”Good morning Didi! Have you had your tea?” snapshot # 2

Her bright smiling face and twinkling eyes are so dear to me.

I’m still in my pajamas when there is a knock on my guesthouse door in the early morning. I slide open the locks and see Thrinley smiling at me,”Good morning Didi! Have you had your tea?” We grin at one another. Her bright smiling face and twinkling eyes are so dear to me.

I remember her as a tiny girl with cropped hair and ragged clothes, extremely shy and nervous with no English or Nepali (only her local dialect). She came from remote western Humla district, an undeveloped, mountainous enclave of small villages and subsistence farming largely cut off from the rest of Nepal. She has come so far in these intervening years. After graduating last year with a Bachelors in business she got a job in a travel agency. Comfortably settled into sagging armchairs we catch up.

I ask about her work and life. She is living alone in a rented room and cooks for herself, “you know that Nepalis love their dhal bhat, Didi”, she laughs. Mornings she has tea and chappatis. She’s enjoying her job and is learning the company’s bookkeeping system from an older employee. She’s lucky, this is valuable on-the-job training. And what about the future?

She plans to try for a highly desirable government job (job security and excellent benefits but extremely hard to qualify for). This will require a demanding preparatory course to study for the government entrance exams. She fully expects to fail the first exams, she says matter of factly. Thousands sit for these exams. She will keep trying and if she eventually passes will be called for personal interviews. I personally think she would ace the interviews, she has grown so articulate and confident. She has a sunny outlook and quick humor. It’s hard to believe this is the young woman who grew from that small, scared waif.

One snafu is that her family back in the Humla are starting to encourage (pressure) her to try to go abroad. This is a recent development since one young person from the village has gone and now sends money home. This has lit a new desire in the other villagers. My heart sinks. So many bright young people leave. A real brain drain for Nepal. How can the country improve itself? But she says she doesn’t want to go. I pray she can hold out.

I tell her I want to send Tejendra to Humla this year to visit the families of our students from that area. Thrinley breaks into a big smile. “Didi, tell him to go in September! I will go with him!” What a fabulous idea. She can guide him through that area, introduce him to the families of our kids and help translate the local language. A great plan. And we can talk with her family and add our voice, “we did not educate your daughter so she could leave Nepal”. Maybe it will help.