‘I Feel Peace’: 3 Afghan Refugees Reflect on Their Escape to America

By Claudia Kolker / Special to The Washington Post

14:11 JST, August 31, 2024

Three years after the collapse of their government, more than 76,000 Afghans live in the United States under humanitarian parole. After the U.S. military completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021, Houston became the top destination for these refugees. For those who escaped, the anniversary of those weeks can summon chaotic emotions. Some don’t want to discuss it. Most worry about those who didn’t get out. And many, especially women, see their escape as an almost otherworldly reprieve from gender-based cruelty.

None of these refugees, though, could say that their escape is solely history. The Taliban’s stranglehold on civil society, and women most of all, keeps tightening. Last week, the group announced new “vice and virtue” laws threatening to arrest women who reveal their faces (or speak) in public.

Here, three Afghan refugees in Houston reflect on their escapes. The interviews, edited and condensed for length, were interpreted by Zala Hashmi.

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Khadija Sakhizad

Khadija, 27, kneels quietly in her living room, which is furnished with nothing more than two chairs and a new carpet. In Afghanistan, she and her husband Jawad belonged to the Hazara minority, which according to legend descends from Genghis Khan. Under the Taliban, the Hazara have been marginalized, tortured and massacred. Here in Houston, Khadija cares for her sons, ages 4 and 6.

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My husband worked for six months as a carpenter with a U.S. company in Kabul. It was a good place. They said, “If anything happens, we will take you to the U.S.” A relative had told my husband about the job. “It’s not safe,” the relative said. “But you have no choice.” Before that, we led a very bad life. My husband made about 50 afghani a day [about 70 cents]. In the new job, he made 10,000 a month. Then, on Aug. 15, 2021, I was washing clothes when he came home and said, “The Taliban took everything.” I sewed our valuables into a pillow and handed it to my husband, who left to hide. Soon after, three Talibs tore through our house.

When they were gone, a relative told my husband it was safe to come home. By now, he was getting emails: Go to the airport. We went, with our two small sons in diapers, four times. The first two times, the Taliban wouldn’t let us in. The third time, a bomb exploded a few yards from me. I said, “If we are going to die, I want to die at home.” So for one year, we hid. My husband said, “We will die together by starving but we will not separate.” The emails kept coming. Finally, one directed us to a new spot and we went. There, a team picked us up and drove us into the airport. From there, we flew to Qatar, then to the United States.

Look at me. I’m 27, but I look 40. But now, my son is going to school, and whatever he learns, I learn, too.

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Atefa Asma

In 20-year-old Atefa’s family apartment, a sewing machine sits in one corner, a parrot perches in a cage by the window, and a shelf of notebooks line the wall. Safe from the Taliban, everyone in the family – two parents and 11 children – is studying English.

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For most of my life, we lived with my father’s extended family of 30 people. I helped my mother because she did absolutely everything for them. If my mother didn’t serve them just right, and exactly on time, my father-in-law beat her. Then, four months before the Taliban came, we got our own place. My father, who is a cook, got a new job in Kabul with Americans. Life was good. The day the Taliban took over, I cried, because my dad had worked with foreigners for 12 years. But he escaped, hiking barefoot for 23 hours until he arrived home, with no toenails. We hid him in an upstairs room.

The Taliban burst in the next day. “Bring us tea, bring us food,” they demanded. “Did you work with Americans?” I had only seen them on YouTube. They were just as horrifying in real life: long hair, beards to their stomachs, black eyeliner. But we fed them, and they left.

For six months after that, my father hid. Then, his company emailed him: Get to a second country, and we can help. We drove two rented cars to Peshawar, Pakistan, and after 80 days, we got travel documents.

Now, it seems unbelievable that we’re here. Not everything is what I expected. In movies, I always saw tall buildings, so when I saw our small apartment, I said “Really?” The best thing is, if you want to study, you can. Even my mother, who didn’t learn to read, is learning English. No one will stop you because you’re a woman.

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Hussain Mohammadi

Hussain, the 34-year-old son of farmers with little formal education, graduated with an English language diploma in Kabul, then interpreted for the U.S. military while running a language and computer education center there.

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I was living with family in Kabul, running an educational center with more than 2,000 students. Then on Aug. 15, 2021, I got an urgent email. Go to the airport, it said. Everyone who worked for the U.S. military got a similar message.

Most of my siblings were working or studying outside Afghanistan at the time. But one sister was at home with me, and I thought: We need to get out. Under the Taliban, her life will be impossible. So my sister, my nephew’s wife and I drove to the airport. We left another sister behind in Kabul; I wanted to take her, but she has two small daughters and I saw on TV that some children had died in the airport crowd.

When we arrived, we couldn’t get inside the airport. Instead, we waited on the packed road outside for 10 days. No space, no food, no phone batteries. The Taliban were beating people with long sticks. We went home for one night and returned – this time to the U.S. military entrance.

Underneath the wall ran a dark, shallow river: sewage. I settled the family nearby and waded in, holding my documents up until a soldier approved them. But they wouldn’t open the gates. “Give me your hands,” he said, pulling each of my family members over the wall. Then they pulled me up, too.

After two days in the Kabul airport, we were flown to Qatar, then Italy, then Philadelphia, then El Paso – and, finally, Houston. YMCA International got us an apartment at this complex, Piney Point. “Hey, I’m looking for a job,” I said when I signed the lease. The owner heard and hired me as a leasing agent. Five months ago, they promoted me to manager. I have a lot of energy since coming to the United States. I helped my family. I feel peace.