Chapter 3: Little House on the Punjab

 


CHAPTER THREE

Little House on the Punjab

August 5, 2001

Lahore, Pakistan

We woke up the next morning refreshed and with the realization that we were officially residents of Lahore. With the food poisoning behind me, we only had to cope with jet lag. The school’s schedule gave us several free days to acclimate to the new time zone.

Our day was spent exploring our new, furnished house. It took only ten minutes to unpack our three suitcases and toiletries. That left the rest of the day to relax, make plans, and read through the information that the school left us.

I studied the map of Lahore intently for I was determined to learn my way around the city of over six million people. And my studies paid off for I knew every region and it’s general location. The main roads and highways were like the veins on the back of my hand. I knew Lahore as if I was born there.

Later, I was told that the map was totally inaccurate and I never did regain my bearings. Who makes and publishes inaccurate maps? In fact, very little was correct. It must have been a government agency map.

I spent the year relying on Dana to guide me. She became Chewbacca to my Han Solo.

Our landlords lived above us. We knew that because we heard their young son running around constantly. We never saw them except for the time they took us out for Chinese food, where they impressed us as very kind people. I was unsure of where they parked or how they even got upstairs.

Like most middle to uppe-rclass homes in our suburb of Gulberg, the house had a high brick wall surrounding the yard. If I stood on my tiptoes, I was able to see over the wall and view our neighbour’s palatial yard and house. A dirt back lane bordered the other side of our yard.

Broken shards of glass were cemented to the top of the wall. The glass was a common security measure in the neighbourhood. A solid metal, black gate guarded the driveway. It swung easy for the chowkidars who rushed to open or close the gate for us.

A carport helped to shield the van from the elements. To the left, sat a large rounded wooden Hobbit-like door that lead to a hallway.

The interior of the house was nice but dated. Grey tile floors ran throughout the house. Two large bedrooms each had their own private bathroom and lots of closet space. Each bedroom had a double bed, a table, and a couple of reclining chairs.

Neither bedroom had a tub, only a shower curtain with a sloped floor leading to a drain.

There was a large library/family room and an older looking kitchen. A door led to the washer and dryer outside. Geckoes crawled between fan blades above the door to get in and out of the house. The large living room and dining room both had floor to ceiling patio doors out to the front yard.

For $120 Canadian, we had 80 cable TV channels for the year. Installation was included. The installer needed a drill that was the size of a heavy machine gun to thread the cables through the cinder block wall of the living room.

The Internet, while cheap, was mind-numbingly slow. Our phone number was 92-42-587-2556. To this day, I’m tempted to call the number.

A quick trip to a local nursery helped us green up the house. Five plants, four pots, and two bags of fertilizer cost 840 rupees (approximately $17 CDN; at home, those items would have cost us $150 CDN).

The house was air conditioned for summer and there were gas heaters for the winter months. Trying to light the heaters was a death defying undertaking. The heaters were half heater and half flamethrower.

I suspected that the heaters may have been developed by the military for assassinations and tested on us.

Through experimentation, I discovered two relatively effective ways to light the killing machines in our bedroom. After letting the gas run for several seconds, I lit a match. I then threw the match at the heater and screamed like a little girl running away with my arms protecting my head. That method had a 20% success rate.

The second method was to roll a newspaper up and light one end. Laying face down on the ground, I would shield my head and put the lit paper into the heater. This worked 40% of the time but left me exposed to the blast that would inevitably pass over my head and back.

The heater was necessary in the winter months.

The place was furnished. The furniture was neither grand nor new but comfortable and functional. We felt like we were living large after apartment living in Kuwait.

The yard, although small, was nicely grassed and treed with a large palm tree shooting high in the sky. I enjoyed hugging the tree just to feel how smooth the surface was. It was a grounding experience.

A small, white metal table and chair set sat in the middle of the yard. We rarely enjoyed the yard due to the humidity and heat.

Around the side of the house was a small, covered space for our washer and dryer.

Next to the washer and dryer was a small cement shack. This cell was meant to be the living quarters for the cook.

