Translating Pakistan: the immigrant woman forging bonds between nations
Spain’s Basque Country is a long way from Pakistan. The city of Vitoria-Gasteiz sits at the edge of the Basque region, its streets rising and falling sharply as is typical in the mountains. Many of the buildings in the medieval heart of the city date from the ninth and 10th centuries.
The Basques are a hardy and independent people, historically suspicious of foreigners, not many of whom have made it up to their northern homeland over the centuries. They are also a simple people, devoted to family and friends and to the preservation of their language, Euskara, which is believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Until recently — and arguably still — they resisted being integrated into the Spanish state. Even now, they insist on referring to their region as Basque Country rather than Spain.
The last thing one expects in this milieu is to encounter a fellow Pakistani. That is, however, exactly what happened to me when I visited the region recently. Kulsoom dressed simply but spoke eloquently. Originally from Peshawar, she and her husband moved with their daughter to Spain less than a decade ago. In the small city, they found a Pakistani community largely isolated from the rest of Basque society, the women choosing mostly to tend to their domestic duties and not particularly interested in learning much about the society in which they found themselves. Like many immigrant Pakistani women, they waited every year for the month when they would be able to visit Pakistan. They talked mostly to relatives back home, looking back to the country they left rather than the one they were in.
Kulsoom had the courage to be different. Unlike most Pakistanis there, she immediately set about learning how to speak Spanish, which is also spoken in Basque Country along with the Euskara. Already a speaker of Pashto, English and Urdu, she caught on fast, becoming extremely proficient. When I met her, she was able to speak clearly and fluently to a large audience, the Spanish words flying from her mouth as she explained her experience of being an immigrant woman in Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Equipped with a language few Pakistani women in Basque country have been able to learn, Kulsoom decided to put her skills to work. As a translator, she now makes it possible for Pakistanis attending Basque Country hospitals, court proceedings or any number of situations to be understood by doctors, judges and other officials.
Translation may not seem like much to many people, but in the case of this brave Pakistani woman in faraway Basque Country, it is the lifeline between those who are new and misunderstood and those who are old and wish to understand.
Rafia Zakaria
In simple terms, this ordinary Pakistani woman is often the face and voice of Pakistanis to many in Basque Country. Women who speak only Urdu or Pashto can be understood and heard by people who otherwise would have no way of figuring out who they are, particularly given the fact that it is often too expensive to import translators from larger cities.
Kulsoom did not set out to be a translator. She is a certified public accountant but it was too difficult to have her degree accredited and recognized by the Spanish system. As a translator, however, she has gained an insight into Basque culture.
I listened as she explained patiently to a number of gathered Basque women how they can create a better relationship with women from the Pakistani community, telling them how cultural differences often lead to the isolation of one group from the other even when both face similar issues of discrimination. In a conversation with me, she explained how she sees a lot of similarities between Basque and Pashtun culture, too. Both peoples are fierce and independent minded, and both are suspicious of strangers but very hospitable once you are their guest or their friend. Both speak an ancient language and chafe under the intrusions of centralized government.
This last exchange I had with Kulsoom also illustrates her most impressive quality: a fervent optimism that looks at what is common and similar in human exchange rather than what is different. Hope is always constructed on such an outlook, as is progress. In being so sincerely invested in the welfare of her community, understanding the need for Pakistani women like herself to be understood and included, she represents the adaptability and resilience required to live as an immigrant in a foreign land.
Translation may not seem like much to many people, but in the case of this brave Pakistani woman in faraway Basque Country, it is the lifeline between those who are new and misunderstood and those who are old and wish to understand.
• Rafia Zakaria is the author of The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan (Beacon 2015) and Veil (Bloomsbury 2017). She writes regularly for The Guardian, Boston Review, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, and many other publications. Twitter: @rafiazakaria
