Laxmi Biswa was four years old when her father carried her on his shoulder across the border to India, joining other Bhutanese forced out of their country. The refugees were packed into trucks and dumped in Nepal’s Jhapa district.
Born in Phuntosling, Laxmi grew up in the family homestead in Samchi. She was among 100,000 other Nepali-speakers driven out by the Bhutan regime starting 1990. Laxmi spent 16 years in a bamboo shed in Sector E of Sanischare refugee camp, and went to a school supported by the United National High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
She had just started college in Biratnagar when her family was brought to the United States in 2008 under an international third-country repatriation program. The US took a bulk of the refugees, while fewer numbers were settled in Australia, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the UK.
Who stands with Bhutanese refugees in Nepal?, Bhuwan Gautam and T P Mishra
Laxmi continued her undergraduate studies, working part-time to pay for her education. She is now enrolled in a medical science course at the University of Kansas and works at the AdventHealth Shawnee Mission where she has to care for COVID-19 patients.
The US state of Kansas has over 8,000 confirmed cases, and is seeing a daily addition of 400 new infections. The statewide death toll has crossed 180.
On 6 May, Laxmi Biswa suddenly got a call from Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra after being selected among five female frontliners in the fight against the coronavirus.
But it was the real Priyanka Chopra and she asked about how her nursing job taking care of coronavirus patients was going. “How are you coping?” asked the celebrity star who was Miss World in 2000, has acted in Hollywood films like Isn’t It Romantic, is a UNICEF Goodwill ambassador, and has her own child welfare foundation in India.
Laxmi was among four other women to have made it on Priyanka Chopra’s initiative to honour women in the frontlines of the fight against coronavirus around the world. The weekly winners each receive $5,000, and Laxmi says she is giving away her prize to the needy in her community.
Asked what they talked about, Laxmi is emotional because the conversation was about how she recently lost her mother, and was distraught because she could not be with her in her last days.
“I told Priyanka that I know how it feels for a very sick person not to have relatives nearby, and most of my patients also do not have their near and dear ones with them because of the virus,” she says. “So, I try to be there for my patients, but it makes me very emotional because of my own loss.”
Ex-refugee takes refuge in music, Gopal Gartoula
Laxmi Biswa is a single mother, and is raising a three-year-old daughter. She says of her long journey as a refugee child from Bhutan to America: “I have seen a lot in my life, there has been suffering and loss. But that gives me the strength to confront this latest crisis. It motivates me even more to serve others.”
Read also: Family separation, Bhutan-style, Jamie Piotrowski
Recommended
Who stands with Bhutanese refugees in Nepal? June 19, 2019 A classroom full of Bhutanese refugee children in Beldangi. Many…
Family separation, Bhutan-style August 7, 2018 A classroom full of Bhutanese refugee children in Beldangi. Many…
Shanti Chaudhary: Poet-at-large June 28, 2019 hen Shanti Chaudhary was born in Kathmandu on 28 December,…