Sunday, Aug. 28, 2011

Liberty Garden

Community project distracts from worries, provides refugees food

They fled Bhutan in darkness when the government threatened to burn their homes.

Farms passed down through generations were abandoned overnight.

Now, about a dozen refugees resettled in Raleigh's Cedar Point Apartments have used their old skills to coax a garden from the cracked asphalt of an abandoned tennis court.

It's where they go to find peace.

"It is called the Liberty Garden," said Narayan Chhetri, who has been elected garden supervisor. "When all the refugee people come to America, the Statue of Liberty says welcome to us. Liberty is a gift. It means we are free."

For Chhetri and his fellow gardeners, the work takes their minds back to the land they lost. It also distracts from the constant worry about family members left behind in refugee camps, and the foreign future they face here.

North Carolina receives about 4 percent of the roughly 80,000 refugees the U.S. has taken in each of the past few years. All four refugee resettlement groups in the Triangle place clients at Cedar Point Apartments, a maze-like cluster of buildings off Falls of Neuse Road. About a quarter to a third of its 168 units house refugees, estimates Carrie Cargile of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

Before the Liberty Garden, Cedar Point refugees like Mega Subedi had few resources. The still-sour economy, coupled with their limited English and dependence on public transportation, has made it tough for many refugees to find jobs. Mostly, a typical day meant ESL class and housework, Subedi said. That's plenty of time for the mind to wander, to worry.

The idea for a community garden was sparked in a women's group that meets on-site, led by volunteer Debra Nickels. After a consultation with the landlord, the group brainstormed with USCRI and Nickels' Buddhist meditation group, then set to work. A new project was born.

First, they had to clear the land. No one knows the last time the old tennis court was used. Located behind the apartments, it was overrun by weeds, vines and dirt, barely recognizable as a tennis court.

On the first workday in March, about 20 refugees from Bhutan and countries across Africa joined to clear the land. A limited number of tools meant would-be gardeners had to wait in line. They pulled weeds and pried up asphalt, then built 16 raised beds and planted them with tomatoes and okra, watermelon and cucumbers, green beans and lettuce and chilies.

Now, the garden provides structure, socialization and purpose. Members pay $5 a year and split the produce. The community has become closer since it started, refugee gardener Dahn Wagley said. Families work there together.

"It's something for parents and children to bond over," Cargile said. "Now that they're living here, their lives are very different, and sometimes it's hard for kids to connect to parents after resettlement ... but at least the garden is a common place for them to come together and continue their traditions."

They plan to continue the garden into the fall, and they hope to expand. More beds to tend means a larger harvest, as well as more time to be spent outdoors, working.

In the meantime, the Liberty gardeners are working to get the most from what they've sown.

Each morning, Chhetri patrols the rows for bugs, which he plucks off bare-handed and smashes with his shoe to avoid having to use expensive pesticides.

Each evening, two or three men drag a long hose from the improvised rain barrel they set up to catch runoff from the apartment roofs to irrigate the garden for free.

Every Saturday, all garden members meet at the garden to harvest and distribute the produce. They gather five to eight pounds each time, Chhetri said.

In between, members wander down to weed or just to sit and admire their work.

"It brings back happy memories," Tom Subedi said. "It makes me happy. One hundred percent happy."