Uber brought us together and we lived happily ever after

Getting a driver who speaks English is a challenge in Pakistan, but that was still least of our worries. We were still busy interviewing managers, engineers and technicians that we needed to take over the operation of this world record holding gas turbine’s operation and maintenance.

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We have been sitting in continuous interview sessions. We have to get the first team mobilised to site as early as mid June. We arrived in Pakistan 9th May and we don’t have anything, no office, no house and definitely no car.

During these days, we were relying on Uber for our social travelling. During one of the weekends, we wanted to get our mind relaxed and decided to visit the famous Lahore fort. I wanted to call Uber and the type of Uber offered were different than what we had in Malaysia. They have additionally the ‘Auto’, the theree wheel bike while Uber Black, the premium Uber option was not available. To be on the safe side, I selected the middle option avoiding the premium Uber.

When our Uber arrived, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was an old Suzuki FX.

This is May and it is peak summer. As we entered the car, i realized the windows were down. When I tried to engage with the driver, he doesn’t even understand a single English word. OMG, we are doomed, so there was me talking in my broken Urdu and with sign language. “Garam (hot in Urdu), please switch on the air cond” while pointing towards the AC vent.
He smiled, I was happy patting on my back complementing my communication skills.

He then pointed me towards a small fan mounted just beside my legs which he then switched it on. My friends broke into laughter and the almost an hour journey began as the fan started rotating.

I could not stop thinking how Lahore was a modern city and at the same time it had all the attributes of a village. I can see donkey carts all along the major city roads. Horse carriage moves alongside with bustling cars and motorcycles.

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I tried few times again to communicate with the driver to ensure that he was driving us to the correct location because he was not using the Uber map guide. I was worried but also excited enjoying the city.

Shockingly, he did brought us to the correct location and we thanked him for the breezing fan ride.

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After the visit to the Lahore Fort, I called again Uber. The app was not responding immediately, maybe due to the peak hours that not many drivers were readily available. After sometime, I got the notification that a driver has been assigned and he is on his way. While waiting, I enjoyed watching people but we noticed that, the locals were enjoying even more watching us. I was not that foreign as I look almost like Pakistani but my friends looked foreign and the locals were curious about the language that we were speaking. They were standing close to us as if they were standing under our nose. This made us nervous and we wanted to escape from there as soon as possible.

As I was anxiously watching the movement of our Uber car approaching our location, suddenly the driver rejected the assignment. Now, we started to get nervous but then another driver was quickly assigned.

Within few minutes the driver was approaching our location. We were waiting at the bus stand and it was crowded. We can’t see our Uber as the place was packed with buses, autos and lots of cars.

I was telling my friend, how are we even going to tell the driver if he calls us for our location. He won’t understand a single word in English and as I was saying this, my phone was ringing and it was the Uber driver calling. He was saying something in Urdu and I don’t understand a single but one thing for sure, he must be asking about our location.

I pityfully tried to communicate with him in my broken Urdu telling him that we are waiting at the bus stop.

Suddenly I heard the Uber driver saying, “Sir, are you Chinese?” That was one melodious sound to my ears. “Yes…yes…no…no, I’m not Chinese, I’m Malaysian. Can you speak English?” “Yes sir, why not!” He was quick to answer.
Oh my God, it was like a rain in this hot summer. I quickly explained the exact location that we were standing and he quickly guided us towards his car.

This time, I learned from the earlier mistake and chose the ‘luxurious’ option on the Uber and this car looked decent and more importantly it had AC.

The driver was very welcoming and he quickly turned the temperature down and increased the blower speed and asked us if this was comfortable for us. OMG, such a courteous driver.

I can’t stop myself from asking him this question. “Where did you learn to speak English?”. “Ok sir, I was previously working as driver for Siemens’s engineers”, he answered confidently.

Continued in part 2 here.

#pakistan #expatriate #culture #powerplant #9HA #uberride #english