After fleeing Tibet, man builds new life, meets wife
During the 22 years since Nyma Kargusang left his parents, seven brothers and three sisters in Tibet, he has learned what a toothbrush is and how to use it, worked 15 years for the same company, become a United States citizen, voted in presidential elections, and created a family with Cortney Butler.
His life has changed drastically. “I was a nomad before,” moving every month with his family in tents that fit up to 20 people. He never went to school or learned to read or write. With communist China banning any talk of religion, politics or culture, he paid a guide $300 to escape in 1997 with 55 other people.
With a two weeks’ supply of food, they had to reverse course around Mount Everest because of reports of Chinese soldiers. They had to cross a river at night without lights, resulting in one person drowning.
“We walked in snow, we ate snow, we drank snow,” Nyma says. Arriving in Nepal, they were taken to India, where Nyma connected with his brother who had migrated to New York City a few years earlier. Nyma was able to join his brother 3½ years later and found work in an Indian restaurant in 2000.
He was working in Whole Foods at Columbus Circle in Manhattan when Cortney entered his life.
“I was a literacy volunteer” in New London and a special education teacher at East Lyme High School, Cortney says. She had gone on a field study to Tibet and was teaching English to a shop owner in New London in November 2009, when he mentioned relatives visiting in New York. Cortney, who was 30 at the time, offered to drive him to the city to meet them. The relatives included Nyma and his brother.
“We met and drank tea all day,” she said. “We talked about six or seven hours, but it felt like two minutes.”
That night, when Cortney told her mother about her encounter, her mother said, “I’ve never seen you so excited and overjoyed by a man.”
Nyma visited New London soon after. “I just thought we were friendly,” Cortney says, “but I realized very quickly that he was interested” in dating. He invited her to New York and took her skating in Central Park and on a horse-drawn carriage ride.
“It was my first time skating,” says Nyma, who was 37 at the time. Although they talked on the phone several times a day, Cortney was surprised when he called a few days after she visited and said, “Would you like to go to Tibet with me?” It was his family’s tradition for the parents to arrange marriages, but it became too risky for him to return to his country.
Skipping the formalities, Nyma asked Cortney in January, “Do you want to be my wife? Do you want to start a family?”
On Valentine’s Day and at a Lothar — Lunar New Year — celebration in New York, Nyma’s older brother presented Cortney with a khata — a white scarf for special ceremonies — which symbolically introduced and welcomed her to their Tibetan community as Nyma’s wife. On Aug. 9, they were married by a justice of the peace in a wedding celebration at their home in New London.
Nyma had started working for Whole Foods as a kitchen assistant in Oregon in 2004, when a Tibetan friend of his helped him find the job. From there, Nyma moved back to New York with the company. After marrying Cortney, he was able to transfer to the company’s West Hartford store, and he has been commuting one hour each way for eight years and learning to pump gas.
He had a license in New York but had never pumped gas until driving home late one night from work. He put diesel gas in their new car, which quickly died on the highway. With no phone signal in the area, he couldn’t call Cortney, but when he didn’t arrive home, she knew something was wrong and went to for look for him.
“I found him in Salem,” she said, and after a $700 tow and repair, he hasn’t had any more trouble driving.
In 2010, their first son, Tenzin Everest, was born. Tenzin — the first name of the exiled Dalai Lama of Tibet — is a traditional name given to boys and girls, Cortney says. With no older relatives to help watch the younger children, as is the tradition in Tibet, Nyma began working weekends and nights.
“We were only going to have one” child, Cortney says, but in 2016 they had another son, Tenzin Sky. Tenzin means “the holder of Buddha Dharma” or “holder of the truth,” and is Nyma’s first name also. Nyma means sun in Tibetan, “So I have my sky and my mountains and the sun,” Cortney says. “We are a super outdoor family,” she added, hiking and going to Connecticut’s beaches and Rhode Island shore whenever they can.
Their number one priority today is their sons, and, with their oldest in school, Cortney and Nyma began looking for a home in a community with good schools. They ended their yearlong search by closing on a house in West Hartford on Aug. 17.
Another priority in buying their home was a good kitchen. Cortney and Nyma enjoy cooking. “He makes the best momos,” a Tibetan dumpling, which he makes from scratch, Cortney says. Mixing his dough and slivering vegetables, Nyma uses beef or chicken as filling.
“He uses two knives and does it so fast,” Cortney says. Nyma brings his talents to the 300 Tibetans in Connecticut when they cook together six or seven times a year to commemorate Tibetan holidays.
When Nyma arrived in the United States, he had never studied English. He learned it on the job, through the 370 produce items at Whole Foods.
“When I look in Nyma’s eyes, there is an innocence and humility there … It connects right to my heart … and it is profound,” Cortney noted in an email.
She and Nyma have worked hard to understand their cultural differences. Accustomed to having people say thank you, Cortney found it difficult to adjust to Nyma never saying those words to her. Nyma could not understand why she repeatedly would thank him.
“If a husband or wife cooks, you don’t need to say thank you. You love each other. It is understood, of course,” Nyma says. “For me it doesn’t matter. You don’t need to say it. You don’t need to say, ‘I love you.’ ”
He did not tell his family he was leaving Tibet for a different reason — fear of endangering them. Last year, his parents — in their 90s — and one brother and two sisters, over age 50, were allowed to visit Thailand, where Nyma went to see them and cry with them. “They looked so old,” says Nyma, who sent money home to help his parents and siblings until he and Cortney started their family. He harbors a deep prayer that Chinese rule will end, “so I can go home.”
“Here there are amazing freedoms. … Whatever you want to say about religion, about politics, nobody bothers you.” He is grateful to be able to talk about anything with Cortney, sometimes with different opinions, but always with a deep, unspoken respect, devotion and love for each other.