Back Pak - Returning to Pakistan

I have very fond memories of growing up and visiting Pakistan as a kid. Now that I'm an adult, I'm about to get a real glimpse of the place I used to call home. I knew this trip would expose some extraordinary things, but I would have never imagined how intense things were about to get. From hospital beds and city streets to mountain tops and hotel sheets, I was born and reborn over and over again.

I walked down a large hospital corridor in the northeast city of Quetta, Pakistan. I was exposed one by one to men in a dire state of pain and discomfort. A man laid on his hospital bed with his leg held up in a sling, covered in a bandage. His face winced in pain as a doctor examined the other wound on his arm. In another room, there's a man with a bandage wrapped around his head, holding his young children in his arms as if this was the last time he would see them. A woman stood in one room talking to an official-looking man in a white coat with a burning cigarette in his mouth.

I took a deep breath as we got ready to make a turnaround another corridor. At that moment, I saw something that will forever be engraved in my memory.

I saw a young child with a severed arm wrapped in bandages. He was shirtless, and the burn marks on his back looked fresh and raw. An older man escorted him down a different corridor as he yelled in pain. I stopped walking, my heart started to sink slowly, and I felt a terrible feeling of grief rush over my body. I asked my uncle where the patients in this hospital had come from.

"Most of these patients are from Afghanistan," he said as he guided me towards the elevator. I was speechless, and for the remainder of our time in that hospital, I didn't say a word. I just nodded or shook my head when I was asked a question. I didn't know how to comprehend what had just happened.

As a person who had only heard about the tragedies happening to the refugees in Afghanistan on the Tv screens or radios, I was not prepared for what I had just experienced. For the first time in my life, I felt like I knew absolutely nothing about the world, and my naivety was highlighted throughout this whole trip. This visit was only a couple of days into a 30-day journey that was spiritually and emotionally one of the most difficult months of my life.

To be a stranger in a foreign country is one thing, but to be a stranger in the country of your forefathers is a completely different experience.

Only a few days prior, I had landed in the airport of Quetta. My father was born in this region of Pakistan and would frequently revisit to help our relatives and the region's people with whom he still felt very connected. He needed assistance on this trip because he was getting older and asked me to come along as a helping hand. I wasn't too excited about the prospect when I was first asked. I had been working as a retail manager, recently moved into a new apartment in Orange Country, and for all intents and purposes, I had a pretty steady life going for me. But like many people who find themselves waking up in the morning to the sound of an alarm and a routine that has become cumbersome and overly mundane, I wanted something more. I hoped that this trip would reignite the fire in my soul and hopefully bring about a change in my life that I clearly wasn't found in California.

That first day I walked off the airplane, I was immediately hit with a dry and unrelenting heatwave. Walking into the airport and immediately being greeted by men with AK-47 rifles slung around their shoulders, and a perplexed look of "who the fuck are you" was also not very comforting to my already bubbling cocktail of paranoia, anxiety, and fear. I couldn't have been more of a mess, scared, and thoroughly convinced that I would not get back to LAX in one piece.

Nevertheless, we trudge on. Just outside the airport's doors was a man cooly leaning against his beat-up white Suzuki Mehran coup. This man was a family friend and someone whom I remember very fondly from my childhood. His warm smile and cheerful attitude was something that would make a weary traveler who had just endured a 20 hour trip across the world feel welcome.

The streets there have no rules, no lights, and the cars had no seat belts to make the experience more exciting. We weaved through the streets, passing carts being pulled by donkeys, rickshaws, buses, and the occasional heard of sheep that had veered away from the group. The streets were lined with vendors selling all kinds of fruits and vegetables, raw meat, and cheaply made Chinese watches and sunglasses. The scents were invigorating. Motorcycle exhaust and fried samosas and pakora infused with spices and chilies. It smelled so familiar to my years here as a youth and very different from any of the aromas in Orange County. In the midst of all that was the overwhelming smell of open sewage and trash that lined every crevasse of the desert-like landscape. I was in Pakistan, and boy, did it feel strange to be back.

Getting used to the conditions wasn't easy at first, but over time it became a part of who I was, like the warm glow on my face when I would step outside or the mosquito bites that would never go away. I couldn't drink the water due to any bacteria and viruses that would destroy my immune system. The heat was brutal. Mid-summer in the Middle East is a tragic love affair of continuous sweat and exhaustion. The average temperature in the afternoon was around 110 to 120. The electricity went out every couple of hours. That would result in all the fans going out all at once, and you quickly started melting away as you tried to figure out how one can endure sleeping in these conditions. I had no access to the internet in the house and, therefore, no connection to the outside world. I was quickly reminded of how comfortable my life in America was and how much of a pompous asshole I was by complaining about the situation. I learned to keep my mouth shut, my head on a swivel, and my opinions to myself.

It took about a week of upset stomachs, terrible insomnia, and pounding headaches to feel like I was finally accustomed to the conditions. I was finally ready to venture out into the wild.

