Chris Banyas
Life Editor
Growing up in a home without a father has become more and more common with each generation. Whatever the cause of the absent parent, we all know someone who grew up this way.
Hamid Durrani, originally born in Kabul, Afghanistan, is now a junior at Idaho State University. A political science major, Durrani and his family were forced to flee their homeland when he was three or four years old.
“There are memories. When you’re a kid you remember everything. We were living in this big house with a big plot in front. We had fruit trees and vegetables growing,” said Durrani. “Behind it was another little mountain that the military had their camps on and opposite were huge mountains.”
The larger mountains were controlled by the Taliban who soon engaged the government forces. Durrani, along with the rest of the population, were trapped in the middle.
“It was a nightmare. You always have those visions. They can never go away,” said Durrani. “The night sky was beautiful; a clear sky but it was like shooting stars. Those are not shooting stars, they are rockets.”
Soon after the engagement began, Durrani and his family were forced out of their home and into the yard where they proceeded to dig.
“We weren’t living in the house at that time,” said Durrani. “At the end of the property, at the edge, we dug the trench and we had tree logs on top in case a rocket launched and hit. We stayed there for two weeks.”
One evening the fighting stopped, leaving as Durrani describes it, “a pin drop silence.”
The family took the opportunity to flee the country. They made their way into Pakistan and ended up in the city of Peshawar, a drive of about 13 hours.
“That 13 hour drive was like 13 years. People would stop this bus everywhere. These extremists already had control of the borders,” said Durrani. “They would stop the bus and get in to see if they would find any government workers so they could take them and execute them or whatever they would do.”
Durrani’s mother worked as an accountant at a government bank in Kabul. His father was a math professor at Kabul University.
Durrani lived in a refugee camp for several months before moving on to the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad.
“Just like us a lot of Afghan refugees faced a lot of problems, including education. Since we were not really refugees; we just fled the country and entered another country. There were a lot of other political problems based on that,” said Durrani.
All of the new arrivals from Afghanistan were not legal citizens so they faced problems of finding work, as well as places to educate their children.
Soon they took it upon themselves to remedy the problem of education.
“My mom started an Afghan school,” said Durrani. “She and a couple of other Afghan women started to home-school kids. During the day, all day, the apartment that we used to live in was a school. They would teach all the kids in the community.”
A famous school in Afghanistan, Lycée Esteqlal, was shut down when the Taliban took over but would soon be reborn in Islamabad as teachers from that school began to set up new schools in Pakistan.
The French influence in Afghanistan, something that led to the creation of the school in its first incarnation, would again be felt in Pakistan.
“The French Embassy was funding it and opening computer labs. They did a lot for students. That’s where I graduated from high school,” said Durrani.
Durrani’s mother became the principal of the junior level of Lycée Esteqlal, from grades one to eight.
Following mounting tensions between the Taliban present in Pakistan and the large community of Afghans there, Durrani decided to leave Pakistan to pursue higher education.
His mother stayed behind to continue teaching.
At an event held by the United States Education Foundation in Pakistan, Durrani browsed the various universities from around the world that were represented.
“I was thinking of applying to Germany or Australia,” said Durrani. “My dad was a graduate from West Germany, so I always wanted to go.”
Among the stalls, Durrani noticed one that was fronted by someone different than all the others.
“When I came across Idaho State University, I stopped, passed by and came back. I thought because he was the only white guy standing there, the rest of them were Pakistani stalls but they were representing other universities, I wasn’t feeling comfortable,” said Durrani. “I was saying, ‘maybe it’s some kind of scam.’”
Durrani ended up approaching the man, who turned out to be Sean Milton, a then-recruiter for ISU.
After hearing about the university and deciding that it fit with what he wanted to pursue, Durrani travelled to Pocatello.
The Hronek and Morris families of Pocatello embraced Durrani, helping him adjust to his new life.
After living in the U.S. for several years, there are several things about his new home that Durrani appreciates the most.
“The love and respect toward humanity,” said Durrani. “Here you know that you’re a member of the planet Earth I would say. Here you get that feeling that you are a human. Human rights are respected here and people know their rights.”
Durrani is passionate about education. He spent time in Pakistan working with suicide bombers that had been caught before they were able to set off their explosives, and believes that the power of education is one of the most potent weapons that might prevent the creation of future bombers.
The youngest suicide bomber that Durrani worked with was 13 years old.
Recently Durrani’s mother left Pakistan and settled in Vancouver, Canada, where she counsels other Afghan women.
“Everybody says ‘my dad is my hero.’ I say my mom is my hero,” said Durrani. “Seeing her throughout my life, doing for us what she did. She is just an amazing mom.”
Durrani’s father never left Afghanistan.
“He was shot dead by one of the extreme Muslims because he was kind of open-minded and couldn’t stand their view Shariah Law,” said Durrani. “I was really young when that happened. I was probably one or two years old.”
