Abdullah’s Story - Life in Turkey

Part 2

Abdullah arrived in Turkey in 2020 with a plan. He had funding, a place in a university program, and enough savings to give himself a real shot. The first step was learning Turkish. He tried doing it online. It didn’t work, he said. So he studied on his own for seven months until he passed the language exam and got into a university in the city of Nevşehir, (New City in English, which is a fitting name for this new season of life).

Things were moving along well for him. He had learned a new language, his third one at this point, and he was creating a new life for himself in the new city. Then the Taliban took over.

The collapse happened fast. His government funding disappeared immediately. His savings, which he had carefully built up, went toward his family — especially one of his brothers, who had worked as a police officer and needed to flee the country quickly to avoid retribution from the new government. Abdullah covered much of the cost. The master's degree was over before it really began.

He needed work. He spent months cycling through jobs — construction, a bakery, a nightclub. None of it was what he had planned. But he kept moving. Eventually he met someone who ran a hotel and needed a staff member who spoke English. Abdullah took the job. He spent his days switching between Turkish and English, helping tourists navigate a country that was still, in many ways, navigating him.

It was a good job. But the hours were long, the culture was different from his own, and the future was unclear.

After two years, his tourist visa expired and couldn't be renewed. He moved to Istanbul and enrolled in a hotel management degree — a program that would let him legally work and study at the same time. It was not the path he had imagined. But it was a path.

He has now been in Turkey for four and a half years. He cannot return to Afghanistan. His previous work for the government makes that too dangerous under the Taliban. And even if he could go back, there is little work there for someone with his background. So he stays, separated from his family indefinitely, sending money when he can, calling when the loneliness gets heavy.

"The hardest thing right now is living away from them," he told me. "Calling and speaking with them is refreshing. But I feel a lot of loneliness here, even with friends around."

What keeps him going is a logic he learned from his family growing up. Sacrifice is not a burden. It is something you give to the people you love. He cannot be there with them, but he can work, and they can be a little better off because of it. That, for now, is enough.

He told me he hopes to graduate, find stable work, and eventually integrate into Turkish life. He sees a cultural familiarity here that he thinks would be harder to find further west — shared values, a similar rhythm to daily life. Friends who have gone to Europe tell him they miss Turkey for exactly that reason.

Whether that future comes together the way he hopes, he cannot say. But Abdullah has been building something out of uncertainty his entire life. That part, at least, he knows how to do.