A Beautiful Future

By Gidhan

Gidhan is a 46 year old Bhutanese refugee from Nepal who came to Minnesota in the spring of 2015 along with his wife and three daughters. The family recalled how after living in the refugee camp for many years they started the process to come and join their family here. There were many steps to the process including multiple medical checks and interviews. After each step, the family would wait several months to see if they had cleared it, and would then wait several more months to see what the next step in the process was.

As Gidhan recalled, “Sometimes we felt anxious, sometimes we think we’re not going to get to  America. After two and half years they gave me a sheet of a paper which had a date on it to report to the capitol, Kathmandu, and then a date to travel to the United States. It made me very, very happy! I got a fever at this time, my blood pressure went up, my heart rate, everything raised up because I was so happy. I was so happy at that time thinking our future would be bright, and we would get to see our family. We had a one week notice of when to report to Kathmandu to travel to America.” I was shocked at this – only one week? I asked if he had lots to get in order. He and his family laughed at my question: “Oh no, we didn’t have many things, I think I had one gas cylinder which I gave to my friend, but that’s really all.”

Gidhan went on to explain that in Nepal they lived in a very small bamboo house. “Everything was bamboo,” he exclaimed, “but now here we have a nice big house of our own that we bought, [and] we are very happy. I already spent half of my life in a refugee camp, now America is an opportunity country for us and for our family.”

This story originally appeared in our March 2018 Newsletter.