Peshawar is the capital city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. Although, the city is the capital but the city itself not that big and is not modern. It is also famous for terrorism issue. I never imagined in my life to live in Pakistan, especially in Peshawar but my fate brought me there. Pakistan is a poor country, a lot of people live in poverty. My home country is still developing country too, but it is still much better than Pakistan. My husband is a Pakistani—Pashtun from Peshawar; we met when I was working for airline as a flight attendant.
Our first encounter was in Malaysia. He came to Malaysia for visiting his relatives, moreover, he does not travel much and never been to any other countries besides Pakistan and Dubai. Therefore, he decided to travel to Malaysia to meet his uncle there. His traveling experience is so contrast with mine, my profession gave me good opportunity to travel more. I have been to some countries in different continents. Unfortunately, I gave up my profession after I married him. It was not easy for me, and actually never been easy. My life changed dramatically after the wedding, from my job to my social life.
"I moved to Peshawar after we got married in my country, Indonesia.
I stayed in my parent in law’s house with other brothers and sisters in law."
My husband is the youngest son; he has two married elder brothers and two sisters who already married too. There are 11 people in the house including me, my husband and the niece and nephew. I never lived in big family like this before because we do not have joint family system in my country. It was so stressful and the house was quite chaotic. After my husband brought me to his family’s house, he went back to Dubai where he worked. He came to visit me regularly every six months sometimes once in a year. It was so difficult for me, and made me frustrated, but he asked me to have more patient until he could bring me to live with him.
Majority of Peshawar people are conservative; the women cannot go outside the house frequently. I was trapped in the house, and my lifestyle completely changed. I used to have my own freedom to go outside, but in Peshawar, I only could go once in a month for groceries with my mother in law and other sisters in law. I used to have my own money, but in Peshawar, I had to ask my mother in law whenever I wanted to buy something. I did not wear hijab at that time, but I needed to put the dupatta on when I went out of the house, even sometimes I put my niqab on to avoid the local people stare at me like I was an Alien. In summer time, the situation became terrible, I got skin irritation because of the hot weather, my nose was bleeding, and sometimes we lacked of water supply. Most taxi in Peshawar also did not have air conditioner; taking taxi in summer just same like put myself in the oven.Â
"I cried a lot every night in my room.
My life was so hard.
Furthermore, I have some issues in the house with other family members."
My mother in law is a nice person, but in the beginning of my marriage, she was asking about my jahez (dowry). I did not bring jahez to Peshawar when I moved there, so my mother in law asked me why I did not bring the jahez, she told me that jahez was Pakistani culture. She brought jahez when she got married and my sisters in law brought too. She also said that I should have asked my father to give me the money to buy jahez.
I was so shocked when she told me that as my husband never told me about this, he even said to me that he was the one who would give me the dowry according to Islamic law, so he did not want a dowry from me, but his mother said something else. The conversation of jahez was ended there by my mother in law, but not by my sisters in law—the wives of my husband’s bothers. I could not speak Urdu and Pastho, but I knew exactly, those sisters talked about me and my jahez whenever they saw me. Sometimes, I felt so glad, because I could not speak their language, otherwise I would get offended if I knew every single word they said.
We did not have servants in the house, my mother in law cooked and the daughters in law cleaned the house. Every family did their own laundry, but after I came there, no one of my sisters in law helped my mother in law with her laundry, so I was the one who did that for her. The family only called the helper in special occasion, such as in religious celebration and family gathering. My husband's family is not a rich family, they live moderately, but there are a lot of women who are more poor than my Pakistani family, they will hire the poor lady to work as a helper with very less salary.
"I was tired mentally and physically.
I did not have anything to do
except cleaning the house and laying down on the bed."
My live was only about my room and cleaning. I was bored to death, I felt useless and was missing my carrier life so much. When my husband came to visit me, I told him about the jahez issue and I asked him for money pocket. Actually, I am an independent woman, and I never complained and gave up with my condition, but in Peshawar with my situation like that, my freedom will was blew up; I became more demanding to my husband when he came to visit me. I already reached my limit, but most Pashtun men are tough.
Consequently, we had a lot of fights. Having a fight between married couple in Pakistan is not a good thing. The family members tried to calm us down to avoid the divorce, and my situation on my husband family’s eyes was not getting better even getting worse due to the fights that I had with my husband. Every time I called my mother in Indonesia, she asked me to be patient. I did not tell my mother my real situation in Pakistan because I did not want to make her worry about me.
At the time of my daughter was born, I was so delighted, she brought a happiness during my hard time. My husband was not there when she was born, and like the common Pakistani mother in law, my mother in law expected to have another grandson. My daughter was not a big issue for them, they were still happy but I knew the treatment could be different with other grandsons in the family. I did not want to think about that further, if they did not treat my daughter equally, then I would treat her fairly. I wished that my husband would bring me and my daughter to live with him outside Pakistan and my situation would be better.
"In the second year of my marriage,
my husband bought jahez on my behalf.
It was kitchen utensils, and an air conditioner."
He asked me to tell the family that my father sent me the money from Indonesia for my jahez. My mother in law was so happy at that time and since then, my sisters in law stopped gossiping about me. Not all rooms in the house had air conditioner, when summer came, my room became the favorite one to anybody, and I lost my privacy. I tried to deal with that because I did not want to cause any tensions in the house. I respected my husband, and I did not want to make him feel bad in his family because of me. I realized it needs politic tactic to live with Pakistani family peacefully. The fight between female family members is common in Pakistan, and not only the men but the Pashtun women are also tough. It is so different with my country's people who are softer and are friendlier towards everybody including the strangers.
After spending two years in Pakistan, I finally found a way to cheer myself in the middle of the house duty works. I learned to cook and bake, I was not a fan of cooking before, but in Peshawar, I became such an expert at Pakistani cuisine, I have learned a lot from my mother in law. Sometimes I cooked for the family too. My cooking experience begun when I really wanted to eat fried fish. My mother in law bought fishes from the market to me and I cooked it by myself. In Pakistan, they prefer cutting the fish’s head off while in Indonesia we eat the whole fish. Seafood is not that popular in Pakistan, but in my country, it is a part of our main protein food as Indonesian has a lot of beaches and seas.
I think, when my husband got a new job in Saudi Arabia and I moved out from Pakistan to follow him, it was the most happiest moment that happened to me during my marriage lifetime in Pakistan, and of course besides having my own daughter. After 4 years living in Pakistan, actually, I do not hate my life in Pakistan. My husband’s family are good people too, but I do not think that I want more drama in my life. It is hard to avoid conflict if we have many people in the house.