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NOTE: I’m afraid I repeat below what we have discussed previously on this blog.  If it doesn’t bore you you may want to start doing memory exercises.

Published in the Livingston Enterprise June, 2008.

 Refugees Role Model Proves Useful For Cyclists 

 By Jim Durfey

From TV, I knew what refugee camps looked like: ramshackle tents planted among filth overrun by sallow, malnourished children.  This camp was different.  The homes, though packed closely together, were tastefully structured of bamboo strips.  The dirt streets were clean and full of well-fed though curious folks who called after us “Hey brother, where you go?” or “Hi mister foreign biker man!”

Mouikumar Maga, a pastor at the refugee camp welcomed us into his home after we had parked our bikes inside his bamboo church. It was our first day in Nepal.  As we crowded into his small home we wondered what the rest of the country would be like, if already on the first day people were being so hospitable. 

We sat on a handmade bamboo couch in his living room. A crowd of curious onlookers assembled outside.  They reached in the window to push back the curtains for a better view of the strange visitors.  Meanwhile, the pastor served us an obligatory cup of chai and questioned us insightfully about our journey. 

Finally we had a chance to ask Mouikumar about his own situation.  He explained that most of the thirty thousand residents of the camp had lived there since 1992.  At that time they and other ethnically Nepali people were expelled from Bhutan after demanding the government respect their rights an ethnic group.  Since then they had called a few acres in Nepal home. 

Though they reside in Nepal, that country refuses to grant them citizenship.  Even those who want to return to Bhutan are refused entrance.  Thus they have become non-citizens, perpetually in limbo with no place to go.  To resolve the situation, Europe and the U.S. have been and plan to absorb all the refugees.  Despite the helplessness of their situation, the refugees remained high-spirited.  They also proved the notion that those people with the fewest possessions are the most generous.

We had crammed ourselves and our instruments into the small living room.  The pastor himself was an accomplished guitarist, so our conversation naturally turned to music.  As a crude oil lamp puffed smoke and photons into the small space, we traded songs.  We sang one in English, and then crowd in the living room, guided by the pastor, sang one in Nepali.  In between songs the pastor’s two-year-old daughter, her initial shyness wiped away, tried to strum our guitar vigorously.

At bedtime, pastor Mouikumar showed us to his own room and told us to sleep on the bamboo beds.  We protested, asking “Where will you sleep?”  But it was no use.  That night we slept fitfully, but were often awakened by sounds from the nearby houses.  Bamboo, while sturdy, doesn’t block sound.  Through the haze of sleep, I heard babies cry, couples converse, and the elderly wheeze into wakefulness in the early morning.

One week after staying in the refugee camp, we found ourselves in the Himalayas, trying to make our way to Kathmandu.  Tired of big roads, we pedaled an alternative route that put us on small paths.  These roads made even the most infamous of Park County’s wash-boarded tracks seem smooth.  Huge jagged rocks attacked our wheels and joints.  I enjoy a good workout, but it was all I could do to push my bike up a few of these steep, traction-less paths.

To make matters worse, we had run into a touristy area.  Children observed our approach from hundreds of yards and stood in the road, waiting for us.  As we passed, they outstretched their hands and panted after us, begging. 

On downhills, we could outrun them. On uphills, however, we were stuck listening to their entreaties.  I’m accustomed to begging from the destitute, but these kids were well-dressed and had families rich in land.  They had been trained by other, less conscientious travelers to look on foreigners as distributors of chocolate and pens, not as people worth talking to or learning about.  They only looked at us with greed.

The children’s response depressed us.  We missed having the potential for connection that had proven so enjoyable at the refugee camp.

One afternoon, my situation came to a head.  My biker shorts had begun to chaff in the most unfortunate place.  I was pulling the trailer through the heat of the day and the road, which had already climbed eight miles, promised plenty more uphill.  I was trying to reason with a heard of panting children demanding chocolate.  My foot, infected from a recent wound, throbbed.

A less than satisfactory situation, I suppose, but on reflection I had little to complain of.  I was in the middle of an amazing journey.  I had left my country by choice, and could return any time I wanted.  I looked at the out-of-breath children hungry for chocolate, and realized they had no authority to dictate my attitude.  I adjusted my biker shorts and attacked the hill with renewed vigor.  I had resolved, in cheerful Bhutanese refugee fashion, to enjoy the rest of the climb, no matter what happened.

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