Dreams from Nepal to Seattle

By Jerry Large for The Seatle Times

Nil Tilijia was born in a Nepalese village high in the Himalayas where he harvested potatoes as a barefoot boy, and where he took up political reform and won a seat in parliament.

The birthplace lottery sure makes a difference in people's lives.

Nil Tilijia was born in a Nepalese village high in the Himalayas where he harvested potatoes as a barefoot boy, and where he took up political reform and won a seat in parliament.

These days he lives in North Seattle and works in the produce department at the Green Lake PCC.

Sometimes he asks his 11-year-old daughter to help with chores, but she's too busy with school work.

Nepal is nearly the opposite of the United States. It is a small country squeezed between two giant neighbors, China and India. It is poor and politically unstable. Tilijia loves Nepal. When I visited him, I noticed a large photo of a mountain on the wall. It's Annapurna, he told me. Then he led me to his computer and started a slide show of photos he'd taken of Nepalese mountains.

"Nepal is the most beautiful country."

He sat cross-legged on the floor and told me about himself.

Tilijia and his three younger brothers helped their parents tend their animals and grow a few hardy crops: potatoes, corn, barley, wheat, beans.

The ground would be frozen for four to six months, so they'd put potatoes in just before the freeze, then plant corn or another crop as soon as the freeze ended. They'd eat potatoes until the other crop came in.

They lived in a one-room house without running water or electricity.

Tilijia, who is 41, said that until he was 14 he had never worn shoes or left his village.
Not everyone in Nepal lived that way. The country had a king. He and the people who did his bidding lived well.

Tilijia says the man who represented his district took advantage of young women and had people killed. He and his large retinue would ride through the village on their horses.

When he was 12 or 13, Tilijia heard the man was coming to the village. He said, "I wrote slogans against him on notebook paper" and placed the signs around the village.

Tilijia was turned in by the village leader, taken to a police station and beaten. His parents were fined.

Sometime later, he and some friends put up signs denouncing the king. His parents were fined, and this time they beat him.

His parents sent him to a larger town to live with an uncle and attend high school. He stayed and went to college but spent most of his time doing political organizing.

It was a turbulent time. The king was pressured into allowing a measure of democracy, and in 1994 Tilijia defeated the man who had terrorized his village. At 23, he became the youngest member of parliament.

He also got married. A political ally whose daughter was studying in Australia arranged the marriage, which ultimately led Tilijia to Seattle.

A Maoist uprising in 1996 set off a 10-year civil war, so it was a good time to get out. Tilijia's wife, Ratana Magarati, won a Fulbright Scholarship and chose to work toward her doctorate in sociology at the University of Washington.

She came here in 1999, and Tilijia and their then-2-year-old daughter followed in 2000. Right away he noticed the trees and mountains, which remind him of Nepal. He loves hiking and skiing around here, but he said his soul wants him to do more. "Sometimes, I wonder what I am doing here," he said.

Nepal's latest experiment with democracy is still young, after abolition of the monarchy last May.

"I have still a lot of dreams," Tilijia said, "especially for our people who come from where there is not opportunity."

Maybe when his wife finishes school and he doesn't have to work two jobs (he works part time at Uwajimaya), he said, he'll find a way to turn his presence here into an advantage for the people of his country.

Lately he has been lifting his spirits by running. He ran the Boston Marathon this month and said the race gave him a sense of purpose and accomplishment.

"I thought, 'I am lost here,' but when I get to the finish line, I tell myself, 'No, you are not lost.' "

Tilijia is far from Nepal, but he is not lost.