Story Created: Oct 18, 2007 at 5:45 PM MDT
Story Updated: Nov 7, 2008 at 11:25 AM MDT
Everything this family of four owns is in those eight suitcases. That's the life they live now, as refugees from Iraq. Zeyad's family was the first to arrive in Boise since the Iraq war began.
Now, they're moving to Washington D.C. for a new job. It will be the fourth time they've moved this year, and the third country.
"I didn't sleep for nights and nights thinking about, 'how am I going to support them tomorrow and after that?'," he said.
"Refugees coming into the United States are coming because they don't have any other solution," said Leslye Boban with the International Rescue Committee.
She says most of them are Iraqis who worked with the U.S. government in Iraq. Okhowa says they decided to flee after he received death threats.
"They are now being threatened by those who don't agree with them supporting the U.S. government so their families have been terrorized, threatened, killed, tortured," said Boban.
"I am a very optimistic person despite everything I went through," said Okhowa, "but I am very optimistic; I believe in America, I believe in myself."
Here, Zeyad is ready to make a new life, and thankful his family got the chance. But for his home country, he's not as confident.
"Right now I don't see any hope," he said, "Right now things are messed up in Iraq."
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