Dear Pakistan Read online

  Endorsements for Dear Pakistan

  a CBCA Notable Book

  Terrific that you are writing a story around this theme [of third culture kids]. This updates the Dyers attempts back in the 1980s and 1990s. Look forward to reading Dear Pakistan. This will be an invaluable addition to the literature. Will circulate in the missions community in Australia and beyond.

  David Turnbull, Senior Lecturer in Intercultural Studies

  In an incredibly unique and yet genuine and readable way this book gives insight into cross-cultural work, some of the challenges encountered, and – I have discovered – can really help people as well as be an enjoyable read. I especially have recommended it to teens & young adults who have been involved or will be involved themselves cross-culturally, or who are children of cross-cultural workers. I say this not only from the experience of others but also my own.

  Sean Boucher, WEC International

  Rosanne Hawke often writes movingly of relocation. She is able to engage the feelings of the reader as the main character goes through the trauma of separation and removal.

  Fran Knight, Magpies

  The strong character of Jaime will strike a chord with many teenagers who may feel they don’t belong.

  Tina Cavanough, Magpies

  A beautifully crafted story and a memorable read.

  Pegi Williams

  This is the first book I have seen written from the perspective of a thoughtful girl who after learning to fit into an alien society has to go through the same process in her own. It’s fascinating.

  H Nowicka, Reading Time

  A clever twist on the now well-worn theme of immigrant experience.

  John Murray, Magpies

  Dear Pakistan

  Published by Rhiza Press

  PO BOX 1519

  Capalaba QLD 4157

  Australia

  © Rosanne Hawke, 2016

  Cover Design by Rhiza Press and Production Works

  Layout by Rhiza Press

  First edition published by Albatross Books, 1995.

  Second edition published by Lothian books, 2003.

  Third edition published by Rhiza Press, 2016.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Creator:Hawke, Rosanne, author.

  Title:Dear Pakistan / Rosanne Hawke.

  ISBN:9781925139563(ebook:epub)

  Series:Hawke, Rosanne. Beyond borders ; 1.

  Target Audience:For young adults.

  Subjects:Australians--Pakistan--Fiction.

  Women--Pakistan--Fiction.

  Pakistan--Social life and customs--Fiction.

  Australia--Social life and customs--Fiction.

  Dewey Number:A823.3

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Dear Pakistan

  Rosanne Hawke

  For all third culture kids,

  especially Lenore, Michael and Emma

  1

  I knew I was in Australia when I noticed all the legs—men’s legs! I never thought there could be so many variations: short, long, muscled, knobbly-kneed. Then there were the hairy ones. I think the thick curly red hairs fascinated me the most, that is, until Mum caught me staring.

  ‘Jaime!’ She looked shocked for a second, then grinned. ‘Quite a sight, isn’t it? I’m sorry, I forgot to warn you about the shorts. Men here wear them all the time in summer.’

  The shocks didn’t stop there. Meeting everyone in the airport lounge was like an elephant stampede. People whom I’d never met before called me by my name and hugged me—even the guys! Mum kept trying to introduce people.

  ‘This is Aunty Pat, don’t you remember? And this is your cousin John. Hasn’t he grown?’ Cousin John even kissed me! I managed to wipe it off when he wasn’t looking. I think it’s disgusting to kiss someone when you don’t even know if they want you to or not.

  Maybe Mum could see me begin to wilt, for she managed to steer us all out to the cars that were there to collect us. One was Papa’s. He’s our grandfather and I remembered him as he visited us in Pakistan. Poor Dad was still in a daze and my younger brother and sister managed to get pushed along like seaweed before a tide.

  I can’t even remember who got into the car with us, just that they talked a lot. I couldn’t help thinking how clean everything was and what an orderly way everyone drove, with no horns blaring. It was like stepping onto another planet in a science fiction novel. Then I stopped thinking things like that. It made me feel guilty, as though I was being disloyal to Pakistan.

