Tag: Canada

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Culture Shock

Prior to returning to Canada, I often viewed the term ‘culture shock’ with some degree of skepticism. When here on furlough, people in Canada would always ask me if I experienced ‘culture shock’ when I went to Pakistan, to which I would always answer truthfully, “no.” Having grown up in Pakistan, I simply imagined culture shock as a show of cultural weakness. Culture shock was when people would become overwhelmed with ideas and practices so different from their own, and would find themselves sitting in the shelter of some home, under a fan, unable to take a step out of their door because of the unaccustomed heat. It wasn’t until I actually read some of the symptoms of culture shock that I realized I had experienced the exact same thing, and continue to go through it at different times in my life.

Reading through symptoms such as boredom, withdrawal, homesickness, irritability, anger and disgust, suddenly so many of my feelings during my first year in Canada began to make sense. Very rarely was I overwhelmed by a culture that I didn’t expect. Canadian culture was relatively known to me. I had been back at different times in my childhood to visit relatives, and even went to school in Ontario for a couple short periods of time. I certainly knew what I was going back to, but simply knowing didn’t make the ‘going back’ any easier. I found I had little patience for aspects of life or culture in Canada that went so much against what I was used to. I hated the stress that was put on individualism, where people pass each other in cars, ignore each other on the streets, and try as hard as they can not to impede on anyone else’s personal space. Whatever happened to squeezing through a crowd in order to go where you wanted? What happened to the sounds, smells and colours that were supposed to fill the outside air? Life in Canada seems so much more antiseptic, cold, and and unfriendly.

I would find myself constantly comparing my life as it had been in Pakistan with what it had become here, in Canada. Canada was always worse, of course. I would feel lost at times, but somehow it was Canada’s fault. I felt alone, or that I couldn’t relate to other people now and then, but I always told myself it was their fault – they were so different, so Canadian, so bland, just like potatoes. I hardly ever make potatoes for myself here, for exactly the same reasons: they are so common, ordinary and banal. I have them everywhere I go – why make them myself? I always make rice. Perhaps I do this partly out of protest and a sense of nostalgia – as another way to remind myself that my eating habits aren’t ‘Canadian’. But at the same time, I do it because I love it. I love that it’s not Canadian and that people don’t eat it all the time here – so I do.

I always felt like a stranger in Canada, though no one around me could tell from the way I looked. Being born a Canadian, with Canadian parents, there’s little I can do about the fact that I look caucasian. Canadians still treat me like a Canadian, which I am not. Worse still are the internationals, who treat me like Canadians as well, not realizing that my own life and experiences are probably very close to their own, and that I might be going through the very same struggles that they are. Often I’ve wished I looked more like a stranger outwardly, so that at least people would treat me the way that I felt about myself. It’s hard when your skin says you should fit in, but your heart and all that’s in it won’t let you.

I hated that everything was clean here. At times I would have to hold back the urge to throw garbage on the ground out of spite for Canada and its perfectness. Cars here weren’t covered in scratches and held together with tape or odd parts. Everything was different. I resisted being Canadian. I didn’t want to be one, and I didn’t want to become like one. I fought the natural tendency to adapt and assimilate, because I wanted to stay the way I was – I didn’t want to fit in. As I made friends and found myself out with them, stopping in at a Tim Hortons, or going sledding in the winter, I would catch myself enjoying normal things and getting used to life in Canada. However, I didn’t actually want to become accustomed to it all. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be Pakistani.

In some ways things haven’t changed. I still hate aspects of Canadian culture that revolve around things like materialism, individualism or selfishness. I still feel that I’ll never be Canadian, but I realize that I’ll never really be Pakistani either. I’ve come to enjoy many things about Canada, and I appreciate my friends and the fun we have. People are people, no matter where they are. I certainly don’t want my life here in Canada to last forever, but I appreciate it for what it is, and I am glad for it during the time that I am here. I suppose a big part of this was realizing that the Canadian and the Pakistani in me don’t have to be at war. I can find aggravating aspects in both cultures and choose to leave them behind, and I can find the parts of each culture that are precious and valuable and choose hold on to them in my life. I don’t have to be one or the other – because I’m not. I’ll always be a little mixed up over who I am, where I belong, or what my culture is, but I suppose that is really my culture after all: that of a third culture kid. I’m always too much at home to be a stranger and too much a stranger to be at home.

