September 29, 2009
A Bhutanese priest smudged consecrated ashes on the foreheads of American guests at a festival honoring a warrior goddess. Bashful girls handed them bunches of artificial flowers.
By: Mila Koumpilova, INFORUM
Anisha Adhikari performs a dance Monday during a Hindu program in Fargo celebrating Vijaya Dashain. The festival marks the victory of the Hindu goddess Durga over an evil demon terrorizing animals and people in the guise of a water buffalo. Dave Wallis / The Forum
A Bhutanese priest smudged consecrated ashes on the foreheads of American guests at a festival honoring a warrior goddess. Bashful girls handed them bunches of artificial flowers.
Fargo’s newest refugee group gathered Monday to celebrate one of its most important holidays, and the guests, as one host put it, “added much prosperity to our program.”
About 300 Bhutanese arrived in Fargo this year and last after spending 17 years in refugee camps in Nepal. They’ve been eager to hit the ground running in “the land of unlimited opportunity, optimism and freedom,” in the words of Kashi Adhikari, a community leader.
And whereas refugees sometimes tend to keep to themselves and harbor dreams of returning home, the folks from Bhutan love to mingle.
“The thing that has struck me is how eager they are to become part of the community,” said Darci Asche of Lutheran Social Services, which is helping resettle the Bhutanese here. “They’re eager to make this their home because they really, truly don’t have a home to go back to.”
The scene at Fargo’s United Methodist Church on Monday was a smooth blend of Nepali tradition and Americana. The festival, called Vijaya Dashain, marks the victory of the Hindu goddess Durga over an evil demon terrorizing animals and people in the guise of a water buffalo.
Young men recorded footage on their camera phones as girls in bejeweled veils danced past consecrated rice and fruit set out for the goddess. Teenagers sporting cargo pants, jeans and spiked hairdos sang a folk song and played traditional drums.
The Bhutanese are the first Hindu refugee group to settle in this area, and an estimated 450 more will arrive in the next three years. The United Nations has set out to resettle some 60,000 Bhutanese refugees to the United States and six other countries – what the UN describes as one of the world’s most massive resettlement efforts.
In the early 1990s, more than 100,000 refugees, a minority ethnic group of Nepali descent, were driven from the tiny Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan, wedged between India and China. While living in camps in Nepal, many got college degrees and worked at professional jobs.
Though quite a few speak fluent English, others have struggled with the language barrier since arriving in America, said Adhikari, a former teacher who now works as an aide in the West Fargo School District. But mostly, Asche said, the Bhutanese have been quick to find their way around.
“We like everything here except sometimes the climate and weather conditions,” Adhikari explained.
And the Bhutanese haven’t wasted time in reaching out to the local community. As the Red River surged this spring, as many as 100 Bhutanese flocked to the Fargodome on mass transit buses to help fill sandbags.
Earlier this year, some newcomers from Bhutan knocked on doors in their West Fargo apartment complex to invite neighbors to tea, as is the custom in their homeland. But the young ladies next door misread their gesture and before long police showed up at the tea party.
Most recently, the Bhutanese tried to get the word out about their celebration and then profusely thanked their guests, mostly LSS staff and other local immigrant advocates.
During the folk song performance, men, women and children sprang up from their seats and danced in the aisles of the church’s fellowship hall. They held out hands to their guests, who shook their heads shyly at first. But the hosts insisted – until several guests joined in their dance, and the hall exploded in cheers.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/254560/
