Month: August 2022

Family Adventure Update March 04/11/22

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Roshan and Shegufa are married!They got married on February 27th in Alburtis at the lovely barn apartment where the family stayed when they first arrived in PA. Elaine and Dave, who own the property, arranged everything and were expecting around 20 people for tea and desserts. The day before, the guest list expanded to 40 and included a full Afghan meal. It all worked out beautifully! Elaine and Dave are incredibly gracious hosts and Roshan’s family did a fantastic job with the food. Of course, there was plenty of dancing after the ceremony!
Selfies with MoMansur and Mehran love hanging out with Mohamed.
Finding a house for Ghani’s family was no small feat. In the end, we found a lovely 4 bedroom house on South Blvd in Bethlehem. It is walking distance from the elementary school, has a two car garage and nice fenced in back yard – and a huge kitchen! But closing didn’t happen until February 10th.
Living with Ghani’s nephews was quite the adventure; we didn’t realize they would be staying with us so long, but by the time we figured out that they would be moving to Bethlehem, it didn’t make sense for them to move anywhere else, so they stayed.
We ate very well, as Sukaina voluntarily cooked just about every dinner. Every once in a while Nolan or I would prepare dinner, but our cooking was not very well received. So far the only American foods that most of the newly arrived folks like are pizza, hamburgers, and tuna melts. We enjoyed the amazing Afghan foods very much, and were happy to go back to a bit more variety.
The younger boy, Mehran, LOVES to wash dishes and help clean. He loves it so much that sometimes his older brother has to get in on the fun.
Abu is in the Air Force!Abu was home briefly – he successfully completed basic training and his job training and is now off to his new gig with the Air Force in North Carolina. He is working in logistics – what is up with that? All my kids are in logistics! I picked him up in Philly in the snow storm and we managed to get back to Allentown okay, then he was back to Philly to get things sorted out in his apartment – he had left in quite a hurry! He was working for his recruiter while home, but we got to see him a couple of times; he got to play a few games of soccer with the boys and we had a nice little party to celebrate his graduation from the Air Force training. We are looking forward to seeing him for summer vacation.
Arif got his CDL
While his siblings are now safe in Australia, Arif is still feeling some pressure to help those who didn’t make it out yet, and others who are still in limbo. And he was feeling a bit frustrated with his classes at LCC. So after the holidays, he stayed with Hedayat for several weeks in Lansdale while he went through the training for his commercial driving license in Philly and eventually got it done. Now he is looking for a job. Driving jobs for those younger than 21 are not easy to find, but we have some good leads and he hopes to get his foot in the door so he can start getting some experience and then when he turns 21, he can start driving the big trucks and making the big bucks. 🙂
We felt really sad when Arif gave up on college and decided to get his CDL. He has so much talent and is very intelligent. But we think he will be okay. He reads, which gives him an advantage. All of our boys are amazing and wonderful, and he has got it all in spades – kind, funny, thoughtful, hard-working, talented, creative, smart… he reminds me a bit of my brothers who are those rare people who have everything – good at math and art and business and people… Arif could write a book, illustrate it, write and perform songs about it, and deliver them to the bookstore. 🙂
Isa and Sima
Isa and Sima are doing great! Isa’s trucking business is doing really well and he is looking forward to having another driver in a few weeks so that he can stay home and do some projects around the house. He bought a new car. As Sima is working, they found they needed a second car, and he wanted a truck, so we did some research and he ended up with a super fancy new truck/suv kind of thing.
I love shopping with Isa. We do a little bit of research, talk about what are the important features, come up with a short list, go see something, and we are done shopping. It was the same story with the first car (now Sima’s car) and the house.
Sima is working with a bunch of the other Afghan folks at LVHN, cleaning hospital rooms. She loves it! She is practicing English every day and learning a lot. She loves talking to the patients and gets to have lunch with the other Afghan girls. She wants to go to school, and would love to get a job in the mall for a while. She loves being with people.
We don’t see her often, but a couple weeks ago she called and asked if I could help her shop for some gifts for Isa on her day off. So she came over and we did some online shopping, got some great insights from Arif, went to Macy’s and got some lovely gifts, then went out to lunch. We shared a delicious chicken sandwich and shrimp tacos. She loved the chicken sandwich, but the shrimp tacos were even more delicious! 🙂 It was an afternoon of many firsts!
I have to say that am pretty sure that I have the best daughters-in-law of all time. Sima and Shegufa are so lovely – kind and sweet, smart and funny… We got lucky with our boys, and we got doubly lucky with our girls!
On April 2 (the first day of Ramadan) they had a party to formalize their engagement! An Afghan engagement party is a lot like anyone else’s wedding – with photos taken beforehand, a big cake, a big party and dancing. There was even a “knife dance” by Hedayat!While the date is not normally reserved for parties, they wanted to do this before a significant contingent of Roshan’s family headed to Florida for truck driving classes, and before Ramadan fasting was in full swing. Our village converged again to celebrate their commitment.
Bowling
One of the things we did with the kids from the beginning was bowling. And when they had their own cars and went out bowling on their own, we were really grateful that they invited us. And now that their families are here, they are continuing the tradition. And we find that for activities like this, having a bunch of people is even more fun!Mahran really wanted to bowl with all the adults and was pretty bent out of shape when he wasn’t allowed. But everyone else had a fantastic time.
Ghani and ClanGhani has been home regularly since he closed on the new house. I am not sure if I mentioned this before, but Roshan co-signed the loan for Ghani so that he could get the mortgage. Roshan can surprise us sometimes. He is a lot more of a softie than he lets on! But back to Ghani…
Ghani also got really lucky as far as getting outfitted in a new home. A friend from the Mosque who is moving gave Ghani two truckloads of furniture and accessories – kitchen ware, furniture, decorations, even a grill and patio furniture! It was all stored in Roshan’s garage until closing, and then Roshan, Ghani, and a few of the other boys moved all of it into Ghani’s new house.Sukaina has an amazing new kitchen and has been enjoying using it! As always, Mahran is keen to wash the dishes.
Nolan and I are doing okay. There is a lot going on that I am not talking about here, because this is not supposed to be a novel. 🙂
One very sad thing that we have to report is that we lost our beloved Simba to cancer on Saturday. We are both still quite raw with the grief of it, so that is all I can say at the moment and keep typing. It was really sudden and fast.
Life is so fleeting. 12 years or 112 years – it goes too fast. I don’t know how to do it any better than I am doing it, but it seems like there is never enough time to love everyone enough.
Copyright (C) 2022 Clay Street Speakeasy. All rights reserved.