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Angels Drive Red Pickup Trucks

There are times, when for a brief moment, you know you are exactly where you are supposed to be, doing just what you are supposed to do.

My Sunday turned out to be quite an extraordinary day – extremely tiring and full of emotion. Through a series of seemingly random events, I found myself in downtown Red Deer picking up a man’s personal belongings from his locker at a care center for the homeless before I was to drive him to be with his father in Hobbema, about an hour North of the city. While there, piling things like shampoo, a toothbrush, random clothes and papers into plastic bags, we were met by the man’s nephew, Justin, obviously very distraught, shaking and on the edge of tears. Afraid of how his uncle Les would react, he wanted only to talk to me, and with a faltering voice, told me he was on his way to the hospital. As he began to explain the events of the past Friday night, tears streamed down his face and his thin frame shook. He told me drug after drug that he took that night, one after the other, before he finally broke down sobbing, while his uncle Les and I hugged him. That wasn’t the first time I cried that day, and it certainly wasn’t going to be the last.

Before long we were on our way to the hospital. My car smelled like cigarette smoke already, thanks to a morning with Les, which mixed with the smell of alcohol that still hung in the car after driving a drunk coworker home a few days before. Soon we were at the hospital and, after parking, I made my way to the toll machine to pay for a parking pass, having no idea how long we would be here with Justin. It was around 1:00pm at the time, and just before I reached the machine, a red pickup, on its way out of the parking lot stopped, and a man held a parking pass out of his window, asking if I needed one. “It’s paid till 6:40”, he told me. I held the pass in my hand as the truck drove away. I couldn’t believe it. As I placed the ticket on my dash, I burst out into tears. Even now as I write this, I can’t help crying.

I just couldn’t believe it. It was as if God revealed to me, for a second, that seam where earth and heaven meet, and for a brief moment, the walls that normally surround the world we walk in were clear as glass. I wasn’t alone. There was someone far bigger than me who wanted me just where I was. I don’t know if it was an angel driving that red pickup truck, but I do know that God all but handed me a parking pass that day. And as I joined Les and Justin to walk to emergency, I’m not sure they quite understood why I had tears in my eyes.

Later in the day, as Justin called his grandmother a number of times, and then his mom, I worried a little over the amount of money I had left on my phone. Being a ‘pay-as-you-go’ phone, I wasn’t sure just how long it would last, or if it would make it through all the calls that he needed to make. But then it struck me that I didn’t have any ordinary phone – I had a phone that would last for as long as Justin would need, and as long as God desired it to. I had a phone that was under God’s provision, and rather than worry, a smile spread across my face instead.

After a long day of talking to various nurses and consultants in the hospital, Justin and I were let out of the hospital to wait for his grandmother to come pick him up. Les was already on his way to Hobbema with a friend of mine, who came to take him after I had realized Justin and I would be awhile. As we got into my car, I checked the time: 6:34pm, with my parking pass paid till 6:40. I just couldn’t believe it.

I still have the parking pass. It sits on my desk as I write, reminding me that all we do has a purpose, and that we serve a God who opens doors, and who provides just what we need. On Sunday I got a glimpse of what God’s provision looks like, and I don’t want to forget it.

(Please note that actual names have not been used to protect the identity of the subjects)

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A Poor Lost Little Sign

I apologize to anyone who holds very dearly to Saskatchewan, to those who love it, or call it home. I enjoy Saskatchewan a lot myself, but I seem to enjoy it a great deal less when I have to drive anywhere in it for any length of time. Last month I found myself driving alone to Lumsden, Saskatchewan to help out at a camp for two weeks (those who have read some of my earlier blogs will have heard about some of my experiences there already).

