Hello Peshawar Pakistan, Part 2

Living in Pakistan, as a kid, was fun!  Even though we came in at the end of a war, I don’t ever remember being afraid while living there. It helped that there were eight-foot high brick or cinder block fences with barbed wire on them.  And I think there was glass embedded at the top too.

During this time, the Vietnam War was going on but because we didn’t have access to radio or TV, (my parents would occasionally listen to Armed Forces Radio) my brothers and I didn’t know anything about it. 

 My parents didn't share a lot with us about all that was going on in the world so we wouldn't be afraid and would continue life as usual.  Therefore, we didn't have a care in the world.

While there, my brothers and I, along with our friends, found lots of ways to entertain ourselves, because we didn’t have TV. We used to make up plays and perform them for our friends. We did some of the silliest things but enjoyed the heck out of it. We spent many hours at the pool and I joined the swim team one year. We didn’t like November because they would close the pool down to clean it. We were able to swim every other month. We spent a lot of time at the school playground too. It helped having both so close to our house. 

Family photo taken before we left Pakistan.

Another one of my friends was Veronica. Her brother Warren was my first boyfriend (third grade). I remember sitting with him and listening to Leaving on a Jet Plane, by Peter, Paul and Mary, from one of their records. I didn't know until recently that John Denver wrote that song.  Warren used to carry my books home from school. True love at the age of eight! 



Our back door neighbor had twin girls and they were fascinating. We had never seen twins before. And, they had an adult tricycle, which we also had never see before. It was a huge, three-wheeler, and they let us ride it. We all had bikes in Pakistan because we didn't have a car. It was very expensive to bring a car over so we didn’t have one for two years. The base was pretty small, so you could get around on it pretty quick with a bike.

This was another location where your friends become your family because it is so far from everyone’s home. To this day, we still have very good friends that we met in Pakistan. Our friend’s, the Turner’s, lived directly behind us. We shared the two guys who worked for us. They had one of them one day and we would have them the next. Every week, I think it was on a Wednesday, our two families would get together and have dinner. One week they would do the barbecue and the next week we would do the enchiladas. My mom made a mean batch of enchiladas. She got the recipe from another couple of good military friends, the Garza’s.

When we moved a couple years later back to Alaska, the Turner’s did too. We were blessed to be able to spend that many years being stationed with them.

Some of the things I remember about our stay in Peshawar were the festivals and squadron picnics. I remember being in a race during one of the picnics and losing because I was too concerned about what everyone else was doing. My dad gave me very sage advice after the race about looking straight ahead and finishing the race and then checking out what’s happening with the others. That's good advice for life too.  At some of these events, they would bring in camels and we got to take rides on them. We rode them several times. That was a ride I will never forget!

I remember a softball game that my dad played in that was so fun. Some people dressed up in different costumes, did weird plays and used trick softballs. One of the trick balls was a grapefruit that they had painted white and when it was hit, juice sprayed everyone that was close by.   Another fun time was when our friend, Mr. Turner had a fishing line attached to first base and he was in the outfield.  When the batter hit out to him, he took off running back and as he did the base moved with him.  The batter kept running trying to catch up to the base.  I remember a lot of laughter at those games.

We had a small nine hole golf course on the base and I remember when people would hit their balls over the wall, little Pakistani kids would collect them up and bring them to the front gate and try to sell them back to the troops. Another way they would try to make money was to charm cobra snakes. We saw them do this once. They had a basket with a top on it and they would take the top off, and lure the snake out. These were big snakes and cobras are very poisonous. I wonder how many people died trying to train them.

We got to go on a day trip one time to the Khyber Pass, which is a pass up in the hills that connects Pakistan and Afghanistan. I remember the people we were with told us that many invasions started through this pass. I read somewhere that it was part of the ancient Silk Road and was one of the oldest passes in the world. I don’t think it made as much of an impression on me then, as it would today.

I was in Pakistan for part of third, all of fourth and part of fifth grade. I actually went to three schools for my fifth grade year.

We left Peshawar and headed for our next station, which was back to Elmendorf AFB, Alaska. Before we headed north again, however, we went back to North Carolina to see family. We stayed there for about a month so we went to the school we had been in two years earlier. We got to reacquaint with some of our old friends. During this time we also prepared for our two-week trip up to Alaska, via the Alcan Highway. That’s a long time to be in a car, especially if you all get sick.

