The tough road from Bhutan refugee camp to the US

When Tara Dhungana was about to start sixth grade in Bhutan, his family took what he thought was a trip. 

“When we left the country, my parents were saying we would come back a few weeks after,” he said.

They packed a few bags and left their animals in the yard, vegetables still growing in the garden. They arrived in a refugee camp in eastern Nepal, and Dhungana spent the remainder of his childhood there.

“You don’t know what tomorrow has for you,” Dhungana said. “It’s always dark, right? Tomorrow is always dark.”

Today, the world refugee crisis is growing. And while the United Nations says most displaced people live in cities and towns, many still stay in camps for long periods. When people come to the U.S. after years in a camp, they face unique challenges. Many have never worked and have had little to no education.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Bhutan drove out more than 100,000 Lhotshampas, Dhungana’s ethnic group, as the government began to see them as a political threat. It wasn’t until 2007 that several countries agreed to take in some of the Bhutanese refugees, and some 66,000 Bhutanese have been formally resettled in the U.S. since then.

Dhungana came five years ago, and at first, he said it was really hard. He found a job at FedEx through a temp agency fairly quickly, but he felt very isolated. When he and his wife came home each day, "We just cried, literally cried,” he said.

Now he works full time helping other refugees find jobs in Columbus, Ohio, through Community Refugee and Immigration Services, the city’s primary agency helping with resettlement.

“I think the city is welcoming,” he said.

But a welcoming vibe may not always be enough. Lots of people come straight from camps where they had nothing to do and no education. In Ohio, they usually find work for low wages in warehouses or hotels. A few Ohio employers have whole teams of Bhutanese workers, with managers speaking in Nepali.

“We have a large group of individuals who are employed at about the three-month mark, which is what the government aims for,” said Megan Zarnitz with Catholic Charities in Cincinnati. Cincinnati has resettled at least 1,000 Bhutanese refugees since 2009.

The federal government sets a goal for most refugees of economic self-sufficiency in 30-90 days. After 20 years in a camp, especially for older people, the shock and pressure can lead to depression, and suicide rates are high in the Bhutanese community.

One gathering place for the Bhutanese community is at the South Asian Bazaar in Columbus. It’s a nondescript storefront in a small strip mall, but inside, it’s hopping. 

"Business is picking up for the community. There’s lot of competition,” said co-owner Bhim Bastola. “We love competition.”

The South Asian Bazaar in a Columbus strip mall sells a mix of food, religious items and garments serving an almost entirely Bhutanese Nepali community.

Lewis Wallace

People look at clothes and weigh bags of food, and groups of women come in from a Hindu religious festival dressed in bright red. 

“Our ladies are really fond of garments,” Bastola said, laughing.

Bastola spent a little time in the camps. He is doing well here, but he and his business partner are both educated — Bastola does people’s taxes, and his partner runs a realty company out of the back. They say hundreds of Bhutanese families have bought homes in just the last few years and are beginning to put down roots.

Bhim Bastola, left, and his business partner Durga Timsina run a small, packed store in northern Columbus that's popular with the large Bhutanese refugee community. 

Lewis Wallace

Nepal earthquake victims get help from P.E.I. student

A St. Jean Elementary School student has raised $521 to help Nepal, the country where she was born.

Archana Giri Bhandari does not remember much of her life in Nepal before moving to P.E.I. but when she learned of the earthquakes, she wanted to help.

"I saw the news that they lost their home, their clothes, their rooms, and they don't have anything to eat or money," said Archana.

The student did not know where to start with fundraising efforts so she went to her teachers for help.

Archana and her friend, Tamara Valiquette made posters, held a bake sale and sold other items like freezies. 

In addition to raising the money, Archana's teacher, Amy MacKinnon says the student went from being shy to confident.

"It was awesome, we were floored by how determined she was every day," said MacKinnon.

The change was noticed at home as well by both Archana's mother and sister.

Bhutanese refugees want to adopt quake-damaged Nepali village

 By:Tu-Uygen Trans.

A group of Bhutanese refugees who once sheltered in Nepal say they plan to essentially adopt a village damaged by two earthquakes in that country.The group wants to provide "lasting relief" that would rebuild homes and provide help with health care costs, not just buy emergency supplies, said Kul Basnet, a leader in the Bhutanese community in Fargo.

