Harrowing past, uncertain future: Iraqi refugees rebuild lives without loved ones

Seth Rosen / Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: February 24, 2008

The painting and photograph hang on opposite ends of Juhiza Khamis' Charlottesville living room, solemn reminders of her homeland and the son she left behind.

On one side is a painting of a tranquil, dust-swept street of the Baghdad of Khamis' youth, a copper mosque glittering in the background. Across the room is a photograph of Khamis' son Haider, whom she last saw in 2006.

That summer, Khamis fled Iraq with her other son and daughter for the safety of Jordan. Because Haider was a prominent Baghdad pharmacist who kept his store open despite escalating violence, she feared for his safety.

Three weeks later, Haider was dead. Anonymous gunmen killed him on the steps of a police station in front of his father.

The pictures, along with others of Khamis' two grandchildren trapped in Baghdad, serve as both a bridge to a family still in peril and a source of motivation during her challenging first two months in America.

"I didn't bring clothes to Charlottesville, but these pictures I brought," Khamis said, her eyes welling with tears. "They are all that we have now, just pictures."

Khamis is part of a wave of 26 Iraqis that has been resettled in Charlottesville over the past six months. Each refugee has his or her own harrowing tale of escaping unfathomable violence in Iraq; of living in fear and despair in other Arab countries; and of having the good fortune to be among the hundreds of Iraqis, out of a displaced population of 2.2 million, to be relocated to America.

After four plus years of living amid wanton destruction and deep mistrust of neighbors, the resettled Iraqis have formed a support network that is essential to the rebuilding of their lives and of their psyches.

As they struggle to overcome the typical obstacles refugees encounter - finding a job, adjusting to a foreign culture and scraping together money to pay rent - they are also burdened by the emotional and physical separation from loved ones languishing in Iraq and other Arab countries. While their minds are focused on the mundane, daily tasks of starting anew in Charlottesville, their hearts remain in the volatile streets of Baghdad.

"Yes, we wake up every day safe and secure," Khamis said. "But we still worry about those who are in Baghdad. We are not complete."

'A long wait'

As sultry Arabic music pumps through the ballroom of the Omni Charlottesville Hotel, Khamis' 15-month-old granddaughter Dena stands alone in the middle of the dance floor bouncing and clapping her hands.

The International Rescue Committee, which has responsibility from the U.S. Department of State for resettling refugees in Charlottesville, is hosting its annual banquet and refugees from such disparate nations as Afghanistan, Burmaand Benin are dancing.

A dozen Iraqis watch Dena and laugh at her attention-grabbing moves.

"She's a real comfort," said Farah Ibrahim, Dena's mother and Khamis' daughter. "She's something to look forward to - like a goal."

Dena has no knowledge of her father, having not seen him since she was only a few months old.

Khamis' husband stayed in Baghdad to take care of Haider's two young children. And Ibrahim's husband is also living in that house, after his own father was ambushed by militiamen and beaten to death.

"Eventually she will have a father," Ibrahim said, looking at Dena dance. "I can't say the same about my niece and nephew."

But Dena may not be reunited with her father for some time. For an Iraqi to be certified as a refugee and be eligible to resettle in another country, he or she first has to be outside Iraq.

Khamis and Ibrahim lived in Jordan for nearly a year and a half before they were transferred to Charlottesville. Now, however, it is harder for Iraqis to stay in neighboring countries. Ibrahim's husband tried to flee to Jordan but was turned away at the airport by Jordanian customs agents.

Because they live in America, Ibrahim and Khamis can file immigration petitions to have their husbands join them. But no U.S. immigration service officers are currently in Iraq to be able to process such requests, said Susan Donovan, director of the IRC's Charlottesville branch. (A spokesman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did not return phone calls seeking confirmation.)

Therefore, Ibrahim's husband is stuck. For now, he can't get out of Iraq to apply to come to America as a refugee and also can't apply for regular immigration status inside the country.

"Unless they are already outside of Iraq and have made their way through the refugee program on their own merits, it's very, very difficult for us to unify families," Donovan said.

"It is going to be a long wait."

An uncertain future

Being a single mother is never easy. Doing so without a job or a car, and a husband thousands of miles away, is at times overwhelming for Ibrahim, who was a civil engineer in Iraq.

Like most of the resettled Iraqis, she was part of the highly educated, professional class - the backbone of the economy. At home, these refugees were teachers, playwrights, entrepreneurs, engineers, dentists and pharmacists. And many speak fluent English.

