A School Bus of Dreams

“When I was younger, I had to walk the trenches to get to school!” My sisters and I would laugh at my father’s statement. Our usual complaints would begin every morning without fail as my sisters and I banded together to protest our single common enemy: the school bus. Our father would always respond with the same exaggerated statements. Snow, rain, miles on miles – he’d pull every story out of the book to convince us to get on the bus.

As years passed, I’d see similar posts on social media. The common experience of friends’ parents making the same comments. The six second videos acting out the parents’ scenarios, the comments piled with jokes. “My mother had me convinced she swam the whole Atlantic Ocean to get to class.” The common experience always resulted in chuckles.

Growing up, I never paid attention to the experiences of my parents. As I grew older, my mother’s dreams to have an education became more apparent to me and instilled a need for me to succeed in whatever I planned to do. Both from Pakistan, my parents had experiences that I couldn’t begin to imagine. Education was expensive. Limited by socioeconomic status and gender norms, my mother’s dreams of pursuing cosmetology and beauty remained a “what if.” I knew I was privileged to grow up in the state I did, but the feeling of thankfulness never truly dawned on me till my junior year of college.

During the fall of 2021, I discovered that refugees from Afghanistan would be arriving in Blacksburg following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. At the time, I was serving as the president of the Association of Muslim Volunteers. My organization and I decided it would be a good idea to create hygiene kits with basic necessities so those arriving could begin finding comfort in their new life immediately. When I went to drop off these kits to the Blacksburg Refugee Partnership, I would come face to face with my privilege.

On this day, I was unexpectedly introduced to a family of two sisters and a brother who had come from Kabul with one hope alone: safety. I would greet them and come to learn that they knew how to speak Hindi – a language very similar to that of my own, Urdu – because they had previously sought asylum in an area close to the border and were forced to adapt. We would talk about their lives and experiences traveling here. They asked me what I was studying, and I told them of my ambition to become a physician.

One of the sisters' eyes lit up as she told me she had been studying to become a dentist before the Taliban forced her out of school. She hoped to resume studies when arriving here, along with her brother. The brightest smile would appear on everyone's face as she shared her excitement that her brother would be able to go on a school bus for the first time. In Kabul, his commute presented itself in the form of two shoes and a dirt-covered path that would paint his white uniform a dull shade of brown every day.

Hearing about these experiences instilled a sense of need for change. I was determined to make the adjustment of arriving families as smooth as possible. I knew I could never experience an ounce of what these families had been through, but I did know my fundamental duty to instill change in the lives of those who seek refuge.

While getting to know the families who were arriving, I created and led a student donation initiative. We fundraised and collected donations of clothing, furniture, toys, school supplies, and food from the Blacksburg and Virginia Tech communities to resettle the families. A large event was held at the local mosque, where families could come in and choose out clothing they wanted and enjoy a meal together. Rides to prayer, meals together, and even birthday parties – what started out as simple volunteering became a community of friends I found myself enjoying immensely.

For the first time, what I knew as Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), was altered forever. I no longer saw Ut Prosim as a way of simply serving the needs of others, but as a way of learning their stories, resonating with them, and establishing a community.

Moving somewhere new takes a village, and feeling at home somewhere new takes a community. I am proud that I found the strength to assert myself in bringing those two things to the families resettling in Blacksburg. A fun cultural experience is what some people dream of. I hope to see people smile over school buses for the rest of my life as I continue my journey to resettle displaced families.