Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (1919–2008) was a mountaineer, explorer and philanthropist from New Zealand. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest. They were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt. Hillary was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
PANGBOCHE-SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE CLOUDS
Pangboche was one of the first villages to petition me for a school. It is the closest village to Everest and sprawls over a scanty terrace high above the Imja River. The people are mostly poorer than in the neighboring villages, and they have locally the reputation of being unreliable and dishonest. But on several expeditions I have known a number of the better Pangboche Sherpas, and they have proved just as hardy and loyal as the rest of them. Life in Pangboche is even more rigorous than in the ordinary Sherpa village, and perhaps this has made the people more suspicious and less demonstrative. No words of praise have been written by expeditions about Pangboche – only complaints about the pilfering, and hard words about the local insistence on being paid for everything and paid in more than full. This seemed a place that badly needed a school.
On April 1 Desmond Doig, Murray Ellis and I left Khumjung, bound for Pangboche. In heavily falling snow we strolled along the spectacular rocky path above the Dudh Kosi River and then plunged down the abrupt two thousand feet to the river itself. Above us the long, rising track clung to the side of the steep spur leading to the Monastery of Thyangboche; we puffed our way up this slope, which never seems to get any shorter or any easier. We reached the crest in fast fading light. Through the whirling snow we could see tall, distinguished figures waiting for us at the ornately decorated entrance arch of the monastery grounds. It was the head lama himself, some of his senior lamas, and old friend Dawa Tenzing, veteran of a score of tough expeditions.
Doing us much honor, the head lama led us across the grassy crest of the spur to the new monastery rest house. Largely donated to the monastery by Dawa Tenzing, this rest house filled an urgent need in supplying accommodation for distinguished visitors – religious dignitaries, village headmen and expedition members. Much of the timber had been salvaged from the “Green Hut” my expedition had built at 17,000 feet in the Mingbo Valley some two and a half years before, and it was satisfying to see it being put to such good use. The head lama showed us around with great pride and then beckoned us over to a table spread with food. We sat down in jovial mood and had placed before us delicate china cups resting on exquisitely carved silver-and-gold stands. After drinking ceremonial tea, the head lama gave a few formal words of welcome and then departed, having invited us to dinner on the following day.
We awoke to a brilliant morning. The monastery, the trees, the peaks around, were all dressed in a layer of new snow, sparkling and gleaming in the early sun. At the head of the valley, only ten miles away, the summit of Everest, crowned with a long plume of wind-blown snow, thrust up into the blue Tibetan sky. Our walk up the valley to Pangboche was a delight. The landscape was incredibly beautiful under its new snow and reinforced my belief that this is surely one of the loveliest places on the surface of the earth. Even Pangboche itself looked clean and peaceful.
Our first visit was to the gompa, where we paid our respects to the lamas and laid an offering of Rs 100 ($13) on the altar. Slowly the village elders gathered while I waited with an outward show of patience I certainly didn’t feel. When a quorum was present we moved off leisurely up rapidly drying paths to the ridge above the village. Here on a piece of communal land the village had chosen the site for the school, and nearby was a huge pile of rocks gathered for the school building.
In Pangboche flat land is at a premium and I had no desire to use the best arable land, which is urgently needed for food. But this site had many limitations. A building could be constructed on it but there was no room for a playground, and my eyes kept straying to the dry wash funneling down from the slopes above. I strolled over to a group of rocks piled in the form of an open fireplace and noticed ashes and half-burned remnants of many fires.
“What is this fireplace doing out here?” I queried.
“It is the burning ghat for cremating the dead,” was the reply, “and it will be necessary for the lamas to have many prayers and ceremonies before it can be moved elsewhere.” The thought of the delays and expense of such a proceeding was rather daunting, and we all sat around in the sun in a glum silence.