  In no time we were at Mama’s and Papa’s. All I felt like doing was falling asleep and I could tell the rest of us felt the same but there were so many people. Some I remembered vaguely from photos and from coming back for my Aunty’s wedding a few years before. They all seemed so pleased to see us. I know this sounds awful, but I got so sick of hearing, ‘And this is Jaime? My word, quite the young lady now. And what do you think of Australia?’

  And before I could say anything, even if I could think of anything (which I couldn’t), they’d asked the next question, ‘Do you miss Pakistan?’

  What did they expect! I’d only been here an hour. I caught Mum watching me anxiously, so I just nodded and smiled. (Though I felt as smiley as a leopard about to pounce.) It was better when we moved into our own house in Salisbury. We used to live here years ago before we went to Pakistan and before Elly was born. The fishponds that Mum said I used to play in as a toddler were still there. Lots of people visited when we first moved back. Mum and Dad sure had heaps of friends. They were all so kind, but I never knew what to say and they always asked the wrong questions. The easiest one was: ‘Why have you come back to Adelaide?’ I knew the answer to that at least: ‘Because I needed to finish high school here to get into uni, and my grandparents were missing us.’

  I guess I kept trying to find something familiar and couldn’t. There were eucalyptus trees like we had at home in Pakistan, and everyone drove on the left side of the road, but there the similarities ended. The neighbours here kept to themselves; girls wore short skirts, not to mention the guys’ shorts!

  One afternoon, Dad took us kids to the beach. That’s one thing he’d missed in Pakistan. There was a young couple rolling around and kissing in the sand. I could hardly rip my eyes away, even though I was shocked. Dad was pretty disgusted, and bundled us back to the car, saying he must have been away from Australia longer than he thought. He made it sound as if the kids were doing something new. In Pakistan, the women cover up and if anyone did anything like that in public they’d most probably get whipped.

  We’d only been home a week before school started and I wasn’t looking forward to it. In Pakistan I’d gone to a co-ed international boarding school. I’d had so much fun, most of which was had after school hours. There was no way I could see how a private day school could compare with it.

  This is what I wrote in my journal that first week.

  Dear Journal

  Dear Diary

  Dear Pakistan

  I’m going to write to you like I wrote to my diary last year. Mum says it helps to write everything that you feel so I can’t think of anyone better to write it to than you. For you see, you are everything I miss and that I’ve left behind: my school, my friends—I miss Ayesha and Liana and Jasper so much. I also miss you too, dear Pakistan: your people, your mountains (there’s not one in sight here) and the excitement in the air
that was just you. Don’t worry, I’ll be back as soon as I get enough money saved up.

  Jameela

  P.S. It’s so weird here. The men wear

  shorts all the time, even down the street and to church! You’d puke for sure!

  P.P.S. Mum’s picked up a stray kitten already. She’s called it Basil, yet again. It’s got one of those fluffy tails like the last Basil she adopted in Abbottabad.

  2

  I knew things weren’t going too well at school when the third teacher made a smart comment about my nose pin. I didn’t remember any of our family friends at the airport making comments, but maybe they’d been warned.

  ‘Is that to lead you around by?’ some little snot said at recess time. I didn’t answer and walked on towards the canteen with what I hoped was a confident ‘I’ve been here before’ look on my face.

  I did answer the girl who sat by me in maths, though. Her name was Sara.

  ‘Why do you have a nose pin?’ she asked.

  She sounded as if she’d like one too, so I told her. ‘In Pakistan, almost all the girls have it done, usually when they’re about thirteen, but always before they’re married. That’s so they can wear the gold kokar in their nose, a chain goes across their cheek and up into their hair.’

  After the first sentence, I could tell Sara didn’t want to hear any more. I don’t know why I kept going. Guess I just wanted someone to understand.

