PHILADELPHIA — One year ago, Haseeb Payab was in his family’s sprawling, garden-lined home in Kabul that overlooks mountains on all sides, but he was growing ever anxious despite the peaceful setting.
Payab, then deputy director general of Afghanistan’s National Environmental Protection Agency, was living with his wife, children, mother, and siblings in the 16-room home when the Taliban took control of the capital on Aug. 15, 2021, setting off a dizzying sequence of events.
Government workers like Payab were sent home. President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. The U.S. evacuated its embassy.
Armed Taliban went door-to-door with lists, looking for certain people, or trying to cajole workers back to keep the economy from collapsing. But many people were were fearful of retaliation. The Taliban knocked on the doors of Payab’s friends. They went to his sister’s house, but she wasn’t home. The sister and her family quickly fled to the U.K. A brother went to Qatar.
The United States began pulling out all U.S. personnel — a rapid end of a 20-year-old war.
“Sitting with family and friends, and everybody, we were thinking about alternatives, where to go, what to do,” Payab recalled earlier this month in his University City apartment, still in disbelief about how events brought him and his growing family to a new life in Philadelphia.
Today, Payab, 39, works in a Drexel University lab, analyzing data to help with chronic flooding issues in the region. His wife, Hosay, gave birth four months ago to the couple’s fourth child, who’s automatically an American citizen. The other children are already speaking English, adapting to American culture, eating pizza.
The family’s perilous path to what Payab calls the American dream could have turned out very differently as they survived a horrific bombing at Kabul airport trying to escape the Taliban and to find treatment for their daughter Rahwa’s heart condition.
But the family’s life took a fateful twist when an online search of Philadelphia returned the words Sylvester Stallone.
As chaos reigned in Kabul, Payab knew that he would have to leave the home bought by his father, who died in 2020 of the coronavirus. Payab cultivated a network of contacts and received a message from one at 12:30 a.m. Aug. 25: Be at the Kabul airport by 4:30 a.m.
“We discussed alternatives for almost three hours,” Payab said. “We needed an escape route in case something worse would happen. But we never imagined that what happened would be so sad for Afghanistan.”
Payab and his wife decided at 3:30 a.m. that the family had to leave and packed only a few changes of clothes and shoes.
“I took my laptop where I had all my data, information and important documents,” he said. “We took one small bag for each for the kids. By 4, we had left the house.”
A minivan whisked them along with other families to the airport, which was mobbed by people trying to board planes. A team that was supposed to usher the family inside the airport didn’t show. The family circled the airport for hours, unsure of what was happening.
“There were thousands and thousands of people trying to get into the airport,” Payab recalled. “We stayed a whole day and didn’t move an inch. There was no food, no washroom, no water.”
“Morning turned into afternoon and afternoon into evening,” he said. “We were all exhausted. The kids were crying. We kept thinking, ‘OK, we will just return back home.’ ”
Finally, a contact got the thirsty, hungry family inside at 11 a.m. on Aug. 26. They were still being processed at 7:30 p.m. when two explosions shook the airport, and gunfire rattled in response. Just outside, a suicide bomber claiming affiliation with the Islamic State had detonated himself, killing 183 people, including 13 U.S. military personnel.
“We were sitting by the soldiers,” Payab recalled. “It was really horrifying, and hearing voices of women, kids and babies. They were all crying. You could hear gunfire. We thought maybe Taliban had gotten inside and that they would try to kill everybody. But we were told by a soldier … nothing will happen to you here.”
The situation calmed, and the family spent the night trying to rest. But the bomb halted refugee processing, creating more uncertainty.
The following day, Aug. 27, the family was told they were going to Qatar through arrangements made by a nongovernmental organization. Then it was Kuwait, then Kosovo, then somewhere in Africa.
Finally they got an actual destination: Albania — but they were allowed only one bag for all of them.
“I took my laptop because of the documents,” Payab said. “My wife took the food, water and milk … All we had was what was on our bodies. After we cleared security, we got into the plane, took one picture, and like everybody else, we just went to sleep. We hadn’t slept for almost three days and three nights.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, State Department, and Yuri Kim, U.S. ambassador to Albania, and other Albanian high officials were all involved. The Spirit of America arranged for housing and food.
The family awoke at 1:30 a.m. as the plane landed. They were shuttled to student housing, where they stayed for a few days and were given food, before being moved to a resort hotel in Shëngjin, Albania.
