Miller-Kitch Family

  Chapter 11: Sightseeing in Lahore Wanting to see what Lahore had to offer before the year ended, Dana and I joined friends on a city tour. We marveled at the culture and history that the city held. The Badshahi Mosque, built in 1673, holds 100,000 worshippers at one time. Standing in the centre of the mosque, I looked up at the grey sky above and the Minarets on each corner. I tried to imagine 100,000 men on their knees praying. Our guide took us to a small room near the front of the mosque. I stood in one corner and a friend stood facing the corner opposite to me. Facing the wall, I spoke. The acoustics were perfect. Our friend could hear me as if I were face to face with him. Our friends said that the mosque was more impressive than the Taj Mahal, which is saying something. Slipping on our shoes, we drove to the Lahore Fort. Amongst the ramparts and buildings, Dana was swarmed by girls who asked for her autograph. Other groups of women asked her to be in pictures with them. Apr...

  the Trials and Tribulations of Teaching Brandon University Alumni News article about our experience during 9/11 while living and working in Lahore, Pakistan. By Joanne F. Villeneuve of the Brandon University Alumni News

  Chapter 10 March 17, 2002 Lahore International Airport Holidays were upon us and we had tickets booked for Colombo, Sri Lanka. Despite the conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the government, we felt like it was safe enough to visit the island nation. Although we felt guilty taking a vacation after having such an extended evacuation period from school, we were not going to turn down the opportunity to travel. We arrived at the Lahore airport with two colleagues and their baby. Even though we arrived two hours early, there was a huge lineup. Because of the lineup, our colleague and I went to the front of the line to see if they could get tickets at least for the family and their baby. ‘Butting in’ line is very common in Asia so this was nothing out of the ordinary. Regardless, a man behind us in line became irate that we just asked about tickets because of the baby. He pointed at several women and a baby next in line and yelled that he had a family and a baby, too. He got his tic...

  Pre-Pakistan 9 MONTHS EARLIER 2001 Kuwait City, Kuwait Kuwait is a small nipple - some would say sphincter - of land wedged between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to the north and King Al-Saud’s Saudi Arabia to the west and south. East, across the sparkling Arabian Gulf, sat Iran. While Saddam was licking his wounds from the First Gulf War, Kuwait surged on with it’s reliance on immigrant workers and production of oil, a valuable resource that was a blessing from Allah himself. Al-humdulah (Praise to Allah).  I arrived as an immigrant worker in 1999. With a university education and white skin, I was valued yet tolerated - a strange way to subsist. Kuwaitis desired an American university education so they paid for their children to attend private, international schools. Once their children graduated from these schools, they could apply to any school in the world. Boston seemed to be a very popular destination. I relished living in Kuwait, and I enjoyed my school, The American Creativi...