Finally someone made a suggestion. Farther up the ridge was an old house for sale – the house wasn’t very good and the land was very poor so the total price was only Rs 6oo ($8o). Were we interested? We were. Anything was better than the religious problem of moving a burning ghat. En masse we drifted up the hill, surmounted a little crest and then came suddenly on an old rock house surrounded by two small potato fields enclosed in dry-rock walls. We stopped, enchanted. It was the most glorious position. A hundred feet below us the gompa and houses of Pangboche lay spread-eagled in the warm sun. On every side were tremendous mountain vistas – Everest to the north Ama Dablam and Kangtega to the east, Numbur to the south and Taweche directly above to the west.
Protected by a rock wall from the sharp wind, we sat in the sun and discussed the matter. After careful deliberation the headman agreed that the village would try to raise the money for the land by levying a charge on each house – “but we must have time, sahib.” This was a worthy suggestion but time was now more important to us than money. Desmond, Murray and I had our own little conference. Murray felt we should start clearing operations on the site immediately, and Desmond and I agreed. I put to the village another proposition. I would purchase the land and donate it to the village for the school. The village in return must reaffirm its intention of giving free labor for the clearing of the land, the assembling of rocks, and the carrying of timber from the forest. The foresters, carpenters and stonemasons would be employed by us. The elders accepted this offer with enthusiasm and assured us that villagers would start demolition work on the site next day. We agreed that the necessary documents would be drawn up and brought to Thyangboche in the morning for signing in the presence of the head lama. Everything had gone amazingly well and we were in high spirits as we strode back down the valley to Thyangboche.
“TEA”
At 5 P.M. we went to the monastery to have tea with the head lama. First we made our bows in the great temple and I placed an offering on the altar. Then we were conducted by a young lama along a narrow alley and through a heavy door into a paved courtyard. Here we were greeted by a ferocious Tibetan mastiff, who threw himself against his chain in frantic efforts to get at us. The young lama took hold of the brute’s collar and pulled him back out of the way, but we were glad to slip past the snapping jaws onto dark, winding stairs and up into the head lama’s private room. This was small but beautifully decorated, and the window framed the most stupendous view of Kangtega. Sitting cross-legged on a carpeted bench in the window alcove was the head lama, dressed in gorgeous brocades. We each in turn presented him with scarves and presents and received his blessing. For the next hour we sipped Tibetan tea – a horrifying mixture of black tea, salt and rancid yak butter. The head lama was in fine form and most vivacious. He and Desmond and I were old friends, so formalities went by the board. The Nepali interchange of gossip became too quick for me to hope to follow.
Finally food appeared. First a greasy soup made from venerable yak – and with the full flavor that only year-old meat can give. Despite my long experience of this dish I had difficulty in getting it down, but my discomfort was relieved a little by observing the suffering of Murray Ellis, a conservative New Zealand eater, tackling his first traditional Tibetan meal. Next course was rice, fried yak, fried potato chips and a thicker soup from the same old yak. We all managed to do better with this. Dessert was a large bowl of dahi (curds) with sugar added and we devoured this with enthusiasm. Yak dahi is excellent food, and with the addition of sugar and tsampa (cooked ground barley) is popular with all expeditions.
The head lama’s room had no heating, and a vigorous breeze came through the partly open window. Outside I could see Kangtega outlined against the cold night sky; there were signs of a hard frost. Sitting on a cushion in the unaccustomed cross-legged position, I was rapidly becoming stiff with cold despite my down jacket. But the lightly clad lama seemed unaffected by the temperature and chatted gaily on. At 7:30 P.M. I’d had all I could stand and politely suggested that we had taken too much of the lama’s time and must now leave him in peace. But no he said, we must have our final ceremonial cup of tea. Fortunately someone took pity on us and the tea was hot and sweetened, the milk fresh. We left the head lama with mutual expressions of affection and esteem and scurried across the frosty sward to our warm sleeping bags in the rest house.
