Page numbers refer to the hardcover edition.
p. 8: “two fatwas against his life are still in effect”: Although Fraidoon’s fatwas were in fact death sentences, the definition of the word fatwa is far broader, referring to any legal opinion or decree handed down by an Islamic religious leader.
According to the Islamic Supreme Council of America, “In recent years, the term ‘fatwā’ has been widely used throughout the media, usually to indicate that a death sentence has been dealt to someone or some group of people. The limited use of this term has resulted in a limited understanding of its meaning.” (“What Is a Fatwa?” Islamic Supreme Council of America, accessed December 4, 2018, http://islamicsupremecouncil.org/understanding-islam/legal-rulings/44-what-is-a-fatwa.html.)
p. 17: “The Mujahideen did not like the fact that my father joined . . .”: The word mujahideen can refer to any force of Muslim warriors. The term came to be widely known in the West in reference to guerrilla fighters opposing the Soviet-backed Afghan government during the Soviet-Afghan War, from 1979 to 1989. By joining the Afghan National Army, Fraidoon’s father was siding with the government, against the Mujahideen.
p. 18: “They called themselves Taliban”: The Soviet Union withdrew its forces from Afghanistan in 1989, and in 1992, the Soviet-backed president was overthrown. Many areas were controlled by the Mujahideen, but the various groups weren’t able to form a unified government. Into this vacuum came the Taliban, a brutal and strictly fundamentalist fighting force. See Pierre Tristam, “History of the Taliban: Who They Are, What They Want,” Thought.Co, January 24, 2018, https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-taliban-who-they-are-what-they-want-2352797.
p. 18: “what we call a madrasa”: The word madrasa refers to any type of educational institution, but in the West, the term is often used to refer to traditional Islamic schools.
p. 19: “sent them to fight jihad”: The word jihad means a personal struggle or effort in devotion to Islam. It is often translated to mean a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as part of one’s religious duty.
p. 19: “Their music was even in a different language, Pashto”: Pashto is an Indo-European language spoken in Afghanistan, Eastern Iran, and Pakistan.
p. 20: “The enemy was the Northern Alliance, one of the Mujahideen parties”: The Afghan Northern Alliance was formed by President Burhanuddin Rabbani and former defense minister Ahmad Shah Massoud. It was an armed military organization formed to fight the Taliban. The Alliance received support from Iran, Russia, Turkey, India, and Tajikistan. The Taliban were backed by Al-Qaeda.
p. 28: “we landed inside a PRT [Provincial Reconstruction Team] run by U.S. military forces”: According to the Afghanistan Provincial Reconstruction Team Handbook, PRTs “find their origin in coalition humanitarian liaison cells established by U.S. military forces in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) [the U.S. government’s official name for the Global War on Terrorism] in early 2002. A dozen Army civil affairs (CA) soldiers staffed these small outposts, dubbed ‘Chiclets,’ with the task to assess humanitarian needs, implement small-scale reconstruction projects, and establish relations with the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and nongovernmental organizations already in the field.” (United States Department of Defense/Defense Technical Information Center, Afghanistan Provincial Reconstruction Team Handbook, February 2011, p. 3, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a550604.pdf.)
p. 40: “They were speaking Pashai, a different language . . .”: Pashai (or Pashayi) is a group of languages spoken by the Pashai people in the northeast corner of Afghanistan.
p. 41: “I was back in Laghman Province, working as a linguist for the army and for the MEP company, Mission Essential Personnel”: Mission Essential Personnel is a government contractor serving intelligence and military clients. It is a leading provider of translators and interpreters.
p. 48: “SIV, Special Immigrant Visa”: SIVs are granted to interpreters and others who have worked with the U.S. military in support of missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Fraidoon’s lawyer, Sari Long, provides additional information: “There is the SIV program for Iraqi and Afghan translators that is limited to fifty principal applicants per year. Since 2009, with the passage of the Afghan Allies Act, an additional SIV program was enacted for Afghans who were employed by or on behalf of the U.S. government. Initially, 7,500 visas were available for principal applicants over five years. Congress has authorized extensions over the years providing more visas. Since December 19, 2014, 14,500 visas have been allocated.
