Radio Shangri-La_ What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth - Lisa Napoli [90]
“Mr. Japan is on the line for you,” I would announce before handing over the phone. Each time they talked, I’d tease her about her boyfriend.
“He’s not my boyfriend. I’m not even sure I’ll ever meet him in person,” Ngawang would protest.
“Aren’t you curious, after talking to him all this time?”
“We’ll see if he deserves to meet me,” she’d tease back.
The one person who wasn’t calling was Ngawang’s sister in Nebraska. Which was where she was supposed to be headed next.
FRIDAY ARRIVED, and our week of overnights was through. To celebrate, we headed to the hot tub behind the apartment building, hoping to beat the intense sun before it broke through in earnest. Ngawang sat perched on the edge, too modest to wear even the one-piece bathing suit I’d loaned her; her feet dangled in the water, her pants legs rolled up modestly to mid-calf.
“So, Ngawang, I heard you tell someone at the office last night that your visa lasts for three months.” It was curious that she hadn’t mentioned that to me. “What are we going to do about your sister in Nebraska, and your going to see her?”
“She hasn’t gotten back in touch with me.” Ngawang looked down at her toes in the tub.
“She knows for sure that you’re here?”
“Yes, I wrote to her. And I sent her your phone numbers.”
“I don’t get why she hasn’t been back in touch. Wasn’t she expecting you?”
“She must be very busy.”
Bhutanese often explained away a lack of communication with “I am very busy.” But what could this lady be so busy doing that she was avoiding her sister?
“So let’s talk about what you want to do. Remember I said it was great for you to visit me here for two weeks.”
“Well,” Ngawang said, splashing her feet in the water, trying to play down what she was about to say. “I was thinking I would get a job.”
For a second I thought the splashing had mangled her words. But I could tell by the look on Ngawang’s face that I’d heard absolutely correctly.
“Ngawang, getting a job in radio is hard for people who have lived in this country forever.”
“Not in radio. I was thinking maybe at a hotel or something.”
“You’re going to give up working at the radio station, and leave your family, so you can clean rooms at a hotel?” The tone of my voice was the same as a mother whose fifteen-year-old daughter had just come home with a tattoo.
“Not clean rooms. I don’t want to do that. I figured I could work in accounting or something.”
A blinding glimpse of what should have been obvious struck me. When Ngawang said I’d made her dreams come true, I thought she was talking about her dream of visiting America. Now I understood that she had meant her dream of stowing away in America. How naive she sounded. How naive I had been to issue the invitation for her to come here.
She continued. “I know some Bhutanese girls in New York are babysitters, but I don’t want to be a nanny. I want my own kids, but I don’t want to take care of someone else’s.”
I took a deep breath. “Ngawang. Do you understand why they’re nannies? It’s not because they want to do that. It’s because they can’t get other jobs.” My voice was very loud, and I stopped to compose myself, even though no one else was around. It was, after all, only ten in the morning, and most normal people were at work. “You can’t just walk into a hotel in Los Angeles and get a job as a bookkeeper. You have to get a work permit before you can even think of trying to get a job, and that’s incredibly hard. Not to mention expensive. Maybe even harder than if I was to try to stay in Bhutan and get a job.” Assuming I’d have the temerity to overstay my visa there, I could live very nicely for half a year on just a few thousand dollars. Ngawang had three hundred bucks in her wallet. And, like most Bhutanese, no credit card.
“What about