25 April 2015
How could I forget the day that nearly ruined my ambition and closed all my pathways for the future? John Lennon was singing “Imagine” on my headset. I was walking down the street thinking about my dream which was slowly shaping up. Suddenly, I felt the earth moving beneath my feet. A Motorbike lost control and skidded to a halt right in front of my eyes. The concrete buildings around me started to dance like Nicky Minaj. Nepal, which constitutes a third world country, was thrashed by a devastating earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9. This was the first moment in my life that I felt my adrenaline moving faster than a Ferrari.
As I looked around I was barely able to think as panic made its way up my spine. All I could focus on was a narrow road overshadowed by a house on both sides violently closing in on me. Suddenly, I could not pray to my gods, my senses were dulled, my instincts had failed. It seemed like an eternity passed before the shaking finally came to a stop. All of my surroundings were engulfed with the dust of the structures that once stood so strong. I could hardly see a thing but somehow managed to come to terms with reality.
I noticed that my house was not where it once had been. I spotted my mother and father across the soccer field and sprinted towards them. There were no words to consult my mother who had just witnessed her home turn into rubble. My father’s look reflected the pain of watching 15 years worth of savings disappear in a matter of minutes. We felt many aftershocks but that’s not what kept us up that night. We could barely sleep due to the loud crying of my village, my family, ringing throughout the valley.
“Dad! I got my acceptance letter from an American university yesterday. Now they are telling me to send our financial documents for processing.” These words woke my father from his nightmare until he realized his nightmare was a reality. “It’s great that you want to pursue your dream on American soil, but we lost everything we had yesterday,” he said with tears in his eyes. Though we were poor, my father never spared a dime on my education. However, he was worried that I might have to abandon my dream ……………………………….