Pakistan is not as trouble-stricken a place as it would seem to most westerners
From a base in Pakistan’s capital, Jehangir Azam and Alexander Wellerdt have travelled south to Badin, Sindh, through the hills to Mashera, north of Islamabad, with plenty of stops in between.
Jehangir, a Briton of Pakistani origin, and Alexander, hailing from Germany, are spending eight weeks of their summer holidays in Pakistan, interning at the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD). Both are university students in their respective countries, who came to Pakistan in order to better understand Pakistan’s culture, people and developmental challenges. “I wanted to combine social work with a personal experience,” says Alexander, “I wanted to see a different culture and a different way of living. The landscape has been a pleasant bonus. It is so beautiful and diverse here. In Europe you can see mountains, forests or rivers, but rarely all together like they are in Pakistan. It’s an amazing scene.”
For Jehangir, working with the NCHD in Pakistan was a way to give back to his country of origin, at the same time better understanding where he came from. He feels a strong connection with Pakistan, though he was born and bred in the UK, and would like to return here permanently some day. “There’s something in me that wants me to stay here,” he explains, “something that knows it’s my homeland.”
As a successful overseas Pakistani who has returned to his homeland, NCHD chairman, Dr Nasim Ashraf, is an inspiration to Jehangir. “I have a lot of respect for someone who gives up a comfortable life in the West to make a contribution here. He is a real beacon in the darkness.”
Both young men found involvement with the NCHD to be an ideal lens through which to understand development in Pakistan. With programmes in health, literacy and education located throughout the country, they were able to see many aspects of development through their involvement with this one independent commission.
“The people working with NCHD programmes in the rural villages were amazing,” said Alexander. “They are the real soldiers of development. I met women who had been illiterate, but now could read, write, and were teaching others. They had been given a chance and wanted to pass that on to others.”
Jehangir echoed this sentiment: “NCHD had trained teachers and placed them in government schools. Their commitment and skill level was amazing. They really knew how to reach the students in a creative way. In one school, there was a little girl who was deaf and dumb. The teacher would communicate with her by writing on the board, and students do the same. That little girl turned out to be the brightest and hardest working of them all.”
Pakistani hospitality made an impression on both boys, along with an openness and tolerance that stands in marked contrast to the stereotypes many westerners hold. “Even though I am Pakistani, because of my accent, and clothes, I am obviously an outsider,” explained Jehangir. “I wondered how people would treat me, especially in the rural places. But everyone was really open, I was never given a feeling like I didn’t belong.”
“People I was meeting for the first time treated me like family,” added Alexander. “At a village on a mountain top, with no facilities, electricity, even running water, the people still did everything they could to make me comfortable.
“In Attock, I took part in a meeting which the NCHD had organized, mobilizing people in the community to support education. This was their first meeting in this village, and people were saying that they didn’t see the importance of education. They had worked in the fields all their lives, so had their parents, and they thought children should start working to earn money as soon as possible. I spoke up (through a translator) and said that through education they could improve their living conditions and move towards a better life. At first, they seemed surprised that the foreigner was speaking out like that. But they really listened. Even if they didn’t come to agree, they had tolerance for my opinion, and that is the first step ... later they gave me a glass of warm buffalo milk. We don’t have that in Germany and I liked it even better than cow’s milk.”
One thing surprised both travellers, even Jehangir, who has been to Pakistan several times before. In a rural school in Manshera, where the NCHD had trained and placed several teachers, both young men stopped short at the sight of a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy, crouched on the floor with the other students. “I knew that Pakistanis could be fair,” added Jehangir, “but he looks positively European.”
In addition to unravelling stereotypes about Pakistan, Jehahgir corrected some misinformation Pakistanis hold about their counterparts overseas. “People I met here think that Pakistanis in the UK are completely westernized, that when we turn 18 we move out of our parents house, that sort of thing. But its not true at all. In fact, Pakistanis over there are even more reluctant to change then people here. Among Asians in the UK, I have met more people who are very religious, praying five times a day, than I have here.”
As big as the shift from Europe to Pakistan is the change that occurs between Pakistan’s cities and its rural areas. “Islamabad does not seem to represent Pakistan at all,” said Jehangir. “So much money is poured into it, and it caters so much to foreigners, it doesn’t seem real.” And the rural areas are where the real work of development is happening. “You can’t change something if the people don’t participate,” explained Alexander. “I think the NCHD is doing great work because they really involve the people at grassroots. The NCHD guides and directs ground-level change in a good way, showing people it is not destiny to live uneducated in some feudal system.”
Alexander hopes to return to Pakistan someday. “I see something growing here, that the NCHD is starting to make real change. I hope to come back and see what it has achieved, how development has progressed. There is so much potential in the human capital of Pakistan, I think something can really come of that.”
Standing on a dusty street in Manshera, overlooking the hills smattered with rural settlements, Alexander and Jehangir near the end of their odyssey through Pakistan. The have come to know so much about each other, to know and love a country that was, at least for one of them, only recently a stranger. Alexander sums up their observations of life in Pakistan, applied also to the personal relationships they have built here: “People survive by leaning on one another. In Europe, life and culture is easy but often superficial. In Pakistan, family and friends matter more. Life can be so hard here, living conditions so uncomfortable, but there is a profound sense of relations help people survive. To see that has been the most meaningful thing of all.”
From a base in Pakistan’s capital, Jehangir Azam and Alexander Wellerdt have travelled south to Badin, Sindh, through the hills to Mashera, north of Islamabad, with plenty of stops in between.
