This is not a
particularly happy post.
It’s been a fairly unfortunate
past few weeks. After returning from a family vacation to Cambodia, I was stuck in Kathmandu for four days due to bandhs (strikes) throughout the country. My host brother in Sindupalchok (where I spent my three months
of training) died suddenly of a heart problem. An old woman who lives down the
road from me, with whom I drank tea several times a week, passed away after
failing to recover from kidney stones. The farmer with whom I constructed a
plastic greenhouse was impaled and nearly killed by one of his own oxen,
although he seems to be recovering well. My family’s chickens all died from a mysterious
illness (ok, maybe I’m a little happy about that. Never has my garden enjoyed
such peace from their relentless digging and defecating). More than any of
these deaths, though, I have found this story to be the most troubling:
I’m in a shop in my
village bazaar, trying to make sense of all I’ve just taken in. A middle-aged
Nepali couple sits across from me. I’d met their son, Sushil, shortly after I
arrived in my village a year ago, and we became fast friends. Two years my
junior, Sushil was of medium build, quick to smile, and full of questions about
the United States. He’d married not long before I met him, but he spent most of
his days sitting idly at the counter of his parents’ shop and staring off into
the distance.
Early on, Sushil
told me that he wished to move to the U.S. to continue his education. His
English was decent and he seemed to be a quick learner. With the sheer odds
against his obtaining a student visa, however, he took his chances with
immigrating illegally and had since been on the road for several months. Two
weeks ago, Sushil posted a plea for help on his Facebook page, followed by a
link to an article about a group of illegal immigrants who had been detained by
the Panamanian police. Having bribed the police officers for his release,
Sushil continued on his way. Any day now—even as we speak, his parents say—he will
be crossing the border and entering the United States.
Around the time
Sushil was arrested in Panama, his wife, Saraswati, had been due to deliver
their first child. Saraswati had studied at the local campus and played on the
girl’s volleyball team before her pregnancy had progressed to the point that
she could no longer hide it. Just a few days earlier, Sushil’s mother tells me,
Saraswati had gone into labor. The doctors anticipated complications, so
Sushil’s parents rushed her to a larger, better equipped hospital. Saraswati
miscarried in the taxi. Weeks later, she is still recovering from the physical
and emotional trauma of the ordeal.
Having little
money, Sushil’s family had eaten sparingly on the road to and from the
hospital. Nevertheless, between Sarswati’s care, transportation, water,
lodging, and the occasional meal, they had spent beyond their means and their money
had gotten very tight. A week later, Sushil’s mother is experiencing headaches
and heart palpitations from the stress of it all. Speaking with a neighbor who
has come to buy ginger, she laments at the family’s misfortune and wonders what
they have done to deserve such bad karma.
Initially, I supposed
this the end of the story. I wrote it up as part of an article and almost sent
it to a friend of a friend to publish in a national Nepali newspaper, but I
struggled to find a proper tone and theme. As a foreigner, praise of Nepal can
come off as oversentimental and patronizing, criticism may seem ignorant and
malapropos, and both can suffer from overgeneralization. Eventually, I buried
it. The other day, however, more details came to light and I decided that it
needed to be shared.
A few months later,
after returning from a long vacation with my family, I am back in Sushil’s
family shop. His father sits across from me, and I’m trying to make sense of
all I’ve just taken in. A month prior, Sushil was been riding on a bus in
Mexico when he and his two traveling companions were kidnapped by what his father
describes as “the Mexican mafia.” They were bound, blindfolded, and transported
into the jungle where they were kept in a shed until each of their families
paid a ransom of $5000. After a week, when all the families had paid up, they
were released.
Then, after many
months of travel, Sushil finally made it across the U.S.-Mexico border—where he
was shortly caught and put in prison. Between our language barrier and his family’s
poor understanding of the American legal system, I’m having trouble
understanding what will happen next. Sushil has a court date with a judge on
January 26, by which time he needs to find a sponsor and something his father
calls an “oyleck,” which will cost them an additional $3000. The family’s only
contact with Sushil is the prison phone, which he uses infrequently because he
is low on cash and, well, he’s in prison. His father asks me if there is work
in jail, and says that if Sushil gets a job he can make $1 (an hour? a day?
