3 weekends ago we had a pretty multicultural weekend. On the Saturday, we decided to go out to Walcolt Bay for the morning, and decided to invite a Pakistani family along with us. They were supposed to arrive in November when we arrived, but they had troubles with visa and they didn't get here till January.
I had met Naheed at the airport while waiting for Sean to arrive home from Perth, during the cyclones. We had a good chat and she seemed really easy to talk to, thought I'm not sure what I expected, I guess I just thought there would be this cultural barrier there or something. Sean had got to know Fisal a bit better during the fire training and such.
Anyways we decided to ask them to come along with us, as we know what its like being the new comers and how lonely you can feel at times, even more so for them being Pakistani. They were keen so they followed us out to the beach.
We also took Taydens friend Josh. We get out there and Sean drops us off down at the beach and went back to pick them up from the car park as they didn't have a 4WD at the time (They now have the flashest brand new shiny black land cruiser) Fisal had mentioned to Sean that his family wouldn't be swimming as they don't really swim. Well of course my kids were already in the water when they got back and Sean didn't take long to follow. I stayed back to talk more to Naheed. Next thing you know the whole Khan family are in the water having a great time.
SEAN AND FISAL ENJOYING A COOL OFF IN THE WATER
NO THEY WEREN'T GOING TO SWIM
Fisal and his kids and Sean and our 4 (josh being the 4th) stayed in the water for a good hour, I had a quick 10 minute dip during that time just to cool off. Then it was a game of beach cricket, more swimming a bit of fishing and more swimming, you couldn't drag those kids out if you wanted.
PAKISTAN VS NZ IN A CRICKET MATCH
Sean had taken both our surf casters out and gave one to Fisal, never fished before he soon had the hang of it and seemed to be really enjoying himself. Josh ended up taking over from Sean for a while and ended up catching a stingray. The weird thing was that when he got the ray onto the beach there were about 8 other stingrays that came in with him, it was a bit freaky really, I guess it was his family and extended family seeing what was going on. They let the stingray go and he swam away but three other stayed and watched us for a while, odd...
THE HAPPY FISHERMEN AND THE NEWEST MEMBER OF THE WALSH FAMILY, JOSH
I LOVE THIS PHOTO
When it was time for lunch Naheed an I got the food out, She had gone to a lot of trouble and made the most delicious chicken biryani, if you haven't had it before do try it is my newest favourite food. I had made this big chicken salad sandwich on one of those long Turkish loaves and sliced it up into small slices. She was so apologetic as they couldn't eat it as they only eat halal meat. Halal meat is where the animals are slaughtered facing Allah and have had a special prayer said for them. They get all their meat shipped up from Perth from a Halal butcher.
After that we headed home as it was getting quite hot and their new landcruiser was arriving that afternoon.
When Sean saw Fisal at work the other day, he said his family couldn't stop talking about swimming at the beach and their new friends they had made, he also said he was off to buy himself a fishing rod. haha. It made us feel good as we know no one else on Seans shift would have gone to the trouble.
That night we went to a housewarming with all our Scottish friends. On Sunday we were invited to Brians house, he is an Indian who started with Sean but I wouldn't call them true Indians as they are not Hindu or Muslim and have lived in South Africa for a long time. There was also another South African family and an Aussie guy. It was an awesome evening, Brian is definitely the host with the most and is quite taken with Janaya, he couldn't do enough for her. He ended up carrying her around for ages and she fell asleep on him (so unusual for her but he did give her chocolate which could have put him in best friend status in her eyes)
THE LOVELY NAHEED shes such an easy person to get on with very witty and funny.
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