It was with reluctance that we crawled out of bed next morning, for it was cold although the sun was shining on the peaks above. We were immediately advised that we had been commanded to breakfast with the abbot of Thyangboche – the second in seniority in the monastery. A combined groan went up from the three of us. Dried, matured yak is hard enough to take in the evening – but for breakfast? No, we couldn’t do it! Despite our obvious distress Sirdar Mingmatsering was adamant – go we must or insult our hosts. We staggered outside and watched clouds writhing around the summit of Everest. Then we marched off to the execution. The abbot is a wonderfully genial old man whom I remembered from as far back as 1951. He welcomed us with glasses of raw rakshi. Then breakfast was placed before us. It was as bad as we had feared – Tibetan tea with rice and yak stew. The day was saved by the final dish – hot fresh yak’s milk with tsampa and sugar – and this helped quiet our queasy stomachs.
At the appointed time we gathered at the rest house for the meeting with the Pangboche villagers and the signing of documents, and were there joined by the head lama attended by two of his junior lamas. After an hour’s delay the only people who had turned up from Pangboche were the old mother of the owner (who himself lived in Katmandu) and the man who was acting as agent for the land – no headman, no elders, no Pangboche lamas. It was becoming clear that things had gone far too easily the previous day – the village had taken it all as a game not to be played too seriously.
“How is work going on the school site?”
“No one turned up.”
‘Where is everyone?”
“Digging their potato fields and upvalley, grazing their yaks.”
The head lama advised us not to complete the deal for the land. It was agreed that Dawa Tenzing and the head lama’s secretary would go to Pangboche the next day and find out definitely whether a school was wanted or not. A diary entry illustrates my feelings at the time. “Pangboche is so backward in every way that it badly needs a school. But there seems some doubt in our Sherpas’ minds whether the parents will take their children away from work and send them to school. In general the village is terribly poor and the inhabitants notoriously moronic. Would it be better to transfer the school to the smaller village of Phorche, where the people are a more cheerful and robust type?”
“You must be patient with Pangboche,” said the head lama. “My people at times behave like children and must be treated as such. You must be patient!” Dawa Tenzing drew us into his house as we departed and thrust into our hands large bowls of excellent chang. “Drink it,” he said; “it will be a horse for your road.” Ten minutes later we were striding through a heavy snowstorm on our way back to Khumjung.
We didn’t have long to wait for a reply from Pangboche. Next day it was still snowing when a group of men appeared, led by the head lama’s secretary. It was all a mistake, they explained. They hadn’t realized there was a meeting at Thyangboche. Already thirty-five children were signed up and these would definitely not go up to the Dingboche fields for the potato planting. As soon as the word was given they’d dash madly down to Khumjung and carry the building material back up to Pangboche. Finally, they’d already started to demolish the old house. I was a little skeptical of this enthusiasm but the head lama’s secretary assured me there had been a misunderstanding and recommended we go ahead with the deal. I paid over the Rs 6oo and we received the signed documents. Then I asked Dawa Tenzing to represent our interests in Pangboche and the villagers promised to give him every support in preparing the site for the school.
By April 10 we were ready to move to Pangboche and start our construction program. The majority of the party carried the building equipment over the shorter route via Thyangboche and vaccinated everyone as they went. Desmond, Murray and I went the long way around via the village of Phorche, for we wanted to meet the panchyat and assess the interest and enthusiasm of the village for a school in the future. The route to Phorche is a spectacular one. The track climbs through the vast rock bluffs above Khumjung on wooden staircases and delicately perched rock platforms. Then you plunge steeply down into a narrow gorge enclosing the Dudh Kosi River. With knees quivering from the solid pounding of your descent, you cross the cantilever bridge and then climb steeply up the other side through twisted rhododendrons draped with long fingers of silver moss. Cupped in a smiling hollow on the flanks of Taweche, Phorche has a charm all its own. Mountains are all around, but you are hardly conscious of them. The village lies in the warm sun and your eyes instinctively follow the river to the south, over the foothills of Nepal towards the throbbing plains of India. Phorche has no easy approach – it is frequently cut off even from the other Sherpa villages – and yet its warmth and aspect make you forget at times that you are living high on a grim Himalayan peak.