This crumbling, cement hut was filthy, dark, and full of cobwebs. A rusty iron door creaked on it’s hinges. The room contained no furniture other than a rusted cot and the moldy, springy remains of a mattress. At best, the building measured four feet by seven feet. Attached to the building was a squat toilet, uncleaned for many years.

We felt disgusted that someone in the past was forced to make that cell their home. Manuel, our cook, took one look at it and threw his hands up in disgust. He walked away muttering in Urdu.

Despite the poor servant quarters, the house was ours to enjoy. But, we shared the house with other creatures. And they were settling nicely in to the house, too.

Kitchen

Critters in the House

Without a choice, we became accustomed to our new roommates: geckoes, ants, and cockroaches.

The sight of geckoes clinging to our ceiling and walls became commonplace. While harmless and cute, they also kept the ants and other insects away. Even though Manuel kept most food in the freezer or in plastic containers, the ant population grew rapidly within days of us moving in. That is when the geckoes took over the job of pest control.

Once in a while, a youngster would fall from the ceiling to the floor below, only to scamper away embarrassed and hurt.

Watching the geckoes scurry across the walls or ceilings soon became an event in itself.

I enjoyed watching them stalk a bug on the wall. When the unsuspecting insect was in range, the gecko would unfurl it’s tongue and the black speck on the wall would be gone. The entire kill was too fast to see. One moment, there was a black spot on the wall, the next…nothing.

While the geckoes were helpful with small insects, they were unable to help with the cockroaches. And unlike the geckos, the cockroaches were not so cute.

Hallway

Cockroach Army

One evening, Dana went to brush her teeth. As I settled in to watch the news, a bloodthirsty scream pierced the evening calm. I ran in to the bathroom and found an enormous cockroach resting on Dana’s toothbrush.

Dana stood freaked out in the corner of the shower, re-enacting her own personal version of the Cockroach Crying Game.

I grabbed several squares of toilet paper as weapons to capture and kill the cockroach. But the SuperRoach ran underneath a Moroccan rug.

I knelt down and flung the rug away. It scurried away in a zig-zag pattern. The cockroach obviously had advanced, terrorist training in how to avoid and evade.

I sprung and grabbed one of Dana’s shoes. Coiled on one knee,  I slid the shoe at the bug as it was running. I felt like Batman throwing a Batarang at the Joker.

The shoe squashed the cockroach against the wall. I roared in triumph and did a “I-killed-my-first-cockroach” dance. And then proceeded to peel the cockroach from the shoe.

The cockroach situation got to the point where, if I heard a scream, I would calmly go and get toilet paper or a Kleenex and squash the ‘roach. This was a common occurrence.

The cockroaches seemed to prefer Dana’s company. A cockroach crawled up my leg one night while I was sleeping. I killed it but Dana’s heart would have stopped if it had been crawling up her leg. That would have looked good on her tombstone: “Killed by a Cockroach”.

The cockroaches did have their uses. One day, Dana had the hiccups.

“These hiccups just won’t go away,” she said.

“That’s too bad. Oh, there’s a cockroach on your leg!” I yelled.

No more hiccups. Dana did not think it was that funny. I thought I was doing her a favour.

In order to keep their numbers under control, Saturdays became Cockroach Safari Day. The kitchen was their watering hole. I was the valiant hunter who came to kill them en masse.

I armed myself with typical cockroach safari weapons: a box of kleenex and a broom. I would slink in to the kitchen closet and shift a box. When the cockroaches scurried for new cover, I’d pin one with the broom.

Side of Our House

The task was not easy for they were fast and agile. It was as if they had cheetah DNA fused in to their own. The cockroaches excelled at hiding behind the stove, refrigerator, and deep freeze. Those were their safe-places for I was not about to move appliances in order to kill.

But I eventually hunted them all down. Cockroach killing was my business and business was good.

Pakistani cockroaches were crunchy and hard to squash. It took a strong hand to break their shell and release their orangish-brown guts. Some Saturdays, my kill count would exceed twenty.

