MAR 31 2022
Ahmad Ghani (Ghani) recently joined our NWA community from Afghanistan as well as the Canopy team as an Employment Specialist. We had the honor of hearing him share pieces of his story – from growing up in Pakistan, studying at universities in both Afghanistan and the U.S., working in Petroleum Engineering with the Afghan government and U.S. Department of Defense, as well as the story of his evacuation in August of 2021 after the fall of Kabul. The Canopy team is incredibly grateful to live and work alongside him.
Ghani mentioned a quote, shared by his friend and Canopy colleague, Khalid Ahmadzai, that resonated with him in his journey. “‘When you travel, at first it makes you speechless, and then it makes you a storyteller.’ First, everything is new and it amazes you. But then, because you have traveled to many countries, as you travel, you tell one story to the other and [the next, and the next] and that is how you become a storyteller.” Keep reading learn about the story that brought him from Afghanistan to Northwest Arkansas.
Ghani’s Background
Ghani’s family is from Afghanistan, though his youngest memories are from growing up in Pakistan. His father was a laborer, and despite not liking living in Pakistan, his parents made the decision to raise their children there for the sake of their education and healthcare. Ghani learned English and Urdu throughout school, though he notes, “I really only learned to read and write [English] since we didn’t speak it outside of school”. In 2013, his father made the decision to move the family back to Kabul, Afghanistan after Ghani and his brother finished school.
Ghani attended the University of Peshawar where he received a degree in Geology and after working with the Afghan government in Petroleum Engineering for a few years, decided to further his education. He received his masters degree in Petroleum Engineering through the Fulbright program in Missouri in 2016. He described how proud he was to take his education and experience back to his home country to assist in the development of oil and gas systems as one of the first five petroleum engineers for the Afghan government in addition to working with the U.S. Department of Defense. His roles, from the time he began to when he left in August of 2021, shifted and expanded as he led a series of accounts and partnerships with oil and gas companies from the U.S. and China. Beginning as the Senior Petroleum Advisor to the Minister of Mines and Petroleum, he moved to Acting Director over Afghanistan’s oil and gas projects as the program shifted, to becoming the Director for Economic Development of Oil and Gas in 2021.
Ever-Changing Plans
His passion for career development and education continued to expand as he pursued a PHD at the University of North Dakota. He began his studies on a remote basis while maintaining his role with the Afghan government. “I did the first semester of my PHD online,” he said, “it was horrible – I had to do it along with a full time job, late into the evening, the office had good WiFi but there was terrible WiFi at home – I couldn’t do another semester online.” He added, “a PhD is a lot of work… it’s meant to be done in person”. After the exhausting semester, he decided that he would begin the process of applying for his visa and come back to the United States to study.
After a month-long stay in Mumbai awaiting his visa approval, he decided to return to Afghanistan and try obtaining his visa with the assistance of connections and friends who would help him get it – and he eventually was approved. Ghani had originally planned to return to the U.S. in 2020, but the pandemic forced his plans to come to a standstill.
When his approval for his visa finally came, it was August 13, 2021, just three days before the Taliban took Kabul.
Evacuation & The Afghan Way of Persistence
Unable to make it back to Mumbai to pick up his visa, he had no choice but to attempt to flee Kabul without it. He carried a photo of his approved visa on his phone throughout his journey as well as hard copies of important documents like his social security card that he obtained while living in the U.S. in 2016. Days of trying to get to the airport in Kabul through crowds of thousands of people all hoping to flee with little to no sleep wore on. Guards shoot into the streets for crowd control, “one of the shots went just a few feet away from my leg, just right beside me” Ghani exclaimed. Ghani stayed, surrounded by thousands of other individuals and families in hopes of crossing into the airport.
He recalled circling the area multiple times, attempting to get clear answers from the military personnel at each gate, and receiving little help with each encounter. “I asked them, ‘when did you last open this gate’ to see if I could get an idea of the timing,” only to be told that some gates hadn’t been opened in days.
He continued coming back to the idea, slightly jokingly, of the “Afghan way of persistence”, but said learning this was what allowed him to press on.
Following this persistence, Ghani found himself wading through a canal with walls around 7 feet high on either side. Holding the legal paperwork he needed to get him to the U.S., “I was lowered into the canal”, he stood up adjacent to the wall in the room we sat on, one hand held high as if he was reaching over the wall “it was like this, someone held my hand and lowered me down, it wasn’t that bad. Someone said to take off my shoes but there was barbed wire and who knows what else in the canal, so I knew they’d get dirty but I kept them on.” He waded through the barbed wire and water up to his knees to reach the guards standing on the other side of the wall. As he hoisted himself and his the documents onto the wall on the other side of the 15ft wide canal, a guard told him to turn around – and another, and another. Confident and holding onto persistence, Ghani continued to show his documents to the guards as they made their way past the canal wall – until finally, his persistence paid off.