  ‘I had it done in the local gold shop in the bazaar where we lived. The jeweller made the hole with a piece of silver that he’d sharpened. He poured aftershave all over my nose first and then he stuck it in. I nearly fainted, especially when he couldn’t get it straight through the first time.’

  The look of incredulous horror on Sara’s face stayed with me for quite a while afterwards. She didn’t ask me another personal question for months.

  Lunchtime got worse. After the first ‘What school did you go to?’ and my answer, ‘I went to a boarding school in Pakistan …’ that was it. They’d jump in with what they saw on paid TV the night before, which really left me in the woods, because we didn’t have much TV in Pakistan, certainly not Australian shows. So how was I to know who the Neighbours were or that Big Brother wasn’t a sci-fi thriller? It sounded like one.

  I shouldn’t have tried to enter into the conversation, until I knew more. I know it sounds over the top but I felt as if I did know more than them. Maybe not about TV shows, but about things that matter. Yet the more mistakes I made, and the more they made fun of me, the more I felt as though I was the one in the wrong.

  When the conversation moved onto movies, it was no better. Girls didn’t go to the movies in Pakistan, and although the boarding school had showed movies Friday nights, they were very ‘family orientated’ and rarely recent releases. I was totally left out of the conversation and no one made an effort to draw me in. One girl even glanced at me as if I were up myself and I hadn’t even opened my mouth.

  Mum was in the kitchen when I got home from school. She gave me a big hug.

  ‘How was it?’ she asked with that look on her face as if she knew already.

  ‘It was the pits. They all think Pakistan is part of India. One kid actually called me the new girl from Africa. And …’ Here I launched into a few of the things that really did confuse me. Let Mum work out which ones bothered me the most. ‘You should have heard the way they talk about their boyfriends. They all seem to have one and all they can think about is if he’s ‘cool’ or got muscles and plays some sort of sport. I asked one girl if her boyfriend was kind and understood what she thought about.’ I stopped for a breath.

  ‘What did she say?’ Mum actually sounded interested.

  ‘She couldn’t answer. It was like she’d never thought about it before, like “Why get that serious?” They even sleep with them. And you know what else?’

  Mum raised her eyebrows. I knew she was just expecting more along the lines of ‘sleeping with’. That hadn’t seemed to bother her as much as I thought it would, but I knew I’d get her on this one. ‘There’s a condom machine in the toilet.’

  With satisfaction, I saw Mum’s jaw sag slightly before she controlled herself. She’s usually unshockable, but I like to see how far she’ll tolerate things.

  ‘This is Australia.’ I did an exaggerated bow. ‘The land of the free. You don’t get thrown into jail for what you believe here but it seems you can do whatever else you like. No rules.’

  ‘There must be some,’ Mum murmured, placating me now. She didn’t need to worry, I wasn’t about to change my rule system overnight. ‘You’ll have to listen harder. Don’t say anything about yourself until you’re asked—just listen.’

  I stared at her, standing there, tea towel in hand. It was almost as though she’d been at school with me. ‘How’d you know they didn’t want to hear where I’d been?’

  She turned on the oven. ‘I’ve been down to the shops today and run into some people we knew. It’s the same in any age group. We’ve come into their scene, Jaime. They like to call the shots. We just have to wait until someone is interested. All our close family and friends are, of course. But don’t expect too much from the kids at school for a while. They’ve never travelled. They just don’t understand.’

  I gave Mum a quick hug. Andrew came in then and by the look on his face, I knew he must have felt like me. He most probably wouldn’t tell Mum, though. He was the quiet type who hated to make a fuss. He’d get a hug, maybe longer than usual if he needed it, and then say everything was fine. I retreated to my bedroom. I didn’t want to help Mum draw anything out of Andrew. I had enough to think about myself.

  My little sister, Elly, was already in there.

  ‘Who said you could come in my room?’ I started in on the big-sister act until she burst into tears.

  ‘The … the kids don’t like me at school,’ she managed between sobs.