What I wanted to share here, though, for all who would like to enjoy it, is something I drove past on my way to camp. As I was driving along, I passed a sign that read ‘point of interest’, indicating that this point was somewhere left of the highway, down a smaller country road. Naturally, I was a little intrigued, and and strained my eyes down this road to see this ‘point of interest’. In fact, this interesting place was so interesting to me that I took a picture of it as I drove by, which I share here for you to see.

photo copy

Yes, for those confused, this is the ‘point of interest’. I’m not quite sure why or to whom this would at all be interesting, but remember, this is Saskatchewan. I suppose maybe for some, the sight of another green and yellow field would be very interesting – especially if they happened to have their eyes closed for the past seven hours of travel as they passed by field after field, just like it. Or perhaps it’s a ploy to make people think twice about the monotony of fields they see – to trick those who haven’t been paying attention into believing that this may just have been the first field they’ve seen in the hundreds of kilometers they have already travelled.

Whatever reason the sign has for being there, I think it is lost. But I don’t blame the sightless sign. Poor thing, facing the road the way it is, one can’t expect it to know the emptiness that it advertises. It may never have been turned around to see the view for itself. Perhaps it has never travelled in his life and hasn’t seen that by the time people reach it, they have had their fill of green flatness – they’ve had enough. Perhaps this little sign has been fed a lie. Lost and sightless as it is, it simply stands, like a blind prophet, trying to communicate with the busy stream of traffic that hurdles on by – alone, voiceless and misunderstood. I don’t blame the sign; I pity it.

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Catching Frogs

“Do you want to wake up at five tomorrow morning?” I asked one of my campers before bed. It was the night before the closing day of that camp week, after a long day of activities.
“No!” He said. “Wait, what for?”
“To catch some frogs.”

My camper had been very disappointed. A couple days earlier I had let him and a few other boys catch frogs during our swim time in the dugout, and had lent them a container from my bag as well. He had caught a number of frogs, and had transferred them into smaller containers, hoping to take a couple home with him when he went. However, that same evening he had been told by another counsellor that he couldn’t keep the frogs in containers over night. As a result, he had let them go that evening, hoping that he would be able to catch some more the following day when the whole camp went to the dugout for games and swimming. But, once he got there, he wasn’t allowed to go to the side of the dugout that had the frogs, as he needed to stay with the rest of the group. And there he was, at bedtime that night, feeling a little disappointed about the whole thing. So, when I asked if he wanted to catch frogs the next morning he had a huge smile on his face. “Yes!”

That night as I lay on my bed, I wrestled through the situation. I had already been deliberating over what to do before I had even asked him. Taking a camper all the way over to the dugout early in the morning, by myself, with no life-jackets (they were required in and around the dugout)? I just couldn’t decide if this was something where I should be asking for permission, or asking for forgiveness after the fact, if I needed. I thought back on all my past boyhood disappointments. Rocks I couldn’t take with me when we left places. Sticks I couldn’t carry home. I can see why my parents didn’t let me at the time – and I’m glad for it now. But, how hard was it to spend some time one morning helping a boy catch a few frogs?

So, at five in the morning, my alarm went off and I strained my eyes into the darkness. ‘This is ridiculous,’ I thought. ‘There’s no way I’m catching frogs at five in the morning – in the dark.’ I closed my eyes again, and dipped in and out of sleep for almost an hour. Then, just before six, I woke up enough to look out the window again. It was just beginning to get light – enough to see frogs, at least. So, after a lot of shaking, poking and whispering his name, I finally woke my camper up. And a couple minutes later, there we were, two boys, both in hoodies and shorts, making our way up through the trees and over the hill to the dugout to catch some frogs.

It’s wasn’t very long before we got to the spot. With our ankles in the water we walked through the grass and small reeds, stopping when small spots of green would bounce across the grass, or plop into the water. I very quickly found out that I’m really bad at catching frogs. I really am. I would get so close – close enough to feel their little bodies slipping through my fingers, or bouncing off my hand, but I never got one. Thankfully I could at least keep them from getting to the water so that my companion could pounce on them and hold them gently in his hands. There’s something about seeing a little boy chasing after frogs that brings a smile to your face. It’s like seeing a bird in flight, or a dolphin jumping out of the surf – just to see them doing what they do best. He was a little boy, and had obviously mastered the skill of frog catching – something I must have missed out on in my youth.

Half an hour later two boys with three green leopard frogs, and one brown wood frog, headed back over the hill and across the grass toward the cabins. Their flip flops squeaked with water as they walked, and their faces beamed with smiles as they carried their precious amphibians in their little orange container. Sometimes God sends along little blessings and encouragements, just to remind you that there is a reason you are doing what you are doing. For me, this was just that.

