Updated April 5.
When she arrived at her new home in Montpelier, Su had nothing to unpack. The art on the walls and the books neatly arranged on shelves around the two rooms she shares with her husband, Musa, were donated by the community.
The couple, Afghan refugees, asked to be identified only by their nicknames to protect the safety of family members still in Afghanistan.
“I found the table on the street, and this couch came from a friend,” said Musa, 30, taking stock of the pair’s cozy home in late January. The apartment, with off-white walls, is up a flight of stairs in an old, creaky building in Montpelier.
Su, 19, prepared spiced macaroni and goat stew as fat snowflakes fell outside the window. It was the first time it had snowed since she had arrived in Vermont on Jan. 8. Using Musa as her translator, Su said she loved the snow.
Her journey to see it, though, was harrowing.
Musa arrived in Vermont more than a year and a half ago and had shared the details of his own ordeal with VTDigger in October 2021. He had worked for years as an interpreter for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, making him a target when the Taliban regained control of the country in August 2021. He said at the time that he’d been lucky to make it out of the country alive.
But while Musa set up his new life in an unfamiliar country Su was left behind. As he settled into Hartland last fall with the family of an American military officer he had worked with in Afghanistan — and who had helped him flee — Su remained hidden in a safehouse in Kabul. As he worked to improve his English and collected clothes and furniture while searching for his own apartment, Su was sneaking over the border to Pakistan. While he applied for jobs in hospitals, Su evaded the Taliban.
Musa was also fighting to get her out of Afghanistan, he said. She remained in serious danger as a woman in a Taliban-controlled region and due to her ties to Musa.
Su hid for five months in a secret location in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, Musa and Su said. Her older and younger brothers stayed with her there, and they never left the house for fear of being recognized by the Taliban.
In January 2022, Musa helped arrange for their first attempt at an escape. Su and her older brother went to the airport in Kabul, but they were detained by the Taliban at a random checkpoint. The Taliban didn’t discover Su’s connection to Musa, and she and her brother were able to get out of the airport and make their way to a new hideout with the help of a friend who worked at the airport.
However, according to Su and Musa, that friend was eventually captured and tortured until he revealed Su’s identity. The Taliban went door-to-door searching for her in Kabul, they said, while she and her brother hid out in a new location.
Su said she and her brother eventually fled the city and worked with a network of smugglers to make it to Pakistan.
In the meantime, Su’s younger brother and Musa’s father were separately hunted down and tortured for information, she said. But they knew nothing of Su’s whereabouts.
“We didn’t want them to know,” Musa said, because the less their families knew, the safer from the Taliban they would all be.
At one point the Taliban got access to Musa’s number and texted him pretending to be a family member. Musa has changed his number multiple times for this reason.
In Pakistan, Su and her older brother remained hidden for nearly a year. They moved between cities, staying in safehouses in Islamabad and Quetta. Although they were out of Afghanistan, they were not yet safe from the Taliban, which also has a significant presence in Pakistan.
“Every moment was terrifying,” Su said, speaking through Musa. “There was not one time I felt safe.”
Finally, the U.S. embassy issued a passport waiver for Su so she could board a plane out of the country. She had no documents with her, only a few pieces of clothing.
From thousands of miles away in Vermont, Musa was trying to organize transportation to the airport for her and assessing when it might be safe to move her. Su said she was terrified she’d be arrested by the Taliban or by Pakistani authorities. Culturally, it is seen as shameful for women to be arrested in Afghanistan and some women have died by suicide after arrests. Su also feared that she would be killed or sent back to Afghanistan.
“I didn’t think I was going to make it,” Su said, “but I trusted God.”
On January 7 of this year, Su asked Musa over and over again for reassurance that it would be OK to go to the airport.
“To be honest, I told her nothing would happen … but I wasn’t sure,” Musa said. “I didn’t have a choice, though. That was the only path.” It would never be completely safe and at some point they had to take one more leap.
They did. Su was transported to the airport. Her brother stayed with her until she was on a plane.
Su landed in Boston on Jan. 8. After more than a year working to get Su to Vermont, it was the first time Musa let himself believe she would be able to join him.
“That was a really nice moment,” he said. Su ran to him outside security, and they held each other in the airport.
Before the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Musa and Su had been married for only six months. They’d spent most of their marriage thousands of miles apart, working on an elaborate escape plan.
Speaking to VTDigger in the weeks after Su’s arrival, they both expressed relief that she was finally safe from the Taliban but recognized they had more struggles ahead.
The hardest part, Su said, is that she doesn’t speak English, meaning she spends a lot of time alone at home when Musa is at work. But the best part is the freedom. Su spent so much of the past year and a half in safe houses, unable to go outside. She loves the feeling of walking down the street in broad daylight.
In Afghanistan, Musa was nearly done with medical school. But here, most of his credits don’t transfer. Last year he was excited when he got a job at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, but when he arrived for his first day he realized he had been hired as a janitor.
“I don’t mind doing basic jobs,” Musa said, “but I want to grow in the U.S., to learn and become better. I want to work in medicine.”
He eventually landed a job in Montpelier as a medical assistant, enjoying the opportunity to work with patients. Now, he is exploring his options to grow in the medical field. He found that an undergraduate degree alone, though, could cost nearly $45,000.
“When I found out the price I said, ‘Oh my god, I don’t have that much money,’” he said. “That’s a lot of money. … If I get financial aid or federal funding I will go, but otherwise I can’t.”
There are five other refugee families in Montpelier to whom Musa has been offering his translation services. He likes spending time with the other Afghans in town, but said he doesn’t see them much because everyone is busy working.
Su and Musa miss their family members back in Afghanistan, some of whom are still hiding out from the Taliban. Musa hopes to obtain American citizenship, which could help him bring more family members to the states, but it’s a long and arduous process. He anticipates it could take five years or more.
In Afghanistan, extended families often live together under one roof. The popping of a simmering stew, the squeals of children playing, the steady din of elders talking all swirls together into what Musa and Su both know as home.
Here in Vermont, home means something different — snowflakes falling on a sloping apartment roof. It is just the two of them, washing dishes, preparing meals, rolling a mat out between their bed and couch to eat. Home is donated books and art on the walls. For Su, home is often an empty apartment while Musa is at work.
Su wants to learn English, learn to drive and someday become a nurse. Musa hopes to become a physician’s assistant, if he can afford the schooling.
“I still have dreams in the U.S.,” Musa said. “I’m in the land of opportunities and I want to become something here, too. I want to become something more than I am right now.”
