Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal: Monologues



Niru | 41 | Sanischare (Narrated by Alexa Barrett)

Draw a map? I don’t know how to write. I never went to school. But ask me to sing or dance and I’ll get up right now!! No, writing I can’t do. My children though, they go to school. That’s my priority for them.

My sisters and brother and I, we couldn’t go to school because we were always working. Grazing, or carrying things back to the house. Back in Bhutan there were cattle and orange groves and goats. But when I turned five, my dad died. He left no land or money. It was hard on my mom. I don’t remember when, but she got sick, and we had to go door to door to work for food when she died.

We worked in my uncle’s field after a while, but we were never his children. We just slept and ate there. I was nine when he arranged my marriage. He knew a family and told them, “my niece is poor, this is a good opportunity for her.” My husband’s family brought dal bhaat and a delicious feast to go along with all the instruments that guests were playing all night. I love to dance; that’s how I spent the whole night, with my sisters. I didn’t realize until the end that I’d have to say goodbye to them. I started crying then. My brother had worked six months to save so that the wedding would be special, and I didn’t want to say goodbye. My brother stopped me, insisting we’d see each other again.

I went and lived with my husband’s family. He worked and measured land, so he’d visit every two weeks. My mother-in-law treated me like her own daughter. I was so surprised, it was something I hadn’t had since before my mom died. Sometimes she would sneak out extra food and hide it for me. My husband also brought food when he came back; it was his way. He treated me like his little sister. I found a new family.

I was living in town with my husband when we had to leave. I was twenty. His family was still in the village, and we had to leave without them. My younger sister wasn’t married, so we took her in the van with us to Nepal. I was worried nobody would take her. I only brought blankets with me. We were the first to get here, so the sanitation was horrible, and there weren’t any huts yet. A lot of people got sick and died. But we started working and both raised our families here. Isn’t it beautiful now?

When my little sister fell in love, she told her husband to come home to ask permission to get married. She told me they would elope if I didn’t agree, but I did. We both found our place here. We’re happy.

Can we dance now?

If my life were a book, the title would be “Happy Dancer”