Nawin is probably in his forties. He’s lanky, in sagging jeans and a dark blue sweater, sparse dark hair cramped by a dusty blue cap. As he speaks, his eyes pinch into some distant place. With the tightening of his thin lips… he radiates a weary shell-shock. His skin’s an ashen shade of chestnut—hard skin, sheened over with oil. Chunks of it converge in deep wrinkles around his eyes, tapering to his temples. He’s of some Asian descent.
10/2/2016
“I came here in two-thousand eleven,” he rattled softly, a clipped, tonal accent—vaguely Indian?
“Go on.”
***
Nawin Risal was born in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. An only child, he grew up in relative privilege—his father owned and ran a successful jewelry business that had been passed through the generations.
In adolescence, he was sent southwest to neighboring India, where the schools at the time were much better than their Nepali counterparts. He spent fourteen years there in an English-speaking Catholic school, he said, flying home once a year to visit.
He came back to Nepal for college in preparation for taking over the family jewelry business. His father retired soon after Nawin’s graduation and marriage, leaving his business in capable hands.
Nawin ran the business for twenty-two years, comfortably raising a daughter and a son.
“At that time I had the cash in my pocket. My own house, own business—I have the money at the time.”
Nawin could speak Hindi, English, and some Japanese. “Many Japanese people would come over [to my shop], they like the jewelry very much,” he said. “They come, and they didn’t speak English.”
When his wife suddenly wanted to move, alone, to America, he was quiet. She left Nepal in 1998, leaving Nawin alone to care for their nearly-grown children. She thrived in America, he said.
“She got married to another man. She asked me for the divorce, and I gave it to her. And no one is helping me.” He pauses here, and he bites his lip a little.
By some trick of the law, his business and his house were under his former wife’s name. She negotiated the selling of his business, he said, and shared the money with her new husband. He lived and supported his kids for the next decade only off the earnings he’d already saved.
He came to America off the last vestiges of his savings in 2011: “I brought a little bit money, not much: a little bit jewelry,” he said. His wife had returned to Nepal by that time, and he was looking for a fresh beginning. He dreamed of rebuilding his beloved jewelry business in the famed land of opportunity.
He worked in Maryland for four years, staying at a friend’s house.
“I sent the money back to my kids. For their schooling, for their college. Someone gave me the gas work, I work with the gas, and I earned eight dollars. I earned the money and I sent it, I earned the money and sent it. I didn’t keep myself.”
In 2016, another friend called him from Austin and described the city’s incredible job opportunities. With the prospect of rising out of poverty, he arrived in Austin in early September. His friend was unresponsive to calls, so he began building a new path on his own.
“I came here from Maryland, and I was in the Motel 6. I stayed two, three days at the motel. One day I went to the Chinese buffet, the one one Westgate. And I went there, because I like the dumpling very much. And I eat it one day, and things happen, and they say do you need a job? And they say, come at 10 o’clock tomorrow.”
He was changing Metro buses the next morning.
It all happened so suddenly.
“I went to a store, a store like this”—he pointed to a Shell across the street—“and buy a soda. And I looked my wallet in the back. It’s gone.” Everything was in it: “I lost my green card, I lost my ID, I lost my social security, and I lost my money and I don’t have any single penny.”
He can’t access his bank account, he said, and can’t replace his lost bank card; the bank personnel require his ID.
He sought help at the Salvation Army. “They cannot do anything about it. They give me the address [of a legal firm], I don’t know the address. I do not have the money for the bus.” He had been homeless for fifteen days before he met me.
As soon as he can procure the means to travel to an office that can help him replace his identification and green card, he said, he will head there and stop at nothing to get back on his feet.
All he wants to do, he said, is reclaim his future. If he can find a job working for a gas station or restaurant, perhaps he can eventually save enough to realize his dream.
“Start again my business. For jewelry again. Rings, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, all kind of different kind of jewelry.”
He has some longing to return to Nepal, in the distant future, but it would only be to visit. He would check in on his old business (the man who now owns his jewelry business, he said, is a millionaire now), and take in the architecture and scenes of the prime of his life.
For now, he’s struggling to pull himself up.
Before we parted ways, he promised me a necklace, his eyes warm.
***
10/30/2016 – Update
I was walking from the coffee station and saw a blue cap, broad back, wide stance. Nawin? As he walked along a row of parked cars, I hurried over and tapped him on the shoulder.
His small eyes widened a little when they recognized me.
“Hey!” I grinned.
We caught up for a while (it had been three weeks). Except for having a heart attack, he’s been making do: at least he’s been getting enough to eat.
“Caritas, they give the lunch. The Salvation, they give the dinner. Sunday, go here [Church Under the Bridge]. There’s plenty of food.”
A worker at Salvation Army is helping him through the green card re-application process, he said. But the cost is some $450, plus $250 for the application and service fee. He had been looking for jobs he could take to raise the money.
“I got the job. I work for the M– Mobile Company, phone company.” He said he was on his way to his first day on this job, the day after he met me.
“Monday, I drop off the bus, and I walk to the building. I couldn’t walk. I went back to the church. I cannot walk. It wouldn’t go. I had to carry this backpack too. And I was feeling a little better, then tried to walk. Cannot walk. Then I went back to the church, back to there, and they called an ambulance. And I went [to the hospital]. Heart attack.”
He stayed in the hospital for a full week, he said.
He pulled a white fleece jacket out of his backpack, followed by a gallon Ziploc bag bursting with orange pill containers. Their white labels were printed in stark black ink. He handed me a thick manilla envelope with his records and instructions, “Nawin Risal” in bold lettering. “Address: not specified: homeless,” just underneath.
He’s doing alright, taking his medicine and looking to get another job. I wish him well.
***
11/13/2016 – Update
He tapped me on the shoulder and gripped me in a hug. When he pulled away, I saw the blood-red bruises on his cheekbones, crescents under his eye bags.
His lip trembled and his eyes swelled with wetness. He said he was beaten up a few nights ago by two black men.
He asked me where it’s safe to sleep in Austin.
I didn’t know what to tell him.
Thank you for the great story . My dad pass away 05/20/2017 .