He’s not sure) with which he can call his anxious parents. I tell him I don’t
know, having never been in jail in Texas.
Sushil’s father
fiddles and stares off into the distance, even in extreme apprehension
exhibiting the stoicism typical of a Nepali. I feel terrible. My stomach
churns, battling its most recent bacterial tenant and digesting the knowledge
that Sushil’s voyage has been (and perhaps always was) futile. I want to ask
his father what he was thinking, sending his son across the world into such
uncertain peril. I want to empty my life savings into his arms to restore their
hope—no, not their hope, they still seem to hold on to some—my hope, maybe. I
want to tell him everything will be all right, but I don’t think it will be. I
want to do many things, but I do nothing.
Sushil’s father
offers me milk tea, and when I make an excuse that the dairy will upset my sour
stomach, he suggests lemon tea instead. Apologetically, I start say that I have
to go; he asks me to sit. A woman comes and asks to buy some rice, but he
brushes her off, telling her to wait because he’s busy talking with me. He
starts asking me countless questions, one after the other: how much does a
police officer make in the U.S.? What about a teacher? Are there mountains in
America, and do people live on them? Are oceans, and islands, and deserts? Are
all the roads paved, or are some of them dirt like the one in front of us? How
do taxes work in America, because he’s heard that some people don’t pay anything
at all while others pay a lot.
I answer his
questions as best I can, and, seizing a brief moment of silence, excuse myself.
Before going, I tell him that if I were back in the U.S., I would do everything
I could to help Sushil. He encourages me that when I go home in ten months, I
should.
As I rise to leave,
my gaze catches on Sushil’s name, scribbled in marker on the wooden cash drawer
of his family’s little shop. Thus far, Sushil’s endeavor has cost his family
$40,000—a considerable sum even for an American, it is his family’s entire
savings. In fact, they recently took out an additional $10,000 loan to support
him through his imprisonment. My guess is that, in a few days, he will likely
be deported— and then who knows what will happen?
For me, this story
speaks volumes about the Nepal I’ve come to know in the past sixteen months.
First, it is indicative of some of the country’s greatest shortcomings: the
scarcity of opportunity and employment that drives its young and talented men,
its fathers and husbands and brothers, to abandon ship, at great risk and
expense, for the pipedream of a perfect life abroad; young girls who, by choice
or custom, forgo their personal and professional lives to start a family before
they reach eighteen; a healthcare system that, despite great strides in recent
decades, still struggles to serve the rural, most at-risk populations; countless
families who scrape buy on petty margins and struggle to make ends meet in
times of greatest need. The list goes on.
It is, in theory, my
responsibility to work to beat back these trends: to instill youth with the
skills and attitudes to succeed; to empower young women to seize control of
their futures; to expand the outreach of health information and services; to
build the capacity of small businesses and entrepreneurs. Easier written on a
job description than done, of course. In reality, these seem like insuperable
forces, especially the one repelling young men from their homeland. I frequently
argue with Nepalis about the merits of going abroad, but it’s hard to contend
with the veritable plenty of America compared to Nepal. Even after totaling up
the costs and risks, the prospect can seem worthwhile.
My community
members love to ask me, “which is better, Nepal or the U.S.?” I don’t think
such a comparison is fair or worthwhile. My ambiguous but honest answer is
both, and neither. I’ve come to appreciate the freedoms and plurality of the
United States, but there are aspects of American culture that I don’t miss. As
for Nepal: even after a year of living here, the sight of the Himalaya still
takes my breath away, the slower pace of life is at times maddeningly laid-back,
and people continue to astound me with their generosity. While life may indeed be
healthier, comfier, and perhaps even better in the United States, the path
rarely proves so easy, cheap, or true.
