A Bhutan refugee’s first lesson in driving

EVERETT — He was a little late to the driving game.

Around and around in a parking lot, a 25-year-old man from Bhutan cautiously coasted, checking each mirror, twisting his head around, wringing the wheel left, right, left.

It was Bhakta Gurung’s first time sitting in a driver’s seat, ever, and he came to his lesson with very little in the way of hubris. His instructor explained the blinkers, told him to not push the button on the emergency brake to pull it up, pointed out what to look for in every mirror, through every window.

There were problems to solve.

“I just need to know at what point to turn the wheel,” Gurung said, frowning, frozen at an intersection in the empty lot.

Here, there are simply too many options.

In Nepal, where refugees expelled from their own country are dumped in squalid camps, Bhutanese people are not allowed to drive. Teenage Bhutanese boys cannot work a summer job or save coins in a bank, piggy or otherwise, to buy that first beater in which, in America, boys fetch their first crush, shelter a first kiss, sneak home, up the driveway, late.

For Bhutanese boys there is no first ride with friends packed in on top of one another, no first fender-bender, no first heart-dropping shock from an auto insurance bill slipped through a mailbox slot.

There are no mailboxes.

In a north Everett parking lot, to Gurung, there was almost too much of everything.

Better to take it slow.