"I mean, he has sent me pictures of a brother who's been stabbed. And when I see that, I can't imagine how you go to school the next day. I mean, he has sent me pictures of a brother who's been stabbed. But most of the money the church raises still goes to rental assistance. Some of the Afghans end up moving to the distant suburbs, where the rent is cheaper. Many of the refugees were interpreters for the Americans in Afghanistan because the pay was good. The members have been trying to help the new Afghan refugees, thousands of whom have stayed in the Washington area. When a teacher found out he lived alone and was financially strapped, the school staff reached out to Christ Church in Alexandria, a church founded in the 1700s whose parishioners included George Washington. He studied hard and worked, doing odd jobs, not able to socialize much. He got an apartment and enrolled at Alexandria City High School as a junior. And the refugees got three months of financial assistance. The State Department offered counseling help for jobs and education. So BH flew back to Dulles Airport in Virginia. "Then I found out about Virginia, it has a good education system. It's a good place.' And I said 'I don't have any relatives here,' " BH says. "Everybody in the camp had a relative in the U.S. "Everyone was afraid." BH says he was scared, too. "Everyone was pushing each other and they didn't, you know, care about old people and children," he recalls. BH remembers the last time he saw them, 10 of them - parents, a grandmother, brothers, nephews and his uncle - clutching their documents and pressing through a desperate crowd at Kabul International Airport, trying to board planes as the Taliban swept into the city. militaries, making the whole family suspect. We're just using his initials because most of his relatives are still in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, and often forced to change addresses because they fear the new Taliban regime.Īn uncle worked for the Afghan and U.S. And his family is 8,000 miles away - in danger. He's polite but reserved, easily mistaken for a visiting family member. People move through the halls to the elevators, introducing their pets and picking up packages at the front desk.Īmid the shuffle is a lean young man dressed in black. Out front, a literal revolving door of residents and visitors. – It's midday at Goodwin House, an upscale retirement community outside Washington, D.C. As Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021, a teenager got separated from his family at the airport and has been living on his own in the U.S.ĪLEXANDRIA, Va.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |