Hussain Amiri brought a multilingual dictionary with him to Concord seven years ago.
English words were translated into Dari, Amiri’s adopted language after he moved from Afghanistan to Pakistan as a little boy. Dari was translated back into English.
He conquered our language quickly.
“I like to learn something challenging,” he said. “If it’s not challenging, why bother?”
That attitude and those adaptive skills helped Amiri move from his old job manufacturing valves in a Franklin factory to his new job creating better lives for Afghan evacuees and their families as a case manager for Building Community in New Hampshire.
Working in conjunction with Ascentria Care Alliance, he smooths the ride for the 175 or so evacuees from Afghanistan who are being resettled across the southern portion of the state, including in Concord.
He greets them at the airport, finds them jobs and apartments, grocery shops, supplies winter clothing like gloves and boots, anything and everything that will steer them toward resources that will help lessen the unavoidable culture shock.
Amiri, now 24, arrived from Pakistan when he was 17. He remembers feeling lonely.
“I came to the United States and no one helped me,” Amiri said. “I spoke no English, and it was hard to get some help.”
He entered Concord High school as a freshman and loved science and math and physics. He graduated in just three years.
“I never took an open period,” Amiri explained.
He lives with his mother, Sakina Muzzafari, and his three brothers in Concord. Amiri said he was about 6-years-old when his father died and Sakina had to move her boys to Pakistan. To a refugee camp.
Sakina had a better chance of sewing clothes there, not just for herself, but for others as well. A business.
Soon, Amiri followed suit, creating a second income. He opened a carpet business and made enough money to return to school. Life in these war-torn countries was violent and dangerous.
Amiri recalled the time he drove to pick up his brother at a martial arts school when they were in Pakistan. Before he arrived, between 5 and 6 p.m., a bomb exploded in a nearby building.
Nearly 200 people were killed. In the ensuing chaos, Amiri couldn’t find his brother. His mom, his brothers and his uncles looked. Three hours later, they learned he had gone to a friend’s home. A brick had struck his brother’s head.
“I was so scared and I was not able to do anything,” Amiri said. “I was just looking like a crazy person. There were so many searching for loved ones and you couldn’t see anything.”
This family was among the lucky ones, working through the proper channels to come here back when the United States remained in control of Afghanistan.
After the U.S. military’s abrupt withdrawal four months ago, the Taliban swiftly took over. Once the last of the troops left, the Taliban forces marched into Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, ending a 20-year war.
Amiri watched. He knows how these new officials operate, and he did not mince words when asked to comment on his native land’s new government.
Same as the old government.
“The first day they took over, I was like a dead person,” Amiri said. “I was so mad and angry. I was not able to do anything, and I was pissed.”
Those who are left behind “are alive, but dead on the inside,” he said. “They have no hope. The people there have no food to eat and no source to earn money.”
He had little to say about the evacuation process and if it could have been handled differently, better. He said simply that he didn’t want to go there.
Fair enough.
He’s here now, and his new life is exciting. And busy. He’s studying at Plymouth State University, part-time, and now has his full-time gig with Building Community in New Hampshire.
He’s part of a nationwide transition team that started last summer and continues to pick up the pieces at the airport in Kabul.
Dialects often intersect in that part of the world, and Amiri speaks five or parts of five languages – Dari, Pashto, Hindi, Urdu and English. That’s a mighty important qualification when doing what Amiri does: settle refugees and evacuees, who often live in that part of the world.
He said he learned Hindi and Urdu by watching movies spoken in those languages. He brought a particular book to help him in Concord, along with a mind that wondered about a lot of things.
“Fortunately, I had a dictionary,” Amiri said. “And that helped me a lot.”