been awesome. Truly. I mean getting of your home is the most difficult thing. Once you reach there, it’s a dream. For some months now, (it seemed) I’ve not had my ‘feed of natural surroundings.’ You know the real kind. I was dying to go to Trail 5, in Islamabad, because it had rained quite hard so, by now, I was sure the streams would be full of water.

So, when Usman called me a few days ago,

‘we are planning a barbecue at Trial 5,’

– I felt as if God had specially asked Usman to plan this out for me. I’m not joking! Naturally, I asked my friend Ayesha Chaudhry too. She agreed. So, off we went.

Now, this place is located at the other end of Islamabad. I mean, where I live is the Western end, and Trail 5 is the Eastern end; located right next to the Margalla Hills, and its ‘trail’ goes right up to the top of the hills. Ofcourse, I just hover around the streams at the bottom of these hills almost at the beginning of the trail.

Its heaven.

When we went, it was raining. I love rain. So, we kept walking along, being summer it was no issue.  Then the sunshine came, and it kept coming and going. Temperatures, were just perfect.

While those cute boys were busy cooking. Of course, I did try to pitch in, till I realized, here are a bunch of professionals. So, I better keep my ‘help’ at bay. I stuck to the ‘pass the plate’ and ‘shuffle the coals’ part of it.

I made a new friend Fatima, who also loves such outings and was ready to accompany me on weekends. Then there was Nabila, Maryam, Ibrahim, Zahid, and cute Inaya. There were a few more folks whose names have slipped my mind, but they all form the team of CSS School. Remember, I’ve been connected with them, and we have done a few things together. They are such highly motivated young boys and girls. Look at what they are doing, running a school for 170 under-privileged children of Islamabad. It’s a real challenge how they manage, by not charging them a penny. Running it purely on donations and charity.

So, now, I’m also planning to at least sponsor one child from this school. I’m already sponsoring a girl child from Mashal. So, this can by my little bit. I was educating my domestic help, but Nataliya and Bilal (my daughter and son-in-law) are insisting on doing it. So, if anyone of you would like to sponsor a child from Mashal or CSS school let me know, or approach them directly from their Facebook pages. You shall be able to follow the progress of the child you are sponsoring also.

Back to stream and picnic spot.

It turned out, these young men are not only pros at running a charity school but also at barbecue. The beef tikkas, chicken tikkas and chicken karahi were out of this world. Delicious. They had come fully equipped. I added some chicken patties, apples and cold drinks. So, we had walks in the stream, lots of gup-shup (chit chat) and lots of delicious food. 🙂

It turned out, Nabila has a ‘dastarkhwan’ where she feeds the poor from different villages near Rawalpindi. She also investigates and provides rations to widows who are going through tough times.

Tehzeeb bakers also provide lavish rations to widows. But first they investigate thoroughly to make sure it goes to the genuinely needy persons only. So, Nabila helps them find genuine people to help.

So much charity work goes on in this country. No wonder, in spite of all that this country has been through, it stands tall through it all!

We stayed there from 12.30 pm till about 4.00 pm. Frankly, I wasn’t feeling like coming back from there, it was so perfectly heavenly. The place, the people and the ambiance.

Sometimes, you really cannot wish for more in life!

I mean, you’ve got to stay blessed in such set ups. After all we know Who planned it all for me! 😉

Alhamdolillah!