Today's Terri's Tidbit: I discovered a YouTube video done by a man named Bryan Nelson, who was stationed in Peshawar about the same time we were, and it shows a lot of what I have shared in this blog, even down to the Leaving on a Jet Plane song. Click here to see the video.

Hello Peshawar Pakistan, Part 1

Todd, Terri, Kevin and Dad in Pakistan

So our very long distance journey to Peshawar, Pakistan began. We went from Charleston, South Carolina to Madrid, Spain. We stayed there for a couple days then went on to Saudi Arabia for a brief layover and then on to Karachi, West Pakistan. Out of Charleston we rode on a huge C-5A military airplane. Lackland AFB in San Antonio, south of where we live, has these planes and they still fly in and out of there, 50 years later. The sound they make is unmistakable.   I can still remember when we got on the plane, the military people showed us where to sit and gave each one of us a box meal. This was to hold us over until we got to Spain. We thought those box meals were so much fun. They were made for the crew and as I recall, some came with cigarettes, that they removed before giving the boxes to us. They even had gum, which was a special treat on a plane. Probably to help our ears pop.

During our travels, my two brothers and I got very sick. We got what the locals called the PID’s or Pakistani International Disease. Basically, running from both ends. My mom needed to get us medical attention, but did not know where to begin. She knew we needed to get to the embassy, there in Karachi, to see a doctor. Here she was, alone with three sick children, in a foreign country. That had to be overwhelming. But the Lord provides! A very nice sergeant came to our rescue. Sgt. Boyd, who was staying at the same place we were, volunteered to go with us to the embassy. All five of us, plus the driver, were stuffed into a little taxi and were off to get help. It is a miracle that we lived through the taxi ride. This driver was all over the road and the sidewalks. But we made it, were seen by the doctor, got medicine and went back to the hotel. I think that was our first experience with enemas. Yuck! Poor mom!  Sgt. Boyd's family eventually came over to Pakistan, too, and they lived down the street behind us.

We finally got to Peshawar and what a different place this was. As we saw over the two years we were there, this culture differed greatly from ours. It was very dirty for one thing. They would hang their meat out in the open and it would be covered with flies but they would still eat it. We arrived at the end of one of their wars and the windows in our base house were painted black to keep light from showing through. We also had a dug out area in our back yard where people could take cover, if necessary. We left at the beginning of another war. 



Google Earth view of the base in Peshawar, Pakistan.
The red arrow indicates what was our house.

My best friend in Pakistan was Cornelia Raderrauch. She was the daughter of a German family that was also stationed at the air base. I got to go home with her one weekend and got yet another culture shock. Her parents did not speak English so she translated for me. When we sat down for breakfast the first morning, her mother had fixed 3 minute eggs. Basically they were raw and I had never eaten a raw egg before so was not sure what to do. It was still in the shell on this little pedestal. I must say I learned a lot that weekend.

We had two Pakistani guys who worked for us but never on the same day. One did the gardening and one the housework. They were of different religions and didn't like each other, so there was no way they could work together. Qadduce was the gardener and he definitely had a green thumb. We could not get vegetables in Pakistan because by the time they were transported and arrived on the base, they would be rotten. So growing our own was the only option for us to have fresh produce. However, the fertilizer they used was not like here in America, so everything grown had to be washed in a clorox mixture before we could eat it. I am so thankful we don't have to do that here.

Daniel, the man who worked inside, used to cook his lunch there and it would always smell so good. He used a lot of curry. He would sit my little brother up on the counter with him and let him "help" cook. He asked us to come to his house for dinner one time. We went, and even as a kid I was struck by the small room that they called home but they were so proud of it. The room had a small trough that led outside where they could use the bathroom and there was a larger trough running down the middle of the street, where the culmination of many homes converged. I remember thinking that I was a very lucky girl to be able to go home to my own bedroom in a full sized house. That made a permanent impression on my life. 

Today's Terri's Tidbit:  Do you use Google Earth?  They have now made Google Earth Pro free to the public and it has lots more features than the original.  Check it out here and find some of the places you used to live.