A Bhutanese refugee has been holed up in his southwest Houston apartment for months, downing pain killers. This isn't the new life he had in mind.
Rubber sandals cover the mat outside the spare, dim apartment. The man is embedded in an easy chair. He periodically winces and grabs his stomach.
The man, who is 40 with a delicate frame and thin black hair, asked not to be named. He and his family are of Nepali origin. They fled Bhutan in the 1990s during unrest over assimilation and spent 18