A Bhutanese who has never seen BHUTAN!!!

Goma Acharya
Sydney, Australia

My country, Bhutan, was the place where my parents were born and spent half of their life. It was the country where they had toiled to make their and their children’s future better. They also had the dreams of serving the country with all their hearts. However, all these dreams were left unfulfilled when they had to leave the country in April 1992 to a Refugee Camp in Nepal, because of the unrest in the country.

Hence, I was born and brought up in refugee camp in Nepal. When I was nearly 6, I got admitted in the school near to my house, where my dad used to teach. It was an English medium school in the camp supported by UNHCR. I was so happy to join the school and continued my studies in the camp for 8 years.

One day, an officer from I.O.M (International Organization of Migration) called my father and his friends, who were taken to jail with him in Bhutan. At that time we didn’t know what the I.O.M’s role was … Why was it calling only the people who went to jail? We had some feelings such as – Do they have to go to jail again for unknown reasons like before…..? No, no, no….. I couldn’t think of my dad going back to jail again without any reason…..and leaving us to fend ourselves.

According to my father, there, in front of the IOM office, many people who stayed in jail like my father were in the queue. An hour later, it was time for my dad to go inside. As he went inside he had his heart in the mouth, worried about the consequence of the interview.

Finally, my dad returned. He told us everything about the interview and told us not to worry. We came to know that the I.O.M. is International Organisation of Migration, which helps refugees to settle in the countries like USA, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and New Zealand, etc . The reason for calling the victims first was to give them the priority to get settled elsewhere because they had spent a really tough time in their life. I.O.M. wanted to know whether we desire to get settled in those countries or not. After talking to many educated people about this and getting positive ideas we finally agreed to come to Australia.

On the 6th of November 2008 we placed our feet on Australia. On one hand, I was a bit upset initially to have left my friends and school in Nepal, the school I studied since the beginning of my childhood. I learnt many things but I always had a doubt about my future because of the lack of facilities like good universities, better environment, etc. On the other hand, I was really happy to get into a nice and well developed country like Australia and being called an Australian.

After a month later, I went to an English intensive class to learn about many things like- how to adjust with the Australian system and deal with Australian people? We had to speak in English so we could improve our English. At first it was a bit difficult because we didn’t learn much English in Nepal.

After 4 months they sent me to a high school where I am studying now. In my school, we have a lot of facilities, friends and helpful teachers. It has different ways of teaching – many practical works, experiments and easy way of learning. I know, this is the place where I am going to build my future and I hope one day I can visit the country where my parents belonged to.

22nd February 2010.

Tags: Australia Bhutan Bhutanese Literature Bhutanese resettled in Australia Goma Acharya