Reminiscings from the Roof of the World
Refugee Camps
We were “up and at ‘em” early on Thursday, December 21, and departed Kathmandu for far east Nepal at 9:00 am. The day was uneventful, full of conversation and watching the changing scenery. As evening fell the drive was feeling more dicey. The highway was narrow, curvy, and pitch dark; we quickly learned that when the sun went down road crews left everything sitting in the middle of the road ready for the next morning. By everything I mean piles of sand and huge rocks possibly placed to keep vehicles from hitting the piles of sand, or at least that is how it appeared to me. Mr. G, our driver again this trip, was experienced and excellent at navigating the situation but had to drive very slowly for safety. Then, just a couple hours out of Damak where we would be based for the next few days a rickshaw burst out from the darkness into the beam of our headlights. We missed him by inches! The rickshaw driver was safe but when the car swerved to avoid calamity Miss Emma’s head slammed into the window. Instantly an enormous egg emerged on her forehead, probably concussed, which gave her pain for the rest of the trip. It was an enormous relief to finally reach Damak and our guest house.
The men who went ahead of us by bus were supposed to have arrived at 3:00 am but they encountered more serious difficulties on their journey. A bus traveling ahead of theirs hit and killed a little girl on the road requiring a twelve hour delay for all of the cultural rites, ceremonies, and procedures to be performed on site. The offending bus would have to be burned as it was now considered “bad luck”. Back on the road again everyone soon fell asleep. At some point the bus stopped to fuel up. Levi woke up and quickly slipped out to run to the toilet. As he stepped down from the bus he very wisely looked back for the bus number because it was only one in a long line of busses. In just a couple minutes he was jogging back to the bus and to his horror he saw that every one of the busses bore the same number. Panicking he jumped on bus after bus looking for the familiar faces of our team. Then he saw the first bus rolling out. Freaking, he sprinted to the moving bus just in time to jump on. Thankfully it was his bus and and thankfully he had found it in time. As he boarded he looked and everyone but the driver was still snoozing soundly. The realization that no one would have had any idea where he was or what had happened was sobering. (This was pre everyone carries a cell phone days.) Finally, everyone aboard and unharmed, they arrived in Damak at 3:00 pm still several hours ahead of us.
Damak is a small town with more of the feel of India. The guest house where we stayed houses UN people when they visit the refugee camps. But it was bare bones. And infested with bed bugs. Poor Abbie, my granddaughter, got the brunt of that. She looked like she had chickenpox. She however was not daunted; after returning home when people saw the photos and commented on how awful that she was covered in bites, she dismissed that with an “uh, it was nothing.” On that note before we checked out we all hung our sleeping bags in the sun and managed to not bring home a single bug.
On Saturday, Christmas Eve Eve, we began our visits to the seven Bhutanese refugee camps. We were able to visit three of the camps (Beldangi I and II and Patri) doing school presentations and meeting with leaders. The response was astounding. By the end of the day Steven was finally feeling better. Others had fallen ill, however everyone was still able to go out and do what they had come to do in the camps, in the town of Damak, and in Dharan located on a nearby mountainside. I wrote of our visit to these camps in a previous blog, Out of the Mouths of Babes, so rather than repeating myself the link is inserted here for you to read. In my next blog I will describe our visits to the last two camps that we visited. https://jackietallent.com/2022/07/11/out-of-the-mouths-of-babes/
At some point in time Indian believers went to Bhutan and visited the Bhutanese people of Nepalese descent living there. As a result many of them become followers of Jesus. Beginning in 1991 some 108,000 Nepali Bhutanese were ousted from Bhutan and fled to Nepal in what has been called ethnic cleansing. After arriving in Nepal seven camps were built to house them. The refugees were required to receive special permission to leave the camps or to do anything out of the ordinary. Because churches were not permitted in the camps the believers set up small bamboo churches just off property.
In 2007 relocation to eight Western countries around the world began. (Around 6000 still remain in two camps.). The vast majority were brought to the US. They became Americans, obtained citizenship, bought homes, were elected to office, and they planted churches. Christianity Today magazine’s April 2023 issue tells the amazing story of the Bhutanese Christians in America and their fervor to reach out to their neighborhoods, planting churches in a way that should inspire all of us to step it up! https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/april/bhutanese-nepali-refugees-christianity-evangelism-resettle.html
After we returned home Katie and her band wrote a song about the refugees, the trafficking victims, and the orphans whom we encountered on this trip. It never fails to move me to tears when I listen. I hope you enjoy it too.
Coffee, Tea, and Reverie 