There are fifty to sixty houses in the village, and we seemed to visit most of them to be plied with chang, rakshi and hospitality. The elders conducted us to the site they had chosen for a school – a gorgeous position amongst spidery trees on the edge of a huge bluff – but one careless kick of a ball and its next stop would be 2000 feet down in the Dudh Kosi River. I told the village elders they should plan to send their children to Pangboche School for the next few years and we would then try and get them a school of their own. But the elders shook their heads. “It is too far for our children to go to Pangboche each day, sahib, and the track is too narrow and dangerous.”
In a haze of bonhomie, we carried on to Pangboche, following the tiny twisting track high above the valley floor. Slips and bluffs, loose traverses and falling rocks made it an adventurous trip and we could easily understand the reluctance of Phorche to send their children over it. But the villagers’ enthusiasm for education had been so encouraging that I was determined to think up some way of helping them.
Camp at Pangboche was set up on a terrace above the village in a pleasant grove of stunted pine trees. A tinkling stream was near at hand and there was a tremendous sweep of valley and mountains in front of the tent doors. I wasted no time in camp – I wanted to see what progress had been made on the school site and rumor had it that the village had been slothful and disinterested. I climbed up to the ridge to find women and children swarming over the place like ants, carrying rocks and timber and I leveling out the rough spots (as I found later, there had been a sudden increase of workers on the day of our arrival). Progress had not been as rapid as we had hoped but at least some progress had been made.
Dawa Tenzing, the masons and carpenters, Murray Ellis, Desmond and I gathered on the site to lay out the foundations of the school building. The back and side walls were to be of rock and would be constructed by the Sherpa masons.
“How many inches wide are the rock walls, Dawa Tenzing?” we asked.
“Inches, sahib? We don’t measure in inches. The width of the wall is the distance from the mason’s elbow to the tips of his fingers.”
With a broad grin the chief mason presented his arm for measurement – about eighteen inches more or less. Under Murray’s watchful eye we laid out the positions for the walls and took the necessary levels. Then we were brushed aside as the masons rolled big rocks into position for the cornerstones. It soon became apparent that Dawa Tenzing and the masons regarded us as hindrances when rock walls were being built, so we slunk off to camp. Later in the afternoon I returned unannounced to the school site to inspect progress on the foundations. To Dawa Tenzing’s chagrin I arrived just at the wrong moment – they had discovered that one of their walls was ten inches out of line and were laboriously shifting the stones. I refrained from comment but resolved that a quiet check on distances and angles wouldn’t be a bad idea.
The weather in Khumbu had been unstable for some time and as the Pangboche School was at 13,500 feet, we were getting daily falls of snow – rarely more than a couple of inches but enough to make work on the building a cold and arduous business. For the next week I left Bhanu Bannerjee in charge at Pangboche with instructions to harry the masons unmercifully and get the rock walls finished as soon as possible.
Over small radio transceivers we kept in touch with Bhanu and he told us of his many problems. One morning he reported 3 inches of fresh snow and a dense fog; another time it was shortage of labor to carry rocks; then one day nobody turned up. Religious festival.
On April 21 we moved back to Pangboche in force with the intention of getting on with the main building program. I found all sorts of troubles in the village. The stonemasons and carpenters were doing a good job but they were constantly hampered by lack of labor to collect stones, as had been promised. Little of the timber had been earned from the forests, and worst of all, none of the children had turned up for enrollment at the announced time. About the enrollment we received a variety of comments:
“They’ll be enrolled in seven days.”
“The lamas have to give their blessings.”
“They’re too busy digging the potato fields at the moment.”
I summoned the headmen to a meeting on the school site. After much delay they all appeared. This time there was a new addition – the senior headman, who had been away previously on a trading trip.
