| Daily Times - Site Edition | Tuesday, June 24, 2003 |
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AN AMERICAN IN PAKISTAN: Letter to my granddaughters
Catherine Mayo
Governments in the world right now have made terrible decisions, and have caused a lot of fear and bloodshed. But remember, girls, the world is beautiful, and it is yours
I won’t talk to you much about the problems in the world right now, because I know you are too young, and I’m sure you hear the conversations of your parents and their friends. Vermont is a difficult place to be in right now, because it is a state where people know they are individuals. They are proud of the fact that they are different from the rest of the United States, and can think things through for themselves. But I know that Vermonters are not feeling very good these days. They don’t know how to right a situation gone wrong. But it is okay, girls, because the whole world feels this way. If we each live our lives by doing the right thing and remember to go outdoors and smell the flowers, we will be able to find happiness in spite of it all.
Yes, I know, the part about the flowers is a problem for you at the moment. It has been raining in Vermont every day since the snow melted. You must feel green and soggy all the time, and all you want to do is go down to the playground and swing on the swings. You must be sick of colouring pictures of bright flowers, and putting them up on the walls of the playroom.
We have flowers everywhere here, but it has been too hot to go out and enjoy them. So I am in the same kind of fix that you are in. We have to make our own beauty inside ourselves.
Now that the school year is over for you, I know that you will be going out to the lake a lot. Watch out for those mosquitoes! I advise you to go swimming even when it is raining. Once you are inside the water you won’t notice that it is raining, and the mosquitoes can’t bite you. Pretend the lake is the world. You can move the water with your hands, and look down at the bottom and see all the different shapes of rock and seaweed. Be sure to wear your water shoes, so the clams don’t cut your feet.
The closer you look, the more you see. There is fish of every shape and colour. There are water bugs that run around on the surface, and if you can figure out how they do that, let me know! The ospreys will dive straight down from the sky every once in awhile, and catch a fish from deep in the water. The vultures will fly in formation above the shoreline, looking for anything dead that they can eat. You know how I feel about vultures. And then there are the seagulls, so many of them, and each one different. I’m sure they look a little bedraggled in the rain, but they have nowhere else to go, so they have to put up with it.
Then, when you go back inside, and your mother gives you hot chocolate, you will know what the world looks like. It is a beautiful place, and it is yours. Governments in the world right now have made terrible decisions, and have caused a lot of fear and bloodshed. But remember, girls, the world is beautiful, and it is yours.
Here is a story that I wrote for you. As you know, Pakistan is very different from Vermont. In Vermont, people drive properly in the streets, and park only in parking spaces, and talk about shopping only when they are inside shops. In Pakistan, none of these rules apply. So I know this story will make you smile. With love from your Grammy.
Once upon a time there was a donkey. He worked hard every day, pulling his master’s cart to town. Sometimes the wagon was full of cucumbers; sometimes it was full of watermelons. His master sat on top of the watermelons and yelled at the donkey to go faster and faster. But he couldn’t go faster, because there was a rickshaw on one side of him and a taxi on the other side. And a big white Suzuki van in front of him. The driver of the Suzuki had stopped, because he was waiting for the boy from the chicken shop to bring over some tea and talk to him about the price of chickens.
The donkey sighed. He wanted to get home and have a drink of water. It was very hot. His master kept yelling and yelling, and it didn’t do any good. Finally, the rickshaw driver got out and came over to the cart and asked the donkey’s master if he could buy a watermelon. The master said no, they weren’t for sale. The rickshaw driver waved his arms. ‘What are you going to do with them, then?’ he asked. I am going to sell them in the market, said the melon man. But you are in the market, said the rickshaw driver.
Then the taxi driver got out of his car and said, ‘My passengers would rather ride in your rickshaw because it is cheaper.’ ‘But I’m not cheaper,’ said the rickshaw driver, ‘I would charge them more than you do.’ ‘I know,’ said the taxi driver, ‘I tried to tell them that, but they want to ride with you because you have watermelons.’ ‘But I don’t have watermelons,’ said the rickshaw driver, ‘this man won’t sell me any.’
The donkey sighed. He twitched his ears. No one was looking, so he very quietly stuck his head into the back seat of the taxi and ate the flowers that the little girl was taking to her sick mother in the hospital.
‘The donkey ate my flowers!’ wailed the girl. ‘Oh no,’ said the melon man, ‘that is terrible, I am so sorry. Here, have a watermelon.’
Cathy Mayo is an American journalist based in Pakistan