Sherpas and Sagarmatha: my trip between ecology , culture and humanitarian action

 Namasté everyone! I hope you are well. K2, avalanche, Manaslu, Nimsdai, Sherpas, floods...what is the word common to all of these? It's tragedy . Nepal has been suffering from mountains anger, floods that left over 1600 persons dead, over 5000 missing, families with nothing and avalanches that took everything away.  I haven't been to Nepal, yet, and I feel powerless when I hear all these terrible news. Alpine Ramble Treks , who keeps updating me the news, is still working and leading lovely treks. I know other trekking companies do it also and it is so great, since Nepal suffered from tourists cancelling their trips at the exact moment when the country needed it the most. Nevertheless...can we blame them? It is normal to be scared, especially when mountains are sending signals of anger against the damages caused by the humans!  I'm worried about the country, for its amazing people and I wish I was a multi-millionaire. But I am not and all I can do is care about the peopl...

 Lately, I was invited by His Excellency the Ambassador of Nepal in France to the Nepal National Day.  The invitation was for September 18...same day as my second country, Chile's National Day.  For obvious reasons, all festivities were cancelled but I looked what did this day mean in Nepal. I knew they were so many celebrations that I would need to stay an entire year to witness all of them! Actually, the invitation from the Embassy was an early celebration for Constitution Day on September 19 but since I received the invitation for today, I'll write to Nepal today:  Namasté Nepal, Today, Embassies should have celebrated your Constitution Day. It should have been a celebrating day.  Instead, your Embassies and yourself are mourning those who tragically lost their lives on Augsut 26 and afterwards. In Nepal and Tibet, fear of another disaster is still there. Your people is still looking for the survivors and celebrate every person found alive. Many donations (in...

 Namasté everyone, I hope you are well.  I these difficult times for Nepal, many fundraising have been set up. The most recommended fundraising to support the Nepali people is the official Prime Minister Diaster Relief  . Unaware of the fund, I had donated to La Chaîne de l'Espoir (the Chain of Hope), an NGO I know very well which was already in Nepal, so I knew what my money would be used for. Here, I'll give away a little secret; I'm trying to build my own association and one of its goals will be to raise funds for disasters such as the August 26 flood.  Meanwhile, I had started an online fundraising (before the tragedy) which is part of my humanitarian project.  The money raised will be used to support some Sherpa families in need, identified by the trekking company I'm travelling with (and my new partner in humanitarian actions in Nepal), Alpine Ramble Treks , especially regarding the school fees. I'll collect proofs of how the money was spent, show picture...

Namasté everyone! I hope my blog finds you well... I think it is time to introduce to Everest, or Sagarmatha, as the Nepali call it.  Sagarmatha means Goddess of the sky in sanskrit and personally, I think it suits better this mountain so alive, who deserve the outmost respect (and still doesn't receive it with some alpinists who don't care about leaving their waste and even worse there).  So I'll start talking about the Roof of the World: Mount Everest, one of the oldest mountains and the highest in the world. Everest is part of the Himalayan mountain chain (which also includes Annapurna, K2, Masalu, etc..), on the border between Nepal and Tibet. It height is 8 846 m above sea level, which means that at its top, there is very few oxygen and is located in what we call the "Death Zone" (starting at 8000 m). While is Nepalese name is Sagarmatha, its Tibetan name is Chomolungma. Three names for one majestic mountain. People living in the Himalayas had known about the...

 For humankind, Everest is one of the most remarkable treasures, the nature offered to us. For the Sherpas, Everest (named Sagarmatha in Nepali) is a treasure given by the gods. For me, the Sherpas are the treasure of Everest and, more globally, of the Himalayan chain. Without them, there is no climbing possible. Most of the times, no rescue possible. Besides their humility, their warm sense of welcoming their guests (to them, you are not a client, you are a guest), their perfect knowledge of the mountain, their greatest quality is their loyalty. But who is this community? Where do they come from? Where do they live? The Sherpa community arrived in Nepal from Tibet over 500 years ago, escaping from the local fights including between those Tibet and Mongolia and set themselves up in the Himalayan mountains, at a high altitude or in the valleys.  Although you may find them in cities like Kathmandu, they mostly live in villages where they grow vegetables, raise yaks, work in the ...

 July 30, mid-day.  An avalanche struck  Broad Peack, the twelfth highest summit of the world, located in Pakistan.  In its rage, the avalanche took a group of 10 climbers led by a famous mountaineer, Nims Dai, know for having climbed 14 times the summits over 8 000m.  I heard the news only today and followed closely the updates of the news, sometimes with sadness, sometimes with a light of hope.  Today, July 31, the night has fallen over the Himalayan chain and with it the terrible news no one wanted to hear: out of 10 climbers, 9 bodies were spotted including Nims Dai. The research for the last one, the Pakistani guide, is still ongoing.  The group included; 6 Nepalis, 1 Pakistani, 1 American, 1 Omanese (the first Arabic woman to climb one of the highest summits in the world) and 1 Chinese.  No one saw the avalanche coming. No one saw the mountain's anger, ready to strike. It makes reflect on how small we are in front of it and how much we must ...