Finally in Karachi! The airport was a maze of people. Suffocating heat greeted us as we got out of the airport and I immediately felt hot and sticky. My children looked around with amazement. They had never seen so many people before. People just stood outside the airport, presumably waiting for someone. But it always seemed like there were more people there than there needed to be. I loved it. I spent much of my time alone in my home in the States. And this felt so amazing. So alive! And so familiar.
My childhood home was in a noisy neighborhood with three mosques within close proximity. Every day, five times a day, the mullahs would do the azan (call for prayers) so it would become especially loud at times when one mosque‘s sounds were almost drowning out another‘s. One could constantly hear children outside playing, cars honking, rickshaws churning, vendors selling their wares. Loneliness was not an option.
I didn’t sleep at all my first night back home. I stayed awake listening to every sound with great relish and hunger. These are the sounds I dreamt about every night in my home in Wisconsin. I heard the age old sound of the night watchman’s whistle. He walked through the streets at night blowing on a jarring whistle to warn us that he was guarding our streets. You could hear him slowly come closer and closer and then fade away into the night.
I heard the sound of a baby goat’s high pitched bleating in the street behind our house. One of our neighbors had purchased a baby goat who lived on his front sidewalk. He had also purchased a rooster and some chickens that lived in a small cage, next to the baby goat. Why, in the middle of a busy city, were there farm animals? Because this was Pakistan. That was the beauty of Pakistan. You never knew what you would find next. And that was also the most disconcerting thing about Pakistan.
There was a pack of stray dogs in the recreational ground in front of our house. I had forgotten about them. They would stand in the middle of the grounds and howl at the moon. They stayed out of sight during the day, but you could clearly see them at night. They would take turns howling and then congregate together importantly. A pack of mismatched mongrels, holding a private meeting in the moonlight.
And then I heard the azan. It is hard to describe how beautiful it sounds in the early morning. A sound from far away entering into the depth of our sleepy consciousness. I remembered the walks I used to take with my father at this time of the morning. He would wake me up before sunrise, back in the day when Karachi was a safe place, when we could not have imagined suicide bombings and unprovoked violence. He would make me tea and I still remember it was the only time I ever had tea on an empty stomach. The caffeine would wake me up instantly and I would quickly get ready and take his hand and walk up to the hills near my house. We would walk to the highest peak of the hills and my father would always say how the time before dawn was the most magical time of the day and people believed if you breathed this air, you would always remain healthy and pure. We would see a Chinese couple doing exercises that I now know to be tai chi.
The world would be stirring gently and in slow motion. My father and I would breathe deeply and stretch our arms high above our heads, feeling free and weightless. Then when we heard the morning azan signaling to us that the sun had risen, we would watch the sun slowly appear in a blaze of red and orange, and then head back home. Within an hour the sun would have taken over the sky and there was nothing more to feel but sticky, sticky heat.
I lay in bed remembering those days. The bliss of childhood. My beautiful father for teaching me how to savor those moments that only he and I shared. I finally fell asleep, exhausted with the range of emotions I had experienced over the past two days of travel. I was finally home!
My childhood home was in a noisy neighborhood with three mosques within close proximity. Every day, five times a day, the mullahs would do the azan (call for prayers) so it would become especially loud at times when one mosque‘s sounds were almost drowning out another‘s. One could constantly hear children outside playing, cars honking, rickshaws churning, vendors selling their wares. Loneliness was not an option.
I didn’t sleep at all my first night back home. I stayed awake listening to every sound with great relish and hunger. These are the sounds I dreamt about every night in my home in Wisconsin. I heard the age old sound of the night watchman’s whistle. He walked through the streets at night blowing on a jarring whistle to warn us that he was guarding our streets. You could hear him slowly come closer and closer and then fade away into the night.
I heard the sound of a baby goat’s high pitched bleating in the street behind our house. One of our neighbors had purchased a baby goat who lived on his front sidewalk. He had also purchased a rooster and some chickens that lived in a small cage, next to the baby goat. Why, in the middle of a busy city, were there farm animals? Because this was Pakistan. That was the beauty of Pakistan. You never knew what you would find next. And that was also the most disconcerting thing about Pakistan.
There was a pack of stray dogs in the recreational ground in front of our house. I had forgotten about them. They would stand in the middle of the grounds and howl at the moon. They stayed out of sight during the day, but you could clearly see them at night. They would take turns howling and then congregate together importantly. A pack of mismatched mongrels, holding a private meeting in the moonlight.
And then I heard the azan. It is hard to describe how beautiful it sounds in the early morning. A sound from far away entering into the depth of our sleepy consciousness. I remembered the walks I used to take with my father at this time of the morning. He would wake me up before sunrise, back in the day when Karachi was a safe place, when we could not have imagined suicide bombings and unprovoked violence. He would make me tea and I still remember it was the only time I ever had tea on an empty stomach. The caffeine would wake me up instantly and I would quickly get ready and take his hand and walk up to the hills near my house. We would walk to the highest peak of the hills and my father would always say how the time before dawn was the most magical time of the day and people believed if you breathed this air, you would always remain healthy and pure. We would see a Chinese couple doing exercises that I now know to be tai chi.
The world would be stirring gently and in slow motion. My father and I would breathe deeply and stretch our arms high above our heads, feeling free and weightless. Then when we heard the morning azan signaling to us that the sun had risen, we would watch the sun slowly appear in a blaze of red and orange, and then head back home. Within an hour the sun would have taken over the sky and there was nothing more to feel but sticky, sticky heat.
I lay in bed remembering those days. The bliss of childhood. My beautiful father for teaching me how to savor those moments that only he and I shared. I finally fell asleep, exhausted with the range of emotions I had experienced over the past two days of travel. I was finally home!
Wow - great read - brings back a lot of memories :)
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