Kholoud Abou Arida doesn't care much for American food. She thinks it has far too many calories and isn't healthy.
She is a fan of how many freedoms she has in the US compared to her previous home in Syria, though.
Abou Arida, her husband Moawiyah Bilal, and her three children were among the few Syrian refugees to get accepted to and resettled within America since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011.
And of all places to get resettled, the family ended up in Utah.
Nine domestic agencies work with the US State Department to assign accepted refugees to any one of approximately 180 communities nationwide. Refugee placement is relatively random unless a refugee already has family in a certain area.
"When the UN told us we were going to Utah we didn’t know where that was," Abou Arida told INSIDER. "We asked friends and no one else knew either, but when we got here we liked it very much."
Originally from the capital city of Damascus, the family escaped to Lebanon in 2011 and stayed for two years. In 2013, the family applied for resettlement with the United Nations and waited another year before being accepted into the US, entering the country last November.
Between 2011-2014, the US took in just 201 Syrian refugees, the New York Times reported. That number increased this year and will jump even further during the next. Sympathy has increased from Western nations like Germany, France, Great Britain and the U.S. as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the government fight the Islamic State and many other rebel groups, causing mass chaos and violence. More than 200,000 have been killed during the conflict, and the number of Syrian refugees registered with the UN is north of four million.
The family is one of just three Syrian families that have been resettled in the state, according to Catholic Community Services of Utah, a group that works with refugees upon their arrival in the state.
Abou Arida and her family live in Salt Lake City. She said it's been difficult adjusting to the cold temperatures, but she enjoys learning English in an ESL (English as a Second Language) program.
Her two teenage daughters —ages 13 and 16 — have picked up the language quickly in the ESL programs at their school while her youngest son — a three-year-old — is in daycare. Her husband was in an ESL program at first, but left to focus on work.
Her days sound a lot like those of many other Americans.
"I wake up, make breakfast, exercise, go to work and English class, come home, and make dinner," she said.
Abou Arida said that it's difficult to find employment that is both enjoyable and isn't physically demanding. She sorts clothes for the Mormon church's humanitarian services branch and her husband works in the laundry room of a local hotel. In Syria, she worked as an Arabic teacher and he worked in a restaurant.
She was most surprised by the breadth of laws in the country, and obviously, she felt the culture-shock of moving from war-torn Syria to the West.
Still, Utah is a place a Syrian refugee could make home, she said.
Although there aren't many Syrian refugees, there is a substantial refugee presence. CCS of Utah — the organization that helped Abou Arida and her family upon arrival — resettles roughly 600 refugees from around the world each year, Public Relations Director Danielle Stamos told INSIDER. Refugees from Burma and Somalia are the two largest groups the organization helps to resettle in the Salt Lake City area.
"The people are very nice," Abou Arida said. "Everyone has been very welcoming. We have not had any trouble."
She's hoping the rest of her family will be able to join her in America soon, as most are still left behind in Syria.
"Our family is still trying to leave, because it is getting worse, but it is very difficult and expensive to leave," she said. "I still talk to them and they are doing ok, but the situation is not good."
SEE ALSO: US to take in 'at least' 10,000 refugees
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