He was a much more sophisticated character than his compatriots and seemed determined to be obstructive. Why hadn’t the village supplied the labor they had promised? we asked. It was all our fault, the headman advised. We had vaccinated the village for smallpox and as a result everyone had been prostrate and unable to work. We pointed out that Khumjung and Thami had also been vaccinated but they had still managed to turn out in force. But he only scowled and muttered about “when the village was good and ready!”
In a fine old fury I gave an ultimatum – tomorrow there’d be a man from each house carrying timber and the children would all enroll or we’d pick up our building material and put a school at Phorche instead. I stamped off, leaving them in a stunned silence, and Desmond, Tom and Phil only waited to deliver a few more well-chosen words before departing as well.
As we sat around camp, sipping tea and simmering over the injustices of the world, another crisis was rapidly developing.
HORROR STORY
One of our young Sherpas, Purbu Chundu, was a favorite nephew of the famous sirdar, Passang Dawa Lama. He now appeared before us in the grip of fierce emotion and asked permission to tell his story.
He explained that in 1962 he had been a member of a German expedition of which his uncle was sirdar. This expedition had tackled the formidable peak, Pumori, a mountain which had rebuffed a number of previous expeditions. The German party was not to be denied and they forced a difficult and spectacular route to the summit. On the descent of the mountain the assault team was very late and the weather had become cold and thick. On one rope were two men, the only Swiss climber in the party and an experienced Sherpa. Tired from their climb and baffled by the bad visibility, the two men strayed too close to the edge of a bluff and when the snow underneath gave way they plunged thousands of feet to their deaths.
On the other rope were three men – two Germans and the renowned Sherpa, Annullu, who had first made his name with us on Everest in 1953. Only after a terrible struggle were these men able to make their escape. At one stage the two Germans slid off in an avalanche and only a superhuman effort by Annullu was able to prevent them all from being swept away. The cold powder snow and the bitter weather took their toll and the men’s extremities were white and frostbitten before they reached safety in their assault camp.
Purbu explained how next day they had started the search for the bodies of the two men and had found them on the glacier at the foot of the mountain. Two graves were made for the men in a deep crevasse. The expedition leader placed in the Sherpa’s grave his down jacket as a bed and in the grave of the Swiss his colorful wool sweater. Then the bodies were lowered gently into place and after a short ceremony rocks were piled high above them. Over the Swiss a cross was erected and over the Sherpa a Buddhist chorten.
Quite a number of high-altitude Sherpas and ordinary porters were present at the funeral, said Purbu including a man from Pangboche – the village elder we called the Nike, who was now helping build the school. Purbu quickly came to the heart of the matter. Yesterday he had seen the Nike wearing a jersey that was far too big for him. “Even the sahibs noticed the jersey and made jokes about it,” said Purbu. He had recognized it as the jersey from the grave.
I sent Mingmatsering to see if he could get the Nike to come to our camp, but he proved hard to find. It wasn’t until we were crowded around the campfire after tea that he was led up to us. Desmond started to question him quietly.
“Yes,” he admitted quite freely, “I was wearing the pullover that belonged to the dead sahib.”
After further prompting he conceded that he also had the down jacket belonging to the Sherpa.
“How did you get them?” asked Desmond. The response was glib and well prepared. “I was given them by Sirdar Passang Dawa Lama.”
At this accusation against his uncle, Purbu Chundu sprang to his feet and with eyes full of fire asserted that this was an outright lie. “I was with my uncle all the time after the accident,” he said, “and at no time did he go near the graves. In fact he warned everyone (including the Nike) that if the graves were disturbed he would come back and kill them with his own hands. Already in Darjeeling the wife of the dead Sherpa has heard rumors that a man has been seen in Pangboche wearing the ring she had given her husband on their wedding day!”
At this fierce denunciation the Nike hastily withdrew his story and replaced it with another. Some time after the accident, he said, he happened to be strolling up on this lonely glacier and he’d come upon the opened graves. To his astonishment he’d found the pullover and down jacket stuffed carelessly under a rock. They were too good to waste and he’d brought them home.
