On a cold day in January, 2017, a Syrian couple, Ebrahem and Ranim, and their four children arrived in New Haven after spending 30 hours flying from Jordan. They were welcomed by four anxious but enthusiastic members of Westminster Presbyterian Church and Beth El Temple.
For the past nine months, the congregations partnered with IRIS to plan for the arrival of a refugee family. They were trained as part of IRIS’ co-sponsor program, to resettle the family with housing, furniture, financial aid, school enrollment, English lessons, and access to healthcare.
Less than two weeks before their arrival, IRIS got notice of the Al Radi family of six, originally from Syria. They each arrived with a single piece of luggage, shivering and exhausted from their arduous journey.
The WPC/Beth El team kicked into action, transporting them to their hotel while their apartment was being readied, and serving them a hot, Syrian meal, home-cooked with love by members of both congregations.
Throughout 2017, there were countless acts of kindness and love exchanged between the Al Radi family and the WPC and Beth El congregations. Over the years, the family received social service benefits, employment, education, and green cards. The Al Radi family has flourished and grown, to now include one-and-a-half year old Amir.
It is no understatement to say that the Al Radi family is a true refugee resettlement success story.
Speaking virtually no English upon their arrival to Connecticut, the Al Radi family now all speak beautiful English, have become U.S. citizens, and have purchased a home in West Hartford. Capitalizing on Ebrahem’s remodeling skills, and Ranim’s decorating skills, they have transformed their house into a beautiful home.
This past summer, the family reached another milestone: they received their last financial aid check from the WPC/Beth El refugee resettlement fund, as the Al Radis have reached financial independence. They plan to use the money towards purchasing a new car.
On a Saturday in June, Fadi and Eman Al Asmi and their three children welcomed two visitors from IRIS, offering dates and orange juice in their home in an apartment complex in Bloomfield. Their two daughters, Sham, 7, and Farah, 8, vied for space on their dad’s lap as he and Eman recounted their journey from a war-torn Syria to a new life in Connecticut. Outside on the porch, Eman had left slices of red pepper to dry in the sun. Six years after their arrival, both Fadi and Eman have full-time jobs, the girls are in elementary school, their brother, Hamzi, starts eighth grade in the fall, the family has learned English, and they recently became U.S. citizens.
“It’s more safe here. In Syria it was dangerous for us, for my kids. We moved to Jordan, and we lived there for five years. Then we came to the United States as refugees,” says Eman.
When they arrived in 2016, they were resettled by Interfaith Refugee Resettlement Committee (IRRC), a co-sponsorship group affiliated with IRIS. Since then, IRRC has resettled a family from Iraq and another from the recent evacuation of Afghanistan.
Before forming IRRC, however, members of the group had resettled a Turkish family that, generations earlier had been forcibly removed to Uzbekistan, then part of the Soviet Union. “In Uzbekistan they were in Russia but without any rights as citizens, the right to work, to school, so they applied for refugee status,” said Marilyn Boehm, one of IRRC’s co-chairs.
In 2016, the members regrouped, joined by people from the First Church of Windsor, a local mosque, members of the Loomis-Chaffee School community, and members of other congregations, to form the Windsor Refugee Resettlement Committee (WRRC). “They came together because they were aware of the situation of refugees coming in,” said Boehm. They reached out to IRIS, went through training, and followed IRIS guidelines to set up teams of volunteers.
“We have co-chairs, we have a medical team who follows all their medical care. We have four nurses, an educator team of four or five educators, a whole team of drivers, a small budget group, and one person acting as administrator who handles Google docs and calendars,” Boehm said.
There’s also a housing group that finds an apartment and furnishes it, down to acquiring appropriate kitchen utensils.
With a total of about 50 volunteers, between 20 and 30 are actively involved week to week. Many are retirees who have flexible schedules, including Boehm, who was a pediatric physical therapist.
Between 2018 and 2021, after resettling the Al Asmi family and the family from Iraq, the group took a hiatus. The Trump administration had slowed the flow of refugees to a trickle, but the group also needed to take a break. “Part of it was us regrouping and revitalizing,” said Boehm.
With each resettlement the group has reviewed what worked and what didn’t. But each time, Boehm says, there are new lessons to learn. “Even when you adjust what you thought you should do differently, the next family is completely different. You tailor it somewhat to each individual family.”
Nevertheless, two key lessons emerged. Boehm stressed the importance of filling out a change of address form with the post office as soon as the family arrives. Misdirected letters can lead to serious complications as families apply for benefits. The other lesson was to ensure that the family’s sponsor is on the contact list for everyone who interacts with the family—doctors, dentists, etc. One family missed a medical appointment because they couldn’t understand the doctor’s text reminder in English.
Fadi and Eman Al Asmi left their home in Dara in 2012 because the civil war was hitting too close to home. While driving to visit his father in a hospital in Damascus, Fadi came under fire from Syrian soldiers. “Maybe God gave me another life,” he said of his close call.
They stayed five years in Amman, and their daughters were born there. Their application to enter the United States as refugees was granted in 10 months. While Fadi celebrated, Eman was not so sure. “I was so excited, but my wife doesn’t like coming here,” Fadi said.
“I am crying. I wanted to go back to Syria,” said Eman. “We don’t know any people. We don’t have any idea about the United States. It’s hard when you go to a different country. But he told me we should go.”
On their arrival, Eman’s doubts dissipated. “We came to our apartment at 9 o’clock at night,” she said. A Muslim woman met them at the door with a traditional Middle Eastern dinner of chicken and rice. IRRC volunteers were there to greet them. “When we opened the car door, I was so happy,” Eman said as she recalled the volunteers saying, “Welcome to your apartment. We are a family, we’ll work together. Don’t worry about anything, just take a shower, eat, and sleep. Tomorrow we’ll be here.”
Eman still misses her family in Syria and being able to walk to do errands in her neighborhood. “In my country everything is close,” she said. Here, she and Fadi have to drive everywhere.
She works as a housekeeper at a retirement home and Fadi works as a baker, the trade he learned in Syria. “The dad is a master baker,” said Boehm. “He came with this wonderful skill as a pastry chef, and he’s found himself a niche now.”
Both of the other families WRRC has resettled are doing well. The Iraqi family of six that arrived in 2018 now owns a home in West Hartford. WRRC recently celebrated the 100-day anniversary of the Afghan family’s arrival. The husband has found a full-time job in furniture assembly while his wife is at home with a new baby. Their other four children are in elementary, middle, and high schools.
Reflecting on these experiences, Boehm says, “It’s been fun even though at times it’s been overwhelming and frustrating—the amount of paperwork and details and following up here and there.” But, she adds, “It makes me more aware of all the cultural differences in the world and in the country and how good people can perceive things differently. The more open you are to looking at things differently, the more you’ll see.”
A few weeks ago, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tricked 50 Venezuelan asylum-seekers in Texas into boarding a charter plane and flying to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. They were told they were going to Boston, where they would find a range of assistance, get legal aid, and be given jobs.
All of this was a lie.
Although the Martha’s Vineyard community was surprised by these new arrivals, they gave them a warm welcome. Hundreds of individuals, several churches, shelters, and several aid groups scrambled to help the asylum seekers.
At around the same time, Texas Governor Abbott chartered two buses of asylum seekers to arrive at Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence. Over the past several weeks Abbot has sent more than 5,000 migrants to Washington, D.C. and New York City in an effort to punish these cities for their immigrant-friendly politics.
At IRIS, we believe newcomers should be welcomed to this country. Venezuelans, like all migrants fleeing persecution and poverty, should be treated with compassion and respect. They should be given an opportunity to apply for asylum.
“I am proud to say that most communities in this country would welcome a planeload of migrants with open arms,” said Chris George, Executive Director of IRIS. “If they came here, we would find places for them to live, help them get settled, and treat them like human beings instead of pawns in a cruel political game.”
Every person deserves an opportunity to feel safe.Take action— tell your national and state elected leaders to welcome people seeking protection and safety.
Sophia* arrived from Guatemala to the States in 2018 with her young son, hoping to start fresh. As an undocumented immigrant, she gets help from IRIS’ Services for Undocumented Neighbors (SUN) program.
SUN launched in 2019 when co-manager Camille Kritzman was hired to support migrants without a “refugee” or “asylee” status. Having several years of experience working with CT Students 4 a Dream, Camille evolved from Case Manager to manager of the SUN program at IRIS.
The onset of the COVD-19 pandemic in 2020 led to a drastic rise in SUN clients as jobs were lost, government stipends were not provided, and full rent payments were due. Mirka Dominguez-Salinas’ stepped in as SUN’s second manager, to tackle the growing client list. Once an undocumented immigrant herself, Mirka has also worked with other migrant-supporting organizations, CT Students 4 a Dream, and even more so with Make the Road CT.
Since 2020, Camille and Mirka have grown the SUN program with Doris Cordova, Intake Specialist and Daniela Carranza, Case Manager. According to both co-managers, it has been a gradual process, but also a rewarding one. “I’m so proud of the work we’re doing. We keep fighting for clients and advocating for them. There is no other program like this in the state.” Mirka stated.
Sophia too is proud. The young Guatemalan woman is proud to feel that New Haven is a safe haven through the SUN program and to have a reliable connection with the team. Recently, she gave birth to her second child, a premature baby girl. In order to cope with the pregnancy pains as well as visit her daughter in the ICU each day, Sophia lost her job. The loss of income ultimately caused her to fall behind on her rent. Sophia attempted to acquire financial aid with a variety of organizations, but was denied. The only ray of hope was IRIS’s SUN program.
Sophia was given a $800 gift card to cover her overdue rent bill during SUN’s monthly “Resource Day,” — a day for clients to receive info on education, health, housing, and legal resources. Empowering undocumented immigrants is especially crucial as they are excluded from many social services.
“There always needs to be so much proof, and for people who aren’t in the system in the same way – because the system has barriers and has excluded them – they turn around and ask for all of these papers.” Camille said.
SUN’s mission is focused on inclusion, trust, and teaching clients about basic human rights as newcomers to the States. The team strives to transform their teachings and services from a “ray of hope” their clients depend on, to an everyday right that their clients independently grow with. “A big part of our program is teaching clients how to be strong self-advocates because we aren’t going to be here forever. They aren’t going to be clients forever. We need them to know how to go after these things themselves,” shared Camille.
Q&A with John Martin, owner of Bradley Street Bicycle Co-op
Interview by Helen Hen
What does Bradley Street Bicycle Co-op do?
John Martin: “We get bikes back on the street. We have a big recycling program where folks donate their bikes to us, then volunteers and staff fix them up, and we donate half of them to folks who need them, IRIS being one of our big recipients. We sell the other half to subsidize the project.
We also have an open shop for folks to come in and pay what they can, and use the space and tools to fix bikes themselves. On top of that, we spend time with people from different walks of life. We come together over the act of fixing a bike which is fun and pretty powerful.”
How did the company start?
John Martin: “ Actually a big part of the program has its roots in IRIS. The Bradley Street Bicycle Co-op was started by me in 2015. Then I quickly met two people, Joel L. and Paul Hammer, who were running a small bicycle recycling program with IRIS. IRIS would help collect bikes and give them to Paul and Joel, they would fix them all up, sell half and then donate the rest back to IRIS. They encouraged me to take that program and run with it. We give 60 bikes to IRIS clients directly per year.”
What is the advantage of having a bike?
John Martin: “New Haven is really segregated by income. The affordability and the efficiency of owning a bike for someone who is struggling financially is really valuable. And then you have all these bonuses, it’s good for the environment, good for physical health, good for mental health, it reduces congestion in the city and traffic problems and it’s cheap.
For IRIS folks who are brand new to the country, they often come with just their bags and the clothes they have. When you’re transitioning to an entirely new home and new life, even if your bike is your second mode of transportation, it’s great! You can pop over to the corner store and use it for small trips.
IRIS is a beautiful partner we’ve been working with since the beginning in 2015. Paul passed away last year, but Joel is still a volunteer at the bike co-op and a dear friend and mentor, who helps out all the time. It’s fun to have this continuity and IRIS is like the birth of who we are and is at the core of our work, so we’re lucky and privileged to have a relationship, because you do amazing work.”
For more, visit Bradley Street Bicycle Co-op: www.bsbc.co.
When asked about their favorite aspect of living in Connecticut, Laila and Mosa Sadat said, “the sea.” The couple escaped Afghanistan when the Taliban regained control, and now live peacefully in Branford, steps away from the beach.
Although Laila and Mosa enjoy the serenity of their new home, their journey to Connecticut was not easy. After fleeing Afghanistan, they migrated with 11 other families that are part of Turquoise Mountain, an artisan group, and lived in a refugee camp in Qatar. Laila describes the experience saying, “It was a big garage. There were about 400 containers on top of each other. There were no windows. I was getting depressed.” After nearly seven months in the camp, the couple finally arrived in the U.S., to a home with beautiful views and a flourishing garden.
Upon their arrival, they were greeted by an IRIS co-sponsorship group. This volunteer group, Branford Refugee Resettlement/Helping Families Settle (BRR/HFS), was trained by IRIS for nearly a year to help the couple acclimate to life in Connecticut. BRR/HFS welcomed the Sadats with a furnished home, fridge full of groceries, household items, and clothing.
The 50-person team, led by Laura Noe, also helped Laila and Mosa get settled by familiarizing them with local bus routes, finding employment, enrolling them in English lessons, and scheduling healthcare appointments.
Healthcare was especially vital as Laila and Mosa just welcomed Lea, their first child, born a U.S. citizen. Laila reflects on the newfound opportunities for her, “My daughter is in a safe country and will get an education. There are not any safe schools in Afghanistan, especially for girls.” BRR/HFS plans to open a college savings fund for Lea.
Settling into a new country is still challenging for many refugees, like Laila and Mosa. The biggest hurdle for the couple is their high cost of rent. While BRR/HFS helps offset their rent cost, finding affordable housing has become increasingly difficult. Obtaining a driver’s license is another dilemma, since the test is not offered in Dari, their native language.
Despite these difficulties, Laila and Mosa are making progress. Mosa is putting his woodworking skills to use, and has found a job as a contractor. Laila has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and is looking for a job where she can work from home. She enjoys painting and has started a garden in their backyard. Until they become self-sufficient, BRR/HFS will continue to support the couple. Laura says,
“As a refugee resettlement co-sponsorship group, I speak for our 50-volunteer team when I say we are thrilled to welcome Laila and Mosa, and baby Lea, to Branford!
Maher Mahmood is a photographer and videographer. He was given his first camera at the age of thirteen when he lived in his home country of Iraq.
During this time of war in Iraq, Maher learned he could use photography as a way to tell his story and the stories of those around him. Since then, photography and videography have been his passion.
In 2014, Maher was welcomed to New Haven by IRIS.
Below is an excerpt of Maher’s speech, given at ‘Storytellers & Artisans’ in June 2022, in honor of World Refugee Day.
“New Haven, Connecticut became my home in 2014. I remember the first week my father brought a cup of water and he put oil in it and told us,
‘I don’t want you to be the oil. Don’t separate yourself from American culture. Try to learn many things, America has so many opportunities.’ He brought a spoon and started mixing it and said, ‘I want you to achieve a lot. Education here is better, just go for it.’
So we did, but the beginning was hard. I learned English through google translate and when I tell people that they say, ‘that’s why you have a google accent.’
Recently, I went to see a documentary I helped filmed at Long Wharf theater called See Me As. In that documentary, they talk about five stylists, five actors and activists. My mother is one of the stylists. Seeing my mom make her own art was just really beautiful. My mom always talks about how art in America is free.
In Iraq there is so much restriction. As a photographer, I remember one day I was taking photos on the street, and an Iraqi police officer came to me and said, ‘what are you doing?’ and I said, ‘I’m an artist, I’m taking photos just of people.’
He took my camera and he smashed it with an AK-47 and arrested me for no reason— just because I’m an artist. At that time I learned in Iraq we are allowed to have guns but we are not allowed to have cameras, because with a gun we can shoot one or two or three — but with a camera you can show the world what is happening there.
So I tell myself, I will always be a photographer and I will always shoot video too. Because of IRIS, the local community support, and the artistic opportunity the state has provided, I see me as an artist, a leader, a photographer, and most importantly, I was welcomed and blessed by the New Haven community.”
Watch Maher’s speech & other refugee storytellers here.
What started as a simple pairing of cultural companions seven years ago has now flourished into an interconnected, multicultural family at a heartwarming café and fellowship program in downtown New Haven, called Havenly.
The two women came together through IRIS’ Cultural Companion Program in 2015, after both having arrived in the States the year before. Caterina Passoni arrived from Italy to begin her studies at Yale University in the Fall and Nieda Abbas arrived with her family in the Summer. Nieda worked as an accomplished chef and entrepreneur in her home country of Iraq, and then in Syria before immigrating to the U.S.
After Caterina and Nieda’s daughter were paired through IRIS, it was more than the city that became a haven for them. Caterina, Nieda, and the rest of the Abbas family connected over their shared meals, cross-cultural conversations, and newfound memories together.
“I think that was one of the reasons why I felt at home with Nieda — because I grew up in Italy my whole life, and then I came here for a few years. It was one of the few places I’d go where they were all eating together, and that was the same kind of spirit I grew up with,” Caterina reflected.
A couple of years filled with tutoring sessions, family meals, and adventurous outings between the Abbas family and Caterina spurred the grand idea of selling Nieda’s delicious meals to their first customer on the Yale campus. The satisfied review led Caterina and Nieda to sell many of her homemade recipes from the Middle East all throughout and beyond the Yale campus. Word of mouth wasn’t the only way in which Caterina and Nieda’s collaborative start-up grew. It further developed through the “heavenly” aromas and heartfelt approach that came on the side of each meal or baked good. In the spring of 2018, Nieda and Caterina launched Havenly.
The few years it took for the two, new business women to start Havenly as an official business were brief, but also challenging. Nieda opened up and acknowledged, “I got stuck in the fear for a while. That’s one of the most important things to remember. If you don’t get out of that fear, you can’t move forward.”
One of their greatest obstacles was the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. At this point in their long journey, both Nieda and Caterina were equipped to surpass any obstacle. With their resilience they made sure their brand new café doors remained open, especially for those in greatest need throughout New Haven. During the first six months of the pandemic, they provided food relief to those in need. Nieda emphasized, “It was a hard time, and we felt their pain. I think because of what we did, God opened doors for us.”
The café stands out so uniquely because of their integrative and inspiring atmosphere. The dynamic duo has welcomed dozens of other refugee and immigrant women. All new hires grow into the diverse, Havenly family through their six-month fellowship program that has drastically evolved since their first fellowship. They are in their fifth fellowship program now, which includes education around individual rights, fairly paid work hours, yoga, art therapy, group outings, and more. The integration of deeply varied cultures, mindsets, and experiences at one, single café truly lives up to the Havenly name. After all, Nieda states that “Havenly comes from two things — my own journey and the situation that refugee women are facing in general, in the United States.” It is the ultimate haven endlessly cycling through gratitude, empowerment, and belongingness across borders and foreign flavors.
Jeremie is originally from the Congo but has spent most of his life in a refugee camp in Tanzania. He speaks French, Swahili, and now he’s trying to master English. “My priority is for my kids to study. I want my kids to help the community, work here, be good people here. I know with IRIS this dream can be true,” Jeremie says. Jeremie, his wife, and three boys were welcomed to Connecticut by IRIS in 2020. He meets weekly with Mark, a volunteer tutor at IRIS, for English lessons. Jeremie currently works at Amazon and ImageFIRST Healthcare Laundry Specialists, but aspires to be a mechanic or electrician, once he improves his English.
“IRIS helped first to integrate me and my family. I thank IRIS and my friend, Mark. He shows me I have a person behind me. When I have a problem, I ask Mark. For this, I thank IRIS.” During their weekly meetings, there’s a lot of laughter as Mark teaches Jeremie English. They play Wordle and Mark will pause when they come across a word that Jeremie is unfamiliar with. “You don’t know baseball? It’s like cricket.” Mark stops his lesson to draw a baseball diamond and explain the game.
“It’s a way of making this country a better place,” Mark says of his experience helping Jeremie. “We’re a land of immigrants. We have people coming into this country who really want to work hard and be successful and just need a little bit of help to get there.” Refugees often take any available job when they arrive, to help reach self-sufficiency. We help refugees get this first job and then continue to assist them in improving their skills and find better paying jobs.
To move up in their careers, IRIS developed the Move Ahead Program (MAP), where eligible clients are enrolled in programs to improve their English skills and in other training and certification programs. In addition to enrolling MAP clients in ESOL classes, IRIS has trained 50 volunteers like Mark to work one-on-one with almost 100 MAP clients, like Jeremie. We expect to enroll 80 new clients in MAP each year and will work with clients as long as necessary to achieve their goals.
When Sarah Martz talks about “the guys,” she’s referring to four Afghan soldiers who left their country after the fall of Kabul last summer. They now share a two-bedroom apartment in West Hartford and Martz is one of several volunteers who is helping them start new lives in the United States. She visits them three times a week to help them learn the ways of life in this country.
“I always have a list,” Martz said during a visit in early March. “We do money on Wednesday—using ATMs, paying bills. Today I had to get them to sign forms for paperwork to get their families here.”
Martz got involved with their resettlement after answering a call last summer in the Facebook page of her neighborhood, Hartford’s West End. With the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan imminent, Carrie Berman, who had helped resettle Syrian refugees during the civil war there, anticipated an even greater need. “She knew that this was going to be bigger than what had happened with the Syrians and that what would be most beneficial would be to get as many co-sponsorship groups as possible together,” Martz said. About 40 people signed up to create West End Welcome and contacted IRIS for guidance on how to get started.
The group formed teams for specific tasks and began raising money and hunting for apartments and furniture. By last November they had $20,000 in hand and had identified two possible apartments. About 80 people are now involved, Martz said, but about 10 are the most active.
Martz saw herself as an overseer and hadn’t planned on the personal role she’s assumed. “I was a stay-at-home mom, coming out of two years of virtual school due to the pandemic,” she recalled. With her two children back at school she was looking for another activity. Then she saw the Facebook post. “I felt like I had time and I’m extremely organized. I love the delegation. I love the chaos. That works well for me.”
For the first three months, Martz and co-chair Jane Carroll took care of email and Facebook posts, serving as co-chair and delegator for West End Welcome as the group waited to welcome its first refugees.
In December, IRIS held a Zoom meeting with its co-sponsorship groups and Martz learned of an urgent need—IRIS had already received 300 people in two months, and more were on the way. Of particular concern was a group of three men, hard to place because they were not the typical nuclear family unit.“That was a Monday night,” Martz said. “We said we’ll take the three men, the men arrived Wednesday, we put them in an Airbnb, and then we signed the leases for two apartments on Friday.” (The second apartment is for a family of three that arrived in April.)
When it came time to pick up the men in New Haven, no one was available, so Martz volunteered. “That changed everything,” she said.
She took them to the Airbnb and went to visit the next day. “We decided then that somebody should be there every day. So, I saw them every day for two weeks. We thought that would build some confidence and some trust. I started bringing my kids.” The household, however, didn’t work out. Two of the men had a falling out with the third, who now lives in an efficiency apartment nearby. After he left, the two were joined by two friends who had shared their odyssey from Kabul to the United States and had resettled in New Jersey where they were not able to get the help they needed from a local resettlement agency that was likely overwhelmed with new arrivals.
