Tag: Life

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A Night with Turtles

Photo credit: Stephen Wiley (2013)
Photo credit: Stephen Wiley (2013)

Every year my family goes to the beach near Karachi, for a week of rest and escape. We stay in a small and rustic beach hut with weathered and peeling blue and white paint. Away from the phone and doorbell, this week is a time for my parents to kickback, relax, and mostly to read. In the past, for us kids it has been almost a week of non-stop digging in the sand and getting seriously browned – or just sunburned. This year it was the first time, since my high school graduation, that I was able to join our family beach week. And though my sister couldn’t be with us this time, my brother and I did manage to keep ourselves busy.

Our very first night at the the hut, my brother, my dad and I decided we would take a walk after dark, up along the beach, to enjoy the waves and the stars, and hopefully to see some sea turtles. At this time of year female sea turtles, laden with eggs, will make their way out of the water, up onto the sand, and dig a nest for the eggs. With their strong flippers they will scoop sand out from around them till they are deep enough to lay their precious cargo.

As we made out way along the beach that night, we came across turtle after turtle (close to a dozen), coming up from the dark ocean. Some halfway up the sand, others having just made their way out of the the water. Each time my dad would tell us to be quiet and coax us past, trying not to scare them. And each time my brother and I would be desperate to stay and catch a better look at the turtles up close.

With sea turtles, it’s important to make sure you don’t scare the females as they come up to make their nests. Tired and heavy, the last thing they need is to be scared back into the ocean. We always try to stay out of their way until the eggs are laid, and only after they begin their trip back into the water, do we try to get close to them. When we made it back to the hut again, my brother and I decided to stay out, quietly watching two turtles nearby, only a few huts apart from each other. A couple times we had to throw stones, as the dark shapes of dogs moved along the sand, some below us toward the water, and others up further, almost attacking on of the poor mother turtles as she dug her nest. Each time, the turtle would move a few meters from where she had been been, frightened by the dogs, and would begin digging again in the new spot.

Back and forth, my brother and I would patrol, toward to the water, making sure the dogs stayed far away from both turtles. It was just after checking on one of the mothers that a dark mass further down the beach caught our attention. We stood, and squatted, trying to see in the moonless night. Between the black bunches of seaweed on the shore, we could see the silhouette of a head and shell, making its way down toward the water. Quietly we walked up, standing close behind it on either side. Softly we ran our hands along its large smooth shell — such a contrast to the small shells of the newborns, with their minute ridges. We felt the mother’s large flippers as well, thick and leathery beneath our fingers, whispering to each other in excitement as we followed her along. I wanted so badly to swim in with her — to see her in the water, but in the dark and with the water being so cold, going in deep seemed pointless. Instead we walked with her, resting our hands on her shell.

Soon we reached the wet sand, where the little waves washing up onto the sand began to catch the turtle’s body, pulling her as they washed in and out. Her slow and steady crawl continued as the water swirled its way around her. And then there was a moment — with one wave carrying a little more water than the last — where her body rose slightly, and her thick front flippers found the room they needed to swim. When a turtle gets into water, one quickly learns the difference between bodies made for the ocean and bodies made for the land.

My brother and I splashed into the dark surf, trying to keep our hands on her shell. But after that single moment, there was nothing holding her back. In seconds her dark, glossy shell disappeared beneath the surf and she was gone, leaving two boys grinning at each other in the dark, knee-deep in the water.

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Home

Home. There’s something refreshingly normal about being home. Within a few seconds of making my way out of the airport in Karachi and into my parents’ warm arms, everything became so very familiar. Sitting in the back of the car as we pulled out of the airport, I had to remind myself that this is not ‘normal’. You’ve waited to be here, Josh. Now enjoy it and appreciate it like you waited for it. But I do enjoy it. I do enjoy being home. I just enjoy the normalcy of it.

Somehow the familiarity of home adds to the enjoyment, or reflects it, at least. If I was constantly reminded how strange it was to be home, it wouldn’t really be home, would it? But instead, it’s in the places where everything is as expected that I often experience the most joy.

I do feel the shock of transition when it comes to driving here, as we slip though the gaps between trucks and cars, with motorcycles flying by on all sides. Driving feels more like a chase scene out of a James Bond movie – the only difference being that here most of it takes place between forty and fifty kilometers an hour. In these cases, speed and excitement do not necessarily correlate. What, in Canada, would be a slow residential speed turns into a breath-taking and white-knuckled death race amongst the streets of Karachi, dodging the potholes, pedestrians, fruit carts and animals.

However, the rest of my time is so very regular – sitting around the dinner table, or being in the kitchen. The smells, the sounds, and the tastes are all so beautifully familiar. Aching sides seems to be a fairly common ailment while with family, as we bring ourselves to tears laughing at each other’s expense, and usually without any real explainable reason. Already I’ve had to rub my sore cheeks from spells of smiling too long. In some ways I’m glad my time here is interspersed with the occasional argument with my brother, just to make sure my angry, frustrated and annoyed facial muscles get some exercise as well. But that’s all quite familiar too. Quite normal.

Home is normal. Normal is home.

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Leaves

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My sister sent me a leaf from Germany. The little splotches of green in it are slowly giving way to the orange and brown of the rest of the leaf. On a small pink sticky note, she wrote “Here’s a tiny bit of Germany for you, Josh!” I have another leaf on my desk from earlier in the semester. I can’t even remember why I brought it in. I just remember bringing it up to the house and putting it on the table, saying to one of my flatmates, “here, have some nature.” When it was doomed for the garbage, I laid it amidst all my little reminders and notes scattered on my desk – almost like small white leaves themselves.

There’s a leaf in my room at my Grandparents’ house – they framed it after I sent it to them several years ago from Pakistan, in a letter, as a last minute addition to the envelope. The strangest part is that the words I wrote to my Grandparents were almost identical to my sister’s. “Here’s a little bit of Murree,” I wrote. So as I opened up my sister’s envelope to find this leaf, I felt a strange sense of happy déjà vu. I guess there’s no doubt that we are definitely siblings, and that, for some reason, we see a leaf as a valuable and meaningful token of our love and care, and a representation of a place we enjoy. Perhaps we’re just strange.

But what is it that is so special about a leaf? Why do I find them so meaningful? Perhaps it’s just an attempt to bring the world into my room, and to try get nature to be where it can’t be. Perhaps a part of it is the fact that it was once living, attached to a strong and rooted tree – permanent, connected, and growing. It bears memories of something far larger and far more sedentary. But, disconnected and detached from its place, it’s suddenly transient and momentary, holding its last hues of green only until they drain from its patterned veins. Leaves are marked by change. From the fresh brightness of their first growth to the burlap brown of their death, they fill the branches above with ever changing colour and vibrance – nature’s mural, hung above our heads. And yet when winter arrives, the trees simply shake their beauty to the ground in a sea of orange and brown, soon to be covered by a thick blanket of snow.

There’s something magical about a leaf. There’s something amazingly beautiful about it’s humble and simple colours. And it’s comforting to know that I have a sister just as crazy as me, who sends leaves with her mail as a symbol of her love for people and places.

Thanks, Liz.

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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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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.