I had been listening to this tale with growing horror. The man was so obviously lying and was so confident that nothing could be done about it anyway that my gorge rose. When he cracked a hearty joke with the silent ring of Sherpas round about I could stand it no longer. I leaped up and thumped him vigorously around the ears and knocked him down. He scrambled about on his hands and knees, trying to escape, and presented the seat of his pants to my irate gaze. Next moment I had delivered a mighty kick to send him tumbling down the hill into the darkness.
Whether it was my ultimatum to the village or harsh treatment of the Nike I don’t know, but early next morning we heard signs of action in the village and saw loads of timber starting to come up the long climb from the river. At breakfast time the headman and Dawa Tenzing arrived in conciliatory vein and assured us that all the timber would be brought up by the end of the day.
At 10 A.M. we gathered on the school site for the enrollment of children. Nobody had yet appeared but first one little family group and then another – all spick and span in their best clothes – left their homes and climbed slowly up towards us. Everyone gathered around as teacher Tem Dorje took particulars and then instructed the parents to sign the register with their thumb marks. Each parent had to agree to leave his children at the school at all times and not take them away for yak tending or potato planting. By the end of the day we had thirty-five children enrolled. I had been surprised at their caliber. I suppose I had expected a group of morons but this red-cheeked and sparkling-eyed group didn’t look much different from any group of children anywhere.
Half a day’s walk up the valley from us was the encampment of a small German scientific expedition. I had sent them a message about the Nike’s activities and two of them arrived the same afternoon. They considered it their duty to visit the sites of the graves and re-establish them if necessary. I agreed to make Purbu Chundu available for this. When weather permitted, the Germans trekked up to the foot of Pumori. The mountain had done the job for them. A huge avalanche had swept down over the graves, covering everything in millions of tons of ice and leaving the dead men to sleep peacefully and undisturbed.
Desmond and I were determined that the Nike should he punished by the authorities for his crime. Our liaison officer, “K. C.,” had authority to represent the government and marched off to place the Nike under arrest. He found him lying in bed, groaning and holding onto his head and claiming he was about to die – whether from shame or from my blows wasn’t quite clear. K. C. warned him not to try to escape and placed a guard outside his door.
By now my wrath had subsided considerably and although I still regarded the Nike as a nasty piece of work, I couldn’t help feeling that in a way he was a product of his village. The other headmen were now freely admitting that they’d known about the Nike’s activities all along and though they hadn’t approved of his actions, they’d never raised their voices in censure in the village council. This attitude is common indeed amongst the Sherpas and is a direct consequence of their religious beliefs. They accept the existence of cause and effect and are all too ready to explain away any misdeed by saying that it wouldn’t have happened to the victim if his karma hadn’t attracted it to him. The Sherpas will rarely combine together against a bully or even put in a complaint to the police. They prefer to accept the bully and criminal as an ordinary member of society who will receive his punishment in due course – but they don’t want to be the ones giving the punishment, as by so doing their soul may be linked by cause and effect with that of the transgressor for many reincarnations. Perhaps this basic trait is at the back of many of their more charming qualities as well, but when an emergency arises one can’t help wishing for a little more materialism.
When K. C. and the senior headman suggested that the Nike should not be handed over to the police but should be subjected to the village “disgracing” ceremony, I was only too happy to agree. The Nike had been given a considerable scare and his disgrace in front of his neighbors would serve as a salutary lesson to the village.
In the middle of the afternoon we gathered in the courtyard of the gompa and a miserable Nike was brought stumbling in with a bandage around his head, completely crushed by the whole proceeding. He seated himself in the gloom of a corner with his head between his hands. Desmond refused to allow this – the man must face his punishment in the open – and he instructed the headman to have the Nike brought out in front of the people. He sat on the bottom step of the gompa with a weeping sister on one side and his stalwart and dry-eyed wife on the other.