The soldiers’ journey to Connecticut started last August after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. They were based in Khost, near their hometowns on the border with Pakistan, but as the Taliban advanced, their units were called to defend Kabul. The Taliban attacked their convoys, and they reached the capital only after disguising themselves as civilians. “The Taliban were controlling roads with blockades and checkpoints, stopping and asking questions. What are you doing? Where are you going?” said N., a 30-year-old commander. (For the safety of the soldiers and their families in Afghanistan, only initials are used). When Kabul fell, U.S. military advisors took them into the airport and helped them leave the country. “The Taliban was outside at the gates of the airport,” said N. They traveled first to Tajikistan, then Germany, then a military base near Washington, DC, before continuing to bases in Texas and New Mexico.
They left Afghanistan with no more than the clothes on their backs and without being able to say goodbye to their families, but they now have a furnished apartment, new clothes including winter coats and boots, and all four work the evening shift at a bulk mail processing facility a mile away. That leaves their days free for taking care of the tasks of settling in, like English classes and required medical visits. They live within walking distance of a Walmart and a CVS but need rides to New Britain for Friday afternoon prayers at the nearest mosque. West End Welcome has provided them with Uber gift cards, and showing them how to use the cards has been another learning experience. Another lesson is to encourage them to do chores like grocery shopping and laundry separately, to build independence.
“Martz’s visits have become more than an opportunity to take care of business. Martz talks about “the guys” like they’re family. Her 8-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son, who often come along, see the soldiers as uncles. During a visit in December to hang curtains, Martz realized she’d need to make a run to Home Depot. “My daughter said, ‘I want to stay, I want to stay, I’ll teach them English.’” Her children have another reason to enjoy their visits—volunteers often ply the soldiers with donations of food that isn’t halal. “They would send all of this junk home with my kids, the cookies, the donuts, the sweets they don’t eat,” Martz said.
When Martz asked the men if they felt any discomfort at being driven around by a woman or having a woman not a family member visit them alone, they reassured her. “They said, ‘We see you as our mothers and our sisters. And our mothers in Afghanistan are so thankful.’”
“When Sarah is coming here everyone is very happy,” said N. Martz has found that there’s no such thing as a quick visit. “You walk in the door, and they offer you tea and nuts and dates,” she said. An invitation to share a meal soon follows. “You go for a 30-minute event and you’re staying for an hour and a half. You’re sitting on the floor, having Afghan food. If you say no, I can’t stay, there’s this look of bewilderment.”
Indeed, when two visitors from IRIS arrived in early March, the men offered saffron tea and a tasty chickpea and kidney bean stew cooked with onions, tomatoes, and okra, and served with rice and flatbread.
The apartment walls are adorned with pictures and phone numbers of the five women who have taken on most of the resettlement responsibilities. On the living room wall are maps of the world and the United States. Post-its on walls around the apartment include common English phrases they’ll need to learn.
N, the former Army commander, is the only English speaker and serves as the interpreter for the others. Their main concerns are to send money to their families in Afghanistan and to find a way to bring them to the United States. In daily calls to their families, they’ve learned that the Taliban has been hunting them for their association with the Afghan army and the U.S. military. “The life is very dangerous. The life is not safe for us and for our families,” N said.
Days earlier one of the men learned that the Taliban had come looking for him and taken his 19-year-old son instead. He was released after the family paid a ransom. Their relatives can’t work because fear of the Taliban keeps them confined to family compounds, so the soldiers send remittances to their families from Connecticut.
Among them, the four men have 25 children, and bringing them and their extended families here is their prime concern along with building a life here. B, 37, who has five children, hopes to become a truck driver. R, 32, also the father of five, would like to work as a car mechanic, which was his job in the Afghan army. H, 35, has 10 children and wants to provide an education for them. N, as the oldest brother in his family and the father of five, feels a responsibility to his family and says, “I will try to find a nice job.”
Martz and her colleagues will continue working with them to get them acclimated to life in the United States. Independence and self-sufficiency are the goals. “We’re all here to help get you out of the nest,” Martz tells them. “This is our opportunity to help you. You fought with our soldiers for 10 years. Now you are here, and it is our job to give you rest and treat you with kindness.”