The Payab family had three children at the time: Muqeet, now 8; Rahwa, 5; and, Muqsit, 2½.
Rahwa has multiple heart issues including dextrocardia, a rare condition in which the heart is on the right side of the body. She also has double outlet ventricle symptom, and ventricular septal defect (VSD) — essentially a hole in the wall that divides the right and left ventricles. The family was told Rahwa needed expert medical care availabe in the U.S. The options were Stanford Children’s Health, Boston Children’s Hospital, or Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).
Payab began an online search and found that CHOP was highly recommended. But he also saw Sylvester Stallone associated with Philadelphia. A fan of Stallone’s movies, he had seen "Rambo III," set in the 1980s amid the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He liked "Rocky" and saw there was a tribute statue outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Payab also enjoyed the Eddie Murphy movie "Trading Places," set in Philadelphia.
Payab was sold on Philly. And with the help of U.S. Department of Homeland Security, other U.S. officials, and aide groups, the family left for America after six weeks in Albania.
CHOP flew a care provider to Albania to escort Rahwa to Philadelphia because of her medical needs.
Dr. Sage Myers, a CHOP specialist in emergency medicine, was directing health operations at the processing center at Philadelphia International Airport when the family arrived on Oct. 8. Rahwa’s oxygen levels hover between 75% and 80%, instead of the normal 95% to 100%, so she needs close monitoring.
“I greeted them when they came in along with Homeland Security,” Myers said “ … Rahwa needed an immediate medical evaluation.”
Rahwa also needed surgery but had to have dental work first to avoid chance of infection after heart surgery. Recently, she tested positive for COVID-19, so the surgery was again delayed. No date has been scheduled.
“They’re an amazing family,” Myers said. “l can’t even imagine what they’ve been through, how hard it was to leave everything … They have always been so positive, and thankful and grateful for everything. And it’s been incredible to hear them talk about how all of this sort of came together to be the best for Rahwa.”
Once his country’s top environmental official, Payab now needed to find a job.
His wife, Hosay, was nearly finished her bachelor’s degree when the Taliban took over. They family agreed she’d stay home with the children, including 4-month-old Elliyeen, while he looked for work in his field. Payab’s mother, Najeeba, would help.
Payab, who earned a doctorate at Eastern Mediterranean University in North Cyprus, speaks English well but by March was growing fretful, not having found work.
Then, through a mutual friend, he met Franco Montalto, a Drexel professor who directs the university’s Sustainable Water Resource Engineering Lab. Initially, the friend asked Montalto to help find Payab work.
Montalto met with Payab, encouraged him to apply for a position at Villanova and also circulated his resume. But Montalto soon realized Payab might be a good fit for an opening in his own lab researching solutions for chronic flooding in Philadelphia’s Eastwick section, Camden’s Cramer Hill neighborhood, and New York City. So Montalto hired him as a research scientist.
“He has an immense set of professional and life experiences, which he now brings to our projects …,” Montalto said. “I realized how much experience and insight he would bring to the position even if he was new to the U.S.”
As Payab settles in Philly, he says he is “many ways lucky” because of how many people helped him along the way and how he has managed to find meaningful work.
The family has had to make cultural adjustments. Housing is expensive. American food can seem strange, though the children love pizza. Payab is perplexed about why he has to pay to park everywhere he goes in the city.
Though they found a mosque in walking distance of their apartment, other Afghan families are spread around the area, so it’s hard to connect. The family is working through the immigration process and hope to stay permanently. Payab has a special visa because he had worked with the U.S. government on a project in the past.
Payab hears news from Afghanistan of acquaintances who go missing, often turning up dead. Hosay laments news about the rollback of rights for women.
Friends are watching the family home in Kabul. Though the family misses Afghanistan, they know it’s unlikely they’ll ever return. They are moving to a bigger apartment since Payab’s brother also lives with them, bringing the total to eight living in their current space.
The family said they have a long list of people, government agencies, and groups who helped including Myers, Montalto, Dr. Maria Aini, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D.-Mich.), St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill, Colin and Cindy Ratner, Lissa and Paul Cover, and Ravi Patel.
The United States is “a dream world,” Payab said. “So far I’m really thankful. There were so many groups helping us out. I don’t know all of them. But I am extremely grateful for all their efforts, and I hope somehow I will get a chance to meet them all and thank them.”