The tension built up to a high pitch as the proceedings commenced. First a document was read to the assembled gathering, a confession from the Nike in which he admitted his guilt but pleaded for mercy and forgiveness. Then another, longer document, signed by all the senior men of the village, in which they condemned the Nike’s action and guaranteed that such a thing would not happen in the village again. I was then called on to say a few words to be translated into Nepali by Desmond, and into Sherpa by Mingmatsering. By now I was feeling rather sorry for the Nike, who must have been undergoing mental torture, and my words were brief: a suggestion that he had been punished in the sight of his equals and it was now up to him to rehabilitate himself by his actions over the next few years. Desmond, too, had few words to say but they were telling ones.
“We can forgive your crime,” he declaimed to the crouching man. “But you will have to make your own peace with God!”
There was a deathly hush after this statement, broken only by the sobs of the Nike’s sister, and there was no doubt that these last words had made a strong impression.
The Nike and his family were asked if they had anything to say, but the man was glad to be silent. Only his wife, a tall, handsome woman, wanted to speak. Still dry-eyed, with a hard set to her jaw, she repeated the story of the discovery of the clothes – how her husband had found them under a rock. When questioned by the headman, she admitted that this was the story her husband had told her. The headman shrugged his shoulders and passed on.
We admired the way this woman had supported her husband, although there seemed little emotion in her reactions. Later we discovered that her background had given her some training in such crises: she was a “fallen” nun, a category accepted but not really approved by this non-critical Buddhist community. And her brother was the biggest racketeer and strong-arm man in the Khumbu area.
I was glad when the proceedings were over and we could see the shattered Nike being led off to his house. Undoubtedly this function had been good for the village. Not only the Nike had been under judgment. We knew that in a week’s time the Nike would be drinking chang with his fellows as though nothing had happened, but suspected that the village might still remember the original cause.
A few days later the Nike’s wife made a pilgrimage to Thyangboche. Her husband had been sorely shaken by Desmond’s comment on making his peace with God, and she was bearing gifts and a request that the head lama intercede. Three times she saw the head lama and stated her husband’s plea and three times she was turned away. “This man has committed a great crime,” said the head lama. “He must work out his own salvation.”
SKYLIGHT TO THE CLOUDS
Our firm stand in the village had produced immediate improvement in the support we received for the school construction, and real progress was made over the next few days. The daily bad weather was making climbing conditions on the mountains both difficult and dangerous, and I recalled a reluctant group off Taweche to come and help us with the building program. The school site had become a hive of industry. In one corner two men with an 8-foot saw were pitsawing balks of timber into rafters, beams and planks; the masons were putting the final touches to the rock walls; the carpenters were completing the joinery for the windows and the decorative frieze, called langdy pangdy, which was to come under the overhanging roof; the school children were gathering rocks for the enclosing walls of the playground; most of the sahibs were sawing and hammering at the floor and framework; and Desmond Doig was building a seesaw and swing. Already the building was taking shape and our pride in it was growing accordingly.
The weather was still harassing us. Fresh snow on the rafters made them slippery and dangerous and a stiff wind whistled around our ears, making down clothing a necessity. During the worst spells we’d come off the building and crowd around a blazing fire with our umbrellas up and the snow weighing them down. In the few moments when the clouds lifted we could see the mountains heavily plastered with snow, and sounds of frequent avalanches rumbled across the valley.
“This is the worst winter we have known for a generation,” said the Sherpas, “and still the summer refuses to come. When can we plant the rest of our potatoes?”
Under our determined onslaught the building grew rapidly. The floor joists were placed in position and the flooring timbers securely nailed down. The heavy central beam was raised with much grunting and groaning, and the rafters were cut and then hammered into position. To combat the vigorous winds that could be expected here, we threaded wires through the rock walls a foot from the top and nailed these securely onto the roof structure. It was quite an exciting moment when we were ready to put the corrugated aluminum onto the roof. Dave Dornan and I started this and made haste with such enthusiasm that we didn’t notice we were lining up the sheets a little out of plumb. Perfectionist Murray Ellis came to supervise our work and to our chagrin made us pull off a dozen sheets and put them back square. Despite such setbacks we completed the covering of the roof in a day. Our particular pride was the sheets of corrugated Fiberglas we had set into the roof as skylights. It was already apparent how effective they were going to be.
