My dairy after 8 years in exile.

Each time I think about my past, memories of horror, pain, courage and hope come to my mind and knock on the door of my heart. When I can go back to my motherland (Kawachen)? When I can get my freedom back from China?
These agonizing questions beat my heart often.
I escaped from Tibet in 1999. To cross the Himalayas, we faced a dangerous journey. It took us two weeks to get to Nepal. There were two main dangers: the geographic conditions and the risk of capture by Chinese border guards. To avoid being caught, we traveled in winter, when the snow was deep.
We went by bus at night from Lhasa to Shigatse, the second capital of Tibet. We traveled in a truck from Shigatse, again at night. From there we walked by night and hid in secluded places between rocks or in the forest during the day. We were always waiting for the darkness. Sometimes we lost our route and sometimes we lost our group. The tense feelings and the sounds of sobbing clutched me in the nights. I was the youngest in the group, so the others helped me when I needed support. The whole time we were worried about getting caught, frightened of being arrested. Out of fear and anxiety we walked very fast; we were not even allowed to smoke during the night.
On the seventh night we started crossing the major Himalayan pass. Once we crossed the pass we could travel in the daytime as there were no Chinese guards there. It was the 27th September, 1999. As we began climbing to the pass, we were met with snow. Our guide said “Now you need not fear – you are on Nepalese soil.” We crossed through the mountain pass, after which it took 6 hours to get to stone houses which were built on the other side of the snowy mountains. We stayed overnight in an empty stone house without food, waking up very early the next morning and walking to a Sherpa village. There we changed our money (Yuan) into Nepalese rupees and bought food.
Now safely in Nepal, we traveled for six days and finally got to Jiti, a small town where Nepali policemen captured us and sent us directly to the International Refugee Reception Center located in the capital, Kathmandu. When we got there, officials of the Tibet Reception Centre came to pick us up, and we were sent to Dharamsala a week later.
Our journey from Tibet through Nepal to India was full of risks and insecurity. Today, after 8 years in exile, I realize that from these risks I got encouragement to confront difficulties and problems in life. This experience also gave me a strong determination to be a good and useful human being. Each time I recall my escape; it energizes me and encourages me to challenge obstacles in my path.