The move from Kazakhstan to Islamabad in 2000 was unexpected and sudden. The one thing we did have was a house built and the only task for us to complete was to get rid of our tenants. The amount of back to back bizarre incidents that took place in the span of a year alone only solidified the myth that diplomats are incapable and unfit for living and adjusting in their own countries. We as a family unit were living proof. Some lessons learnt in year one of Islamabad:
Be discreet about your arrival and avoid a robbery: Our massive container arrived, the whole neighborhood found out and ofcourse we were not understated about the unloading of it either. We hired helpers that weren’t to be trusted and we went to Murree one fine afternoon, locking the front gate – absolutely making it clear that the place was available for a robbery. We came back earlier than expected because we did not even know HOW to drive to Murree and took a U turn an hour and a half later. I think I will always be traumatised by the state of what we saw when we came back. They took everything! Every electronic and even some of our valuable artefacts we had collected from other countries. Felt like Senegal all over again but this was just worse in reality. We were so ashamed, we didn’t tell our extended family nor friends that we had been robbed. It is kind of funny. Sharing back then would have been a direct reflection on our incapability of coping.
I think we continued to spend time with our mother’s family for months before we casually once announced that we had been robbed. Positive side to the story – my father was reading the newspaper one morning and he showed me a photograph of one of our artefacts that had been recovered when a major robbery gang had been trying to smuggle it outside of Pakistan. We went to the police station and swiftly recovered it.
Get admitted to the right school: Beaconhouse was the one and only option. So my mother drove me on day 3 of landing in Isloo to the school and got me admitted there. Only that we learned the name had changed to City School and we went with it. A few days later my aunt noticed the uniform wasn’t matching her son’s who also went to Beacon. So we find out we had walked in to the wrong building, built an entire story in our heads and also gone ahead and paid the fees. I had taken the admission test and passed it. The real Beaconhouse was across the road. Adamant to send me there Ami framed an entire story to City School that we had been transferred abroad again and she needed the admission fees back.
Beaconhouse was the right decision. I was a subject of great interest when I walked in to class. I was scared to speak in Urdu and everyone was in awe of this random English speaking girl, with fancy lunches (that would eventually run out and I would be then given 10 rupees a day to spend) in a pink bubblegum jacket who had landed directly from Kazakhstan. That in itself is a story.
Do not rent out your house: Actually never rent your house. Especially if you had it built for yourself. Never hand it over to tenants. Get an extra job and pay your bills. Our respected tenant was a gentleman who worked with the British Tobacco Company (Pakistani wing) and the condition in which he left the house was nothing less than an abandoned nightclub. His pool table had been drilled right in to the floors of our beloved basement, not built for this purpose. They had disco lights in our dining room and I can only imagine what was going on back in the 90’s in Islamabad for our house to be used for. The house just didn’t feel new the way it should have for us.
Be aware of sectarian differences and teach your kids: Muharram came along and I had no idea on what the difference between Sunnis and Shias was or what it even meant to have sects. Those were my pure days but when Muharram began, I really didn’t understand anything. Ami introduced these concepts to me eventually but only when they we were right in the middle of it all. Learning about the Karbala was a major awakening for me at the age of 9. No doubt the story is a lesson and painful so what I took away from it immediately was significant – just not knowing why our neighbors had huge gatherings during the month of Muharram was an initial learning and how to address this with classmates was another.
Do not drive to Daman – e – Koh at night: I will never expand on this story.
Things to always abide by in 2000. Remain loyal to the original United Bakery.
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