Tag: Pakistan

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Snow

Snow. Too much snow. I had my second snow day of my life a little while ago, when the roads around Red Deer were decided to be too dangerous to travel on. As a result, my Monday turned into a lovely Saturday, leaving us only two days of classes in the final week of the semester.

Canada is cold. No, it’s not frozen over all year round, and we don’t live in igloos, but when winter comes, no one can deny that it really is cold. Walking back from my car the other night I could feel the temperature quickly taking it’s toll on my body, despite my winter coat, and gloves. Looking into the dark woods beside the the road, I wondered how long someone would last in this weather without shelter. If they kept walking, maybe a day? I’m not sure if someone would make it through the night unless they did jumping jacks all evening. If they didn’t keep moving I doubt they would last more than several hours. I imagined myself huddled under some tree in those woods, trying to keep warm. I’ve often thought that drowning would be one of the worst ways to die, or burning to death, but dying of cold is certainly up there. Even the thought of being out all night made me hurry even faster to get inside.

Winter in Canada is no walk in the park. It would be much easier if people never had to get anywhere. However, for anyone driving, Winter makes sure you don’t avoid it. Between scraping fiercely at the windows and shivering in the seats, waiting for the heat to kick in, driving is a blessing you pay for dearly. Yesterday, while driving out my grandparent’s house I heard on the radio that the temperature that morning was -29, apparently feeling like -41 with wind chill. The day before that I had worried about my car as its engine sputtered to a start, ice on both sides of all the windows. Roads around town are lined with small walls of snow that the snow plows have left after they have gone through. Recently I’ve seen dump trucks and trailers around Red Deer, hauling huge loads of snow out of town. I’m sure at the other end of all those trips is the perfect place for someone to build a giant igloo!

Memories of driving in Pakistan are so different. I can remember my dad trying to park our car under the shade of a tree, if possible, in an effort to keep some of the midday sun off the car. When we would get into the car the metal buckles on the seat belts would almost burn our hands if we touched them as we shuffled our bottoms into the seats. For a brief moment there would be a frantic fight, as my siblings and I would whip the windows down as fast as we could and stick our heads out, trying to catch even the faintest breeze of air. That was Hyderabad.

But here I am, in Red Deer, in December. I joke with my friends, telling them that every winter my calling to go overseas becomes louder and clearer. I dream, but, for today, this is where I’m supposed to be – avoiding every opportunity to go anywhere other than my flat. Every country comes with its own set of trials. There’s not a lot of sense in wishing I was somewhere else, going through the pains that come with another place. Just like Jenna and the Troublemaker, I would probably end up coming back to my own ‘bag of troubles’ realising I’d rather not have anyone else’s.

Last night it was -38 in Red Deer. It’s amazing what such a small line before the temperature does. If it wasn’t for that silly little ‘minus’, I could be out in shorts and flip flops, probably complaining that it was a little too warm for my liking.

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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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A Tragedy in a Long Line of Tragedies

I haven’t been able to fully collect my thoughts. After the twin suicide bombing that took place outside a church in Peshawar yesterday, killing over 80 people with far more wounded, I struggle to know what to say, or even if there is anything that should be said. Often silence is the deepest form of grief. I watched as people gave their support and prayers on facebook, passing on news and changing their profile pictures to a black box, showing their grief over the incident. The community of people who care about Pakistan and the Christians there grieved for what had happened. But somehow I felt like this wasn’t the end, or the beginning. It’s another tragedy, a terrible tragedy, that seems to stain the world with innocent blood.

Only the day before, on Saturday, members of the Al-Shabab, attacked the Westgate shopping complex in Nairobi. With over 60 people killed, and many wounded, the death toll continues to rise as the fighting continues to rage to this minute. People continue to cry out, mourn and pray for the situation there and wonder why in the world something like this happens. And yet it does – again and again.

With the conflict in Syria still raging on, catching countless people in the fighting, it seems there’s a never ending story of tragedy. For myself, having Pakistan so close to my heart, the attack there seems even more significant, and yet for those with family in Nairobi, or Damascus nothing cries louder than the pain suffered there. The deaths of innocents are no anomaly today. It seems that not a day goes by that we are reminded again of the evil and the darkness in the world, and that we see this same darkness overtake helpless people caught in its tracks. A tragedy in a long line of tragedies.

I don’t know that there’s anything I can say to make sense of it all, but I know that it has continued, and will continue to do so. My heart breaks for the suffering and the loss that is experienced by so many, even when their stories are far from me, or lost amid the jumble of international news. For the mother who has lost a child, a single life is tragedy enough to shake the world. These victims’ blood cries out for justice, even when few hear it, and one day there will be an accounting for every drop. Until then, we mourn, and we must continue to live and love, and be a light in this dark world.

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A Black Rhinoceros

I had a very strange dream last night – strange enough that I remembered it, which is not normal for me. In my dream I found myself inside my old high school in Pakistan, an old british garrison church. However, in my dream, the building itself seemed to be about eight times the size of my school divided into two sections. Inside the building were a great number of trees and bushes, growing like a small jungle within the walls of the building. All very strange and dream-like.
The very strangest thing about the whole dream though, was the fact that a friend (I have no idea who it was) and I were trying to escape from a raging black rhinoceros. Black as the night, and with a thick strong body, it would wander around the trees, charging at us when it saw us. I can remember running as fast as we could to duck behind the trunks of trees, trying to get away from this frightening beast. I even climbed up into the thin, spindly branches of a tree to get up away from it at one point, scared to death that this rhinoceros would kill me for sure. I can remember desperately searching for some way to capture the rhino, and do something about it, but the only thing in the building was a cage, which only big enough for a large dog or something of the sort. I never did manage to get a hold of anything though.

The whole dream was somewhat terrifying, and I woke up in the middle of the night, heart beating a little fast, to puzzle over why I would dream something like that to begin with. What on earth goes through someone’s mind to make him dream of trying to escape a black rhinoceros in a jungle inside their Pakistani high school? What on earth is wrong with me?

The biggest shock, however, was something that I learned this morning while on my computer. Much to my surprise, today, September 22, is World Rhino Day! Unlike a fear-filled dream about a black rhino, World Rhino Day is designed to raise awareness of the ongoing poaching and illegal trade of rhino horns. With five different species of rhinos, some populations are facing endangerment and even extinction, and the World Wildlife Foundation and other organizations are trying to put an end to the killing of rhinos and the trade of their horns. I still have no idea why I had a dream about a black rhinoceros on the same day as World Rhino Day, but for all those who didn’t know – today is World Rhino Day.

To find out more about World Rhino Day, visit http://www.worldrhinoday.org and http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/rhinoceros/world_rhino_day/