“At the time when Fred applied,” she continues, “the requirement for the SIV program for Afghans was twelve months of faithful and valuable service to the U.S. government. For applicants after October 1, 2015, they must show two years of faithful and valuable service.”
(See also: U.S. Department of State/Bureau of Consular Affairs, “Special Immigrant Visas for Iraqis Who Were Employed by/on Behalf of the U.S. Government,” Travel.State.Gov, accessed December 4, 2018, https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/special-immg-visas-iraqis-employed-us-gov.html.)
p. 67: “The Karens (pronounced KAH-renz), the second-largest ethnic group in Myanmar . . .”: It is believed that the Karen people originated in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia or in Tibet. They speak Pwo and Sgaw, two languages that are part of the Tibeto-Burman family. The Karens are governed by chiefs or princes, and they practice several religions: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.
p. 69: “they moved about fifty thousand of us deeper into Thailand, into one large camp called Mae La”: For additional information about and photographs of this camp, see “Mae La,” The Border Consortium website, accessed December 4, 2018, http://www.theborderconsortium.org/where-we-work/camps-in-thailand/mae-la, and “Gallery of Mae La Refugee Camp,” Burma Link website, accessed December 4, 2018, https://www.burmalink.org/gallery-mae-la-refugee-camp/.
p. 75: “Those who pass are eventually offered a permanent home in a third country”: According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, from 2005 to 2008, the UNHCR “helped resettle more than 20,000 Myanmar refugees in Thailand — including Karens and other minority groups — in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden[,] Norway . . . and Ireland.” (Steven O’Brien, “It’s a Long Way from Myanmar for Karen Refugees,” UNHCR website, January 28, 2008, https://www.unhcr.org/afr/news/latest/2008/1/479e058f2/its-long-way-myanmar-karen-refugee%22s.html/.)
p. 83: “to attend Karen Martyrs’ Day”: For more information about Karen Martyrs’ Day, see various articles at the Karen News website: http://karennews.org/tag/karen-martyrs-day/.
p. 85: “I heard that the Susan T. Buffett Scholarship paid full college tuition for students who lived in Nebraska”: See “College Scholarships,” Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, https://buffettscholarships.org.
p. 101: “The camp collected many lost kids [who came to be known as the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan]”: For more on the lost children of Sudan, see “The Lost Boys of Sudan,” International Rescue Committee website, October 3, 2014, https://www.rescue.org/article/lost-boys-sudan, and Emmanuel Nyabera, “The Lost Girls of Sudan,” Refugees 1, No. 126 (2006), 8 – 9, https://www.unhcr.org/3cb5508b2.pdf.
p. 110: “We had our I-94, a document that said we could come to U.S.”: An I-94 is a “record of admission” to the United States that every noncitizen receives when entering the country. At the time Nyarout and her family arrived, the I-94 was in paper form. Visitors who were not refugees had the form stapled onto their passports when they arrived and removed when they departed. Now the process is electronic. Because refugees do not have foreign passports, the Department of Homeland Security provides I-94 forms in paper as evidence of their status and employment authorization. (“Definition of an I-94,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection website, July 27, 2017, https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/880/~/definition-of-an-i-94; “Refugee Form I-94 Automation,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website, April 4, 2017, https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/refugee-form-i-94-automation.)
p. 119: “I finally started going to school through Job Corps”: Job Corps is the largest governmental free education-and-job-training program for young adults between ages sixteen and twenty-four. More information at https://www.jobcorps.gov.
pp. 137 – 139: “Theirs is an ancient religion, spread orally by holy men, that is related to Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam”: Zoroastrianism, founded by the Iranian prophet and religious reformer Zoroaster over three thousand years ago, is one of the oldest religions still practiced today. Its fundamental belief is in the presence of a supreme god, Ahura Mazda, and the struggle between his twin children Spentu Mainyu (the spirit of good) and Angra Mainyu (the spirit of evil). See “Zoroastrianism,” History Channel website, August 23, 2018, https://www.history.com/topics/religion/zoroastrianism.
Mithraism is an ancient and enigmatic Persian religion that is even older than Zoro-astrianism and had a resurgence in the Roman Empire from the second to fourth centuries CE. Mithra was the Iranian god of the sun, justice, contracts, and war.