Everyone is Here 12/8/21

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Everyone is Here! UpdateSomeone recently asked me how things are going and my response was – a lot faster than I am! And that is pretty much how it is.
The Girls Enjoying Trick-or-Treat Night
Isa – Isa’s house is lovely! Sima, and her father and Isa’s uncle are doing well. At some point we will have an open house. Right now, Isa is back on the road on and off and things are mostly quite groovy.
Introducing Isa’s family to Dominos!
We were able to provide most of what they needed that wasn’t supplied by the resettlement agency through the generous support of many people. and I need to give a special thanks to our friends Charlie and Margaret and the Moravian Church in Emmaus.
Some of the Michigan boys visiting Isa’s new abode
Roshan – Roshan’s family moved into their new home in Whitehall over Thanksgiving weekend. They are doing great – talk about luck! Roshan managed to bring 6 people with him from Afghanistan – his fiancée, 3 sisters, one brother, and an uncle. That in itself is amazing! But how to take care of all of them coming here with nothing?
The New House in Whitehall
freshly painted and full of beautiful people and things
When they arrived, Roshan’s family stayed in a converted barn apartment in Alburtis until Roshan closed on the house in Whitehall. The family in Alburtis that hosted Roshan’s family have been amazing – driving them to English classes and taking them shopping, and hooking them up with a friend who did at least one tour in Afghanistan and has a junk hauling business who helped get the new house fully furnished. Two of Roshan’s siblings are in high school and the other family members are working part time at the Afghan restaurant on Tilghman St. The Alburtis couple also has a daughter who is an immigration lawyer who connected Roshan with a group that is helping him with the petition to bring his parents here.
The Nephews
For Thanksgiving, the Alburtis couple graciously hosted Roshan’s clan and my brother and sister-in-law in Bethlehem very graciously hosted everyone else! They all had a wonderful time and we certainly have a whole lot to be grateful about. We weren’t sure how many people or dogs would be in our house and weren’t sure if it would be safe to leave them, so Nolan, Arif and I enjoyed a quiet evening at home.
Sukaina and Yasamin
Ghani – Ghani’s sister and niece and nephews arrived and they didn’t quite have the luck of Roshan. The Alburtis couple was not able to take them and so they are staying at our house for the time being. It is not ideal, but we are making it work. Ghani was finally approved for a mortgage today, after Roshan offered to co-sign, so we are once again in intense house-hunting mode. (Thank you Diane!) The kids need to get registered for school, but we aren’t sure which district and are hoping to have more clarification on that within the next few days. In the meantime, keeping the kids out of trouble is a challenge, but we are enjoying many delicious meals that Sukaina is cooking for us.
Sukaina and kids and Arif’s gang at Leeser Lake
Arif – Arif’s siblings who were stuck in Kabul are finally and amazingly safe in Australia now with their big brother, Reza. And the young SIV family with the baby arrived here from Poland last week. It turns out that the young man, Esmatullah, is the brother of Arif’s sister-in-law – married to his big brother, Reza, in Australia. So they are relatives of Arif’s.
The little trouble makers are cute.
Since we have Ghani’s family here, we don’t have any rooms available so the couple with the baby are staying in a hotel room. But they have been sponsored by an interfaith group led by the Moravian Church of Bethlehem who have raised funds to pay their rent and are actively looking for an apartment for them.
Aziza, Esmat, and the baby, Rayan, have been here almost every day and they are super lovely. Both of these young parents were journalists in Afghanistan and have college degrees. They had good jobs, had purchased a new house and furnished it and had decided to have a child. And then the situation started going downhill there and they were approved for the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) because Aziza worked for the Army. We had been awaiting their arrival since early Spring, and then in mid July, the baby was born, and a few weeks later, the country was lost. There were quite a few fraught weeks before they were able to get out safely.
