In January of this year, I had the opportunity to represent Nepal and its cultural diversity at my school in an event named “Around the World”.
This is the day students who have immigrated, or whose parents have immigrated to the United States get to educate their fellow students, teachers, and the public on important aspects of the country of their family’s origin.
Also, anyone without an immigrant background can also participate if it interests them. As fate would have it, I was born and raised in the United States.
My parents are from Nepal and that has given me a wonderful opportunity to learn many facets of Nepali culture. I grew up learning the Nepali language because that’s the official language of my home. I also have a few relatives living around me, and they have given me more exposure to see how things are done in the Nepali way.
In the midst of this, my school announced that it was organizing a program where students could represent a country. It was my time to participate. I could speak about Nepal’s culture and diversity. I was overjoyed because Nepal has been, all along, at the center of my heart and it was now time to tell the world that it was so.
The next step was to start doing my research on things that mattered to be said.
Obviously, I got my mom and dad involved in my project. But most interestingly, the Nepali community who heard about my project began contributing ideas and started brainstorming along my side. It suddenly became a social project that gave me an opportunity to meet more folks and know more about Nepal.
One of life’s lessons I learned from this project was to just take the first step towards what my heart told me to do, and the rest would follow. I also learned how people were innately kind and contributing if I was doing the right thing. It, somehow, gave the other people happiness and that in return doubled my joy and gave me more energy in achieving my goals.
So, as I began my project, I learned more about Mount Everest, Gautam Buddha, Food, Nepali alphabets, currency, Theki, Madani, Karuwa and the whole slew of things that I never ever would have learned about. Most interestingly, what fascinated most of the participants was the shape of Nepal’s flag which is triangular. People also asked about food and that was the second-best topic that came up during the presentation. I happily spoke about momo, gundruk, dahi and many more that got them all thrilled and drooling.
Along with me in that hall were other students who were also representing their countries like Brazil, Mexico, India, Venezuela, Palestine, Tonga, Thailand to name but a few. There were more of them but my apologies for not remembering them all now, but everyone had a great presentation and I got to learn so much about them equally and even more.
Toward the end of the day, I was tired but very well versed on a few things that I could stand on one foot and recount about Nepal. It gave me a sense of happiness to ponder about how many people I may have inspired to go to visit Nepal, climb Mount Everest, try Nepali food and who knows, maybe motivate philanthropy toward the needy in this peace-loving nation.
Perhaps, we could collectively make the noise to launch such movements. For me, however, this moment was the moment of gratification.
This offered a life-altering experience that humbled me more than anything that had crossed my path until this moment.
First, it gave me a chance to learn what was important to my parents and the heritage that was mine. Then, it became very personal when I realized that Nepal was the very cradle from where all my possibilities began.
Moments like these do come, but they come in tiny drips. Mine came, and I am glad it did.
I feel more at home now than ever before.
(Kaveri Rijal is a fifth grader studying at Bear Creek Elementary School in Euless TX, USA)
(Nepalkhabar requests students to send in their articles on any issues of their interest. The article should be around 500 to 700 words in English. The articles can be sent in via [email protected]. We will select, edit and duly publish them in blog section.)
