NOTE: I’m afraid I repeat below what we have discussed previously on this blog.\u00a0 If it doesn’t bore you you may want to start doing memory exercises.<\/p>\n
Published in the Livingston Enterprise June, 2008.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Refugees Role Model Proves\u00a0Useful\u00a0For Cyclists\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0By Jim Durfey<\/p>\n From TV, I knew what refugee camps looked like: ramshackle tents planted among filth overrun by sallow, malnourished children.\u00a0 This camp was different.\u00a0 The homes, though packed closely together, were tastefully structured of bamboo strips.\u00a0 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!”<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n We sat on a handmade bamboo couch in his living room. A crowd of curious onlookers assembled outside.\u00a0 They reached in the window to push back the curtains for a better view of the strange visitors.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the pastor served us an obligatory cup of chai and questioned us insightfully about our journey.\u00a0<\/p>\n Finally we had a chance to ask Mouikumar about his own situation.\u00a0 He explained that most of the thirty thousand residents of the camp had lived there since 1992.\u00a0 At that time they and other ethnically Nepali people were expelled from Bhutan after demanding the government respect their rights an ethnic group.\u00a0 Since then they had called a few acres in Nepal home.\u00a0<\/p>\n Though they reside in Nepal, that country refuses to grant them citizenship.\u00a0 Even those who want to return to Bhutan are refused entrance.\u00a0 Thus they have become non-citizens, perpetually in limbo with no place to go.\u00a0 To resolve the situation, Europe and the U.S. have been and plan to absorb all the refugees.\u00a0 Despite the helplessness of their situation, the refugees remained high-spirited.\u00a0 They also proved the notion that those people with the fewest possessions are the most generous.<\/p>\n We had crammed ourselves and our instruments into the small living room.\u00a0 The pastor himself was an accomplished guitarist, so our conversation naturally turned to music.\u00a0 As a crude oil lamp puffed smoke and photons into the small space, we traded songs.\u00a0 We sang one in English, and then crowd in the living room, guided by the pastor, sang one in Nepali.\u00a0 In between songs the pastor’s two-year-old daughter, her initial shyness wiped away, tried to strum our guitar vigorously.<\/p>\n At bedtime, pastor Mouikumar showed us to his own room and told us to sleep on the bamboo beds.\u00a0 We protested, asking “Where will you sleep?”\u00a0 But it was no use.\u00a0 That night we slept fitfully, but were often awakened by sounds from the nearby houses.\u00a0 Bamboo, while sturdy, doesn’t block sound.\u00a0 Through the haze of sleep, I heard babies cry, couples converse, and the elderly wheeze into wakefulness in the early morning.<\/p>\n One week after staying in the refugee camp, we found ourselves in the Himalayas, trying to make our way to Kathmandu.\u00a0 Tired of big roads, we pedaled an alternative route that put us on small paths.\u00a0 These roads made even the most infamous of Park County’s wash-boarded tracks seem smooth.\u00a0 Huge jagged rocks attacked our wheels and joints.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n To make matters worse, we had run into a touristy area.\u00a0 Children observed our approach from hundreds of yards and stood in the road, waiting for us.\u00a0 As we passed, they outstretched their hands and panted after us, begging.\u00a0<\/p>\n On downhills, we could outrun them. On uphills, however, we were stuck listening to their entreaties.\u00a0 I’m accustomed to begging from the destitute, but these kids were well-dressed and had families rich in land.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They only looked at us with greed.<\/p>\n The children’s response depressed us.\u00a0 We missed having the potential for connection that had proven so enjoyable at the refugee camp.<\/p>\n One afternoon, my situation came to a head.\u00a0 My biker shorts had begun to chaff in the most unfortunate place.\u00a0 I was pulling the trailer through the heat of the day and the road, which had already climbed eight miles, promised plenty more uphill.\u00a0 I was trying to reason with a heard of panting children demanding chocolate.\u00a0 My foot, infected from a recent wound, throbbed.<\/p>\n A less than satisfactory situation, I suppose, but on reflection I had little to complain of.\u00a0 I was in the middle of an amazing journey.\u00a0 I had left my country by choice, and could return any time I wanted.\u00a0 I looked at the out-of-breath children hungry for chocolate, and realized they had no authority to dictate my attitude.\u00a0 I adjusted my biker shorts and attacked the hill with renewed vigor.\u00a0 I had resolved, in cheerful Bhutanese refugee fashion, to enjoy the rest of the climb, no matter what happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NOTE: I’m afraid I repeat below what we have discussed previously on this blog.\u00a0 If it doesn’t bore you you may want to start doing memory exercises. Published in the Livingston Enterprise June, 2008. \u00a0Refugees Role Model Proves\u00a0Useful\u00a0For Cyclists\u00a0 \u00a0By Jim Durfey From TV, I knew what refugee camps looked like: ramshackle tents planted among […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-here-you-will-find-the-posts-that-jim-wrote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}