2026 – Benazir Mohammadi – Utah international charter school HS

My journey from Afghanistan to America

 My name is Benazir Mohammadi. I am from Afghanistan. I was born in Takhar and lived there until I was 8 years old. I started school in Takhar. At that time, my father worked in the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul. My father had a very hard time visiting us. He decided that we needed to move to Kabul as a family. So we moved from Takhar to Kabul. I was in second grade. 

When I started school in Kabuli I didn’t want to go to school because I didn’t know anybody and I didn’t have any friends in my classes. School in Kabul was not that bad but I never liked it. Girls weren’t allowed to dress how they wanted to dress, they had to wear long and black color dresses and girls weren’t allowed to show their hair not even a little, girls couldn’t even have long nails or wear jewelry.

Strangers come to Afghanistan known as the Taliban. They took over some provinces of Afghanistan and they said that girls were no longer allowed to go to school. Then the girls didn’t go to school in those provinces. People got scared and the killings increased. Children would get kidnapped by people and they can’t find who the kidnappers were or where the child disappeared too. Bombers increased a lot. After these things happened in the country people started calling them Taliban. All that was very scary. 

We were scared to live in our own country where we were born. It’s our country, our land but we were frightened to talk. We were scared that when we spoke we would be killed for our words. Some journalists spoke and the Taliban killed them. 

For many years we lived in war. We lost our freedom. They took 33 provinces of Afghanistan except Kabul, the capital. So many people were living there but when the Taliban came the people of Kabul also got scared and some of them left Afghanistan. Some people think that the capital is more dangerous than other provinces, such as where they all went, where they were born, or where they have their own houses. That time the Taliban was so free but they didn’t take Afghanistan until the United States Military left Afghanistan. 

My father was in the military. He called us and told us not to go outside because it was dangerous for us. That was one rule that was trying to keep us safe. We had to call our family and tell them to not leave their homes until told to. We didn’t leave our house and we didn’t go outside. For five days we stayed inside. After that, my father called us and said that we need to be ready and come where he is right now. Because we couldn’t be by ourselves, my mother’s uncle took us to the address that my father told us about. We went to the place where he worked. He worked with the Americans and I saw for the first time the American military.

There were so many families trying to get out of Afghanistan. We spent many days at the military base. Then the airplanes came and took many families every day to different places. But we and my other family members were the last people who left the country because my father worked with the military. They said that this group would have to leave the country last. 

The airplane came at night. We flew for four hours. Then we landed in the Bahrain Airport. In Bahrain, it was so hot you couldn’t even stay outside for a minute. The military base in Bahrain took us to the camp, we stayed there for one day. The American military gave us something that shows when we can get our next flight. We all had to stay in one room for the night. One soldier came and said be ready your turn is next and you will fly. They didn’t say where we were going. We followed him. We saw that the airplane was there, and many people came to say goodbye to us. This time the airplane wasn’t a military airplane. After we entered the airplane we noticed that there weren’t any Afghani people except us. We flew for hours during the night and the airplane stopped in Germany. We thought that we would get off in Germany but we didn’t. 

We flew for eighteen hours and entered the United States. We went to an airport in Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, at the airport, we met many Afghan families. There were some people there to check bags. After that some people came and we took a big bus. There were many Afghani families. We were on the bus for hours. Suddenly the bus stopped in front of the big apartment that has two floors. They said one family member needed to come and get a key to the apartment. 

The camp was so good we had fun. The soldiers talked with us and they were so kind, even respecting small kids. After we spent days there, some soldiers taught us English and many of them wanted to learn our languages. We had a cafeteria to eat food. So they have everything in the cafeteria.  But we couldn’t go outside of the camp.

The military had something named HB number. If your HB number comes you can leave. You have to go to the office and you will say that my HB number has come and they will decide which day you flew. Every day the people came and went so we spent six months there. After six months our HB number comes and they decide on a date for us. They give us the time to fly. We flew in the morning at six or seven o clock. And we came to Utah by airplane. There was one person who said are you from the Mohammadi family? We said yes. Then he took us on the small bus. After that, he took us to a hotel. We stayed there for four or five months. Then we visited our case worker in the hotel where they stayed and they will try hard to find a house for us. After months they called us to find a house for my family and we could go and see the house. My sister went with my father and mother there to see the house. The case worker showed us the rooms and talked about it. Then our case worker asked us whether we liked that house or not. We liked it very much because the area was so clean and beautiful.

When we moved into our house our case worker said that we would register Mahnaz, Zakia, and Benazir at Utah International Charter School. We were really happy when we heard that we were going to school in the United States. We came to the school and talked with the principal. Then she asked for quotations we answered, then we signed up for the school. 

When I started school it was the fourth quarter. School was fun and there were a lot of Afghan people. I loved my Teachers and Classmates. I had a lot of fun in school. I was learning how to write and read in English. After that year I started 8th grade and I was getting good grades then I skipped 9th grade. I got good grades in 10th grade and I improved my English more.

Now I am 12th grade and I’m really happy that I come to America and see a new life and start a new life here and still not forgetting my own culture and where I come from. So for now I just want to have a happy life and help people that need help in my community.