75 Pakistanis will come to Massachusetts and 20 Americans will travel to Pakistan in 2014 as part of a $1.5 million U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs grant.
Zareef Ul Maani, left, and Sharif Hussain, to his right, review tax numbers with Hadley Town Administrator David Nixon. The government officials from Pakistan are here as part of a State Department grant to the Massachusetts Municipal Association and the Amherst-based Institute for Training and Development. The men will spend two weeks with Springfield officials beginning Monday.HADLEY – Town administrator David Nixon is sitting at a table in his Town Hall office, explaining how the tax system works to two visitors who have tax sheets to better understand.
This day is one of many here for the two men from Pakistan who are among a delegation of 15 people visiting communities across the state. Their tour is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to the Massachusetts Municipal Association and the Amherst-based Institute for Training and Development.
The program will see a total of 75 Pakistanis come to Massachusetts over two years, and 20 Americans will travel to Pakistan in 2014 as part of the $1.5 million program.
Next week, Sharif Hussain and Zareef Ul Maani will visit Springfield. They will spend two weeks in the City of Homes to get a look at how a larger city functions. Both men work in government in Pakistan. It is part of a 40-day tour of the U.S.
So far, they have witnessed Hadley’s annual town election on April 12. “It was very organized, transparent,” said Maani, who is a public administrator at the provincial level in the northwest area of Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa.
They sat in at a School Committee meeting and visited both the elementary school and Hopkins Academy, the town’s high school. “Very clean,” Maani said. He was also impressed with the parents who appeared before the School Committee and asked questions.
The visitors are here to learn about the government and to share culture.
“It’s expanding awareness of the complexity of people and cultures and society. These Pakistanis are very influential people,” said Julie Hooks Davis, co-executive director of the Institute for Training and Development.
The Pakistani participants are either mid- or upper-level government officials, she said. On this day, they were sharing with Nixon how their government systems differ.
Hussain, who is the deputy secretary in the Establishment Department of the government of Kyber Pakhtunkhwa, said that most taxes in Pakistan “are raised by the federal parliament. We don’t have tax collecting authority with the local government.” Nixon has been explaining about Massachusetts’ property-tax limiting measure Proposition 2½, as well as Hadley’s single tax rate and what a debt exclusion is.
This marks the two visitors’ first trip to the United States. It has been a surprise from the very beginning, said Maani, who added he’d expected “a tough time at the airport,” but “they welcomed us.”
“People have been so friendly,” Maani said. “We feel at home ... If (people) in Pakistan knew (how) people in America are, there would be long friendships.”
He acknowledged that he had not thought Americans would be as hospitable and friendly as he believes Pakistan’s people are, and Hooks Davis indicated the response is among the program’s goals.
“This kind of change in their attitudes will be shared not only by friends and family but by their colleagues, by the people who work with them,” Hooks Davis said.
What surprised both men was how college students here must work while they attend school. In their country, Hussain said, families will support their children through college until they’re 29 or 30. School is not any less expensive, but there are interest free-loans to help.
Maani was surprised that the Hadley town administrator must do so much work alone, right down to unlocking the doors to Town Hall when he arrives for work.
He noted the solitary life of Americans, expressing surprise that people eat alone in this country. “I can’t eat alone,” he said, noting that he always dines with at least two friends.
Also in their country, it’s not typical for people to live alone. Hussain lives with his wife, his parents, his three single brothers, his sister, and his married brother and his wife. He said it was difficult to leave his family for this trip, as he’d never been away for such a long period of time. “My mother had tears in her eyes, my father had tears in his eyes,” Hussain said, and he had tears, too.
For his part, Nixon said the program is providing him a good learning experience as well. “I feel I’m learning more than I am able to impart,” he said. Nixon is hoping to go to Pakistan in 2014 with other Americans.
So far, Hooks Davis said, the program “is exceeding our expectations. The generosity of the host communities, the warmth and welcome they’ve extended, exceeded expectations. We’re very grateful.”