Sara Sadat fights back tears trying to describe what it felt like to see her parents for the first time in 26 years.
“It was very emotional,’’ Sadat said in an interview with The Guardian on Tuesday.
“You feel like you’re (floating) in the sky.’’
Sadat, who immigrated to Charlottetown from Afghanistan in 2007 with her husband, Said Akbar Sadat and the couple’s five children, said there were plenty of tears when she met her parents early Friday morning at the Charlottetown Airport.
It took close to two years to bring Sadat’s parents Sayed and Bibi Ozra Fazli to Charlottetown.
Five families worked to raise the approximately $10,000 to make the long-sought reunion possible. The Muslim Society of P.E.I. also played a part.
“We thought what a good time (they would have) if they were here and we could just look at them,’’ said Sadat. “We didn’t know if they would come or not because we were not sure if it can happen or not. Right now, when I’m coming (into a room) and seeing them here I say, ‘Thank you, God’. I’m so thankful.’’
Facing pressure from the Taliban, Sayed and Bibi, in their mid-60s, were able to get out of Afghanistan about a year and a half ago. They fled into eastern Turkey where they established refugee status and applied for immigration to Canada.
The Sadats were refugees too. In 1992, during Afghanistan’s tumultuous revolution, warlords were wreaking havoc.
Said lost his father, a businessman, to warlords that murdered and raped thousands. Said was beaten badly by warlords who were hell bent on convincing him to hand over one of his sisters. Instead, he gathered up his wife, their two young children (baby Ariana and four-year-old Aziz), his three sisters and his brother, and fled the troubled country.
The family of seven came to P.E.I. where Said’s mother, his two brothers and a sister had been living since 2003. Said and Sara have been here since 2007.
Said and Sara run a popular Afghan restaurant, Sadat’s Cuisine, on University Avenue.
With Said acting as his interpreter, Sayed said he and his wife were very lonely in their time in Turkey.
“For two years it was very difficult,’’ Sayed said. “Slowly, we learned the language (but) loneliness was the main problem.’’
Sayed noted it’s hard to find the words to describe what it felt like to finally lay eyes on his daughter and her family in Charlottetown.
“We were very emotional and very shocked,’’ he said. “For us, it was like a dream. Even after a couple of days it was like a dream (that) we were with our families. We were crying. It was desperate.’’
Bibi said it’s amazing how much had changed.
“We saw the first child of Sara in Afghanistan and when we arrived here we saw the first grandchild of Sara; for us great-grandchild,’’ Bibi said.
Sayed said he and his wife are safe now – and that is all he wants. However, some family remain back in Afghanistan.
“Our fear is that we still have grandkids over there,’’ he said. “They are not safe. We need to find a way to bring them here. We find it very peaceful here.’’
Said gushed that there is nowhere in the world like P.E.I.
“This is the greatest part of Islanders (is that) they give us the feeling of home,’’ he said.
