INTERVIEW WITH RAIES
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Raies: Hi, my name is Raies.
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Riya: What is your date of birth and where were you born?
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Raies: I’m twenty years old. I was born on the 20th of July, 1999. I was born in Abu Dhabi, but I was raised in Dubai.
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Riya: Where did you live before the onset of the pandemic?
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Raies: I stayed in [the] UAE my entire life. I would go out on vacations and all, but that was maybe for like a few weeks.
But right now, I am stuck in Pakistan since March 9th. I traveled here due to some family reasons and then my travel back date was about 2 weeks later, around the 23rd of March. And then the travel ban in Dubai started on the 19th of March, I believe. So then, we were just like, “Let’s stay in Pakistan…stay at home."
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Riya: How has the pandemic separated you from your home or family members?
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Raies: This pandemic affected my family as me and my mom were the only ones traveling to Pakistan, but my brother and my Dad – they stayed in Dubai. So we keep in touch via calls and all. But that’s maybe like once in two to three days unless we have something to talk about.
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Riya: How have you adapted to your new reality and “new normal”?
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Raies: What I learned from staying over here is that it’s a completely different environment to what I’m used to. I’m completely out of my comfort zone. But luckily after a month or so, I got used to it. And I guess it made me a bit more flexible.
And let’s just say that I’m more adaptable to change now than I was before.
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Riya: Do you know when you’ll be able to reunite with the rest of your family in Dubai?
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Raies: As of right now, I have no idea of when I’ll be able to get back, but I hope it’s soon.
There’s a website. It’s called the ICS services by the government of UAE so residents stuck abroad can apply over there and get approval. So, it’s been about a month or so that I applied, but I still haven’t got an answer from them.
We tried to contact them, but even they have such a big backlog of people that are trying to get back that they can’t keep up with the demand. If that makes any sense.
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Riya: Do you feel comfortable in Pakistan?
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Raies: Coming back to the experiences that I’ve had over here, it’s like everything is so different. The mindset of people is much more different than in Dubai. In Dubai, I guess I would say they are more open-minded. But I guess that just makes it sound like everyone over here is bad, which is not true.
It’s like, how do I explain this? So I think most importance over here is given to family and household. Just, the perfect example that I can think of is when I was back in Dubai my mom used to watch those TV serials, which are all dramatic. And I was like I think this is a bit too unrealistic. I’m sure there’s nothing that bad going on in countries. But as soon as I traveled over here, I get to know about all the family drama. Oh it’s actually true.
People are so used to it now that it doesn’t really bother them and I’m slowly getting used to all the drama.
I would that think it’s weird, but people over here who’ve grown up over here – for them it’s completely normal.
So then I just guess it’s a difference of – you know how they say that there’s a difference of generation, like each generation is different?
So I believe each person who lives in a different environment is – they’re used to their environment. For me, it’s weird. For example, if someone travels to Dubai from here, they would find it…but then they would get used to that environment, which is much more open and I would say it’s more friendly.
Over here, everyone likes to follow the laws and your business, but it’s like they want to know if they can gain from it. If not, then they wouldn’t bother.
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Riya: How have you tried to make the different places that you’ve stayed in Pakistan feel more like home?
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Raies: Ever since the pandemic started, me and my mom for reasons, we couldn’t stay in just one home. And we had to shift from one relative’s house to another a few weeks or maybe a month.
And I think we shifted to around four houses. But then it’s not like this is our permanent house.
We are just here for temporary reasons and everybody is really welcoming. They’re all like, “Come stay with us! Come stay with us!” But then we don’t want to travel much and we don’t want to bother a lot of people, so just go to our close relatives’ house. And then we stay there for a few weeks or maybe a month and then we move on.
Each house is different. The way everyone thinks is different. How they treat you is different. And then you just have to get used to it really quickly. And you can make it feel like home, if you treat it as your home. If you just feel like, if you treat it that maybe you’re just a guest, you’re not a part of this house, then you wouldn’t feel at home. But then you have to be, you have to make yourself in that mindset that this is my house for now.
It’s not like like staying in a hotel, like you’re just there for the time being. Like, you have to actually participate in the household work, which I like doing. So that’s how I used to get used to it.
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Riya: To what extent do you believe that your government responded appropriately and competently to the threat of Covid-19?
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Raies: And coming to the last question about the government helping us. I would say initially, I felt like the government in Dubai was doing much more than the Pakistani government. Like taking care of people. The lockdown was much stricter in Dubai.
But then, after moving around a bit over here, I realized that the government was doing the best they could. The population is a lot more than it is in Dubai so it’s harder to completely lockdown the whole country. And apart from that, even when we want to travel somewhere and we need any documents and all the government officials have been really helpful.
And my mom fell sick in April. We were kinda skeptical of going to a hospital, because of the situation. But then we spoke with a few people and the government nurses and the doctors said it’s nothing to worry about, which is not what I expected.
Like you hear stories, like you just go there for a test and they don’t even consider that you traveled and all, so maybe you could have the Covid-19. You would be positive and they would just take you in quarantine without even testing you. But that’s not true.
We went and they tested everyone. We got the results later. We were all negative thankfully.
So I guess that’s a good thing. People like to overhype things in Pakistan. But it’s never like that.
That’s what I’ve learned I think staying over here. Coming back to the whole adaptability thing is that, I’ve learned how to get used to change quickly, which would help me a lot in my life I guess.
And yeah, thank you.
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