Yasamin with baby Rayan
We are super grateful that they made it out and they are excited to be here and to go to school and create a new life here. Arif has been amazing with them and with Ghani’s family. Mohamad is also great with the kids and with the baby. When I have time to reflect on all of this, it will be an amazingly lovely memory! In the moment, it seems a bit hectic and chaotic and sometimes overwhelming. 🙂
Charlie and Yasamin working on Christmas cookies
A couple of anecdotes…Isa was telling me that one evening after they moved into the new house, Sima had made dinner and after dinner, father-in-law (Jumakhan) and uncle (Esatullah) sat down and were relaxing while Sima did dishes and cleaned the kitchen. And Isa told the men to get up and go do the dishes. They protested mildly, saying that Sima had it covered, and Sima said she was happy to do the dishes and Isa said no way. Sima made the dinner, you guys get up and clean the dishes! Isa and I had a good chuckle about it and agreed that when Sima is at school and working, everyone is going to need to pitch in to help. I have noticed that every time we have been to their home, father-in-law and uncle have been very good about serving and clearing and washing up. 🙂
Sima trying out the pottery wheel
And Mohamad, who still says he thinks he can manage more than one wife, said that after Ghani’s sister made dinner the other night, he came in to do the dishes and she tried to shoo him away and he said (quite proudly) that here, everyone is equal and he can do dishes since she made the dinner. He sounded happy about that and proud, which is really sweet.
These are such little things, but so important because they show that we are making a difference in the day to day things, which are really the important things, and somehow through all of this we are raising really lovely young men. It doesn’t always feel that way to us, of course. There have been a lot of really challenging times when we wonder what the hell we are doing and how we can imagine that we are qualified to take this on and that kind of thing. I am pretty sure that all parents feel that way sometimes, but as a foster parent without biological children, I also suspect the anxiety can be more acute.
We had some extra kids home for Thanksgiving! Two of Lucy’s babies – Honey and Frida
Other Updates
Hedayat is still in Landsdale working at the factory that makes wires and doing okay, though his roommates have gone off to get commercial driving licenses, so he is home alone most of the time. We are hoping to see him this weekend.
Abu joined the Air Force! He wants to continue studying medicine and is looking at the Air Force as a way to continue his education without incurring student debt. He wasn’t expecting to get called for another 9 months or more, but a position opened up suddenly for a supply chain specialist and he figured, what the heck? So he had to pack and ship out in less than 24 hours! He is at basic training in Texas and when that is finished sometime around the end of December, he will go for training in Virginia, where we will visit him.
I am sorry that I have not been better at communicating. ( Since I last wrote we also had to have new roofs installed on our house and garage and set up shows in Bethlehem and Allentown for the holidays.)
One of these days things will calm down a bit, but for now, please know that I am thinking about you and grateful for your love and support and am very much looking forward to chatting over coffee or a glass of wine soon! And if you are up for roller skating, let me know!
For those who are trying to keep track, we have 16 new family members and here is the breakdown:
Roshan – total of 6: (Fiancée – Shegufa; Sisters: Latifa, Fariza, Frishta; Brother – Shawkat; Uncle Nematullah)
Isa – total of 3: (Fiancée – Sima; Uncle – Esatullah; Father-in-law – Jumakhan)
Ghani – total of 4: (Sister – Sukaina, Niece – Yasamin; Nephews: Manzoor and Mehran)
Arif – total of 3: (brother-in-law – Esmatullah, wife of brother-in-law – Aziza, baby – Rayan)

