Bloody Pakistan. Differently.

Anxiety. Fear. Blood. A lot of blood. In Pakistan. For a good cause.

No, I wasn’t excited to attend the event. I was terrified since needles are my biggest fear, just after spiders. So I was wandering around timidly, taking a deep breath every time I saw the needles and doctor’s apron. One doctor smiled at me. And then another. And the nurses too. We began chatting in Urdu. Suddenly I found myself with a needle in my vein. I was donating blood, and with a smile on my face.

The Pakistan Red Crescent Society hosted this Blood Donation Drive in Kuch Khaas, the Centre for Arts, Culture and Dialogue in Islamabad. One serene Saturday, inhabitants and staff of Kuch Khaas had a great opportunity to contribute to the humanitarian action. Donated blood is used in the hospitals of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

Yes, good things happen in Pakistan. And this is just one of them.

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Katarzyna Jakubowska is a graduate of South Asian Studies at Jagiellonian University, Poland. She spent more than two years in total living, studying and working in Turkey, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. As a human rights activist she is always looking for signs of civic engagement in visited countries. Recently she has been working as a freelance journalist writing about Tibetan refugees living in India and rock music in Pakistan. When she is not reading Hindi and Urdu poetry she is practicing Muay Thai. Currently, she is learning Pashto for a project on female poetry from the borderland of Afghanistan and Pakistan.