Another night in air conditioned bliss. I head out in the morning to get breakfast at the hostel. No one was around. I checked in with a friend at Sindhology and he was there with the cable I needed to digitize my tapes. It being Friday, Sindhology would close even earlier than usual, so I needed to book it over there if I wanted to digitize these tapes and have something to work on this weekend.I got there and as often happens, there is no movement. Something is being waited for, but I don’t know exactly what. I got the cable and after a few minutes, went next door and just picked up the DV VTR and brought it over to the archive room where I plugged it all in and started digitizing. Once a tape is started, there’s nothing to really do. You just wait as the entire hour long tape plays through at regular speed. I sat around, chatted with folks and waited. Some good news was that the staff were interested in staying later for my recording sessions. I would pay overtime as per rules, but that was perfectly fine by me. I feel like brick walls stand in the way and then they vanish, only to reappear a step further during this process. For some reason, I am assured that something is impossible, encouraged to explore other paths which takes a great deal of time and effort and ultimately leads to other dead ends, before what was impossible the day before becomes…possible. Sigh. I still make sure to follow up on all leads, because it takes every bit to get the smallest task done, so you never know which lead will become that small bit that helps you get there.I had one tape left to digitize, but at 11:15am, there were only 15 minutes left before Sindhology closed. One of the friends there who brought the cable to me suggested that I could borrow his dv cam. I would need to come by Qasimabad in the evening to pick it up. While it is a bit of time and effort to do that for me, it could save me two days of staring at the ceiling in which I could begin editing.After Sindhology, I returned to the hostel and rested. Towards evening my friend Saqib dropped by and we went to visit the recording studio past Mehboob Ali Shah sahib’s place. We got to Azeemi studios. I spoke to a couple of family members of the studio owner, then met the owner and we sat in the lobby of the studio. The studio was locked. The electricity was out due to load shedding. We sat and chatted. Once again, as on the phone the previous night, I clearly explained what I needed. I had several groups of musicians who needed to be miked separate as they performed together, with each mic recording to a separate track. No mixing or editing on their part. I just wanted this recording, along with video of the musicians as they played.People love to talk themselves up., We sat for what felt like an hour and half, listening to how great they were and how primitive the setup at Sindhology was. I don’t care how great someone thinks they are. Show me the work and let’s talk about that, but I felt like I should at least look at one recording studio to see what they had to offer.On and on it went. Some of it clearly nonsense. We record the American way. We use software that is registered and you can’t even get it in the market. Yes, none of this had anything to do with what I needed, but really it is about wowing me with your greatness. At one point, the younger, technical genius talked about how he had worked for a non profit, receiving British Council funding. He was overjoyed at how they had pulled one over on them by documenting fake projects and winning awards for this. Yes, pride in dishonesty helps ingratiate one to potential customers. Sure, he wasn’t the one that made that system, but he sure was proud.I have seen a few examples of this. While the organizations involved are the most to blame, I do think that the folks giving them funding, particularly US and British governments should, if they truly care about benefitting the country and not just looking good on paper, hold the recipients of their funding, and my tax money to account. Who gives large sums of money and then does not care how it is spent? By supporting corrupt people within a country, you make me question your honesty in wishing to benefit people here. There are honest people doing fantastic work. They often don’t have the academic or English skills to apply for grants. Why is it in English anyway? So elite thieves can take advantage of it?Anyway, this stuff makes me pretty angry, but I did not bother sharing with this fool. We tried to get up and go several times, but they insisted that the electricity was coming back in mere moments. Finally it returned and we checked out the studio. It had shiny mixing boards with colorful lights and a dark, claustrophobic row of sound booths. It seemed a better choice for recording completely separate vocals, but not for what I was doing. We would not even be able to record the video in such a cramped space. They kept talking about how they could mix things as I wanted as well. I explained that I don’t like the style of mixing there. It dulls the sounds of instruments, in essence, mashes them down and adds really ugly echos to the vocals. They played some unreleased tracks that should remain thus.As we finished up, I asked how much they charged, and suddenly they back pedaled that perhaps Sindhology was a better choice for what I needed. I guess I blew one too many holes in their pitch. We thanked them, then head to Qasimabad, hoping we would have better luck with the camera.We got there, then waited another hour for the guy we were meeting. Finally, his friend calls for me to meet him at his studio. I walk over as Saqib is waiting on some food we ordered at a restaurant there. I met the friend. They do wedding videos. He showed me steadicam shots and other fancy things. He asked if I brought the tapes to digitize. I had not. I was here to borrow the camera. It would take hours to digitize and I don’t want to digitize to a pc in AVI format, then convert that to quicktime which would take several more hours. Somehow the plan changed at the last second.So I called the initial friend who had told me to pick up his camera and he said he would come by. He came by with the camera, but needed the cable. He had told me that the cable was not available anywhere, then he said that it is available at one market in Hyderabad. It had been almost 5 hours of running around in circles first at the recording studio and now here. I felt bad for leaving Saqib at the restaurant and this was all a waste of time. I thanked them and asked that he just bring the cable on monday to Sindhology. I would just waste another two days.Saqib and I ate, then head back to Jamshoro. I’m going to need to change my belief in what people say. It has lead me on too many wild goose chases to confirm misinformation and waste loads of time and effort which is demoralizing and leads to nothing productive. I have some more resources that I will focus on. They just are not available at the moment. Thus, I wait.