3 Sisters Eager to Help Rebuild Afghanistan

After all the years away, it would be so easy to stay put, comfortable in America’s hulking embrace. But not for the three Farzana sisters. They won’t hear of it.

Smuggled out of Afghanistan by their parents in 1980 amid the rumble of occupying Soviet tanks, they landed in the United States to start over.

Despite adjustments and heartaches, the sisters forged good lives. They have jobs, children, cozy homes in this Bay Area city’s deeply rooted Afghan expatriate community. They tutor school kids after work, volunteer endlessly for causes.

But now they have a new mission.

With the Taliban on the run in Afghanistan, the sisters say they hope to return to the land of their birth.

The country is a shambles, battered by two decades of ceaseless war. The Farzana sisters figure they’ll help rebuild it.

“Men are shaving! I’m going! Nothing like a clean-cut man!” joked Tania Farzana, 28, a cutup whose personality dances between saintly and street tough.

“I’m not being an idiot about this. I’ve thought out the problems,” she said. “What if they look down on me for not speaking fluently? What if I’m too Americanized? What if I don’t like the weather?”

Najla Farzana, the eldest of the sisters at 36, is quiet and serious. A divorced mother of three, she expects to go first, perhaps in the next few weeks. Her children--ages 13, 11 and 8--will stay behind with grandparents for now.

The middle sister, Rega, leaning toward practicality, may linger in the U.S. a bit longer. She has a year-old child and a recently purchased suburban fixer-upper. But she says that when a lasting peace prevails in Afghanistan, she too hopes to head back.

Such desires to return, after spending half their lives or more in America, echo loudly these days for many in the Afghan enclaves of the U.S.

By some estimates, as many as 10,000 expatriates--roughly one of every 10 who have settled in this country--expect to return to Afghanistan.

VirtualNation, an Afghan Internet site, is setting up a service to match volunteers with new rebuilding roles in the old country. Afghan engineers, architects and other professionals talk of helping re-create the nation’s roads, water systems and other broken infrastructure. Private groups are gearing up for a monumental push to restore tranquillity to a land so long plagued by war.

Some Afghans are considering quick missions--monthlong trips on borrowed vacation time. Others, like the Farzanas, suggest that they will return to stay.

What awaits these returnees is a land far removed from their recollections. Psychiatrists talk of reverse culture shock, of Westernized expectations foiled by a country where electricity lasts at best a few hours a night.

But for the Farzana sisters, the lure of childhood memories remains fresh after all the years, impossible to ignore:

The morning smell of bread baked in a tandoor oven.

Wood smoke wafting along the streets of Kabul, the Farzanas’ hometown.

Rega and Najla, both child actresses, performing on stage.

Or those special days, just before they fled Afghanistan, when the family gathered in Paghman, a tourist retreat of icy mountain streams and bountiful fruit trees. The adults threw down a woven rug outside, gathering on pillows to play cards and board games. The children built a swing and romped amid the orchards, feasting on cherries.

The sisters’ parents were progressive by Afghan standards. Jafer Farzana was right-hand man to the government’s interior minister. Asefa, their mother, taught school, wore miniskirts and often rode a bicycle to work, unusual in so pious a country.

Then came the Soviet occupation. Najla was 15, Rega 13 and Tania just 8. Najla remembers one terrible afternoon, returning from school to find Rega missing. She and her father headed off into a battle zone, crawling for a quarter of a mile, dodging bullets and bombs. They found Rega safe at a friend’s house, where she had gone to play.

As the bloodshed escalated, their parents held them out of school. But then one day it was time to go to school again--or so their parents said. Najla remembers the exact date: May 17, 1980.

Their mother woke the girls early, told them to get ready for class. They put on their school uniforms. The whole family piled into the car. But instead of taking them to school, their father turned toward the airport.

America Meant Huge Adjustments

The parents finally confessed a secret they feared Najla or her sisters might have let slip. They had traded home and possessions as a bribe. They had airplane tickets and documents to flee Afghanistan.

Eventually they landed in Portland, Ore., diving into a world of profound adjustments.

The girls struggled to learn English. They had few friends. Their parents worked at menial jobs--a newspaper pressroom, convenience stores, a janitorial service. Najla and Rega were left to help raise the younger children, Tania and two brothers.

“It was hard for me to justify leaving family friends,” recalled Rega, now 34. “We went from an idyllic life before the war to one of drudgery. I was miserable.”

It was the time of the Iran hostage crisis, and their new American neighbors seemed frosty. One morning, the family found a box of dead rats on the doorstep. At school, Najla and Rega endured taunts and harassment from students oblivious to the realities of South Asian geography.

