By Sehba Sarwar
“Your necklace is beautiful,” said Dr. Ann Snow, professor at Cal State-LA who serves on PEF’s board. “Where did you get it?”
We were both attending PEF’s 2022 EdTalk. Ann’s eyes lit up when I told her that the lapis lazuli and silver necklace was from northern Pakistan.
“I have one very much like that,” she told me. “I bought it when I was attending a traveling conference in the country.”
It was my turn to look surprised. “Were you presenting for SPELT, and do you know my mother, Professor Zakia Sarwar?” I asked her.
Ann’s eyes opened wider. “Zakia Sarwar is your mother?”
Almost two years have passed since that first encounter when I learned that Ann had presented in a “traveling conference” for the Society for Pakistani English Language Teachers (SPELT), a non-government organization (NGO) started by my mother in 1984 in collaboration with other educators. On her visit to Pakistan, Ann ate dinner in my Karachi home, and she and I have had many conversations about Ann’s whirlwind travel around Pakistan when she presented in five cities around the country.
My mother, Zakia Sarwar, started SPELT with other Pakistani educators who were struggling with large classrooms and limited resources. “The concept for the conference is simple,” explains my mother, who is currently visiting me in Pasadena and cooked a meal for PEF staff members which Ann Snow attended. “Almost all educators in Pakistan are female and travel is difficult for them. To create learning and networking opportunities for them, SPELT takes the conference speakers and panels to cities around Pakistan.”
My mother, who participated in teacher hunger strikes in the late sixties, has served as a mentor for thousands of Pakistani English language teachers. When talking about reconnecting with Ann Snow after thirty years, she smiled and said: “I’ve been a world traveler for a very long time, but this intergenerational connection made me think about how small the world is.”
Ann Snow has been teaching and researching for more than 40 years and has led teacher training workshops and institutes all over the world, including in settings as Argentina, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Spain, and Turkey.
“I teach at Cal State LA, but I work a lot with international English teachers,” she said. “In most places, English teachers are women, so there’s a certain women’s empowerment to my work as well. The SPELT conference is different from other conferences – English teachers couldn’t travel from city to city unescorted, and Zakia had the brilliant idea to take our conference on the road. Rather than the teachers coming to us, we went to them! It was totally unique. We were part of a traveling roadshow. My Pakistani colleagues were also presenting, and I became very close because we were living together for two or three weeks. To have your mother’s hospitality at the end was a grand finale. That’s why when I would see Zakia at the annual TESOL conference, I would see her from across convention centers and look forward to giving her a hug and recalling those memories.
“And then when you and I made the connection with the necklace, it was all the better especially since we are both involved with PEF!” she smiled. “Seeing you at PEF brings back a wonderful memory of my trip to Pakistan in 1993!”
Sehba Sarwar is a novelist (Black Wings, Veliz Books 2019) whose short stories have been anthologized by Feminist Press, Akashic Books, and Harper Collins India, while her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Callaloo, LA Times and elsewhere. She serves as Student Engagement Manager at PEF and facilitates PUSD’s High School Leadership Think Tank.