New Family Arrivals 10/25/21

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Roshan’s and Isa’s families have arrived!
It has been quite a whirlwind! Roshan’s fiancée, 3 sisters, brother, and uncle arrived last Monday and are staying at a donated air bnb in Alburtis until their new house closes at the end of November. Isa’s fiancée, uncle, and father-in-law arrived the day after and are staying with us until Isa’s house closes tomorrow.
Their flights came into ABE at 11:15pm so we had a couple of late nights and are still recovering. Everyone seems to be settling in happily and they are all having a great time. We enjoyed a breakfast that Isa and Sima prepared.
There was a lot of paperwork to get through, and a lot of shopping which will continue for a while. One of the shopping sprees was at the Moravian Church Rummage sale in Emmaus. Our friends Charlie and Margaret arranged for the kids and their families to come and take whatever they could use and they found a lot of great stuff including bicycles, a Christmas tree, dishes, home décor, a leaf blower, and a washer and dryer. Yes, that is Santa’s feet sticking out of the side of the truck! And one of the uncles picked out some artwork including paintings of flowers and a painting of Jesus. You just never know!
Thursday the boys took their families to Jim Thorpe for a train ride and Friday they went to an Afghan benefit concert in NJ and then afterwards took the ferry into NYC and walked all the way from the ferry terminal to Times Square.
Roshan’s clan at Times Square.Isa and Sima cooking together – the potato pancakes she makes are fantastic!
Shegufa (Roshan’s fiancée) has excellent English skills, and Roshan’s uncle, Nemat, also speaks English – I am not sure if he was an interpreter or worked for an American company. Isa’s fiancée, Sima, has some English and Roshan’s brother and sisters are all a bit shy but I am sure that with some classes, they will learn quickly.
Isa’s father-in-law and uncle will need a little more work with the language skills, but they are hard workers and good natured, and they have a great support system here, so they will do fine.
Here are the girls enjoying brunch at my mother and Bob’s. (The boys were all glued to their screens as some very big soccer match was on.)
The situation for Ghani is not quite as happy. His fiancée, Sadiqa, and his sister and her children are in the camp in NM. Evidently, Sadiqa got into an argument with Ghani’s niece and then told Ghani she didn’t want to live with them. When Ghani said that he couldn’t afford 2 houses, Sadiqa moved to a different tent and told Ghani that she wanted to separate from him. There is more to the story, of course, We don’t know all that transpired – her story is quite different from his story, and we don’t want to assume that this was something planned, even though it looks a lot like that. (There are other girls who got engaged and when they got to the USA, broke off the engagement.) The upshot is that it is a sad situation and Ghani is heart broken. While it is a terrible thing to endure, breaking up sooner is at least marginally better than breaking up later, and Ghani is relieved that this happened before they started a family.
Ghani is an incredibly kind and generous young man, and we are hopeful that he will find a great partner (or she will find him). In the meantime, Ghani’s sister, niece, and nephews will be coming to Allentown but we haven’t had any indication of when that will be. All their paperwork is complete, so it could be any day.
We are still waiting on good news about Arif’s family and his friends in Poland – the young SIV couple with the baby. And we have been helping to fill our more applications for humanitarian parole for family of friends. At this point, I try to not to think too often or deeply about the situation in Afghanistan as it is too heartbreaking and there isn’t anything that I can do about it. Some bits of news we get from there are quite awful. I am not denying it exists, just consciously choosing to focus on the things that I can have some impact on.
That can be a challenging line to walk, but I find it necessary for my sanity and ability to get out of bed. It is the old put-your-oxygen-mask-on-first-if-you-want-to-stay-concious-long-enough-to-help-anyone-else thing. 🙂
There will be more happy news and photos of Isa’s new house to come soon!Thank you to all of you who continue to follow our story and send good wishes and prayers and support of all kinds!