To our delight, the next two days were fine. The snow rapidly disappeared from the ground around us and black rock could be seen again on the peaks above. We reveled in the warm sun and hurried on to the last jobs, perhaps the most difficult ones – the fitting of windows into the front and side walls, the hanging of the door, and the cutting and nailing of planking onto the front wall. These would not have been problems with square-cut timber, but with the irregular product of pitsawing it was difficult to produce a good flush finish. There were many grumbles and complaints before all the holes were blocked and our sliding aluminum-frame windows from Chicago were safely in place and causing gasps of admiration from the local experts.
Desmond and I were still worrying about how to arrange schooling for the children of Phorche. The only solution to their isolation seemed for them to stay in Pangboche for the week and return home on weekends. On investigation we found that it would be prohibitively expensive for the children to be boarded out with individual families. The practical answer was to have them all living together. After much negotiation we managed to lease one of the biggest and newest houses in the village. The rent was Rs 200 ($27) per annum, so I signed the lease for three years and paid the money in advance. The lease was then presented to the village of Phorche. We worked on the house, transforming one end of the upper story into a comfortable room for Mr. Phutenzi, the schoolteacher. The elders of Phorche came in force to examine the house and were happy with it. They advised us that seventeen of their children were coming to the Pangboche School. Various adults would take turns living in the house to maintain discipline.
Opening day for the school was April 29. It was a patchy morning with sun at first, but by midday we were enveloped in a warm drizzle. We had hoped for brilliant sunshine. Our Sherpas were far from despondent. “This weather is most propitious, sahib,” they said. “We need the warm rain for our potatoes. The gods must be looking with high favor on our new school.”
At 12:30 the head lama of Thyangboche entered the village, and at 1 P.M. approached the school with a long procession. Despite the rain it was a colorful and cheerful scene. People had come from far and near. All the Pangboche children and parents were there in their best finery – even the Nike with his pretty daughter – and there was a strong contingent from Phorche. As a special treat for this occasion, we had brought eighteen bright-faced children from the Khumjung School. We crowded into the new school for the ceremony, with the patter of rain on the roof adding to the din of cheerful voices. The many who couldn’t get inside crowded at the windows, oblivious of the rain and we were afraid that the walls would burst under the pressure. But the speeches, the exchanging of scarves, the ceremonial drinks, the blessings by the head lama all went off without a hitch in an atmosphere of warmth and goodwill.
After the ceremony we had Tibetan dancing by the people of Pangboche and, as a crowning event, a series of songs by the Khumjung school children. Their Nepalese songs were quite delightful but we had to hide our smiles a little when we heard English nursery rhymes rendered with vim, vigor and very little accuracy.
The Pangboche School started with a roll of fifty-four pupils, ranging in age from five years to twenty-six. Two of the men in the village were determined to learn to read and write and had signed themselves on as pupils at the same time they had enrolled their little daughters of six and seven. For the two months the school was in operation before I left the area they attended classes regularly. As all the pupils were starting completely from scratch irrespective of age, I asked Phutenzi how the progress of the fathers was comparing with that of their little daughters. “There is no comparison, sahib. The daughters are already far in advance of their parents. Their little minds remember things so much more easily.”
It is our hope that the school in Pangboche will transform it. No longer will the village be regarded as a den of thieves by Sherpa and expedition alike. We are confident that the basic material is the same as in any village, and by education and guidance it can learn to follow more closely the pattern of cheerful tolerance and natural dignity which is so much a part of the Sherpas we love. And we have learned, too, from Pangboche – learned not to judge a village by the grubbiness of its faces or the poverty of its homes. Where opportunity has been completely lacking, how can we expect people to meet standards we accept as routine – but too often flout ourselves? We are expecting much from Pangboche’s schoolhouse in the clouds!