INDIANAPOLIS — Like any 6-year-old after her first day of school, Rahil Sadat is excited to show her mom and dad how much she’s already learned, so she sits at the family’s kitchen table reciting her ABCs, followed by a recitation of numbers one through 15.
The moment is significant for the little girl who’s still learning English, but what makes it even more so is the journey it took for Rahil and her family to reach it.
It’s a journey that started last October in Afghanistan when Rahil, her parents and her little sister fled their home after the Taliban came back into power.
“Afghanistan no good because Taliban can kill me, my family, my daughters,” said Rahil’s father, Sayed.
Daughters, who, even if their lives hadn’t been in danger, would not have been allowed to go to school in Afghanistan now with the Taliban in charge.
“Right now, school is closed. Taliban has closed school,” said Sayed. “Taliban say it is not, daughters, not girls, go to school. Only boys is go to school, but girls is not go to school, stay at home."
That won’t be Rahil’s story, though, or her little sister Hasent’s.
“My daughter is safe. My daughter can go to school,” said Rahil’s mom, Aisha, who has video of her little girl stepping onto a yellow school bus Wednesday morning. Those steps were just the first part of this next journey into a world, that although still foreign, holds so much promise for a 6-year-old, anxious to learn everything about her new home.
Rahil’s parents are bursting with pride and relief at the joy they see in their daughter’s face, even after the hardships of the past year, leaving behind the only home that they’ve ever known.
What they do know now, though, is that they’re safe in their tiny apartment on Indy’s south side.
While the details of their new life are still uncertain at times, their daughter Rahil is allowed to hold the pen as she writes her own story about the woman she’ll one day become.