Today was my first real "hang-out" time with the Lals. Over chai and fruit, I learned that Padam and his wife (I'm still learning names) did meet and marry in the refugee camp. They both came to Nepal when they were about sixteen years old, and stayed there for the next sixteen years. Their main reaction to American so far is, "We like it, but it's cold." I still haven't seen Padam actually take his coat off, and when we stepped outside later, on a pretty mild fall day by Idaho standards, he pulled his hood on and cinched it tight.
They told me a little about their refugee camp, Beldangi. It was pretty much it's own town, perhaps out of necessity, since no one was allowed to leave. Padam had a small business in the camp, selling cigarettes and fruit. Women weren't allowed to work. They lived in a hut made of bamboo, about half the size of the living room they have now--maybe 15 or 20 feet square. I was glad to hear they hadn't lived in the Goldhap camp, which burned down in a matter of hours after one of the huts caught on fire. Bamboo may be cheap, but it isn't very fire-resistant.
They had home DVDs to show me. One chronicled Padam's brother leaving Nepal to work in Dubai, then coming back to celebrate the holidays with his family. I'm not sure if that means he has family that has always lived in Nepal? I don't know, sometimes we have a definite communication gap. Another video was filmed in the refugee camp, and it showed the wedding of his wife's sister, which happened a year and a half ago. A thousand people celebrated for seven full days. I was impressed by how normal life seemed to be even inside a refugee camp. It was obvious that many of the guests were wearing a hodge-podge of whatever clothing the UN provided, but the women of the wedding party were all wearing saris, and the bride had a beautiful scarf with gold accents over her head. One scene showed Padam and his wife blessing the new couple by sticking flower petals in their headbands and anointing their hands with water. Every guest at the wedding does this, and by the end the couple have foreheads full of flower petals. There was a lot of rice involved too, but I'm not sure what exactly they were doing with it.
We then went on our adventure to find a vacuum, which meant a trip to Deseret Industries. Padam headed over to the electronics section first and was looking at old computers. Earlier in my visit, they had shown me the various computer parts they had collected--monitor, mouse, keyboard, and kept talking about a "CPU." In my head I was thinking, "I'm a humanities major. I have no idea what a 'CPU' even is." Apparently, it's the computer part of a computer. I dissuaded Padam from buying one from a thrift store, especially since all the ones there were labeled "parts." We ran into other Bhutanese refugees while we were there. Several Bhutanese families are in Twin Falls right now, and more are coming, including Padam's mother and older brother. The US has made a commitment to taking in 60,000 Bhutanese, and they're being sprinkled like salt all over America. Padam now has family members in New York, North Carolina, South Dakota, and California.
We pressed onward on our mission, and looked through the ranks of dusty vacuums. I steered them toward the bagless ones, since I know from experience the exasperation of not being able to find the right bag for an old as dirt vacuum. We selected one and had a sales guy plug it in to make sure it worked. When we got it back home, Bikash excitedly plugged it in and pushed it all around the living room, making sure to try out all the attachments as well.
I was then introduced to Nepalese music videos, featuring a lead singer with side burns and glasses who looked freakily like Johnny Depp. Padam's wife had disappeared into the kitchen, and soon came out with a bowl of soup, motioning for me to sit and eat. The soup was the most amazing thing I've seen done with Ramen noodles, ever. It had basil and ginger and chilies and tomatoes--served with a bowl of microwave popcorn on the side. Gradually more bowls of soup appeared and Padam and his two kids sat down, but not his wife. I'm not sure if this is a custom, or she'd just already eaten. The soup was followed by pomegranates and more music videos, and then I said I needed to go. They invited me for dinner on Friday, and Bikash said, "After dinner, we go to beautiful place." Not sure what the beautiful place is, but I can't wait to find out.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Marla tells another story.
So I made a quick trip to Seattle, just long enough to celebrate one year of dating a certain person, and to have a good Seattle night out with the girls.
It was the night out with the girls that made me wonder if I have too many acquaintances.
Afton and I were outside R-Place, smoking, and people were doing the "do you have a light?" and chatting thing. We're talking with 'Tavita'--a gay Samoan volleyball player, and calls over his friend, Hal. Hal shakes my hand. "Hey, you look really familiar." It only takes me a second to realize we worked at the same Christian summer camp in Issaquah, the summer after my freshman year. He had been a lifeguard, and his camp name was "Hasselhoff."
Well, Hasselhoff is drunk, and apparently that's when he likes to spout off all the intimate details of his life. He proceeds to tell me all about how that summer he had sex one night in the woods with a girl who worked in the kitchen, he couldn't remember her name, and then had been terrified that he might have gotten her pregnant. "'Cuz she was like, you know, against abortion. Man, if she'd really been pregnant, I would have been totally fucked. You know?" My response was along the lines of "You had sex in the woods? Did you have a blanket?" Negative.
We weren't really pals when we were on staff together, and at this point I'm pretty okay with that. Afton and I head back inside to dance with the rest of our group. But after a little while, I realize that Hasselhoff and gang have found us and are dancing by us. Thus far, Tavita is the one person we have liked at all, so other than him, we do our best to ignore them.
Eventually, we go outside again and apparently Hal and his other bud, Eric, follow us. We're chatting, being polite, Hal passes around cloves and I take one. He starts asking all these questions, along the lines of So you're at R-place, are you gay or straight? Yeah, I'm straight too--Do you hang out on the hill very often? and Where do you live? At some point I think to myself, "Is he...flirting? Did he really tell me about his protection-free sexcapades and now thinks I'm sufficiently impressed to follow his drunk ass home?" I test my hypothesis. "Actually, I live in Idaho. I'm here for a few days to see my boyfriend." "Boyfriend? Oh, well, that's too bad." "Bad? I don't think it's bad. He's great. We've been together a year." "Yeah, well, I've been dating my girlfriend for three years. She lives in Bellevue."
Hal disappears, never to be seen again.
Oh, Capital Hill. The world would be a dull, dull place without you.
It was the night out with the girls that made me wonder if I have too many acquaintances.
Afton and I were outside R-Place, smoking, and people were doing the "do you have a light?" and chatting thing. We're talking with 'Tavita'--a gay Samoan volleyball player, and calls over his friend, Hal. Hal shakes my hand. "Hey, you look really familiar." It only takes me a second to realize we worked at the same Christian summer camp in Issaquah, the summer after my freshman year. He had been a lifeguard, and his camp name was "Hasselhoff."
Well, Hasselhoff is drunk, and apparently that's when he likes to spout off all the intimate details of his life. He proceeds to tell me all about how that summer he had sex one night in the woods with a girl who worked in the kitchen, he couldn't remember her name, and then had been terrified that he might have gotten her pregnant. "'Cuz she was like, you know, against abortion. Man, if she'd really been pregnant, I would have been totally fucked. You know?" My response was along the lines of "You had sex in the woods? Did you have a blanket?" Negative.
We weren't really pals when we were on staff together, and at this point I'm pretty okay with that. Afton and I head back inside to dance with the rest of our group. But after a little while, I realize that Hasselhoff and gang have found us and are dancing by us. Thus far, Tavita is the one person we have liked at all, so other than him, we do our best to ignore them.
Eventually, we go outside again and apparently Hal and his other bud, Eric, follow us. We're chatting, being polite, Hal passes around cloves and I take one. He starts asking all these questions, along the lines of So you're at R-place, are you gay or straight? Yeah, I'm straight too--Do you hang out on the hill very often? and Where do you live? At some point I think to myself, "Is he...flirting? Did he really tell me about his protection-free sexcapades and now thinks I'm sufficiently impressed to follow his drunk ass home?" I test my hypothesis. "Actually, I live in Idaho. I'm here for a few days to see my boyfriend." "Boyfriend? Oh, well, that's too bad." "Bad? I don't think it's bad. He's great. We've been together a year." "Yeah, well, I've been dating my girlfriend for three years. She lives in Bellevue."
Hal disappears, never to be seen again.
Oh, Capital Hill. The world would be a dull, dull place without you.
I meet my refugee family.
The only background you need is that I've become an official volunteer with the Twin Falls Idaho refugee program. I find it surprising and unexpected that this most sheltered of places has opened its doors to people from all over the world. And also, I sometimes feel a misfit here, too, so why not seek out the company of other aliens?
The volunteer organizer, Michelle, set up a meeting with a refugee family, and all she really told me was that they were Bhutanese. All I really knew about Bhutan was that it is near Nepal and Tibet, and it measures its "Gross National Happiness." I was expecting an Asian-looking family, Buddhist, maybe with prayer flags hanging over the door.
When I knocked on the door of the small brick apartment, a smiling man with coriander skin and large black eyes answered it. His two children, thin and glossy-haired, showed obvious excitement to meet me. His wife came out of the kitchen with a cup of chai for me, wearing jeans, a string of beads around her neck, and a bindi on her forehead. Hmm? They didn't match my conception of "Bhutanese." How do I even have a conception of Bhutanese? I asked, actually, if they were Nepalese, meaning if that was their ethnicity. Michelle explained calmly, but clearly, that they were Bhutanese but had been in a refugee camp in Nepal. On the drive home, I thought about how excited I was to meet them, but it was tinged with just a little of, "I wanted them to be Buddhist."
Which got me to thinking, and Googling. The truth, I learned, is that there are basically two Bhutans. One is Buddhist, and Asian, and wears the woven robes of the Asian steppes. And the other is Hindu, and Indian/Nepalese, and, incidentally, was kicked out of Bhutan almost twenty years ago by the government. Basically, it was an ethnic cleanse without the killing part--they just made life miserable until all the "Lahtshampas" (it means "southern-dwellers"--most of the Hindu/ethnically Indian population lived in the south) left. They ended up in refugee camps in Nepal, and then followed meeting after meeting after meeting between the Nepalese and Bhutanese governments, with Bhutan sticking to the line that they had simply deported illegal immigrants, and that anyone else who left the country did so of their own accord. Nepal refused to patriate the refugees. Bhutan refused to let them come back. Meanwhile, for seventeen years, they've been living in huts and cooking UN rice and waiting. 107,000 of them. The children of my refugee family were born in the refugee camp. Their parents may have met and married there.
Meanwhile, Bhutan is treated pretty well by the world media. On my first Internet search, I kept finding photos of Bhutan's young king, who was educated at Oxford and Wheaton college, of all places, and who has gained the media nickname "prince charming." The country has its own website, with glowing descriptions of its rich culture, traditional dress, and high quality of life. But that idyllic and, frankly, homogeneous picture has been created by kicking out an ethnic minority that made up about a sixth of the population.
Well, anyway, it's just another story of majority versus minority, right? They're pretty common. Meanwhile, here is this family, kicked out of one place because of their ethnicity and culture, because they were different, now placed in a country where their differences stick out even more. And I can't help but wonder if they will feel freer here to keep their own culture and traditions, their own identity, or if they will "Americanize" to the point that Bhutan will seem like a dream they had a long time ago. And if they do stick to their identity, will they always be lonely here? They have been in America exactly two months. They look healthy and happy, their children especially are bristling with the excitement of this new adventure. The full reality of their past is unknown to me, and their future is unknown to anyone.
Well, here goes.
The volunteer organizer, Michelle, set up a meeting with a refugee family, and all she really told me was that they were Bhutanese. All I really knew about Bhutan was that it is near Nepal and Tibet, and it measures its "Gross National Happiness." I was expecting an Asian-looking family, Buddhist, maybe with prayer flags hanging over the door.
When I knocked on the door of the small brick apartment, a smiling man with coriander skin and large black eyes answered it. His two children, thin and glossy-haired, showed obvious excitement to meet me. His wife came out of the kitchen with a cup of chai for me, wearing jeans, a string of beads around her neck, and a bindi on her forehead. Hmm? They didn't match my conception of "Bhutanese." How do I even have a conception of Bhutanese? I asked, actually, if they were Nepalese, meaning if that was their ethnicity. Michelle explained calmly, but clearly, that they were Bhutanese but had been in a refugee camp in Nepal. On the drive home, I thought about how excited I was to meet them, but it was tinged with just a little of, "I wanted them to be Buddhist."
Which got me to thinking, and Googling. The truth, I learned, is that there are basically two Bhutans. One is Buddhist, and Asian, and wears the woven robes of the Asian steppes. And the other is Hindu, and Indian/Nepalese, and, incidentally, was kicked out of Bhutan almost twenty years ago by the government. Basically, it was an ethnic cleanse without the killing part--they just made life miserable until all the "Lahtshampas" (it means "southern-dwellers"--most of the Hindu/ethnically Indian population lived in the south) left. They ended up in refugee camps in Nepal, and then followed meeting after meeting after meeting between the Nepalese and Bhutanese governments, with Bhutan sticking to the line that they had simply deported illegal immigrants, and that anyone else who left the country did so of their own accord. Nepal refused to patriate the refugees. Bhutan refused to let them come back. Meanwhile, for seventeen years, they've been living in huts and cooking UN rice and waiting. 107,000 of them. The children of my refugee family were born in the refugee camp. Their parents may have met and married there.
Meanwhile, Bhutan is treated pretty well by the world media. On my first Internet search, I kept finding photos of Bhutan's young king, who was educated at Oxford and Wheaton college, of all places, and who has gained the media nickname "prince charming." The country has its own website, with glowing descriptions of its rich culture, traditional dress, and high quality of life. But that idyllic and, frankly, homogeneous picture has been created by kicking out an ethnic minority that made up about a sixth of the population.
Well, anyway, it's just another story of majority versus minority, right? They're pretty common. Meanwhile, here is this family, kicked out of one place because of their ethnicity and culture, because they were different, now placed in a country where their differences stick out even more. And I can't help but wonder if they will feel freer here to keep their own culture and traditions, their own identity, or if they will "Americanize" to the point that Bhutan will seem like a dream they had a long time ago. And if they do stick to their identity, will they always be lonely here? They have been in America exactly two months. They look healthy and happy, their children especially are bristling with the excitement of this new adventure. The full reality of their past is unknown to me, and their future is unknown to anyone.
Well, here goes.
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