My name is Grace Raut, and I am a writer and photographer for the Hive. I was able to sit down with my father and hear about his journey from Nepal to Essex. This is his story.
I am Dan Raut. I was born in Nepal, in the Mount Everest regional zone. When I grew up there, my childhood was very nice, but the schooling, our education system was not very developed.
When we started our school, our English started after fourth grade. Every day, we walked about an hour to get to our school. So in our school, we did not have breakfast, not good water, and we needed to come back home after and help our parents on their farm. We supported our family. At night, we need to help prepare everything with housework and cooking. Then we need to start to do our homework and study. It was our daily routine every day, until 12, one o’clock in the morning. I studied very hard and tried to wake up early in the morning. We did not have electricity. We did not have roads and vehicles.
I moved to another school when I was 15 years old. I switched schools, actually for a good education and good management. That school was very good, and their system and all the teachers, they were very nice, good knowledge and good experience. But I need to take all my food for one week and stay over there. I would come back home Friday and Saturday. Two nights I would stay with my parents. Again, Sunday, early morning, I would go back to school. We needed to walk three to four hours to get to school.
During high school, I started doing some martial arts, which we call karate. Slowly, I finished high school. Then we started our university, and at the same time, the local government hired me as a school teacher. I needed to teach, and I studied at my university. I had to practice martial arts, and also I trained other students in martial arts. I studied,taught, did karate and taught karate. 
Eventually I moved to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. When I moved there, I started my bachelor’s degree. The same time I was the national coach of Nepal Karate Federation. Almost 700,000 students belong to our clubs. We take care of them. We train them. Actually we provide our training to the army, to the police, and to all the boarding schools, colleges, and clubs. I was secretary of the Nepal Karate Federation. Also I was a national coach.
And at the same time we started a small business. I had a restaurant over there. We did so many things during that time. I got married and our son, Columbus, was born in Nepal.
Finally, we moved to Hong Kong. When we moved to Hong Kong, we stayed here for about seven, eight years. Then my daughter Grace was born in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong lifestyle was very comfortable. Everything is kind of an old city in Hong Kong.
When my daughter Grace was 15 months, we moved to the US in January 2011. January 19, 2011 we arrived in Vermont. Our other daughter, Joy, was born in Vermont in 2012. I started my new job as a Nepali interpreter, translator. We have Nepali church community, and we gather every Saturday in Essex. Through our church, we share, we help our community. We made a small group we call light and salt who we support. We help them. We take people to the grocery. We train them how to drive, how to get their learner’s’ permit, take citizenship classes, and also find jobs. We help them find their cars and slowly develop their credit, and help them to buy houses.
During those times, I opened one of the restaurants in downtown Burlington, lower Church Street called Red Panda. I opened another restaurant in Essex in 2021. We call it Red Panda Essex. Now Red Panda Essex is a very famous food place in our community. Our son, who was born in Nepal, is helping a lot of things, supporting our restaurant. So we are learning the culture and other people are very nice here. They are very supportive. And we have very good friends around. We work together. We help each other. We have a very nice life here.
*Story was edited for brevity.
