By: Ram Adhikari
February 12, 2015
Life as a Refugee
Have you ever imagined what you would do if your life was controlled by others? Or, if you had to survive with the food that is provided to you and your family by others every other week? Have you ever lived your life depending on the person who is next to you? Asking for food to eat when you were hungry? Life is not always easy growing up in a refugee camp. It is not like growing up in a decent family where every family member has a well-paying job, nice house to live, enough food to eat, and good clothes to wear.
I was born in a Bhutanese refugee camp of Nepal. In the camp, there was a lack of everything. For basic needs, there was not a enough food to eat, not good clothes to wear, limited access to proper education, and few opportunities. There was not proper place to sleep, not good water to drink. In the miserable situation of the refugee camp, it was very strenuous to find any kind of job. My parents were not well educated to have a decent paying job to send me to private school. My father usually muddled through minimum wage jobs to fulfill our wants.
In the camp, every house and school had unfinished flat roofs. I can still remember in winter, we could the feel thunder storm outside of the house sitting in the kitchen in front of a burning fire. Water would not stop dropping from every house because of unfinished flat roofs. Every year many people died from various diseases like asthma, cancer, tuberculosis, diabetes, and pneumonia. I grew up in a unexperienced society where culture, religion and family tradition were valued more than the education. Hopelessness and despair had abounded me and every other young teenager who wanted to study. It was very difficult to get education with limited access. In the strenuous situation of the Bhutanese refugee camp, I endured to read and write my own language