Afghan family adjusts to life in SLO County after fleeing their homeland

On a warm August 2021 morning in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital city was unnaturally quiet in the week that followed the United States’ troop withdrawal.

That day, an Afghan citizen and U.S. translator (referred to here as “John” to protect his identity) began to make his way to his work shift at 3 p.m. before traffic forced his driver to turn around.

John returned home before going to court to take care of some business.

By this time, the city was buzzing with activity and the court was too busy to accept new patrons, however, and everywhere in the city appeared to be crowded.

“It was not looking like a normal day — you were feeling something because you have something bad’s happened — you have some kind of bad vibes,” John said.

It was only once he returned home for the evening that John learned a looming fear had become reality: The Taliban had returned to the city.

“Around maybe 11 (p.m.) or 12 a.m., there was a rumor that the Taliban had come into the capital, and it was shocking,” John said. And then (all at) once everybody was running — policemen, especially the military personnel, they were throwing their uniforms everywhere and changing, and it was just everybody was running.”

What followed that first frightening day was several months of living as a refugee as John and his wife, three-year-old daughter, and his wife’s family (consisting of his mother, father and sister-in-law) made their way out of the country, moving province to province before escaping to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The family stayed in the UAE for another seven to eight months before being resettled to a staging ground in Virginia by the International Rescue Committee and the International Organization for Migration, which oversaw many of the refugee resettlements from Afghanistan in the past year.

Twelve members of his family remained in Afghanistan while John’s family fled the country. Their identities remain private for their safety.

“Being a translator or interpreter was the toughest job in Afghanistan,” he said. “(Militants) will consider you as a spy, because an interpreter was the one to help ambassadors.”

From Afghanistan to the Central Coast

In October 2021, shortly after the fall of Afghanistan, local doctors Vance Rodgers and Lauren Brown decided to launch SLO4Home, a volunteer organization dedicated to settling refugees in San Luis Obispo County.

Rodgers said the organization has about 155 volunteers working on resettlement and partners with humanitarian organization Church World Services (CWS), which has settled refugees since World War II.

Each family costs between $60,000 and $80,000 to resettle over the course of a year. Rodgers said those costs go to SLO4Home’s support committees, which cover functions like healthcare, jobs, housing and “everything they would need to become successful in our community.”

CWS identified John’s family and paired them with the newly formed SLO4Home during their stay in Virginia. The family then moved to SLO County around three months ago, John said.

Integration into the community has been difficult, but John said he’s becoming more comfortable with the people and places around him.

“Day by day, I consider myself as a SLO resident of California, as American residents, because I don’t have any other option except from that for now,” John said. “This is the place that the helped me and give me shelter and feels (to) me like home.”

Now settled in SLO County, John is searching for a job with the help of SLO4Home’s aid committees.

John still has contact with his family in Afghanistan and hopes they can be moved out of the country with him if the opportunity arises.

“That’s kind of on my last dream — my last wish is to see my family (here) with me and to have them with myself without any risk and in a safe place.”

John’s wife “Maria” said while the move to SLO has been difficult, living in the United States provides new opportunities for her sister and daughter.

“I’m trying to learn more about the culture (here),” she said. “Women, here at least, have their rights. Back in Afghanistan, women don’t exist for most of the people. I love being here.”

Maria said her sister can continue her education in the United States, which came to an abrupt end in Afghanistan due to the Taliban’s ban on women attending school.

In the case of her 3-year-old daughter, Maria said she was happy to find a safe place to raise her after months of refugee settlements and temporary living situations.

“She goes outside every day,” Maria said. “I’m so happy for her.”

John’s background as a translator made the process of moving the family and settling them into new lives in the county easier than it is for most refugees, Rodgers said.

“We can’t completely solve the problems in Afghanistan — we tried that for 20 years, and we weren’t able to establish a democracy there or a stable government,” Rodgers said. “We’re not going to create a society for them. That’s going to have to be the Afghans who do that. But we do have an obligation to people who put their lives on the line for our troops and our diplomats.”

“(John) took a lot of risks to make sure his family could be safe — living on the ground and in danger all the time — but protecting his family,” Rodgers said. “He’s a brave guy.”

SLO4Home’s mission continues in Afghanistan and beyond

With John and his family relocated and settling into their new lives in SLO County, SLO4Home will continue helping other refugees from the conflict in Afghanistan, Rodgers said.

There are currently two families in the settlement process in SLO County, and the organization is looking to add a third in September or early October, Rodgers said.

“We think this is a two-year project,” he said. “There are thousands of Afghan refugees on foreign military bases and other facilities awaiting resettlement.”

Rodgers said his organization aims to resettle as many as eight to 10 families in the county over the course of the next couple years, though the parameters of their mission may change in response to current world events.

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues through its sixth month, millions of Ukrainians have been displaced by conflict, with some estimates from the United Nations placing the refugee count at 6.6 million who’ve relocated within the country’s borders and another 6.3 million seeking refuge in Europe.

Rodgers said these two conflicts have fundamental differences the may change SLO4Home’s approach to resettlement.

There are few adjacent countries Afghan refugees can escape to, making resettlement farther from their home country more practical.

Conversely, many Ukrainian refugees have fled to neighboring countries like Poland and Romania but may not be able to return to their home country depending on the state of Ukrainian infrastructure and the outcome of the war.

“(Ukrainian refugees) have a hope of going back, but what will they go back to?” Rodgers said. “There’s been so much damage to Ukraine that as time goes on, it may become apparent that there’s no jobs, no housing to go back to, and so they may be seeking integration.”

‘Maybe I can do something for my country’

Meanwhile, John said he wants to help SLO4Home’s continuing work to resettle refugees from Afghanistan.

Once he and his family are comfortable in the community, he wants to join the organization’s humanitarian effort, and potentially return to his home country if the conditions become safer and more stable.

“I would love to go into Afghanistan whenever I can help, or maybe I can do something for my country, for my poor people,” John said.

John said he hopes as these conflicts fade from public consciousness, his people will not be left behind without help.

“Afghanistan is a poor country, not from resources, because we have a lot of resources (that have not been) extracted yet, but we’re poor from in stability, poor in security, poor in economy and poor in development,” John said. “I would like the international community to help us again, as they did before.”