But those were ‘SSC’ or Surface Scout Cockroaches. The rest of the terrorist hoard dwelled in the sewers and pipes deep below the house.

Manuel hired an exterminator to attack the terrorist cell below. As the chemical seeped down the shower drain, three hundred cockroaches scurried out looking for refuge.

As disgusting as they were, the cockroaches provided some excitement in what became a very calm and enjoyable routine.

Our routine was further assisted by the new men in our lives: Manuel, Sammi, Atta, a gardener, and a couple of chowkidars.

Manuel and Sammi

If our house was a castle, Manuel was the steward, cook, bailiff, and reeve all rolled into one pot-bellied, moustachioed package. Sammi was the obedient, dutiful son.

Sammi and Manuel

We hired Manuel and Sammi via email. It was a no risk proposition. If things did not work out, we let them go – as cold as that sounds. It was not as if there were labour laws to deal with in Pakistan.

This way of hiring cooks and cleaners is very common with expats (expatriates - those living in foreign countries). After signing with LAS, the expat staff wrote us to welcome us and describe life in Lahore.

One teacher sent a poem he wrote on the poverty. Others wrote essays about what to expect - both the good and the bad. They said we would love living there. They were right.

One staff member emailed to say he was moving to another country. Manuel and Sammi had worked for him and he highly recommended them.

So, we hired the father and son team sight unseen. (The same process works for vehicles, furniture, and anything else people want to sell before they move on to a new adventure.)

Manuel was an elderly gentleman with jet black hair, thick moustache, and two teeth, the result of a childhood accident and living in a country with a poor health care system.

The kitchen was his domain. When we unpacked our shipment from Kuwait, Manuel would grab the kitchen items and gleefully say “mine!” He would then run to the kitchen to find a home for the bowl, plate, knife or whatever kitchen item he clutched in his hand.

A typical day for Manuel would start by cooking us breakfast. Fresh pineapple and pancakes were common and tasty. He would make lunch for school, usually roast beef sandwiches. They were hit and miss - usually miss. The beef may have been water buffalo.

One of our first meals was tacos followed by apples and guavas. A peach pie and grapes already plucked off the stem was dessert.

If I went to the kitchen for anything, he would shuffle his feet positioning his belly between myself and the kitchen. He would then get what I wanted and serve it to me in the living room.

During the day, he would shop for meat, vegetables, and fruits. If we went shopping, the price would have gone up because we were “white.”

“No, Ma'Sahib. I will shop. It’s cheaper. They will raise the price for you. It’ll be too expensive.” Manuel’s English was quite good.

Getting local prices meant he was able buy apples, guavas, melons, peaches, grapes, and mangoes on the cheap.

The rest of his morning consisted of some light cleaning and napping on a chair by the deep freeze. Seeing Manuel sleeping on his chair, elbow resting on the deepfreeze, became a common site.

After lunch, Manuel was joined by Samual. ‘Sammi’ was broad shouldered and shorter than his short father. He was soft spoken, baby-faced, and kind. They were Christian (3% of Pakistan is Christian).

One evening, we invited the other new staff over for supper. Manuel prepared roast beef, baked chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, baked cauliflower, fruit salad, sticky rolls, and apple pie. Sammi served. It was their chance to show off and they shined.

For the weekend, Manuel would leave a vegetable noodle dish or a “ham” and vegetarian pizza to heat up and eat.

During the morning, Sammi worked for a hospital making deliveries and doing various odd jobs. After he finished his shift, he would come to our house and help his father clean. One day, we returned from school to find Sammi sweating profusely and breathing heavy. Our rugs were hanging out back, washed. We never asked them to do anything. We never had to. They just took care of things.

If I ever went to get film developed, Sammi would insist on coming along. He would take the film in to the shop while I waited in the van.

When we returned from school, the two would run from the house and grab our school bags. They escorted us to the living room and then scurried to the kitchen. Drinks and snacks were brought out on a platter.