Ghani recognized a pattern of right and left turns that led him through the next few hours, and subsequent months of his life as he navigated his journey to Northwest Arkansas.
The situation was similarly chaotic inside the walls with guards shouting, children crying, and general disorganization revealing the urgency of the evacuation. “Many people didn’t have their documents for various reasons,” Ghani explained as the rapid and forced nature of the situation led to many, including himself, not having time to obtain or organize all of their paperwork. Ghani recognized a pattern of right and left turns that led him through the next few hours, and subsequent months of his life as he navigated his journey to Northwest Arkansas. This maze of directions and destinations, all unknown to him prior to each arrival, led him to stand for hours on a completely packed cargo airplane, to waiting in extreme heat in Qatar, onto a more comfortable flight to Germany, to Iceland for fuel, to Pennsylvania, Texas, and on to New Mexico. Each stop meant another round of security screening, tests, and scans and each location meant a different length of stay.
In Germany, he was provided with “a small bag with shampoo, soap, toothpaste, and a small blanket and stayed outside with other men in a small yellow tent that held 15-20 people. It was very cold in a tent in the winter, but I was just glad that I was not in the hanger with the women and children,” he laughed. “[WiFi] was very bad during the day so I stayed up at night at like one or 2 AM to use the it.”
New Mexico – a place he had previously spent time working with the U.S. Department of Defense – is where he spent the longest stint of his evacuation journey: 66 days. Ghani helped translate for those who didn’t speak English and noted the cultural differences that people encountered. He laughed as he described the improvement of food options throughout his weeks there. When he first arrived, the food options included things like hotdogs, and “no one knew what that was” he laughed, saying that many opted to only eat the bun. As time went on and weeks went by, he noticed an effort to provide more culturally appropriate food like “rice, lamb, vegetables, fish and other foods”.
Family Remains His Focus
Throughout his journey, Ghani spoke with his family every so often when he was able, when he could charge his phone, and when he had wifi, updating them on where he was and letting them know he was safe. He said he still tries to talk to his family somewhat often – “I’m not the best at communicating with my family… my Mom told me I needed to text my sister, and when I did, she didn’t respond”. Ghani’s parents and younger siblings are still living in Kabul and with inconsistent connection to WiFi, communication is often difficult.
“My younger sister is very smart”, Ghani shared, highlighting the strengths of each of his siblings, and sharing about how his older brother began a life in Paris after attending a university there. He said “I am one of the few in my family with an education,” but proudly spoke about how brilliant each of his siblings are and how he hopes to support them and potentially give them opportunities in the future. Ghani’s goals for his future here in NWA are centered on supporting his family, “I am focusing on my legal status, to change that to be more permanent, and also making money so I can support my family back home and, if I have enough savings, sponsor them. That’s my goal.”
A Connected Community
Ghani connected with the Canopy community through previous connections with the Canopy team, Aarozo, one of our incredible Case Management Supervisors, and her husband Ikram, who he knew through the Fulbright program. He was excited to find out that he had a connection in Northwest Arkansas, as it was so close to where he had previously lived during his masters program in Missouri. Since moving, he has been deeply grateful for the sense of community that he feels here, that he relates to his time in Missouri and how much he loved it. “I felt that [connection] in Missouri – even the car mechanic would say things like ‘hey, please let me know if I can help’. Even if we don’t talk, people know people just by [seeing] their face and want to help. I used to say [in Missouri], its my home, its peaceful, I loved it – whenever I was outside of America I would tell people I loved it.”
“People would laugh at me, but I could feel the connection there, it felt just like home – that’s why I loved it. But now, I think I’m feeling the same thing here.”
In addition to supporting his family, he hopes to focus simply on “life, just like any American, improving [more and more]. I want to stay in this area, especially the Bentonville or Fayetteville areas, although I like to joke about all of the hills – like okay, one hill is fine, but this city is built on so many hills!” he laughed. “I like it, it is beautiful – I just like this area, I don’t like bigger cities [with] the traffic and the millions of people”. He noted that in bigger cities, even with all of the people, “you’re still alone, but in this town, there are fewer people but at least you’re not alone. People know each other, they know each other’s faces, they care about you, they’ll help out”.
“I am thankful for this community”
“…for accepting us and for accepting so many refugees to settle here. It is a great environment, it is natural, it has all of the things a city has to offer and is much less stressful…. To the community, I will say, this is a blessed country – don’t take things for granted here. Once things are disrupted, it is very difficult and takes decades to come back. People think of America as a paradise, let that image be there, and don’t take it for granted.”
Responses