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RASHID AHMAD NASIR
ENGLISH 111
BARBRA WALSH
Rm 225, PRC-Massey LTC
7 PM – 9:40 PM
10/04/2017
NARRATIVE ESSAY
A NEW COUNTRY, A NEW LIFE AND NEW CHALLENGES
The first eighteen years of my life were spent in a disturbed and war bearing country,
Pakistan. Throughout this time, I was living in a small town in mid Punjab. A town where only
people of my community had been living since the beginning. Things started to change however
when persecution against my community began to rise in Pakistan, which is a Muslim country.
People of my community were persecuted in every aspect of life, for example, I was persecuted
when I applied for admission to a university after graduating from high school. I was not granted
admission to a public university just because I belonged to a community not considered as
Muslims.
After this incident I decided that in order to continue my education I had to move to a foreign
country. After much research and thought I decided to move to move to the United States. It was
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on July 22nd, 2016, I experienced a flood of events in my life for the first time. This was the first
time I had left my family, had boarded a plane, and traveled a great distance. I was nervous at
first and redundant, I even cried a little for I was going to a different country, among different
people. People who don’t understand my language, people who have a different culture than
mine, a different way of living than what I’m used to. I walked around unsteadily all day like a
lost baby, far away from its pack. Surrounded by unfamiliar territory and uncomfortable weather,
I tried to search for any signs of similarities with my previous country. I roamed around from
place to place and moved along with the day, wanting to just get away and go back home.
This was my first day in the United States of America. Somehow, I was also happy and saw a
skyscraper, then two, then hundreds of them! I was in New York! I couldn’t believe it, I was here!
The sky looked so beautiful. I had never seen a sunset like that before in my entire life, a rainbow