For additional information about Yazidi history and beliefs, see Avi Asher-Schapiro, “Who Are the Yazidis, the Ancient, Persecuted Religious Minority Struggling to Survive in Iraq?” National Geographic News, August 11, 2014, https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140809-iraq-yazidis-minority-isil-religion-history.
p. 143: “A master is prohibited from having intercourse . . .”: This wording is from an ISIS pamphlet that was, according to Human Rights Watch, “posted on a pro-ISIS Twitter account and generally considered authentic” and that included rules for having sex with captured and enslaved non-Muslim women and girls. (Kenneth Roth, “Slavery: The ISIS Rules,” Human Rights Watch website, September 5, 2015, https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/09/05/slavery-isis-rules; see also: Rukmini Callimachi, “ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape,” New York Times, August 13, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/middleeast/isis-enshrines-a-theology-of-rape.html.)
p. 145: “especially those who resisted reading the Quran”: The term Quran is a transliteration from the Arabic. It can also be transliterated as Qur’an or Koran.
p. 148: “these two tiny villages were once Shiite towns . . .”: Shiite (Shia) and Sunni are the two branches of Islam. As DePaul University law professor and Islamic scholar M. Cherif Bassiouni explained it, “The Sunni tradition, which today comprises approximately 85 – 90 percent of all Muslims, differs from Shia tradition, which comprises the remainder of the Muslim world. The distinction between the two traditions essentially derives from different approaches to governance. The Sunni believe, based on specific provisions of the Quran and the Sunna [part of Muslim law based on Muhammad’s words], that the Muslim people are to be governed by consensus (ijma’) through an elected head of state, the khalifa, according to democratic principles. The Shia, however, believe that the leader of Islam, whom they refer to as the imam rather than the khalifa, must be a descendant of the Prophet. The concept is the basis for a hereditary hierarchy in the Shia tradition.” (“Schools of Thought in Islam,” Middle East Institute website, January 24, 2012, http://www.mei.edu/publications/schools-thought-islam.)
p. 149: “She was forced to marry this militant under Sharia law”: The word Sharia, or Sharī‘ah, literally means “the path to a watering hole.” Again as Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni has explained, “The Sharia contains the rules by which a Muslim society is organized and governed, and it provides the means to resolve conflicts among individuals and between the individual and the state.” (“Islamic Law: The Shariah,” Middle East Institute website, January 24, 2012, http://www.mei.edu/publications/islamic-law-shariah.)
p. 149: “During the Roji and Eda Rojiet Ezi holiday”: Roji and Eda Rojiet Ezi (Fasting and Feasting) is one of the most important Yazidi holidays of the year. Participants fast from dawn to sunset for three days. After sunset, there is food, celebration, and prayer. (“Holidays,” Yezidis International website, accessed December 5, 2108, http://www.yezidisinternational.org/abouttheyezidipeople/holidays.)
p. 164: “I kissed the hand of our spiritual leader, Baba Sheikh, as an act of respect”: Baba Sheikh is the spiritual head of the Yazidis. He presides over Yazidi ceremonies, especially those at the Lalish Temple. See “Yezidi Religious Tradition,” YezidiTruth.org, accessed December 5, 2018, http://www.yeziditruth.org/yezidi_religious_tradition.
To learn more about the Yazidi people and the 2014 genocide, see Yazda’s website, https://www.yazda.org. An excellent source and powerful read is the book The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State by the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Nadia Murad (listed in For Further Reading on page 241).
p. 173: “Much has been reported about he 1994 massacre of Tutsis by Hutus. . .”: For additional information about the Hutus and Tutsis of Burundi, see “Burundi: The situation of the Tutsi, including the Tutsi elite; their treatment by the authorities and by society; and protection provided to them (December 2015 – February 2017),” Ref World, UNHCR website, updated January 18, 2019, https://www.refworld.org/docid/58cfb9f14.html.
p. 176: “The name of the camp was Mtendeli . . .”: For photographs of Mtendeli refugee camp, search for “Mtendeli Refugee Camp photos.”
p. 179: “Probably this compared to the ACT [American College Testing] or SAT [Scholastic Aptitute Test] for high schools here”: The ACT and SAT are college entrance exams in the United States. See http://www.act.org or http://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat.
The photographs in this chapter were taken during a rehearsal and three church services. The Swahili words and phrases that are included were spoken during the services.