They're looking for a village in need in the Sindhupalchowk District, a mountainous hard-to-reach area northeast of the capital Kathmandu. More than a thousand people were reportedly killed there and many homes destroyed after the April 25 earthquake. Another quake followed on Tuesday.
The effort is centered on the Namaste Grocery store, one of two Bhutanese grocery stores in Fargo, and the Bhutanese Buddha Society of North Dakota, a Fargo-based nonprofit group. Basnet is an owner of the store as well as a translator with Lutheran Social Services.
He said he and his friends wanted to help Nepal because Nepal had helped them, and they hoping others in the Fargo area will join the cause.
Bhutanese refugees are victims of Bhutan's ethnic cleansing policy against its Nepali minority, they say. Many still live in refugee camps in eastern Nepal.
For refugees new to America,

John Kerry to have historic talks with Bhutanese PM Tshering Tobgay

Secretary of State John Kerry will become the first ever American cabinet level official to meet with top Bhutanese leaders when he visits India in the coming days, a US official said Friday. 

Kerry will hold talks with Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay from the isolated Himalayan kingdom on Sunday in the northwestern Indian city of Ahmadabad on the sidelines of a trade and investment conference. 

While the United States does not have an embassy in Bhutan, the US ambassador to India is accredited to Bhutan as well. 

We certainly enjoy a diplomatic relationship and one which we seek to strengthen and grow," a senior US State Department officials told reporters on a conference call. 

Washington has never had any engagement with Bhutan "higher than an assistant secretary level," the official said. 

"This will certainly be the first cabinet level interaction with the prime minister or any other senior official, including in prior years with the king ... so the secretary will be the first to have .. that opportunity," the official said. 

Washington and Thimphu have good cooperation, the official said, but Bhutan was looking at ways to "deepen our people-to-people ties or our educational ties." 

Bhutan: Gross National Happiness or Gross National Hypocrisy?

Other Face of Bhutan Uncovering the Truth By Dick Chhetri Perfectly presented to the outside world, the Kingdom of Bhutan is known as the land of “Gross National Happiness,” a place where government policy purportedly prioritizes the emotional and spiritual well-being of its citizens above the country's gross domestic product. Not only are individuals impressed when they hear about it, organizations and even entire countries are beginning to discuss the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) and how they might apply it at home, though doubts have inevitably been raised about the practicality of how a nation’s happiness might be measured. The United Nations (UN) has discussed at length adopting a “new economic paradigm” based on GNH, and has even declared March 20 the International Day of Happiness. The West seems to have accepted the former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck’s Gross National Happiness campaign without question, even though the Bhutanese people have barely heard of it, much less experienced it. It should come as no surprise to find that behind this government-proclaimed happiness lurks a distinctly less rose-colored reality: For the Lhotsampa, a large ethnic minority of Nepali origin who have been the victims of a surprisingly little-known (outside Bhutan) ethnic cleansing campaign, the last three decades have brought little happiness.  Beginning in the late 1980s, over 100,000 Lhotsampa—Bhutanese citizens of ethnic Nepali origin majority of whom belonged to Hindu religion—fled or were forced out of Bhutan. Forbidden from using their language, wearing their ethnic dress, and celebrating own traditions as part of the government's edict known as driglamnamza, the Lhotsampa naturally felt that their very culture and identity were under attack.  The brutal government policy led to a backlash in which factions of Lhotsampa people—especially youths, their passions running high—burned their government-imposed Drukpa clothing and committed some acts of violence. While the overwhelming majority of Lhotsampa did not advocate violent tactics, the Royal government nevertheless placed both guilty and innocent into one ethnic bandwagon, branded them as anti-nationals and illegal immigrants, and drove them out—a staggering one-sixth of the country's total population— using cruel methods such as public beatings.  Most of the Lhotsampa, having nowhere else to go, ended up in UN-operated refugee camps in Nepal. Today after almost 24 years, despite the so called Democracy (2008) and Gross National Happiness, the Lhotsampa who were somehow able to remain in Bhutan continue to be treated as second-class citizens, many remain incarcerated in the Bhutanese jails, and while most of those who fled or were forced to flee have by now found refuge in third countries such as the United States,

Refugee's long road to an elite college