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My Blue Trunk of Memories

I opened up my blue trunk today. My trunk that holds the things that mean a lot to me. I always find it to be such a strange and exciting moment. I go into it thinking that there are probably things I can get rid of now, seeing as I have changed over time, and yet I always surprise myself. It’s like discovering treasure. Some of the things I can hardly even remember until I’ve seen the little things hidden inside. I open up an old candy tin to reveal little trinkets I’ve collected over the years. I have a couple flag pins, from both Canada and Pakistan. There’s a squished penny from the dinosaur museum in Drumheller, which I can still remember begging my dad to let me buy. There’s a ‘dog-tag’ my senior class made when we graduated, a shield necklace with a verse on it, and an old plastic patakha dart that looks like it’s been through a lot of life. I look at each of them with a fresh wonder, and slowly put them each back into the tin. Everything is important, every little piece of memory.

Below the tin is a box of coins from all over the world – Middle Eastern, Oriental, South American and European. Some are sorted into plastic sheets by country, while others are in bags and little containers. Still others lie loose in the box. I suppose I couldn’t be bothered to put them into any kind of container at the time. The coins still intrigue me, and I find a few lying around I have collected recently and throw them in too, before closing the box.

In the trunk are my high school banners, an old shawl, an afghan scarf, a knife from nepal, a painted teapot, a couple picture albums and some other odd treasures. Inside a folder are old stories I wrote when I was younger, or pieces of them. There’s a little book I printed with my brother too. They make me smile as I see the little boy with a big imagination and huge hopes for these ideas. Now they sit in my blue trunk.

Below all these is a folder of papers. Page after page of old report cards, boarding reports and school awards. And as I skim through the pages, I can’t help but smile. Not only is it like walking through the life of a little boy growing up, but it’s as if I’m walking through the life of my parents, watching this little boy grow older in time. One report says of my little kindergarten self, “He understands basic concepts of size and shape, sorting, counting number recognition and measurement.” Another reads “Josh is ready for grade one work, which he should cope with easily.” I’m glad I made it into grade one. I feel that would have been a problem otherwise. Some of the comments are just downright hilarious. My P. E. teacher from my public school in Pakistan wrote “during P. T. display, the movement of your body was flexible.” Glad to hear it.

As I read through these forms I can’t help but think about my parents, and what they thought of this little boy, who was “quiet” but “enthusiastic”. I can’t even remember those days, or my thoughts and memories at the time. I smile as I see myself growing through the years. Thankfully I always did fairly well in school, so my reports are generally encouraging, but not all of them. There are the few that tell of the times when I was not very pleasant to have. One from junior high reads “Josh has shown little interest in being a part of junior high boarding life. He also has not happily joined in the organized weekend events.” I can remember those times. I can remember my attitude, and I can remember the people around me who were disappointed. But most of all, I can remember and imagine what it would have been like for my parents to read this about me. It makes me embarrassed even now. Thankfully it was a passing theme, and I soon grew to have a better attitude in school and boarding life, and to be the happy, hardworking boy that I once was.

All through these pages, time and time again, I see my parents love for me. Even the fact that they cherished all these reports, right down to my little kindergarten self, and filed them away for me to have later in life. I can’t get over how special my parents are, and how much they cared about me all through my years growing up and now today as well. They loved me through good and bad, and always pressed me to do better and to be better – not just at school, but in life and in my character. I can remember the talks we had when I wasn’t doing well and I had let them down, and I can remember their joy when I may them proud and did my best. But most of all, I can always remember the love.

Opening up my trunk is always a very introspective journey back into memories. Surrounded by these pieces of myself, and of my past, I seem to forget the present altogether. And it’s not until I happened to glance into a mirror and saw the bearded face of a twenty-year-old staring back at me, that I realized a lot of life has gone by, and that I’m not that little boy I’m reading about in the pages. And yet, I am somehow, because as I read through the pages, and hold that old white patakha dart, I almost feel as though I was eight again, putting these things in my old candy tin for the first time, because I loved them and I wanted to cherish them.

Mummy and Daddy, I just want you to know, once more, that I love you so much, and I’m so thankful for all the love that you have given me over the years.