This past May, COAR co-founder Jessica Wanke joined our former client, Dost Mohammad, for his first return to Afghanistan since fleeing in 2001. This is a guest post from Jessica about her friendship with Dost and their journey back to his home.
-Cara
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It was 2003 the first time I met Dost Mohammad Fahim Khairy.
Dost and his family had left Afghanistan as refugees in 2001, and after a time in Pakistan, they were resettled in Phoenix, Ariz. Catholic Social Services, the agency that resettled the Khairy family, reached out to COAR (then called Refugee Resettlement Volunteers), asking for a few people to volunteer with Fahkra, Dost’s mother, to practice her English.
I started going to the Khairy household in Glendale twice a week, and quickly became attached to this wonderful family. Not only was Fahkra sweet, welcoming, and eager to learn English, but I formed a quick friendship with Dost as well, and began to look forward to the evening sessions I would spend with him. It became my routine to work with Fakhra for an hour or so on English, then to sit with Dost late into the night, listening to his stories about Afghanistan, life under the Taliban, and his adventures working as a food aid monitor with the United Nations World Food Programme.
In his last years living in Afghanistan, Dost became ill with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which left him almost completely paralyzed. One of the benefits of being resettled in the United States for Dost was that he could get high quality medical treatment and physical therapy. Despite the treatment he was receiving, Dost, at the time, was still confined to a bed. In his hours of solitude, Dost, whose English is quite good, began writing and posting blogs on the Internet. He articulated his views and developed an eloquent way of story telling. I would sit for hours, captivated by his stories and soaking in his commentaries on Afghanistan’s current situation.
At the time, my day job was as a reporter for The Arizona Republic. When Dost began talking about wanting to form a non-profit organization to advocate on behalf of Afghanistan’s many disabled people, I knew this was a good story. Dost told me his plans and the Republic published my story about him on the cover of their Valley & State section under the headline “Afghan Yearns to Aid Homeland.”
Over the next few years, I moved out of Arizona, spent some time in the Middle East, and eventually settled on the East Coast. All the while, Dost and I stayed in touch. He continued developing his concept for the non-profit organization, and I followed his progress. In the summer of 2007, a few days after I moved to New York, I got a phone call from Dost. He had recently informed me about his plans to get married to a childhood friend in Afghanistan. When he called, he told me that the plan was set – he was going back in the spring for his wedding. It would be his first time back since 2001.
I was excited for him immediately. We began talking about how much different the place would probably be from what he remembered. He mentioned that he wanted to document his journey. And ever since first meeting Dost, and hearing his colorful stories of the places where he grew up, I wanted to see the country for myself. From that first phone call, the idea of me accompanying him on his trip home, and collaborating with him on a documentary about his return to Afghanistan, evolved.
This past May, with funding from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, I traveled with Dost and his younger brother, Farshad, from Phoenix to Mazar-i-Sharif, in Afghanistan’s Balkh Province. I feel unbelievably lucky to have shared this amazing experience with him, and to have seen this beautiful place. I am truly grateful for the wonderful organization that is COAR, for connecting me with this incredible person.
To read more about our travels, and about our documentary project, visit my blog at Untold Stories
To read about Dost’s non-profit organization, visit his Web site: Afghanistan Friends Rehabilitation Center
More information about the documentary to come.