Getting Ready for New Family 10/4/21

https://mailchi.mp/266c4e5ad462/getting-ready-for-our-new-family

Home ShoppingIt has been pretty much a whirlwind! The boys were out house hunting and the market is crazy, but both Isa and Roshan were able to find nice houses for what in today’s market are fairly reasonable prices. Roshan’s house is in the Cementon area of Whitehall, and Isa’s house is just a few blocks from our house! Closings are scheduled for Nov 24 and Oct 24. Thanks to our friend Diane who dropped everything in the middle of her own move to drive all over the Lehigh Valley and find good homes for these boys and their families!
This photo is in front of one of the many houses we saw – not one that the boys purchased though it was a contender for a while.
Ghani has not been trucking as long as Isa or Roshan and needs a few more months of trucking income on the books before he will qualify for a mortgage, so he returned to work. Isa also returned to work – his truck needed some repairs and now is the busy season for trucking, so the boys want to work as much as they can while they can. Roshan has been waiting for his driver to get a load to PA so that he can also get back on the road. Once their families are here, they will have to be home regularly and won’t be able to work as much.Ghani’s family is still in New Mexico and Roshan’s and Isa’s families are in Virginia. They have gotten all their vaccines and tests but have no idea when they will be released. We haven’t heard anything from this end about it either. It could be 2 days or 2 weeks or even 2 months, but I am hopeful it won’t be that long! – Addendum – We just heard from Isa that his family should be coming to the Lehigh Valley within the next 2 weeks!We are hoping they will be here for Halloween, though I imagine that will be quite a strange introduction to US culture. :-)I think I may have mentioned that Ghani’s wife, Sadiqa, has her heart set on being a surgeon. I found out that Roshan’s fiancée, Shegufa, went to school for midwifery and is interested in becoming a nurse midwife. Shegufa’s father wants her to be an MD but Shegufa is looking for a faster track to a good profession.Everything may change once they really get here and settle in and life happens – that is the way of things of course. (I am a poster child for that.) And I am looking forward to seeing what unfolds. And so looking forward to having daughters in law!Donations and PayPalThank you so much to everyone who has donated to help! It means so much to know how many people out there care so much and want to help.We have used some of the donated money to help defray the costs of submitting several of the Humanitarian Parole requests. And we purchased some electric kettles we found on sale – there is a lot of tea drinking in the Hazara culture and the kettles will be well used! The rest is waiting until the families arrive and we see what their needs are.
Unfortunately, the PayPal account that we set up to collect money for the boys and their families and other families in need has been frozen. I have heard from some people who donated that the money they donated hasn’t been debited yet from their accounts.Evidently, unscrupulous people were using the account to test fraudulent credit cards. We saw a bunch of $1 donations from people we don’t know and reported the suspicious activity to PayPal who said don’t worry about it. But then PayPal turned around and froze the account. Nolan was livid and did his best to get PayPal to release the funds but they would not budge. They are doing some sort of investigation and after 6 months will release the funds that are in that account.If you donated via PayPal, we are really sorry for this situation. Had we known, we would not have used PayPal. As it is now, if you would like to ask PayPal to refund your money, I believe that you can do that. Or you are welcome to leave it as it is and in 6 months, the money will be released and we will put it to good use then.Again, we apologize for this situation. Please contact us directly if you have any questions.Making the NewsIn case you missed it – we were interviewed by our local news. The reporter and camera guy were super nice and they interviewed us for more than 90 minutes! They used just a few seconds of the interviews – but it is a really nice story.https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/lehighvalley/local-afghans-who-were-in-afghanistan-when-taliban-took-over-share-their-story/article_a9f2648e-17f7-11ec-9827-2315fe0212a1.html
Other UpdatesWe are continuing to work on applications for Humanitarian Parole for the family members of the boys and their friends. It is a continually heartbreaking situation. Unfortunately, even though the Hazara people are one of the most at-risk groups in Afghanistan and they make up 10-20% of the population, from what we can tell, they made up less than 1% of those who made it onto the evacuation flights.So far, we don’t know of anyone who has made it to the US on the basis of an approved Humanitarian Parole petition. It is a terribly tricky situation. Most of these folks don’t have passports, so even if we can somehow get them visas, we aren’t sure how they would be allowed to fly anywhere. We still don’t know if the Taliban will even allow them to go to the airport for a commercial flight. And if they are in Pakistan, even with a Pakistani Visa, they may not be allowed to board a commercial flight with a valid visa, if their Pakistani Visa is not stamped properly – and most don’t have visas for Pakistan.If they have a SIV or P2 or P3 in process, their chances are a lot higher. SIVs are for interpreters and P2 and P3 are for other people who worked for contractors or media companies and such. The system is terribly complicated and difficult to navigate and can seem pretty hopeless, but we can’t and won’t give up.One Happy Ending/BeginningWe ran into this problem of legal, but not-quite-legal-enough in Pakistan with a cousin of Arif’s who had been accepted to a masters program in Austria. She had her visas and tickets booked for the end of August but of course, the Taliban took over. She had a visa to Pakistan and got herself there and tried to fly to Austria multiple times, but was not allowed because she didn’t have the proper stamp on her Pakistani visa.Nolan was able to put her in touch with one of our new contacts somewhere in Europe who was able to find a reasonable travel agent in Pakistan who was able to secure the stamp she needed and she made it out and is now at college in Austria!Personal UpdateNolan and I are really back to work now. Nolan moved his office back into the basement in preparation for whomever needs the bedroom space upstairs. My mom and I managed to pull off a reasonably successful first gig for our new Irish Interchainables jewelry line at Celtic Classic in Bethlehem. We had quite a lot of great help, which is the only reason we could pull it off!
My mother and I have decided to let go of the pottery side of the business for now. We will focus on growing the Irish Interchainables brand and turning that into a profitable business. With the business, my job, and the new family coming, I will still have my hands more than full! Busy or not, we are going start having parties again! Trick or Treat night is on! 🙂 And I am dreaming of happy hours and Christmas parties.Speaking of Christmas and holidays – we have no idea how we are going to manage gatherings with all this new family. We will figure it out as we go. It is a problem I am infinitely grateful to have.Thank you!!!Thank you to all of you who have been praying and sending your love and good vibrations our way. Please keep sending it – especially to Arif and his family and to all the families who are so scared and vulnerable. I can’t tell you how much it means to us and to all of our Afghan friends and family that you care about them and are wishing them well. Sending you big hugs! Thank you.
Copyright (C) 2021 Clay Street Speakeasy. All rights reserved.

