I don’t think I ever realized how hard it would be to leave my friends in Nepal until the time came for us to leave. Saying goodbye to these friends meant that I would probably never see them again. For many it was a hard goodbye but nobody felt it harder than Sanu Maya Bista.
Sanu Maya means “Little Love” in Nepali. She is the youngest daughter of a poor family in Nepal. Her older sisters had the opportunity to get married because her parents were able to pay the dowry so that they could be married. This is an important part of the way people get married in Nepal. A parent must pay the grooms family in order for their daughter to get married. Sanu never had the opportunity to do this because her parents passed away prior to her being old enough to get married.
As an orphan, Sanu was forced to go to work at an early age. She worked as a house helper or a “nanny” to families in Kathmandu. As she got older the possibility of ever getting married became ever slimmer. Sanu loved children but she would not ever have the opportunity to have any biological children.
Sanu was the first Nepali friend we made after we moved there last fall. She helped us babysit our kids and instantly fell in love with both our kids. Soon after we arrived Kody began going to school and Luke and Sanu began spending more and more time together. Sanu and Luke shared a special bond, a bond of friendship and trust. Luke needed Sanu and Sanu needed Luke. As they grew closer and closer she became more and more a part of our family. She would have moved in with us if we had the room for her. Many nights she did not want to go home to her empty flat but would rather stay with us and play with Luke. Luke called her “Didi” which means big sister in Nepali.
When the time came for us to leave Nepal we did not want to leave Sanu behind. She had become a “big sister” and an important part of our family. We decided that we would help her get a passport and a Visa so that she could come live with us in the United States even if it was only for a short period of time. Prior to Sanu getting her passport she did not even know when her birthday was. This sounds horrible to us but in Nepal most people do not celebrate their birthday and many do not even know when the date is. Sanu thought that she was 35 years old but in fact she was turning 39 just a few days before we would leave Nepal. I wrote the US Embassy and explained our situation. I gave details of how we would take care of Sanu and that we would ensure that she would return prior to her Visa expiring. We paid for the application and on the day before her birthday she went to the embassy for her interview. We anxiously awaited what we hoped would be good news about Sanu coming home to live with us.
That evening when I returned home from work there was a letter on the table from Sanu. The letter stated that the embassy would not allow Sanu to enter the United States. I could tell that she was upset by the way the letter was written. The news meant that she would actually have to say goodbye to Luke and the friendship they had developed. We phoned her to tell her how sorry we were to hear the bad news but she was not able to speak to us for long. She fought back tears but it did not take long before she had to stop talking. There was nothing that we could say to console her and we too were heartbroken.
When it finally came time for us to leave we had to say goodbye to Sanu. We had dinner together and she and Luke played until it was time for us to leave. We each knew that this would be hard but none of us were prepared for how bad it would hurt to say goodbye. Sanu hugged Luke and tried to say goodbye. She handed him to us and turned to walk away when Luke cried “Didi” and threw his arms up towards her. Tears came rolling down her face and Luke too began to cry. After several minutes we again tried to take Luke so that she could leave and Luke again turned to her and cried “No Didi”. This went on and on for almost an hour when finally Luke, Sanu, Shawna, and I were exhausted. We stood in the door watching her walk away knowing that we would probably never see her again.