By the wild, I am referring to the streets of Pakistan. First, never run when you're crossing the street. Cars will not stop, and you got to just slowly walk across as if getting hit isn't a big deal

 Either way, insurance doesn't exist, and if you get hit, tough luck. Secondly, everyone has a gun. Get used to this, and you will have

 a much easier time asking for directions or trying to find the local pharmacy. Literally, every single store, no matter how big or small, has at least one man with a gun standing in front of it. This is not to intimidate or scare you, it's for the safety of the people. There's a reason for everything. Lastly, people are kind and warm-hearted if you treat them with respect. Everyone will greet you with a warm, "Assalamualaikum," to which you should reply, "walaikumassalam." That is Arabic for "peace be unto you," and "and unto you peace," respectfully. This was such a contrast to the ubiquitous standard of practice on the streets of Orange County, which consists of staring at the ground and avoiding any and every stranger that shares the street with you.

We decided to visit my father's friend at a local hospital during the first couple of weeks. That was how I ended up in that hospital in Quetta. As we walked up to the elevator that would be taking us to the third floor in the hospital, I could still hear the sounds of screams fading away in the distance below us. The man who was running the elevator had to manually open and shut the door. This couldn't have been the safest elevator, but at this point, I did not give a shit about the safety conditions. I was merely trying to comprehend what was taking place before my eyes. We spent the next few hours chatting with my father's friend and walking around the hospital. I would walk slowly behind my father and his friends as they would peer into different rooms, greet the doctors, and marvel at how the medical equipment and service have been improved over the years. I never became numb to the sight of bandages, the exam rooms, and the screams. My uncle looked over at me and put his hands around my shoulder.

"Before they built this hospital, there was no help for the thousands of people here; now they have a vital resource. Hope," he said.

But the experience that for me encapsulates everything about this trip was the day I visited a holiday resort called Ziarat, located about 70 miles northeast of Quetta. At this the point, I was still very much apprehensive, scared, and intimidated by this country and by the prospect of traveling so far away from where I was staying.

But I remember that morning very well. My dad's friend had sent his eldest son, a tall young man with short black hair combed upwards, to pick me up. I took a seat in the car and awkwardly fidgeted with my camera for a few seconds before realizing that I should attempt to make conversation with my gracious host. I asked if he liked football (soccer). To me, this was a comfortable and safe topic as it didn't involve religion or politics. I was personally a massive fan of an English team out of London by the name of Chelsea. He didn't know this, and I had made no previous indication on the matter. But without even taking a second to think, he replied, "I'm a huge Chelsea fan," to which I was immediately shocked and in awe of how crazy the coincidence was. It's fair to say that the car ride up to their house was enjoyable, eye-opening, and comforting all at once.

To some, it may seem like a trivial and somewhat dumb thing to point out, but for me, at that moment, I had realized that we were very similar. He enjoyed rap music, watched movies and Tv shows that I loved, and even understood what it was like to be a college student with no real idea of what to do. He was my friend, the kind of friend that you meet and immediately felt like you must have been friends in a past life.

But for me, more than anything else, I felt like I was looking at myself if I had never left this country and moved to America.

About an hour later, we had finally made it to Ziarat. There were juniper trees everywhere, although most were very dry and about to die. Sheep and goats walked along the pathway that led up to a massive structure of two pillars that overlooked a beautiful valley in the distance. As we parked, so did another vehicle filled with men from another part of Quetta. They walked with us as we climbed up the somewhat steep trail leading to the top. There were dry brush and bushes that lined the pathway. Goats would rush by and grab some brush to eat and then quickly jump back into the valley of trees below. There was graffiti on almost every rock that we passed, political parties, and sayings in Urdu that I couldn't understand.

When we finally arrived at the top, I was left speechless and bewildered by the view. It was absolutely beautiful. A tall mountain to my left looked like El Capitan in Yosemite, and below me was a giant valley of trees and small mountains. I started taking pictures of the view, the mountain to my right, and the people who joined us on the journey up. Suddenly I wasn't scared anymore. I felt comfortable. I felt like I was one of them. I was just as Pakistani as every other man standing on that mountain.

That moment marked for me the single greatest epiphany I had ever had. I realized that I was focusing too deeply on our differences and what divided us. I was afraid of being seen as an outsider, and I was scared of not belonging when all along, I was always a part of this country, and I would always have a place to stand on this mountain top.

The car's moment started something that would eventually lead me to walk up the mountain with a complete group of strangers and share with a moment that couldn't be taken away.

Pakistan is generally not a place that brings up positive and happy thoughts in the mind of most Westerners and trusts me; I was very much one of those "Westerners." But after spending 30 days amongst the people of Pakistan, I have a newfound respect for the people of this country and region.

This country was formed on a very shaky foundation due to the British government deciding to divide India. This country has been plagued with corruption, violence, and rampant poverty. The people of this country have gone through a lot and have endured so much. I have seen first-hand what people can endure, what people are willing to sacrifice, and how loving they can be to strangers. That hospital that I visited absolutely traumatized me initially, but later I saw it as a beacon of hope for thousands of Afghani refugees. That man that picked us up from the airport wasn't rich but gave up everything that he was doing to help us every day. Every person that I walked past on the street greeted me and put their hand over their heart as if to say that we were family.

This isn't meant to be a story encouraging you to pack your bags and fly to Pakistan, this is simply a reminder that not all preconceived notions are fact, that we are a lot more similar than we think. This may be a wake-up call for you to get out of your comfort zone and truly see the world through a different lens. I hope you can one day experience what I have gone through, and I hope you have a life-changing experience that makes you more aware of how similar we all really are.

There's a big beautiful world out there filled with some of the most amazing people who are waiting for you to stop by and say hello. I hope to see you out there.