My husband woke up one morning and said to me "Kalpana, let's immigrate. At least in a foreign country we will live the way we want. We have money here, but life is so difficult."

He was trained in Bangladesh in civil and environment engineering. He worked for a good real estate agency there. When he came home for a visit, his relatives encouraged him to stay saying he needs to do something for his country. He started working for a good housing company. Although the pay was not very much, he was happy to be with family, to have their love and to live close to them. He never regretted coming back, never resented the fact that he could have earned a lot more abroad with his qualification and experience.

Today he is the project manager and also does some freelance work in other housing projects. Financially, we are quite comfortable. I work at a bank and my salary is enough to support our small family. But these days my husband tells me that we should just pack and leave.

Violence and scarcity have become a part of our everyday lives. Just the other day my husband returned at midnight from the petrol station, tired and disappointed that he could not even get a drop of petrol. He had been waiting since 3pm only to be told that the station had run out. Instead of getting people's hopes up, couldn't the government put a public notice out to inform consumers when they do have petrol? In the morning today my husband said to me: "Why don't you take a break from work and let's just move to some other country. If you like it we can stay, if you don't we can always come back." I saw the sadness in his face and there was nothing I could say to convince him to change his mind.

-Kalpana Shrestha,
Gatthaghar