Faces of Conflict: Coe student from Nepal recalls civil war, earthquake

The lights went dark. The power was out.

But that wasn't terribly unusual for Nepal — even in the capital city of Kathmandu.

'I thought it was normal,' said Abhinav Shrestha, now 20, who grew up in Pokhara, Nepal, but was recovering from a minor surgery in Kathmandu on April 25, 2015.

That day, Shrestha was with his parents in a small rented apartment. When the power failed, he was playing guitar in bed, while his mother was in the kitchen cooking lunch.

His father was working on the computer — but then paused.

'Did you feel that?' he asked.

'And then, slowly, the whole building started shaking,' Shrestha recalled. 'I looked outside, and all the trees were shaking. The electric wires were shaking.'

Shrestha's dad shouted, 'It's an earthquake.'

The trio rushed to a foundation pillar — the strongest part of the building. But Shrestha's mom had forgotten to turn off the stove, and his dad had to run back into the kitchen.

'Then I found out how strong the earthquake was,' Shrestha said. 'He was tumbling from right to left.'

They didn't want to risk the stairs, so they stayed inside until the first wave subsided. When they made it outside, Shrestha recalled seeing total devastation.

'For me, it looked like something straight out of the movies,' he said.

Streets and sidewalks were flooded with panicked people — some injured, all frightened. Buildings were collapsing. Walls were crumbling. Cars had crashed.

'People were crying because they were scared,' Shrestha said. 'And then the second wave came.'

Watching the quake while outside provided a different — and more frightening — perspective.

'I could see the buildings moving front and back, back and forth,' he said. 'Then you could hear the actual movie scenes — like sirens everywhere. People rushing.'

Nearby, ancient monuments and historic structures were reduced to rubble.

'There were lots of fire trucks, lots of army trucks, lots of police trucks,' he said.

Shrestha — who recently had been chosen as the first-ever recipient of Coe College's new full-ride international student scholarship — was afraid. He wasn't injured. And neither were his parents. But they were scrambling to reach friends and family members.

And they were being rattled, literally and figuratively, by a barrage of continual aftershocks.

'The waves were coming so much that people wouldn't go inside the house,' he recalled. 'So we stayed outside for three days.'

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The first night, Shrestha said, he wandered around — confused, traumatized.

'We just waited. I don't know why, but we waited for the earthquake to stop,' he said. 'But late into the night it felt like it won't stop, so we just tried sleeping on the bench outside.'

It was too cold, however, the temperatures drove Shrestha and his family into their car — but he was still unable to sleep.

'After that, we made a makeshift tent in an open ground with tarp and bed sheets and bamboo sticks,' Shrestha said. 'I missed bed.'

"I could see the buildings moving front and back, back and forth. Then you could hear the actual movie scenes — like sirens everywhere. People rushing."

- Abhinav Shrestha

On Nepal's April 2015 earthquake

Four nights later, the family got the courage to go back inside. But not without a plan.

'I got the idea, we made a makeshift alarm system,' he said. 'It was a bottle, and on top of that were steel plates and glasses that would fall and make noise if anything shook.'

In the end, the 7.8 magnitude quake and subsequent aftershocks — which rattled the South Asian nation's geographic, social, economic and even political foundations — had killed more than 8,000 people and injured 21,000 more. It set off massive avalanches in the Himalayas that boast the world's tallest and most storied peaks — including Mount Everest.

And the 2015 quake displaced 3.5 million people for days, weeks, months — even until today.

'People are still living in tents,' he said. 'And that was a long time ago.'

At the time of the quake, Shrestha knew he was headed to Cedar Rapids in August for the 2015-2016 school year. And with his scholarship worth about $155,000 covering his four years at Coe, he already is planning ahead — assessing options for graduate school and further U.S. education.

But Shrestha's heart aches for the losses in his home nation — one of the world's poorest countries — including what the devastation could mean for the political and developmental progress Nepal has made over the past decade.

'I think it sets Nepal back,' he said.

In 1996, around the time Shrestha was born, the Communist Party of Nepal — Maoists — launched an armed civil war after being denied participation in the country's national election. The aim of the conflict — which took 17,000 lives and displaced about 100,000 — was to overthrow the Nepalese monarchy, eliminate discrimination and favoritism, defeat corruption, and establish a 'People's Republic.'

The conflict dismantled the 240-year-old monarchy before officially ending with a Comprehensive Peace Accord in November 2006 — when Shrestha was about 10. But international groups tracking the country's global conflicts reported remaining challenges and political unrest.

'It's not perfect,' Shrestha admitted.

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And the days during Nepal's civil war are cemented in Shrestha's mind. He remembers days — sometimes weeks — of curfews that required civilians to stay either in their homes or on their property. School was canceled frequently. Stores were shuttered. Strikes were common and widespread.

'Rebel people would come into the homes to ask for donations and money,' he said.

Country ties to Faces of Conflict

*Source: Council on Foreign Relations. Other country profile information from CIA World Factbook. Map by John McGlothlen / The Gazette

Life was unpredictable. But because Shrestha hadn't lived without war, and because he was so young, Shrestha didn't know to be afraid.

He simply came to understand certain realities and pseudo-rules.

'You weren't allowed to say 'Maoist,'' he noted. 'If somebody would hear that, they would take people for interrogation.'

Shrestha said he recalls the 2006 end to the civil conflict and an associated 'people's movement' that followed. While Shrestha said he hadn't taken a side in the civil war — mostly wanting to stay safe and out of it — he felt differently about the people's movement.

'All the people came together to protest against the monarchy,' he said. 'I had high hopes for the people's revolution. Now the change would come.'

Shrestha said among his biggest desires for change was in Nepal's rural communities. They needed infrastructure. They needed government support. And those were starting to come, until the earthquake hit, Shrestha said.

'We were building our infrastructure, and we went back to zero,' he said.

Between the April earthquake and his August departure to the United States, Shrestha worked with a non-governmental organization in his hometown to coordinate cleanup and relief efforts. And he trusted that group to do what it promised — to stay true to its mission.

But Shrestha said he's suspicious that government officials have taken advantage of the resources pouring into Nepal. Because many of those who lost homes in the quake remain without shelter.

'Even if they take advantage — at least let the people have some,' he said, adding that the corruption and exploitation could dissolve the level of peace Nepal has established.

'In other countries, there is always conflicts between two parties, but still they try to move forward,' he said. 'But in Nepal, when there's conflicts, they just stop.'

Shrestha said his parents' home survived the 2015 quake, and they are doing well — he communicates with them regularly. He occasionally discusses the potential for more earthquakes or political unrest and what that might mean.

'There is always the fear that another earthquake might come,' he said. 'And being scared is good. Fear is good.

'But use that fear to be smart and to think smartly — when it comes, (know) where to go, what to do, and not just panic.'

And instead of focusing on the potential for disaster and unrest, Shrestha said he is honing in on the hope of a brighter and more sustainable future for Nepal. That's why he's studying biology and environmental science in hopes of specializing in sustainable agriculture.

'One of Nepal's strongest qualities for a good economy is agriculture because it has very fertile land,' he said.

Implementing widespread sustainable agriculture practices — cutting out chemicals and pollutants — would leave his people with one less worry.

'For the entire world, it wouldn't contribute much,' he said. 'But for my country, it would be something.'