“For the first time in my life, I experienced prejudice,” Najla lamented. “It was awful.”

In 1987, the two eldest sisters moved to the Bay Area’s suburban eastern shore, home to America’s largest concentration of Afghan expatriates. There they found solace and hope in a transplanted homeland. The rest of the family followed a year later.

The sisters quickly made a mark. Najla is an account manager for a human resources firm. Rega is an executive assistant at a software company. Tania is in her third year at a local college.

The sisters are always volunteering for something. Recently, they welcomed to their homes a newly arrived Afghan refugee family. For seven years, Rega and Tania hosted a weekly radio show for Afghans.

Their biggest effort is an after-school tutoring program. They gather in the city library three nights a week, going over math problems and grammar with dozens of Afghan children brought by parents who speak little English.

Tania is a whirlwind during the sessions, alternately cajoling and badgering students toward problem solving.

She seems tough, but Rega tells a revealing story.

One night, Tania got a phone call from a friend collecting blankets for the thousands of Afghans living in refugee camps. The day had gone badly; the collection container was only half full.

Tania put down the phone, weeping.

After an evening of phone calls, she had the container filled.

Tania has talked for years about heading back to Afghanistan, her sisters say, even before the promise of a new pluralistic government seemed possible.

But the logistical realities remain a barrier.

Unsure of What Role Awaits Her

Though her hunt has begun, she’s unclear just what role she might fill. Serving in the Peace Corps, perhaps, or maybe with a United Nations relief agency. Tania is also making a push with the Afghan Development Assn., a group of expatriate professionals who have been rebuilding canals, roads and schools in Afghanistan for nearly a decade.

“The country is completely destroyed, so anyone who goes can find something to do,” said Afzal Rashid, a California Department of Consumer Affairs unit manager who serves on the Afghan association’s board. “But it’ll be a culture shock. People need to do their homework before going.”

Dr. Amin Azimi, a clinical psychologist from Nashville, believes that the rubble-strewn lifestyle and war-ravaged culture could prove too great for many returnees. And Americanized Afghans could find the old homeland stultifying.

“They need to give themselves time to think this through,” Azimi said, predicting that many “will end up coming back.”

Down in Fremont’s Little Kabul, a tidy collection of Afghan restaurants and a grocery, some elders advise waiting. The country is still littered with land mines. The war remains unsettled. The prospects of a true democracy remain in flux.

Aziz Omar, owner of the Afghan Kabob House, sums it up: “My friend, let’s be honest. They say you can’t hide the sun with two fingers. Let’s see reality. You can’t go if it’s not safe.”

Tania insists that her eyes are wide open. She is unmarried; there are no entanglements holding her back. Once in Afghanistan, she hopes ultimately to become part of a democratic government, a showplace for the region.

“My goal,” she said, “is to live there forever.”

Rega, the most circumspect of the three, worries that her sisters could run aground. The Farzanas have been taught to voice their thoughts, be truthful. It may not play well in the new Afghanistan.

“Tania is so outspoken; it’s a shocker even for Afghans here in the U.S.,” Rega said. “I worry she could get frustrated and might not last. . . . She’ll kill me for saying that.”

Rega’s husband, Ehsan, is eager to return home. If the circumstances are right, Rega will go. But for now she sees a nobility among those remaining in America. The U.S. abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet defeat, she said. Pressure must be kept on Congress to support an Afghan rebirth.

“Sometimes beautiful memories take over reality,” she said. “I do want to help. It is my country. But how can I commit to something I haven’t seen in 20 years?”

Najla has no qualms. With a command of eight languages, she is in line for a job with a North Carolina firm that provides overseas translation experts to the U.S. government.

“Imagine me living in a tent,” she said. “Oh, my God! I don’t even like camping!”

Much to Be Done Before Embarking

She worries about how people back home have changed. She shudders at newspaper photos of Afghan children looking blithely at dead bodies “like they were road kill.”

Much is left to be done before she goes--rent out her home, consolidate her bills. People at work are supportive. Friends are already promising to visit.

Najla’s children are just now catching up to the notion of their mother leaving for a while, of the possibility that they might one day be headed to the world of their ancestors.

“I kind of feel like I’d really like to go there,” said Batool, Najla’s eighth-grade daughter.

Added Silscilla, a sixth-grader: “If I’m going with her, I’ll miss my friends. If I don’t, I’ll miss her.”

‘What if they look down on me for not speaking fluently? What if I’m too Americanized?

What if I don’t like the weather?’