My International Life

As of right now, I am a citizen of Pakistan and the United States and a resident of the U.A.E. While this means that I have spent an absurd amount of time on airports and up in the air, it also means that I've been lucky enough to have friends and family - to have a home - in all three countries.

I am a hardcore Karachiite, there's no denying that. It's in the way I talk ("Abay yaar!"), the way I dress, the way I dance (or so I've been told). The fresh, clean air of Kansas doesn't suit me; my body is used to the special variety of Karachi pollution that is a combination of smoking motorcycle and rickshaw engines, musical mini-bus horns, and a peculiar fish smell from the Arabian Sea. I have an unhealthy obsession with the ocean and with greasy food from Burns Road and Boat Basin. I thrive on tense, stressful situations. Sadly, that is the truth.

America, my adopted home, has welcomed me with open arms. How does a Karachi girl end up in Kansas is a question I'm still grappling with. When I first arrived in this country on a snowy winter afternoon in 2008, I wasn't quite sure about why I was here (could've just been the jet lag) - I just knew I was really far away from home. I didn't know how to dress for the winters; I was working as a cashier but didn't understand the currency ("Do you have a nickel?" "Do I have a WHAT?"). And God forbid if I had to explain anything geography related to an American. For Americans, America is the whole world; after all, it's called the World Series but is played between American teams.

My globetrotting ways confuse the hell out of people and give rise to questions/remarks like:
"So you didn't go to high school here but you're NOT an international student? How does that work?"
"You're not from here? But your English is very good!"
"If you're not A-rab, then WHAT ARE YOU?"
"You're Moslem...so you speak Arabic?"
"WOW! You're from Pack-is-tan? THAT IS SO COOL! I wish I was from somewhere!"
Any attempt at answering these questions just confuses people more. Although sometimes, I confuse them on purpose. It's just more fun that way.

But five years and a blue passport later, in these three countries are people that I love and places with memories I cherish. At this point of time, I have gone to school and/or worked in all three. That means that all these countries have a role in what I am today, in what I am going to be. They have, in some major or minor way, shaped the person that I am. It also means that my English is neither entirely Pakistani nor American, it is somewhere in the middle (together with almost four different accents I can pull depending on who I'm talking to). I've also quit using words like loo and queue because no one would understand them. Jet lag recovery, working out a time to Skype with people in three different time zones: no big deal.

While Karachi is the resilience in me, Kansas life has taught me things like doing my own laundry and cooking my own food along with other essential life-skills like mowing the lawn and shoveling snow. I will stay up all night when Pakistan plays India in a cricket match but also bite all my nails off during an intense KU basketball game. And then Abu Dhabi is the happy medium between the two where I just soak it all in and realize how incredibly blessed I am to find love and support scattered all over the globe. Here's to my international life!

A Friend in Need ...

How bad can a relationship between two military allies get? Pakistan and the U.S. keep us guessing.

In the wake of a NATO attack killing 25 Pakistani soldiers this weekend, Pakistan has indefinitely shut NATO supply lines through the country and said it was re-evaluating its military, intelligence and diplomatic links with the U.S. It also gave the U.S. two weeks to pull out of a Pakistani air base that Washington has used in the past to launch covert drone strikes on Taliban militants. Pakistan is also threatening to pull out of next week's Bonn conference on Afghanistan, at which key stakeholders will attempt to draw up a plan for transition from a US-led NATO command to an Afghan security force by December 2014.With Pakistan's co-operation considered key to an orderly and peaceful transition, the Afghan authorities urged Islamabad to reconsider.

With plans of a pull out starting as early as next year, this may not be the first strategic mistake the US had made in this war, but it could yet prove the costliest. The short-term response is not as troubling as the long-term implications. The closure of NATO supply lines will make Barack Obama more dependent on Vladimir Putin's goodwill, and the northern supply route through which 60% of troops and military cargo to Afghanistan now travel. But, of itself, the closures will be a temporary problem. Of greater significance is the erosion of Pakistani public support for the US fight against the Taliban. Images of the funerals of the young martyrs filled television screens across Pakistan on Sunday and protests against the attack were held throughout the country. “Imagine how we would feel if it had been 24 American soldiers killed by Pakistani forces at this moment,” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat from Illinois, said on Fox News Sunday.

Hilary Clinton and Pentagon big shots responded with the usual regrets and worthless determinations to investigate, without admitting responsibility - all while Pakistan's own death toll from the "war on terror" rises, it struggles under an excess of American demands that are contrary to its own national interest, and as uninformed, people-pleasing US-senators and Republican presidential candidates continue to pick on this infinitely more important country.

