Greetings from an Islamabad park, a peaceful vantage point in an uncertain world

Betsy Joles for NPR

Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR's international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.

I took this photo at sunset in my favorite park in Pakistan's capital city earlier this month. I went there to touch grass, literally, after days of covering inconclusive U.S.-Iran peace talks.

This place is called Haunted Hill Park, colloquially at least, though I've never heard a definitive explanation for why. I like it because it's usually not too crowded and has good grass for laying down a picnic blanket. On this particular evening, a duo volleyed a badminton shuttlecock back and forth, and women took photos in front of colorful flowerbeds. The park sits alongside a winding, tree-lined avenue, and if you turn right out of the park and drive until the road ends, you're within walking distance of the Serena Hotel, where the peace talks were held.

Some might say this bureaucratic hub is boring. I thought that too when I first moved to Pakistan. Then I spent a few years living in Lahore, a boisterous megacity where pockets of calm are hard to come by. The soothing green Margalla Hills around Islamabad brought me peace I didn't know I needed.

As journalists converged here to cover the talks, the world caught a glimpse of this city — mostly broadcast from inside a stuffy media center. I wish people could see it from this vantage point instead.

See more Far-Flung Postcards from around the world:

• Greetings from Nairobi, where taking a matatu is no ordinary bus ride
• Greetings from downtown Cairo, where unpretentious cafés are part of centuries-old charm
• Greetings from London, where a big COVID memorial holds vigil over the halls of power
• Greetings from Turkey's border with Iran, where Iranians let loose on the dance floor