Bus stop meetings
On a morning when the temperature dipped to a point where a negative sign was required before the number, a group of people gathered together on a street corner in the Quad Cities.
Moms, dads, and kids, from kindergarten through 11th grade, emerged from their nearby homes. Bundled up with kids wearing the face masks required to ride the city bus, they trudged their way over to the spot where one of those busses stops each school day.
A little one hid inside the dress of her mom. A teenager wore an unzipped coat. The women wrapped beautifully patterned scarves on their heads. Everyone had their hands inside of their pockets.
They greet each other in Dari or Pashto - two of the languages of Afghanistan. They nod their heads, and hold a hand over their heart in salutations. It’s just at sunrise time, so it’s a bit too early for much gregariousness at all.
Seven months ago, the adults in these families were working at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as drivers or security guards, or for the U.N. in northern Afghanistan in diplomacy, or in schools as teachers. They had family and friends close by, their children attended private or government schools. They had homes.
Six months ago, the Taliban began its take over of the country, and it became very clear, very quickly, that each of these families had to get out of the country. They gathered their paperwork, their children, and a minuscule number of belongings - fleeing out of back doors or into unmarked cars sent to escort them to flights from their home.
Do you remember the images of people crammed into military cargo planes, or trying to get through the massive crowds at the airport in Kabul after they were forced to leave their homes?
Some of those dear human beings now live in the Quad Cities.
A months-long trek that took them to Qatar, Germany, and to U.S. military bases such as Ft. Dix in New Jersey and Ft. McCoy in Wisconsin. They are doing the work of rebuilding their lives in a strange new place - and that work is exhausting.
For the past three months, Tapestry Farms has had the honor of working with families who fled Afghanistan. We’ve helped set up homes, in partnership with Humble Dwellings and World Relief Quad Cities. We’ve gone grocery shopping, accompanied people on medical visits, stood alongside kids as they started school, taught kids and adults how to ride the city bus,
We’ve laughed. What joy it is to meet someone else who speaks your language and lives nearby, try a new food, or listen to Afghan music turned up loud in the car while going to lunch with newfound friends.
We’ve cried. For children and other family members left behind, for homes destroyed by the Taliban, for memories of gatherings with friends for weddings, and the understanding that they may never be able to go home again, we grieve with them.
We’ve celebrated when our community’s systems have worked beautifully in welcoming them. We’ve fought for change with systems that have failed to do the same.
We’ve marveled at the human capacity to build community, a world away from their homes, on a street corner waiting for the bus in the middle of the Quad Cities.
And now, we look forward to warmer temperatures and an earlier sunrise for those bus stop meetings, and the hope that every single one of the people forced to flee Afghanistan will find community, and home, again in the Quad Cities.
-Ann McGlynn, executive director, ann@tapestryfarms.org