Let's Make a Deal....

Saturday saw me, once again, engaged in my favourite quarterly distraction of obtaining a visa extension. It really seemed to sneak up on me this time around. I just can’t believe it’s been three months since I was in Africa; almost two months since my birthday; and almost a month since the play. Time is screaming by me like a red-neck in a pickup truck throwing beer-bottles at the road signs. Well, to be expected I suppose. Tempus Fugit, as Augustus might say.

Anyway, I found myself in the office of the Assistant Director for the visa branch once again pleading my case. This time I had my boss with me who was working on getting her own machine-readable passport and had gained the respect of the Ass. Director the previous week by tearing a strip off of everyone in his office. I commend her. He had told her that if she needed anything else at all, she should go straight to him. And so there we were. Sometimes things just work out well.

I think it’s the fourth time I’ve been in this guy’s office, and on each occasion, he’s started shouting at a subordinate while I’m sitting there. Since I don’t understand what he’s saying, and he seems so upset, it makes for a fairly intimidating experience. However, this time I was expecting it, and when it happened, I started wondering whether he sets it all up on purpose to show how important he is. "Ok, when the white guy’s been here five minutes, you come in and I’ll scream at you in Urdu… Theak Hai?.. Watch his face, it’ll be hilarious."

In any case, as soon as the stage show was over, he asked me why I was still in Pakistan. Now, you would think that by now I would be prepared for this question. Apparently not. I reiterated that I was enjoying the country, that I was travelling and writing and volunteering for TRC. This apparently was not a fully satisfactory answer. "But Why?" he demanded. I thought I had just answered that, so I stalled for time and said, "Pardon?" He stared at me for a long moment and then said, "No one wants to stay here this long. Before this you were here for six months. You leave for one month and now you are back? Who likes Pakistan so much?" For a fleeting moment I thought of launching into a diatribe about how Pakistanis don’t value their own culture enough, but quickly thought better of it and simply replied, "I do… I’m strange." "Yes you are," he said, which I didn’t really know what to make of.

We sat in silence for a while, my boss spoke up for me and they chatted in Urdu a bit. The mood was lighter than some of my previous visits so I figured that things were going well. I heard him offer tea, which was politely refused. Then he turned to me and said, "You will have tea." I tried to refuse as politely as I could. "If he wants to be Pakistani, then he will have real Pakistani tea with me," he said to my boss. I tried to protest that I had just had a mug of thick, milky chai only an hour before, but he would have nothing of it. My boss told him how I eat local food every day, and that when it comes to food I’m more Pakistani than she is. "If you like Pakistan…" he said cryptically, tapping his finger on my passport with every word, "You will have tea." He raised his eyebrows, glanced down at my application again, set it to one side and said, "Chai?"

I blinked. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like he was only going to give me my visa if I had tea with him. Was this really happening? Was this some sort of Chai-Way Bribery? (sorry…) This is ridiculous, I thought to myself. But then, I continued to think to myself, it’s not like he’s asking me to kill someone (which was the last I saw of Ecuador). I looked up. "Yes," I said, "I will have chai." He smiled and made the order. This meant we had to sit for another fifteen minutes while tea was made. But in the meantime, my passport application went flying through the ranks and arrived back at the desk ready to be processed. The tea arrived and I tried to sip it with an appreciative air. I didn’t even flinch when the thick skim on top escaped from the cup, slid across my teeth and lodged at the back of my throat, tickling my gag-reflex.

With a slurp, the Ass. Director finished his tea, set down his cup and then picked up my form and signed it with a flourish. He smiled and handed it back to me. I stood and thanked him, and then got the hell out of there.

I had hitherto underestimated the power of chai.