[ad_1]
As they modify to their new communities, Afghan households evacuated to america because the Taliban regained energy final summer time are celebrating Ramadan with gratitude for his or her security.
AP Photograph/Giovanna Dell’Orto
AP Photograph/Giovanna Dell’Orto
AP Photograph/Giovanna Dell’Orto
AP Photograph/Giovanna Dell’Orto
AP Photograph/Bobby Ross Jr.
AP Photograph/Giovanna Dell’Orto
AP Photograph/Giovanna Dell’Orto
AP Photograph/Giovanna Dell’Orto
AP Photograph/Giovanna Dell’Orto
AP Photograph/Giovanna Dell’Orto
AP Photograph/Giovanna Dell’Orto
AP Photograph/Giovanna Dell’Orto
AP Photograph/Giovanna Dell’Orto
AP Photograph/Giovanna Dell’Orto
LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (AP) — Sitting cross-legged on the ground as his spouse and 6 kids laid plates of fruit on a purple material in entrance of him, Wolayat Khan Samadzoi watched by the open balcony door for the sliver of recent moon to seem within the cloudless New Mexico sky, the place the solar had set past a desert mountain.
Then, munching on a date, the bushy-bearded former Afghan soldier broke his first Ramadan quick in america – removed from the Taliban risk, but in addition the three dozen kinfolk he can be marking the beginning of the Muslim holy month with if he was nonetheless dwelling in Khost, Afghanistan.
A couple of minutes after naan was dipped into bowls of stewed okra and beans, Samadzoi, his spouse and the 2 oldest kids retired to worship on their prayer rugs. On Saturday night, the two-bedroom condominium full of the murmurs of their invocations.
“I pray for them, and so they pray for me, they miss me,” he stated of his kinfolk again dwelling. His cousin Noor Rahman Faqir, who can also be now in Las Cruces, translated from Pashto to the straightforward English he discovered working with American forces in Afghanistan.
As they modify to their new communities, Afghan households evacuated to america because the Taliban regained energy final summer time are celebrating Ramadan with gratitude for his or her security. But there’s additionally the agony of being away from family members who they concern are in peril beneath a Taliban management crafting more and more repressive orders.
From metropolitan areas with flourishing Afghan diasporas to this desert college neighborhood lower than 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the Mexican border, tens of 1000’s of newly arrived Afghans share one predominant concern that’s amplified in what needs to be a celebratory time: With solely non permanent immigration standing and low-paying jobs, they really feel helpless to handle their households right here and again dwelling.
Abdul Amir Qarizada repeats a number of occasions the precise second, 4:30 p.m., when he was ordered to take off from Kabul’s airport throughout the chaos of the evacuation – with no time to get his spouse and 5 kids, who’re nonetheless in Afghanistan greater than seven months later.
“My concern is the plane is secure, however my household shouldn’t be secure,” the previous flight engineer says after Friday prayer at Las Cruces’ solely mosque, the place he goes by bike to seek out some “peace.”
So does Qais Sharifi, 28, who says he can’t sleep with fear for his youngsters left behind, together with a daughter born two months after he fled Afghanistan alone.
Each males break into smiles when the mosque’s training director, Rajaa Shindi, an Iraqi-born professor at close by New Mexico State College, invitations them to register for the free iftar dinners held nightly within the assembly corridor adorned with gold balloons spelling “Ramadan kareem” — an Arabic greeting usually used to want individuals a contented Ramadan.
Native congregations just like the mosque and El Calvario United Methodist Church in Las Cruces, in addition to the Jewish and Christian-based organizations that resettle refugees throughout their nationwide networks, have been serving to Afghans discover housing, jobs, English-language courses, and faculties for his or her kids.
They decry the truth that most displaced Afghan households don’t have everlasting authorized standing in america, regardless of their providers for the U.S. authorities, army or their Afghan allies throughout the post-9/11 Afghanistan conflict. That might give them entry to many authorities advantages and a better path to work and household reunification.
Whereas Afghanistan’s many years of conflict and present meals scarcity imply far much less extravagant feasts than in lots of international locations the place Ramadan is widely known, the acquainted tastes of dwelling are prime of thoughts for a lot of displaced this yr. Qarizada remembers his mom’s signature festive dish of bolani, a stuffed fried bread like an enormous samosa.
The mom of Shirkhan Nejat nonetheless cries each time the 27-year-old makes a WhatsApp video name dwelling from Oklahoma Metropolis, the place he was resettled along with his spouse and the couple’s child was born. Lacking his close-knit prolonged household at Ramadan brings “unhealthy feelings,” Nejat stated, regardless of his gratitude for being secure.
It’s such bonds, the heat of enormous household gatherings across the iftar meal and the cacophony of acquainted sights, sounds and smells marking the top of a day’s quick that many are craving for in America.
In Texas, Dawood Formuli misses his household’s typical pre-iftar routine: His hungry father irritably asking for his meals. His mom asking her husband to settle down, and Formuli, 34, telling a joke to lighten the temper and make his father giggle. His kids, in one other room with their many cousins, generally taking part in, generally combating. “Allahu akbar,” the decision to prayer, spilling over from the mosque down the road.
“Daily, it’s like Christmas,” the previous translator on the U.S. embassy in Kabul stated of previous Ramadans within the three-story home his household used to share along with his mother and father, siblings and their households.
In his new condominium in Fort Value, the decision to prayer now comes from an app, not a minaret.
The transition has been particularly laborious for his pregnant spouse, who continues to be studying English. But there are traces of the acquainted of their new neighborhood: Muslim neighbors, mosques for the particular Ramadan prayers, often called “taraweeh,” and halal meals markets.
Khial Mohammad Sultani, who the day earlier than Ramadan was nonetheless dwelling in an prolonged keep motel on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas, needed to experience almost 80 miles (128 kilometers) spherical journey into New Mexico in a taxi to go purchase and slaughter a lamb for Ramadan.
The 37-year-old former soldier, his spouse Noor Bibi, and their six kids broke the second day’s quick with items of that lamb stewed in an fragrant sauce across the one desk of their duplex, newly constructed on a barren foothills lot not like their home in Gardez, with its apple and pomegranate bushes.
Proper after iftar, 4 of the kids acquired prepared for his or her first day of faculty ever the subsequent morning, one other new thrill for his or her mother and father who by no means acquired a proper training.
However relating to religion, Sultani will proceed to show his kids at dwelling, as his father did for him.
The three oldest kids – a boy, 11, and two ladies, 9 and eight, with purple headscarves loosely organized over their lengthy braids – pray in activate a inexperienced rug that’s among the many household’s most treasured possessions.
The household’s Quran got here from the army base in New Jersey the place they first landed in america. However Sultani’s father introduced this rug from his pilgrimage at Mecca after one other son was killed by the Taliban, a doable destiny they escaped, crossing many checkpoints as they fled Afghanistan final summer time.
“We’re Muslim, and part of our religion is to thank Allah for every thing,” Sultani says in Dari by a volunteer translator. “As appreciation for him, we’re doing this.”
___
Fam reported from Cairo. Bobby Ross Jr. contributed from Oklahoma Metropolis.
___
Related Press faith protection receives help by the AP’s collaboration with The Dialog US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely accountable for this content material.
Copyright
© 2022 The Related Press. All rights reserved. This materials will not be revealed, broadcast, written or redistributed.
[ad_2]
Source link
