Our migrant sons

This is the 79th episode of Diaspora Diaries, a Nepali Times series in collaboration with Migration Lab providing a platform to share experiences of living, working and studying abroad.

Jitu Mahato

I have three sons. My eldest worked in Saudi Arabia for ten years and then went to Dubai. My second son has lived in Dubai for four years. My youngest worked in Malaysia but came back after his company went bankrupt.

Here, we don’t have much land so what they have earned has helped with the grandchildren’s education and other household expenses. My sons feed me, buy my clothes and medication. I take loans from others when I need it for our work in the field and pay them off when they send me money.

My farm work is not affected without them here because they had no interest in खेती बारी anyway, even when they were here they did not want to step in the fields.

Many youth have migrated from our village. Some have gone to Malaysia, others to the Gulf. Some have done well, others have not. Some buy land or pay off loans, others come back without saving much.

Children can go to school wearing better clothes because of the money migrants send home. There are both good and bad sides of foreign employment. The earnings help because without it we would die hungry. But there are no young men in the village, everyone is abroad.

We are old. We are not educated. Even small things like paperwork that require someone who knows how to read and write become inconvenient without them around. During hardships, it becomes more difficult and whoever is left behind comes together to help each other in whatever way we can.

My son recently bought me a scooter, as I am getting older and it has become difficult to get around. It has made it convenient to visit my daughters' house and other places.

Mohan Bahadur Karki

All three of our sons are working in Malaysia. We had trouble feeding ourselves so they wanted to go and earn for the family. Having sons overseas has helped ensure we can survive, and have clothes to wear.

We used to live in a mud house in the past, which had to be repaired over and over again. Now we have a concrete house. All our children and grandchildren should have been living with us, but feels empty sometimes with just the two of us. 

We have moved many times in our life. This is the ninth place we are living in. Now we won’t move. My son sent the design of the house from Malaysia. He sent a picture of a house he liked from there to the contractor here. It is an exact replica, and people even come here to make Tiktok and music videos. 

Even in my dreams, I never thought I would one day live in a house like this. Our sons were smart, and managed it. People get surprised that I, a labourer who worked in others’ fields, live in a house like this, but we still have outstanding loans for this house.

Many youth from our village have left. Some have lost their jobs and returned. Ours are thankfully okay so far, but one of our sons' companies has started laying off workers so he might be next on the list. Overtime hours have also been cut in Malaysia, they say. We will see.

We have faced too many difficulties during our lifetime. We don’t know what is waiting for us next. All our lives, we have faced difficult periods uncertain about the next day, the next night. Life has been full of tests.

Farming is not reliable because the rains are erratic. Too much of it this year. It was okay for paddy, but not for tomatoes. As you get older, you cannot work as much. While you have your youth, you can earn. I never got to migrate overseas, I grew old just ploughing fields. I did not get an opportunity to study. I don’t even know how to write my name.

I worked as a labourer all my life to take care of the family because the land did not produce enough. Now I cannot work, even if I wanted to. I am not so strong anymore, and my mind is not as sharp. Thankfully my sons have taken over and they tell us not to work hard and to rest, they will take care of us.

They remind me not to carry heavy loads or push myself too hard in the fields. I have started getting sick more frequently. I spend quite a lot on medication. At some point, I had become near immobile for two months and could not even go to the bathroom. I had to come back from Kathmandu with medicine that cost Rs14,000.

If my sons had not gone overseas, we would be relying on our farming. Things would have been tougher. We don’t know how long they will stay overseas. I heard there is a limit of ten years in Malaysia. Once they are back, maybe they will go back to the fields. What other option do they have? But we cannot always rely on overseas work either. What to do?

Life’s challenges don’t go away but you have to figure ways out to deal with them. As long as there is even one breath left, we must keep fighting.

Tukra Bahadur Ale Magar / Gangi Maya Ale

[Gangi] My son is in Malaysia. He sends us money and we spend on household expenses. I wish we could save money too but we have not been able to. It balances out. He could not get a job here, so he left. Parents do not want to send their children away, but what could we do?

We have to spend Rs3,000 just on medicines every month. I am always worried about my son, it's not the same as having them in front of me. When he falls sick, there is no one around and he does not even get to take time off without wage deduction. Those things worry me, having him around was more assuring.

Before Malaysia, he worked in Dubai for six years and was back here for two years in between. He got married then and re-migrated as responsibilities increased. The earnings of Dubai is this house.

[Tukra] We used to have a small mud house but my son said we should invest in a stronger house. I did not go abroad myself because it was not common in our village back then. But now it has become a trend and our son also left. I wish I had got to migrate as well. By not migrating, I think I did not get to see the world. How is the world? How is it to earn abroad? I have never been in a plane, I just have six goats and the farm. Everything is going alright.

Nirmala Rana Magar

Two of my sons are abroad. One in Kuwait, the other in Malaysia. The younger son migrated more recently and his earnings have mostly gone to pay off recruitment loans. The elder son built this house for us.

Before this, we lived in a mud house which I had built with the earnings when I worked in India.  Money is important but I miss my sons everyday. I have a lot of love for them. When you have your children, you have the world. We talk in the mornings and evenings via video calls.

They had to move overseas because we could not survive on their earnings here. We can now afford the school fees of the granddaughters, but their dads around would have been better for them. But what can we do? We had no choice.

The recent GenZ protests gave us some hope that things will be better, but it is still unsure. When will the day of the poor come? Will we ever get to live a decent life? No matter what happens, no matter who is in government, it is the poor like us who suffer. So many governments have changed but we are stuck where we were. If our children got good jobs, we would be happy.