The thought that destabilized, poor Pakistan has no choice but to slavishly obey what the master says could be one of the biggest misconceptions of this century. If bullied for long enough, it could learn to firmly and politely tell the US that it must, from henceforth, conduct its war on terror by itself and that while Pakistan is willing to be a friend, it is unwilling to destabilise and destroy its own stability for the neocon cause. Then, Pakistan has other friends to turn to: alternative alliances with China or Russia could lead to a completely different ball game.

Pakistani soldiers carry coffins of their comrades killed in a NATO air strike during a funeral ceremony in Peshawar
Photo: AFP PHOTO / A. MAJEED

Ignorance is bliss.

Don't get me wrong. America is awesome. And what better time to talk about its greatness than today. I am grateful to this country for all the opportunities it has given me. I'm grateful for the education, the friends, the love of my life. When someone called it the Land of Opportunities, they knew what they were talking about. It is here where I've had my fair share of firsts: first paycheck, first car, first snow, first basketball game, first monster truck show, first attempt at cooking. This country has a lot to offer and one thing abundant in this country: ignorance. I've had some really interesting encounters with some really ... let's just say curious ... people in almost 4 years here. I've had the randomest people come up to me and ask the randomest questions. Not helping this is the fact that my foreign-ness can be spotted from very far away, that I have an accent, that I live in a very white state and go to a very white school. Here are some of the most memorable conversations:

• Person: "So..Pakistanis are Arabs, right?"
  Me: "No."
  Person: "THEN WHAT ARE THEY?"

• Person: "You're Sikh right?"
  [Me: Never thought I would be asked this. Thought the sign on my head said what faith I followed.]

• Person: "Well I don't know if you're a practicing Muslim."
  [Me: Thought the thing on my head was pretty self-explanatory.]

• Person: "So do you have an arranged marriage?"
  [Me: Yes, and I also have a child marriage, FGM, honor killing, *insert all other stereotypes*]

• Random lady at Statue of Liberty: "ARE YOU FROM EGYPT?"
  
• Person: "Can you marry anyone you like?"
  [Me: "No my husband was chosen for me when I was born. He's waiting for me in Pakistan.]

• Person: "Have you ever been to Bag-dad?"
  [Me: "You mean Baghdad?"]
  Person: "Have you ever been anywhere in Eye-rack?"
  [Me: "You mean Iraq?"]
  Person: "Yeah I wouldn't wanna go to Bag-dad myself."
  [Me: "You know they were doing just fine before you started bombing them."]
  Person: "Have you ever met a Taliban?"
  [Me: "They don't walk around saying they are Taliban, you know?"]
  Person: "What about someone from Al-Qaeda?"
  Me: *walks off*

• Person: "Pakistan is in India right?"

• Person: "Could you speak English before you came here?"

• Person: "Do you speak another language? What is it called?"
  Me: "Urdu."
  Person: "So do most people in the Middle East speak Urdu?"

• Person: "So do you wear this (points to own head) at home too?"

• Person: "So you are from Pakistan originally?"
  Me: "Yes."
  Person: "Yeah I visited India last year."

• Person: "Do they teach you how to wrap this?" *points to her head*
  [Me: "THEY didn't have to. I was born with this attached to my head."]

• Random person on Mass. St. playing some instrument as I walk out of Signs of Life: "Assalam Alaikum! Shukran shukran for having coffee at a Christan place and doing good things and making this world a better place."
  Me: *speechless*
  Person: "Have you ever been to XYZ church?"
  Me: "No."
  Person: "My mom teaches ESL there to Middle Eastern immigrants. You should go."
  [Me: Pretty sure I'm not Middle Eastern. Pretty sure my English is better than yours and I don't need those classes.]

• Person: "Wow! If you hadn't told me, I would've never guessed English wasn't your first language. You don't have an accent at all!"
  [Me: Wow! You're not a big fat liar at all!]

• 3 months in the US of A and person asks: "Did you learn English in America?"
  [Me: Yup! Because it is totally possible to be speaking a language in 3 months.]

Of course, this list will grow as I spend more time here and I'll be adding to it. I'm just asking people to slow down a little on the judgments and the assumptions. If people want to base their opinions about me on what they see on FOX, then I'm going to be basing my generalizations on Hollywood, too. According to Sex and the City, there are skyscrapers everywhere, everyone rides in limos driven by chauffeurs, skinny bitches walk the town in five inch heels, and sleep around. Hollywood didn't prepare me for cows and haystacks, you know? So I am terribly disappointed. Till then, let's go and watch some fireworks. God Bless your Ignorance.