The last time I saw Zareen, she lifted up her pants legs to show me her ankles. We were all barefoot because we had left our shoes at the door, and it was summertime. “I get a new job,” she said. “I have an interview, but I’m still looking, just in case.”
Her ankles were swollen, but her feet were sturdy. “My ankles swell up from that job,” she explained. “I can’t work that job anymore.”
She had told me before that the job involved walking all day at the hospital and that she liked her supervisor. She was, at first, an assistant for patient transportation, but she thought she wanted to become a nurse or a surgeon someday. She transported patients on stretchers inside the hospital. One day, a patient arrived at the hospital in handcuffs from the prison. She thought his handcuffs looked too tight and asked if they could loosen them, but she was told, “No.”
She arrived at the hospital at 4 a.m. every workday, always on time, and did all that was asked of her. Her cheerful spirit glowed from her eyes, as she knew it was hard for women to get jobs in Afghanistan, her home country. She had arrived in Kentucky as a refugee less than a year before and was overjoyed when she got her driver’s license. “Women don’t drive in Afghanistan,” she said.
Her supervisor noticed her work ethic and asked if she would like a promotion transporting bodies inside the hospital’s morgue. Her supervisor wanted to make sure before she promoted her that Zareen could handle the job description, working with the dead. Zareen responded with a careful look in her eye. “It’s OK,” she said. “My whole country is a morgue.”
She easily opened up to me about her life in Afghanistan. I was told by the volunteer coordinator that most refugees from Afghanistan do not choose to share their stories. Zareen must have felt the need to share, even if risks were involved. The Taliban threatened her in Afghanistan because she had chosen to work for the United States Army. “I love to work for the U.S. Army,” she said cheerfully.
Taliban officials warned her with guns and death threats, but Zareen confidently explained that she didn’t care. “When you’re dead, you die in an instant,” she said. They tried to take her young son, Hamza, away from his preschool, but the teachers wouldn’t allow it.
“Women are the champions,” she said, as she worked, cooked, cleaned and took care of her son.
• • •
In 2002, when Zareen was just 17, she was one of the first Afghan women to work for the U.S. Army. She said she wanted to work for the Army “because the U.S. Army travels to help us, so why can’t I help them?” Her family members and neighbors tried to stop her from working for the U.S., but she persisted, performing various jobs—from computer operator to finance manager. She also liked helping Army members buy things in town. “When they need to buy something, I think it is too dangerous for them, so I go and I bring it to them,” she said.
Her supervisor from the Army, James Robert Smith of Covington, along with the U.S. Embassy, helped Zareen and her family relocate to Louisville in 2018. Smith and his wife, Melinda, met her family at the airport when they arrived in Louisville from Afghanistan, after more than 20 hours on an airplane. The Smiths helped them with their transition to living in the States.
My daughter and I arrived at their apartment as volunteers for Kentucky Refugee Ministries to teach English as a Second Language to Hamza, but Zareen and I always talked, too. There was plenty to discuss about navigating the public school system, which I knew something about, as my daughter also attended public school. Zareen and her son both knew English rather well, but her husband, Homayoon, was still learning. My daughter worked with Hamza on reading and writing as I learned more about Zareen’s life in Afghanistan.
Three months after I met Zareen, she informed me that she got a new job as a patient care assistant at the same hospital where she had been working. She told me that her new supervisor saw her working in her old position and told her, “I see you working hard all of the time. I have an open position. You come work for me.”
She took patients’ blood pressure and other vital signs prior to surgery. She loved her new job and the people with whom she worked, and it inspired her to become a nurse.
When I spoke to Zareen in September, she and her family had moved to Las Vegas, where she attends nursing school. They think it is too hot in Las Vegas and may move back to Kentucky or to California, where they have family.
Now in her mid-30s, Zareen is successful as a wife, mother and student. She and her family should be eligible to apply for citizenship in 2023.
• • •
My Eyes
I am learning to be kinder to myself in the small voices in my head. To clear away the weeds and vines and find myself in the clearing of a field, like an animal on the land without the chatter of human stories. I see myself in the sunshine and know that I exist, like the other animals in the field. None of us needs to blame each other for being in the field.
I am finding peace with myself, my ideas and my disposition. I don’t look at celebrities or gorgeous people and wish I could be them. I can only imagine being myself. My only wish is that my circumstances had been different—a loving childhood, with loving parents and loving grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles. We didn’t live near any family. It was just our parents, who couldn’t stand each other and later divorced and didn’t seem to love us too much, either. But of course, you find out later that they did love you, in their own way, in the way that suited them. It wasn’t about us; it was about them. Childhood sadness takes so long to go away.
When I met Zareen, I saw that she worked daily to change her circumstances. She already has. As I encourage her, I can’t help but encourage myself. For it is only circumstances that have shaped us so greatly. But what I admire more deeply than these circumstances is the inner core that shines through and reveals our souls when we connect with others honestly. The intimacy of truth in our characters can shine through at any moment, despite our circumstances. It reminds me that: So what if I wish my circumstances were different? So many people do. All I can do is be encouraging, and somehow, I feel some of those rays of sunshine, shining back on me, from my own eyes, too.
Making Kentucky Home for Refugees
Kentucky Refugee Ministries is a nonprofit agency providing initial resettlement support, long-term integration services, and immigration legal services. KRM has offices in Louisville, Lexington, and a new office opening in Covington Nov. 15. Together as a community, the agency resettles refugees and welcomes immigrants. Through KRM, volunteers encourage hope, advocate for newcomers, and transform the lives of those seeking safety.
Throughout the pandemic, refugee and immigrant families have continued to arrive in Kentucky. They often work in essential industries. KRM welcomes people from anywhere. This year, the largest populations of people are coming from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Cuba. KRM welcomes refugees from Afghanistan who are arriving through the humanitarian evacuee program.
Here are some of the ways you can get involved with Kentucky Refugee Ministries:
Volunteer
Help drive food to families’ homes through a monthly food pantry, support English learners in virtual classrooms, tutor a child in grade school, and more.
Join a team
Co-Sponsor and Welcome Teams offer community groups the opportunity to welcome and support a family new to Kentucky.
Donate goods
Furniture, household items and winter coats are vital needs.
Make a financial contribution
Directly support a family and/or support KRM’s services.
Help with employment or rental housing
Hire a refugee or rent a home to a family.
For more information or to become involved, visit kyrm.org or contact info@kyrm.org.
A resident in the Louisville Teacher Residency Program who teaches ESL (English as a Second Language) at Jefferson County’s Waggener High School, Rebecca Hassett volunteered at Kentucky Refugee Ministries for more than a year. Her experience as a volunteer with KRM affected her viewpoint of her own life. A version of this story first appeared on the Kentucky Refugee Ministries website, http://kyrm.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Shining-Back-On-Me-From-My-Own-Eyes-Too.pdf.