Welcome to the Notebook series. These are stories from my time abroad, each connected to one main take-away that I learned during those years.
Read the preceding Notebook posts here: INTRO
This post contains the story for the insight: "J hunchha ramro ko lagi hunchha"/"All that will be will be for good," titled, "The End/The Beginning."
Reading time: 8 minutes
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THE END/THE BEGINNING
"J hunchha ramro ko lagi hunchha" // "All that will be will be for good"
It all happened so quickly, this plunge into leaving. Just a few days ago, everything felt normal. I was staying in my boyfriend's village with his family. We had been there for about 4 months. Our life there felt so established by this point. He was focused on building the new family house - we lived in a mud/straw home that needed too much upkeep, and it had been his dream to build a concrete/brick home for his parents especially - and I was loving running my art business, taking an art business course, and learning Nepali. I felt fully adjusted to village life. And, I had become a part of an incredible family. We were able to stroll freely by motorcycle, travel if we wanted to, go to the city and see friends, shop, dine in restaurants, freely.
Then it changed.
We heard rumors of a partial lockdown coming. At first whispers, and then materializing realities. The cities went into partial lockdown first. It was around the end of April then. I had plans to leave Nepal at the end of May, when my visa was due to expire. I told Sanam (my boyfriend) that I wasn't worried about the airport closing before then. I thought that Nepal would not go back into full lockdown, or even if it did, that the airport would remain open. I had, after all, lived through the entirety of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal. I saw the 4 month lockdown and 5 month airport closure in 2020. I saw what effects these had on the society, the people. The government proclaimed that they would not do things this way again, that there would be no more full lockdowns and especially not on one day's (or less notice). Even a few days' notice. I thought I had the time.
On the eve before May 1, I felt a shudder of anxiety run through my body. I told Sanam that it was because May would bring a lot of change, and fast. I had no idea then how fast.
On May 1, the government announced total lockdown. No airport closures, but restricted movement, closures of gathering places. It was around this day that we heard news of an acquaintance from our nearby town passing away from the virus. This lit a fear in the village like I hadn't seen in the previous lockdowns. The rumor was that the first version of COVID-19 had a 3% death rate - and that the new one had a 40% death rate. I have no idea what the truth is, but the fact that this was the statistic going around can give you an idea of how scared people were. The first time around, people saw the virus like a common cold. This time, people saw it as a murderer.
On May 2, we realized that things were getting bad fast. Things had exploded in India, and Nepal seemed to be following suit. I realized that I would need to go earlier than expected. I decided to book a flight for May 13. This felt so sad, as I had been expecting to celebrate my 25th birthday (May 17) with the family, and many other hopes. You know how unmet expectations feel... but at least I had 10 more days, right?
On May 3, the government announced that flights would be banned. Domestically, the next day; internationally, on May 7. This news sent me into a panic. The flight ban would only be for a week... but I recognized this strategy from last year. First one week, then extended, then again, for months. I knew in my gut that it was time to go. I had told my family at home that I'd be back in May, and I thought it would probably be my last chance to go, now. I bought a flight ticket for the last day of flights, May 6. Suddenly, I only had one more day in our Nepali village home.
The next days were a stressful blur. I confirmed my flight ticket on the evening of May 3. I called my parents then to tell them that I would be coming home earlier than expected. My dad's eyes became the size of saucers when I said the day I'd be home: Friday. It was Monday then. The contrast between "I'll be home in a month" and "I'll be home in 4 days" is quite a lot, especially in these strange COVID times. My parents had been expecting to be fully vaccinated by my return, and they were still brainstorming the best way for me to quarantine. It was mixed news - happy because we would be united soon, sad because that reunion would be under such strange circumstances (for at least a week, no hugs, no living together, etc). Happy because I would be safer, sad because I'd be separating indefinitely from my love and my second family. Happy because he'd seen the news about Nepal/India and was so worried about me being there, sad because he knew I was feeling mixed, too.
May 4th was my last day in the village. It was spent going into the locked-down town to try to find a shop-owner with a printer who could print my flight ticket (the only way we would be allowed to drive to Kathmandu would be to present the printed ticket at all police checkpoints), setting up a shuttle service for when I would arrive in the US, and securing a driver/car for that evening to take us to Kathmandu. The latter point proved to be the hardest. Drivers were confirming and then cancelling, over and over, driving my boyfriend absolutely crazy. The main reason for the flaking was the fear people had about Kathmandu. I don't blame them at all. But it was so frustrating and anxiety-provoking that up until 1 hour before our hoped departure time, we didn't have a car/driver set. My guy was an absolute rockstar in all of this. He was so stressed and also sad and also overwhelmed, yet he worked tirelessly to make everything that needed to happen, happen. If he had wanted to give up, resulting in me not going and us being together longer, he easily could have. I even told him it wouldn't be his fault if he did give up on finding a car; at that point, it seemed that he had exhausted all of his options, anyway. But the karmic connections aligned, and at 7:30 PM on 5/4, a driver came to take us from the village to KTM.
On May 5, we arrived in the capital city of Nepal. It took about 13 hours and 8 police checkpoints to arrive in Bouddha, Kathmandu, where we would stay until my flight the next day. I was extremely lucky to get a PCR Covid test at-home service, as most people at that time had to go to packed testing clinics for hours and hours; not safe, and not the way I wanted to spend my last full day with my love. Regardless, this day was so hard for us, especially mentally and emotionally. It makes sense. We had been physically together every day of the last 428 days, and we were approaching a new chapter of being apart. It was feeling more and more real. Barriers were being ticked off the list, and it was becoming increasingly likely that I would in fact be leaving. By the afternoon, however, we had talked through a lot and managed to change our perspective. The magic words?
J hunchha ramro ko lagi hunchha.
Nepali for: Whatever will be, will be for good.
We realized that every single possible outcome would have good things within it. And whatever is really for the best is what will happen, whether we see it now or in the future. If I stayed in Nepal now, we couldn't make progress on a life in America, and I would go another indefinite stretch of time without seeing my parents, dogs, friends, family. If I was meant to stay in Nepal now, one of the barriers would stop me. The last and very out-of-control barrier was the result of my PCR test...
Negative. On the morning of May 6, today, I received my negative PCR test result, and it finally became real. I was leaving. We were mostly happy - a positive test result would have brought quite a tricky circumstance for so many reasons - but of course, it meant we had just a few hours left together.
J hunchha ramro ko lagi hunchha.
We put our trust into the universe and realized that, even though we wouldn't be physically together, our energies would always be with each other. Our hearts and minds would not disconnect just from distance. No. We would be together always. And this is just the beginning of another chapter. The end, and the beginning.
Today, I said goodbye for now to my beloved Nepal. And to my even more beloved partner. The amount of times I've cried in the last week is probably nearing triple digits - or at least, it felt like it - but many of these were happy tears. Crying is a sign that you had something good, after all.
As I wrote this story on a flight to Dubai, we rose above rainclouds into the most breathtaking sherbet sunset, and I knew deep in my soul:
Yes. J hunchha ramro ko lagi hunchha.
Everything happens for good, and this must be, too.
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WHAT I HAVE LEARNED
Very good idea and well written. We're looking forward to the next chapter.
ReplyDeleteSaludos y Abrazos,
Tom and Karen
Thank you for sharing your story. Very interesting and well written!
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