While we relaxed or did school work, Manuel cooked supper. Sammi served. He even dished out the first helping. Afterwards, they cleared the table, washed the dishes, and made tea for the chowkidars before leaving for the evening on their motorcycle. Their day ended around seven o’clock. If the supper was not that good, we would sneak out to McDonald’s or another restaurant. This happened at least once a week.

At first, we found it uncomfortable to have someone waiting on us hand and foot. But, we adjusted - that was not hard to do. You just could not walk around naked early in the morning, unless you liked flashing an elderly Pakistani man - something I only did once.

They made life easy. Our lives consisted of school, free time, and shopping. They took care of the rest. In fact, the school operated on that principle. They wanted us to focus on school and enjoy life.

In a sense, Manuel and Sammi became family. When word of my Grandma’s passing came, they quietly circled around and hugged me. When Sammi’s daughter needed a hearing aid, we bought that for her. Manuel became our Pakistani surrogate father and Sammi, a step-brother.

One evening, Sammi brought two of his beautiful daughters to visit. The girls only spoke Urdu so they just stood and smiled. We talked with Sammi who talked of his daughters as any proud father would. He had five children in total.

We never referred to them as our staff. We could not. They were people. They were human beings. We paid them all a little more than the going rate.

A minor raise was a pittance for us. It was a huge bump in the standard of living to them. Looking back, I would’ve paid them more. Manuel’s salary was $110 USD per month. Sammi earned $50 USD per month. We paid them nothing in Canadian terms, but still a good wage in Lahore at the time.

Looking back at our time spent living in five countries, we came to learn that every expat treats their staff differently. Some hired and fired on a whim. Some paid more, some paid less. Some were demanding; some fair. For others, it was strictly business. Most expats were great with their staff, though.

For us, Manuel kept our deep freeze full of squeezed orange juice, our chowkidars full of tea, and Dana and I away from any type of housework at all. But they were more than simple employees.



Front Door

Dining Room

Manuel and Shakira

Music videos were on TV after school one day. Manuel came in to the living room just as Shakira levitated from the ocean in her “Whenever, Wherever” video. Her wet blond hair, bare midriff, and gyrating torso was too much for Manuel. He had never seen anyone like that before.

He clutched his chest, leaned on the back of a chair, and stared. Then he stared some more. Shakira gyrated from ocean to desert, where she crawled in the sand and looked lustily in to the camera. I watched Manuel closely, preparing myself for an emergency trip to the local hospital.

I was not sure if he would blink, fall, or die on the spot. He did none of the three.

Shakira’s desert dance was nearly the death of Manuel.

At the end of the video, Manuel’s heart started beating again. He blinked and went back to the kitchen, alive for another day.

Chowkidars, Groundskeeper, and Atta

The school hired chowkidars, two old men who wore thick, black, wool jackets and heavy caps. They sat outside our gate 24/7, opened and closed the gate as we came and went, protected us, and drank tea.

The two were armed with ancient looking rifles that may or may not have been loaded. Manuel took care of their tea needs during the week. Dana took care of the tea during the weekends.

Twice a week, a young man came in to cut the grass and weed. His tools consisted of sheers, small scissors, and a machete. No lawn mower for him. He would crouch and snip the grass. Thankfully, our yard wasn’t too big. We rarely saw him as he worked while we were at school.

Atta washed and ironed our clothes. A gentle, thin, grey haired man, he shook hands with delicate, cold fingers. No stain was too tough, regardless of material. Clothes were ironed to perfection, even the underwear. There was nothing that Atta could not clean or iron.

At the end of the year, Atta came to us and nervously asked us for his final pay. We had always trusted Manuel to pay the rest of the “staff”. We never questioned that he may have taken some off the top. Obviously, Atta was worried that some or all of his final salary would not get to him. We paid him directly before we left.

Brass Walla Came to Visit

Email Home

Having a dedicated, professional group of people working for us had its’ advantages. The school also had staff that would help to make our lives easier. I listed all of those reasons and sent them via email to family and friends.

My brother’s only comment was “you lazy bastard!”

In the morning, we ordered breakfast and it got cooked while we got dressed. Manuel makes our lunches.