  ‘I think that makes three of us,’ I murmured.

  ‘What?’ Elly was blowing her nose on my Winnie the Pooh tissues.

  ‘Never mind.’ I moved the box further away. ‘What did they say?’

  Elly swallowed down a sob. ‘They swore all the time.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I guess the kids I was talking with swore too, but I didn’t take much notice. What they were talking about seemed so much worse. I stood staring at her with her eyes all puffy and her French braid messed up. She was such a sweet kid. She had one of those brains that computed everything into certain boxes so she saw everything in black and white, wrong and right.

  ‘It was so awful, Jammie (she’d called me that since she was a baby). ‘They said I talked weird. I don’t know why … they’re the ones that sound funny.’ She blew her nose again. ‘Then a girl said that people who go against the school uniform rules and wear jewellery are just trying to get attention. Were they talking about you?’

  I shrugged; it was possible. I knew that to have something extra on your face just to make a statement when it wasn’t your culture could be pretty dumb. Instantly, I felt a prickling behind my eyes. Was that why the girls were so unfriendly, why they seemed to look strangely at me? Did they think I had something to prove? I think I could take it if people didn’t like me because I was different, but to be misunderstood? Now that was the pits!

  Elly was staring at me. ‘Since we’re pretty abnormal right now,’ I said, ‘I think I’d feel sorry for anyone if they felt like this.’

  ‘I hate this school.’ Elly sniffed. ‘I wish we could go back to Pakistan. There’s no one here like Mary Jane.’

  ‘You know we can’t. Just give yourself more time.’ I sounded just like Mum when all I wanted was someone to say it to me. ‘It’s only the first day.’

  Mum had said that Elly would adjust the quickest since she was the youngest. Maybe she just needed something to cheer her up. ‘Look, I’ll take you down to the shops. Would y
ou like that?’

  Her eyes grew rounder than Basil’s when I put his food bowl down. ‘Yeah!’

  We’d all liked shopping in Pakistan with its sense-enriching effect of sight, sound, smell and touch. Looking back on it now, it was always such a total experience—like Central Market and the Adelaide Show rolled into one—where everyone knew us.

  Parabanks Shopping Centre was nothing like it. All look and no touch, rows of shelves and merchandise with no one saying, ‘Come in and buy, have a cup of tea while you choose.’ No haggling over the price of shoelaces. I bought Elly an ice-cream at Wendy’s. It said three dollars seventy on the board and I asked if three dollars would do. The girl behind the counter got upset over that and I made a mental note not to do it again.

  It was just after that when Elly saw the Teddy Bear Shop. At first it was fun—we looked at all the bears in the window, saying things like, ‘I’ll have that one!’, ‘No, that one’s better’, ‘I’d call that one “Pooh” if he were mine.’ All the normal things I presume people say in front of a teddy bear store window. Then we went inside. Elly picked up a little bear. ‘I like this one,’ she said. Then she ran to another. ‘No, this one’s more fluffy.’

  Suddenly, I didn’t know what she was doing. It had all been a game before. But now? Did she think I was going to buy her a bear? They weren’t cheap. ‘Elly! Calm down.’ I hurried over and there we were, surrounded by hundreds of bears, all cute, all gorgeous, all lovable and all too expensive. Elly looked weird and I was growing worried when all of a sudden she began to howl. Not just normal tears, but gut-shuddering, sobbing-type howling. The sort that you need to be out in the woods for. I held her tight right in the middle of the shop. It must have looked like some little kid having a tantrum because she couldn’t have a bear, but Elly’s not like that.

  ‘There are so many,’ she sobbed into my new T-shirt. ‘They’re so beautiful, but there’s too … too many.’

  I knew then what had happened in her little head and felt so sorry. Sorry that her brain couldn’t compute a hundred bears at once, sorry that she’d never seen a shop like it before, sorry that she had to feel something was wrong because she was unable to cope with the hugeness of it all.