Yet now they face an uncertain future. Lacking proper credentials, their degrees and years of expertise might not be of much use here. Ibrahim is unsure if she will be able to land a job as an engineer. And her brother Adel, who worked as a dentist for three years in Baghdad, would have to go back to dental school if he wants to practice in Charlottesville.

For Iraqis accustomed to the trappings of an upper-middle class lifestyle, starting over from scratch is a difficult pill to swallow. Many of the available jobs are in restaurants or administrative work.

"There is hardship finding a good job," said Najla Al-Asmar, who couldn't get a job at the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport because as a refugee she does not possess a green card. "The Iraqi refugee is an educated person and has the ability to speak English. But will we be working in a restaurant-"

To many of the Iraqis, the American ethos of upward mobility is an unknown concept and there are widespread fears of being stuck in low-wage jobs. "It's a pretty big shock" to go from living in the professional world to having little money in a new country, Donovan, the IRC director, said.

"Our bargain is we will get you your first job and then when you improve your English skills and get good references, we will help you upgrade," Donovan said.

Without employment, money is, of course, tight. The IRC pays rent for the first four months - or just one month if the refugee receives federal assistance such as Social Security payments - but there is little left over for other expenses. Al-Asmar said that last week she couldn't afford to buy medication she needed.

The Iraqis have formed their own support network, relying on each other for advice and helping with daily tasks. They frequently give each other rides and go shopping together, for example.

More importantly, they provide emotional assistance. Together, they recollect stories of better times in Iraq and commiserate about the absence of family members.

But there's more at work here than just an immigrant community showing solidarity: Following years of living in fear of neighbors in Iraq, worried that any false step or conversation could lead to death at the hands of insurgents and militiamen, the refugees can again trust their fellow countrymen.

That network, however, has its limitations.

Al-Asmar's 11-year-old daughter, Louloua, recently got sick at school. Al-Asmar and her husband, Ayad Al-Baldawi, a playwright and journalist, do not own a car and therefore could not pick up their daughter. The few Iraqis who own cars were at work, and no one at the IRC was available.

The family didn't have enough money for a taxi, so, eventually, the principal agreed to take Louloua home.

"We were in such a bad situation that I even thought of going back to Jordan," Al-Baldawi said.

Tempered optimism

Ask Susan Adeeb about her commute to work, from Hydraulic Road to Preston Avenue, and she laughs. Though the drive is not much longer than her old morning drive in Baghdad, the disparities between them say everything about the differences between her life then and now.

Between the end of 2003 and spring 2007, Adeeb worked inside the U.S.-protected Green Zone, first as a contract translator for the ministry of transportation and then as a political assistant for the American Embassy.

Several of her colleagues were killed for "collaborating" with the Americans, and she risked death each time she went to and from work. Adeeb didn't even tell her mother - with whom she and her two daughters lived -where she was employed.

"When I dressed up in the morning, I'd think to myself, 'maybe today is the last day,'" she said.

Adeeb would alter driving routes, times and vehicles, avoiding any routine that could be followed. On occasion, she would have to swerve around dead bodies in the middle of the street. Once, a man on a motorcycle was waiting for her near her home and then followed her down another street.

The most treacherous part of the trip, though, was standing in line to enter the Green Zone at the checkpoints, which were frequent targets of attacks.

"You feel that all the people working with you are spies," she said.

She was not much safer at home. A mortar crashed into her neighbor's fence and garden, shattering her kitchen windows. Another time a mortar hit her daughter's school, injuring students.

By the time she fled to Syria in spring 2007, only two families remained on Adeeb's street of 40 houses.

Though they started with nothing, the Adeebs are slowly building a life in Charlottesville. Money remains tight, but Adeeb enjoys her job as a business assistant at a contracting firm. And her daughters - Faten, 18, and Hanan, 15 - are thriving at Charlottesville High School. Faten, a junior, loves French and her choir, while Hanan plays guitar and is learning Spanish.

"I'm adjusting here," Faten said. "Sometimes I feel pride because I'm from Iraq."

There is, however, clearly a void in Adeeb's life. Her mother and sister remain in Syria, and there's no guarantee they will be able to join her.

"They are waiting and we don't know if they will go back or come here," she said.

It is a theme echoed again and again among the Iraqis: Optimism about a new, secure beginning in Charlottesville that's tempered by the fact that fathers and husbands, mothers and daughters, remain in danger overseas.

"When you live here, you don't think about your safety, your children's safety, how you will get to work and whether the roads are dangerous," Adel Ibrahim said.

"Here we have hope for a new future, maybe. I hope so."