Manuel takes our school bags and lunches to the van in the morning.

We drop our van off at the school and leave the keys in a basket. They clean the van and fill it up with gas if needed. They also do all of the servicing of the van.

If any odd jobs or repairs need to be done at our house, we fill out a work order at school and they have employees do the work.

A gardener takes care of the yard work every day.

An ironer comes in two times per week to iron.

We come home to a clean house with the bed made and supper waiting.

The guards open the gates for us every time we come and go.

After school, Manuel and his son take our bags into the house for us.

They bring us drinks after we have changed from our school clothes.

After supper, they do dishes for us and make sure the doors are locked before they leave. They take tea to the chowkidars.

When we received bills in the mail, we gave the bill and cash to the business office and they would have someone pay the bill for us.

If we wanted cash from the bank, we filled out the withdrawal form and someone from the school would withdraw the money for us and leave it at the business office.

Life was sweet.

Slowly, we were getting settled. We were, however, missing our belongings and those were soon to arrive in port.

Shipment Finally Arrives

When our air shipment arrived, I went to clear customs. None of our belongings should have been subject to duty. However, the shipping agent wanted me to pay $275 USD on the shipment.

I refused. We had already paid the goods to be shipped from door to door. He argued with me for thirty minutes.

“No, no. It’s $175 that you need to pay. I made a mistake,” he admitted. He blamed his poor English, which was more than fine. Integrity, not language, was his problem.

I did not relent and he finally agreed to pay for everything.

Later, word came that our sea shipment from Kuwait arrived in Lahore. Having our belongings would make our home feel comfier. A school representative and I hopped into a van and went down to the custom’s warehouse to clear our possessions. On the way there, the rep warned me not to say anything. 

“Just say ‘yes’ when I tell you to,” he said.

I was capable of doing that.

“You have to bribe a lot of people to get the job of customs officer. It costs 500,000 rupees just to get the job,” the school rep explained.

That’s around $10,000 USD, which is a lot of money in any part of the world.

Once you paid the bribe to obtain the position, you had to pay off that debt. To do so, they took bribes from people like myself.

The school rep also cautioned that there would be a small duty fee for some of the items that we were bringing in.

”Just do not tell them that you have electronics. Those are expensive.” 

It was advice that would get us into trouble.

On the drive to the warehouse, he lectured me on how great corruption is for a country. He thought that was the height of a good political system. It was a bizarre conversation but it gave me insight into the thought process of some Pakistanis.

The warehouse itself was massive with a corrugated metal roof and dirty, open windows all around. Scattered randomly on the cement floor were various crates and containers, some opened and some nailed shut.

An employee came up to us and gave us each a soft drink in a glass bottle. He even added a bendy straw, which was a nice touch.

Two minutes in to the process and I was drenched in sweat. I gave up looking for a fan or any hint of ventilation and just sat down on a crate and enjoyed my drink. Various skinny men moved boxes around the room.

A grouchy, female official came over and talked to the school rep for a while. They started to open box after box of our belongings. The customs officer asked if there were any electronics.

“No,” said the school rep. He did not even give me the opportunity to answer.

He was caught in a lie. And an obvious lie at that for when we boxed up our items in Kuwait, we made a list of everything that was in each box. The school advised us to do so before we left Kuwait and so we did. We also sent in the list to the school before we left Kuwait so they knew that we had a VCR in the shipment.

The bribe just went up.

The official and the school rep argued back and forth for thirty minutes. Finally, the school rep came over said that he “made a mistake” and that it was going to cost a lot to get our belongings cleared. I just said “cool” and I reminded him that it was the school’s responsibility to clear our belongings. The contract said so. He reluctantly agreed and went back to finalize things with the officer.

When I got back to school, I talked with other new staff who had also had their belongings cleared. No one paid more than $50 USD in fees/bribes. That lie cost the school 27,000 rupees or $550 USD.

Several days later, a truck delivered all of our belongings. Our lives felt more complete with our own items to decorate the house.

Life at home was great. However, we had a second home to get to know and that was the Lahore American School.