Beyond the news...

         Watching the shocking, sudden withdrawal of US troops from Kabul on television last August, was heart-rending. Scenes of Afghans desperately scrambling to escape the Taliban remain vivid in my mind despite it having happened seven months ago now.   When I heard that some of the thousands of Afghans who made it to the US would be resettled to Asheville this winter, I felt compelled to get involved.  I volunteered to be an ESL tutor again, something I had done when first coming to Asheville teaching English to Hispanics.         

I’ve got a good one for you, Kristina!
( the subject line of an email I received in mid- January from Erin, the ESL Coordinator of Literacy
Together)

Yesterday I evaluated a lovely 31-year-old quite fluent Afghan woman who is here with her mom. She speaks Pashto and Dari and wants to improve her English so she can get a good job. In Kabul she worked at the Supreme Court, something with computers. She's about to move into a home in Montford with her mom, another young Afghan woman, and that woman's young (11-year-old?) niece….would you like to meet her at her home for tutoring sessions? The one I have in mind for you is named Tamana.

***

 

            On my first day of tutoring, my student, Tamana Hamidi, greets me at her new home in Montford, an historic residential area of Asheville.  We exchange “good mornings” and “how are yous?”  Tamana looks disheveled and sleepy but she assures me that she has been expecting me and is ready for her English class. 

             “I stay up late at night,” she explains in fluent accented English, “because I talk to family in Afghanistan.” 

            I know Kabul is 9 ½ hrs. ahead of Asheville and that the situation in Afghanistan under the Taliban, is worsening daily. 

            Tamana is short and full-figured, with long brown hair and piercing intelligent black eyes. She is Muslim but doesn’t cover her head.  Immediately I notice that she is independent, assertive, and smart….a proud, modern Afghan young woman from Kabul. She only seems self-conscious about her weight and tells me that all Afghan women are thin….but not her.  She gained weight during her second pregnancy and never lost it. When she divulged that her husband had divorced her and taken her two young daughters, 3 and 6, away from her, I caught a glimpse into her tragic and harrowing life. (No wonder she put on weight…) She has told me more than once, that she hasn’t seen her children in a year and a half and doesn’t know where they are or who is taking care of them. I now am aware that this is on her mind all the time and is the source of her tremendous stress. I am sure it has been that way for her even before she came to the US as a refugee. 

            When I meet with Tamana twice a week, the house is often quiet and everyone is asleep.  Other days, Maliha, Tamana’s mother is up and dressed in a long skirt and the hijab. She smiles warmly and always says “good morning”and “how are you today”.  Tamana tells me Maliha  had some English classes on the army base in Wisconsin where they lived for 5 months until they were assigned to Asheville. Her mother will have her own ESL tutor. Shabnam and her niece Sana, who is 11, also live in the house although they aren’t related.  They met on the base in Wisconsin and agreed to live together and be “family” to each other.  Saba started public school just last week and Tamana told me they all were up early to see her off and wish her good luck. 

            Tamana is fluent in English because she lived in San Diego, California with her husband for two years before returning to Kabul. She studied English from 7^th grade through high school. She has an “ear” for languages and pronunciation.  Now she finds herself head of the household in Montford translating for everyone. She is often called upon by Erin at Literacy Together and other American volunteers with Catholic Charities and Lutheran Church Charity Services to help interpret for refugees with no English.

            Tamana speaks lovingly of her 65-year-old mother who left her entire family in Kabul to come to the US with her.  Tamana described her family and how they all live on one compound in Kabul -  all five brothers and wives and their children together. She is the only daughter. No mention was made of her father and I don’t ask.  Maliha, took care of many of the grandchildren and had a full life.  Now she lives in a quiet little house in Montford/Asheville, North Carolina with no one to care for.  Tamana is the one who looks out for her. 

            There is so much I already admire about Tamana and the women she lives with.  Not knowing anything about Afghan culture I observe.  They are always polite and appreciative. Tamana says thank you constantly whether in class, after class or in her texts to me.  She takes her English classes seriously and prepares her homework despite everything else she is doing as she settles into a new life in Asheville. Her immediate goal, she told me, is to get a full- time job, take more English classes, and eventually become a citizen. (I have been told that the Afghan refugees are here on “humanitarian visas” and can work.)

            I have not asked Tamana why she escaped to the US in August.  But I sense that what lies behind the goals she talks about, is the determination to find her children and get them back. Perhaps earning money, improving her education and ultimately becoming a US citizen will help her do that.

 

            When I leave the little brown house in Montford to drive home, thoughts of Tamana, her life-story and the still-vivid scenes of the desperate escape of Afghans last August, stay with me.  None of it is easy to set aside because I have never experienced anything remotely like what refugees, such as Tamana, live with. 

             I know how for most Americans the news about Afghanistan is something they might watch and then go on with their own lives.  Having a personal connection with Tamana through our tutoring sessions together, make those headlines real for me.  What I am learning is difficult to forget.