Do you want to know where it all began? Why we are here? How we got here? Well, it all started with “the revolution.”

Before 1992, I lived in Bhutan with my mother, five sisters, and one younger brother. None of us went to school. There wasn’t even a school in my town until the government ordered one to be built when I was thirteen. I helped build this school for the government, but I never had the chance to go. I had to work on the family farm and simply had no time for school. But this didn’t matter because we were happy and we had a home. Then the revolution made everything worse.

The government set fire to the school that we had built in our town and told us that Nepali people couldn’t go to school. They banned Nepali books across the entire country and forced schools to stop teaching my language, the language of Nepali to the children. Some students went to the Indian-Nepali border to protest against the government, but I did not go. This made the government mad, so they came to my town looking for the protestors. They lined us up by household, calling each house one by one. “Plot number 15,” they called. I walked up to the policeman and he pointed his rifle at my chest. “What should we do with those protestors?” he asked me. I told him that those students were not part of my household. He didn’t like my answer. “Go away from our country or we will kill you.” Those words remain clear in my memory. December 12, 1992. Five days later, we left.

Now, in the camps, life is fine. My overall health is good. Since I know how to sew, I do tailoring for the community to earn some extra cash. For the past 13 years, I served as sub sector head in the camp. Most people only serve for two years, but I did good things to the population, so people re-elected me as their community leader.

I don’t understand why I was kicked out of my country. I was born in Bhutan. I love Bhutan. Why would they want me to leave?

You ask me what I think about my future. Well, I don’t want to go to America. I still want to go back to Bhutan. I want to be with my family, in Bhutan. I know things may not be easy. I know the government may still threaten me. I know people may not accept me. But these things wouldn’t matter because I would be home. I just want to go home.

If my life were a book, the title would be, “Sad Story of a Bhutanese Refugee.