The Boys are Home 09/21/21

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Isa, Roshan, and Ghani are home!
Isa arrived home first and hit the ground running! On his first day back he bought a car. On his second day back he started shopping for a house. :-)He already has placed an offer on a house and it is looking like it could go through. The house is only about 5 minutes away!
Ghani had another crazy adventure. He and his wife (evidently they were legally married in Pakistan) and sister and 13 year old niece and 4 and 6 year old nephews were all at the camp in New Mexico, near El Paso. Ghani’s friend, Hamid, who is a truck driver and was in the area volunteered to pick up some clothes for them. So Hamid came to the base with clothes and was able to see Ghani.
Then Ghani decided the kids didn’t have enough food, so he was going out to get snacks. When he came back, they wouldn’t allow him on the base and Sadiqa’s phone was not on wifi, so he had no way to contact his family inside.So, eventually he gave up and managed to get to Grand Rapids where he picked up some of his important documents and (I assume) clothing and we sorted out US sim cards for his sister and wife.In the meantime, Nolan contacted the base commander and was able to smooth things over and get someone to help Sadiqa get on the wifi. So Ghani went back to TX and this time he was able to see his family. From there, Ghani drove to Virginia to pick up Roshan, and the two of them arrived home around 5:30 this morning.Ghani’s niece, Yasamin, has been messaging Nolan. When he asked her how she was doing, she said “we are still in Texas and my Uncle leave us in the middle.” Nolan let her know that Ghani didn’t want to leave them and was upset that he couldn’t get in.
No one is sure how long the processing will take for the boys’ families. They think it could be another 3-4 weeks. In the meantime, the boys have plenty to do to get things ready. And our daughters-in-law have the app to practice for their driving permit test. I am not sure if we can send them anything via the mail or Amazon delivery. Probably not – they are usually pretty careful about that sort of thing on military bases.
And excellent news – finally Mujda is out of Afghanistan and safe in Qatar.We are continuing to work on getting a bunch of other people out, including Arif’s siblings and Hedayat’s family.More soon – just wanted to let you know that the boys are home!!!
Copyright (C) 2021 Clay Street Speakeasy. All rights reserved.