Nilofar Said Por

full interview

Hello, I am Ayat from 1,000 Dreams. I came today to interview you about the situation of refugees. First, can you briefly introduce yourself? 
I am Nilofar Said Por, a refugee from Afghanistan and I currently live in New York, USA.

Dear Nilofar, in what kind of house do you live and with whom? 
I live in Valley Cottage in an apartment with my husband and my in-laws.

How do you spend your time here? What do you do daily? 
I am currently unemployed because my daughter was recently born. I am busy with my children and I do not have an outside job.

When I ask you questions, answer the questions completely because it is not my voice, it is only yours. What usually makes you happy? Or what do you like to do more? 
We just came here and we miss our family because we are far away from them. Going out with my family makes me happy.

How has your life been since you came here? What problems did you go through and why did you leave Afghanistan and come to America? 
Life in Afghanistan was not good. My husband had an office job and became unemployed. We did not have a good life and had to leave Afghanistan with our family and become refugees in America.

How was your trip, did you encounter any problems? Do you have any memories of the trip? 
Our journey was very long, it took us almost two or three months to get here. The problems of our trip were not knowing the language, new people and we had no place. We went to some places…what was the name of the place where we were? Shelter. In some of the shelters we went to, the food there was different from ours because we ate halal food and their food was not halal, so we spent some days starving until we got biscuits and water for ourselves so that we wouldn’t get sick. On the way, we went through many problems until we came here.

How is life here, what are the good things and what are the problems in America? 
The good thing here is that there is security and freedom, and our problems are that we do not have work permits and we cannot work. That’s it.

Your only problem is that you don’t have a residence permit or a work permit? 
Yes, these are our problems. My husband’s green card has not been processed and we are waiting for it to be processed so that our green card will come and we can live in a proper way. Because we don’t know what will happen in our life now.

This is the only problem that you have. Did you imagine that one day you have to leave Afghanistan and come to America? 
We did not imagine that our country would be taken over by the Taliban all of a sudden and we would have to leave our country because our lives were in danger. We had to leave our home and family and come to a foreign country and become refugees and live here.

Well, you mentioned the problems when the Taliban came and took over Afghanistan and you had to leave Afghanistan to save your life and come to America, and this is the mental pressure that a person leaves everything, his home and his job and comes. How did you overcome these problems? What gave you motivation and hope? What things helped you? 
Well, we went through a lot of hard days and were depressed and stressed, but I had hope that I came here and that the lives of our children and ourselves would be better. Because studying here is good for me and my children. If we were in Afghanistan, there would be no job for me and I would not be able to study and there would be no education for my children because all the teachers had left Afghanistan and there were only a few left whose teaching methods were not good. Now that we came here, I am happy because my son can go to school and I can continue my education.

Well, in general, how do you see the situation of refugees here? Do the immigration offices provide the necessary assistance for them? 
When we came here, it cannot be said that it was bad in general, but it was also good. There was an office called the Heart Home For Refugees that helped us. We are not very satisfied with their help because we had to leave our country and come here. We had a good life in Afghanistan, but when we came here and needed something, they brought us used and old things. When we came here, our suitcase was left at the border and my two-year-old son had no clothes, and they did not bring him clothes for two to three months, and then they brought old clothes. I had to use those clothes for my son because we had no money. This was very… (long pause)…This was very difficult for me, but we had to go through these days. 

Well, what is your dream for the future? How do you see your future with the hardships you went through? Here, the future is in our own hands, we do not expect from the people here and the offices here. Because our future is in our own hands, we can study and if my husband’s work permit comes…we can go to the house and schools we dream of, we can take our children there and provide them a good life. 

It is very good. Our questions are finished and I have asked you all of them. If you have something to say at the end, you can say it. I hope that the information we received from you will help the refugees and solve their problems. 
I don’t have anything special, only my dream is…that I can continue my studies or work in the field of law that I graduated from. If it doesn’t work, I want to work in midwifery or nursing. Because it is difficult for us to stay at home all day. That’s it.

Thank you for your time. 
Thank you.