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Four days before the start of freshman year, a Virginia teen was trapped in Kabul

2021-09-03 00:00:00.0 华盛顿邮报-华盛顿特区原网页

The day before the start of freshman year, Dad rushed the family to a nearby discount store in Virginia to get the items a 14-year-old boy would need to begin high school: a slick backpack and some good-looking shoes.

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And it felt strange to be doing this, in a brightly lit, clean and orderly store.

Because just four days earlier, Wais Aria, 37, and his family were huddled outside an airport gate in Kabul. One daughter was limp after fainting in the heat and appearing lifeless in the arms of his wife, Kubra. His older son was afraid that the Taliban had heard him playing music and would come after him. And Aria had been beaten with the guns of Taliban enforcers, who slammed the weapons into the bodies of people trying to reach the airport.

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All of them were terrified that they’d never return to their lives as Americans.

“I never thought the situation would change so quickly,” Aria said from his apartment in Alexandria on Wednesday night.

The family has lived in Alexandria, not far from George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate, for four years now, firmly woven into the fabric of suburban American life.

Welcome home, New Americans

“My first time in Virginia was six years ago, with a peace-building program,” Aria said. “What can I say? Virginia is for lovers. And in 2017, I returned with my family.”

They came to the United States when life in Kabul became too dangerous. Aria had been running a nonprofit organization, which he founded 15 years ago, to rehabilitate Taliban child soldiers who had escaped war.

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And in recent years, he was being threatened because of the work he did with the children and his partnerships with Western doctors — the kinds of things the Taliban didn’t like or understand.

They were able to get green cards and settle in Virginia.

He thought he made the best choice possible — his family would be safe and he could continue to work with international aid organizations.

He worked with Judy Kuriansky, a clinical psychologist with the United Nations (best known as Dr. Judy on “Love Phones,” a bold radio sex-advice show in the 1990s) on educating the world about child soldiers in Afghanistan and mental health in children recovering from trauma.

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“I can’t express my happiness when we came,” Aria said. “It is a good place.”

The children flourished, blending in at their schools and quickly making friends. Mustafa, the 14-year-old, loved that he didn’t have to hide his music like he did in Afghanistan, shoving his harmonium under the furniture whenever word spread that Taliban enforcers were nearby.

But they missed their extended family. Everyone was back in Afghanistan — cousins, friends, the grandparents, affectionately called Bibi Jon and Baba Jon by the children.

So they made the tough choice to visit in June, thinking that all their American paperwork — green cards, driver’s licenses, the passport of their American-born son — would be their bureaucratic armor.

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“I never thought the situation would change,” Wais said, still shocked by the whiplash of Kabul’s swift fall. “Some of our friends advised me: ‘The government will not fall down that soon.’ ”

He brought donations and supplies to struggling organizations and families. Mustafa delighted the family when he played his harmonium “and all the children danced,” Aria said.

But each week, the tension grew.

“When the Taliban captured the country, we tried to leave,” he said.

Like others in Kabul, they were circling the airport, going from gate to gate, trying to find access. It was crowded and chaotic. Kubra hid their documents and mobile phone in her clothing, certain the Taliban wouldn’t touch a woman. But the papers didn’t matter — the Taliban guards couldn’t read or understand the protection that the papers should’ve offered.

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It was determination that got them out.

Eventually, after a night sleeping in the street in front of a gate that they heard was the best chance to get out, they made their escape when it opened.

“We finally got to the airport. The U.S. Army gave us water,” Aria said. “And they saved us.”

They were herded into a military plane.

“It was no seats,” Aria said. “And about 450 people. All sitting on the floor.”

In Kabul, celebration and dread after the fall

They made it to Qatar, then Germany, then Dulles on Saturday.

Kuriansky knew the family of six would be in trouble and reached out to talk to each of them on the phone.

In Aria, she heard someone different from the calm doctor who knew how to soothe and comfort the children of war.

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“He has PTSD. The nightmares, the trauma,” Kuriansky told me. “He is thinking of all the people he left, the constant fear of being traced. And murdered.”

She talked to the children, counseling them.

The girls — 10-year-old Sara and Safa, 7 — weren’t talking much, and Aria was sullen. He told Kuriansky they were stressed financially. He had enough money for backpacks and shoes, but he would have to apply for food stamps as soon as the children headed to school.

Kuriansky told them back-to-school shopping at the discount store was a good idea. And it was — new kicks made Mustafa feel ready to conquer the halls of Thomas Edison High School.

Then, the Dr. Judy who really knows what makes people tick told them to go to a music store. Mustafa had told her how much music means to him, that it soothes him to play.

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Mustafa’s eyes widened when they stepped in, and as soon as he sat in front of a keyboard he filled that showroom with Afghan music. Kuriansky got on the phone with the clerk and bought the teen a keyboard of his own.

“He is in school now,” Aria said. “He has some of his friends and they reconnected. When he gets home, he drops his backpack and goes right to the piano.”

Twitter: @petulad