Local Nepalis fear for kin, look for aid

After hearing about the deadly earthquake in Nepal on Saturday, Bibek Khadka could not sleep.

"I was too scared," said Khadka, 29, a Nepalese immigrant who lives in Bryn Mawr. For three days, he was unable to reach his family.

He finally got a phone call from his brother on Monday with good news: His family had survived. But his brother was surrounded by destruction in Kathmandu, the country's capital, and he still feared for his safety.

"He told me that he thought it was the end of the world," Khadka said. "It was so extreme that he thought it was just the whole Earth getting destroyed."

Khadka, who moved to the United States from Nepal in 2005, is the manager of Tiffin restaurant in Bryn Mawr.

More than 35 of Tiffin's 100 employees are Nepalese immigrants, said owner Munish Narula. His nine restaurants will donate 5 percent of this week's sales to Red Cross relief efforts in Nepal, and he held a special Friday night fund-raiser at Tashan, his South Broad Street restaurant.

When Narula heard about the earthquake, he said, he began calling his Nepalese employees.

"Most of them were able to get in touch with their families, and most everyone's family is safe," he said. "The next day, I was just sitting and I said, 'We've got to do something.' "

At Tiffin's Bryn Mawr location, Khadka said, he has spent the week speaking with customers about the earthquake. Many of the customers visit Tiffin regularly, he said, and know he is from Nepal. Some customers recently visited his home country and talked with him about their trip.

"But for those customers who don't know, I have been talking to them, [saying] that most of us are from Nepal," he said.

The employees have agreed to match donations that the restaurant receives toward relief efforts.

Though his family is safe, Khadka said, his brother has not been able to visit his father, who lives outside the capital. His sister-in-law told him the smell of rotting bodies fills the air. And the family members stayed out of their home for days as aftershocks continued.

"They were so afraid, he has called some of our relatives who live nearby, and they are living together," Khadka said of his brother.

Four of Khadka's colleagues in Bryn Mawr are also Nepalis. Narula said each of his nine restaurants in Philadelphia, Montgomery County, and New Jersey has several Nepalese employees working as servers, chefs, or managers.

"My very first two employees, my chef and my sous chef . . . they were from Nepal," Narula said.

Khadka began as a server at the Bryn Mawr location six years ago and was then promoted to manager. He said he hopes customers will donate "anything they can for the country right now, because they really need help."