Food connects people.

As a refugee, when I go into Feast, I feel like a some sort of peace, a comfort.

My name is Pingala Dhital.

I am a former Bhutanese refugee.

I was born in Bhutan and I basically grew up in Bhutan until I was 17.

It was really nice living in the country where you are born with your relatives around, going to school, dreaming about future.

Just a very normal life.

But then we did not know what was coming from the government.

We became the victim of ethnic cleansing policy; implemented by the government in 1990.

The government implemented a One Nation One People policy, which means we had to change our dress code to how we keep our hair.

We felt like it was an attack to our culture.

There was a peaceful protest.

Who ever participatedin the peaceful demonstration were tagged as anti-nationals.

There was arrest, rape, all kinds of things which basically forced people to flee.

And the rest had to sign voluntary migration form, saying that I'm leaving the country happily, but which was at gun point.

When we fled, we came to India.

But after nine months, the India government did not want us in India.

They loaded us in a truck and brought us to Nepal.

Then the bilateral talks started to happen between the government of Bhutan and Nepal.

We hoped that we would go back home in six months, which took them 15 years.

The whole new generation were born in the camp.

I got married and had kids, and after 15 years, the talks ended in a deadlock.

We did not know where to go.

Then we learned the US actually came up with an offer to resettle over 60,000 Bhutanese refugees.

So we came to Spokane in 2008.

At first I was worried.

Being so far away and being a first family, not having anyone, we accepted this is our fate and we have to make the best out of it.

So that's that was our attitude.

We learned about Dan Todd, who started the Inland Curry.

He invited me as a as an international chef to do an event one evening.

He started talking about a rotation like kitchen.

That was his dream.

Feast World Kitchen is a place where people can try international food.

The food that we find at Feast is where former refugees and immigrants can come and cook their ethnic food.

You know, food.

It's our story with Ema Datshi, that's from Bhutan.

And then you come to Paneer, which is India.

And then the tofu, I got in Nepal, and with the American abundance, you can bring everything together.

That's how I build my recipe and my menu.

For me, it's basically living your past life and connecting to yourself.

And I think it's growing.

And Spokane is loving feast.

And so which is really inspiring to see our city allowing Feast to grow.

I work for Thrive and I manage a program called Mahima, which means grace, where a group of women will come.

They make jewelry together, they laugh, they have tea together.

Then we start talking about deeper issues.

But I work with the counselors to create that cultural humility so that the services will be more effective.

We empower and we validate and equip refugee women to thrive in Spokane community.

And with that skill, and the strength they can come together and build a stronger community.

This is the purpose of my life, like because I didn't get to do what I wanted to do.

Now I find it's very fulfilling, very satisfying to see somebody smiling, somebody getting to do what they love to do.

I just want to dig a little deeper into my own life project and why we have to be here this far away and why we can't go back to the place where we were born even to visit.

Everybody goes to their home country, but we can't.

So that's my next project.

Life doesn't stop where you are.

The cycle keeps going.