From war-torn Afghanistan to Utah

James Bond, Tom Cruise, Will Smith: These are the people who taught Najibullah Niazi how to speak fluent English. In 2002, not long after the fall of the Taliban, Niazi watched the same movies over and over, a hundred times, until he understood every single mumbled word.

Earlier, right after the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, Niazi worked briefly as an interpreter in his hometown of Mazar-i-Sharif. This was before his English was excellent, but that didn't stop him — because what he lacked in vocabulary he made up for in boldness.

Salt Lake writer Scott Carrier met Niazi in November 2001. Carrier, a freelance journalist who had just arrived in Mazar looking for a story, was sitting on a bench surrounded by Afghan men when the diminutive Niazi made his way through the throng and sat down next to him. Niazi was wearing a Planet Hollywood T-shirt and checkered polyester pants two or three sizes too big. His head was shaved, because at that time he was just 17 and still beardless, so when all the other men in Mazar shaved their beards to celebrate the Taliban's departure, Niazi did the next best thing.

Niazi told Carrier two lies — that he was 19 and that he'd been studying English in school. Then he offered to work for him as an interpreter. For the next three weeks the teenager took the journalist everywhere he wanted to go, including to the palace compound of an Afghan warlord.

After Carrier left the country, Niazi started watching all those movies, and later, after things stabilized more, he got his old job back as a receptionist at the United Nations World Food Program. Later still, Niazi began to fear that the warlord was going to kill him. Like other interpreters, he became a target because the warlord was angry about what foreign journalists had written about him.

"It's an all too common experience for people who help you in war-torn areas to end up suffering for it after you leave or even while you are there," says Carrier. "These stories are not often reported in the media, but many foreign correspondents have seen it happen."

All of which goes to explain why Niazi is now living in Orem.

To get him out of harm's way, Carrier arranged for him to come to Utah to attend Utah Valley State College. Niazi, now 22, arrived in Orem in January and soon discovered that Carrier hadn't looked at the fine print on UVSC's Web site: instead of the $1,600 tuition Carrier had assumed, it turned out Niazi needed $5,000 a semester, the nonresident fee. Even with the campus job he has and the money he brought with him, he is struggling to make ends meet.