Links

My first day here I was ushed into a classroom to say hello, as this is what visitors do. I tried to get out of doing this, as I had to interrupt some poor teacher's lesson, which is something I find very awkward. The kids, who have seen PLENTY of westerners at this point, don't have questions for me under these circumstances. Sometimes the adults prompt them with, "What do you want to know about the life of the Bhutanese students in the US?" or gently reprimand them for not having questions, which makes me feel even more ill at ease. However, in one class, after a long silence, a girl raised her hand and looked at me and spoke in Nepali. It didn't sound like a question, and I looked at the teacher. "Tell them we remember them," she translated, and the girl smiled at me.

I found it very touching, and also symbolic of a community that is very much linked to those in the US, AUS, UK, and the Netherlands. Even though the camps don't have electricity (and they are using brickettes now instead of kerosene since the price went so high) outside the camps the Western Union and Moneygram offices line the road, where people are sending back money. I counted at least three internet cafes outside of one of the larger refugee camps, and there may be more.

Despite the fact that they have lots of contact with those abroad, they still ask questions about the schools and cities and opportunities. When we get past the obvious differences (not as many school uniforms, not standing up when teachers walk in the room in the US) it quickly moves beyond what I can answer. One girl asked about "PIT-tis-burg," giving the city three syllables, but of course I don't know anything about what life will be like there. Race in America is another thing that is difficult to talk about. One of the Bhutanese young people who was murdered in the US was killed in front of his house by an African-American young man not much older than he was. This came up in the question and answer session when I was in the camp where he lived before coming to the US. After making the mistake of starting with the fact that African-Americans have a different history in the US than other groups because they came as slaves (which got translated to: You said they were illegal immigrants, right?) I dropped that line and responded by acknowledging that what happened was tragic, and also that not everyone who has the same skin color is the same. The kids clearly still remember the young man who died in the US.

Today I was at a camp where one of my BIHS students had lived. He gave me the address of the hut where he used to live (Hut is the technical term that is used here. His family's place was maybe 200 square feet and had several rooms. The walls were made of bamboo, there was no electricity, and there was a thatched roof. ) I told him I would take some pictures of his old place and I went to look for it after a quick lunch. One of the teachers helped me, and we asked around, and were directed to the hut where members of his family live now. His old hut was gone. The teacher explained that as soon as someone leaves, they get rid of the hut, dismantling it. (I guess I had thought that maybe someone else would have moved in, but apparently it doesn't work that way when a refugee camp is in the process of closing down!) Anyway, I was able to meet my students' family members (aunts and cousins) and show them pictures of their family in the US. Showing someone a picture of her elderly mother in the US is really an amazing experience. (Explaining that I had to take the picture away so I could use it in my class was painful, but thanks to technology, at least I can email her children the pictures.) Afterwards, they gathered and we were able to take pictures. I may see them in a few months, as they will be coming to the US soon.