Musotrees Volume 10 – Hemja Camp Pokhara: A Legacy At A Crossroads

Photos & Words by Rayna Carruthers

From the day Norchung was born, he was destined to be a monk. Traditionally, every firstborn son in Tibet was to be dedicated to furthering Buddhism. In 1959, at 23 years of age, Norchung was forced to flee his monastery in Tibet to Mustang, India. Five years later, he went in search of his family, hearing that they had escaped to Nepal. On the way to Pokhara, through the harsh mountainous landscape and changes in altitude, he was reunited with his niece, Tsering, who had escaped traffickers at just six years old. It was a miracle. 

When they made it to Pokhara together, they were reunited with their family. They settled with the others in an unwanted area of the forest, where ghosts were believed to reside, beside a river where locals cremated the dead. There was no infrastructure. Most people had lost all their cattle in the chaos of leaving Tibet and had sold all their valuable belongings in order to reach Pokhara. They received aid from the World Health Organisation. Norchung worked any job he could find. He worked as a porter for road builders in the region, as well as carrying tourists’ heavy equipment across the Himalayan mountain ranges. Later in life, he made rugs and souvenirs to sell to tourists. He held on to his spiritual calling; he never married.

Top left to right: Portraits of Norchung & Tsering. (Below) Tadon.

He told me his story as we sat outside of his humble home, built many years ago from mud. The first houses in the camp had been built from bamboo, then mud and now all around us, concrete houses were being built in anticipation of a cruel winter.

Norchung’s niece Tsering, now 67 years old, lived just a few steps away in a house she shared with her sister Tadon, who was a few years younger, as well as her two daughters. I barely recognised it as since the last time I visited four years ago, they had demolished their old mud home and rebuilt it with concrete. The new home was expected to last a hundred years, maybe even more.

The two women showed me around their new home. Portraits of the Dalai Lama adorned their walls. They don’t remember Tibet, but they had stories from Norchung and their parents. The rugs they had woven in the camp’s factory were lying on each bed, perfect for sleeping on. They took me to the factory where Tsering still worked, making tea and weaving rugs in her spare time. 

As tourists started coming to Nepal in the 1960s and the Tibetan cause gained popularity, foreigners visited the camp and spent their money here. The Tibetan community invested this into the factory and began selling rugs. This was the camp's main source of income which they channelled into the development of a temple, a school and a community hall. It rooted them in Nepal, their new home. It gave them opportunities to send their children to schools in Kathmandu and to train to become a nurse or a teacher, like Tsering and Tadon’s daughters.

But things had changed significantly since those years and while tourists still appreciate this community and fell in love with their artisanship, it was no longer a steady source of income. In the camp’s early days, the community lived and worked in the factory; babies were even born there. Now it was mostly locked up, used occasionally to weave a rug or two, with broken equipment and forgotten items abandoned.

When Covid-19 measures came into full effect worldwide, the stream of tourists stopped entirely, plugging out the community’s lifeline. While they had savings as a camp and were being supported by the Tibetan diaspora government, they struggled once again to sustain themselves. Unable to work and forced to stay inside except for limited times each day, they were reminded of the camp's beginnings, of how little they had, with no clothes, no books, when they had to rely upon their community, upon aid, and upon the kindness of strangers. 

“Standard of living is the main goal,” Tsering’s daughter whispered to me as we ate lunch together in their home and she told me about her plans for the future. Many of the women her age from the camp, with whom she had grown up, married foreigners and moved abroad. It was something she was hoping for herself, too. Despite being born in Nepal, she has no citizenship; all she has is a birth certificate. 

This is a shared story for many of her generation in the camp. Even though she was trained as a teacher, she would never be able to work in a Nepali school. Her goals for the future were pragmatic and logical, at the expense of the hope of finding love or happiness, or being able to preserve her culture. She would give all that up for a safe and stable life far away from the memories of her childhood and the experience of her parents.

Tsering’s daughter invited me to join them for a celebration the following day. I sat among the crowd in the community hall, facing the monks on the stage. Nearly every person in the room was holding on to their prayer beads and repeating words under their breath as officials gave out bottled water in the sweltering heat. It was a Buddhist prayer festival called “Guru Puja” and the community were praying for the blessing of all living things. 

Tibetans from communities all around Pokhara had come to participate in the day’s festivities. Later, Tsering’s daughter showed me around the camp – the shops where they sold souvenirs, a clinic, a care home and a butcher shop. As I looked around, it was hard to imagine that they had started with nothing only 60 years ago. A tree stood as a mark of the forest which had been there before. 

Many years after the Tibetan cause gained global attention and their camp relied on the help of their leaders, the international community and the business of tourism, their community is at a crossroads once again. Slipping through the cracks, the younger generation’s inability to secure a good future for themselves in Nepal means that despite all their hard work and ingenuity, there may be no option but to leave once again. 

As I left the camp, I could not help but wonder how it would change in the years to come. It had already changed so much in Norchung’s lifetime. Who would be left? Would they still weave rugs and celebrate festivals in the community hall together? It would be a great victory if they did. But it would require something external to change. For more political stability, a chance to work and provide for their community again. How I hope their legacy can remain. 

Read On Print: Musotrees Volume 10