After a hellish first night in Sacramento, Nazir Ahmad Ahmadi was ready to return to Afghanistan with his wife and 5-month-old son despite the danger of being killed by the Taliban.
He took his family to the Sacramento refugee health clinic. There, a tall, well-groomed interpreter listened patiently to his story.
Ahmadi told Dr. Fahim Pirzada about the roaches and bedbugs that besieged his family that first night, leaving them with irritating bites and rashes days later. Their refugee resettlement worker had picked them up at midnight March 16 at Sacramento International Airport and delivered them to an apartment at the Balmoral Arms apartment complex in Arden Arcade. Ahmadi said the apartment was stocked with some food, furniture and a fly swatter. But the fly swatter was overmatched. Ahmadi begged his case worker to get him some bug spray, which also failed to stop the assault.
Ahmadi, 31, said he never cried in Afghanistan, but was reduced to tears after his first day in Sacramento. “I’m homeless right now,” he said. “If you don’t have an apartment, nobody gives you a job. My life in Afghanistan was not easy, but not harder than here.”
In Afghanistan, Ahmadi said, he supervised apartments on U.S. bases for the Army Corps of Engineers for nine years. He made $1,600 a month, a healthy sum by Afghan standards.
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