Excerpt: Seated on a couch between her parents Shiraz and Nurjehan Bharmal, Ayesha flips through a photo album chronicling most of her 41 years.
Gesturing to a picture of a smiling girl in a yellow dress, her parents can’t help but remark how skinny Ayesha was. They were told she was about 20 months old, but they didn’t believe it.
“She was very small, you can see how thin her arms are,” says Nurjehan. “She only weighed 12 pounds or something. But it didn’t take long for her to sort of bloom.”
A document listed her name as Thi Diep Nguyen. Preferring a Muslim name in keeping with the family, Shiraz and Nurjehan named her Ayesha Fatima Bharmal. Older brothers Jameel and Aleem reluctantly welcomed their new sister.
At the same time, the Bharmals helped to sponsor a family from Vietnam, among the first waves of so-called “boat people.”
“We were very concerned about the war…. But we were very impressed that the government would sponsor the plane and bring the kids over,” says Bharmal, who, like his wife, is an Ismaili Muslim born in Tanzania to parents of Indian heritage.
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Ismailimail 
May ALLAH bless this family. This is what is now required of us to help our brothers and sisters from Syria. Many are in camps in Lebanon.
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